The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2)

by Holly Black

  “He’s on the wind,” the Bomb says. “Gone. We know not where.”

  I remind myself that so long as the Bomb and the Roach are okay, things could have been a lot worse.

  “Now that we’re all on the same dreary page,” Cardan says. “We must discuss what to do next.”

  “If Balekin thinks he can get me into the masquerade, then let him bend his will toward that aim. I’ll play along.” I stop and turn to Cardan. “Or I could just kill him.”

  The Roach claps his hand on the back of my neck with a laugh. “You did good, kid, you know that? You came out of the sea even tougher than you went in.”

  I have to look down because I am surprised by how much I wanted to hear someone say that. When I glance back up, Cardan is watching me carefully. He looks stricken.

  I shake my head, to keep him from saying whatever he’s thinking.

  “Balekin is the Ambassador to the Undersea,” he says instead, an echo of my own words to Dulcamara. I am grateful for a return to the subject. “He’s protected by Orlagh. And she has Grimsen and a mighty desire to test me. If her ambassador was killed, she would be very angry.”

  “Orlagh attacked the land already,” I remind him. “The only reason she hasn’t declared outright war is that she’s seeking every advantage. But she will. So let the first blow be ours.”

  Cardan shakes his head.

  “He wants to have you killed,” I insist. “Grimsen has made that a condition of his getting the crown.”

  “You should have the hands of the smith,” the Bomb says. “Cut them off at the wrists so he can make no more trouble.”

  The Roach nods. “I will find him tonight.”

  “The three of you have one solution to every problem. Murder. No key fits every lock.” Cardan gives us all a stern look, holding up a long-fingered hand with my stolen ruby ring still on one finger. “Someone tries to betray the High King, murder. Someone gives you a harsh look, murder. Someone disrespects you, murder. Someone ruins your laundry, murder.

  “I find the more I listen, the more I am reminded that I have been awakened after very little sleep. I am going to send for some tea for myself and some food for Jude, who looks a bit pale.”

  Cardan stands and sends a servant for oatcakes, cheese, and two enormous pots of tea, but he does not allow anyone else into the room. He carries the large carved-wood-and-silver tray from the door himself, setting it down on a low table.

  I am too hungry to resist making a sandwich from the cakes and cheese. After I eat a second one and wash it down with three cups of tea, I do feel steadier.

  “The masquerade tomorrow,” Cardan says. “It is to honor Lord Roiben of the Court of Termites. He has come all this way to yell at me, so we ought to let him. If Balekin’s assassination attempt keeps him busy until after that, so much the better.

  “Roach, if you can spirit away Grimsen to somewhere he won’t cause any trouble, that would be most helpful. It’s time for him to choose sides and bend his knee to one of the players in this little game. But I do not want Balekin dead.”

  The Roach takes a sip of tea and raises one bushy brow. The Bomb sighs audibly.

  Cardan turns to me. “Since you were taken, I’ve gone over all the history I could find on the relationship of the land and the sea. From when the first High Queen, Mab, summoned the isles of Elfhame from the depths, our Folk have occasionally skirmished, but it seems clear that should we in earnest, there will be no victor. You said that you thought Queen Orlagh was waiting for an advantage to declare war. Instead, I think she is trying a new ruler—one she hopes she can trick or replace with another indebted to her. She thinks me young and feckless and means to take my measure.”

  “So what?” I ask. “Our choice is to endure her games, no matter how deadly, or engage in a war we cannot win?”

  Cardan shakes his head and drinks another cup of tea. “We show her that I am no feckless High King.”

  “And how do we do that?” I ask.

  “With great difficulty,” he says. “Since I fear she is right.”

  It would be a small thing to smuggle one of my own dresses out of my own rooms, but I don’t want Balekin to guess I’ve been inside the palace. Instead, I head to the Mandrake Market on the tip of Insmoor to find something suitable for the masquerade.

  I’ve been to the Mandrake Market twice before, both times long past and accompanying Madoc. It is exactly the sort of place that Oriana warned Taryn and I away from—entirely too full of Folk eager to make bargains. It’s open only in the misty mornings, when most of Elfhame is asleep, but if I can’t get a gown and a mask there, I will have to steal one out of a courtier’s wardrobe.

