The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air 2)

“Who’s in there?” I say. “Come out or I’m coming in.”

I am surprised to see Heather shuffle into view. Her ears have grown furred and long, like that of a cat. Her nose is differently shaped, and the stubs of whiskers are growing above her eyebrows and from the apples of her cheeks.

Worse, since I can’t see through it, it’s not a glamour. It’s a real spell of some kind, and I don’t think it’s done with her. As I watch, a light dusting of fur grows along her arms in a patterning not unlike a tortoiseshell cat.

“What—what happened?” I stammer.

She opens her mouth, but instead of an answer, a piteous yowling comes out.

Despite myself, I laugh. Not because it’s funny, because I’m startled. Then I feel awful, especially when she hisses.

I squat down, wincing at the pulling of my stitches. “Don’t panic. I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise. This is why I warned you to keep that charm on you.”

She makes another hissing yowl.

“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “No one likes to hear ‘I told you so.’ Don’t worry. Whatever jerk thought this was going to be a fun prank is about to have a lot of regrets. Come on.”

She follows me, shivering. When I try to put an arm around her, she flinches away with another hiss. At least she remains upright. At least she is human enough to stay with me and not run off.

We plunge into the hedges, and this time the maze doesn’t mess with us. In three turns, we are standing among guests. A fountain splashes gently, the sound of it mixing with conversation.

I look around, searching for someone I know.

Taryn and Locke aren’t there. Most likely, they have gone to a bower, where they will make private vows to each other—their true faerie marriage, unwitnessed and mysterious. In a land where there are no lies, promises need not be public to be binding.

Vivi rushes over to me, taking Heather’s hands. Her fingers have curled under in a paw-like manner.

“What’s happened?” Oriana demands.

“Heather?” Oak wants to know. She looks at him with eyes that match my sister’s. I wonder if that was the heart of the jest. A cat for a cat-eyed girl.

“Do something,” Vivi says to Oriana.

“I am no deft hand at enchantments,” she says. “Undoing curses was never my specialty.”

“Who did this? They can undo it.” My voice has a growl to it that makes me sound like Madoc. Vivi looks up with a strange expression on her face.

“Jude,” Oriana cautions, but Heather points with her knuckles.

Standing by a trio of flute-playing fauns is a boy with cat ears. I stride across the maze toward him. One hand goes to the hilt of my sword, all the frustration I feel over everything I cannot control bends toward fixing this one thing.

My other hand knocks the goblet of green wine out of his grip. The liquid pools on the clover before sinking into the earth under our feet.

“What is this?” he demands.

“You put a curse on that girl over there,” I tell him. “Fix her immediately.”

“She admired my ears,” the boy says. “I was only giving her what she desired. A party favor.”

“That’s what I am going to say after I gut you and use your entrails as streamers,” I tell him. “I was only giving him what he wanted. After all, if he didn’t want to be eviscerated, he would have honored my very reasonable request.”

With furious looks at everyone, he stomps across the grass and speaks a few words. The enchantment begins to dissipate. Heather begins to cry anew, though, as her humanity returns. Huge sobbing gasps shake her.

“I want to go,” she says finally in a quavering, wet voice. “I want to go home right now and never come back.”

Vivi should have prepared her better, should have made sure she always wore a charm—or better yet, two. She should never have let Heather wander off alone.

I fear that, in some measure, this is my fault. Taryn and I hid from Vivi the worst of what it was to be human in Faerie. I think Vivi believed that because her sisters were fine, Heather would be, too. But we were never fine.

“It’s going to be okay,” Vivi is saying, rubbing Heather’s back in soothing circles. “You’re okay. Just a little weirdness. Later, you’re going to think it was funny.”

“She’s not going to think it was funny,” I say, and Vivi flashes me an angry look.

The sobbing continues. Finally, Vivi puts her finger under Heather’s chin, raising her face to look fully into it.

“You’re okay,” Vivi says again, and I can hear the glamour in her voice. The magic makes Heather’s whole body relax. “You don’t remember the last half hour. You’ve been having a lovely time at the wedding, but then took a spill. You were crying because you bruised your knee. Isn’t that silly?”

Heather looks around, embarrassed, and then wipes her eyes. “I feel a little ridiculous,” she says with a laugh. “I guess I was just surprised.”

