The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)

by Holly Black

Randalin winces.

  “That’s true enough,” says Nihuar, as though she is trying to think of a way to explain away this troubling sign of competence.

  “Perhaps she will tell us what else she knows,” Madoc says.

  Mikkel’s eyebrows rise.

  “Is there more?” Baphen asks.

  “Jude?” prompts Madoc.

  I weigh my next words. “As I said, Orlagh has been communicating with Balekin. I don’t know what information he’s passed on to her, but the sea sends Folk to the land with gifts and messages for him.”

  Cardan looks surprised and clearly unhappy. I realize that I neglected to tell him about Balekin and the Undersea, despite informing the Council. “Did you know about Nicasia as well?” he asks.

  “I, uh—” I begin, foundering.

  “She likes to keep her own counsel on the Council,” Baphen says with a sly look.

  As though it’s my fault none of them listens to me.

  Randalin glowers. “You never explained how you learned any of this.”

  “If you’re asking whether I have secrets, I could easily ask the same of you,” I remind him. “Previously, you weren’t interested in any of mine.”

  “Prince of the land, prince under the waves,” says Fala. “Prince of prisons, prince of knaves.”

  “Balekin’s no strategist,” Madoc says, which is as close to admitting he was behind Eldred’s execution as he’s ever done. “He’s ambitious, though. And proud.”

  “Spurn the Sea once, we will have your blood,” says Cardan. “That’s Oak, I imagine.”

  Madoc and I share a swift look. The one thing we agree on is that Oak will be kept safe. I am glad he’s far from here, inland, with both spies and knights looking out for him. But if Cardan is correct about what the line means, I wonder if he will need even more protection than that.

  “If the Undersea is planning to steal Oak, then perhaps they promised Balekin the crown,” says Mikkel. “Safer for there to be only two in the bloodline, when one is needed to crown the other. Three is superfluous. Three is dangerous.”

  Which is a roundabout way of saying somebody should kill Balekin before he tries to assassinate Cardan.

  I wouldn’t mind seeing Balekin dead, either, but Cardan has been stubbornly against the execution of his brother. I think of the words he said to me in the Court of Shadows: I may be rotten, but my one virtue is that I’m not a killer.

  “I will take that under advisement, advisors,” says Cardan. “Now, I wish to speak with Nicasia.”

  “But we still haven’t decided…” Randalin says, trailing off when he sees the scorching glare Cardan levels at him.

  “Jude, go fetch her,” says the High King of Elfhame. Another order.

  I get up, grinding my teeth, and go to the door. The Ghost is waiting for me. “Where’s Nicasia?” I ask.

  It turns out that she’s been put in my rooms, with the Roach. Her dove-gray dress is arranged on my divan as though she’s posing for a painting. I wonder if the reason she rushed off was so she could change clothing for this audience.

  “Look what the wind blew in,” she says when she sees me.

  “The High King requires your presence,” I tell her.

  She gives me a strange smile and rises. “If only that were true.”

  Down the hall we go, knights watching her pass. She looks majestic and miserable at once, and when the huge doors to Cardan’s apartments open, she goes inside with her head high.

  While I was gone, a servant brought in tea. It steeps in a pot at the center of a low table. A cup of it steams in the cage of Cardan’s slender fingers.

  “Nicasia,” he drawls. “Your mother has sent a message for us both.”

  She frowns, taking in the other councilors, the lack of an invitation to sit, and the lack of an offer to take tea. “This was her scheme, not mine.”

  He leans forward, no longer sleepy or bored but every bit the terrifying faerie lord, empty-eyed and incalculably powerful. “Perhaps, but you knew she’d do it, I’ll wager. Do not play with me. We know each other too well for tricks.”

  Nicasia looks down, eyelashes brushing her cheeks. “She desires a different kind of alliance.” Perhaps the Council might see her as meek and humbled, but I am not yet so foolish.

  Cardan stands, hurling his teacup at the wall, where it shatters. “Tell the Queen of the Undersea that if she threatens me again, she will find her daughter my prisoner instead of my bride.”

