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

Ilie on my back on the rug before the fire in my old rooms. Taryn sits next to me, picking at a roasted chicken she got from the palace kitchen. A whole tray of food is spread out on the floor—cheese and bread, currants and gooseberries, pomegranates and damson plums, along with a pitcher of thick cream. Vivi and Heather rest on the other side, their legs tangled together and hands clasped. Oak is lining up berries and then bowling them over with plums, something I would have once objected to but am not about to now.

“It’s better than fighting, right?” Taryn says, taking a steaming kettle off the hob and pouring water into a pot. She adds leaves, and the scent of mint and elderflower fills the air. “A truce. An unlikely truce.”

None of us answers, mulling over the question. I promised Madoc nothing concrete, but I have no doubt that at the banquet tonight, he intends to begin pulling authority toward himself. A trickle that swiftly becomes a flood, until I am only a figurehead with no real power. The temptation of this line of attack is that one can always convince oneself that that fate is avoidable, that one can reverse any losses, that one can outmaneuver him.

“What was wrong with that girl?” Oak asks. “Queen Suren.”

“They’re not particularly nice, the Court of Teeth,” I tell him, sitting up to accept a cup from Taryn. Despite going so long without sleep, I am not tired. Nor am I hungry, though I have made myself eat. I do not know what I am.

Vivi snorts. “I guess you could say that. You could also call a volcano ‘warm.’”

Oak frowns. “Are we going to help her?”

“If you decide to marry her, we could demand that the girl live here until you’re older,” I say. “And if she did, we’d keep her unfettered. I guess that would be a boon to her. But I still don’t think you should do it.”

“I don’t want to marry her—or anyone,” Oak says. “And I don’t want to be High King. Why can’t we just help her?”

The tea is too hot. The first sip burns my tongue.

“It’s not easy to help a queen,” Taryn says. “They’re not supposed to need helping.”

We lapse into silence.

“So will you take over Locke’s estate?” Vivi asks, turning toward my twin. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to have his baby, either.”

Taryn takes a gooseberry and rolls the pale citrine fruit between her fingers. “What do you mean?”

“I know that in Faerie, children are rare and precious and all that, but in the mortal world, there’s such a thing as abortion,” Vivi says. “And even here, there are changelings.”

“And adoption,” Heather puts in. “It’s your decision. No one would judge you.”

“If they did, I could cut off their hands,” I volunteer.

“I want the child,” Taryn says. “Not that I am not scared, but I’m also kind of excited. Oak, you’re not going to be the youngest kid anymore.”

“Good,” he says, rolling his bruised plum toward the cream jar.

Vivi intercepts it and takes a bite.

“Hey!” he says, but she only giggles mischievously.

“Did you find anything in the library?” I ask Heather, and try to pretend that my voice doesn’t quaver a little. I know she didn’t. If she had, she would have told me. And yet I ask anyway.

She yawns. “There were some wild stories. Not helpful, but wild. One was about a king of serpents who commands all the snakes in the world. Another about a serpent who puts two faerie princesses under a curse so they’re snakes—but only sometimes.

“And then there was this one about wanting a baby,” she says with a glance at Taryn. “A gardener’s wife couldn’t get pregnant. One day, she spots a cute green snake in her garden and gets all weird about how even snakes have kids but she doesn’t. The snake hears her and offers to be her son.”

I raise my eyebrows. Oak laughs.

“He’s an okay son, though,” Heather says. “They make him a hole in the corner of their house, and he lives there. They feed him the same dinners they eat. It’s all good until he gets big and decides he wants to marry a princess. And not like a viper princess or an anaconda princess, either. The snake wants to marry the human princess of the place where they live.”

“How’s that going to work?” Taryn asks.

Heather grins. “Dad goes to the king and makes the proposal on behalf of his snake kiddo. The king isn’t into it, and so, in the manner of all fairy-tale people, instead of just refusing, he asks the snake to do three impossible things: first, turn all the fruit in the orchard to gems, then turn the floors of the palace to silver, and last, turn the walls of the palace to gold. Each time the dad reports back with one of these quests, the snake tells him what to do. First, Dad has to plant pits, which make jasper and jade fruit bloom overnight. Then he has to rub the floors of the palace with a discarded snakeskin to make them silver. Last, he has to rub the walls of the palace with venom, which turns them to gold.”

“The dad is the one putting in all the effort,” I murmur. It’s so warm by the fire.

“He’s kind of a helicopter parent.” Heather’s voice seems to come from very far away. “Anyway, finally, in despair, the king admits to his daughter that he basically sold her to a snake and that she has to go through with the marriage. So she does, but when they’re alone, the snake takes off its skin and reveals itself as a banging hot guy. The princess is thrilled, but the king bursts into their bedroom and burns the skin, believing he’s saving her life.

“The snake guy gives a great howl of despair and turns into a dove, flying away. The princess freaks out and weeps like crazy, then decides she’s going to find him. Along the way, because this is a fairy tale and literally nothing makes sense, the princess meets a gossipy fox, who tells her that the birds are talking smack about a prince who was under the curse of an ogress and could not be cured without the blood of a bunch of birds—and also the blood of a fox. So you can pretty much figure out the rest. Poor fox, right?”

“Cold,” Vivi says. “That fox was helping.”

And that’s the last I hear before I fall asleep to the sound of friendly voices talking over one another.

I wake to the dying embers of the fire, with a blanket over me.

Sleep has worked its strange magic, making the horror of the last two days recede enough for me to think a little better.

I see Taryn on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. I walk through the silent rooms and find Heather and Vivi in my bed. Oak isn’t there, and I suspect that he’s with Oriana.

I leave, finding a knight waiting for me. I recognize him as a member of Cardan’s royal guard.

“Your Majesty,” he says, hand to his heart. “Fand is resting. She asked me to watch over you until she returned.”

I feel guilty not to have thought of whether Fand was working too long or too hard. Of course I need more than a single knight. “What shall I call you?”

“Artegowl, Your Majesty.”

“Where are the rest of the High King’s guard?” I ask.

He sighs. “Grima Mog has put us in charge of tracking the serpent’s movements.”

What a strange and sorrowful change from their previous mission, to keep Cardan safe. But I do not know if Artegowl would welcome my thoughts, nor if it is appropriate for me to give them. I leave him outside the doors to the royal chambers.

Inside, I am startled to find the Bomb sitting on the couch, turning a snow globe over in her hands. It has a cat inside and the words CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION—the gift Vivi brought for Cardan after his coronation. I didn’t realize he kept it. As I watch the glittering white crystals swirl, I recall the report of snow falling inside the brugh.