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

It would be a small thing to smuggle one of my own dresses out of my rooms, but I don’t want Balekin to guess I’ve been inside the palace. Instead, I head to the Mandrake Market on the tip of Insmoor to find something suitable for the masquerade.

I’ve been to the Mandrake Market twice before, both times long past and accompanying Madoc. It is exactly the sort of place that Oriana warned Taryn and me away from—entirely too full of Folk eager to make bargains. It’s open only in the misty mornings, when most of Elfhame is asleep, but if I can’t get a gown and a mask there, I will have to steal one out of a courtier’s wardrobe.

I walk through the stalls, a little queasy from the smell of oysters smoking on a bed of kelp, the scent reminding me forcefully of the Undersea. I pass trays of spun-sugar animals, little acorn cups filled with wine, enormous sculptures of horn, and a stall where a bent-backed woman takes a brush and draws charms on the soles of shoes. It takes some wandering, but I finally find a collection of sculpted leather masks. They are pinned to a wall and cunningly shaped like the faces of strange animals or laughing goblins or boorish mortals, painted gold and green and every other color imaginable.

I find one that is of a human face, unsmiling. “This one,” I say to the shopkeeper, a tall woman with a hollow back. She gives me a dazzling smile.

“Seneschal,” she says, recognition lighting her eyes. “Let it be my gift to you.”

“That’s very kind,” I say, a little desperately. All gifts come with a price, and I am already struggling to pay my debts. “But I’d prefer—”

She winks. “And when the High King compliments your mask, you will let me make him one.” I nod, relieved that what she wants is straightforward. The woman takes the mask from me, laying it down on the table and pulling out a pot of paint from beneath a desk. “Let me make a little alteration.”

“What do you mean?”

She takes out a brush. “So she looks more like you.” And with a few swipes of the brush, the mask does bear my likeness. I stare at it and see Taryn.

“I will remember your kindness,” I say as she packs it up.

Then I depart and look for the fluttering cloth that marks a dress shop. I find a lace-maker instead and get a little turned around in a maze of potion-makers and tellers of fortunes. As I attempt to find my way back, I pass a stall occupied by a small fire. A hag sits on a little stool before it.

She stirs the pot, and from it comes the scent of stewing vegetables. When she glances in my direction, I recognize her as Mother Marrow.

“Come and sit by my fire?” she says.

I hesitate. It doesn’t do to be rude in Faerie, where the highest laws are those of courtesy, but I am in a hurry. “I am afraid that I—”

“Have some soup,” she says, picking up a bowl and shoving it toward me. “It is only that which is most wholesome.”

“Then why offer it to me?” I ask.

She gives a delighted laugh. “If you had not cost my daughter her dreams, I might well like you. Sit. Eat. Tell me, what have you come to the Mandrake Market for?”

“A dress,” I say, moving to perch by the fire. I take the bowl, which is filled with an unappetizing thin brown liquid. “Perhaps you could consider that your daughter might not have liked a princess of the sea for a rival. I spared her that, at least.”

She gives me an evaluating look. “She was spared you, moreover.”

“Some might say that was a prize above price,” I tell her.

Mother Marrow gestures to the soup, and I, who can afford no more enemies, bring it to my lips. It tastes of a memory I cannot quite place, warm afternoons and splashing in pools and kicking plastic toys across the brown grass of summer lawns. Tears spring to my eyes.

I want to spill it out in the dirt.

I want to drink it down to the dregs.

“That’ll fix you right up,” she says as I blink back everything I was feeling and glare at her. “Now, about that dress. What would you give me for one?”

I take off the pair of pearl earrings from the Undersea. “How about these? For the dress and the soup.” They are worth more than the price of ten dresses, but I do not want to engage in any more bargaining, especially with Mother Marrow.

She takes them, sliding her teeth over the nacre, then tucking them away in a pocket. “Well enough.” Out of another pocket, she takes a walnut and holds it out to me.

I raise my eyebrows.

“Don’t you trust me, girl?” she asks.

