Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Never will I admit: I’m glad to see Cardan. He’s a ridiculous peacock of blacks and blues – tall enough to blot the sun, irritating enough to incur its wrath – but he takes me away from Locke, and moments later, my pulse settles. The choking nerves relax; I can breathe again.

            Cardan takes my wounded hand in his. He’s wearing black leather gloves; I can feel the warmth of them through the silk of my own gloves. For a fleeting moment, I wonder how much he can feel. The coin in my palm, the bandages wrapping my wound, the tremble in my fingers – pain that refuses to abate.

            He’s watching me. He’s looking for something.

            “What do you want?” I ask him, forcing the words out. Fear of his answer pales in comparison to my unadulterated desire to get away, sit down, briefly cease to exist. I’m reeling, and I can’t let Cardan see. “Go ahead. Insult me.”

            His eyebrow kicks up. “I don’t take commands from mortals,” he says, smiling that cruel snarl. White teeth, red lips, malicious intent.

            “So you’re going to say something nice? I don’t think so. Faeries can’t lie.” The fight in me kicks up, a sleepy beast yawning and stretching after a nap. This is better than Locke. This is what I know how to do.

            Cardan’s hand slides lower on my hip, and I narrow my eyes at him.

            “You really do hate me, don’t you?” he asks, smile growing.

            “Almost as much as you hate me,” I say. That page with my name scratched onto it comes to mind – spilled ink, torn paper. I resist a familiar shiver that always chases the memory.

            I should’ve thrown that paper away, but it’s still in a drawer in my room. Last night, while Valerian’s corpse was cooling on my rug, his bloodless eyes watched me pull out the page and whisper a heinous threat, hoping it would reach Cardan. Hoping he knew I intended vengeance.

            Looking at Cardan now, I can say he doesn’t know. His grip is tightening down on my injured hand – I swear I can feel blood oozing from the wound – but he makes no show of noticing the flicker of fear in my eyes.

            Maybe he won’t notice. We’re still dancing, the song has slowed. My feet are faltering even as the music forces me on.

            “Jude,” he says. My name – I hardly thought he knew it. And again, harder, “Jude.”

            Cardan’s head cocks to the side, and his gaze sharpens. No – my gaze sharpens. I didn’t realize it was blurry until adrenaline kicked me back into focus. Cardan isn’t smiling; he’s scowling. He’s watching me again; I don’t know what he’s looking for.

            A faint brush against my palm. The gentleness of that touch frightens me, and I dare to break eye contact, glancing briefly at our joined hands. He’s drawing a very soft circle on my palm. The edges of the coin, he’s tracing them.

            Terror sings up my spine. Cardan was looking for a weakness, and he just found it. The pain doubles, then triples, as the heat of panic lashes through my blood, pounding into the wound.

            I lock eyes with him again. Wickedness is written into every line of his face.

            “Cardan,” I try, “No—”

            He releases my hand, switching out for a vise-grip on my wrist. Before my body’s even registered that we aren’t dancing anymore, he drags me out off the floor. I swear under my breath as my vision sparks. The pressure, so close to the wound, is blinding. My knees are weak as I race to keep up with Cardan.

            A guard flashes a curious look at us but doesn’t bar Cardan from entering a different wing of the palace. He pulls me up a flight of stairs – bastard – and unlocks a door. A hallway, empty and echoey, stretches out before us.

            Alone. The last time I was alone with one of my peers, it ended with homicide. Not really boding well for Cardan’s fate, or mine.

            Cardan surveys the area only once before his attention is back on me like a hammer falling. He uses a forearm to press me against a wall. He uses the rest of his body to ensure I stay there – he’s too close, I can smell his skin, I can feel his body heat, I’m going to vomit. But I don’t fight. I bide my time, waiting for my bones to return to their usual solid state so I can run.

            Still holding my wrist, Cardan sets to prying the glove off my hand. I curl my fingers to make it harder for him. If the only power I hold is irritation, I will wield it as my sword.

            He rips the glove away all the same. A good thing, perhaps, as blood is seeping into my bandages. That glove would’ve been ruined if I’d worn it any longer.

            I’m growing delirious. I feel nothing, I swear to the echoing cavern of my mind. I feel nothing. I feel nothing. I feel feverish chills; I feel nauseous; I feel the floor swaying. I feel nothing.

            “What is this?” Cardan snarls. It’s the first he’s spoken in so long; I’d started to forget the sound of his voice. Harsh, cold, dangerous.

            He holds my hand up to my face, close to bonking me in the nose with it. I’m definitely delirious, because I laugh at that. “My hand,” I say.

            If looks could kill. “What is this?” he repeats.

            Deftly plucking the coin from my palm, he pockets it. Then he’s unwrapping the bandage to study the wound. His lip curls into a disgusted grimace. Mine does, too. I’m reminded that I wanted to vomit earlier.

            Cardan isn’t gentle, but I’m struck that he isn’t not gentle. The pain in my hand is slowing, dulling into an aching thrum. I’m dizzy from the initial shock; I’m weak from fear; but I’m not crying or screaming or committing murder. I remember Cardan being… worse.

            “I got hurt,” I mutter noncommittally.

            “Hurt.” There’s that wickedness again. “This isn’t hurt—” he visibly refrains from calling me something, no doubt nasty “—this is mutilated. Who did this to you?”

            I hesitate. I try turning a gear, try kicking my mind back into action to figure out why the hell he wants to know. Many of my first thoughts are entirely too fanciful—born of nothing but cowardice, aching palms, and the stinging of Dain's strike to my trust. My mouth hangs half open for a collection of too-many-seconds, and I realize it’s too late to skirt the question effectively.

            “I did it.” I say, Dain’s geas cutting off the ‘on Dain’s command,’ at the end of the sentence.

            That nasty name-calling brims back into Cardan's eyes. A string of curses I’ve never heard him say before slips off of his lips. “You stabbed yourself in the hand? Don’t play me for a fool, Jude.”

            “I did. I stabbed my own hand.”

            “Why?”

            I feel for words that I can say – words that aren’t lies. A threat is hanging in the air, and I don’t want to bring it on myself with clumsy lying. But there’s nothing. All the pretty words are gone, and all the useful ones are stuck in my throat. I just stare at Cardan.

            And he stares back. His brows draw together tightly, and he tips back. I take a deep breath of the air between us – glad for the space.

            He’s taking off his gloves. “You were glamoured.” Why is he taking off his gloves?

            I answer, though he hasn’t asked me a question. “Yes.”

            “By whom?”

            I should make a break for it now. If I can get back to the floor, I can find Vivi or Madoc. I can hide behind them like the scared child I am and hope Cardan loses interest in the conversation before tomorrow’s lessons.

            Bridling, reaching for my resentment for Cardan and splashing it across my voice, I snap, “I hardly think you’ve got any business knowing.”

            For his part, Cardan doesn’t even manage to look bothered by my disrespect. His lips purse into a thin, bored line. “I’m a prince.”

            “One of several.” I see my way out. I just have to reach the stairwell. “Frankly, we have a whole bushel of princes around here.”

            Cardan shakes his head – at me, at himself. Silence falls as he re-wraps my bandages, securing them tighter than they were before. He snatches my uninjured hand and pulls the glove off of it, leaving my hands bare. Then he begins fitting his leather gloves onto me. They’re comically large, but I’m unexpectedly comforted by them.

            The gloves are soft on the inside, caressing my skin. And the warmth of them spreads through my injury, soothing the pain, if only a little.

            In the moment before he releases me, he murmurs, “You’re mine.”

            My breath catches – fear, fury, something darker. “What?”

            “You’re my mortal.” There’s something intimate about those words, but I can’t place his meaning. I doubt he can place his own meaning.

            I’m reeling, my mind scrambling to make any sense of the sights and sounds and smells of a world that I thought I’d grown familiar to. Who flipped everything upside down? I don’t know this Cardan.

            He’s gone so suddenly; I could almost believe he was a fever dream. He leaves the door open for me, but he doesn’t wait. I don’t have to run for the stairwell or make a break for Madoc’s side. I push through the door, clomp down the stairs, and rejoin the party like nothing happened.

            Something definitely happened.

            And I’m still wearing his absurdly large leather gloves when I put a knife to his throat in that familiar hallway not two hours later. And six months later, my body weak and tired from my time in the undersea, I sneak into Cardan’s rooms, and I see a wink of metal. Sitting atop his bedside table, almost reverently, is the coin he took from my palm.