  Nicasia looks stricken.

  Randalin finally finds his voice. “It is not meet to throw things at the daughter of the Undersea.”

  “Little fishie,” says Fala, “take off your legs and swim away.”

  Mikkel barks out a laugh.

  “We must not be hasty,” says Randalin helplessly. “Princess, let the High King take more time to consider.”

  I worried that Cardan would be amused or flattered or tempted. Instead, he’s clearly furious.

  “Let me speak with my mother.” Nicasia looks around the room, at the councilors, at me, before seeming to decide that she’s not going to persuade Cardan to send us away. She does the next best thing, turning her gaze only to him and speaking as though we’re not there. “The sea is harsh, and so are Queen Orlagh’s methods. She demands when she ought to request, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t wisdom in what she wants.”

  “Would you marry me, then? Tie the sea to the land and bind us together in misery?” Cardan gazes at her with all the scorn he once reserved for me. It feels as though the world has been turned upside down.

  But Nicasia does not back down. Instead, she takes a step closer. “We would be legends,” she tells him. “Legends need not concern themselves with something as small as happiness.”

  And then, without waiting to be dismissed, she turns and goes out. Without being ordered, the guards part to let her by.

  “Ah,” says Madoc. “That one behaves as though she is queen already.”

  “Out,” says Cardan, and then when no one reacts, he makes a wild gesture in the air. “Out! Out. I am certain you wish to deliberate further as though I am not in the room, so go do it where I am not in the room. Go and trouble me no more.”

  “Your pardon,” says Randalin. “We meant only—”

  “Out!” he says, at which point even Fala heads for the door.

  “Except Jude,” he calls. “You, tarry a moment.”

  You. I turn toward him, the humiliation of the night still hot on my skin. I think of all my secrets and plans, and of what it will mean if we go to war with the Undersea, of what I’ve risked and what is already forever lost.

  I let the others leave, waiting until the last of the Living Council is out of the room.

  “Give me an order again,” I say, “and I will show you true shame. Locke’s games will be as nothing to what I make you do.”

  With that, I follow the others into the hall.

  In the Court of Shadows, I consider what moves are possible.

  Murder Balekin. Mikkel wasn’t wrong that it would make it harder for the Undersea to wrest the crown from Cardan’s head.

  Marry Cardan to someone else. I think of Mother Marrow and almost regret interfering. If Cardan had a hag’s daughter for a bride, perhaps Orlagh wouldn’t have engaged in such martial matchmaking.

  Of course, I would have had other problems.

  A headache starts up behind my eyes. I rub my fingers over the bridge of my nose.

  With Taryn’s wedding so close, Oak will be here in mere days. I don’t like the thought of it with Orlagh’s threat hanging over Elfhame. He is too valuable a piece on the strategy board, too necessary for Balekin, too dangerous for Cardan.

  I recall the last time I saw Balekin, the influence he had over the guard, the way he behaved as though he were the king in exile. And all my reports from Vulciber suggest that not much has changed. He demands luxuries, he entertains visitors from the sea who leave puddles and pearls behind. I wonder what they’ve told hi
m, what promises he’s been made. Despite Nicasia’s belief that he won’t be necessary, he must be hoping just the opposite.

  And then I recall something else—the woman who wanted to tell me about my mother. She’s been there the whole time, and if she’s willing to sell one kind of information for her freedom, maybe she’s willing to sell another.

  As I think over what I’d like to know, it occurs to me how much more useful it would be to send information to Balekin, instead of getting information out of him.

  If I let that prisoner believe I was temporarily freeing her to tell me about my mother, then I could drop some information in her ear. Something about Oak, something about his whereabouts or vulnerability. She wouldn’t be lying when she passed it on; she would believe she’d heard true and spoke truth.

  I puzzle further and realize, no, it’s too soon for that. What I need now is to give the prisoner simpler information that she can pass on, information I can control and verify, so that I can be sure she’s a good source.

  Balekin wanted to send Cardan a message. I will find a way to let him.

