The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air 2)

“What do they do?” I ask.

He laughs. “They are beautiful, isn’t that enough?”

I give him a skeptical look. “It would be enough, considering how exquisite they are, but I bet it isn’t all.”

He enjoys that. “Clever girl. They are not only beautiful, but they add to beauty. They make someone more lovely than they were, painfully lovely. Her husband will not leave her side for quite some time.”

The look on his face is a challenge. He believes I am too vain to give such a gift to my sister.

How well he knows the selfish human heart. Taryn will be a beautiful bride. How much more do I, her twin, want to put myself in her shadow? How lovely can I bear her to be?

And yet, what better gift for a human girl wedded to the beauty of the Folk?

“What would you take for them?” I ask.

“Oh, any number of little things. A year of your life. The luster of your hair. The sound of your laugh.”

“My laugh is not such a sweet sound as all that.”

“Not sweet, but I bet it’s rare,” he says, and I wonder at his knowing that.

“What about my tears?” I ask. “You could make another necklace.”

He looks at me, as though evaluating how often I weep. “I will take a single tear,” he says finally. “And you will take an offer to the High King for me.”

“What kind of offer?” I counter.

“It is known that the Undersea has threatened the land. Tell your king that if he declares war, I will make him armor of ice to shatter every blade that strikes it and which will make his heart too cold to feel pity. Tell him I will make him three swords that, when used in the same battle, will fight with the might of thirty soldiers.”

I am shocked. “I will tell him. But why would you want that?”

He grimaces, taking out a cloth to polish the earrings. “I have a reputation to rebuild, my lady, and not just as a maker of trinkets. Once, kings and queens came to me as supplicants. Once, I forged crowns and blades to change the world. It stands within the High King’s power to restore my fame, and it stands within my power to add to his power.”

“What happens if he likes the world the way it is?” I ask. “Unchanged.”

He gives a little laugh. “Then I will make you a little glass in which to suspend time.”

The tear is taken out of the corner of my eye with a long siphon. Then I leave, holding Taryn’s earrings and more questions.

Back in my own rooms, I hold the jewels to my own ears. Even in the mirror, they make my eyes look liquid and luminous. My mouth seems redder, my skin glows as though I have just risen from a bath.

I wrap them up before I think better of it.

I spend the rest of the night in the Court of Shadows, preparing plans to keep Oak safe. Winged guards who can sweep him up into the air if he is lured by the delights of the waves he once played in. A spy disguised as a nanny, to follow him and dote on him and sample anything before he can taste it. Archers in the trees, the tips of their arrows trained on anyone who comes too close to my brother.

As I am trying to anticipate what Orlagh might do and how to know as soon as it happens, there’s a knock on my door.

“Yes?” I call, and Cardan walks in.

I jerk to my feet in surprise. I don’t expect him to be here, but he is, dressed in disarranged finery. His lips are slightly swollen, his hair mussed. He looks as though he came straight from a bed and not his own.

He tosses a scroll down on my desk.

“Well?” I ask, my voice coming out as cold as I could ever wish.

“You were right,” he says, and it sounds like an accusation.

“What?” I ask.

He leans against the doorjamb. “Nicasia gave up her secrets. All it took was some kindness and a few kisses.”

Our eyes meet. If I look away, then he will know I am embarrassed, but I fear he can tell anyway. My cheeks go hot. I wonder if I will ever be able to look at him again without remembering what it was like to touch him.

“Orlagh will act during the wedding of Locke and your sister.”

I sit back down in my chair, looking at all the notes in front of me. “You’re sure?”

He nods. “Nicasia said that as mortal power grows, land and sea ought to be united. And that they would be, either in the way she hoped or the way I should fear.”

“Ominous,” I say.

“It seems I have a singular taste for women who threaten me.”

I cannot think of what to say to that, so instead I tell him about Grimsen’s offer to forge him armor and swords to carry him to victory. “So long as you’re willing to fight the Undersea.”

“He wants me to have a war to restore him to his former glory?” Cardan asks.

“Pretty much,” I say.