Chapter Text

I find her in a secluded corner of the palace, muttering to herself as dawn rises. Jude looks like a windstorm with legs as she paces back and forth and back and forth. She’s holding several papers in her hands but reading none of them. There’s very little light in the empty meeting room – she probably can’t read any of those papers.

            What’s she doing?

            And this is why I haven’t sought her out of my own accord – not once – since she planted my handsome ass on the throne of Elfhame. Every time I see her, it’s like she did shoot me.

            It’s like the kiss never happened; the agreements never happened; laughing together in the grass as we tried to take a kingdom; the betrayal; the taunts; the threats. All of it never happened because Jude shot me with that crossbow in Dain’s underground office a month ago.

            But she didn’t. She should've.

            I watch her from the doorway where I know she can’t see me. My chest squeezes and I can’t breathe. She’s gilded in the low light, bringing out the tan of her mortal, vulnerable skin. She could bake in the sun; fry in the sun; die in the sun. But no – instead it makes her more beautiful, more… lickable.

            She should’ve shot me.

            Jude twitches, suddenly, a jerk of movement, and her eyes land dead on mine. Her head cocks to the side. “What do you want?”

            “I crave the sweet kiss of your knife, as always,” I say, stepping into a spot of light. If she can see me, she might as well see me – glib smile and all.

            She looks unimpressed. “Come a little closer, I’ll give you a sweet kiss.”

            I laugh. I sound depraved.

            “Cardan,” Jude snaps, “Seriously, why are you creeping around? Go do something flagrant and useless. I’m working.”

            “Flagrant.”

            “And useless,” she repeats. “Go away.”

            I laugh again. And, though she has threatened my life within the last minute, I move a step closer. Too far to touch, but close enough to feel the hum in the air around her.

            Jude scowls at me. “Are you deaf?”

            “I can hear you,” I assure her. “I’m simply ignoring you. What’re you working on?”

            She scowls harder. “Your kingdom – you know, the one you refuse to help me with because you’re—”

            “Flagrant and useless,” I finish. “Yes, I got that bit. Perhaps if you’d tell me about my kingdom, I’d be more useful.”

            “Are you in need of a bedtime story, your highness?” The way she mocks my title – it’s treason – but it’s damnably adorable. She tosses the papers at the table behind her and stalks towards me. “Once upon a time there was a prince with a tad too much cheekbone for the rest of his face—”

            I put a finger to her lips to silence her. And immediately pull it back at the homicidal expression she wears. “Are you drunk, Jude?”

            Jude shakes her head. “You’re always drunk. What’s the point?”

            “You’re never drunk.”

            “Bad ideas look better when they’re blurry.”

            I nudge an unlit lantern. “Is that why it’s dark in here?”

            “It’s dark in here because I’m training my eyes to see better at night. Pirates used to do this thing with an eyepatch so they could see in the dark. So, I figure, it’s possible to get owl-like night vision—” she makes a motion at her eyes that very nearly takes one of said eyes out “—I’ll do it with practice. Consider me the owl.”

            “I consider you many things.”

            Jude snorts. It’s unladylike – it’s unflattering. I want to kiss her. “Can you consider leaving me alone? I really do have work to do.”

            “What are you working on?”

            “I already told you. Elfhame, rules, ruling.” She smacks me in the chest with the back of her hand. “Ruler – useless, flagrant. Does this room have an echo?”

            The room doesn’t have an echo. But Jude’s words don’t have the bite she intends them to have – not because they’ve been said already – but because her hand doesn’t retreat after whacking me. Her palm rests on my chest now. It can’t seem to decide what it’s doing.

            I doubt Jude even realizes she’s still touching me. No disgust shows on her features. And her fingers are slowly, agonizingly, closing into a fist, locking my shirt up into her hand.

            I watch her for a reaction. Bringing up one hand, I touch hers. I trail a fingertip across her knuckles, in a loop at her wrist and back up towards her thumb. Like a thread snapping, her sense returns to her and she snatches her hand away.

            “I don’t like you when you’re drunk,” she says.

            Ah, but that implies there are times you do like me. I don’t say that. Instead, I mutter, “Your meaning?”

            “You shouldn’t be here.”

            Oh.

            I keep a placid expression viciously taped down onto my face. My teeth draw blood from my cheek, I’m biting down so hard to keep away a smile. So you care what I think of you. I don’t say that.

            “I’ve made it clear my tastes are depraved. Alcohol changes little.”

            Her lip curls back in a snarl – it’s animal, it’s Jude. Her hand doesn’t hesitate this time, she grabs me by the collar of my doublet, and she shoves me backward. She puts her whole weight into it, slamming me into the nearest wall. I don’t fight; I’m too afraid of her to fight.

            But I look down at her through my lashes, pulling to my full height, intimidating with any force I may still hold over her. My status used to mean something. It at least meant she wouldn’t slit my throat. Now, it means… what? She occasionally smiles at me to appease diplomats. She walks behind me as my Seneschal – a position of servitude; and a position perfect for sticking a knife in my back. She tied me to a chair once, and I rewarded her for it.

            My power means nothing in this room. We’re alone and Jude is drunk and I am depraved, flagrant, useless, a handsome ass on the throne of Elfhame, a prince turned into a king made a servant. I am nothing to her.

            Jude juts her chin out challengingly, staring up into my eyes like she doesn’t have to crane her neck. She isn’t intimidated. She looks unimpressed again. “I told you to go away.”

            Then she kisses me. Just like the first time, with a knife to my throat, this is the ‘or else’ at the end of an order. This is a threat. She’s all teeth and hunger and rage and I can’t get enough of it.

             I kiss her back with all the same force. My hands find her neck, exposed and soft. My thumb finds the pulse point at her throat, her heart is pounding. I trace the line of her jaw. I press at her chin, urging her to open up more, give me more.

            Her mouth is warm and tastes like a human liquor – whiskey. I should get more whiskey, I like it. I like it on Jude.

            But there’s something. It’s distracting me like a flittering bug, buzzing around in my head. There’s something wrong; there’s something wrong with Jude; there’s something wrong about her lips.

            I pull away. Which one of us that surprises more, I can’t tell.

            Jude snaps, “What?”

            “You’re drunk.”

            She groans and pushes off of my chest to get her weight back onto her feet. But I don’t let her walk away, my hands catching her by the shoulders. Surprisingly, I’m not murdered for it.

            “Jude,” I say cautiously, “What else have you had to drink tonight? To eat?”

            “Are you my nanny now?”

            “Jude.”

            “I haven’t eaten anything. Nor have I drank anything.” She pauses, eyes flitting towards a dark bottle on the table. “Besides the obvious.”

            I don’t think she’s lying. But she… “But you…”

            Leaning down, slowly, waiting for a command to come at any moment, I kiss her again. A brief snap of my teeth at her bottom lip, inhaling her and that something wrong again. It’s nothing I’ve had in my mouth before, but I know the smell.

            Deathsweet.

            “Jude, you’ve been poisoned.”

            Her brows go up. “I have absolutely not been poisoned.”

            “You have,” I insist. “You’ve had Deathsweet.”

            “I have,” she says.

            My brain stalls, falters, goes silent. I open my mouth and close it again – I’m afraid what I might say without my brain. “You have?”

            “The room’s echoing again.”

            “Should we not be panicking about this?”

            “Cardan,” she grumbles, like I’ve done something unforgivably daft in the last few minutes. I have, to be fair. “I poisoned Madoc at the party by poisoning both cups. You thought I survived that by the sheer force of my will?”

            I did. You have a considerable sheer force of will. I don’t say that.

            “Mithridatism,” she says.

            “Pardon?”

            “Mithridatism. It’s the act of poisoning oneself in small increments, on a regular basis, to build an immunity to a poison. If I’ve been poisoned, it’s only by myself.”

            I feel insanity creeping up my spine. Or perhaps that’s her spine. No – she’s already insane. “You poisoned yourself.”

            “A little.”

            “How long has this been going on?”

            She squints up at the ceiling, visibly calculating. Finally, she says only, “Since I joined the court of shadows.”

            I do the calculation for her. I remember her beginning to weaken, look sicker in our lessons. I’d thought about it more than I should’ve. I’d thought things I should never have. I’d worried about her.

