The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air 2)

I have trusted Vivi more than anyone else. I have trusted her with Oak, with the truth, with my plan. I have trusted her because she is my older sister, because she doesn’t care about Faerie. But it occurs to me that if she betrayed me, I would be undone.

I wish she wouldn’t keep reminding me she was talking to Madoc. “And you trust Dad? That’s a change.”

“He’s not good at a lot of things, but he knows about scheming,” Vivi says, which is not that reassuring. “Come on. Tell me about Taryn. Is she actually excited?”

How do I even answer? “Locke got himself made Master of Revels. She’s not exactly pleased about his new title or behavior. I think half the reason he likes to screw around is to get under her skin.”

“This is not boring,” Vivi says. “Go on.”

Heather comes into the room with two cups of coffee. We stop talking as she passes one to me and one to Vivi. “I didn’t know how you took it,” she says. “So I made it like Vee’s.”

I take a sip. It’s very sweet. I’ve already had plenty of coffee this morning, but I drink some more anyway.

Black as the eyes of the High King of Elfhame.

Heather leans against the door. “You done packing?”

“Almost.” Vivi eyes her suitcase and then throws in a pair of rain boots. Then she looks around the room, as though she’s wondering what other stuff she can cram in.

Heather frowns. “You’re bringing all that for a week?”

“It’s just the top layer that’s clothes,” Vivi says. “Underneath, it’s mostly stuff for Taryn that’s hard to get on the…island.”

“Do you think what I’m planning on wearing will be okay?” I can understand why Heather is worried, since she’s never met my family. She believes our dad is strict. She has no idea.

“Sure,” Vivi says, and then looks at me. “It’s a hot silver dress.”

“Wear anything you want. Really,” I tell Heather, thinking of how gowns and rags and nakedness are all acceptable in Faerie. She’s about to have much bigger problems.

“Hurry up. We don’t want to get stuck in traffic,” Heather says, and goes out again. In the other room, I hear her talking to Oak, asking him if he wants some milk.

“So,” Vivi says, “You were saying…”

I let out a long sigh and gesture with my coffee cup toward the door, bugging out my eyes.

Vivi shakes her head. “Come on. You won’t be able to tell me any of this once we’re there.”

“You know already,” I say. “Locke is going to make Taryn unhappy. But she doesn’t want to hear that, and she especially doesn’t want to hear it from me.”

“You did once have a sword fight over him,” Vivi points out.

“Exactly,” I say. “I’m not objective. Or I don’t seem objective.”

“You know what I wonder about, though,” she says, closing her suitcase and sitting on it to squish it down. She looks up at me with her cat eyes, twin to Madoc’s. “You’ve manipulated the High King of Faerie into obeying you, but you can’t find a way to manipulate one jerk into keeping our sister happy?”

Not fair, I want to say. Practically the last thing I did before I came here was threaten Locke, ordering him not to cheat on Taryn after they got married—or else. Still, her words rankle. “It’s not that simple.”

She sighs. “I guess nothing ever is.”

O ak holds my hand, and I carry his small suitcase down the steps toward the empty parking lot.

I look back up at Heather. She’s dragging a bag behind her and some bungee cords she says we can use if we have to put one of the suitcases on the roof rack. I haven’t told her there isn’t even a car.

“So,” I say, looking at Vivi.

Vivi smiles, reaching out her hand toward me. I take the ragwort stalks out of my pocket and hand them over.

I can’t look at Heather’s face. I turn back to Oak. He’s picking four-leaf clovers from the grass, finding them effortlessly, making a bouquet.

“What are you doing?” Heather asks, puzzled.

“We’re not going to take a car. We’re going to fly instead,” says Vivi.

“We’re going to the airport?”

Vivi laughs. “You’ll love this. Steed, rise and bear us where I command.”

A choked gasp behind me. Then Heather screams. I turn despite myself.

The ragwort steeds are there in front of the apartment complex—starved-looking yellow ponies with lacy manes and emerald eyes, like sea horses on land, weeds come to snorting, snuffling life. And Heather, hands over her mouth.

“Surprise!” says Vivi, continuing to behave as though this is a small thing. Oak, clearly anticipating this moment, chooses it to rip off his own glamour, revealing his horns.

“See, Heather,” he says. “We’re magic. Are you surprised?”

