Perhaps it would be better for Taryn to discover unhappiness with Locke as soon as possible. But she’s my sister, and I never want to be the cause of her pain. I shake my head.
He makes a vague gesture in the air. “As you wish. Your sister will be wrapped in satin and sackcloth, as protected from herself as I can make her.”
I stand. “The Council wants Locke to arrange some amusement to please Grimsen. If it’s nice, perhaps the smith will make you a cup that never runs out of wine.”
Cardan gives me a look up through his lashes that I find hard to interpret and then rises, too. He takes my hand. “Nothing is sweeter,” he says, kissing the back of it, “but that which is scarce.”
My skin flushes, hot and uncomfortable.
When I go out, his little circle is in the hall, waiting to be allowed back into his rooms. My sister looks a bit queasy, but when she sees me, she pastes on a wide, fake smile. One of the boys has put a limerick to music, playing it again and again, faster and faster. Their laughter floods the hallway, sounding like the cawing of crows.
Heading through the palace, I pass a chamber where a few courtiers have gathered. There, toasting an eel in the flames of a massive fireplace, sitting on a rug, is the old High King Eldred’s Court Poet and Seneschal, Val Moren.
Faerie artists and musicians sit around him. Since the death of most of the royal family, he’s found himself at the center of one of the Court factions, the Circle of Larks. Brambles are coiled in his hair, and he sings softly to himself. He’s mortal, like me. He’s also probably mad.
“Come drink with us,” one of the Larks says, but I demur.
“Pretty, petty Jude.” The flames dance in Val Moren’s eyes when he looks my way. He begins picking off burnt skin and eating the soft white flesh of the eel. Between bites, he speaks. “Why haven’t you come to me for advice yet?”
It’s said that he was High King Eldred’s lover, once. He’s been in the Court since long before the time my sisters and I came here. Despite that, he never made common cause of our mortality. He never tried to help us, never tried to reach out to us to make us feel less alone. “Do you have some?”
He gazes at me and pops one of the eyes of the eel into his mouth. It sits, glistening, on his tongue. Then he swallows. “Maybe. But it matters little.”
I am so tired of riddles. “Let me guess. Because when I ask you for advice, you’re not going to give it to me?”
He laughs, a dry, hollow sound. I wonder how old he is. Under the brambles, he looks like a young man, but mortals won’t grow old so long as they don’t leave Elfhame. Although I cannot see age in lines in his face, I can see it in his eyes. “Oh, I will give you the finest advice anyone’s ever given you. But you will not heed it.”
“Then what good are you?” I demand, about to turn away. I don’t have time for a few lines of useless doggerel for me to interpret.
“I’m an excellent juggler,” he says, wiping his hands on his pants, leaving stains behind. He reaches into his pocket, coming up with a stone, three acorns, a piece of crystal, and what appears to be a wishbone. “Juggling, you see, is just tossing two things in the air at the same time.”
He begins to toss the acorns back and forth, then adds the wishbone. A few of the Larks nudge one another, whispering delightedly. “No matter how many things you add, you’ve got only two hands, so you can only toss two things. You’ve just got to throw faster and faster, higher and higher.” He adds the stone and the crystal, the things flying between his hands fast enough that it’s hard to see what he’s tossing. I suck in a breath.
Then everything falls, crashing to the stone floor. The crystal shatters. One of the acorns rolls close to the fire.
“My advice,” says Val Moren, “is that you learn to juggle better than I did, seneschal.”
For a long moment, I am so angry that I can’t move. I feel incandescent with it, betrayed by the one person who ought to understand how hard it is to be what we are, here.