            I’m worried about her again. This is Dain’s doing, I realize, and the thought tastes like bile. I could kill him. If he weren’t already dead. If I weren’t a half-ass villain and a half-ass hero.

            “Tell me you’ll stop,” I order her.

            “I’ll stop,” she says sweetly.

            “Are you lying?”

            Jude gives me a taut smile. “Yes.”

            I won’t get anything better than that. I’m already left with the taste of whiskey, poison, and bile in my mouth. I’ll have a nightmare about her tonight. I’ll be thinking about kissing her tomorrow – a pulsing desire with a fresh reminder why I want her so badly.

            My week is irreparably ruined, and it’s hardly started. With a long-suffering sigh, I do the one thing I shouldn’t. I don’t leave.

            I help Jude stack up the papers she’d been holding when I walked in – they turn out to be reports of disturbances on Insweal, near the waterline. I take the bottle of whiskey from her and toss it out a window, where it breaks on the lawn. I snuff out the last lantern she’d left on.

            I guide her to her rooms. I sit her down on her bed, despite her protests, and I pick up her feet and throw them up onto the bed with her. Satisfied that she’s in a vaguely supine position, I snuff the lanterns in her room, as well.

            In the darkness, I carefully pick my way through the mess she’s left everywhere, finding a file for her to wake up and look at. I toss it on the bed next to her.

            “You won’t remember this in the morning,” I tell her, though I’m fairly certain she’s passed out. She isn’t threatening me anymore – she must be asleep. Or dead. “And you’ll go back to your poisons. But I’ll know, Jude. I’ll find a way to stop you.

            “And I’ll remember this.” I kiss her a final time. Not on the lips, not as my sick lust desires. I kiss her cheek and it’s so intimate I could vomit. But that twist in my stomach is mirrored in my chest.

            She should’ve shot me.

            I leave her in the dark to sleep. And it’s my turn to get incredibly drunk.

Chapter Text

I’m stealing from a prince. I feel hysterical – proud in my insanity, ridiculous in my futility. I’m stealing from a prince. Not a Cardan prince, frivolous and cruel. Balekin is a prince who can and will have me brutally tortured and executed for such blatant thievery.

            I’m going to die. The pound of my heart is nauseating but thrilling.

            I’m stealing from a prince.

            Sophie is trembling beside me – like a leaf in the wind – as I pull her towards the door. There are guards in the way, I’ll have to find a way past them.

            Don’t Panic.

            Don’t Let Sophie Talk.

            Don’t Kill Sophie Before You Can Save Her.

            The weakness in her threatens to rub off on me. We’re in the same boat, but she keeps rocking it back and forth as she throws a toddler’s fearful tantrum. We’ll both drown if she tips us. I remind myself that I was her once, a mortal, new and frightened and trapped in Elfhame.

            Still, she would be easier to drag out of here if she were unconscious. She’ll get us both killed. Will it still be my fault?

            I write the words I intend to say to the guards on the backs of my eyes and recite them like a memorized message. No inflection. Don’t Panic. “Prince Cardan says we are to attend him.”

            I don’t know why Cardan is the name that falls out of my mouth. Cardan, perhaps, is a safer bet to be caught by. He’d want to keep me alive to properly torment me. If Balekin catches me, however, I’m dead. Promptly.

            Besides, if worse comes to worse, I can probably kill Cardan and make it look like an accident. He’s a walking accident. No one would question it.

            “Balekin won’t like that,” one of the guards says, giving a meaningful look to the other.

            I try not to react, but it’s hard. I just stand there and wait. If they lunge at us, I am going to have to kill the both of them. That will be much harder to make accidental.

            “Very well,” the first guard says. “Go. But inform Cardan that his brother demands he bring both of you back this time.”

            I don’t like the sound of that.

            The second guard glances over at Sophie and her wild eyes. Don’t Kill Sophie Before You Can Save Her. “What do you see?” he asks her.

            I speak before she can, “Lord Cardan told us to be more observant.” Lord Cardan – makes me want to hurl – but I resist saying it mockingly.

            We’re allowed through with only one more curious glance at Sophie. I guide her to stay a step ahead of me by slotting my shoulder against hers and pushing her forwards. She’s wobbly, but she moves. We reach the door, throwing it open and finding ourselves awash in the blue of mid-night.

            Sophie stares at the dark sky like it intends to eat her. She should be more scared of me.

            I barely keep her from breaking out into a full sprint; I barely keep myself back from a full sprint. We’re almost free – if we can just make it to the tree line. But—

            Cardan is riding towards us on a tall, dappled gray horse. Behind him is a girl on a palfrey – Nicasia. As soon as he gets inside, the guards will ask him about us. As soon as he gets inside, he will know something is wrong.

            If he doesn’t see me and know sooner than that.

            “Stop staring,” I hiss at Sophie, harsher than I mean to. “Look at your feet.” She’s tipping the boat; we’re both going to die.

            Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cardan swing down from his saddle, black hair blown by the wind. He looks in my direction and pauses for a moment. I suck in my breath and don’t run.

            Don’t Panic.

            Don’t Run.

            There is no thundering of hoofbeats, no racing to catch and punish us. He’s not running us down. We’re just two servants heading toward the forest, perhaps to gather wood or berries or something. He won’t think anything of us. He thinks nothing of us.

            The closer we get to the edge of the woods, the more each step feels fraught.

            Then Sophie – damned, blasted, ridiculous mortal; I’m starting to sound like Cardan; is this what he sees me as? – sinks to her knees, turning to look back at Balekin’s manor. A keening sound comes from deep in her throat. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “No no no no no. No. This isn’t real. This didn’t happen.”

            I jerk her up, digging my fingers into her armpit. “Move,” I say. “Move or I will leave you here. Do you understand me? I will leave you, and Prince Cardan will find you and drag you back inside.” Or worse.

            Cheating a glance back, I see him. He’s off his horse and handing off the lead to a servant. He isn’t looking at us anymore. Nicasia still sits atop her palfrey, her head tipped back, laughing at something he said. He’s smiling, too, but it’s not his usual sneer. He doesn’t look like a wicked villain from a story. He looks like an inhuman boy out for a walk with his friend in the moonlight.

            Sophie staggers forward one step. Then two. Then three. We can’t get caught now, not when we’re so close.

            Nicasia turns her mount and rides away with a farewell hollered over her shoulder at Cardan. But I don’t see him anymore. He must’ve gone inside. I hope he’s gone inside.

            Sophie and I break the tree line and I release an enormous breath. My chest is still tight, my lungs are still burning. I feel like I’ve run a mile in the last two steps. But we’re safe now, I think, just have to get to Madoc’s estate from here.

            My sigh of relief whips back in as a gasp. Cardan didn’t go inside.

            Leaning a shoulder against a tree, his feet are crossed and his arms folded. Now he looks every inch the wicked villain – comfortable, scheming, waiting for me. He didn’t run me down; he beat me to the woods and waited for me.

            That nauseating heartbeat from before is gone. I think it stopped completely. I may have mercifully just died on the spot. Didn’t I think Cardan would be better than Balekin? I’m not thinking that anymore. I’m just thinking… I don’t know.

            There are alarm bells ringing all throughout my skull, but no one will tell me why. It’s just all shrieking. The stamping of tiny brain-cell-people running for their lives.

            I turn to Sophie, who looks green around the edges, and whisper a single command, “Run.”

            She needn’t be told twice. She takes off at a dead sprint – in the correct direction, not that she knows where to go. She won’t make it without me. There’s not much to be done about that now.

            Cardan watches her go. He makes no moves to stop her, slow her down, even speak to her. As her back disappears into the underbrush, his eyes shift back to mine. Coal black, the death after fire.

            He sighs. “You are…” he hesitates, considers me, makes a vague noise, looks like he’s choking, then bursts into laughter. A sound I’ve never heard from him before.

            Not real laughter. I’ve heard him laugh at my expense; I’ve heard him laugh in mockery; I’ve seen him laugh soundlessly into his palm when he doesn’t want Valerian to know he’s being laughed at. I’ve even seen him laugh in a teacher’s face. But this – this is different.

            He covers his face with both hands, throwing his head back to toss the mirthful sound into the wind. He shakes with it. He sits down on a log and puts his head between his knees. At one point, he gasps and silences. But the moment he looks back up at me, he’s laughing again.

