The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black Page 0,85
of Madoc’s stronghold. The knight opens the door, and Gnarbone lifts me bodily from the carriage as easily as I might have lifted Oak, as though I am made of twigs and leaves instead of earthly flesh. He carries me to my old bedroom.
Tatterfell is waiting for us. She takes down my hair and strips off my dress, carrying away Nightfell and putting me into a shift. Another servant sets down a tray holding a pot of hot tea and a plate of venison bleeding onto toast. I sit on the rug and eat it, using the buttered bread to sop up the meat juices.
I fall asleep there, too. When I wake, Taryn is shaking me.
I blink hazily and stumble to my feet. “I’m up,” I say. “How long was I lying there?”
She shakes her head. “Tatterfell says that you’ve been out for the whole day and night. She worried that you had a human illness—that’s why she sent for me. Come on, at least get in bed.”
“You’re married now,” I say, recalling it suddenly. With that comes the memory of Locke and the riders, the earrings I was supposed to give her. It all feels so far away, so distant.
She nods, putting her wrist to my forehead. “And you look like a wraith. But I don’t think you have a fever.”
“I’m fine,” I say, the lie coming automatically to my lips. I have to get to Cardan and warn him about the Ghost. I have to see the Court of Shadows.
“Don’t act so proud,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes. “You disappeared on my wedding night, and I didn’t even know you were gone until morning. I’ve been so frightened.
“When the Undersea sent word it had you, well, the High King and Madoc blamed each other. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Every morning, I went to the edge of the water and looked down, hoping I could see you. I asked all the mermaids if they could tell me if you were okay, but no one would.”
I try to imagine the panic she must have felt, but I can’t.
“They seem to have worked through their differences,” I say, thinking of them together at the beach.
“Something like it.” She makes a face, and I try to smile.
Taryn helps me into my bed, arranging the cushions behind me. I feel bruised all over, sore and ancient and more mortal than ever before.
“Vivi and Oak?” I ask. “Are they okay?”
“Fine,” she says. “Back home with Heather, who seems to have gotten through her visit to Faerieland without much drama.”
“She was glamoured,” I say.
For a moment, I see anger cross her face, raw and rare. “Vivi shouldn’t do that,” Taryn says.
I am relieved not to be the only one to feel that way. “How long have I been gone?”
“A little over a month,” she says, which seems impossibly brief. I feel as though I have aged a hundred years beneath the sea.
Not only that, but now I am more than halfway through the year and a day Cardan promised. I sink back on the cushions and close my eyes. “Help me get up,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Let the kitchens send up more soup.”
It isn’t difficult to persuade me. As a concession, Taryn helps me dress in clothes that were once too tight and now hang on me. She stays to feed me spoonfuls of broth.
When she’s ready to go, she pulls up her skirts and takes a long hunting knife out of a sheath attached to a garter. In that moment, it’s clear we grew up in the same house.
She puts the knife onto the coverlets beside a charm she takes from her pocket. “Here,” she says. “Take them. I know they’ll make you feel safer. But you must rest. Tell me you won’t do anything rash.”
“I can barely stand on my own.”
She gives me a stern look.
“Nothing rash,” I promise her.
She embraces me before she goes, and I hang a little too long on her shoulders, drinking in the human smell of sweat and skin. No ocean, no pine needles or blood or night-blooming flowers.
I doze off with my hand on her knife. I am not sure when I wake, but it’s to the sound of arguing.
“Whatsoever the Grand General’s orders, I am here to see the High King’s seneschal and I won’t be put off with any more excuses!” It’s a woman’s voice, one I half-recognize. I roll off the bed, heading dizzily