  I walk through the stalls, a little queasy from the smell of oysters smoking on a bed of kelp, the scent reminding me forcefully of the Undersea. I pass trays of spun-sugar animals, little acorn cups filled with wine, enormous sculptures of horn, and a stall where a bent-backed woman takes a brush and draws charms on the soles of shoes. It takes some wandering, but I finally find a collection of sculpted leather masks. They are pinned to a wall and cunningly shaped like the faces of strange animals or laughing goblins or boorish mortals, painted gold and green and every other color imaginable.

  I find one that is of a human face, unsmiling. “This one,” I say to the shopkeeper, a tall woman with a hollow back. She gives me a dazzling smile.

  “Seneschal,” she says, recognition lighting her eyes. “Let it be my gift to you.”

  “That’s very kind,” I say, a little desperately. All gifts come with a price, and I am already struggling to pay my debts. “But I’d prefer—”

  She winks. “And when the High King compliments your mask, you will let me make him one.” I nod, relieved that what she wants is straightforward. The woman takes the mask from me, laying it down on the table and pulling out a pot of paint from beneath a desk. “Let me make a little alteration.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She takes out a brush. “So she looks more like you.” And with a few swipes of the brush, the mask does bear my likeness. I stare at it and see Taryn.

  “I will remember your kindness,” I say as she packs it up.

  Then I depart and look for the fluttering cloth that marks a dress shop. I find a lace-maker instead and get a little turned around in a maze of potion-makers and tellers of fortunes. As I attempt to find my way back, I pass a stall occupied by a small fire. A hag sits on a little stool before it.

  She stirs the pot, and from it comes the scent of stewing vegetables. When she glances in my direction, I recognize her as Mother Marrow.

  “Come and sit by my fire?” she says.

  I hesitate. It doesn’t do to be rude in Faerie, where the highest laws are those of courtesy, but I am in a hurry. “I am afraid that I—”

  “Have some soup,” she says, picking up a bowl and shoving it toward me. “It is only that which is most wholesome.”

  “Then why offer it to me?” I ask.

  She gives a delighted laugh. “If you had not cost my daughter her dreams, I might well like you. Sit. Eat. Tell me, what have you come to the Mandrake Market for?”

  “A dress,” I say, moving to perch by the fire. I take the bowl, which is filled with unappetizing, thin brown liquid. “Perhaps you could consider that your daughter might not have liked a princess of the sea for a rival. I spared her that, at least.”

  She gives me an evaluating look. “She was spared you, moreover.”

  “Some might say that was a prize above price,” I tell her.

  Mother Marrow gestures to the soup, and I, who can afford no more enemies, bring it to my lips. It tastes of a memory I cannot quite place, warm afternoons and splashing in pools and kicking plastic toys across the brown grass of summer lawns. Tears spring to my eyes.

  I want to spill it out in the dirt.

  I want to drink it down to the dregs.

  “That’ll fix you right up,” she says as I blink back everything I was feeling and glare at
her. “Now, about that dress. What would you give me for one?”

  I take off the pair of pearl earrings from the Undersea. “How about these? For the dress and the soup.” They are worth more than the price of ten dresses, but I do not want to engage in any more bargaining, especially with Mother Marrow.

  She takes them, sliding her teeth over the nacre, then tucking them away in a pocket. “Well enough.” Out of another pocket, she takes a walnut and holds it out to me.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Don’t you trust me, girl?” she asks.

  “Not as far as I can throw you,” I return, and she lets out another cackle.

  Still, something is in the walnut, and it’s probably some kind of gown, because otherwise she wouldn’t be honoring the terms of the agreement. And I will not play the naive mortal for her, demanding to know how everything works. With that thought, I stand.

  “I don’t much like you,” she says, which is not an enormous surprise, although it stings. “But I like the sea Folk far less.”

