The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3)(35)

Then, from the hole where the darts shot, comes a metal bird. Its beak opens and closes. “Thieves!” it cries. “Thieves! Thieves!”

Outside, I hear shouts.

Then I spot the Roach across the room. His skin has turned pale. He’s about to say something, his face anguished, when he slides to one knee. The darts must have struck him. I rush over. “What was he hit with?” Cardan calls.

“Deathsweet,” I say. Probably plucked from the same patch I found in the woods. “The Bomb can help him. She can make an antidote.”

I hope she can, at least. I hope there’s time.

With surprising ease, Cardan lifts the Roach in his arms. “Tell me this wasn’t your plan,” he pleads. “Tell me.”

“No,” I say. “Of course not. I swear it.”

“Come then,” he says. “My pocket is full of ragwort. We can fly.”

I shake my head.

“Jude,” he warns.

We don’t have time to argue. “Vivi and Taryn are still waiting for me. They won’t know what’s happened. If I don’t go to them, they’ll be caught.”

I can tell he’s not sure if he should believe me, but all he does is shift the Roach so that he can untie his cloak with one hand. “Take this, and do not stop,” he orders, his expression fierce. Then he heads into the night, bearing the Roach in his arms.

I set out for the woods, neither running nor hiding, exactly, but moving swiftly, tying his cloak over my shoulders as I go. I glance back once and see the soldiers swarming around the forge—a few entering Madoc’s tent.

I said I was going straight to Vivi, but I lied. I head for the cave. There’s still time, I tell myself. The incident at the forge is an excellent distraction. If they’re looking for intruders there, they won’t be looking for me here with the Ghost.

My optimism seems borne out as I draw close. The guards aren’t at their posts. Letting out a sigh of relief, I rush inside.

But the Ghost is no longer in chains. He’s not there at all. In his place is Madoc, outfitted in his full suit of armor.

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” he says. “Much too late.”

Then he draws his sword.





Fear steals my breath. Not only do I not have a weapon with the range of his sword, but it’s unimaginable to win in battle against the person who taught me nearly everything I know. And looking at him, I can tell he’s come to fight.

I draw the cloak more closely around me, inexpressibly glad for it. Without it, I would have no chance.

“When did you know it was me and not Taryn?” I ask.

“Later than I ought,” he says conversationally, taking a step toward me. “But I wasn’t looking, was I? No, it was a little thing. Your expression when you saw that map of the isles of Elfhame. Just that and every other thing you’d said and done went slant, and I saw they all belonged to you.”

I am grateful to know he didn’t guess from the start. Whatever he’s planned, he had to do it hastily, at least. “Where’s the Ghost?”

“Garrett,” he corrects, mocking me with part of the Ghost’s true name, the name the Ghost never told me, even when I might have used it to countermand the orders he’d received from Madoc. “Even if you live, you’ll never stop him in time.”

“Whom did you send him after?” My voice shakes a little, imagining Cardan escaping from Madoc’s camp only to be shot in his own palace as he was once almost shot in his own bed.

Madoc’s smile is all sharp teeth and satisfaction, as though I am being taught a lesson. “You’re still loyal to that puppet. Why, Jude? Wouldn’t it be better if he took an arrow through the heart in his own hall? You cannot believe he makes a better High King than I would.”

I look Madoc in the eye, and my mouth makes the words before I can snatch them back. “Maybe I believe that it’s time for Elfhame to be ruled by a queen.”

He laughs at that, a bark of surprise. “You think Cardan will just hand over his power? To you? Mortal child, surely you know better. He exiled you. He reviled you. He will never see you as anything but beneath him.”

It’s nothing I haven’t thought myself, yet his words still fall like blows.

“That boy is your weakness. But worry not,” Madoc continues. “His reign will be short.”

I take some satisfaction in the fact that Cardan was here, under his nose, and that he got away. But everything else is awful. The Ghost is gone. The Roach is poisoned. I’ve made mistakes. Even now, Vivi and Taryn and possibly Heather wait for me across the snow, growing more and more worried the closer dawn creeps to the horizon.

“Surrender, child,” Madoc says, looking as though he feels a little sorry for me. “It’s time to submit to your punishment.”

I take a step backward. My hand goes to my knife on instinct, but fighting him when he is in armor and his weapon has the superior reach is a bad idea.

He gives me an incredulous look. “Will you defy me to the last? When I get ahold of you, I am going to keep you in chains.”

“I never wanted to be your enemy,” I say. “But I didn’t want to be in your power, either.” With that, I take off through the snow. I do the one thing I told myself I would never do.