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

by Holly Black

“Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”

I am the Queen of Elfhame. Even though I am the queen in exile, I am still the queen.

“She is my wife,” Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd. “The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.”

“This is my room,” he points out, affronted. “And that’s my wife.”

“Seelie and Unseelie, Wild Folk and Shy Folk, I am glad to have you march under my banner, glad of your loyalty, grateful for your honor.” His gaze goes to me. “To you, I offer honey wine and the hospitality of my table. But to traitors and oath breakers, I offer my queen’s hospitality instead. The hospitality of knives.”

“By you, I am forever undone.”

“We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to remove it.”

“I missed you,” I whisper against his skin and feel dizzy with the intimacy of the admission, feel more naked than when he could see every inch of me. “In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you.” “My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned.”

“It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t.”