            I stay silent for only as long as I can physically keep my mouth shut. Longer than usual. “If I concuss you, will you stop?” I snap.

            If his continued laughing – now pitching towards a giggle – isn’t a sign, his muttered, “Unlikely” answers my question sufficiently.

            I’m still tempted to try.

            Cardan drags his fingers through his hair, tousling it around and sending it cascading into his eyes. He finally comes to a semi-silence and studies me slowly, languidly. A smile remains on his face, and I realize it’s victorious. He has me now. He owns me now.

            I have just given him power over me so ultimate, I will never get out from beneath it. Unless, perhaps, Balekin and Cardan suffer twin unfortunate accidents. Concussive accidents.

            “You are insane,” Cardan says. “Have you taken up vigilantism for all mortals? Or do you just have a soft spot for that one? Saw her from afar, decided to do something grand and rescue her?”

            I don’t think there’s anything for me to say in this situation.

            Cardan doesn’t wait for an answer anyway. “Who were you intending to bring her to – to get her out to the mortal world? You think someone will help you?”

            Vivi. I won’t drag her into this.

            “You’re awfully quiet,” he remarks.

            “I’m waiting.”

            Cardan’s brow kicks up his face. “Waiting for what?”

            “The rules.” Cardan’s other brow joins the first and I continue, “This is a new game, isn’t it? Tell me the rules, Cardan. How do I keep my weak, mortal heart beating this time? Would you like me to kiss your foot?”

            He registers the mocking and ignores it. “Oh, this is no game. You snuck into a prince’s home and stole from him. What do you think will be done to you?”

            I don’t like where this is going. “As if I’m going to give you any ideas.”

            “Execution would be kind.”

            I really don’t like where this is going.

            Cardan takes a deep breath through his nose, lips twisted thoughtfully. “With Madoc’s help, you’d be executed.”

            “Wonderful.”

            If he hears the shake in my voice, he ignores it. “I’m keeping you from that fitting punishment – and in the process, neglecting the duties of a prince. We are meant to keep order in the kingdom, after all. What do you think will be done to me?”

            “Huh?”

            “I wouldn’t be executed. Probably something horrendous and tedious.”

            “They could take your alcohol,” I offer.

            Cardan grimaces. “Maybe I should turn you in. I’d hate to be sober for your execution.”

            I’m tempted to sit down on that log with him. My knees are so weak, I can’t believe I’m still standing. Then, suddenly, I’m not still standing. As if thinking it jinxed my balance, I sink to the ground to keep from toppling right over. The world spins around me until I blink it back into rightness.

            The forest floor is damp, water soaking into my clothing and chilling my skin. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. I look weak. I feel weak. My head is throbbing and my heart is pounding and everything smells and it’s all too loud and bright.

            It’s nighttime.

            There’s a rustling sound of Cardan standing, and I throw myself back, putting distance between us. My hands sink into mud that smells of evergreen and something rotten. I need my feet in front of me, I can kick him that way.

            Whether or not I’ve been rendered weak, I refuse to be helpless. I’ll fight him if I must.

            “You should find Sophie before she falls into some evil clutches.” He gives me a smile, and it’s almost kind, as if his clutches aren’t evil. “I’m not intending to kill you.”

            “Wonderful” is all I can force from my dry throat.

            Cardan sighs. “I’ll keep this a secret. One I cannot ever divulge because I’d be punished for keeping it in the first place. You’re safe.” His stare turns sharp. “You believe me?”

            I nod slowly. I want to. I don’t see the catch in his words. You’ll only see it when it’s too late.  

            “Don’t do it again,” Cardan says.

            “I won’t.”

            “Are you lying?”

            “I don’t know.”

            He seems satisfied with that. He moves faster – on his feet – than I do on the ground, and his hand gets ahold of my arm. In one sharp movement, he yanks me upright. As soon as I’m on my feet, he lets go and I sway unsteadily, my balance not prepared to be put into use again so soon. 

            Cardan doesn’t look at me again. He brushes past me, knocking me with his shoulder – bastard – and nearly sending me careening back to the ground with even that slight bump.

            I stand still, waiting. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I know this isn’t over. Nothing is easy in this place. Especially not Cardan; he’s playing me somehow. When I find out how, I’ll feel incredibly stupid, I’m sure. If I don’t feel incredibly dead.

            “One rule,” Cardan’s voice rings out, several paces away now. There it is. Here’s the catch. “Get away from Locke.”

Chapter Text

I take great care in wrecking Lady Asha’s belongings. She’s been gone for four weeks – and, though I could have put any maid to the task of cleaning her rooms – I waited until I had the time to properly take care of her for good. I have some fury to deal with.

            And what better way than the general destruction of expensive jewelry Lady Asha specifically requested to bring with her. She will get it back – simply, not in one piece.

            Though I feel hot and angry and too fast and too loud, I am methodical as ever. I take a seam ripper to each and every dress. I tear the cover off of every book. I remove the jewels from every setting in every necklace, bracelet, ring, earring. I remove the heels from all of her shoes.

            It takes me hours – many, many hours. Before I know it, an entire night is gone, then an entire day. I’m sure Cardan will come looking for me soon. He probably already has.

            I should check on him. He has a terrible tendency to hound the court of shadows for my whereabouts if I disappear for more than an hour. A result of one-too-many kidnappings, I suppose.

            But I do not stop. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours, and I’m exhausted. But I cannot stop. Not until I’m sure Lady Asha is gone from the palace and everything that belongs to her bears my mark now. Her influence is reversed.

            What she kept; I destroy. What she created; I correct. What she destroyed; I protect.  

“Cardan,” I murmur into the dark quiet of our room. He’s not in the bed, but I can hear him breathing, slow and even. “Cardan?”

            There’s a short pause of dead silence. Then, “Jude, you better not be bleeding.”

            I laugh and receive an unhappy noise in response. I can barely see the shape of Cardan standing up from the corner of the room where he was tucked against the wall reading a book. He lights a match and sets a lantern ablaze before he dares move towards me.

            “Where have you been?” he asks.

            “No where dangerous,” I assure him. To his scowl, I reassure, “I was in Lady Asha’s rooms, ensuring her things were dealt with. It took longer than I thought.”

            Cardan sighs and his fingers are buried in my hair before I realize he’s moved. I still – old fears waking in my mind, gasping the panic of an already forgotten nightmare. But Cardan only pulls me to his chest and hugs me tightly.

            I sigh into him. He’s wearing velvet – as he has every day since I mentioned it being my favorite. This is the Cardan I protect. What she destroyed.

            “Garrett looked like he wanted to murder me,” Cardan says, “When I sent him to find you. If you keep doing this, I’ll just have to assign one of them to follow you wherever you go.”

            “They can try.”

            Cardan lets go of me, but he doesn’t go far, just enough for me to breathe my own air. His hand stays in my hair, his other now resting on my waist. “I could tie you down to the throne,” he offers.

            “One threat in Randalin’s direction, and I’d be released.”

            “I could tie you to Randalin.”

            I grimace. “Cruel and unusual punishment.”

            “Don’t disappear again.”

            I nod solemnly. “I won’t disappear again—” I promise with a quiet, tacked on “—any time soon.”

            Cardan shakes his head at me, and I see lines of exhaustion in his expression. He hasn’t slept either. “You worry me,” he says.

            “Remember that time you fought a troll in the middle of the night?”

            “You’re infuriating,” he adds.

            “Insufferable,” I agree. “You love me.”

            “God, I do.” He kisses me, and it’s the last piece of the dam coming down. All the hatred for Asha, for what she created, kept, and destroyed, floods out of me like spilled blood.

            Still kissing me – and distracting me – Cardan drags me to the bed, ignoring any complaints of having things to do, and deposits me atop the covers. He ensures I’m safely tucked in before joining me, conspicuously between me and the door. It’s the middle of the day in faerie, full night. I do have things to do.

            But I don’t try to slip past him. I snuggle down next to him and fall asleep with one of his hands back in my hair.

            He’s gone when I wake the next day. I feel dizzy from oversleeping; and exhausted from lack of sleep. Groaning, I drag myself from the warmth of the bed and change into fresh clothes. One of Cardan’s shirts keeps finding its way from his wardrobe into mine. I think he’s – subtly – trying to convince me to wear his clothes.

