The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air Book 1)

The two other members of Dain’s spy troupe also have code names. There’s the lean, handsome faerie that looks at least part human, who winks and tells me to call him the Ghost. He has sandy-colored hair, which is normal for a mortal but is unusual for a faerie, and ears that come to very subtle points.

The other is a tiny, delicate girl, her skin the dappled brown of a doe, her hair a cloud of white around her head, and a miniature pair of blue-gray butterfly wings on her back. She’s got at least some pixie in her, if not some imp.

I recognize her now from the High King’s full moon revel. She’s the one who stole a belt from an ogre, weapons and pouches attached.

“I’m the Bomb,” she says. “I like blowing things up.”

I nod. It’s the kind of blunt thing I don’t expect faeries to say, but I am used to being around Court faeries with their baroque etiquette. I am not used to the solitary fey. I am at a loss as to how to speak with them. “So is it just the three of you?”

“Four now,” says the Roach. “We make sure Prince Dain stays alive and well informed about the doings of the Court. We steal, sneak, and deceive to secure his coronation. And when he is king, we will steal, sneak, and deceive to make sure he stays on the throne.”

I nod. After seeing what Balekin is like, I want Dain on the throne more than ever. Madoc will be by his side, and if I can make myself useful enough, maybe they’ll get the rest of the Gentry off my back.

“You can do two things the rest of us can’t,” the Roach says. “One, you can blend in with the human servants. Two, you can move among the Gentry. We’re going to teach you some other tricks. So until you get another mission directly from the prince, your job is what I say it is.”

I nod. I expected something like that. “I can’t always get away. I skipped classes today, but I can’t do that all the time or someone will notice and ask where I’ve been. And Madoc expects me to have dinner with him and Oriana and the rest of the family around midnight.”

The Roach looks over at the Ghost and shrugs. “This is always the problem with infiltrating the Court. Lots of etiquette taking up time. When can you get away?”

“I could sneak out after I’m supposed to be in bed,” I tell them.

“Good enough,” the Roach says. “One of us will meet you near the house and either train you or give you assignments. You need not always come here, to the nest.” The Ghost nods, as though my problems are reasonable, part of the job, but I feel childish. They are a child’s problems.

“So let’s initiate her,” the Bomb says, walking up to me.

I catch my breath. Whatever happens next, I can endure it. I have endured more than they can guess.

But the Bomb only starts laughing, and the Roach gives her a playful shove.

The Ghost gives me a sympathetic look and shakes his head. His eyes, I notice, are a shifting hazel. “If Prince Dain says you are part of the Court of Shadows, then you are. Try not to be too much of a disappointment and we’ll have your back.”

I let out my breath. I am not sure that I wouldn’t have preferred some ordeal, some way to prove myself.

The Bomb makes a face. “You’ll know you’re really one of us when you get your name. Don’t expect it anytime soon.”

The Ghost goes over to a cabinet and takes out a half-empty bottle of a pale greenish liquid and a stack of polished acorn cups. He pours out four shots. “Have a drink. And don’t worry,” he tells me. “It won’t befuddle you any more than any other drink.”

I shake my head, thinking of the way I felt after having the golden apple mashed into my face. Never do I want to feel out of control like that again. “I’ll pass.”

The Roach knocks back his drink and makes a face, as though the liquor is scorching his throat. “Suit yourself,” he manages to choke out before he starts to cough.

The Ghost barely winces at the contents of his acorn. The Bomb is taking tiny sips of hers. From her expression, I am extra glad I passed on it.

“Balekin’s going to be a problem,” the Roach says, explaining what I found.

The Bomb puts down her acorn. “I mislike everything about this. If he was going to go to Eldred, he would have done it already.”

I had not considered that he might poison his father.

The Ghost stretches his lanky body as he gets up. “It’s getting late. I should take the girl home.”

“Jude,” I remind him.

He grins. “I know a shortcut.”

We go back into the tunnels, and following him is a challenge because, as his name suggests, he moves almost completely silently. Several times, I think he’s left me alone in the tunnels, but just when I am about to stop walking, I hear the faintest exhalation of breath or shuffle of dirt and persuade myself to go on.

