The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)(45)

Heather throws a switch, and the coffeepot starts chugging away. Oak climbs onto a chair and pours candy-colored cereal into a bowl and begins eating it dry.

I sidle past and head into the next room. There’s Heather’s desk, piled with sketches and markers and paints. Prints of her work are taped to the wall above.

Besides making comics, Heather works part time at a copy shop to help cover bills. She believes Vivi has a job, too, which may or may not be a fiction. There are jobs for the Folk in the mortal world, just not the sort of jobs one tells one’s human girlfriend about.

Especially if one has conveniently never mentioned one isn’t human.

Their furniture is a collection of stuff from garage sales, salvage places, and the side of the road. Covering the walls are old plates with funny, big-eyed animals; cross-stitches with ominous phrases; and Heather’s collection of disco memorabilia, more of her art and Oak’s crayon drawings.

In one, Vivi and Heather and Oak are together, rendered as he sees them—Heather’s brown skin and pink hair, Vivi’s pale skin and cat eyes, Oak’s horns. I bet Heather thinks it’s adorable, how Oak made himself and Vivi into monsters. I bet she thinks it’s a sign of his creativity.

This is going to suck. I am prepared for Heather to yell at my sister—Vivi more than deserves it. But I don’t want Heather to hurt Oak’s feelings.

I find Vivi in her bedroom, still packing. It is small by comparison to the rooms we grew up in, and much less tidy than the rest of the apartments. Her clothes are everywhere. Scarves are draped over the headboard, bangles threaded on the pole of the footboard, shoes peeking out from underneath the bed.

I sit down on the mattress. “Where does Heather think she’s going today?”

Vivi gives me a big grin. “You got my message—looks like it’s possible to enchant birds to do useful things after all.”

“You don’t need me,” I remind her. “You are perfectly capable of making all the ragwort horses you could ever need—something I can’t do.”

“Heather believes we are attending the wedding of my sister Taryn, which we are, to an island off the coast of Maine, which we also are. See? Not a single lie was told.”

I begin to understand why I was roped in. “And when she wanted to drive, you said your sister would come pick you up.”

“Well, she assumed there would be a ferry, and I could hardly agree or disagree with that,” Vivi says with the breezy honesty that I’ve always liked and also been exasperated with.

“And now you’re going to have to tell the truthier truth,” I say. “Or—I have a proposal. Don’t. Keep putting it off. Don’t come to the wedding.”

“Madoc said you’d say that,” she tells me, frowning.

“It’s too dangerous—for complicated reasons I know you don’t care about,” I say. “The Queen of the Undersea wants her daughter to marry Cardan, and she’s working with Balekin, who has his own agenda. She’s probably playing him, but since she’s better at being worse than him, that’s not good.”

“You’re right,” Vivi says. “I don’t care. Politics are boring.”

“Oak is in danger,” I say. “Madoc wants to use him as bait.”

“There’s always danger,” Vivi says, throwing a pair of boots on top of some crumpled dresses. “Faerie is one big mousetrap of danger. But if I let that keep us away, how could I look my stalwart father in the face?

“Not to mention my stalwart sister, who is going to keep us safe while father schemes his schemes,” Vivi continues. “At least, according to him.”

I groan. Just like him to cast me in a role I can’t deny, but which serves his purpose. And just like her to ignore me and believe that she knows best.

Someone you trust has already betrayed you.

I have trusted Vivi more than anyone else. I have trusted her with Oak, with the truth, with my plan. I have trusted her because she is my older sister, because she doesn’t care about Faerie. But it occurs to me that if she betrayed me, I would be undone.

I wish she wouldn’t keep reminding me she was talking to Madoc. “And you trust Dad? That’s a change.”

“He’s not good at a lot of things, but he knows about scheming,” Vivi says, which is not that reassuring. “Come on. Tell me about Taryn. Is she actually excited?”

How do I even answer? “Locke got himself made Master of Revels. She’s not exactly pleased about his new title or behavior. I think half the reason he likes to screw around is to get under her skin.”

“This is not boring,” Vivi says. “Go on.”

Heather comes into the room with two cups of coffee. We stop talking as she passes one to me and one to Vivi. “I didn’t know how you took it,” she says. “So I made it like Vee’s.”

I take a sip. It’s very sweet. I’ve already had plenty of coffee this morning, but I drink some more anyway.

Black as the eyes of the High King of Elfhame.

Heather leans against the door. “You done packing?”

“Almost.” Vivi eyes her suitcase and then throws in a pair of rain boots. Then she looks around the room, as though she’s wondering what other stuff she can cram in.

Heather frowns. “You’re bringing all that for a week?”