            There’s a piece of paper in the pocket, and I know what it will be before I open it. A note written to me that he never sent. I find them all over our rooms, nearly every day.

            I want to love them – I keep them all in a drawer in my desk. But I see them, and all I can think is: The letters. The letters that Lady Asha stole while I was in exile. Cardan’s words.

            I have tried to learn them a few times, coaxing Cardan to tell me exactly the contents of the letters. But he either can’t remember or ‘would rather be stabbed.’ The curiosity eats through me like acid. Then the jealous hatred. Lady Asha stole those words from me. She read them.

            Knowing how many things I have to do today doesn’t stop me from ending up right back in Lady Asha’s rooms. They’ve been half cleared of her things, maids moving in and out and packing things. I send them away for an hour, allowing me time to search. I dig through the drawers in her desk, through the pockets of her clothing, through the ashes of the fireplace.

            There are no letters. She made an evasive comment about destroying them. But if I know one thing about Faeries, it’s evasive comments. Traps, half-lies, missing words. Maybe she didn’t. I hope she didn’t.

            I stand in the center of the room and spin in a slow circle. Where would Cardan have put them? I find his notes in all sorts of places. Most primarily: his pockets. Secondarily: underneath the legs of chairs, tables, beds. But when he really wants to hide something, he puts it in a book.

            Lady Asha’s bookcase is still full and untouched besides the lacking covers. I pull the books off the shelf one-by-one and fan open the pages. I find the first letter three shelves in; the second is in the next book over. I find the final letter in the very last book at the bottom of the bookcase.

            Six letters, all in Cardan’s fluid scrawl. They’re all addressed to me, dated across the two months I was in the mortal world. The first was sent hardly a week after I was exiled.

            I sit on Lady Asha’s mattress, already stripped of bedding, and lay the letters out around me, putting them into the order they were sent.

Jude,

You are perhaps only being overcautious,

but I am writing to inform you that all is

settled between the Undersea and Elfhame.

The treaties are signed in seafoam and blood.

        Expectantly,

Cardan

        Overcautious is one word for it. Another word that catches my eye is ‘Expectantly.’ The second letter is dated barely four days later. The handwriting is neater, letters closer together and smaller.

Jude,

Since I cannot imagine there is much in the human lands

to interest you, I can only suppose your continued

absence in Elfhame is due to me.

        I urge you: Come be angry at a nearer distance

Cardan

           “Dammit,” I whisper at the empty room, at myself, at him. I can hear his voice in my mind, all the things he said when I returned. All the things I said come at me next, like pounding rain on a window. “Dammit, Cardan.”

Jude,

You are in no mood for games. Very well,

I am in no mood for them, either.

        Let me write it outright: You are pardoned,

I revoke your banishment, I rescind my words.

Come home.

        Come home and shout at me. Come home and

 fight with me. Come home and break my heart,

if you must.

        Just come home.

Cardan

           Some silly part of me thought these letters would be more Cardan. More the Cardan that I knew in school, cruel and taunting. The Cardan I had believed him to be when I was in exile. But while I was cursing his name, he was writing this.

            I can see him, sitting at his desk, head resting in one palm as he scrapes some of his heart out and pours it onto paper. I’ve seen him do it before. I know the furrow he gets between his brows when he’s writing something kind. Like he’s suspicious of his own ability to spell such words. Just like I know the purse of his lips when he’s writing out a threat.

            “Well, didn’t you get my letters?” His first question to me. I have them now and – damn him – I want to cry over them. I wonder if he cried over them.

Jude,

Not even responding to my missives is ridiculous

and beneath you and I hate it.

Cardan

           That’s a bit more the Cardan I had expected. I laugh and tuck that one away in my pocket.

            Another week between letters. The longest one is two pages, and it is back to that careful lettering. Where he sits at his desk for hours, leaned close enough to the page to nearly get ink on his face. So careful to form every word exactly in line with the last.

To the High Queen of Elfhame,

Above me is the same silvery moon that shines down

on you. Looking at it makes me recall the glint of your

blade pressed against my throat and other romantic

moments.

         I do not know what keeps you from returning to the

High Court—whether it is vexation with me, or whether,

having spent time in the mortal world, you have come

to believe a life free of the Folk is better than one

ruling over them.

         In my most wretched hours, I believe you will never

come back.

         Why would you, save for your ambition? You

have always known exactly what I am and seen all

my failings, all my weaknesses and scars. I flattered

myself that at moments you had feelings for me other

than contempt, but even were that true, they would

make but a thin gruel beside the feast of your other,

greater desires.

         And yet my heart is buried with you in the strange

 soil of the mortal world, as it was drowned with you in

the cold waters of the Undersea.

         It was yours before I could ever admit it, and yours

it shall ever remain.

Cardan

            I hate him. I hate him so much more than I ever could have before I loved him. And it makes me love him like I never have before. That bastard, I want to kiss him and I want to kill him and I wish I could come back to Elfhame, but I’m already back.

            If I had read these, I would have come back. I probably would’ve thrown these letters in his face. But I would have returned to him. It was yours before I could ever admit it.

            I was yours before I ever knew it.

            The last letter is my name over and over and over like that first paper I found, tucked away in a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in his room at Hollow Hall. The size and shape of my name changes throughout the letter as if he wrote a version of it every single hour depending on how he was feeling. Some are angry and large. Some are small, pleading.

            I read every single one like it will heal the wounds between us. Those wounds had scabbed over, but they hadn’t healed, not really.

Please Jude.

         I gather up all of the letters, and I hug them to my chest, letting the sharp paper press lines into my lips. I let my tears fall onto them, running the ink. Is this healing? It hurts like a son of a bitch. I would prefer lemon juice in the eyes. Salt in a wound. A good, old-fashioned stabbing.

            When the clock chimes, I jump up and flee the room before the maids can return. I stop at my rooms and dump the letters into the drawer with all of Cardan’s other writings. I snap the drawer shut and lock it.

            Stopping before a mirror, I dry my eyes and throw water on my face. I look tired; I look murderous. But I don’t look like I just cried.

            I find Cardan in the meeting room, empty of all but him and two advisors. Everyone silences when they see me. The advisors respectfully bow to me, and I take my seat by Cardan.

            Without context, I don’t know what they’re speaking of, but I listen dutifully. Cardan dispenses a judgement call that sounds almost benevolent. But his voice is tight, and his posture is ramrod straight. He knows something is strange. He keeps looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

            “Anything else?” Cardan asks.

            The advisors glance at each other knowingly. Cardan won’t be talking with them any longer, no matter what they say. They both bid farewell and leave.

            At the click of a closed door, Cardan reaches over, touching my cheek with the backs of his fingers. His brow furrows. “Are you okay?”

            I touch my own hand to my cheek and feel how hot my skin is. His face doesn’t do that. The Folk don’t give away what they’re thinking and feeling with subconscious physical reactions. If Cardan hadn’t spent so much time silently obsessed with me, perhaps he wouldn’t have learned to read humans the way that he can.

            I should start feeding him entirely incorrect facts about mortals.

            “I found the letters,” I say, my voice coming out soft – softer than I expected and meant. I clear my throat and add, “Your letters to me. I found them.”

            “You mean the…” he trails off.

            “Yes. Those letters.”

            He shifts in his seat, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. I still see a hint of that nervous smile. The more I see that smile, the more I remember other times he wore it.

            I stand from my seat and Cardan’s eyes track the movement closely – prey watching a predator stalk closer. But I’m not stalking, and I’m no predator. I’m barely keeping a hitch in my lungs down and my hands are shaking, I want to touch him so badly.

            I want him to know I’m here as badly as I want to know I’m here. Everything looks a bit intangible, like I never returned. Like I’m still in exile. Like Cardan is still a strange fever dream drummed up by my arrogance and desire for power.

            But he’s real when I join him in his chair, throwing my legs over his lap and resting against his shoulder. And he’s really tense. I smooth my palm against the taut muscles of his neck.

            “I’m sorry.”

            Cardan rears back, as far as he can, trapped in the chair by me. His eyes fix wildly onto mine. “What?”

            “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “And you won’t hear me say that a whole lot of times, you might want to enjoy it while you can.”