After what feels like an agonizingly long time, a doorway opens. The Ghost is standing in it, and beyond him is the High King’s wine cellar. He makes a small bow.

“This is your shortcut?” I ask.

He winks. “If a few bottles happen to fall into my satchel as we pass through, that’s hardly my fault, is it?”

I force out a laugh, the sound creaky and false in my ears. I’m not used to one of the Folk including me in their jokes, at least not outside my family. I like to believe that I am doing okay here in Faerie. I like to believe that even though I was drugged and nearly murdered at school yesterday, I am able to put that behind me today. I’m fine.

But if I can’t laugh, maybe I’m not so fine after all.

I change into the blue shift I packed in the woods outside Madoc’s grounds, despite being so tired that my joints hurt. I wonder if the Folk are ever tired like that, if they ever ache after a long evening. The toad seems exhausted, too, although maybe she’s just full. As far as I can tell, most of what she did today was snap her tongue at passing butterflies and a mouse or two.

It’s full deep dark when I get back to the estate. The trees are lit with tiny sprites, and I see a laughing Oak racing through them, pursued by Vivi and Taryn and—oh hell—Locke. It’s disorienting to see him here, impossibly out of context. Has he come because of me?

With a shriek, Oak dashes over, clamoring up the saddlebags and onto my lap.

“Chase me!” he yells, out of breath, full of the wriggling ecstasy of childhood.

Even faeries are young once.

Impulsively, I hug him to my chest. He’s warm and smells of grass and deep woods. He lets me do it for a moment, small arms twining around my neck, small horned head butting against my chest. Then, laughing, he slides down and away, throwing a puckish glance back to see if I’ll follow.

Growing up here, in Faerie, will he learn to scorn mortals? When I am old and he is still young, will he scorn me, too? Will he become cruel like Cardan? Will he become brutal like Madoc?

I have no way of knowing.

I step off the toad, foot in the stirrup as I swing my body down. I pat just above her nose, and her golden eyes drift shut. In fact, she seems a little like she might be asleep until I yank on the reins, leading her back toward the stables.

“Hello,” Locke says, jogging up to me. “Now, where might you have gone off to?”

“None of your business,” I tell him, but I soften the words with a smile. I can’t help it.

“Ah! A lady of mystery. My very favorite kind.” He’s wearing a green doublet, with slits to show his silk shirt underneath. His fox eyes are alight. He looks like a faerie lover stepped out of a ballad, the kind where no good comes to the girl who runs away with him. “I hope you’ll consider returning to classes tomorrow,” he says.

Vivi continues to chase Oak, but Taryn has stopped near a large elm tree. She watches me with the same expression she had on the tournament field, as though if she concentrates hard enough, she can will me into not offending Locke.

“You mean so your friends know they haven’t chased me off?” I say. “Does it matter?”

He looks at me oddly. “You’re playing the great game of kings and princes, of queens and crowns, aren’t you? Of course it matters. Everything matters.”

I am not sure how to interpret his words. I didn’t think I was playing that kind of game at all. I thought I was playing the game of pissing off people who hated me already and eating the consequences.

“Come back. You and Taryn both should return. I told her so.” I turn my head, looking for my twin in the yard, but she is no longer by the elm. Vivi and Oak are disappearing over a hill. Perhaps she has gone with them.

We get to the stables, and I return the toad to her pen. I fill her water station from a barrel in the center of the room, and a fine mist appears, raining down on her soft skin. The horses nicker and stamp as we leave. Locke watches this all in silence.

“May I ask you something else?” Locke says, glancing in the direction of the manor.

I nod.

“Why haven’t you told your father what’s been happening?” Madoc’s stables are very impressive. Maybe standing in them, Locke was reminded of just how much power and influence the general has. But that doesn’t mean I am the inheritor of that power. Maybe Locke should also remember that I am merely one of the by-blow children of Madoc’s human wife. Without Madoc and his honor, no one would care about me.

“You mean so he can go stomping into our classes with a broadsword, killing everyone in sight?” I ask, instead of correcting Locke about my station in life.

Locke’s eyes widen. I guess that wasn’t what he meant. “I thought that your father would pull you out—and that if you didn’t tell him, it was because you wanted to stay.”

