The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)(61)

“This is for Cardan,” she says, just before she balls up her fist and hits me in the stomach.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible to get the momentum needed to strike someone under water, but this is her world, and she connects just fine.

“Ouch,” I say. I try to touch where she hit me, but my wrists are restrained in heavy cuffs and won’t move that far. I turn my head, seeing iron balls anchoring me to the floor. A fresh panic grips me, bringing with it a sense of unreality.

“I don’t know what trick you performed on him, but I will discover it,” she says, unnerving me with how close her guess comes to the mark. Still, it means she doesn’t know anything.

I force myself to concentrate on that, on the here and now, on discovering what I can do and making a plan. But it’s hard when I am so very angry—angry at the Ghost for betraying me, angry at Nicasia and at myself, myself, always myself, more than anyone else. Furious at myself for winding up in this position. “What happened to the Ghost?” I spit out. “Where is he?”

Nicasia gives me a narrow-eyed look. “What?”

“He helped you kidnap me. Did you pay him?” I ask, trying to sound calm. What I most want to know is what I cannot ask—does she know the Ghost’s plans for the Court of Shadows? But to find out and stop him, I must escape.

Nicasia puts her hand against my cheek, smooths back my hair. “Worry about yourself.”

Maybe she wants me only her for reasons of personal jealousy. Maybe I can still get out of this.

“You think I performed a trick because Cardan likes me better than you,” I say. “But you shot at him with a crossbow bolt. Of course he likes me better.”

Her face goes pale, her mouth opening in surprise and then curling into rage when she realizes what I am implying—that I told him. Maybe it’s not a great idea to goad her into fury when I am powerless, but I hope she will be goaded into telling me why I am here.

And how long I must stay. Already, time has passed while I was unconscious. Time when Madoc is free to scheme toward war with his new knowledge of my influence over the crown, when Cardan is entirely free to do whatever his chaotic heart desires, when Locke may make a mockery of everyone he can and draw them into his dramatics, when the Council may push for capitulation to the sea, and I can do nothing to influence any of it.

How much more time will I spend here? How long before all five months of work is undone? I think of Val Moren tossing things in the air and letting them crash down around him. His human face and his unsympathetic human eyes.

Nicasia seems to have regained her composure, but her long tail swishes back and forth. “Well, you’re ours now, mortal. Cardan will regret the day he put any trust in you.”

She means me to be more afraid, but I feel a little relief. They don’t think I have any special power. They think I have a special vulnerability. They think they can control me as they would any mortal.

Still, relief is the last thing I ought to show. “Yeah, Cardan should definitely trust you more. You seem really trustworthy. It’s not like you’re actually currently betraying him.”

Nicasia reaches into a bandolier across her chest and draws a blade—a shark’s tooth. Holding it, she gazes at me. “I could hurt you, and you wouldn’t remember.”

“But you would,” I say.

She smiles. “Perhaps that would be something to cherish.”

My heart thunders in my chest, but I refuse to show it. “Want me to show you where to put the point?” I ask. “It’s delicate work, causing pain without doing permanent damage.”

“Are you too stupid to be afraid?”

“Oh, I’m scared,” I tell her. “Just not of you. Whoever brought me here—your mother, I presume, and Balekin—has a use for me. I am afraid of what that is, but not of you, an inept torturer who is irrelevant to everyone’s plans.”

Nicasia says a word, and suffocating pain crashes in on my lungs. I can’t breathe. I open my mouth, and the agony only intensifies.

Better it’s over fast, I tell myself. But it’s not fast enough.




The next time I wake, I am alone.

I lie there, water flowing around me, lungs clear. Although the bed is still beneath me, I am aware of floating above it.

My head hurts, and I am aware of a pain in my stomach that is some combination of hunger and soreness after being punched. The water is cold, a deep chill that seeps into my veins, making my blood sluggish. I am not sure how long I’ve been unconscious, not sure how long it’s been since I was taken from the Tower. As time slips by and fish come to pluck at my feet and hair, at the stitches around my wound, anger drains away and despair fills me. Despair and regrets.

I wish I’d kissed Taryn’s cheek before I left. I wish I’d made sure Vivi understood that if she loved a mortal, she had to be more careful with her. I wish I’d told Madoc that I always intended for Oak to have the throne.

I wish I’d planned more plans. I wish I’d left more instructions. I wish I had never trusted the Ghost.

I hope Cardan misses me.

I am not sure how long I float like that, how many times I panic and pull against my chains, how many times the weight of the water over me feels oppressive and I choke on it. A merman swims into the room. He moves with immense grace through the water. His hair is a kind of striped green, and the same stripes continue down his body. His large eyes flash in the indifferent light.