“Not as far as I can throw you,” I return, and she lets out another cackle.

Still, something is in the walnut, and it’s probably some kind of gown, because otherwise she wouldn’t be honoring the terms of the agreement. And I will not play the naive mortal for her, demanding to know how everything works. With that thought, I stand.

“I don’t much like you,” she says, which is not an enormous surprise, although it stings. “But I like the sea Folk far less.”

Thusly dismissed, I take the walnut and my mask and make the trek back to Insmire and Hollow Hall. I look out at the waves all around us, the expanse of ocean in every direction with its constant, restless, white-tipped waves. When I breathe, salt spray catches me in the back of my throat, and when I walk, I must avoid tide pools with little crabs in them.

It seems hopeless to fight something so vast. It seems ridiculous to believe we can win.

Balekin is sitting in a chair near the stairs when I come into Hollow Hall. “And where did you spend the night?” he asks, all insinuation.

I go over to him and lift my new mask. “Costuming.”

He nods, bored again. “You may ready yourself,” he says, waving vaguely to the stairs.

I go up. I am not sure which room he intends for me to use, but I go again to Cardan’s. There, I bathe. Then I sit on the rug before the unlit grate and crack open the walnut. Out spills pale apricot muslin, frothing quantities of it. I shake the dress. It has an empire waist and wide, gathered sleeves that start just above the elbow so that my shoulders are bare. It hangs down to the floor in more gathered pleats.

When I put it on, I realize the fabric is the perfect complement to my complexion, although nothing can make me look less starved. No matter how the dress flatters me, I can’t get away from the feeling that my skin doesn’t fit. Still, it will do well for the night.

As I adjust it, however, I realize the dress has several cunningly hidden pockets. I transfer the poison to one. I transfer the smallest of my knives to another.

Then I attempt to make myself presentable. I find a comb among Cardan’s things and attempt to fix my hair. I have nothing to put it up with, so I wear it loose around my shoulders. I wash out my mouth. Then, tying the mask on, I head back to where Balekin waits.

Up close, I am likely to be recognized by those who know me well, but otherwise I think I will be able to pass unnoticed through the larger crowd.

When he sees me, he has no visible reaction but impatience. He stands. “You know what to do?”

Sometimes lying is a real pleasure.

I take the stoppered vial from my pocket. “I was a spy for Prince Dain. I have been a part of the Court of Shadows. You can trust me to kill your brother.”

That brings a smile to his face. “Cardan was an ungrateful child to imprison me. He ought to have put me beside him. He ought to have made me seneschal. Really, he ought to have given me the crown.”

I say nothing, thinking of the boy I saw in the crystal. The boy who still hoped he might be loved. Cardan’s admission of who he has become since haunts me: If he thought I was bad, I would be worse.

How well I know that feeling.

“I will mourn my youngest brother,” Balekin says, seeming to cheer himself a bit at the thought. “I may not mourn the others, but I will have songs composed in his honor. He alone will be remembered.”

I think of Dulcamara’s exhortation to kill Prince Balekin, that he was the one who ordered the attack on the Court of Termites. Maybe he was responsible for the Ghost setting explosives in the Court of Shadows. I recall him under the sea, exultant in his power. I think of all that he’s done and all he intends to do and am glad I am masked.

“Come,” he says, and I follow him out the door.

Only Locke would make the ridiculous choice of arranging a masquerade for a grave affair of state such as hosting Lord Roiben after an attack on his lands. And yet, when I sweep into the brugh on Balekin’s arm, such a thing appears under way. Goblins and grigs, pixies and elves all cavort in endless intertwined circle dances. Honey wine flows freely from horns, and tables are stacked with ripe cherries, gooseberries, pomegranates, and plums.

I walk from Balekin toward the empty dais, scanning the crowd for Cardan, but he is nowhere to be seen. I catch sight of salt-white hair instead. I am partway to the convocation from the Court of Termites when I pass Locke.

I swing toward him. “You tried to kill me.”