  Thusly dismissed, I take the walnut and my mask and make the trek back to Insmire and Hollow Hall. I look out at the waves all around us, the expanse of ocean in every direction with its constant, restless, white-tipped waves. When I breathe, salt spray catches me in the back of my throat, and when I walk, I must avoid tide pools with little crabs in them.

  It seems hopeless to fight something so vast. It seems ridiculous to believe we can win.

  Balekin is sitting in a chair near the stairs when I come into Hollow Hall. “And where did you spend the night?” he asks, all insinuation.

  I go over to him and lift my new mask. “Costuming.”

  He nods, bored again. “You may ready yourself,” he says, waving vaguely to the stairs.

  I go up. I am not sure which room he intends for me to use, but I go again to Cardan’s. There, I sit on the rug before the unlit grate and crack open the walnut. Out spills pale apricot muslin, frothing quantities of it. I shake the dress. It has an empire waist and wide, gathered sleeves that start just above the elbow so that my shoulders are bare. It hangs down to the floor in more gathered pleats.

  When I put it on, I realize the fabric is the perfect complement to my complexion, although nothing can make me look less starved. No matter how the dress flatters me, I can’t get away from the feeling that my skin doesn’t fit. Still, it will do well for the night.

  As I adjust it, however, I realize the dress has several cunningly hidden pockets. I transfer the poison to one. I transfer the smallest of my knives to another.

  Then I attempt to make myself presentable. I find a comb among Cardan’s things and attempt to fix my hair. I have nothing to put it up with, so I wear it loose around my shoulders. I wash out my mouth. Then, tying the mask on, I head back to where Balekin waits.

  Up close, I am likely to be recognized by those who know me well, but otherwise I think I will be able to pass unnoticed through the larger crowd.

  When he sees me, he has no visible reaction but impatience. He stands. “You know what to do?”

  Sometimes lying is a real pleasure.

  I take the stoppered vial from my pocket. “I was a spy for Prince Dain. I have been a part of the Court of Shadows. You can trust me to kill your brother.”

  That brings a smile to his face. “Cardan was an ungrateful child to imprison me. He ought to have put me beside him. He ought to have made me seneschal. Really, he ought to have given me the crown.”

  I say nothing, thinking of the boy I saw in the crystal. The boy who still hoped he might be loved. Cardan’s admission of who he has become since haunts me: If he thought I was bad, I would be worse.

  How well I know that feeling.

  “I will mourn my youngest brother,” Balekin says, seeming to cheer himself a bit at the thought. “I may not mourn the others, but I will have songs composed in his honor. He alone will be remembered.”

  I think of Dulcamara’s exhortation to kill Prince Balekin, that he was the one who ordered the attack on the Court of Termites. Maybe he was even responsible for the Ghost setting explosives in the Court of Shadows. I recall him under the sea, exultant in his power. I think of all that he’s done and all he intends to do and am glad I am masked.

  “Come,” he says, and I follow him out the door.

  Only Locke would make the ridiculous choice of arranging a masquerade for a grave affair of state such as hosting Lord Roiben after an attack on his lands. And yet, when I sweep into the brugh on Balekin’s arm, such a thing appears underway. Goblins and grigs, pixies and elves, all cavort in endless intertwined circle dances. Honey wine flows freely from horns, and tables are stacked with ripe cherries, gooseberries, pomegranates, and plums.

  I walk from Balekin toward the empty dais, scanning the crowd for Cardan, but he is nowhere to be seen. I catch sight of salt-white hair instead. I am partway to the convocation from the Court of Termites when I pass Locke.

  I swing toward him. “You tried to kill me.”

  He startles, a ridiculous grin coming to his face once he recognizes me. Maybe he doesn’t remember the way he limped on his wedding day, but surely he must have known I would see the earrings in Taryn’s ears. Maybe because the consequences took so long in coming, he supposed they wouldn’t come at all.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be so serious,” he says, reaching for my hand. “I only wanted you to be afraid the way you’d frightened me.”

  I jerk my fingers from his grip. “I have little time for you now, but I will make time for you anon.”