I give a short laugh. “That’s not what he’d do at all. Madoc is not a fan of surrender.”

In the cool dark of the stables, with the snorting of faerie horses all around us, he takes my hands. “Nothing there would be the same without you.”

Since I never intended to quit, it’s nice to have someone making all this effort to get me to do something I would have done anyway. And the way he’s looking at me, the intensity of it, is so nice that I am embarrassed. No one has ever looked at me this way.

I can feel the heat of my cheeks and wonder if the shadows help cover it up at all. Right then, I feel as though he sees everything—every hope of my heart, every stray thought I’ve had before falling into an exhausted sleep each dawn.

He brings one of my hands up to his mouth and presses his lips against my palm. My whole body tenses. I am suddenly too warm, too everything. His breath is a soft susurration against my skin.

With a gentle tug, he pulls me closer. His arm is around me. He leans in for a kiss and my thoughts slide away.

This can’t be happening.

“Jude?” I hear Taryn call uncertainly from nearby, and I stagger away from Locke. “Jude? Are you still in the stable?”

“Here,” I say, my face hot. We emerge into the night to find Oriana on the steps of the house, hauling Oak inside. Vivi is waving to him as he tries to squirm free from his mother’s grip. Taryn has her hands on her hips.

“Oriana has called everyone in to dinner,” Taryn informs us both grandly. “She wants Locke to stay and eat with us.”

He makes a bow. “You may inform your lady mother that though I am honored to be asked to her table, I would not so impose myself on her. I only wanted to speak with you both. I will, however, call again. You may be sure of that.”

“You talked to Jude about school?” There is trepidation in Taryn’s voice. I wonder what they spoke about before I returned. I wonder if he persuaded her to attend the lectures again, and if so, how he did it.

“Until tomorrow,” he says to us with a wink.

I watch him walk off, still overwhelmed. I don’t dare look at Taryn, for fear she will see all of it on my face, the whole day’s events, the almost kiss. I am not ready to talk, so I am the one who avoids her for once. Skipping up the steps with as much nonchalance as I can muster, I head to my room to change for dinner.

I forgot that I asked Madoc to teach me swordplay and strategy, but after dinner he gives me a stack of military history books from his personal library.

“When you’re done reading these, we will talk,” he informs me. “I will set you a series of challenges, and you will tell me how you might overcome them with the resources I give you.”

I think he expects me to object and insist on more swordplay, but I am too tired to even think of it.

Flopping down on my bed an hour later, I decide that I am not going to even take off the blue silk dress I am wearing. My hair is still disarranged, although I tried to improve it with a few pretty pins. I should take those out, at least, I tell myself, but I can’t seem to make any movement toward doing so.

My door opens, and Taryn comes in, hopping up onto my bed.

“Okay,” she says, poking me in the side. “What did Locke want? He said he had to talk to you.”

“He’s nice,” I say, rolling over and folding my arms behind my head, staring up at the folds of fabric gathered above me. “Not totally Cardan’s puppet like the rest of them.”

Taryn has an odd expression on her face, like she wants to contradict me but is holding herself back. “Whatever. Spill.”

“About Locke?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes. “About what happened with him and his friends.”

“They’re never going to respect me if I don’t fight back,” I tell her.

She sighs. “They’re never going to respect you, period.”

I think of crawling across the grass, my knees dirty, the savor of the fruit in my mouth. Even now I can taste the echo of it, the emptiness it would fill, the giddy, delirious joy it promises.

Taryn goes on. “You came home practically naked yesterday, smeared with faerie fruit. Isn’t that bad enough? Don’t you care?” Taryn has pulled her whole body back against one of the posts of my bed.

“I am tired of caring,” I say. “Why should I?”

“Because they could kill you!”

“They better,” I say to her. “Because anything less than that isn’t going to work.”

“Do you have a plan for stopping them?” she asks. “You said you were going to defy Cardan by being your awesome self and if he tried to take you down, you’d take him down with you. How are you going to manage that?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I admit.

She throws up her hands in frustration.

“No, look,” I say. “Every day that I don’t beg Cardan for forgiveness over a feud he started is a day I win. He can humiliate me, but every time he does and I don’t back down, he makes himself less powerful. After all, he’s throwing everything he’s got at someone as weak as I am and it’s not working. He’s going to take himself down.”

