The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)(87)

And it worked. I look down to hide my smile.

“Let Nicasia stay here and be your ambassador in Balekin’s stead,” Cardan says. “She has grown up on these islands, and many who love her are here.”

That wipes the smile off my face. On the new island, the bark is pulling away from Nicasia’s skin. I wonder what he’s playing at, bringing her back to Elfhame. With her will inevitably come trouble.

And yet, maybe it’s the sort of trouble he wants.

“If she wishes to stay, she may. Are you satisfied?” Orlagh asks.

Cardan inclines his head. “I am. I will not be led by the sea, no matter how great its queen. As the High King, I must lead. But I must also be just.”

Here he pauses. And then he turns to me. “And today I will dispense justice. Jude Duarte, do you deny you murdered Prince Balekin, Ambassador of the Undersea and brother to the High King?”

I am not sure what he wants me to say. Would it help to deny it? If so, surely he would not put it to me in such a way—a way that makes it clear he believes I did kill Balekin. Cardan has had a plan all along. All I can do is trust that he has a plan now.

“I do not deny that we had a duel and that I won it,” I say, my voice coming out more uncertain than I’d like.

All the eyes of the Folk are on me, and for a moment, as I look out at their pitiless faces, I feel Madoc’s absence keenly. Orlagh’s smile is full of sharp teeth.

“Hear my judgment,” Cardan says, authority ringing in his voice. “I hereafter exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world until such time as she is pardoned by the crown. Until then, let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit her life.”

I gasp. “But you can’t do that!”

He looks at me for a long moment, but his gaze is mild, as though he’s expecting me to be fine with exile. As though I am nothing more than one of his petitioners. As though I am nothing at all. “Of course I can,” he replies.

“But I’m the Queen of Faerie,” I shout, and for a moment, there is silence. Then everyone around me begins to laugh.

I can feel my cheeks heat. Tears of frustration and fury prick my eyes as, a beat too late, Cardan laughs with them.

At that moment, knights clap their hands on my wrists. Sir Rannoch pulls me down from the horse. For a mad moment I consider fighting him as though two dozen knights aren’t around us.

“Deny it then,” I yell. “Deny me!”

He cannot, of course, so he does not. Our eyes meet, and the odd smile on his face is clearly meant for me. I remember what it was to hate him with the whole of my heart, but I’ve remembered too late.

“Come with me, my lady,” Sir Rannoch says, and there is nothing I can do but go.

Still, I cannot resist looking back. When I do, Cardan is taking the first step onto the new island. He looks every bit the ruler his father was, every bit the monster his brother wanted to become. Crow-black hair blown back from his face, scarlet cape swirling around him, eyes reflecting the flat gray emptiness of the sky.

“If Insweal is the Isle of Woe, Insmire, the Isle of Might, and Insmoor the Isle of Stone,” he says, his voice carrying across the newly formed land. “Then let this be Insear, Isle of Ash.”





I lie on the couch in front of the television. In front of me a plate of microwaved fish sticks grows cold. On the screen in front of me, a cartoon ice-skater is sulking. He is not a very good skater, I think. Or maybe he’s a great skater. I keep forgetting to read the subtitles.

It’s hard to concentrate on pretty much anything these days.

Vivi comes into the room and flops down on the couch. “Heather won’t text me back,” she says.

I turned up on Vivi’s doorstep a week before, exhausted, my eyes red with weeping. Rannoch and his coterie had carried me across the sky on one of their horses and dumped me on a random street in a random town. I’d walked and walked until I had blisters on my feet, and I began to doubt my ability to navigate by the stars. Finally, I stumbled into a gas station with a taxi refueling and was startled to remember taxis existed. By then, I didn’t care that I had no money with me and that Vivi was probably going to pay him with a handful of glamoured leaves.

But I didn’t expect to arrive and find Heather gone.

When she and Vivi came back from Faerie, I guess she had a lot of questions. And then she’d had more questions, and finally, Vivi admitted glamouring her. That’s when everything totally unraveled.

Vivi removed the glamour, Heather got her memories back. Heather moved out.

She’s sleeping at her parents’ house, so Vivi keeps hoping she might still come back. Some of her stuff is still here. Clothes. Her drafting table. A set of unused oil paints.

“She’ll text you when she’s ready,” I say, although I am not sure I believe it. “She’s just trying to get her head straight.” Just because I am bitter about romance doesn’t mean everyone else needs to be.

For a while, we just sit on the couch together, watching the cartoon skater fail to land jumps and fall in helpless and probably unrequited love with his coach.

Soon, Oak will come home from school, and we will pretend that things are normal. I will take him into the wooded part of the apartment complex and drill him on the sword. He doesn’t mind, but to him it’s only messing around, and I don’t have the heart to scare him into seeing swordplay differently.