  The Court of Shadows has begun to formalize the scribing of documents on the denizens of Elfhame, but none of the current scrolls deal with any prisoners in the Tower but Balekin. Walking down the hall, I go to the Bomb’s newly dug office.

  She’s there, throwing daggers at a painting of a sunset.

  “You didn’t like it?” I ask, pointing to the canvas.

  “I liked it well enough,” she says. “Now I like it better.”

  “I need a prisoner from the Tower of Forgetting. Do we have enough uniforms to dress up some of our new recruits? The knights there have seen my face. Vulciber can help smooth things over, but I’d rather not risk it. Better to forge some papers and have her out with fewer questions.”

  She frowns in concentration. “Whom do you want?”

  “There’s a woman.” I take a piece of paper and grid out the bottom floor as well as I can. “She was up the staircase. Here. All on her own.”

  The Bomb frowns. “Can you describe her?”

  I shrug. “Thin face, horns. Pretty, I guess. You’re all pretty.”

  “What kind of horns?” the Bomb asks, tilting her head to one side as though she’s considering something. “Straight? Curved?”

  I gesture to the top of my head where I remember hers being. “Little ones. Goatish, I guess. And she had a tail.”

  “There aren’t that many Folk in the Tower,” the Bomb explains. “The woman you’re describing…”

  “Do you know her?” I ask.

  “I’ve never spoken a word to her,” the Bomb says. “But I know who she is—or who she was: one of Eldred’s lovers who begot him a son. That’s Cardan’s mother.”

  I drum my fingernails against Dain’s old desk as the Roach leads the prisoner in.

  “Her name is Asha,” he says. “Lady Asha.”

  Asha is thin and so pale that she seems a little gray. She does not look much like the laughing woman I saw in the crystal globe.

  She is looking around the room in an ecstasy of confusion. It’s clear that she’s pleased to be away from the Tower of Forgetting. Her eyes are hungry, drinking in every detail of even this rather dull room.

  “What was her crime?” I ask, downplaying my knowledge. I hope she will set the game and show more of herself that way.

  The Roach grunts, playing along. “She was Eldred’s consort, and when he tired of her, she got tossed into the Tower.”

  There was doubtlessly more to it than that, but all I have discovered is that it concerned the death of another lover of the High King’s and, somehow, Cardan’s involvement.

  “Hard luck,” I say, indicating the chair in front of my desk. The one to which, five long months ago, Cardan had been tied. “Come sit.”

  I can see his face in hers. They share those ridiculous cheekbones, that soft mouth.

  She sits, gaze turning sharply to me. “I have a powerful thirst.”

  “Do you now?” the Roach asks, licking a corner of his lip with his black tongue. “Perhaps a cup of wine would restore you.”

  “I am chilled, too,” she tells him. “Cold down to the bone. Cold as the sea.”

  The Roach shares a look with me. “You tarry here with our own Shadow Queen, and I will see to the rest.”

  I do not know what I did to deserve such an extravagant title and fear it has been bestowed upon me as one might bestow an enormous troll with the moniker “Tiny,” but it does seem to impress her.

  The Roach steps out, leaving us alone. My gaze follows him for a moment, thinking of the Bomb and her secret. Then I turn to Lady Asha.

  “You said you knew my mother,” I remind her, hoping to draw her out with that, until I can figure out how to move on to what I really must know.

  Her expression is of slight surprise, as though she is so distracted by her surroundings that she forgot her reason for being here. “You resemble her very strongly.”

  “Her secrets,” I prompt. “You said you knew secrets about her.”

  Finally, she smiles. “Eva found it tedious to have to do without everything from her old life. Oh, it was fun for her at first to be in Faerieland—it always is—but eventually they get homesick. We used to sneak across the sea to be among mortals and take back little things she missed. Bars of waxy chocolate. Perfume. Pantyhose. That was before Justin, of course.”

  Justin and Eva. Eva and Justin. My mother and my father. My stomach lurches at the thought of their being two people Asha knew better than I ever did.

