The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)(23)

Her brows knit together. “Surely it’s not the High King himself you were gazing at.”

“Surely not,” I echo, but I don’t meet her eyes.

“Do you know why you didn’t tell anyone my secret?” she asks. “Perhaps you tell yourself that you enjoy having something over my head. But in truth, I think it’s that you knew no one would ever believe you. I belong in this world. You don’t. And you know it.”

“You don’t even belong on land, sea princess,” I remind her. And yet, I cannot help recalling how the Living Council doubted me. I cannot help how her words crawl under my skin.

Someone you trust has already betrayed you.

“This will never be your world, mortal,” she says.

“This is mine,” I say, anger making me reckless. “My land and my king. And I will protect them both. Say the same, go on.”

“He cannot love you,” she says to me, her voice suddenly brittle.

She obviously doesn’t like the idea of my claiming Cardan, obviously is still infatuated with him, and just as obviously has no idea what to do about it.

“What do you want?” I ask her. “I was just sitting here, minding my own business, eating my dinner. You’re the one who came up to me. You’re the one accusing me of… I’m not even sure what.”

“Tell me what you have over him,” Nicasia says. “How did you trick him into putting you at his right hand, you whom he despised and reviled? How is it that you have his ear?”

“I will tell you, if you tell me something in return.” I turn toward her, giving her my full attention. I have been puzzling over the secret passageway in the palace, over the woman in the crystal.

“I’ve told you all that I am willing to—” Nicasia begins.

“Not that. Cardan’s mother,” I say, cutting her off. “Who was she? Where is she now?”

She tries to turn her surprise into mockery. “If you’re such good friends, why don’t you ask him?”

“I never said we were friends.”

A servant with a mouth full of sharp teeth and butterfly wings on his back brings the next course. The heart of a deer, cooked rare and stuffed with toasted hazelnuts. Nicasia picks up the meat and tears into it, blood running over her fingers.

She runs her tongue over red teeth. “She wasn’t anyone, just some girl from the lower Courts. Eldred never made her a consort, even after she’d borne him a child.”

I blink in obvious surprise.

She looks insufferably pleased, as though my not knowing has proved once and for all how unsuitable I am. “Now it’s your turn.”

“You want to know what I did to make him raise me up?” I ask, leaning toward her, close enough that she can feel the warmth of my breath. “I kissed him on the mouth, and then I threatened to kiss him some more if he didn’t do exactly what I wanted.”

“Liar,” she hisses.

“If you’re such good friends,” I say, repeating her own words back to her with malicious satisfaction, “why don’t you ask him?”

Her gaze goes to Cardan, his mouth stained red with heart’s blood, crown at his brow. They appear two of a kind, a matched set of monsters. He doesn’t look over, busy listening to the lutist who has composed, on the spot, a rollicking ode to his rule.

My king, I think to myself. But only for a year and a day, and five months are already gone.





Tatterfell is waiting for me when I get back to my rooms, her beetle eyes disapproving as she picks up the High King’s trousers from my couch.

“So this is how you’ve been living,” the little imp grumbles. “A worm in a butterfly’s cocoon.”

Something about being scolded is comfortingly familiar, but that doesn’t mean I like it. I turn away so she can’t see my embarrassment at how untidy I’ve let things get. Not to mention what it looks like I’ve been doing, and with whom.

Sworn into Madoc’s service until she worked off some old debt of honor, Tatterfell could not have come here without his knowledge. She may have taken care of me since I was a child—brushed my hair and mended my dresses and strung rowan berries to keep me from being enchanted—but it is Madoc who has her loyalty. It’s not that I don’t think she was fond of me, in her way, but I’ve never mistaken that for love.

I sigh. The castle servants would have cleaned my rooms if I let them, but then they’d notice my odd hours and be able to rifle through my papers, not to mention my poisons. No, better to bar the door and sleep in filth.

My sister’s voice comes from my bedroom. “You’re back early.” She sticks her head out, holding up a few garments.

Someone you trust has already betrayed you.

“How did you get in?” I ask. My key turned, met resistance. The tumblers moved. I have been taught the humble art of lock picking, and though I am no prodigy, I can at least tell when a door is locked in the first place.

“Oh,” Taryn says, and laughs. “I posed as you and got a copy of your key.”

I want to kick a wall. Surely everyone knows I have a twin sister. Surely everyone knows mortals can lie. Ought someone not have at least asked a question she might find tricky to answer before handing over access to palace rooms? To be fair, though, I have myself lied again and again and gotten away with it. I can hardly begrudge Taryn for doing the same.