She looks at Oak, at the monstrous ragwort ponies, and then sinks down to sit on her suitcase. “Okay,” she says. “This is some kind of bullshit practical joke or something, but one of you is going to tell me what’s going on or I am going to go back inside the house and lock you all out.”

Oak looks crestfallen. He’d really expected her to be delighted. I put my arm around him, rubbing his shoulder. “Come on, sweets,” I say. “Let’s get the stuff loaded up, and they can come after. Mom and Dad are so excited to see you.”

“I miss them,” he tells me. “I miss you, too.”

I kiss him on one soft cheek as I lift him onto the horse’s back. He looks over my shoulder at Heather.

Behind me, I can hear Vivi start to explain. “Faerie is real. Magic is real. See? I’m not human, and neither is my brother. And we’re going to take you away to a magic island for the whole week. Don’t be afraid. We’re not the scary ones.”

I manage to get the bungee cords from Heather’s numb hands while Vivi shows off her pointed ears and cat eyes and tries to explain away never telling her any of it before.

We are definitely the scary ones.

Some hours later, we are in Oriana’s parlor. Heather, still looking bewildered and upset, walks around, staring at the strange art on the walls, the ominous pattern of beetles and thorns in the weave of draperies.

Oak sits on Oriana’s lap, letting her cradle him in her arms as though he is very small again. Her pale fingers fuss with his hair—which she thinks is too short—and he tells her a long, rambling story about school and the way the stars are different in the mortal world and what peanut butter tastes like.

It hurts a little to watch, because Oriana no more gave birth to Oak than to me or Taryn, but she is very clearly Oak’s mother while she has steadfastly refused to be ours.

Vivi pulls presents from her suitcase. Bags of coffee beans, glass earrings in the shape of little leaves, tins of dulce de leche.

Heather walks over to me. “This is all real.”

“Really, really real,” I confirm.

“And it’s true that these people are elves, that Vee is an elf, like from a story?” Heather looks around the room again, warily, as though she is expecting a rainbow-colored unicorn to burst through the plaster and lathe.

“Yup,” I say. She seems freaked out, but not actually angry at Vivi, which is something. Maybe the news is too big for anger, at least yet.

Or maybe Heather’s honestly pleased. Maybe Vivi was right about the way to tell her, and it was only that the delight took a few minutes to kick in. What do I know about love?

“And this place is…” she stops herself. “Oak is some kind of prince? He’s got horns. And Vivi has those eyes.”

“Cat eyes like her father,” I say. “It’s a lot, I’m sure.”

“He sounds scary,” Heather says. “Your dad. Sorry, I mean Vee’s dad. She says he’s not really your father.”

I flinch, although I am sure Vivi didn’t mean it that way. Maybe she didn’t even say it that way.

“Because you’re human,” Heather tries to clarify. “You are human, right?”

I nod, and the relief on her face is clear. She laughs a little.

“It’s not easy to be human in Faerie,” I tell her. “Come walk with me. I want to tell you some stuff.”

She tries to catch Vivi’s eye, but Vivi is still sitting on the rug, rooting through her suitcase. I see more trinkets, packages of licorice, hair ribbons, and a large package covered in white paper with a golden bow, stamped with “congratulations” all along its length.

Unsure of what else to do, Heather follows me. Vivi doesn’t even seem to notice.

It is strange to be back in the house where I grew up. Tempting to run up the stairs and throw open the doors to my old room, to see if there’s any trace of me there. Tempting to go into Madoc’s study and go through his papers like the spy that I am.

Instead, I head out onto the lawn and start toward the stables. Heather takes a deep breath of air. Her eyes are drawn to the towers visible above the tree line.

“Did Vee talk to you about rules?” I ask as we walk.

Heather shakes her head, clearly puzzled. “Rules?”

Vivi has come through for me plenty of times when no one else did, so I know she cares. Still, it feels like willful blindness to have overlooked how hard Taryn and I had it as mortals, how careful we had to be, and how careful Heather ought to be while she’s here.

“She said I should stick by her,” Heather says, probably seeing the frustration on my face and wanting to defend Vivi. “That I shouldn’t wander off without one of her family members.”

I shake my head. “Not good enough. Listen, the Folk can glamour things to look different than they do. They can mess with your mind—charm you, persuade you to do things you wouldn’t consider normally. And then there’s everapple, the fruit of Faerie. If you taste it, all you’ll think of is getting more.”