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

by Holly Black

I am more muscular, but clothes can hide that. My hair is shorter, but not by much. And then, of course, there’s my temper.

def would be a gym baddie 😜😜

“Greetings, Your Majesty, you betraying toad.”

deadass bruh

“Greetings, Your Majesty, you betraying toad.”

nah say that, it’s perfect

“I didn’t kill my husband, even though he richly deserved it.”

very much deserved

On it are toast and a marmalade with a cloying, strange scent that makes my mouth water. It takes longer than it ought for me to realize it’s faerie fruit.

😱😱

Once again, I am lost.

i’m always lost 😔

“Taryn?” Cardan asks, and the sound of his voice, the familiarity of it, is shocking.

uh ohhhhhhh

I remember the slide of his mouth on mine. I remember how he tricked me.

personally i suggest you kick him

“Did you murder Locke?” he asks.

yuh fam what abt it

I wish I could punch him in his smug face and show him how undeterred I am by his exile.

if only

“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.

MHMMM YEAH

And yet, after a moment, his anger gives way to something else. He gives me one of his most awful smiles. “I suppose she’ll have to be searched.”

oh. no.

Unfortunately, the High King’s smile only grows. “As you wish. Then I suppose I will have to examine you alone in my chambers.”

EXCUSE MEEEEE?

If I am undressed, he will know me.

HYUCKHYUCKHYUCK

Maybe he wants to see Taryn naked. He desired me, after all, and Taryn and I are identical.

🫵 PERVERT

Perhaps I could blow out the candles and be naked only in the half light.…

can’t faerie people still see tho or am i wrong

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

oh god he knows

“I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don’t mind.”

OF COURSE YOU DONT MIND YOU PERV

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

OH MY GOD HE DID KNOW

“Are you angry about—” He cuts himself off, looking at my face more carefully. “No, you’re afraid. But why would you be afraid of me?”

are you dumb

I am trembling with a feeling that I barely understand. “I’m not,” I lie. “I hate you. You sent me into exile. Everything you say to me, everything you promise, it’s all a trick. And I, stupid enough to believe you once.”

i’m LOVING this angst give me more

“Daughter,” Madoc says in his gravelly voice. “Daughter, don’t be afraid—” His hand comes up with a cloth smelling of cloying sweetness. He presses it over my nose and mouth. I feel my limbs go loose, and a moment later, I feel nothing at all.

W H A T

“You want to be soup?” it asks hopefully.

i’ll make YOU into soup wtf

Cardan was so disarmingly casual, as though sentencing me to death was some shared joke between us. And talking of messages, messages I never got. What could they have said? Could he have intended to pardon me? Could he have offered me some kind of bargain?

SHOW ME THE LETTERS

I wonder if he would laugh so hard if he knew Taryn had actually done it. Who am I kidding? He would probably laugh even harder. He would probably laugh himself sick.

that’s scary to imagine

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

YEAAAAAH THATS RIGHT 😼

And that means Madoc isn’t just trying to take Cardan’s throne. He’s trying to take mine.

🍿🍿🍿

The door to Grimsen’s forge is propped open, and I see the smith inside, shirtless, his wiry, hairy form bent over the blade he’s hammering.

i am… a little disturbed

“It allowed him to overhear those speaking just outside of range. A wonderful device for eavesdropping.”

omg wait can i have one

I ought to press him for more, ought to ask him about a way for me to escape the camp, but I can’t bear to speak with him for another minute and not stab him with one of his own weapons.

you’re so real

“I would like that,” he says, sweeping his hand around the forge, at all the objects there. “As you can see, I like beautiful things.”

ew absolutely not

“I wouldn’t play the game if I couldn’t win.”

“I will spare you the whole of the strategy,” he says. “But I am going to challenge him to a duel—and after I win, I will split his melon of a head.”

oh…!

“But it was only that I understood her better. And yet, you and I have something in common—we both made a poor marriage.”

and they murdered their spouses wow so sweet

“No?” Madoc asks. “Who killed Locke, if not you?”

i did

“Are you glad I killed him?”

yes

I remember what it was like to have a knife pressed to Cardan’s throat.

do you, now? 🫦🫦🫦

I feel a pang that I am no longer the daughter to whom he makes offers like this. I am not the one welcomed to his hearth, not the one he would care for and cherish.

i’m feeling the pang too damn

Although I am not sure how I will manage the trek across the ice, I resolve that I must run tonight.

YEAH GIRL RUNNNNNN

I grit my teeth and remember the Ghost’s lessons—go slowly, make every step sure, keep to the shadows.

watch the prisoner be the ghost

“Jude?” says a soft voice. A voice I know. The Ghost.

oh yay it’s the backstabber!!

I consider pretending to be Taryn, but he could hardly believe it was my twin who snuck past those guards.

not choosing favorites but jude is def the better twin

“Gloat all you like.” His voice is mild. “I deserve it. I know what I did, Jude. I was a fool.”

NAAHHHH REALLY? tell me something i don’t know

“Locke,” I say numbly. I wonder if Locke realized, after Cardan’s coronation, that Oak must be his half brother. I wonder if he felt anything about it, if he ever mentioned it to Taryn.

can never escape this man omfg

But until he ordered that I take you to the Tower of Forgetting and let the Undersea abduct you, I believed he meant mischief, never danger.” Nicasia must have known to ask him for a favor. No wonder Locke and his friends felt safe enough to hunt me the night before his wedding. He knew I would be gone the next day.

why is there always more reason to hate this man IM SICKKKK

“Your stumbling in here is the first good fortune I’ve had in a long time. And it is good fortune, even if we both know what needs to happen next.”

ofc my girl is good fortune 😜😜

“I’m going to get you out of here,” I say. “And then—”

flashbacks to sophie 💔💔 (that was her name right…)

Of course I do. And I can’t help thinking of the mortal servant in Balekin’s household, Sophie, with her pockets full of stones.

i remembered well yuh

“But you’d be better served if you used the knife.” The worst part is, he’s probably right.

YEEEOUCCHHHH

“There was a knight who asked me to meet him under the stars and—”

girl💀💀💀💀