The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)(48)

When I’ve been over there—at the mall, in Heather’s apartment—the difference between them and us has seemed so vast that I can’t imagine how Heather is managing to bridge it. “Nothing you could say would sound ridiculous to me,” I tell her.

Her gaze, as she takes in the stronghold, as she drinks in a breath of late-afternoon air, is full of hopeful interest. I have an uncomfortable memory of a girl with stones in her pockets and am desperately relieved that Heather is willing to accept her world being turned over.

Back in the parlor, Vivi grins at us. “Did Jude give you the grand tour?”

“I made her a charm,” I say, my tone making it clear that she should have been the one to do it.

“Good,” Vivi says happily, because it’s going to take much more than a slightly aggrieved tone to get under her skin when things are going her way. “Oriana tells me you haven’t been around much lately. Your feud with dear old Dad sounds pretty serious.”

“You know what it cost him,” I say.

“Stay for dinner.” Oriana rises, pale as a ghost, to look at me with her ruby eyes. “Madoc would like that. I would, too.”

“I can’t,” I tell her, actually feeling regretful about it. “I’ve dallied here more than I should have, but I will see you all at the wedding.”

“Things are always super dramatic around here,” Vivi tells Heather. “Epic. Everyone acts as though they just stepped out of a murder ballad.”

Heather looks at Vivi as though, perhaps, she just stepped out of a ballad, too.

“Oh,” Vivi says, reaching into her suitcase again, coming up with another squishy-looking package wrapped with a black bow. “Can you take this to Cardan? It’s a ‘congratulations on being king’ present.”

“He’s the High King of Elfhame,” Oriana says. “Whether or not you played together, you cannot call him as you did when you were children.”

I stand there stupidly for a long moment, not reaching for the package. I knew Vivi and Cardan were friendly. After all, Vivi’s the one who told Taryn about his tail, having seen it while swimming together with one of his sisters.

I just forgot.

“Jude?” Vivi asks.

“I think you better give it to him yourself,” I say, and with that, I make my escape from my old house before Madoc returns home and I am overcome with nostalgia.





I pass by the throne room where Cardan sits at one of the low tables, his head bent toward Nicasia’s. I cannot see his face, but I can see hers as she throws back her head with laughter, showing the long column of her throat. She looks incandescent with joy, his attention the light in which her beauty shines especially bright.

She loves him, I realize uncomfortably. She loves him, and she betrayed him with Locke and is terrified he will never love her again.

His fingers trace their way down her arm to the back of her wrist, and I remember vividly the feeling of those hands on me. My skin heats at the memory, a blush that starts at my throat and keeps going from there.

Kiss me until I am sick of it, he said, and now he has most certainly gorged on my kisses. Now he is most certainly sick of them.

I hate seeing him with Nicasia. I hate the thought of his touching her. I hate that this is my plan, that I have no one to be angry with but myself.

I am an idiot.

Pain makes you strong, Madoc once told me, making me lift a sword again and again. Get used to the weight.

I force myself to watch no more. Instead, I meet with Vulciber to coordinate bringing Balekin to the palace for his audience with Cardan.

Then I go down to the Court of Shadows and hear information about courtiers, hear rumors of Madoc’s marshaling his forces as though preparing for the war I still hope to avoid. I send two spies to the lower Courts with the largest number of unsworn changelings to see what they can learn. I talk to the Bomb about Grimsen, who has crafted Nicasia a gem-encrusted broach that allows her to summon gauzy wings from her back and fly.

“What do you think he wants?” I ask.

“Praise, flattery,” says the Bomb. “Perhaps to find a new patron. Probably he wouldn’t mind a kiss.”

“Do you think he’s interested in Nicasia for Orlagh’s sake or her own?” I want to know.

The Bomb shrugs. “He is interested in Nicasia’s beauty and Orlagh’s power. Grimsen went into exile with the first Alderking; I believe that the next time he swears fealty, he will be very sure of the monarch to whom he swears.”

“Or maybe he doesn’t want to swear fealty ever again,” I say, determining to pay him a visit.





Grimsen chose to live as well as work in the old forge Cardan gave him, though it was overgrown with rosebushes and not in the best repair.

A thin plume of smoke spirals up from the chimney as I approach. I rap three times on the door and wait.

A few moments later, he opens the door, letting out a blast of heat hot enough for me to take a step back.

“I know you,” he says.

“Queen of Mirth,” I acknowledge, getting it out of the way.

He laughs, shaking his head. “I knew your mortal father. He made a knife for me once, traveled all the way to Fairfold to ask me what I thought of it.”

“And what did you think?” I wonder if this was before Justin arrived at Elfhame, before my mother.