He startles. Maybe he doesn’t remember the way he limped on his wedding day, but surely he must have known I would see the earrings in Taryn’s ears. Perhaps since the consequences took so long in coming, he supposed they wouldn’t come at all.

“It wasn’t supposed to be so serious,” he says, reaching for my hand, a ridiculous grin coming to his face. “I only wanted you to be afraid the way you’d frightened me.”

I jerk my fingers from his grip. “I have little time for you now, but I will make time for you anon.”

Taryn, dressed in a gorgeous panniered ball gown all robin’s-egg blue, embroidered with delicate roses, and wearing a lacy mask over her eyes, sweeps up to us. “Make time for Locke? Whatever for?”

He raises his brows, then throws an arm over his wife’s shoulders. “Your twin is upset with me. She had a gift all planned out for you, but I was the one to present the gift in her stead.”

That’s accurate enough that it’s hard to contradict him, especially given the suspicious way that Taryn is looking at me.

“What gift?” she wants to know. I ought to just tell her about the riders, about how I hid the fight in the forest from her because I didn’t want her to be upset on her wedding day, about how I lost the earrings, about how I cut one of the riders down and threw a dagger at her husband. About how, whether or not he wanted me dead, he was certainly willing to let me die.

But if I say all that, will she believe me?

As I am trying to decide how to respond, Lord Roiben moves in front of us, looking down at me with his shining silver eyes.

Locke bows. My sister sinks into a beautiful curtsy, and I copy her as best I can.

“An honor,” she says. “I’ve heard many of your ballads.”

“Hardly mine,” he demurs. “And largely exaggerated. Though blood does bounce on ice. That line is very true.”

My sister looks momentarily discomfited. “Did you bring your consort?”

“Kaye, yes, she’s in plenty of those ballads as well, isn’t she? No, I am afraid she didn’t come this time. Our last journey to the High Court was not quite what I promised her it would be.”

Dulcamara said she was badly hurt, but he is taking care to avoid saying so—interesting care. Not a single lie, but a web of misdirection.

“The coronation,” Taryn says.

“Yes,” he goes on. “Not quite the minibreak either of us envisioned.”

Taryn smiles a little at that, and Lord Roiben turns toward me. “You will excuse Jude?” he asks Taryn. “We have something pressing to discuss.”

“Of course,” she says, and Roiben escorts me away, toward one of the darker corners of the hall.

“Is she well?” I ask. “Kaye?”

“She will live,” he says tersely. “Where is your High King?”

I scan the hall again, my gaze going to the dais and the empty throne. “I don’t know, but he’ll be here. Only last night, he expressed his regret over your losses and his desire to speak with you.”

“We both know who was behind this attack,” Roiben says. “Prince Balekin blames me for throwing my weight and influence behind you and your princeling when you got him a crown.”

I nod, glad of his calm.

“You made me a promise,” he says. “Now it is time to determine if a mortal is truly as good as her word.”

“I will fix things,” I vow. “I will find a way to fix things.”

Lord Roiben’s face is calm, but his silver eyes are not, and I am forced to remember that he murdered his way to his own throne. “I will speak to your High King, but if he cannot give me satisfaction, then I must call in my debt.”

And with that, he departs in a swirl of his long cloak.

Courtiers cover the floor, executing intricate steps—a circle dance that turns in on itself, splits into three, and re-forms. I see Locke and Taryn out there, together, dancing. Taryn knows all the steps.

I will have to do something about Locke eventually, but not tonight.

Madoc sweeps into the room, Oriana on his arm. He is dressed in black, and she in white. They look like chess pieces on opposite sides of the board. Behind them come Mikkel and Randalin. A quick scan of the room and I spot Baphen speaking with a horned woman it takes me a moment to recognize. When I do, it comes with a jolt.

Lady Asha. Cardan’s mother.

