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

by Holly Black

“I don’t care,” Oak says. “I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t want to be king. I never want to be king.” For a moment, I just stare at him. I want to believe he’s lying, but, of course, he can’t lie. “We don’t always have a choice in our fate,” I say. “You rule if you care so much!” he says. “I won’t do it. Never.” I have to grind my teeth together to keep from screaming. “I can’t, as you know, because I’m in exile,” I remind him. He stamps a hoofed foot. “So am I! And the only reason I’m in the human world is because Dad wants the stupid crown and you want it and everyone wants it. Well, I don’t. It’s cursed.” “All power is cursed,” I say. “The most terrible among us will do anything to get it, and those who’d wield power best don’t want it thrust upon them. But that doesn’t mean they can avoid their responsibilities forever.”

I should never have taken this assignment. I should never have agreed to this fight. I should never have taken up Cardan’s offer of marriage and never been exiled to the mortal world.

There was a jeweled letter opener on the desk and—you remember all those lessons Madoc gave us? The next thing I knew, the point of it was in Locke’s throat. And then he was finally quiet, but when I took it out, there was so much blood.” “So you didn’t mean to kill him?” Vivi asks. Taryn doesn’t answer. I get what it feels like to shove things down for long enough that they erupt. I also get what it’s like to shove a knife in somebody. “It’s okay,” I say, not sure if that’s true. She turns to me. “I thought we were nothing alike, you and I. But it turns out we’re just the same.” I don’t think she believes that to be a good thing.

Fucking BIIIIIITCH UGH

“Where’s his body now?” I ask, trying to focus on the practical. “We need to get rid of it and—” Taryn shakes her head. “His body was already discovered.” “How? What did you do?” Before, I was frustrated she came to ask for help, but now I’m annoyed she didn’t come sooner, when I could have taken care of this. “I dragged his body down to the waves. I thought the tide would carry him away, but he just washed up again on another beach. At least, um, at least some of him was chewed. It was harder for them to tell how he died.” She looks at me helplessly, as though she still can’t conceive how any of this is happening to her. “I’m not a bad person.” I take a sip of my yarrow tea. “I didn’t say you were.”

Oh my fucking god can she DIE PLEASE

“There’s going to be an inquest,” Taryn goes on. “They’re going to glamour me and ask questions. I won’t be able to lie. But if you answer in my place, you can say honestly that you didn’t kill him.” “Jude is exiled,” Vivi says. “Banished until she gets the crown’s forgiveness or some other high-handed crap. If they catch her, they’ll kill her.” “It will just be a few hours,” Taryn says, looking from one of us to the other.

OH GOD WHAT A FUCKING SELFISH BITCH JUST DIE ALREADY

“If you get caught, you’ll be executed, Jude,” Vivi reminds me, interrupting whatever offer Taryn was about to make. I’m glad. I might be willing to do this, but it certainly doesn’t mean I forgive her. Or that we’re close now. And I don’t want her acting as though it does. “Then I won’t get caught,” I tell them both.

“It’s a shame,” he says, as though I am beyond hearing. “If only she stopped fighting me, I would have given her everything she ever wanted.” “She was never an obedient girl,” says Oriana beside him. “Not like her sister.” Taryn is there, too, a delicate tear running over her cheek. “They were only ever going to let one of us survive. It was always going to be me. You’re the sister who spits out toads and snakes. I’m the sister who spits out rubies and diamonds.”

I don’t know what to say to that, but when she makes a helpless gesture toward me, I come into her arms, leaning my head on her shoulder. I know there are a lot of things I ought to have told her and a lot she ought to have told me. I know we haven’t been kind. I know she’s hurt me, more than she can guess. But for all that, she’s still my sister. My widowed, murderer sister with a baby on the way.

She’s too forgiving and I hate it

Cardan glances at his mother. I wonder what has drawn her to Nicasia, unless it is only that they are both awful. And I wonder what Nicasia makes of her. Orlagh might be a ferocious and terrifying Queen of the Undersea, and I never want to spend another moment in her presence, but I believe she cherishes Nicasia. Surely Nicasia would expect more of Cardan’s mother than the thin gruel of emotion she has served her son.

