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

by Holly Black

Jude Duarte, High Queen of Elfhame in exile, spend most mornings dozing in front of daytime television, watching cooking competitions and cartoons and reruns of a show where people have to complete a gauntlet by stabbing boxes and bottles and cutting through a whole fish.

He’s good at putting those around him at ease, even when they ought to know better. Unfortunately, what I am good at is getting under people’s skin. But at least I am also good at lying.

“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.”

The tea is too hot. The first sip burns my tongue. “It’s not easy to help a queen,” Taryn says. “They’re not supposed to need helping.” We lapse into silence.

To family and Faerieland and pizza and stories and new beginnings and scheming great schemes. I can toast to that.