“Now that’s ambition,” Cardan says. “There might be only a floodplain and several pine trees still on fire remaining, but the four Folk huddling together in a damp cave would have heard the name Grimsen. One must admire the focus. I don’t suppose you told him that declaring war or not was your call, not mine.”

If he’s the true High King of Elfhame, whom we are to follow to the end of days, then we’ve been a mite disrespectful, running the kingdom for him. And if he’s playacting, then he’s a spy for sure and better than most of us.

“Of course not,” I say.

For a moment, there is silence between us.

He takes a step toward me. “The other night—”

I cut him off. “I did it for the same reason that you did. To get it out of my system.”

“And is it?” he asks. “Out of your system?”

I look him in the face and lie. “Yes.”

If he touches me, if he even takes another step toward me, my deceit will be exposed. I don’t think I can keep the longing off my face. Instead, to my relief, he gives a thin-lipped nod and departs.

From the next room, I hear the Roach call out to Cardan, to offer to teach him the trick of levitating a playing card. I hear Cardan laugh.

It occurs to me that maybe desire isn’t something overindulging helps. Maybe it is not unlike mithridatism; maybe I took a killing dose when I should have been poisoning myself slowly, one kiss at a time.

I am unsurprised to find Madoc in his strategy room in the palace, but he is surprised by me, unused to my slyfooting.

“Father,” I say.

“I used to think I wanted you to call me that,” he says. “But it turns out that when you do, good things seldom come after.”

“Not at all,” I say. “I came to tell you that you were right. I hate the idea of Oak’s being in danger, but if we can engineer when Undersea’s strike comes, that’s safer for Oak.”

“You’ve been planning out the guarding of him while he’s here.” He grins, showing his sharp teeth. “Hard to cover every eventuality.”

“Impossible.” I sigh, walking deeper into the room. “So I’m on board. Let me help misdirect the Undersea. I have resources.” He’s been a general a long time. He planned Dain’s murder and got away with it. He’s better at this than I am.

“What if you only want to thwart me?” he asks. “You can hardly expect me to take it on faith that now you are in earnest.”

Although he has every reason to, Madoc’s distrust stings. I wonder what it would have been like if he had shared his plans for putting Oak on the throne before I was witness to the coronation bloodbath. Had he trusted me to be a part of his scheme, I wonder if I would have waved away my doubts. I don’t like to think of that being possible, but I fear it might be.

“I wouldn’t put my brother at risk,” I say, half in response to him, half in response to my own fears.

“Oh?” he asks. “Not even to save him from my clutches?”

I guess I deserve that. “You said you wanted me to come back to your side. Here’s your chance to show me what it would be like to work with you. Persuade me.”

While I control the throne, we can’t ever truly be on the same side, but maybe we could work together. Maybe he can channel his ambition into beating the Undersea and forget about the throne, at least until Oak comes of age. By then, at least, things will be different.

He indicates the table with a map of the islands and his carved figurines. “Orlagh has a week to strike, unless she means to set a trap back in the mortal world in Oak’s absence. You have guards on Vivienne’s apartment—ones you’ve engaged outside the military and who do not look like knights. Clever. But nothing and no one is infallible. I think the place most advantageous for us to tempt them into striking—”

“The Undersea is going to make its move during Taryn’s wedding.”

“What?” He gives me a narrow-eyed evaluation. “How do you know that?”

“Nicasia,” I say. “And I think I can narrow things more if we work fast. I have a way to get information to Balekin, information that he will believe.”

Madoc’s eyebrows rise.

I nod. “A prisoner. I’ve already sent information through her successfully.”

He turns away from me to pour himself a finger of some dark liquor and flop back into the leather chair. “These are the resources you mentioned?”

“I do not come to you empty-handed,” I say. “Aren’t you at least a little pleased you decided to trust me?”

“I could claim that it was you who finally decided to trust me. Now it remains to be seen how well we will work together. There are many more projects on which we could collaborate.”

Like taking the throne. “One misadventure at a time,” I caution him.

“Does he know?” Madoc asks, grinning a slightly terrifying yet paternal fashion. “Does our High King have any idea how good you are at running his kingdom for him?”

“Keep hoping he doesn’t,” I say, trying for a breezy confidence that I don’t feel when it comes to anything to do with Cardan or our arrangement.