  “Of course,” I echo anyway.

  She leans forward, across the desk. “You look like her. You look like them both.”

  And you look like him, I think but do not say.

  “You’ve heard the story, I’ll wager,” Asha says. “How one or both of them killed a woman and burned the body to hide your mother’s disappearance from Madoc. I could tell you about that. I could tell you how it happened.”

  “I brought you here so you could do just that,” I tell her. “So you could tell me everything you know.”

  “Then have me thrown back in the Tower? No. My information is worth a price.”

  Before I can answer, the door opens, and the Roach comes in carrying a tray piled with cheese and brown bread and a steaming cup of spiced wine. He wears a cape over his shoulders, and after setting down the food, he sweeps it onto her like a blanket.

  “Any other requests?” he asks.

  “She was just getting to that,” I tell him.

  “Freedom,” she says. “I wish to be away from the Tower of Forgetting, and I wish safe passage away from Insmoor, Insweal, and Insmire. Moreover, I want your promise that the High King of Elfhame will never become aware of my release.”

  “Eldred is dead,” I tell her. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “I know who the High King is,” she corrects sharply. “And I don’t want to be discovered by him once I am free.”

  The Roach’s eyebrows rise.

  In the silence, she takes a big swallow of wine. She bites off a big hunk of cheese.

  It occurs to me that Cardan very likely knows where his mother was sent. If he has done nothing to get her out, nothing to so much as see her since becoming High King, that’s intentional. I think of the boy in the crystal orb and the worshipful way he stared after her, and I wondered what changed. I barely remember my mother, but I would do a lot to see her again, even just for a moment.

  “Tell me something of value,” I say. “And I will consider it.”

  “So I am to have nothing today?” she wants to know.

  “Have we not fed you and clothed you in our own garments? Moreover, you may take a turn around the gardens before you return to the Tower. Drink in the scents of the flowers and feel the grass beneath your feet,” I tell her. “Let me make myself clear: I do not beg for comforting reminiscences or love stories. If you have something better to give me, then perhaps I will find something for you. But
do not think I need you.”

  She pouts. “Very well. There was a hag who came across Madoc’s land when your mother was pregnant with Vivienne. The hag was given to prophecy and divined futures in eggshells. And do you know what the hag said? That Eva’s child was destined to be a greater weapon than Justin could ever forge.”

  “Vivi?” I demand.

  “Her child,” says Asha. “Although she must have thought of the one in her belly right then. Perhaps that’s why she left. To protect the child from fate. But no one can escape fate.”

  I am silent, my mouth a grim line. Cardan’s mother takes another drink of wine.

  I will not let any of what I feel show on my face. “Still not enough,” I say, taking a breath that I hope isn’t too quavering and focusing on passing the information I hope will find its way to Balekin. “If you think of something better, you can send me a message. Our spies monitor notes going in and out of the Tower of Forgetting—usually at the point they’re passed to the palace. Whatever you send, no matter to whom it is addressed, if it leaves the hand of the guard, we will see it. It will be easy to let me know if your memory comes up with anything of more value.”

  With that, I get up and step out of the room. The Roach follows me into the hall and puts a hand on my arm.

  For a long moment, I stand there wordlessly trying to marshal my thoughts.

  He shakes his head. “I asked her some questions on the way here. It sounds as though she was entranced by palace life, besotted with the High King’s regard, glorying in the dancing and the singing and the wine. Cardan was left to be suckled by a little black cat whose kittens came stillborn.”

  “He survived on cat milk?” I exclaim. The Roach gives me a look, as though I’ve missed the point of his story entirely.

  “After she was sent to the Tower, Cardan was sent to Balekin,” he says.

  I think again of the globe I held in Eldred’s study, of Cardan dressed in rags, looking to the woman in my chamber for approval, which came only when he was awful. An abandoned prince, weaned on cat milk and cruelty, left to roam the palace like a little ghost. I think of myself, huddling in a tower of Hollow Hall, watching Balekin enchant a mortal into beating his younger brother for poor swordsmanship.