The Cruel Prince (The Folk of t -(The Folk of the Air #1) - Holly Black Page 0,76

love him, or was she making a clever marriage, to gain his protection?

“I didn’t know,” I say stupidly.

“I never gave Eldred a child,” she tells me. “But another of his lovers nearly did. When she died, rumor pointed to one of the princes’ poisoning her, just to prevent competition for the throne.” Oriana watches my face with her pale pink eyes. I know she’s talking about Liriope. “You don’t need to believe me. There are a dozen more rumors just as terrible. When there is a lot of power concentrated in one place, there are plenty of scraps to fight over. If the Court isn’t busy drinking poison, then it’s drinking bile. You wouldn’t be well suited to it.”

“What makes you think that?” I ask, her words annoyingly close to Madoc’s when he dismissed my chances at knighthood. “Maybe it would suit me just fine.”

Her fingers brush my face again, stroking back my hair. It should be a tender gesture, but it’s an evaluating one instead. “He must have loved your mother very much,” she says. “He’s besotted with you girls. If I were him, I would have sent you away a long time ago.”

I don’t doubt that.

“If you go to Prince Dain despite my warning, if he gets his heir on you, tell no one before you tell me. Swear it on your mother’s grave.” I feel her nails as her hand comes to rest against the back of my neck and wince. “No one. Do you understand?”

“I promise.” This is one vow I should have no trouble keeping. I try to give the words weight, so she’ll believe I mean it. “Seriously. I promise.”

She releases me. “You may go. Rest well, Jude. When you rise, the coronation will be upon us, and there will be little time left for resting.”

I curtsy and take my leave.

In the hall, Taryn is waiting for me. She sits on a bench carved with coiled serpents and swings her feet. As the door closes, she looks up. “What was going on with her?”

I shake my head, trying to rid myself of a jumble of feelings. “Did you know she used to be the High King’s consort?”

Taryn’s eyebrows go up, and she snorts, delighted. “No. Is that what she told you?”

“Pretty much.” I think of Locke’s mother and the singing bird in the acorn, of Eldred on his throne, head bowed by his own crown. It is hard for me to picture him taking lovers, no less the quantity he must have taken to have so many children, an unnatural number for a Faerie. And yet, perhaps that’s just a failure of my imagination.

“Huh.” Taryn looks as though she’s having the same failure of imagination. She frowns, puzzling for a moment, then seems to remember what she’d waited to ask me. “Do you know why Prince Balekin was here?”

“He was here?” I am not sure I can weather more surprises. “Here, in the house?”

She nods. “He arrived with Madoc, and they were shut up in his office for hours.”

I wonder how long they arrived after Prince Dain’s departure. Hopefully, long enough for Prince Dain not to overhear anything about a missing servant. My hand throbs whenever I move it, but I am just glad I can move it at all. I am not eager to face any more punishment.

And yet Madoc didn’t seem angry with me just now when he saw me with my dress. He seemed normal, pleased even. Perhaps they were conferring about other things.

“Weird,” I say to Taryn, because I am commanded not to tell her about being a spy and I cannot bring myself to tell her about Sophie.

I am glad that the coronation is nearly here. I want it to come and sweep everything else away.

That night, I drowse in my bed, fully dressed, waiting for the Ghost. I have bagged out on lessons for two nights straight—the night of Locke’s party and last night, searching the water for Sophie. He’s bound to be annoyed when he comes.

I put that as far out of my head as I can and concentrate on resting. Breathing in and out.

When I first came to Faerie, I had trouble sleeping. You’d think I’d have had nightmares, but I don’t remember many. My dreams struggled to rival the horror of my actual life. Instead, I couldn’t calm down enough to rest. I would toss and turn all night and all morning, my heart racing, finally falling into a headachy sleep in the late afternoon,