“Jude never loved Locke.” My face feels hot, but my shame is an excellent cover to hide behind. “She loved someone else. He’s the one she’d want dead.” I am pleased to see Cardan flinch. “Enough,” he says before I can go on.

“Well,” he says, patting the couch beside him. “Didn’t you get my letters?” “What?” I am confused enough that the word comes out like a croak. “You never replied to a one,” he goes on. “I began to wonder if you’d misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.” This must be a test. This must be a trap. “Your Majesty,” I say stiffly. “I thought you brought me here to assure yourself I had neither charm nor amulet.” A single eyebrow rises, and his smile deepens. “I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don’t mind.” “What are you doing?” I say finally, desperately. “What are you playing at?” He’s looking at me as though somehow I am the one who’s behaving strangely. “Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”

By the fire, a spindly, insectile faerie stirs a big pot. “You want soup, mortal?” I shake my head. “You want to be soup?” it asks hopefully.

“Are you sure it’s wise to go against him at all, then?” I ask carefully. It is perhaps not exactly what Taryn would say, but it’s not exactly what I would say, either. “Wisdom is for the meek,” he returns. “And it seldom helps them as much as they believe it will. After all, as wise as you are, you still married Locke. Of course, perhaps you are wiser than even that—perhaps you’re so wise you made yourself a widow, too.”

How long before Oriana or Madoc realizes that I am Jude and not Taryn? I remember the vow Madoc made to me: And when I best you, I will make sure I do it as thoroughly as I would any opponent who has shown themselves to be my equal. It was a backhanded compliment, but it was also a straightforward threat. I know exactly what Madoc does to his enemies—he kills them and then washes his cap in their blood.

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.

“Didn’t you gift an earring to Cardan when you first came to Elfhame?” “You have a good memory,” he says. Hopefully, I have a better memory than he does, because Taryn didn’t attend the Blood Moon revel. “It allowed him to overhear those speaking just outside of range. A wonderful device for eavesdropping.” I wait expectantly. He laughs. “That’s not what you want to know, is it? Yes, it was cursed. With a word, I could turn it into a ruby spider that would bite him until he died.” “Did you use it?” I ask, recalling the globe I saw in Cardan’s study, in which a glittering red spider scrabbled restlessly at the glass. I am filled with cold horror at a tragedy already averted—and then blinding anger. Grimsen shrugs. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?” A very faerie answer. It sounds like no, when the truth is that the smith tried and it didn’t work.

“Is that why you killed Mom?” He sighs. “I honed my instincts in battle,” he says. “Sometimes those instincts are still there when there is no more war.”

I consider that, wondering what it takes to harden yourself to fight and kill over and over again. Wondering if some part of him is cold inside, a kind of cold that can never be warmed, like a shard of ice through the heart. Wondering if I have a shard like that, too.

“If you’re looking for reasons why he disappointed you,” Oriana says, “by all accounts, Prince Cardan was a disappointment from the beginning.”

Unfortunately, from the time I wake, Oriana will not let me leave her side. While she trusts me enough to keep my secret, she doesn’t trust me enough to let me walk around the camp, now that she knows who I truly am. She gives me wet laundry to spread before the fire, beans to pick from stones, and blankets to fold. I try not to rush through the tasks. I try to appear annoyed only because there seems to be a lot of work for me, though there was never so much work when I was Taryn.

And so I eat with Madoc one final time. I pinch some color into my cheeks and rake back my hair into a fresh braid. And if I am particularly kind that evening, particularly deferential, if I laugh particularly loudly, it is because I know I will never do this again. I will never have him behave like this with me again. But for one final night, he’s the father I remember best, the one in whose shadow I have—for better or worse—become what I am.

“Your sister Vivienne. She came to the High King with a message from your stepmother. She worried it was a trap. I was worried it was a trap, too. A trap for him. Maybe even for myself.” Which is why they took pains to catch me at my most vulnerable. But why come at all? And given all the disparaging things my older sister said about Cardan, why would she trust him with any of this? “Vivi went to you?” “We spoke after Madoc carried you off from the palace,” Cardan begins. “And whom did I find in her little dwelling but Taryn? We all had quite a lot to say to one another.”

I try to imagine the High King in the mortal world, standing in front of our apartment complex, knocking on our door. What ridiculous thing had he worn? Had he sat down on the lumpy couch and drank coffee as though he didn’t despise everything around him? Did he pardon Taryn when he wouldn’t pardon me?

