How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories - Holly Black Page 0,19

her that the fancy palace is now as much hers as his. “Not in the least,” he says instead, and feels her smile against his skin.

But once he starts recalling his desire to leave Elfhame, he can’t help but also recall how desperately she wanted to stay. And how difficult that had been, how hard she had fought, how hard she was still fighting, even now that she didn’t have to.

“Why didn’t you hate everyone?” he asks. “Everyone, all the time.”

“I hated you,” Jude reassures him, bringing her mouth to his.

Late the next afternoon, Bryern comes to the woods between the highway and Heather’s apartment complex.

Jude’s old employer turns out to be a phooka in a vest and a bowler hat. He has black fur, golden goat eyes, and what Cardan believes to be a bad attitude. He’s accompanied by a scruffy clurichaun and a nervous-looking ogre serving as bodyguards, which suggests that Bryern was afraid to come before his sovereigns. That doesn’t bother Cardan—in fact, he’s rather pleased about it—but it’s insulting to think those two would keep Bryern safe from the High King and Queen of Elfhame. Not only that, but Cardan finds their bows to be insufferably shallow.

They seem rattled when they realize who he is. And somehow he finds that to be the thing that annoys him most of all, that they thought he wouldn’t be bothered to come, that he would leave this to Jude.

His queen is dressed in mortal clothing, jeans and what they call a hoodie, her thumbs through holes at the wrists. Her hair falls mostly loose, but two braids hang near her face in a style she might wear in Elfhame, but which here does not mark her as anything other than a mortal girl who grew up in a mortal home.

For his part, he is clad in what Vivi told him to put on—black shirt and jeans, boots and jacket. No silver or gold except the rings on his fingers, which he refused to remove. He has never before willingly worn such an understated costume.

“So,” Jude says, “you want to give me my old job back.”

Bryern has the good sense to flinch a little. “Your Majesty,” he says, “we are in the middle of a very difficult situation. A Court from the Northwest has come here, saying they are hunting a monster, and will not respect our self-governance. Their knights force us into servitude, claiming we must fight at their side. And the monster slaughters anyone who comes into the woods where it dwells.”

“Huh,” says Jude. “Where exactly are these w—”

“Which Court?” Cardan interrupts, hoping to keep Jude from immediately volunteering to fight something.

“That of Queen Gliten, Your Majesty,” Bryern tells him, but then turns to Jude, fishing a folded paper out of his pocket. “This is a map. I thought you might want it.”

Queen Gliten. Cardan frowns. He knows something about her, but he can’t quite recall what.

Jude pockets the map.

Bryern gives an awkward bob of his horned head. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

She gives him a look that Cardan would not enjoy having leveled in his direction. “Is that why you compared my foster father to Grima Mog and tried to guilt me into it?”

“A comparison you can hardly mind, since Grima Mog now sits in a place of honor by your side,” the clurichaun puts in hopefully, speaking for the first time.

“Stuff it, Ladhar,” Jude says with a roll of her eyes. “Okay, we’re on it. Don’t say the High Court never did anything for you.”

That night, Cardan lies in bed, looking at the ceiling, long after Jude falls asleep.

At first, he thinks it is the unfamiliar scents of this world keeping him awake, the iron tang that hangs over everything. And then he thinks that perhaps he has become too used to velvet coverlets and mattresses piled up on one another.

But as he slides out of bed, he realizes it isn’t that.

After their meeting with Bryern, Jude was entirely amenable to his suggestions. Yes, they should immediately send a message to Queen Gliten and command her representatives to present themselves to be reprimanded. Yes, absolutely, they ought to send for reinforcements. And sure, he could look at the map, although it was tucked into her rucksack, so maybe he should look later. After all, they had time.

Heather cooked something she called “plant-based meat” for dinner, formed into the shape of “hamburgers” and dressed with two sauces, leaves, and slices of raw onion soaked in water. Oak