How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories - Holly Black Page 0,10

on the isles. But she had never paid him any special attention, and he wasn’t sure how to behave toward her now that she was.

“Humans are disgusting,” he said primly.

Rhyia looked amused. “Are they?”

There was absolutely no reason to think of Jude in that moment. She was utterly insignificant.

Rhyia waved the book at him. “Vivienne gave me this. Do you know her? It’s nonsense, but amusing.”

Vivienne was Jude and Taryn’s older sister and Madoc’s legitimate daughter. Hearing her name made him feel uncomfortable, as though his sister could read his thoughts.

“What is it?” he managed.

She put it in his hand.

He looked down at a red book, embossed in gold. The title was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. He frowned at it in confusion. It wasn’t what he’d thought a mortal book would be like; he thought they would be dull things, odes to their cars or skyscrapers. But then he recalled how humans were frequently brought to Faerie for their skill in the arts. Flipping the book open, he read the first sentence his gaze fell on.

“I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn.

Cardan had to flip a few pages back to see whom the Unicorn was discussing. A child. A human girl who had fallen into a place that was apparently called Wonderland.

“This is really a mortal book?” he asked.

He leafed through more pages, frowning.

“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

Rhyia leaned over and pushed a fallen strand of his hair back over one of his ears. “Take it.”

“You want me to have it?” he asked, just to be sure.

He wondered what he’d done that was worthy of being commemorated with a present.

“I thought you could use a little nonsense,” she told him, which worried him a little.

He took it home with him, and the next day he took it to the edge of the water. He sat, opened the book, and began to read. Time slipped away, and he didn’t notice someone coming up behind him.

“Sulking by the sea, princeling?”

Cardan looked up to see the troll woman. He startled.

“You recall Aslog, don’t you?” she asked with something acid in her voice, an accusation.

He remembered her as something nightmarish and dreamlike from his boyhood. He had half thought he’d invented her.

She was dressed in a long cloak with a pointed end to her hood that curled a bit. She was carrying a basket with a blanket over it.

“I was reading, not sulking,” Cardan said, feeling childish. Then he stood, tucking the book under his arm, reminding himself that he was no longer a child. “But I am happy enough to be distracted. May I carry your basket?”

“Someone has learned to wear a false face,” she told him, handing it over.

“I had lessons enough,” he said, smiling with what he hoped was a sharp-toothed smile. “One from you, as I recall.”

“Ah yes, I told you a tale, but that’s not how I remember its conclusion,” she said. “Walk with me to the market.”

“As you like.” Her basket was surprisingly heavy. “What’s in here?”

“Bones,” she said. “I can grind those just as easily as I ground grain. Your father needs to be reminded of that.”

“Whose bones?” Cardan asked warily.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Then she laughed. “You were quite young when I told you that story; perhaps you’d like to hear it again with new ears.”

“Why not?” Cardan said, not at all sure that he would. Somehow, in her presence, he couldn’t manage to behave in the polished, sinister way he’d cultivated. Perhaps he knew how quickly she would see through it.

“Once, there was a boy with a wicked heart,” the troll woman said.

“No, that’s not right,” Cardan interrupted. “That’s not how it goes. He had a wicked tongue.”

“Boys change,” she told him. “And so do stories.”

He was a prince, he reminded himself, and he knew now how to wield his power. He could punish her. While his father might not care for him, he would do little to prevent Cardan from being horrible to a mere troll woman, especially one who had come to threaten the crown.

Once, there was a boy with a wicked heart.

“Very well,” he said. “Continue.”

She did, her smile showing teeth. “He put stones in the baker’s bread, spread rumors of how the butcher’s sausages were made with spoiled meat, and scorned his brothers and sisters. When the village maidens thought to change him through love, they soon repented of it.”

“Sounds despicable,”