The Cruel Prince (The Folk of t -(The Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black Page 0,39
the day before. I don’t want to lose focus. I am afraid that if I do, I will lose my composure, too.
“Taryn feels awful,” Vivi says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes it sucks to be right.”
“Stop it.” She grabs for my arm, looking at me with her split-pupiled eyes. “You can talk to me. You can trust me. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I made a mistake. I got angry. I wanted to prove something. It was stupid.”
“Was it because of what I said?” Her fingers are gripping my arm hard.
The Folk are going to keep treating you like crap.
“Vivi, there’s no way my deciding to mess up my life is your fault,” I tell her. “But I will make them regret crossing me.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” Vivi asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, pulling free. I head toward the door, and this time she doesn’t stop me. Once I’m out, I rush across the lawn to the stables.
I know I am not being fair to Vivi, who hasn’t done anything. She just wanted to help.
Maybe I don’t know how to be a good sister anymore.
At the stables, I have to stop and lean against a wall while I take deep breaths. For more than half my life, I’ve been fighting down panic. Maybe it’s not the best thing for a constant rattle of nerves to seem normal, even necessary. But at this point, I wouldn’t know how to live without it.
The most important thing is to impress Prince Dain. I can’t let Cardan and his friends take that from me.
To get to Hollow Hall, I decide to take one of the toads, since only the Gentry ride silver-shod horses. Although a servant would probably not have a mount of any kind, at least the toad is less conspicuous.
Only in Faerieland is a giant toad the less conspicuous choice.
I saddle and bridle a spotted one and lead her out onto the grass. Her long tongue lashes one of her golden eyes, making me take an involuntary step back.
I hook my foot in the stirrup and swing up onto the seat. With one hand, I pull on the reins, and with the other, I pat the soft, cool skin of her back. The spotted toad launches us into the air, and I hang on.
Hollow Hall is a stone manor with a tall, crooked tower, the whole thing half-covered in vines and ivy. There’s a balcony on the second floor that seems to have a rail of thick roots in place of iron. A curtain of thinner tendrils hangs down from it, like a scraggly beard clotted with dirt. There is something misshapen about the estate that ought to make it charming but instead makes it ominous. I tie up the toad, stuff my cloak into her saddlebags, and start toward the side of the manor, where I believe I will find a servants’ door. On the way, I stop to pick mushrooms, so it will seem as though I had a reason for being out in the woods.
As I get close, my heart speeds anew. Balekin won’t hurt me, I tell myself. Even if I’m caught, he’ll simply turn me over to Madoc. Nothing bad is going to happen.
I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but I manage to persuade myself enough to approach the servants’ entrance and slip inside.
A hallway goes to the kitchens, where I deposit the mushrooms on a table beside a brace of bloody rabbits, a pigeon pie, a bouquet of garlic scapes and rosemary, a few cloudy-skinned plums, and dozens of bottles of wine. A troll stirs a large pot alongside a winged pixie. And cutting up vegetables are two sunken-cheeked humans, a boy and a girl, both of them with small, stupid smiles on their faces and glazed-over looks in their eyes. They don’t even look down as they chop, and I’m surprised they don’t cut off their own fingers by accident. Worse, if they did, I am not sure they’d notice.
I think of how I felt yesterday, and the echo of faerie fruit comes unbidden into my mouth. I feel my gorge rise, and I hurry past, down the hall.
I am stopped by a pale-eyed faerie guard, who grabs my arm. I look up at him, hoping I can school my expression to be as blank and pleasant and dreamy as that of the mortals in the kitchens.
“I haven’t seen you before,” he tells me, making it an accusation.