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

I get back on my bike and, with a farewell wave to Bryern, kick off toward downtown. Once upon a time, I imagined myself as a knight astride a steed, glorying in contests of skill and honor. Too bad my talents turned out to lie in another direction entirely.

I suppose I am a skilled enough murderer of Folk, but what I really excel at is getting under their skin. Hopefully that will serve me well in persuading a cannibal faerie to do what I want.

Before I go to confront her, I decide to ask around.

First, I see a hob named Magpie, who lives in a tree in Deering Oaks Park. He says he’s heard she’s a redcap, which isn’t great news, but at least since I grew up with one, I am well informed about their nature. Redcaps crave violence and blood and murder—in fact, they get a little twitchy when there’s none to be had for stretches of time. And if they’re traditionalists, they have a cap they dip in the blood of their vanquished enemies, supposedly to grant them some stolen vitality of the slain.

I ask for a name, but Magpie doesn’t know. He sends me to Ladhar, a clurichaun who slinks around the back of bars, sucking froth from the tops of beers when no one is looking and swindling mortals in games of chance.

“You didn’t know?” Ladhar says, lowering his voice. “Grima Mog.”

I almost accuse him of lying, despite knowing better. Then I have a brief, intense fantasy of tracking down Bryern and making him choke on every dollar he gave me. “What the hell is she doing here?”

Grima Mog is the fearsome general of the Court of Teeth in the North. The same Court that the Roach and the Bomb escaped from. When I was little, Madoc read to me at bedtime from the memoirs of her battle strategies. Just thinking about facing her, I break out in a cold sweat.

I can’t fight her. And I don’t think I have a good chance of tricking her, either.

“Given the boot, I hear,” Ladhar says. “Maybe she ate someone Lady Nore liked.”

I don’t have to do this job, I remind myself. I am no longer part of Dain’s Court of Shadows. I am no longer trying to rule from behind High King Cardan’s throne. I don’t need to take big risks.

But I am curious.

Combine that with an abundance of wounded pride and you find yourself on the front steps of Grima Mog’s warehouse around dawn. I know better than to go empty-handed. I’ve got raw meat from a butcher shop chilling in a Styrofoam cooler, a few sloppily made honey sandwiches wrapped in foil, and a bottle of decent sour beer.

Inside, I wander down a hall until I come to the door to what appears to be an apartment. I knock three times and hope that if nothing else, maybe the smell of the food will cover up the smell of my fear.

The door opens, and a woman in a housecoat peers out. She’s bent over, leaning on a polished cane of black wood. “What do you want, deary?”

Seeing through her glamour as I do, I note the green tint to her skin and her overlarge teeth. Like my foster father: Madoc. The guy who killed my parents. The guy who read me her battle strategies. Madoc, once the Grand General of the High Court. Now enemy of the throne and not real happy with me, either.

Hopefully he and High King Cardan will ruin each other’s lives.

“I brought you some gifts,” I say, holding up the cooler. “Can I come in? I want to make a bargain.”

She frowns a little.

“You can’t keep eating random Folk without someone being sent to try to persuade you to stop,” I say.

“Perhaps I will eat you, pretty child,” she counters, brightening. But she steps back to allow me into her lair. I guess she can’t make a meal of me in the hall.

The apartment is loft-style, with high ceilings and brick walls. Nice. Floors polished and glossed up. Big windows letting in light and a decent view of the town. It’s furnished with old things. The tufting on a few of the pieces is torn, and there are marks that could have come from a stray cut of a knife.

The whole place smells like blood. A coppery, metal smell, overlaid with a slightly cloying sweetness. I put my gifts on a heavy wooden table.

“For you,” I say. “In the hopes you’ll overlook my rudeness in calling on you uninvited.”

She sniffs at the meat, turns a honey sandwich over in her hand, and pops off the cap on the beer with her fist. Taking a long draught, she looks me over.

“Someone instructed you in the niceties. I wonder why they bothered, little goat. You’re obviously the sacrifice sent in the hopes my appetite can be sated with mortal flesh.” She smiles, showing her teeth. It’s possible she dropped her glamour in that moment, although, since I saw through it already, I can’t tell.

I blink at her. She blinks back, clearly waiting for a reaction.

By not screaming and running for the door, I have annoyed her. I can tell. I think she was looking forward to chasing me when I ran.

“You’re Grima Mog,” I say. “Leader of armies. Destroyer of your enemies. Is this really how you want to spend your retirement?”

“Retirement?”She echoes the word as though I have dealt her the deadliest insult. “Though I have been cast down, I will find another army to lead. An army bigger than the first.”

Sometimes I tell myself something a lot like that. Hearing it aloud, from someone else’s mouth, is jarring. But it gives me an idea. “Well, the local Folk would prefer not to get eaten while you’re planning your next move. Obviously, being human, I’d rather you didn’t eat mortals—I doubt they’d give you what you’re looking for anyway.”

She waits for me to go on.