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

by Holly Black

“Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise, but not before what I have told you comes to pass.”

“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.

He gives me a quicksilver, conspiratorial grin that seems completely at odds with the way he spoke to me from his throne.

“Well,” he says, patting the couch beside him. “Didn’t you get my letters?”

AHHHH

“You never replied to a one,” he goes on. “I began to wonder if you’d misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.”

He said "I was so scared you liked it better there"

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

lmaoooo. He's down so incredibly bad

“No, you’re afraid. But why would you be afraid of me?”

“Half my knights never made it out,”

AHHHH

Roach, moving the light so that I can see the person with him, the one I elbowed. The High King of Elfhame, in plain brown wool, a cloak on his back of a fabric so dark it seems to absorb light, leaf blade in the scabbard on his hip. He wears no crown on his brow, no rings on his fingers, nor gold paint limning his cheekbones. He looks every inch a spy from the Court of Shadows, down to the sneaky smile pulling at a corner of his beautiful mouth.

“Although I am wearing the cloak Mother Marrow made me, the one that will turn any blade, I still promise to run, tail between my legs. And since I have a tail, that should be amusing for everyone. Are you satisfied?”

Cardan steps in front of me, pulling his cloak up. The metal needles glance off the fabric, falling to the floor. For a moment, we stare at each other, wide-eyed. He looks as surprised as I am that he protected 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.”

AHHHHHHH. FINALLY

“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.”

Cardan turns to me, hands clasped behind his back. “Pleading, mostly. Beseeching you to come back. Several indiscreet promises.” He’s wearing that mocking smile, the one he says comes from nervousness.

God. Those letters.

“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.

Freaks

“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.”

Down so bad

“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.”

He said anywayyyy

I can’t believe he said that and then just walked out, leaving me reeling. I am going to strangle him.

Me fr

And maybe make out with his face, if he’s feeling up to that.

Lmao. The most teenage girl thing she has said

Even from across the room, I can feel the intensity of his gaze.

he said "sorry I'm obsessed with my wife"

I start to speak, but he stops me with a gesture. “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.

🤧

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

it's just so good