For a long moment, Cardan just looks around the room, but he has little choice, and he must know it. “Rise,” he says, and we do.
I step back, fading into the throng.
Cardan has been a prince of Faerie all his life. No matter what he wants, he knows what’s expected of him. He knows how to charm a crowd, how to entertain. He orders the broken glass cleared away. He has new goblets brought out, new wine poured. The toast he gives—to surprises and to the benefits of being too drunk to show up for the first coronation—causes all the lords and ladies to laugh. And if I notice thathis hand grips his wineglass tightly enough to turn his knuckles white, then I imagine I am the only one who does.
Yet I am surprised when he turns to me, eyes blazing. It feels as though the room is empty but for us. He lifts his glass anew, mouth curving in a mockery of a smile. “And to Jude, who gave me a gift tonight. One that I plan to repay in kind.”
I try not to visibly flinch as glasses lift around me. Crystal rings. More wine flows. More laughter sounds.
The Bomb elbows me in the side. “We came up with your code name,” she mouths. I hadn’t even seen her come in past the locked doors.
“What?” I feel as tired as I have ever felt, and yet, for seven years, I will not be able to truly rest.
I expect her to sayThe Liar.She gives me a tricksy grin, full of secrets. “What else? The Queen.”
It turns out I still don’t know how to laugh.
Istand in the middle of Target, pushing the cart while Oak and Vivi pick out bedsheets and lunch boxes, skinny jeans and sandals. Oak looks around in mild confusion and pleasure. He keeps picking up things, puzzling over them, and then setting them down again. In the candy aisle, he adds bars of chocolate to the cart, along with jelly beans, lollipops, and chunks of candied ginger. Vivi doesn’t stop him, so I don’t, either.
It’s odd to see Oak with his horns glamoured away, his ears looking as round as mine. It’s odd to see him in the toy aisle, trying out a scooter with an owl-shaped backpack over one arm.
I expected that it would be hard to persuade Oriana to let him go with Vivi, but after Cardan’s coronation, she agreed that Oak being away from the Court for a few years was for the best. Balekin is imprisoned in a tower. Madoc woke in a rage, only to find that his moment for seizing the crown was past.
“So he’s really your brother, right?” Heather asks Vivi as Oak kicks off on the scooter, flying through the greeting card aisle. “You could tell me if he was your son.”
Vivi laughs delightedly. “I’ve got secrets, but that’s not one of them.”
Heather wasn’t thrilled about Vivienne showing up with a child and a half-baked explanation about why he had to live with her, but she didn’t kick them out. Heather’s sofa pulled out into a bed, and they agreed he could sleep there until Vivi found a job and they were able to afford a larger apartment.
I know Vivi isn’t going to get conventional work, but she will be fine. She will be better than fine. In another world, given our parents and our past, I would have kept on encouraging Vivi to trust Heather with the truth. But for now, if she feels like she has to keep the deception going, I am hardly in a position to contradict her.
As we stand in the checkout line and Vivi pays for her haul with leaves glamoured to seem like bills, I think again of the aftermath of the banquet-turned-coronation. Of the blur of the Folk eating and joking. Of everyone marveling over Oak, who appeared both pleased and panicked. Of Oriana, clearly not sure whether to congratulate me or to slap me. Of Taryn, quiet, considering, holding tightly to Locke’s hand. Of Nicasia giving Cardan a lingering kiss on his royal cheek.
I have done the thing, and now I must live with what I have done.
I have lied and I have betrayed and I have triumphed. If only there was someone to congratulate me.
Heather sighs and smiles dreamily at Vivi as we load our purchases into the trunk of Heather’s Prius. Back at the apartment, Heather takes some premade pizza dough out of her fridge and explains how to make personal pies.
“Mom will visit me, won’t she?” Oak asks as he places pieces of chocolate and marshmallows on top of his dough.
I squeeze his arm as Heather sticks the food in the oven. “Of course she will. Think of being here with Vivi as an apprenticeship. You learn what you need to know, and then you come home.”
“How will I know when I’ve learned it, since I don’t know it now?” he asks.
The question sounds like a riddle. “Come back when returning feels like a hard choice instead of an easy one,” I answer finally. Vivi looks over, as though she’s overheard. Her expression is thoughtful.
I eat a slice of Oak’s pizza and lick the chocolate off my fingers. It’s sweet enough to make me wince, but I don’t mind. I just want to sit with them a few more moments before I have to fly back to Faerie alone.
When I dismount from my ragwort steed, I head to the palace. I have rooms there now—a vast sitting area, a bedroom behind latching double doors, and a dressing area with empty closets. All I have to hang in them is what I took out of Madoc’s estates and a few things I got at Target.
Here is where I will live, to keep Cardan close, to use my power over him to ensure things go smoothly. The Court of Shadows will grow beneath the castle, fed on being both the High King’s spies and his keepers.
They’ll have their gold, straight from the king’s hand.
What I have not done, not really, is spoken with Cardan. I left him with only a few commands, the familiar hatred in his face enough to make a coward out of me. But I am going to have to talk to him eventually. There is no profit in my putting it off any longer.
Still, it is with a heavy heart and leaden steps that I make my way to the royal rooms. I knock, only to be told by a prim-seeming manservant with flowers braided in his blond beard that the High King has gone to the great hall.
