The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3)(49)

He’s also the person who raised Cardan.

As I consider all this, Cardan sends Fand off to have the royal coach brought around. I want to protest that I can ride, but I am not so healed yet that I am sure I should. A few minutes later, I am being handed up into a beautifully outfitted royal carriage, with embroidered seats in a pattern of vines and beetles. Cardan settles himself opposite me, leaning his head against the window frame as the horses begin to run.

As we leave the palace, I realize it is later than I thought. Dawn is threatening on the horizon. My long sleep has given me a distorted view of time.

I wonder at Taryn’s message. What possible reason could she have for bringing me to Balekin’s estate? Could it have something to do with Locke’s death?

Could it be another betrayal?

Finally, the horses come to a stop. I climb from the carriage as one of the guards jumps down from the front to properly hand me down. He looks flummoxed to find me already standing beside the horses, but I hadn’t thought to wait. I am not used to being royalty and worry that I will not get used to it.

Cardan emerges, his gaze going to neither me nor the guard, but to Hollow Hall itself. His tail lashes the air behind him, showing all the emotion that’s not on his face.

Covered in a heavy coat of ivy, with a crooked tower and pale and hairy roots hanging from its balconies, this was once his home. I witnessed Cardan’s being whipped by a human servant at Balekin’s direction. I am sure far worse things happened there, although he has never spoken of them.

I rub my thumb over the stub of my missing finger top, bitten off by one of Madoc’s guards, and realize abruptly that if I told Cardan about it, he might understand. Maybe more than anyone, he’d comprehend the odd mingling of fear and shame I feel—even now—when I think of it. For all our conflicts, there are moments when we understand each other entirely too well.

“Why are we here?” he asks.

“This is where Taryn wanted to meet,” I say. “I didn’t think she even knew the place.”

“She doesn’t,” Cardan says.

The polished wood door is still carved with an enormous and sinister face, still flanked with lanterns, but sprites no longer fly in desperate circles within. A soft glow of magic emanates instead.

“My king,” the door says fondly, its eyes opening.

Cardan smiles in return. “My door,” he says with a slight hitch in his voice, as though perhaps everything about returning here feels strange.

“Hail and welcome,” it says, and swings wide.

“Is there a girl like this one inside?” he asks, indicating me.

“Yes,” says the door. “Very like. She’s below, with the other.”

“Below?” I say as we walk into the echoing hall.

“There are dungeons,” Cardan says. “Most Folk thought they were merely decorative. Alas, they were not.”

“Why would Taryn be down there?” I ask, but to that, he has no answer. We go down, the royal guard ahead of me. The basement smells strongly of earth. The room we enter contains little, only some furniture that seems unsuitable for sitting upon and chains. Big braziers burn brightly enough to heat my cheeks.

Taryn sits beside an oubliette. She is dressed simply, a cloak over her shift, and without the grandeur of clothes and hair, she looks young. It frightens me to think I might look that young, too.

When she sees Cardan, she pushes herself to her feet, one hand moving to her belly protectively. She sinks into a low curtsy.

“Taryn?” he says.

“He came looking for you,” she tells me. “When he saw me in your rooms, he said I had to restrain him because Madoc had given him more commands. He told me about the dungeons and I brought him here. It seemed like a place no one would look.”

Walking over to the hole, I peer down into the pit. The Ghost sits perhaps twelve feet down, his back against the curve of the wall, his wrists and ankles bound in shackles. He looks pale and unwell, peering up with haunted eyes.

I want to ask him if he’s okay, but he obviously isn’t.

Cardan is gazing at my sister as though attempting to puzzle something through. “You know him, don’t you?” he asks.

She nods, crossing her arms over her chest. “He would visit Locke sometimes. But he didn’t have anything to do with Locke’s death, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Cardan says. “Not at all.”

No, he would have already been Madoc’s prisoner then. But I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I am still not sure what Cardan would do if he knew the truth of Locke’s death.

“Can you tell us about Queen Orlagh?” I ask the Ghost, attempting to redirect the conversation back toward what’s most important. “What did you do?”

“Madoc gave me a bolt,” he says. “It was heavy in my hand, and it squirmed as though it was a living thing. Lord Jarel put a magic on me that let me breathe under the waves, but it made my skin burn as though covered always in ice. Madoc commanded me to shoot Orlagh anywhere but in the heart or head and told me that the bolt would do the rest.”

“How did you get away?” I ask.

“I slew a shark pursuing me and hid within its corpse until the danger passed. Then I swam to shore.”

“Did Madoc give you any other orders?” Cardan asks, frowning.