The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black Page 0,88
necessary, ride in it with you. Do you expect you will require our presence?”
I stand there, furious and outmaneuvered. “No,” I say.
Cardan couldn’t refuse me an audience, but he could allow someone else to give the order. So long as Madoc didn’t ask for Cardan’s permission, it didn’t contradict my commands. And it wouldn’t be so hard to figure out the sort of things I might have commanded Cardan—after all, most of it was stuff Madoc would probably have ordered himself.
I knew that Madoc wanted to rule Faerie from behind the throne. It didn’t occur to me that he might find his way to Cardan’s side and cut me out.
They played me. Either together or separately, they played me.
My stomach churns with anxiety.
The feeling of being fooled, the shame of it, haunts me. It tangles up my thoughts.
I recall Cardan sitting atop the dappled gray horse on the beach, his impassive face, furred cloak, and crown highlighting his resemblance to Eldred. I may have tricked him into his role, but I didn’t trick the land into receiving him. He has real power, and the longer he’s on the throne, the greater his power will become.
He’s become the High King, and he’s done it without me.
This is everything I feared when I came up with this stupid plan in the first place. Perhaps Cardan didn’t want this power at first, but now that he has it, it belongs to him.
But the worst part is that it makes sense that Cardan is out of my reach, for him to be inaccessible to me. Diarmad and the other knight’s stopping me at the palace doors is the fulfillment of a fear I’ve had since this masquerade began. And as terrible as it feels, it also seems more reasonable than what I’ve been trying to convince myself of for months—that I am the seneschal of the High King of Faerie, that I have real power, that I can keep this game going.
The only thing I wonder is why not let me languish beneath the sea?
Turning away from the palace, I head through the trees to where there’s an entrance into the Court of Shadows. I just hope I won’t run into the Ghost. If I do, I am not sure what will happen. But if I can get to the Roach and the Bomb, then maybe I can rest awhile. And get the information I need. And to send someone to slit Grimsen’s throat before he has completed making the new crown.
When I get there, though, I realize the entrance is collapsed. No, as I look at it more carefully, that’s not exactly right—there’s evidence of an explosion. Whatever destroyed this entrance did more damage than that.
I cannot breathe.
Kneeling in the pine needles, I try to understand what I am looking at, because it seems as though the Court of Shadows has been buried. This must have been the Ghost’s work—although the Bomb’s explosives could have done precise damage like this. When the Ghost said he wouldn’t let me have the Court of Shadows, I didn’t realize he meant to destroy it. I just hope Van and the Bomb are alive.
Please let them be alive.
And yet, without a way to find them, I am more trapped than ever. Numbly, I wander back toward the gardens.
A group of faerie children has gathered around a lecturer. A Lark boy picks blue roses from the royal bushes, while Val Moren wanders beside him, smoking a long pipe, his scald crow perched on one shoulder.
His hair is unbrushed around his head, matted in places and braided with bright cloth and bells in others. Laugh lines crease the corners of his mouth.
“Can you get me inside the palace?” I ask him. It’s a long shot, but I don’t care about embarrassment anymore. If I can get inside, I can discover what happened to the Court of Shadows. I can get to Cardan.
Val Moren’s eyebrows rise. “Do you know what they are?” he asks me, waving a vague hand toward the boy, who turns to give us both a sharp-eyed look.
Maybe Val Moren cannot help me. Maybe Faerie is a place where a madman can play the fool and seem like a prophet—but maybe he is only a madman.
The Lark boy continues picking his bouquet, humming a tune.
“Faeries…?” I ask.
“Yes, yes.” He sounds impatient. “The Folk of the Air. Insubstantial, unable to hold one shape. Like the seeds of flowers launched into the sky.”