I knew she was a courtier before, saw it in the crystal globe on Eldred’s desk, but now it is as though I am seeing her for the first time. She wears a high-skirted gown, so that her ankles show along with little shoes cunningly made to resemble leaves. Her whole dress is in shades of autumn, leaves and blossoms of more cloth stitched over the length of it. The tips of her horns have been painted with copper, and she wears a copper circlet, which is not a crown but reminiscent of one.

Cardan said nothing to me about her, and yet somehow they must have effected a reconciliation. He must have pardoned her. As another courtier leads her out to the dance, I am uncomfortably aware that she is likely to acquire both power and influence quickly—and that she will do nothing good with either.

“Where is the High King?” Nihuar asks. I didn’t notice the Seelie representative until she was beside me, and I startle.

“How ought I to know?” I demand. “I wasn’t even allowed inside the palace until today.”

It is just then that Cardan finally enters the room. Ahead of him are two members of his personal guard, who step away from him once they’ve escorted him safely to the brugh.

A moment later, Cardan falls. He sprawls across the floor in all his fantastic robes of state, then begins to laugh. He laughs and laughs as though this is the most amazing trick he’s ever performed.

He’s obviously drunk. Very, very drunk.

My heart falls. When I look over at Nihuar, she is expressionless. Even Locke, staring over from the dance floor, looks discomfited.

Meanwhile, Cardan gets up and snatches a lute from the hands of an amazed goblin musician. He leaps unsteadily onto a long banquet table.

Strumming the strings, he begins a song so vulgar that the entire Court stops their dancing to listen and titter. Then, as one, they join in the madness. The courtiers of Faerie are not shy. They begin to dance again, now to the High King’s song.

I didn’t even know he could play.

When the song is over, he falls off the table, landing awkwardly on his side. His crown tilts forward so it’s hanging over one of his eyes. His guards rush over to help him up off the floor, but he waves them away. “How is that for an introduction?” he demands of Lord Roiben, although they have in fact met before. “I am no dull monarch.”

I look over at Balekin, who is wearing a satisfied smirk. Lord Roiben’s face is like stone, unreadable. My gaze goes to Madoc, who watches Cardan with disgust as he fixes his crown.

Grimly, Roiben goes through the motions of what he’s come here to do. “Your Majesty, I have come to ask you to allow me vengeance for my people. We were attacked and now we wish to respond.” I have seen many people unable to humble themselves, but Lord Roiben does it with great grace.

And yet, with a look at Cardan, I know it won’t matter.

“They say you’re a specialist in bloodshed. I suppose you want to show off your skills.” Cardan wags a finger in Roiben’s direction.

The Unseelie king grimaces at that. A part of him must want to show off immediately, but he makes no comment.

“Yet that you must forgo,” Cardan says. “I’m afraid you’ve come a long way for nothing. At least there’s wine.”

Lord Roiben turns his silvery gaze on me, and there’s a threat in it.

This is not going at all the way I hoped.

Cardan waves his hand toward a table of refreshments. The skins of the fruit curl back from the flesh, and a few globes burst, spilling out seeds and startling nearby courtiers. “I’ve been practicing a skill of my own,” he says with a laugh.

I go toward Cardan to try to intercede when Madoc catches my hand. His lip curls. “Is this going according to your plan?” he demands under his breath. “Get him out of here.”

“I’ll try,” I say.

“I have stood by long enough,” Madoc says, his cat eyes staring into mine. “Get your puppet to abdicate the throne in favor of your brother or face the consequences. I won’t ask you again. It’s now or never.”

I pitch my voice low to match his. “After barring me from the palace?”

“You were ill,” he returns.

“Working with you will always be working for you,” I say. “So, never.”

“You would really choose that over your own family?” he sneers, his gaze going to Cardan before cutting back to me.

I wince, but no matter how right he is, he’s also wrong. “Whether you believe me or not, this is for my family,” I tell him, and lay my hand on Cardan’s shoulder, hoping I can guide him out of the room without anything else going wrong.

“Oh ho,” he says. “My darling seneschal. Let us take a turn around the room.” He grabs me and pulls me toward the dance.

He can barely stand. Three times he stumbles, and three times I have to hold most of his weight to keep him upright.