            He studies me silently. He’s frowning now, and I recognize that look as much as I do his smile. “Do your worst,” I’d told him. He’d frowned at me just like that.

            I smooth the pad of my thumb across his lips, murmuring, “You’re a dumbass.”

            His eyebrow kicks up. I smooth that down next.

            “It’s a term of endearment,” I assure him.

            “No, I don’t think it is.”

            “It is now.”

            Cardan doesn’t smile, but he’s not frowning. That’s enough to ease the electric feeling in my chest. Without it, I feel weightless. If I were tied to a balloon, I would simply float away. This is healing.

            I tuck myself back into Cardan’s shoulder, and this time he wraps an arm around me, keeping me close. His sigh stirs my hair.

            Keeping my voice quiet, not daring to disturb the peace of the room, I murmur, “I’ll always come home.”

Chapter Text

We. I love that word: We. Jude and I. Me and Jude. Jude and Cardan.

            We work together and – somehow – our lives manage to not end inopportunely. Those occasional moments that we find ourselves trapped in old patterns, at each other’s throats, are less and less common. We are healing. We are ruling a kingdom.

            Except one of we is so damn insecure that she chooses to prove her right to rule by doing anything and everything all by herself – no matter the risks, no matter the consequences – at every possible opportunity. And, as I’ve found in the past, I cannot change her mind. She will leave if she sets her mind to it.

            Some mornings, I will wake alone. I’ll search the palace for her, but no one else knows where she is either. The court of shadows are either clueless or refuse to tell me anything – traitors. And I will pace like a caged animal until she returns. I usually end up shouting; she usually ends up laughing. The more this happens, the more I remember an old thought process I’ve long since buried: If anyone kills Jude, it’s going to be me.

            This time, though, I’m ready. I got my hands on her files, and I know exactly why she has her armor laid out in her old rooms. She’s planning to run off and deal with a problem in the crooked forest. All by her lonesome. Not this time.

            I wait for her in the dark room, laid out right next to her armor. A cup of tea resides on the nightstand. I’ve already drank two, but it’s midday, and I’m working against an intense desire to sleep.

            Caffeine will keep me awake. I will keep Jude alive.

            I hear her coming and sit up sharply. Her footsteps are light and quiet – sneaking around footsteps, I’m-doing-something-I’m-not-supposed-to footsteps – but still audible in this otherwise silent wing of the palace. And I know the sound of her breathing, and the faint bump of her shoulder knocking into the wall as she stops by the door.

            Jude has a tendency to sway unsteadily when she tries to walk too slowly or cautiously. It’s why she can’t sneak up on me. There’s always the slightest misstep as she rights her balance; or a bump of her grabbing furniture; or the brush of her clothes against a wall as she gets too close.

            I love the furious glower she gets when I hear her coming. I love that she doesn’t know why I’m the only person she can’t get a jump on.

            I love that I can sneak up on her.

            Jude tosses open the door, looking everywhere but inside the room she’s entering, and slips in. She pulls the door closed near soundlessly, except a faint snick of the lock clicking into place. Her hands feel along the wall, searching for the matchbox I swiped from where it usually sits on the table.

            She freezes. I’m silent; she’s silent. It’s pitch dark in here, and she can’t see the way I can, or she would have noticed me already. But she’s noticed something.

            The tea. She’s smelling the tea.

            Turning in a slow circle, her eyes squint, her head cocks, and her gaze locks on me. She reaches for the knife strapped to her thigh and I would really rather not be stabbed today—

            In a swift motion, I light a match, then a lantern hanging at the end of the bed. I lean into the glow of the fire, making sure Jude recognizes me. And ensuring she sees the disappointment on my face.

            Jude breathes a sigh of relief, clapping a hand to her chest. “Dammit, Cardan,” she snaps, “I thought you were an assassin.”

            I note that her hand is still clutching her knife. “Oh, well, my apologies for the fright.”

            Jude scowls. I smile.

            “But it’s so late – nearly early, at this point – where could you possibly be off to at this hour?” I drum my fingers together, and Jude’s gaze drops to the movement rapidly before returning to mine.

            She’s nervous. “I just wanted to go…” she trails off uncertainly.

            Lie to me, I dare you.

            “I wanted to visit the mortal world,” she says.

            I take a deep breath, and it tastes like ash. This woman is my insanity. Insanity with legs and doe eyes and a knife now out of its sheath—She really is going to stab me.

            “Intending to use that?” I ask her, motioning at the blade with my chin.

            She glances down at her hand. Her eyes go wide and the knife drops to the floor with an echoing clang. “No,” she says, fast, “No, of course not.” Then her expression clears and lazy irritation paints across her voice, “But maybe that’ll teach you not to jump-scare people. Armed people.”

            “Perhaps this will teach you not to be armed at such an hour,” I shoot back.

            “Is that a threat?” she balks, stalking towards me. “What’re you gonna do? Sit in the dark some more?” She makes a claw-like motion with her hands that I faintly registered as a mockery of… me? monsters? bad joints?

            I frown at her. Frankly, it’s a little closer to a pout than I’d prefer, but I can’t muster a proper doom-and-gloom glower when Jude’s managing to be cute.

            My heart is going off on its own without the advice of my mind and, inevitably, it’s finding itself only lost and stupid. That is what happens without a brain, I suppose. But now it’s just thumping wildly in my chest, with no idea what’s going on. It’s forgotten that I’m angry. I’m forgetting that I’m angry.

            Jude goes suddenly still again – every muscle in her body pulls taut as one, like she’s a puppet and someone’s just picked her up by the strings. “Get out of my way,” she demands.

            “No.”

            “No?” she says back.

            “No.”

            Her jaw works tightly, teeth grinding together. “Cardan,” she warns. When I don’t bend to her will, she continues, “You know why I have to go, right? Do you?”

            I give her a noncommittal shrug, wanting to know what she’s thinking. The only way to get that out of her is the boredom of silence. So, I stay silent, and I wait.

            “There’s a group of mortals – probably twenty, maybe more – that one of your kind—” she pokes me in the chest with an accusatory finger “—led in there to die. They’re trapped in that forest, and I have to help them. You know I have to help them.”

            I do know that.

            “It’s my choice to go,” she says, “You can’t take that from me.”

            I nod. “It is your choice. Just as it’s my choice to come with you.”

            Her jaw drops open.

            “You can’t take that from me,” I echo.

            She makes three attempts to speak before settling on a fiery glare I can almost feel the scorching touch of on my skin. And a muttered, “I hate you.”

            “Ah, but you’ll hate me more soon enough.” I tap her on the tip of the nose. “Because I intend to complain the entire time we’re out there. Until you want to stab me again, and then far more than that. And I intend to start taking more trips with you. Much, much more complaining is in your future, darling.

            “But when you finally, eventually, tire of this heroic charade, or me, or a combination of the two, you will get to come rule the kingdom with me. And our people will get to do the jobs that we pay them very handsomely for. The jobs you keep stealing from them.”

            Jude is half a second from rolling her eyes all the way backwards into her head. She sighs heavily. “I could always usurp your reign, you know. Lead a coup.”

            I laugh. “Are you going to chop my head off again?”

            Tension lifts off of her shoulders, and she smiles wickedly. “That depends on how much you slow me down.”

Chapter Text

I see her so often, I think I must’ve gone mad when she left. Walking the halls of the palace, I turn corners and she’s standing there, looking at me. But she isn’t. She isn’t here.

            Jude’s still in the mortal world – it’s been two months since I sent her away – and I can only assume she has no desire to return. No desire for the throne; no desire for me. I send letters, a lot of letters, but I have received no response.

            I dream of her some nights. Sometimes she’s screaming at me and throwing objects of varying lethality at my face. Sometimes she’s too far for me to reach her, no matter how hard I try. Sometimes she’s hovering above me in an ill lit room, whispering sweet nothings against my skin – things she would never say, especially to me.

            The worst of it all is the court of shadows. The Roach, The Bomb, they miss Jude as much as I do, I think. They pretend not to. Or, at the very least, they don’t mope about it. But that doesn’t stop them from whispering amongst themselves when they think I’m not listening.

            “Jude would know what to do with him.”

            “We gotta get Jude back.”

            Someone tried to assassinate me the other day. I used to not be used to such instances. In my first months as High King, I had Jude keeping me alive – not that I knew of her efforts until she was gone, and I was nearly dead and almost dead and way-too-close-to-dead and the one time someone threw a severed arm at me.