“Vivi,” I hiss.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Vivi tells me under her breath. “But it’s just this one time. And before you ask, I’ve never done it before. But she doesn’t need to remember all of that.”

“Of course she does,” I say. “Or she won’t be careful next time.”

I am so angry that I can barely speak, but I need to make Vivi understand. I need to make her realize that even terrible memories are better than weird gaps or the hollow feeling that your feelings don’t make sense.

But before I can begin, the Ghost is at my shoulder. Vulciber, beside him. They are both in uniform.

“Come with us,” the Ghost says, uncharacteristically blunt.

“What is it?” I ask them, my voice sharp. I am still thinking about Vivi and Heather.

The Ghost is as grim as I’ve ever seen him. “The Undersea made its move.”

I look around for Oak, but he is where I left him moments before, with Oriana, watching Heather insist that she’s fine. A small frown creases the space between his brows, but he seems otherwise utterly safe from everything but bad influence.

Cardan stands on the other side of the green, near where Taryn and Locke have just come back from swearing their vows. Taryn looks shy, with roses in her cheeks. Folk rush over to kiss her—goblins and grigs, Court ladies and hags. The sky is bright overhead, the wind sweet and full of flowers.

“The Tower of Forgetting. Vulciber insists you ought to see it,” the Bomb says. I didn’t even notice her walking up. She’s all in black, her hair pulled into a tight bun. “Jude?”

I turn back to my spies. “I don’t understand.”

“We will explain on the way,” Vulciber says. “Are you ready?”

“Just a second.” I should congratulate Taryn before I leave. Kiss her cheeks and say something nice, and then she’ll know I was here, even if I had to go. But as I look toward her, evaluating how swiftly I can do that, my gaze catches on her earrings.

Dangling from her lobes are moons and stars. The same ones I bargained for from Grimsen. The ones I lost in the wood. She wasn’t wearing them when we got in the carriage, so she must have got them…

Beside her, Locke is smiling his fox smile, and when he walks, he has a slight limp.

For a moment, I just stare, my mind refusing to acknowledge what I’m seeing. Locke. It was Locke with the riders, Locke and his friends on the night before he was to be married. A bachelor party of sorts. I guess he decided to pay me back for threatening him. That, or perhaps he knew he could never stay faithful and decided to go after me before I came back for him.

I take one last look at them and realize I can do nothing now.

“Pass the news about the Undersea on to the Grand General,” I tell the Bomb. “And make sure—”

“I’ll watch over your brother,” she reassures me. “And the High King.”

Turning my back on the wedding, I follow Vulciber and the Ghost. Yellow horses with long manes are nearby, already saddled and bridled. We swing up onto them and ride to the prison.

From the outside, the only evidence that something might be wrong is the waves striking higher than I’ve ever seen them. Water has pooled on the uneven flagstones.

Inside, I see the bodies. Knights, lying pale and still. The few on their backs have water filling their mouths as though their lips were the edges of cups. Others lie on their sides. All their eyes have been replaced with pearls.

Drowned on dry land.

I rush down the stairs, terrified for Cardan’s mother. She is there, though, alive, blinking out at me from the gloom. For a moment, I just stand in front of her cell, hand on my chest in relief.

Then I draw Nightfell and cut straight down between bar and lock. Sparks fly, and the door opens. Asha looks at me suspiciously.

“Go,” I say. “Forget our bargains. Forget everything. Get out of here.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asks me.

“For Cardan,” I say. I leave unsaid the second part: because his mother is still alive and mine is not, because even if he hates you, at least he should get a chance to tell you about it.

With one baffled look back at me, she begins to ascend.

I need to know if Balekin is still imprisoned, if he’s still alive. I head lower, picking my way through the gloom with one hand against the wall and the other holding my blade.

The Ghost calls my name, probably because of Asha’s abrupt arrival in front of him, but I am intent on my purpose. My feet grow swifter and more sure on the spiral steps.

I find Balekin’s cell is empty, the bars bent and broken, his opulent rugs wet and covered in sand.

Orlagh took Balekin. Stole a prince of Faerie from right under my nose.

I curse my own shortsightedness. I knew they were meeting, knew they were scheming together, but I was sure, because of Nicasia, that Orlagh truly wanted Cardan to be the bridegroom of the sea. It didn’t occur to me that Orlagh would act before hearing an answer. And I didn’t think that when she threatened to take blood, she meant Balekin.