“Cardan,” I hiss. “This is no meet behavior for the High King.”

He giggles at that. I think of how serious he was last night in his rooms and how far he seems from that person.

“Cardan,” I try again. “You must not do this. I order you to pull yourself together. I command you to drink no more liquor and to attempt sobriety.”

“Yes, my sweet villain, my darling god. I will be as sober as a stone carving, just as soon as I can.” And with that, he kisses me on the mouth.

I feel a cacophony of things at once. I am furious with him, furious and resigned that he is a failure as High King, corrupt and fanciful and as weak as Orlagh could have hoped. Then there is the public nature of the kiss; parading this before the Court is shocking, too. He’s never been willing to seem to want me in public. Perhaps he can take it back, but in this moment, it is known.

But there is also a weakness in me, because I dreamed of him kissing me for all my time in the Undersea, and now with his mouth on mine, I want to sink my nails into his back.

His tongue brushes my lower lip, the taste heady and familiar.

Wraithberry.

He’s not drunk; he’s been poisoned.

I pull back and look into his eyes. Those familiar eyes, black, rimmed in gold. His pupils are blown wide.

“Sweet Jude. You are my dearest punishment.” He dances away from me and immediately falls to the ground again, laughing, arms flung wide as though he would embrace the whole room.

I watch in astonished horror.

Someone poisoned the High King, and he is going to laugh and dance himself to death in front of a Court that will veer between delight and disgust. They will think him ridiculous as his heart stops.

I try to concentrate. Antidotes. There must be one. Water, certainly, to flush the system. Clay. The Bomb would know more. I look around for her, but all I see is the dizzying array of courtiers.

I turn to one of the guards instead. “Get me a pail, a lot of blankets, two pitchers of water, and put them in my rooms. Yes?”

“As you wish,” he says, turning to give orders to the other knights. I turn back to Cardan, who has, predictably, headed in the worst direction possible. He’s walking straight toward the councilors Baphen and Randalin, where they stand with Lord Roiben and his knight, Dulcamara, doubtlessly trying to smooth the situation over.

I can see the faces of the courtiers, the glitter of their eyes as they regard him with a kind of greedy scorn.

They watch as he lifts a carafe of water, tipping it back to cascade over his laughing mouth till he chokes on it.

“Excuse us,” I say, wrapping my arm through his.

Dulcamara greets this with disdain. “We have come all this way to have an audience with the High King. Surely he means to stay longer than this.”

He’s been poisoned. The words are on my tongue when I hear Balekin say to them instead, “I fear the High King is not himself. I believe he’s been poisoned.”

And then, too late, I understand the scheme.

“You,” he says to me. “Turn out your pockets. You are the only one here not bound by a vow.”

Had I been truly glamoured, I would have had to pull out the stoppered vial. And once the Court saw it and found wraithberry inside, any protest would come to nothing. Mortals are liars, after all.

“He’s drunk,” I say, and am gratified by Balekin’s shocked expression. “However, you are unbound as well, Ambassador. Or, shall I say, not bound to the land.”

“Have I drunk too much? Merely a cup of poison for my breakfast and another for my dinner,” Cardan says.

I give him a look but say no more as I guide the stumbling High King across the floor.

“Where are you taking him?” asks one of the guards. “Your Majesty, do you wish to depart?”

“We all dance at Jude’s command,” he says, and laughs.

“Of course he doesn’t wish to go,” Balekin says. “Attend to your other duties, seneschal, and let me look after my brother. He has duties to perform tonight.”

“You will be sent for if you’re needed,” I tell him, trying to bluff through this. My heart speeds. I am not sure if anyone here would be on my side, if it came to that.

“Jude Duarte, you will leave the High King’s side,” Balekin says.

At that tone, Cardan’s focus narrows. I can see him straining to concentrate. “She will not,” he says.

Since no one can gainsay him, even in this state, I am able to finally lead him out. I bear up the heavy weight of the High King as we move through the passageways of the palace.