            I see her so often since she left that I immediately assume I’m imagining her when Jude steps into the brugh. She just walks in. Like she hasn’t been gone for months; like she wasn’t screaming at me the last time we were face to face.

She makes every effort to not look at me as she drifts into and out of the crowds. That is the first sign she’s definitively real. No imagined version of her can capture that level of stubborn evasiveness. Her ensemble of clothing is reminiscent of Taryn – she’s even wearing gloves to hide the differences in their hands. Surely she’s not attempting to—

            “Taryn Duarte,” a knight says to her, reaching out like he intends to lay a hand on her arm. She snaps away from him at the last moment – far faster, more deft, than Taryn is. “Wife of Locke. You must stand in the place of petitioners.”

            Jude doesn’t correct the knight. She is pretending to be Taryn.

            Suppose that means Taryn really did kill Locke. I find more amusement in that than I should.

            I do not, however, find amusement in Jude’s charade. I’m glad she’s no vision – I’m glad she’s here, finally – but she had to come in a disguise? Now I’m forced to sit here. As badly as I want to go to her and drag her somewhere secluded and kiss her – or rather possibly find myself at the wrong end of her knife. I must sit.

“Taryn?” I ask.

            Jude pulls herself into a curtsy, long seconds dragging before she dares to look at me. First, it’s nervous, then it’s devouring. She sweeps her gaze from my crown to my shoes and back up. A blush creeps up her neck.

            She has murder in her eyes when she says, “Your Majesty.”

            “We recognize your grief. We would not disturb your mourning were it not for the questions over the cause of your husband’s death.”

            I call it a game, and I play my part. I’ll pretend right along with her. Even if I can’t imagine anyone believes that Taryn is that muscular or stands that far forward on the balls of her feet or holds her shoulders that high.

            “Do you really think she’s sad?” Nicasia asks me.

            Jude’s eyes flicker towards Nicasia and Asha, still with that homicidal intent. She bites into her cheek, remains silent.

            “Did you kill Locke yourself?” Nicasia demands, “Or did you get your sister to do it for you?”

            “Jude is in exile,” Jude says. “And I’ve never hurt Locke.”

            “No?” That’s too bad.

            Jude twitches at the sound of my voice, her eyes flickering nervously. “I lov…” she makes a sound like clearing her throat. Then, with a squeak, she mutters, “I loved him.”

            “Sometimes I believed that you did, yes,” I say.

            I still have a knife-twist pain in my chest that feels something like embarrassment or guilt or jealousy when I think of the night in Locke’s garden. The way Jude looked at me. The way I looked at her. She wanted me dead back then.

            “But you could well be lying,” I continue, “I am going to put a glamour on you. All it will do is force you to tell us the truth.” I press my glamour towards her, laying power onto her like a blanket, but I know it does nothing.

            I assume this is why Jude’s here in Taryn’s place. She can lie to me.

            “Now, tell me only the truth. What is your name?”

            “Taryn Duarte,” she lies gracefully, curtsying again. “Daughter of Madoc, wife of Locke, subject of the High King of Elfhame.”

            How cute. “What fine courtly manners.”

            “I was well instructed.”

            “Did you murder Locke?” I ask.

            Jude glances to her left, her right. She locks eyes with Nicasia and says, “No. Nor did I orchestrate his death. Perhaps we ought to look to the sea, where he was found.”

            Nicasia vibrates with rage. “We know that Jude murdered Balekin. She confessed as much. And I have long suspected her of killing Valerian—” Jude, for her part, doesn’t react to Valerian’s name. Though, I do. “If Taryn isn’t the culprit, then Jude must be. Queen Orlagh, my mother, swore a truce with you. What possible gain could she have from the murder of your Master of Revels? She knew he was your friend—and mine.”

            I want to hear Jude’s voice again. Rather than the sniffling Nicasia’s doing – she always did have more love for Locke than I did. Valerian probably had more love for Locke than I did.

            I’m glad he’s dead, I realize.

            “What do you think?” I ask Jude, “Did your sister do it? And don’t tell me what I already know. Yes, I sent Jude into exile—” she flinches “—That may or may not’ve deterred her.”

            Jude’s chin tips up challengingly. “She had no reason to hate Locke. I don’t think she wished him ill.”

            “Is that so?” I think everyone had reasons to hate Locke. But perhaps I underestimated Jude’s ability to forgive.

            Perhaps she just spares her permanent hatred for me.

            “It may only be Court gossip, but there is a popular tale about you, your sister, and Locke,” Lady Asha ventures. “She loved him, but he chose you. Some sisters cannot bear to see the other happy.”

            Jude watches me for a reaction. Slowly, she says, “Jude never loved Locke. She loved someone else. He’s the one she’d want dead.”

            She loved me.

            She wants me dead.

            I blink at a headache rising in my temples. “Enough,” I say, holding up a hand for everyone’s silence. Jude’s, especially. “I have heard all I care to on this subject—”

            “No!” Nicasia interrupts, bringing the entire hall to attention. A threat brews to the tip of my tongue, but she continues before I can stop her. “Taryn could have a charm on her, something that makes her resistant to glamours.”

            Oh – there’s an idea. I peer at Jude, reading the expression on her face, the way she’s standing now. She’s on the defensive. “I suppose she’ll have to be searched,” I say.

            Jude goes instantly calculative. The uncertainty on her face doesn’t read into the strength of her voice. “My husband was murdered. And whether or not you believe me, I do mourn him. I will not make a spectacle of myself for the Court’s amusement when his body is barely cold.”

            That’s my girl. “As you wish. Then I suppose I will have to examine you alone in my chambers.”

Jude falls into step just over my shoulder like she used to as my Seneschal. It’s so familiar, I could almost allow myself to forget that she’s plotting. Her planning face is on – and I have to assume the plan involves my death. Or loss of limb.

            I turn at the resounding clang of dishes falling to the floor. Jude stares at the maid crouched at her feet, cleaning up the mess she just made. There’s a brief conversation that I can’t hear, and then the guards are hauling Jude up and pushing her to follow after me again. She still looks… confused.  

            I sweep into my rooms and motion at the guards to close the door behind Jude and I. Jude barely moves further than the threshold, the door bumping her in the rear.

            Her gaze sweeps the room quickly, only settling on me once I’ve sat on the couch. I grin up at her. I can’t help it. I’m waiting for her to smile back – give me something – and congratulate the two of us on tricking all those people, together, as a team. As we should be.

            But she just shuffles her feet and watches me. She’s looking for something.

            “Well,” I say, patting the seat next to me, “Didn’t you get my letters?”

            Jude’s eyes go wide. “What?”

            “You never replied to a one. I began to wonder if you’d misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.”

            “Your majesty,” she says stiffly, slowly walking a wide birth around me, heading in the general direction of the secret passage. “I thought you brought me here to assure yourself I had neither charm nor amulet.”

            “I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don’t mind.” I really don’t mind.

            She freezes, eyes narrowing down on my smile. Her expression flickers from indignant to furious to something unnamable – I’ve never seen it on her before. Voice raw, she demands, “What’re you doing? What are you playing at?”

            The game that you set forth, I could say. But I don’t manage to speak before it’s too late to answer the question directly. She’s still looking at me – looking for something.

            “Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you.” The look that crosses her face answers that, in fact, she did. “I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”

            She shakes her head like she can simply refuse the fact. If anyone could, it would be Jude. “That’s not possible,” she murmurs. Her voice tremors.

            And there it is again, the unnamable expression that strikes her features like lightning, whiting out everything else. It’s almost like resignation; it’s almost furious; it’s almost pleading; it’s almost dangerous. Her forefinger keeps tracing a pattern against the base of her palm. But she wouldn’t. But she would.

            I stand – feeling more and more like easy prey the longer I’m seated. Still in my mind I’m hoping, foolishly, that she’s not doing exactly the type of thing Jude would do. I can’t read her expression. I used to be so good at that.

            “Come closer.”

            Jude falls back a step

            She wouldn’t. “My councilors told me that you met with an ambassador from the Court of Teeth, that you must be working with Madoc now—” She Wouldn’t “—I was unwilling to believe it, but seeing the way you look at me, perhaps I must.” She Wouldn’t. “Tell me it’s not true.”

