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You’re the sister who spits out toads and snakes. I’m the sister who spits out rubies and diamonds.”
It occurs to me that maybe he made a mistake with that phrasing. Maybe I can pardon myself.
“She loved someone else. He’s the one she’d want dead.”
“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. And that means Madoc isn’t just trying to take Cardan’s throne. He’s trying to take mine.
I will make him armor of ice to shatter every blade that strikes it and that 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.
My sisters, who, despite everything, came for me.
“She is my wife,” Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd. “The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.”
“It was terrifying,” he says, “watching you fall. I mean, you’re generally terrifying, but I am unused to fearing for you. And then I was furious. I am not sure I have ever been that angry before.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He grabs my hand, possibly to keep me from hitting him again. Our fingers lace together. “No, it’s not that, not exactly. I didn’t think I could hurt you. And I never thought you would be afraid of me.” “And did you like it?” I ask.
“This is my room,” he points out, affronted. “And that’s my wife.”
“So you keep telling everyone,” the Bomb says. “But I am going to take out her stitches, and I don’t think you want to watch that.” “Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe he’d like to hear me scream.” “I would,” Cardan says, standing. “And perhaps one day I will.” On the way out, his hand goes to my hair. A light touch, barely there, and then gone.
“Is this what you imagined I’d be like, back in your rooms at Hollow Hall, when you thought of me and hated it? Is this how you pictured my eventual surrender?”
“Mock me all you like. Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” His eyes are black with desire. “By you, I am forever undone.” It seems impossible that he’s
There is no banquet too abundant for a starving man.
“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.”
His hands tremble on the sword, clutching it far too hard. “You were very brave,” I tell him. “You just have to be brave a little longer.”
“And I might have fought for you regardless if for no other reason than a mortal Queen of Faerie cannot help but delight many people I hold dear and annoy many people I dislike. But after what Cardan did in the great hall, I understand why you were willing to take mad gamble after mad gamble to put him on the throne, and I would have fought until the breath left my body.”
“I love you,” I say, and then he devours me.
“I do love you,” I whisper. “I will always love you.”
“And you.” He looks at me, his lips curving in something that’s not quite a smile; it’s more and less than that. “I knew little else, but I always knew you.” And when he kisses me, I feel as though I can finally breathe again.
