The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black Page 0,52
indignation. “Unchivalrous,” is all he says, but there’s something in his face that wasn’t there before.
Fear.
For five months I have tried to use every bit of restraint I learned over a lifetime of keeping my head down. I have tried to behave as though I had only dribs and drabs of power, an important servant’s power, and still keep in my head that I was in charge. A balancing act that makes me think of Val Moren’s lesson in juggling.
I have allowed the Locke situation to get out of hand.
I place my foot on his chest, pressing down a little to remind him that if I kicked hard, it could shatter bone.
“I am done with being polite. We’re not going to play word games or make up riddles. Humiliating the High King is a bad idea. Humiliating me is a terrible idea. Running around on my sister is just dumb. Maybe you thought I was too busy to take my revenge? Well, Locke, I want you to understand that for you, I will make time.”
His face pales. He’s obviously not sure what to make of me right now. He knows I stabbed Valerian once, but he doesn’t know I killed him, nor that I have killed since then. He has no idea I became a spy and then a spymaster. Even the sword fight with Taryn was something he only heard about.
“Making you Queen of Mirth was a jest,” Locke says, gazing up at me from the floor with a kind of fondness in his fox eyes, a little smile on the corner of his mouth, as though he’s willing me to grin along with him. “Come on, Jude, let me up. Am I really to believe you’d harm me?”
My voice is mock-sweet. “You once accused me of playing the great game. What was it you called it: ‘the game of kings and princes, of queens and crowns’? But to play it well, I must be pitiless.”
He begins to get up, but I press down harder with my foot and shift the grip on my knife. He stops moving. “You always liked stories,” I remind him. “You said you wanted to create the sparks of stories. Well, the tale of a twin who murders her sister’s betrothed is a good one, don’t you think?”
He closes his eyes and holds out his empty hands. “Peace, Jude. Perhaps I overplayed my hand. But I cannot believe you want to murder me for it. Your sister would be devastated.”
“Better she never be a bride than wind up a widow,” I say, but take my foot off his chest. He gets up slowly, dusting himself off. Once on his feet, he looks around the room as though he doesn’t quite recognize his own manor now that he’s seen it from the vantage of the floor.
“You’re right,” I continue. “I don’t want to harm you. We are to be family. You will be my brother and I your sister. Let us make friends. But to do that, I need you to do some things for me.
“First, stop trying to make me uncomfortable. Stop trying to turn me into a character in one of your dramas. Pick another target to weave stories around.
“Second, whatever your issue is with Cardan, whatever pushed you to make such a meal of toying with him, whatever made you think it was a fun to steal his lover and then throw her over for a mortal girl—as though you wanted him to know the thing dearest to him was worth nothing to you—let it go. Whatever made you decide to make me Queen of Mirth to torment him with the feelings you suspected he had, leave off. He’s the High King, and it’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous,” he says, “but fun.”
I don’t smile. “Humiliate the king before the Court, and the courtiers will spread rumors and his subjects will forget to be afraid. Soon, the lesser Courts will think they can go against him.”
Locke leans down to right the broken chair, leaning it against a nearby table when it becomes clear it won’t stand on its own. “Oh, fine, you’re angry with me. But think. You may be Cardan’s seneschal and you’ve obviously fascinated him with your hips and lips and warm mortal skin, but I know that in your heart, whatever he has promised you, you still hate him. You’d love to see him brought low in front of his entire Court. Why, if you hadn’t been dressed in rags and been