I think of Madoc’s believing that Cardan desires to be loved. It seemed like nonsense then and seems like even more nonsense now. He charms everyone, even my own sisters. He is a gr...

Grabbing the cloak, he winds it around his hand, hauling me toward him. The ties choke me, then rip free. His sword sinks into my side, into my stomach. I look up at him for a moment, eyes wide. He seems as surprised as I feel. Somehow, despite knowing better, part of me still believed he would pull a killing blow. Madoc, who was my father ever since he murdered my father. Madoc, who taught me how to swing a sword to actually hit someone and not just their blade. Madoc, who sat me on his knee and read to me and told me he loved me. I fall to my knees. My legs have collapsed under me. His blade comes free, slick with my blood. My leg is wet with it. I am bleeding out. I know what happens next. He’s going to deliver the final blow. Lopping off my head. Stabbing through my heart. The strike that’s a kindness, really. After all, who wants to die slowly when you can die fast? Me. I don’t want to die fast. I don’t want to die at all.

“In all my days, I have seen naught the like of this,” Grima Mog says in a hushed voice. “Hey,” Vivi says, her voice wavering. She doesn’t sound like herself. “Wound’s closed. How are you feeling? Because some strange stuff is going on.” My skin has the sensation of being stung all over with nettles, but the fresh, hot pain is gone. I can move. I roll onto my good side and then up onto my knees. The wool beneath me is soaked through with blood. Way more blood than I am ready to believe came from me. And around the edges of the cloak, I spot tiny white flowers pushing through the snow, most of them still buds, but a few opening as I look. I stare, not sure what I am seeing. And then when I do understand, I can’t quite take it in. Baphen’s words about the High King come to me: When his blood falls, things grow.

Grima Mog goes to one knee. “My queen,” she says. “Command me.”

“It’s ridiculous the way everyone acts like killing a king is going to make someone better at being one,” Vivi says. “Imagine if, in the mortal world, a lawyer passed the bar by killing another lawyer.”

It is at that unfortunate moment that one of the knights stops me. “You. Mortal girl in the mask,” he says. “You smell like blood.” I turn. Frustrated and desperate as I am, I blurt out the first thing that comes to me. “Well, I am a mortal. And a girl, sir. We bleed every month, just like moon swells.”

Plunge a heated sword into oil and any small flaw will turn into a crack. But quenched in blood as you were, none of you broke. You were only hardened. If I continue the way I am, will I become like Madoc? Or will I break?

“Jude Duarte,” someone says. “Broken her exile to murder the High King.” “Your Majesty,” says Randalin. “Give the order.” Cardan sweeps across the floor toward me, looking like a ridiculously magnificent fiend. The guards part to let him closer, but if I make a move, I have no doubt they’ll stab me through. “I lost your cloak,” I croak up at him, my voice coming out all breath. He peers down at me. “You’re a liar,” he says, eyes glittering with fury. “A dirty, mortal liar.” I close my eyes again against the harshness of his words. But he has no reason to believe I haven’t come here to kill him.

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

“And when things started budding and blooming around you, I didn’t know what to think. Flowers and vines pushed right up through the ice. Then color came back into your skin, and you got up. I couldn’t believe it.” “Yeah,” I say softly. “I was fairly surprised myself.” “Does this mean you’re magical?” Heather asks, which is a fair question. Mortals are not supposed to be magical. “I don’t know,” I tell her.

“I assume you weren’t actually trying to shoot me,” Cardan says. “Since the note was in your handwriting.” “Madoc sent the Ghost—” I say, then stop and try again. “I thought that there was going to be an attempt on your life.”

“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.” “Mortals are fragile,” I say. “Not you,” he says in a way that sounds a little like a lament. “You never break.”

Which is ridiculous, as hurt as I am. I feel like a constellation of wounds, held together with string and stubbornness. Still, I like hearing it. I like everything he’s saying all too well. That boy is your weakness.

“When I came here, pretending to be Taryn, you said you’d sent me messages,” I say. “You seemed surprised I hadn’t gotten any. What was in them?” Cardan turns to me, hands clasped behind his back. “Pleading, mostly. Beseeching you to come back. Several indiscreet promises.”...

