The Cruel Prince (The Folk of t -(The Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black Page 0,58
like to make you believe he’s our leader, but it’s more that Nicasia likes power, I like dramatics, and Valerian likes violence. Cardan can provide us with all three, or at least excuses for all three.”
“Dramatics?” I echo.
“I like for things to happen, for stories to unfold. And if I can’t find a good enough story, I make one.” He looks every inch the trickster in that moment. “I know you overheard Nicasia talking about what was between us. She had Cardan, but only in leaving him for me did she gain power over him.”
I ponder that for a moment, and while I do, I realize we’re not taking our usual path to Madoc’s grounds. Locke has been leading me another way. “Where are we going?”
“My demesne,” he says with a grin, happy to be caught out. “It’s not far. I think you’ll like the hedge maze.”
I have never been to one of their estates, save for Hollow Hall. In the human world, we children were always in the neighbors’ yards, swinging and swimming and jumping, but the rules here are nothing the same. Most of the children in the High King’s Court are royals, sent from smaller Courts to gain influence with the princes and princesses, and have no time for much else.
Of course, in the mortal world, there are such things as backyards. Here, there are forest and sea, rocks and mazes, and flowers that are red only when they get fresh blood. I don’t much like the idea of getting lost deliberately in a hedge maze, but I smile as though nothing could ever delight me more. I don’t want to disappoint him.
“There will be a gathering later,” Locke continues. “You should stay. I promise it will be diverting.”
At that, my stomach clenches. I doubt he’s having a party without his friends. “That seems foolish,” I say, to avoid refusing the invitation outright.
“Your father doesn’t like you to stay out late?” Locke gives me a pitying look.
I know he’s just trying to make me feel childish when he knows perfectly well why I shouldn’t be there, but even though I am aware of what he’s doing, it works.
Locke’s estate is more modest than Madoc’s and less fortified. Tall spires covered in shingles of mossy bark rise between the trees. The spiraling vines of ivy and honeysuckle that twine up the sides turn the whole thing green and leafy.
“Wow,” I say. I have ridden by here and seen those spires in the distance, but I never knew to whose house they belonged. “Beautiful.”
He gives me a quick grin. “Let’s go inside.”
Although there is a pair of grand doors in the front, he takes me around to a small door on the side that leads directly to the kitchens. A fresh loaf of bread rests on the counter, along with apples, currants, and a soft cheese, but I do not see any servants who might have prepared this.
I think, involuntarily, of the girl in Hollow Hall cleaning Cardan’s fireplace. I wonder where her family thinks she is and what bargain she made. I wonder how easily I could have been her.
“Is your family home?” I ask, pushing that thought away.
“I have none,” he tells me. “My father was too wild for the Court. He liked the deep, feral woods far better than my mother’s intrigues. He left, and then she died. Now it’s just me.”
“That’s terrible,” I say. “And lonely.”
He shakes off my words. “I’ve heard the story of your parents. A tragedy suitable for a ballad.”
“It was a long time ago.” The last thing I want to talk about is Madoc and murder. “What happened to your mother?”
He makes a dismissive gesture in the air. “She got involved with the High King. In this Court, that’s enough. There was a child—his child, I suppose—and someone didn’t want it born. Blusher mushroom.” Although he began his speech airily, it doesn’t end that way.
Blusher mushroom. I think of the letter I found in Balekin’s house from Queen Orlagh. I try to convince myself that the note could not have referred to the poisoning of Locke’s mother, that Balekin had no motive when Dain was already the High King’s chosen heir. But no matter how I try to convince myself, I cannot stop thinking about the possibility, of the horror, of Nicasia’s mother having had a hand in Locke’s mother’s death. “I shouldn’t have asked—that was rude of me.”
“We are children of tragedy.” He shakes his head and then smiles. “This