The Cruel Prince (The Folk of t -(The Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black Page 0,106

I am—I just chased my sister around the downstairs with a sword. But what to do with that talent is the question.

As I exit the game room, I realize that Balekin must have arrived with his retainers. Knights with his livery—three laughing birds emblazoned on their tabards—stand at attention in the hall. I slink past them and up the stairs, dragging my sword behind me, too exhausted to do anything else.

I am hungry, I realize, but I feel too sick to eat. Is this what it is to be brokenhearted? I am not sure it is Locke I am sick over, so much as the world the way it was before the coronation began. But if I could undo the passing of the days, why not unwind them to before I killed Valerian, why not unwind them until my parents are alive, why not unwind them all the way to the beginning?

There’s a knock on my door, and then it opens without my signaling anything. Vivi comes in, carrying a wooden plate with a sandwich on it, along with a stoppered bottle of amber glass.

“I’m a jerk. I’m an idiot,” I say. “I admit it. You don’t have to lecture me.”

“I thought you were going to give me a hard time about the glamour,” she says. “You know, the one you resisted.”

“You shouldn’t magic your sisters.” I draw the cork on the bottle and take a long swig of water. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I guzzle more, nearly draining the whole container in one continuous gulping swallow.

“And you shouldn’t try to chop yours in half.” She settles back against my pillows, against my worn stuffed animals. Idly, she picks up the snake and flicks the forks of its felt tongue. “I thought all of it—swordplay, knighthood—I thought it was a game.”

I remember how angry she was when Taryn and I gave in to Faerie and started having fun. Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night. But to hold a blade in my hand, a blade like the one that killed our parents, and think it was a toy, she’d have to believe I was heartless.

“It’s not,” I say finally.

“No,” Vivi says, wrapping the stuffed snake around the stuffed cat.

“Did she tell you about him?” I ask, climbing onto my bed next to her. It feels good to lie down, maybe a little too good. I am instantly drowsy.

“I didn’t know Taryn was with Locke,” Vivi says, deliberately giving me the whole sentence so I won’t have to wonder if she’s trying to trick me. “But I don’t want to talk about Locke. Forget him. I want us to leave Faerie. Tonight.”

That makes me sit upright. “What?”

She laughs at my reaction. It’s such a normal sound, so completely out of step with the high drama of the last two days. “I thought that would surprise you. Look, whatever happens next here, it’s not going to be good. Balekin’s an asshole. And he’s dumb on top of it. You should have heard Dad swearing on our way home. Let’s just go.”

“What about Taryn?” I ask.

“I’ve already asked her, and I’m not going to tell you if she agreed to come or not. I want you to answer for you. Jude, listen. I know you’re keeping secrets. Something is making you sick. You’re paler and thinner, and your eyes have a weird shine.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“Liar,” she says, but the accusation has no heat. “I know that you’re stuck here in Faerie because of me. I know that the shittiest things that have happened in your whole life are because of me. You’ve never said it, which is kind of you, but I know. You’ve had to turn yourself into something else, and you’ve done it. Sometimes, when I look at you, I’m not sure if you’d even know how to be human anymore.”

I don’t know what to do with that—compliment and insult all at once. But behind it is a feeling of prophecy.

“You fit in better here than I do,” Vivi says. “But I bet it cost you something.”

I mostly don’t like to imagine the life I could have had, the one without magic in it. The one where I went to a regular school and learned regular things. The one where I had a