  Taryn, dressed in a gorgeous panniered ball gown all robin’s egg blue, embroidered with delicate roses, and wearing a lacy mask over her eyes, sweeps up to us. “Make time for Locke? Whatever for?”

  He raises his brows, then takes his wife’s hand. “Your twin is upset with me. She had a gift all planned out for you, but I was the one to present the gift in her stead.”

  That’s accurate enough that it’s hard to contradict him, especially given the suspicious way that Taryn is looking at me.

  “What gift?” she wants to know. Perhaps she assumes we went somewhere together to choose something. I ought to just tell her about the riders, about how I hid the fight in the forest from her because I didn’t want her to be upset on her wedding day, about how I lost the earrings that Locke must have found, about how I cut one of the riders down and threw a dagger at her husband. About how he wanted me dead.

  But if I say all that, will she believe me?

  As I am trying to decide how to respond, Lord Roiben moves in front of us, looking down at me with his shining silver eyes, twin mirrors.

  Locke bows. My sister sinks into a beautiful curtsy, and I copy her as best as I can.

  “An honor,” she says. “I’ve heard many of your ballads.”

  “Hardly mine,” he demurs. “And largely exaggerated. Though blood does bounce on ice. That line is very true.”

  My sister looks momentarily discomfited. “Did you bring your consort?”

  “Kaye, yes, she’s in plenty of those ballads as well, isn’t she? No, I am afraid she didn’t come this time. Our last journey to the High Court was not quite what I promised her it would be.”

  Dulcamara said she was badly hurt, but he is taking care to avoid saying so; interesting care. Not a single lie, but a web of misdirections.

  “The coronation,” Taryn says.

  “Yes,” he goes on. “Not quite the minibreak either of us envisioned.”

  Taryn smiles a little at that, and Lord Roiben turns toward me. “You will excuse Jude and me?” he asks Taryn. “We have something pressing to discuss.”

  “Of course,” she says, and Roiben escorts me away, toward one of the darker corners of the hall.

  “Is she well?” I ask. “Kaye?”

  “She will live,” he says tersely. “Where is your High King?”

  I scan the hall again, my gaze going to the dais and the empty throne. “I don’t know, but he will be here. He spoke to me on
ly last evening of his regret over your losses and his desire to speak with you.”

  “We both know who was behind this attack,” Roiben says. “Prince Balekin blames me for throwing my weight and influence behind you and your princeling when you got him a crown.”

  I nod, glad of his calm.

  “You made me a promise,” he says. “Now it is time to determine if a mortal is truly as good as her word.”

  “I will fix things,” I vow. “I will find a way to fix things.”

  Lord Roiben’s face is calm, but his silver eyes are not, and I am forced to remember that he murdered his way to his own throne. “I will speak to your High King, but if he cannot give me satisfaction, then I must call in my debt.”

  And with that, he departs in a swish of his long cloak.

  Courtiers cover the floor, executing intricate steps—a circle dance that turns in on itself, splits into three and re-forms. I see Locke and Taryn out there, together, dancing. Taryn knows all the steps.

  I will have to do something about Locke eventually, but not tonight, I tell myself.

  Madoc sweeps into the room, Oriana on his arm. He is dressed in black, and she in white. They look like chess pieces on opposite sides of the board. Behind them come Mikkel and Randalin. A quick scan of the room and I spot Baphen speaking with a horned woman it takes me a moment to recognize, and when I do, it comes with a jolt.

  Lady Asha. Cardan’s mother.

  I knew she was a courtier before, saw it in the crystal globe on Eldred’s desk, but now it is as though I am seeing her for the first time. She wears a high-skirted gown, so that her ankles show along with little shoes cunningly made to resemble leaves. Her whole gown is in shades of autumn, leaves and blossoms of more cloth stitched over the length of it. The tips of her horns have been painted with copper, and she wears a copper circlet, which is not a crown but is reminiscent of one.

  Cardan said nothing to me about her, and yet somehow they must have effected a reconciliation. He must have pardoned her. As another courtier leads her out to the dance, I am uncomfortably aware that she is likely to acquire both power and influence quickly—and that she will do nothing good with either.