The Cruel Prince (The Folk of t -(The Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black Page 0,64
says. “Legend has it that the crown will not allow itself to be placed on the brow of anyone who isn’t an heir of Mab, but Mab’s line has been very fruitful. So long as a pair of descendants try to take the crown, it could be done. But the most dangerous part of a coup would be this: The crown is cursed so that a murder of its wearer causes the death of the person responsible.”
I think of the note I found in Balekin’s house, about blusher mushrooms, about vulnerability.
After the lecture, I go down the steps carefully, remembering taking them at a run after stabbing Valerian. My vision blurs, and I feel dizzy for a moment, but the moment passes. Taryn, coming behind me, all but pushes me into the woods once we’re outside.
“First of all,” she says, tugging me over patches of curling ferns, “no one knows you weren’t home all last night except for Tatterfell, and I gave her one of your nicest rings to make sure she wouldn’t say anything. But you have to tell me where you were.”
“Locke had a party at his house,” I say. “I stayed—but it wasn’t, I mean, nothing much happened. We kissed. That was it.”
Her chestnut braids fly as she shakes her head. “I don’t know if I believe that.”
I let out my breath, perhaps a little dramatically. “Why would I lie? I’m not the one hiding the identity of the person courting me.”
Taryn frowns. “I just think that sleeping in someone’s room, in someone’s bed, is more than kissing.”
My cheeks heat, thinking of the way it had felt to wake up with his body stretched out beside mine. To get the attention off me, I start speculating about her. “Ooooh, maybe it’s Prince Balekin. Are you going to marry Prince Balekin? Or perhaps it’s Noggle and you can count the stars together.”
She smacks me in the arm, a little too hard. “Stop guessing,” she says. “You know I’m not allowed to say.”
“Ow.” I pick a white campion flower and stick it behind my ear.
“So you like him?” she asks. “Really like him?”
“Locke?” I ask. “Of course I do.”
She gives me a look, and I wonder how much I worried her, not coming home the night before.
“Balekin I like less well,” I say, and she rolls her eyes.
When we get back to the stronghold, I find that Madoc has left word he will be out until late. With little else to do for once, I look for Taryn, but although I saw her go upstairs just minutes before, she’s not in her room. Instead, her dress is on the bed and her closet open, a few gowns hanging roughly, as though she pulled them out before finding them wanting.
Has she gone to meet her suitor? I take a turn around the room, trying to see it as a spy might, alert for signs of secrets. I notice nothing unusual but a few rose petals withering on her dressing table.
I go to my room and lie on my bed, going over my memories of the night before. Reaching into my pocket, I remove my knife to finally clean it. When I bring it out, I am holding the golden acorn, too. I turn the bauble over in my hand.
It’s a solid lump of metal—a beautiful object. At first I take it only for that, before I notice the tiny lines running across it, tiny lines that seem to indicate moving parts. As though it were a puzzle.
I can’t screw off the top, although I try. I can’t seem to do anything else with it, either. I am about to give up and toss it onto my dressing table when I glimpse a tiny hole, so small as to be nearly invisible, right at the bottom. Hopping off my bed, I rattle through my desk, looking for a pin. The one I find has a pearl on one end. I try to fit the point into the acorn. It takes a moment, but I manage, pushing past resistance until I feel a click and it opens.
Mechanized steps swing out from a shining center, where a tiny golden bird rests. Its beak moves, and it speaks in a creaky little voice. “My dearest friend, these are the last words of Liriope. I have three golden birds to scatter. Three attempts to get one into your hand. I am too far gone for any antidote, and so if you hear this, I leave