The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3)(33)

“Jude,” says the Roach, still laughing. “We’ve come to save you. Screaming would really hurt the plan.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t stab you!” My voice comes out harsher than I intend, anger masking how terrified I was.

“I told him to watch out,” the Roach says. There’s a sharp sound, and light flares from a little box, illuminating the jagged planes of the Roach’s goblin face. He’s grinning. “But would he listen? I’d have ordered him, if not for the little matter of his being the High King.”

“Cardan sent you?” I ask.

“Not exactly,” says the Roach, moving the light so that I can see the person with him, the one I elbowed. The High King of Elfhame, in plain brown wool, a cloak on his back of a fabric so dark it seems to absorb light, leaf blade in the scabbard on his hip. He wears no crown on his brow, no rings on his fingers, nor gold paint limning his cheekbones. He looks every inch a spy from the Court of Shadows, down to the sneaky smile pulling at a corner of his beautiful mouth.

Looking at him, I feel a little light-headed from some combination of shock and disbelief. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I said that, too,” the Roach goes on. “Really, I miss the days when you were in charge. High Kings shouldn’t be gallivanting around like common ruffians.”

Cardan laughs. “What about uncommon ruffians?”

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, and his laugh gutters out. The Roach turns his gaze to the ceiling. I am abruptly aware that I am in a nightgown Oriana lent me, one that is entirely too diaphanous.

My cheeks go hot enough with anger that I barely feel the cold. “How did you find me?” Padding across the tent, I feel my way to where I put my dress and fumble it on, pulling it on straight over my nightclothes. I tuck my knife into a sheath.

The Roach cuts a glance at Cardan. “Your sister Vivienne. She came to the High King with a message from your stepmother. She worried it was a trap. I was worried it was a trap, too. A trap for him. Maybe even for myself.”

Which is why they took pains to catch me at my most vulnerable. But why come at all? And given all the disparaging things my older sister said about Cardan, why would she trust him with any of this? “Vivi went to you?”

“We spoke after Madoc carried you off from the palace,” Cardan begins. “And whom did I find in her little dwelling but Taryn? We all had quite a lot to say to one another.”

I try to imagine the High King in the mortal world, standing in front of our apartment complex, knocking on our door. What ridiculous thing had he worn? Had he sat down on the lumpy couch and drank coffee as though he didn’t despise everything around him?

Did he pardon Taryn when he wouldn’t pardon me?

I think of Madoc’s believing that Cardan desires to be loved. It seemed like nonsense then and seems like even more nonsense now. He charms everyone, even my own sisters. He is a gravitational force, pulling everything toward him.

But I am not so easily taken in now. If he’s here, it’s to his own purpose. Maybe allowing his queen to fall into the hands of his enemies is dangerous to him. Which means I have power. I just have to discover it and then find a way to wield it against him.

“I can’t go with you yet,” I say, drawing on thick hose and jamming my foot into a heavy boot. “There’s something I have to do. And something I need you to give me.”

“Perhaps you could just allow yourself to be rescued,” Cardan says. “For once.” Even in his plain clothes, his head bare of any crown, he cannot pretend away how much he has grown into his royal role. When a king tries to give you a gift, you’re not allowed to refuse it.

“Perhaps you could just give me what I want,” I say.

“What?” the Roach asks. “Let’s put our cards on the table, Jude. Your sisters and their friend are waiting with the horses. We need to be swift.”

My sisters? Both of them? And a friend—Heather? “You let them come?”

“They insisted, and since they were the ones who knew where you were, we had no choice.” The Roach is obviously frustrated with the whole situation. It’s risky to work with people who have no training. Risky to have the High King acting as your foot soldier. Risky to have the person you’re trying to extract—who might be a traitor—start backseat-driving your plan.

But that’s his problem, not mine. I walk over and take his light from him, using it to find my wineskin. “This is dosed with a sleeping draught. I was going to take this to some guards, steal a key, and free a prisoner. We were supposed to escape together.”

“Prisoner?” the Roach echoes warily.

“I saw the maps in Madoc’s war room,” I tell them. “I know the formation in which he means to sail against Elfhame, and I know the number of his ships. I know the soldiers in this encampment and which Courts are on his side. I know what Grimsen is making in his forge. If Cardan will promise me safe passage to Elfhame and to lift my exile once we’re there, I will give all that to you. Plus, you will have the prisoner delivered into your hands before he can be used against you.”

“If you’re telling the truth,” the Roach says. “And not leading us into a net of Madoc’s making.”

“I’m on my own side,” I tell him. “You of all people should understand that.”