The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black Page 0,90
going to a long trestle table and lifting a small, blown glass vial. “I don’t suppose you’ve managed to murder my brother?”
“Madoc has ordered me away from the palace,” I say. “I think he fears my influence over the High King, but I can do nothing to Cardan if I am not allowed to see him.”
Balekin takes another sip of his wine and walks to me. “There’s to be a ball, a masquerade to honor one of the lower Court lords. It will be tomorrow, and so long as you are able to steal away from Madoc, I will find a way to get you in. Can you acquire a costume and mask yourself, or will you need that from me as well?”
“I can costume myself,” I say.
“Good.” He holds up the vial. “Stabbing would be very dramatic at such a public function, but poison is ever so much easier. I want you to carry this with you until you have a moment alone with him, then you must add it to his wine in secret.”
“I will,” I vow.
Then he takes my chin, glamour in his voice. “Tell me that you’re mine, Jude.”
When he places the vial in my hand, my fingers close over it.
“I am your creature, Prince Balekin,” I say, looking into his eyes and lying with my whole broken heart. “Do with me what you will. I am yours.”
As I am about to leave Hollow Hall, I am suddenly beset by a wave of exhaustion. I sit down on the steps, light-headed, and wait until the feeling passes. A plan is growing in my mind, a plan that requires the cover of dark and my being well-rested and reasonably well-equipped.
I could go to Taryn’s house, but Locke would be there, and he did try to kill me that one time.
I could return to Madoc’s, but if I do, it’s likely that the servants have been instructed to roll me up in fuzzy blankets and hold me in cushioned captivity until Cardan is no longer under my command, but sworn to obey his Grand General.
Horrifyingly, I wonder if the best thing to do is to stay here. There are no servants, no one to bother me but Balekin, and he is preoccupied. I doubt he would even notice my presence in this enormous and echoing house.
I mean to be practical, but it is very hard when it means fighting against instincts that tell me to run as far and as fast from Balekin as I can. But I’ve exhausted myself already.
Having snuck through Hollow Hall enough times before, I know the way to the kitchens. I drink more water from the pump just beyond it, finding myself desperately thirsty. Then, I wend my way up the steps to where Cardan once slept. The walls are as bare as I remember, the half-tester bed dominates the room with its carvings of dancing, bare-breasted cat girls.
He had books and papers—now gone—but the closet is still full of extravagant and abandoned clothes. I suppose they are no longer ridiculous enough for the High King. But more than a few are black as night, and there’s hose that will be easy to move in. I crawl into Cardan’s bed, and although I fear I will toss and turn with nerves, I surprise myself by slipping immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Upon waking in the moonlight, I go to his closet and dress myself in the simplest of his clothes—a velvet doublet that I rip pearls from the collar and cuffs, along with a pair of plain, soft leggings.
I set out again, feeling less wobbly. When I pass through the kitchens, I find little in the way of food, but there’s a corner of hard bread that I gnaw on as I walk through the dark.
The Palace of Elfhame is a massive mound with most of the important chambers—including the enormous throne room—underground. At the peak is a tree, its roots worming down more deeply than could come from anything but magic. Just beneath the tree, however, are the few rooms that have panes of thin crystal letting in light. They are unfashionable rooms, like the one Cardan once set fire to the floor of and where Nicasia popped out of his wardrobe to shoot him.
That room is now sealed, the double doors locked and barred so that the passage to the royal chambers cannot be accessed. It would be impossible to get inside from within the palace.