The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3)(84)

“It’s early,” says Vivi. “And the pizza place is close enough to walk.” She looks us over. “We should go to the apartment and change first, though.”

I guess I can see what she means. Cardan looks as though he just stepped off the stage at a playhouse, and while he can glamour himself, I am not at all sure he knows what it is he’s supposed to wear in the illusion.

Vivi lets us into the apartment and puts on a pot of coffee, adding cinnamon to the grounds. Oak goes in the back and gets some kind of electronic game, immediately immersing himself in it on the couch while we sort out clothes.

Cardan’s tight pants and boots are passable, and he finds a T-shirt a human friend left there that fits him well enough to wear instead of his fancy doublet. I borrow a dress from Vivi that’s loose on her. It’s a lot less loose on me.

“I told Heather about you guys,” Vivi says. “I am going to call her and see if she can come over and bring some supplies. You can meet her—again. And Oak will show you the way to the pizza place.”

Taking my hand with a laugh, my little brother starts pulling Cardan and me down the stairs. Vivi chases after us to give me some money. “This is your cash. From Bryern.”

“What did you do?” Cardan asks.

“Beat Grima Mog in a duel,” I say.

He looks at me incredulously. “He ought to have paid you in gold.”

That makes me grin as we walk along the sidewalk. Cardan doesn’t appear to be at all discomfited, whistling a tune and goggling a bit at the humans we pass. I hold my breath, but he doesn’t curse them with a tail to match his own or tempt them with everapple or do anything else that a wicked faerie king might.

We go into the pizza place, where Oak orders three extremely large pies covered with a bizarre array of toppings that I am almost entirely sure no one has ever let him order before: half meatball and half prawn, garlic and tomatoes, goat cheese and black olives, and mushroom and bacon.

When we return to the apartment with our stack of steaming cardboard boxes, Heather and Vivi have tied up a silvery banner that reads CONGRATULATIONS, NEWLYWEDS! in bright colors. Under it, on the kitchen table, is an ice-cream cake with scattered gummy snakes on it and several bottles of wine.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” I say, going over to Heather and giving her a hug. “I just know I’m going to love you.”

“She’s told me some wild things about you all,” Heather says.

Vivi blows a noisemaker. “Here,” she says, passing out paper crowns for us to wear.

“This is ridiculous,” I complain, but put mine on.

Cardan looks at his reflection in the door of the microwave and adjusts his crown so it’s at an angle.

I roll my eyes, and he gives me a quick grin. And my heart hurts a little because we are all together and safe, and it wasn’t something I’d known how to want. And Cardan looks a little shy in the face of all this happiness, as unused to it as I am. There will be struggles to come, I am certain, but right now I am equally sure we will find our way through them.

Vivi opens pizza boxes and uncorks a bottle of wine. Oak takes out a slice of the prawn pizza and digs in.

I raise a plastic glass. “To family.”

“And Faerieland,” says Taryn, raising hers.

“And pizza,” says Oak.

“And stories,” says Heather.

“And new beginnings,” says Vivi.

Cardan smiles, his gaze on me. “And scheming great schemes.”

To family and Faerieland and pizza and stories and new beginnings and scheming great schemes. I can toast to that.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Finishing this book would have been immensely difficult without the support, help, criticism, and thematic derring-do of Sarah Rees Brennan, Leigh Bardugo, Steve Berman, Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, Joshua Lewis, Kelly Link, and Robin Wasserman. Thank you, my roguish crew!

Thank you to all the readers who came out to see me on the road, wrote messages, drew Folk of the Air art, and/or dressed up as the characters. Every bit of it meant more to me than I can say.

A massive thank-you to everyone at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for supporting my weird vision. Thanks especially to my amazing editor, Alvina Ling, and to Ruqayyah Daud, Siena Koncsol, Victoria Stapleton, Bill Grace, Emilie Polster, Natali Cavanagh, and Valerie Wong, among others. And in the UK, thank you to Hot Key Books, particularly Jane Harris, Emma Matthewson, Roisin O’Shea, and Tina Mories.

Thank you to Joanna Volpe, Hilary Pecheone, Pouya Shahbazian, Jordan Hill, Abigail Donoghue, and everyone at New Leaf Literary for making hard things easier.

Thank you to Kathleen Jennings for her wonderful and evocative illustrations.

And thanks most of all to my husband, Theo, for helping me figure out the stories I want to tell, and to our son, Sebastian, for reminding me that sometimes the most important thing to do is play.