She sighs and comes over to me, laying her head against my chest, putting her arms around me. Against my shoulder she whispers, “He’s flint, you’re tinder.”

I hug her closer and make no promises.

We stay like that for a long moment.

“Did Locke threaten you?” she asks softly. “It was so odd that he came here looking for you, and then you had such a weird expression when I walked into the stables.”

“No, nothing bad,” I tell her. “I don’t know exactly what he came for, but he kissed my hand. It was nice, like out of a storybook.”

“Nice things don’t happen in storybooks,” Taryn says. “Or when they do happen, something bad happens next. Because otherwise the story would be boring, and no one would read it.”

It’s my turn to sigh. “I know it’s stupid, thinking well of one of Cardan’s friends, but he really did help me. He stood up to Cardan. But I’d rather talk about you. There’s someone, isn’t there? When you said you were going to fall in love, you were talking about someone in particular.”

Not that I’d be the first to green gown her.

“There’s a boy,” she says slowly. “He’s going to declare himself at Prince Dain’s coronation. He’s going to ask for my hand from Madoc, and then everything is going to change for me.”

I think of her weeping, standing beside Cardan. I think of how angry she’s been that I am feuding with him. I think of that, and a cold and terrible dread creeps over me. “Who?” I demand.

Please not Cardan. Anyone but Cardan.

“I promised not to tell anyone,” she says. “Even you.”

“Our promises don’t matter,” I say, thinking of Prince Dain’s geas still freezing my tongue, of how little any of them trust us. “No one expects us to have any honor. Everyone knows we lie.”

She gives me a stern, disapproving look. “It’s a faerie prohibition. If I break it, he’ll know. I need to show him I can live like one of the Folk.”

“Okay,” I say slowly.

“Be happy for me,” she says, and I feel cut to the quick. She has found her place in Faerie, and I guess I have found mine. But I can’t help worrying.

“Just tell me something about him. Tell me that he is kind. Tell me that you love him and that he’s promised to be good to you. Tell me.”

“He’s a faerie,” she says. “They don’t love the way we do. And I think you would like him—there, that’s something.”

That doesn’t sound like Cardan, whom I despise. But I am not sure I find her answer reassuring, either.

What does it mean, I would like him? Does that mean we’ve never met? What does it mean that he doesn’t love the way we do?

“I am happy for you. Honest,” I say, although I am more worried than anything. “This is exciting. When Oriana’s dressmaker comes, you’re going to have to make sure you get an extra-pretty gown.”

Taryn relaxes. “I just want everything to be better. For both of us.”

I reach over to my bedside table to retrieve the book I stole from Hollow Hall. “Remember this?” I ask, lifting up the collected Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland book. When I do, a folded piece of paper slips out and flutters to the floor.

“We used to read that when we were little,” she says, grabbing for the book. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it,” I say, not able to explain whose bookshelf it had come from or why I had been in Hollow Hall in the first place. To test the geas, I try to say the words: Spying for Prince Dain. My mouth will not move. My tongue stays still. A wave of panic washes over me, but I push it back. This is a small price for what he’s given me.

Taryn doesn’t press for more information. She’s too busy flipping through the pages and reading bits of it aloud. While I can’t quite remember the cadence of my mother’s voice, I think I hear an echo of it in Taryn’s.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place,” she reads. “If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

I reach down surreptitiously and shove the fallen paper under my pillow. I plan to unfold it once she returns to her room, but instead I fall asleep, long before the story is over.

I wake in the early morning, alone, needing to pee. I pad into my bath area, lift my skirts, and do my business in the copper basin left there for this purpose, shame heating my face even though I am alone. It is one of the most humbling aspects of being human. I know that faeries are not gods—maybe I know that better than any mortal alive—but neither have I ever seen one hunched over a bedpan.

Back in bed, I push aside the curtain and let the sunlight spill in, brighter than any lamp. I take the folded-up paper from behind my pillow.

Smoothing it out, I see Cardan’s furious, arrogant handwriting scrawled over the page, taking up all available space. In some places he pressed the nib so angrily that the paper tore.

Jude, it reads, each hateful rendering of my name like a punch to the gut.