The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1)(48)

And me, spying on them all for the king.



The hedge maze is taller than the height of an ogre and formed of dense, glossy leaves in a deep green. Apparently, Cardan’s circle meets here often. I can hear them laughing at the center of the maze when I walk outside with Locke, late to his own gathering. The smell of pine liquor is alive in the air. The firelight of the torches makes long shadows and limns everything in scarlet. My steps slow.

Reaching into the pocket of the borrowed dress, I touch my knife, still stained with Valerian’s blood. When I do, my fingers light on something else, something Locke’s mother must have left years before. I pull out her bauble—a golden acorn. It doesn’t look like jewelry—there is no chain—and I cannot imagine what purpose it might have had other than to be pretty. I drop it back into my pocket.

Locke holds my hand as we move through the turns of the hedge maze. It does not seem as though there are many. I try to map it in my mind as I go, in case I have to find my way out alone. The simplicity of the maze makes me nervous rather than confident. I do not believe there are many simple things in Faerie. At home, dinner will be coming to a close without me. Taryn will be whispering to Vivi how I went somewhere with Locke. Madoc will be frowning and stabbing his meat, annoyed with me for missing his lessons.

I have braved worse things.

At the center of the maze, a piper is playing a lilting, wild song. White rose petals blow through the air. Folk are gathered, eating and drinking from a long banquet table that seems mostly piled with different distillations—cordials in which mandrake roots float, sour plum wine, a clear liquor infused with handfuls of red clover. And beside those, vials of golden nevermore.

Cardan is lying on a blanket, his head tipped back and his loose white shirt unbuttoned. Although it is still early in the night, he appears to be very drunk. His mouth is flaked with gold. A horned girl I don’t know is kissing his throat, and another, this one with daffodil hair, presses her mouth against the calf of his leg, just above the top of his boot.

To my relief, I do not see Valerian. I hope he’s home, nursing that wound I gave him.

Locke brings me a thimbleful of liquor, and I take a tiny scalding sip for the sake of politeness. I start coughing immediately. At that moment, Cardan’s gaze goes to me. His eyes are barely open, but I can see the shine of them, wet as tar. He watches me as the girl kisses his mouth, watches me as she slides her hand beneath the hem of his silly, ruffly shirt.

My cheeks heat. I look away and then am angry with myself for giving him the satisfaction of seeming uncomfortable. He’s the one who’s making a spectacle of himself.

“I see a member of the Circle of Worms has chosen to grace us with her presence tonight,” Nicasia says, swanning up to us in a dress with all the colors of the sunset in it. She peers into my face. “But which one is it?”

“The one you don’t like,” I tell her, ignoring her jibe.

That makes her give a high, false laugh. “Oh, you might be surprised how some of us feel about both of you.”

“I promised you better amusements than this,” Locke says stiffly, taking my elbow. I am grateful when he pulls me toward a low table with pillows strewn haphazardly around it, but I can’t help giving Nicasia a small, antagonizing wave as I go. I pour out my thimble of liquor onto the grass when Locke isn’t looking. The piper finishes, and a naked boy, shining with gold paint, takes out a lyre and sings a filthy song about broken hearts: “O lady fair! O lady cruel! How I miss your sweet misrule. I miss your hair. I miss your eyes. But most of all, I miss your thighs.”

Locke kisses me again, in front of the fire. Everyone can see it, but I don’t know if they’re looking, because I close my eyes as tightly as they will go.





I wake in Locke’s house on a bed covered in tapestries. My mouth tastes of sour plums and is swollen from kissing. Locke is beside me on the bed, eyes shut, still in his party clothes. I pause in the act of rising to study him, his sharp ears and fox-fur hair, the softness of his mouth, his long limbs spread out in sleep. His head is pillowed on one ruffle-covered wrist.

The night comes back in a rush of memory. There was dancing and a chase through the maze. I remember falling on my hands in the dirt and laughing, totally unlike myself. Indeed, when I look down at the borrowed ball gown I slept in, there are grass stains on it.

Not that I’ d be the first to green gown her.

Prince Cardan watched me all night, a shark restlessly circling, waiting for the right moment to bite. Even now I can conjure the memory of the scorched black of his eyes. And if I laughed louder for the sake of angering him, if I smiled wider, and kissed Locke longer, that is a kind of deceit that even the Folk cannot condemn.

Now, however, the night feels like one long, impossible dream.

Locke’s bedroom is messy—books and clothes scattered on divans and low couches. I wade through to the door and pad over the empty halls of the house. Finding my way back to the dusty room of his mother’s, I take off her gown and tug on yesterday’s clothes. I reach to take my knife from her pocket, and when I do, the golden acorn comes out with it.

Impulsively, I tuck both knife and acorn into my tunic. I want some memento of the night, something to recall it, should nothing like it ever happen again. Locke told me I could borrow anything in the room, and I am borrowing this.

On my way out, I pass the long dining table. Nicasia is there, sectioning an apple with a little knife.