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

The Bomb looks up at me, her shoulders slumped. The despair in her face mirrors my own.

“Probably I shouldn’t have come,” she says, which isn’t like her at all.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, coming fully inside the room.

“When Madoc came to make you his offer, I heard what Taryn said about you.” She waits for me to understand, but I don’t.

I shake my head.

“That the land healed you.” She looks as though she half-expects me to deny it. I wonder if she’s thinking about the stitches she removed in this room or how I survived a fall from the rafters. “I thought that maybe … you could use that power to wake the Roach.”

When I joined the Court of Shadows, I knew nothing of spying. The Bomb has seen me fail before. Still, this failure is hard to admit. “I tried to break the curse on Cardan, but I couldn’t. Whatever I did, I don’t know how I did it or if I can do it again.”

“When I saw Lord Jarel and Lady Nore again, I couldn’t help remembering how much I owe the Roach,” the Bomb says. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have survived them. Even aside from how much I love him, I owe him. I have to make him better. If there’s anything you can do—”

I think about the flowers blooming up out of the snow. In that moment, I was magic.

I think about hope.

“I’ll try,” I say, stopping her. “If I can help the Roach, of course I want to. Of course I’ll try. Let’s go. Let’s go now.”

“Now?” the Bomb says, rising. “No, you came back to your chambers to sleep.”

“Even if the truce with Madoc and the Court of Teeth goes a lot better than I suspect it will, it’s possible that the serpent won’t allow me to bridle him,” I say. “I might not survive much longer. Better to do it as soon as possible.”

The Bomb puts her hand lightly on my arm. “Thank you,” she says, the human words awkward in her mouth.

“Don’t thank me yet,” I say.

“Perhaps a gift instead?” From her pocket, she pulls out a mask of black netting to match her own.

I change into black clothes and throw a heavy cloak over my shoulders. Then I don the mask, and we go together out the secret passage. I am surprised to find it has been modified since the last time I went through it, connected to the rest of the passageways through the walls of the palace. We go down through the wine cellar and into the new Court of Shadows. It’s much larger than the old rooms and much better appointed. It’s clear that Cardan financed this—or that they robbed the treasury behind his back. There is a kitchen area, full of crockery and with a fireplace large enough to cook a smallish pony in. We pass training rooms and costume rooms and a strategy room to rival the one belonging to the Grand General. I spot a few spies, some I know and some I do not.

The Ghost looks up from a table where he’s sitting, laying out cards in one of the back rooms, sandy hair hanging over his eyes. He looks at me with suspicion. I roll up my mask.

“Jude,” he says with relief. “You came.”

I don’t want to give either of them false hope. “I don’t know if I can do anything, but I’d like to see him.”

“This way,” the Ghost says, rising and leading me to a little room hung with glowing glass orbs. The Roach lies on a bed. I am alarmed by the change in him.

His skin looks sallow, no longer the rich deep green of ponds, and there’s a disturbing waxiness to it. He moves in sleep, then cries out and opens his eyes. They are unfocused, bloodshot.

I catch my breath, but a moment later, he has succumbed to dreams again.

“I thought he was sleeping,” I say, horrified. I imagined the fairy-tale sleep of Snow White, imagined him still in a glass case, preserved exactly as he was.

“Help me find something to secure him with,” the Bomb says, pressing his body down with hers. “The poison takes him like this sometimes, and I have to restrain him until the fit passes.”

I can see why she came to me, why she feels as though something has to be done. I look around the room. Above a chest, there’s a pile of spare sheets. The Ghost starts tearing them into strips. “Go ahead and start,” he says.

With no idea what to do, I move to stand by the Roach’s feet and close my eyes. I imagine the earth under me, imagine the power of it seeping up through the soles of my feet. I picture it filling my body.

Then I feel self-conscious and stupid and stop.

I can’t do this. I am a mortal girl. I am the furthest thing from magic. I can’t save Cardan. I can’t heal anyone. This isn’t going to work.

I open my eyes and shake my head.

The Ghost puts his hand on my shoulder, steps as close as he did when instructing me in the art of murder. His voice is soft. “Jude, stop trying to force it. Let it come.”

With a sigh, I close my eyes again. And again I try to feel the earth beneath me. The land of Faerie. I think of Val Moren’s words: Do you think a seed planted in goblin soil grows to be the same plant it would have in the mortal world? Whatever I am, I have been nurtured here. This is my home and my land.

I feel once again that strange sensation of being stung all over with nettles.

Wake, I think, putting my hand on his ankle. I am your queen, and I command you to wake.

A spasm racks the Roach’s body. A vicious kick catches me in the stomach, knocking me against the wall.

I sag to the floor. The pain is intense enough that I am reminded how recently I received a gut wound.

“Jude!” the Bomb says, moving to secure his legs.

The Ghost kneels down by my side. “How hurt are you?”

I give a thumbs-up to indicate I’m okay, but I can’t speak yet.

The Roach cries again, but this time, it dwindles to something else. “Lil—” he says, voice sounding soft and scratchy, but speaking.

He’s conscious. Awake.

Healed.

He grabs hold of the Bomb’s hand. “I’m dying,” he says. “The poison—I was foolish. I don’t have long.”

“You’re not dying,” she says.

“There’s something I could never tell you while I lived,” he says, pulling her closer to him. “I love you, Liliver. I’ve loved you from the first hour of our meeting. I loved you and despaired. Before I die, I want you to know that.”

The Ghost’s eyebrows rise, and he glances at me. I grin. With both of us on the floor, I doubt the Roach has any idea we’re there.

Besides, he’s too busy looking at the Bomb’s shocked face.

“I never wanted—” he begins, then bites off the words, clearly reading her expression as horror. “You don’t have to say anything in return. But before I die—”

“You’re not dying,” she says again, and this time he seems to actually hear her.