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

“Damn.” The last of my armor comes off, clanking to the floor, and I realize that her talking has distracted me enough for my breathing to return to normal. “That is some serious fairy-tale business. A quest.”

Heather reaches out her hand to take mine. “If she succeeds, all my memories come back. But if not, then tonight’s the last time I am going to see you.”

“I hope you drink the cellars dry at the revel,” I say to her, pulling her into a tight embrace. “But more than that, I hope Vee is good enough to win your hand again.”

The door opens, and Oriana comes in. Upon seeing me, she looks panicked. Immediately, she bows low, pressing her forehead nearly to the floor.

“You don’t have to do that,” I say, and she fixes me with a sharp look. I can see she has a lot of thoughts about my behavior as High Queen, and there’s a moment of sharp satisfaction that she can’t tell me any of them without breaking her own rules of what’s appropriate.

She rises from her bow. “I hope that you will grant mercy to your father. For your brother’s sake, if not for your own.”

“I’ve already been merciful,” I say, and lifting my armor, I flee into the hallway.

I should not have left the royal chambers. It was an old impulse, to leave Cardan to rule while I operated from the shadows. And it was a relief to be away from all those staring eyes. But far from Cardan, everything has taken on a tinge of unreality, and I worry that somehow the curse was never broken, that all this is the fantasy of a feverish mind. I hurriedly retrace my steps through the hall, clad in only the padded gambeson and leg coverings under my armor.

When I get back, I find Cardan gone, along with all the dignitaries. The bathwater is still warm, and there are candles still burning, but the rooms are empty.

“I refilled it,” says Tatterfell, coming out of I-don’t-know-where and startling me. “Get in. You’re a mess.”

“Where’s Cardan?” I ask, starting to strip off the last of my clothes.

“The brugh. Where else?” she says. “You’re the one who’s late. But as the hero of the hour, that’s all to the good. I am going to make you into a vision.”

“Sounds like a lot of work on your part,” I tell her, but climb obediently into the tub, disturbing primrose petals floating there. The hot water feels good on my sore muscles. I let myself sink under it. The problem with coming through something terrible and big is that afterward, you’re left feeling all the feelings that you shoved down and pushed away. For many long days, I have been terrified, and now, when I ought to be feeling great, what I want to do is hide under a table in the brugh with Cardan until I can finally convince myself he’s all right.

And maybe make out with his face, if he’s feeling up to that.

I surface from the water and wipe my hair back from my eyes. Tatterfell hands me a cloth. “Scrub the blood off your knuckles,” she instructs.

Once more, she braids my hair into horns, this time threaded with gold. She has a bronze velvet tunic for me. Over it, she puts a bronze leather coat with a high curled collar and a cape-like train that blows in even the slightest wind. And last, bronze gloves with wide cuffs.

Dressed in such finery, it would have been difficult to slip into the brugh unnoticed, even if horns didn’t blare at my entrance.

“The High Queen of Elfhame, Jude Duarte,” announces a page in a carrying voice.

I spot Cardan, sitting at the head of the high table. Even from across the room, I can feel the intensity of his gaze.

Long tables have been set up for a proper feast. Each platter is heavy with food: great globes of fruit, hazelnuts, bread stuffed with dates. Honey wine perfumes the air.

I can hear performers competing to get the lyrics right on their new compositions, many of them in honor of the serpent king. At least one is in my honor, however:

Our queen sheathed her sword and closed her eyes,

And said, “I thought the snake would be of larger size.”

A fresh batch of servants come from the kitchens, carrying trays heaped with pale meat in different preparations—grilled and poached in oil, roasted and stewed. It takes me a moment to recognize what I am looking at. It’s serpent meat. Meat cut from the body of the enormous serpent that had been their High King and might give them a measure of his magic. I look at it and feel the overwhelming disorientation of being mortal. Some faerie ways will never not horrify me.

I hope that Cardan is undisturbed. Certainly, he appears blithesome, laughing as courtiers heap their plates.

“I always supposed I would be delicious,” I hear him say, although I note that he does not take any of the meat for himself.

Again, I imagine ducking underneath the table and hiding there, as I did when I was a child. As I did after the bloody coronation, with him.

But I go to the high table instead and find my place, which is, of course, at the head of the opposite end. We stare at each other across the expanse of silver and cloth and candles.

Then he rises, and all across the brugh, the Folk fall silent. “Tomorrow we must deal with all that has befallen us,” he says, lifting a goblet high. “But tonight let us remember our triumph, our trickery, and our delight in one another.”

We all toast to that.

There are songs—a seemingly endless array of songs—and dishes enough that even a mortal like myself can eat my fill. I watch Heather and Vivi weave through the tables to dance. I spot the Roach and the Bomb, sitting in the shadows of the re-formed thrones. He is tossing grapes into her mouth and never missing, not once. Grima Mog is discussing something with Lord Roiben, half her plate heaped with snake and half her plate heaped with another meat that I do not recognize. Nicasia sits in a place of honor, not far from the high table, her subjects around her. I spot Taryn near the musicians, telling a story with great sweeps of her hands. I see the Ghost, too, watching her.

“Your pardon,” someone says, and I see the Minister of Keys, Randalin, at Cardan’s shoulder.

“Councilor,” Cardan says, leaning back against the table, his posture the easy languor of someone who’s already in his cups. “Were you hoping for one of these little honey cakes? I could have passed them down the table.”

“There’s the matter of the prisoners—Madoc, his army, what remains of the Court of Teeth,” Randalin says. “And many other matters we were hoping to take up with you.”

“Tomorrow,” Cardan insists. “Or the next day. Or perhaps next week.” And with that, he rises, takes a long drink from his goblet, sets it down on the table, and walks to where I sit.

“Will you dance?” he asks, presenting his hand.

“You may remember that I am not particularly accomplished at it,” I say, rising. The last time we danced was the night of Prince Dain’s coronation, just before everything went sideways. He had been very, very drunk.

You really hate me, don’t you?he’d asked.

Almost as much as you hate me, I’d returned.

He draws me down to where fiddle players are exhorting everyone to dance faster and faster, to whirl and spin and jump. His hands cover mine.

“I don’t know what to apologize for first,” I say. “Cutting off your head or hesitating so long to do it. I didn’t want to lose what little there was left of you. And I can’t quite think past how wonderous it is that you’re alive.”

“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words,” he says. “You don’t want me dead.”

“If you joke about this, I am going to—”

“Kill me?” he asks, raising both black brows.