The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air, #2)

by Holly Black

The disturbing thing about Cardan is how well he plays the fool to disguise his own cleverness.

“For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.” I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?” He grins up at me. “They missed.”

“If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”

Kiss me until I am sick of it.

“My land and my king. And I will protect them both. Say the same, go on.”

I still feel the warm pressure of his fingers against my skin. Something is really wrong with me, to want what I hate, to want someone who despises me, even if he wants me, too. My only comfort is that he doesn’t know what I feel.

“Excruciating. Alarming. Distressing.”

Black as the eyes of the king of Elfhame.

I cut him off. “I did it for the same reason that you did. To get it out of my system.” “And is it?” he asks. “Out of your system?”

Now he studies me with a not-dissimilar look, and all I want to do is walk into his arms. I want to drown my worries in his embrace. I want him to say something totally unlike himself, about things being okay.

Kill him before he makes you love him.

I hope Cardan misses me.

I wonder what would have happened if I’d admitted he wasn’t out of my system.

“Perhaps I am foolish, but I am not a fool. You like something about me,”

“The challenge? My pretty eyes? No matter, because there is more you do not like and I know it.

power. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be afraid to love him.