“Stop playing games,” I say. “You sent me into exile.” “Yes,” he says. “That. I can’t stop thinking about what you said to me, before Madoc took you. About it being a trick. You meant marrying you, making you queen, sending you to the mortal world, all of it, didn’t you?” I fold my arms across my chest protectively. “Of course it was a trick. Wasn’t that what you said in return?” “But that’s what you do,” Cardan says. “You trick people. Nicasia, Madoc, Balekin, Orlagh. Me. I th...

“Let me remind you that I didn’t know you’d murdered my brother, the ambassador to the Undersea, until that very morning,” he says. “My plans were made in haste. And perhaps I was a little annoyed. I thought it would pacify Queen Orlagh, at least until all promises were finalized in the treaty. By the time you guessed the answer, the negotiations would be over. Think of it: I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown.” He pauses...

“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.”

“Well, I was hurt, and yes, you scare me.” Even as I am speaking, I wish I could snatch back the words. Perhaps it is exhaustion or having been so close to death, but the truth pours out of me in a devastating rush. “You’ve always scared me. You gave me every reason to fear your capriciousness and your cruelty. I was afraid of you even when you were tied to that chair in the Court of Shadows. I was afraid of you when I had a knife to your throat. And I am scared of you now.” Cardan looks more surprised than he did when I slapped him.

“I can see why you thought what you did. I suppose I am not an easy person to trust. And maybe I ought not to be trusted, but let me say this: I trust you.”

“A duel?” Mikkel says. “Perhaps he mistakes the High King for someone more bloodthirsty. You, perhaps?” From him, that’s not exactly an insult.

“Well, Jude did get herself tangled up with Grima Mog.” Randalin has never much liked me, and I don’t think recent events have improved his feelings at all. “Leave it to you to spend your exile recruiting infamous butchers.”

“So did you murder Balekin?” Nihuar asks me, clearly able to put off her curiosity no longer. “Yes,” I say. “After he poisoned the High King.” “Poisoned?” she echoes in astonishment, looking at Cardan. He shrugs, lounging in a chair, looking bored ...

“You should go.” “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.

“Your Highness,” she says. “Lady Asha wishes to see you. She has sent me to bring you directly to the chamber where she languishes.” The Bomb snorts. “Languishes,” she mouths. “You may tell her that I will see her as soon as I am able,” I say with as much grandeur as I can muster. Although it’s clearly not the answer her mistress wanted me to give, the messenger can do little to challenge it. She hesitates a moment, then seems to realize it herself. Abashed, she departs with another bow. “You’re the High Queen of Elfhame. Act like it,” the Bomb says, fixing me with a serious expression. “You shouldn’t let anyone command you. Not even me.” “I told her no!” I protest. She begins to pick out another stitch, not particularly gently. “Lady Asha doesn’t get to be put next on your schedule just for asking. And she shouldn’t make the queen come to her. Especially when you were hurt. She’s lying in bed recuperating from the trauma of watching while you fell from the ceiling.” “Ouch,” I say, not sure if I am reacting to the tug against my flesh, her completely justified scolding, or her scathing assessment of Lady Asha.

“All those years, you could have helped me and my sister. You could have taught us how to survive here as mortals. But you left us to figure it out on our own, even though we’re the same.” He peers at me through narrowed eyes. “The same?” he demands. “Do you think a seed planted in goblin soil grows to be the same plant as it would have in the mortal world? No, little seed. I do not know what you are, but we are not the same. I came here fully grown.”

“Cardan was not an easy child to love, and he’s only grown worse with time. He would scream to be held, and then once picked up he would bite and kick his way out of my arms. He would find a game and obsess over it until it was conquered, then burn all the pieces. Once you’re no longer a challenge, he will despise you.” I stare at her. “And you’re giving me this warning out of the kindness of your heart?” She smiles. “I am giving you this warning because it doesn’t matter. You’re already doomed, Queen of Elfhame. You already love him. You already loved him when you questioned me about him instead of your own mother. And you will still love him, mortal girl, long after his feelings evaporate like morning dew.”

I can’t help thinking of Cardan’s silence when I asked if he liked that I was afraid. A part of him will always delight in cruelty. Even if he has changed, he could change again.