The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black Page 0,72

him, hooves first, through the carriage window and into her arms.

I climb after, inelegantly. My dress is ridiculously revealing, and my leg is still stiff, still hurting, when I fall onto Locke’s stone floor.

“Anything?” I ask, looking up at the Bomb.

She shakes her head, extending a hand to me. “That was always the long shot. My bet is on the maze.”

Oak frowns, and I rub his shoulders. “You don’t have to do this,” I tell him, although I am not sure what we do if he says he won’t.

“I’m okay,” he says without looking into my eyes. “Where’s my mom?”

“I’ll find her for you, twigling,” says the Bomb, and puts her arm over his thin shoulder to lead him out. At the doorway, she looks back at me and fishes something out of her pocket. “You seem to have hurt yourself. Good thing I don’t just cook up explosives.”

With that, she tosses me something. I catch it without knowing what it is, and then turn it over in my hand. A pot of ointment. I look back up to thank her, but she’s already gone.

Unstoppering the little pot, I breath in the scent of strong herbs. Still, once I spread it over my skin, my pain diminishes. The ointment cools the heat of what was probably imminent infection. The leg is still sore, but nothing as it was.

“My seneschal,” Cardan says, and I nearly drop the ointment. I tug down my dress, turning. “Are you ready to welcome Locke into your family?”

The last time we were in this house, in the maze of the gardens, his mouth was streaked with golden nevermore, and he watched me kiss Locke with a simmering intensity that I thought was hatred.

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.

“Nice dress,” he says instead.

I know the Court must already think I am besotted with the High King to endure being crowned Queen of Mirth and still serve as his seneschal. Everyone must think, as Madoc does, that I am his creature. Even after he humiliated me, I came crawling back.

But what if I actually am becoming besotted with him?

Cardan is more knowledgeable than I am at love. He could use that against me, just as I asked him to use it against Nicasia. Perhaps he found a way to turn the tables after all.

Kill him, a part of me says, a part I remember from the night I took him captive. Kill him before he makes you love him.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” I say, because if the Undersea is going to strike then, we must not give it any easy targets. “Not tonight.”

Cardan grins. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

The offhand implication that he’s not alone most nights bothers me, and I hate that it does. “Good,” I say, swallowing that feeling, though it feels like swallowing bile. “But if you’re planning on taking someone to bed—or better yet, several someones—choose guards. And then have yourselves guarded by more guards.”

“A veritable orgy.” He seems delighted by the idea.

I keep thinking of the steady way he looked at me when we were both naked, before he pulled on his shirt and fastened those elegant cuffs. We should have called truce, he’d said, brushing back his ink-black hair impatiently. We should have called truce long before this.

But neither of us called it, not then, not after.

Jude, he’d said, running a hand up my calf, are you afraid of me?

I clear my throat, forcing the memories away. “I command you not to allow yourself to be alone from tonight’s sundown to tomorrow’s sunup.”

He draws back, as though bitten. He no longer expects me to deliver orders in this high-handed way, as though I don’t trust him.

The High King of Elfhame makes a shallow bow. “Your wish—no, strike that. Your command is my command,” he says.

I cannot look at him as he goes out. I am a coward. Maybe it’s the pain in my leg, maybe it’s worry over my brother, but a part of me wants to call after him, wants to apologize. Finally, when I am sure he’s gone, I head toward the party. A few steps and I am in the hallway.

Madoc looks at me from where he leans against the wall. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he shakes his head