The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)(63)

Orlagh doesn’t answer, just nods toward Nicasia. I like that she does that, putting her daughter above Balekin. It’s good to have something to like about her, something to concentrate on to keep the warmth in my voice real.

“It’s important if it’s the reason he didn’t agree to an alliance with the Undersea,” Nicasia says.

“I don’t know if I am supposed to answer,” I say, looking around in what I hope appears like honest confusion. “But yes.”

Nicasia’s expression crumples. Now that I am “glamoured,” she doesn’t seem to think of me as a person in front of whom she has to pretend to stoicism. “More than once? Does he love you?”

I didn’t realize how much she’d hoped I was lying when I’d told her I kissed him. “More than once, but no. He doesn’t love me. Nothing like it.”

Nicasia looks at her mother, inclining her head, indicating she got the answers she wanted.

“Your father must be very angry with you for ruining all his plans,” Orlagh says, turning the conversation to other things.

“He is,” I say. Short and sweet. No lies I don’t have to tell.

“Why didn’t the general tell Balekin about Oak’s parentage?” she continues. “Wouldn’t that have been easier than scouring Elfhame for Prince Cardan after taking the crown?”

“I am not in his confidence,” I say. “Not then and definitely not now. All I know is that he had a reason.”

“Doubtless,” Balekin says, “he meant to betray me.”

“If Oak was High King, then it would really be Madoc who ruled Elfhame,” I say, because it’s nothing that they don’t know.

“And you didn’t want that.” A servant comes in with a little silken handkerchief filled with fish. Orlagh spears one with a long fingernail, causing a thin ribbon of blood to snake toward me in the water. “Interesting.”

Since it’s not a question, I don’t have to answer.

A few other servants begin to clear the plates.

“And would you take us to Oak’s door?” Balekin asks. “Take us to the mortal world and take him from your big sister, carry him back to us?”

“Of course,” I lie.

Balekin shoots a look toward Orlagh. If they took Oak, they could foster him under the sea, they could marry him to Nicasia, they could have a Greenbriar line of their own, loyal to the Undersea. They would have options beyond Balekin for access to the throne, which cannot please him.

A long game, but in Faerie, that’s a reasonable way to play.

“This Grimsen creature,” Orlagh asks her daughter. “You really believe he can make a new crown?”

My heart feels for a moment as though it’s stuttered to a stop. I am glad no one was looking at me, because in that moment, I do not believe I could have hidden my horror.

“He made the Blood Crown,” says Balekin. “If he made that, surely he can make another.”

If they don’t need the Blood Crown, then they don’t need Oak. They don’t need to foster him, don’t need him to place the crown on Balekin’s head, don’t need him alive at all.

Orlagh gives him a look that’s a reprimand. She waits for Nicasia’s answer.

“He’s a smith,” Nicasia says. “He cannot forge beneath the sea, so he will always favor the land. But with the death of the Alderking, he craves glory. He wishes to have a High King who will give him that.”

This is their plan, I tell myself to try to stifle the panic I feel. I know their plan. If I can escape, then I can stop it.

A knife in Grimsen’s back before he finishes the crown. I sometimes doubt my effectiveness as a seneschal, but never as a killer.

“Little minnow,” Orlagh says, her attention returning to me. “Tell me what Cardan promised you to help him.”

“But she—” Nicasia begins, but Orlagh’s look silences her.

“Daughter,” says the Queen of the Undersea, “you do not see what is right beneath your nose. Cardan got a throne from this girl. Stop searching for what she has over him—and start looking for what he had over her.”

Nicasia turns a petulant look on me. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve said that Cardan didn’t much care for her. And yet she made him High King. Consider that perhaps he realized she’d be useful and exploited that usefulness, through kisses and flattery, much as you’ve cultivated the little smith.”

Nicasia looks puzzled, as though all her ideas of the world are upset. Perhaps she didn’t think of Cardan as someone capable of scheming. Still, I can see something about this pleases her. If Cardan has seduced me to his side, then she need no longer worry that he cares for me. Instead, she need only worry over my usefulness.

“What did he promise you for getting him the crown of Elfhame?” Orlagh asks me with exquisite gentleness.

“I always wanted a place in Faerie. He told me he would make me his seneschal and put me at his right hand, like Val Moren in Eldred’s Court. He’d make sure I was respected and even feared.” It’s a lie, of course. He never promised me anything, and Dain promised far less than that. But, oh, if someone had—if Madoc had—it would have been very hard to turn down.

“You’re telling me that you betrayed your father and put that fool on the throne in exchange for a job?” Balekin demands incredulously.