            Jude looks briefly… baffled. Then her lips set in a hard line and her chin dips downward, glaring at me through her lashes. “I’m not the betrayer here.”

            “Are you angry about—” oh. Oh. The lightning flash expression, so fierce and strange. It seemed so impossible because it’s— “No, you’re afraid. But why would you be afraid of me?”

            My heart thumps an unfamiliar rhythm. Excitement. I’m excited – against my will and better judgement – and I want to pick apart Jude and her fear, figure out how it works. I want to explore her all over again. This piece of the puzzle I was denied before, no matter how hard I pushed. But—

            God, what have I done. What could I possibly have done to put such terror into the same eyes that were so murderous not ten minutes ago? What could make Jude shake through the same hands that have put a dagger to my throat? What have I done.

            “I’m not,” she says, and the spite in her voice is almost believable. “I hate you. You sent me into exile. Everything you say to me, everything you promise, it’s all a trick. And I, stupid enough to believe you once.”

            “Of course it was a trick—” a glint of steel catches my eye, and I nearly bite my tongue in my hurry to not finish that sentence.

            She’s finally going to kill me.

            Everything shakes. An explosion, close by and intense enough that we both stumble. Books fall and scatter the floor. Crystal orbs slip off their stands to roll across floorboards. Jude’s eyes meet mine, and already she’s lying to me again before she’s even spoken. She looks surprised.

            She must’ve known. She wouldn’t. But she absolutely would.

            There’s a clang of blades striking each other, the scream of metal on metal. Jude whips the blade out of its sheath and tosses the leather away. When she looks at me next, I’m sure she’s going to kill me. But she turns away, making for the door.

            “Stay here,” she commands.

            Too late, I realize what she’s doing. “Jude, don’t—” the door is slammed shut in my face.

            I don’t chase her. I’d only get in her way.

            I stay in the room and plant my palm on the door, reaching out to the roots of the palace. My fury – my fear – is a raw, open wound, and the magic responds to it. The palace curls tighter, plants wrapping around each other like they need comfort, protection from me. They’re not the ones I intend to damage.

            Footsteps are thundering all around the palace. Women, men, children, mortals, soldiers, all running. I can feel Jude’s steps. She’s not far outside the door.

            But someone is coming towards her. A set of footsteps I’ve felt only a few times with my magic. I know him instantly: Madoc. He’s here, and then he’s upon her. I feel the struggle. I reach for her with anything I can get my mind on.

            I won’t let them take her. I will not lose her again. All the doorways of the palace shine golden in my mind, and I close my eyes, picturing them more clearly. I watch them tighten down, closing off entrance and exit. I watch them snatch at anyone who gets too close.

            I wrap a vine around one of Madoc’s knights. I twist it in a loop around his neck, and I crush. “I’m not a killer.” I suppose I am now.

            Balekin made me the cruel prince. Jude made me a wicked king. I do not know what I’m making of myself, but if I am to be a killer, then I will become what love requires. I will not lose her again. My Jude.

            I kill thirteen soldiers.

            Thirteen of Madoc’s men are strangled or crushed by my power. Most of them die before anyone realizes what’s happening. Two of them cry. Four scream. Six fight until their last breath. I feel the fluttering of a dying pulse against every part of my mind – like a war drum in the distance.

            But it isn’t enough. Half of Madoc’s men make it out, including Madoc himself. And Jude. They manage to snatch Jude away at the last moment, and they disappear into the night.

            I scream my frustration at the ground, at the sky, into my hands. Blood is running down my palm where it was planted to the door. I wasn’t even aware of the thorned vine creeping its way around my fingers, piercing my skin. I don’t think I did that to myself. If I did, it wasn’t on purpose.

            The pain is a nuisance. It’s annoying. I have more things to worry about than I have fingers on my hands, but I keep getting caught on that stupid, prickling pain.

            My life is moving in flashes. Hectic movement and people speaking, and I’ve moved three times, but I don’t remember standing, walking. I’m still in that room, vowing to save Jude.

            I’ve lost her. I’ve lost her again.

            I failed, and I need to make sure someone takes care of the bodies – the men I killed – and I need the council cooking up plans to deal with Madoc and I need soldiers figuring out how he got in here in the first place and I need to make sure no one else was taken and I need to bandage my damned hand.

            When the spinning slows to a dead stop that makes me feel like vomiting, I find myself in the lair of the court of shadows. Liliver is bandaging my hand with singular focus, her expression set into hard lines.

            “Do we know anything?” I ask.

            Van is standing over my shoulder, muttering to himself and reading a report. “Nothing,” he grumbles, “Nothing. And a whole lot more nothing.”

            “Are we sure she’s not working with him?” Liliver asks. When I snap a shocked look at her, she makes a soft, almost soothing noise. “Taryn, not Jude.”

            Why am I being soothed? Do I look that wrecked?

            Having finished with her bandages, Liliver stands and circles to my back. I don’t turn around. I sit and wait for one of them to tell me what I need to know. They’ll be able to find her.

            “Seems the best place to start,” Van whispers.

            “Where?” I ask.

            A short silence. “We think Taryn might be able to help us. If she’s working for Madoc, she’ll know where he is. And if she’s not, she still may know a way to get through to him. A contact, perhaps.”

            “I’ll go,” I decide, “I know where Vivienne lives in the mortal world, I can find Taryn.”

            A hand brushes against my shoulder as I stand up with a slight, unsteady sway. Liliver crosses back into my field of vision. She looks worried. I really must be in bad shape. She opens her mouth to argue with me—

            “I’m going.” My voice comes out harsher than I intend – certainly harsher than I thought my raw throat was capable of. “And you two will keep looking for Jude.”

            Liliver glances past me at Van, a knowing look shared. She nods to me agreeably, saying only, “Be careful, Cardan.”

I stand on the porch for quite some time. My knocks are unheard by the voices inside. Three of them, women, wandering around and talking and ignoring me.

            Bang. My knocking is furious this time, demanding attention. Bang. Bang.

            “Damn,” one of the voices mutters, “Alright, I’m coming.”

            Vivi, I realize. Her footsteps are nearly as thunderous as my knocking, and her irritated grumbling continues until the moment the door swings open and her cat eyes lock onto mine. A sick thrill goes through me at the terror on her face.

            She goes deathly still. Her mouth hangs open. “Cardan,” she says.

            “Vivienne,” I say back.

            Vivi takes a tiny step away from the threshold, like she intends to fight me off or slam the door in my face. To be fair, I expected nothing less. I’m certain Jude would’ve slammed the door in my face.

            “Of course it was a trick.” I shouldn’t have said that to her. It took me a painstaking amount of time, considering and reconsidering, to recognize the look that had crossed her face. I’d never seen it before.

            Hurt. I hurt her.

            And it was worse than that. I hurt Jude and I liked it. Old habits – old desires to finally find the chink in her armor – rose up like bile in the throat and I felt proud to properly hurt her, for once. She’s finally afraid of me.

            “What are you doing here?” Vivi demands.

            I plant my foot onto the threshold, wait for an attack, and when none come, I step inside. Vivi moves to make room for me. Her eyes dart to a door nearby that’s firmly shut.

            “I came looking for your sister,” I say. “Is she here?”

            “Jude’s not here.”

            Word games. I’d wondered if she would try those.

I feel for a smile, but I can see my reflection in a mirror nearby. I look like murder incarnate. I look like Jude. “The other one,” I say.

            Vivi’s skin drops three shades of color in one breath. “Is Taryn not at the inquest? I know you’re having one over Locke’s death.” Kicking her chin up, Vivi channels as much of Jude as I am. Suddenly we aren’t enemies – we’re Jude and Jude, the effects she’s had on us.

            Actually, now that I think it through, Jude and Jude would still be enemies.

            “He deserved it,” Vivi says.

            Who? I forgot what we were talking about. All I can think is a thrumming, repeating Jude Jude Jude Jude.

            I glower down at Vivienne. “Taryn didn’t come to answer our questions. No – as I think you know – she sent Jude in her place.”

            “Jude was exiled.”

            “And I’m surprised she didn’t return sooner.”

            Vivi’s face goes soft, the lock of her shoulders drops and desperation marks her voice, barely a whisper, “Tell me you didn’t,” she pleads, then threatens in the same breath, “If you’ve hurt her, I swear to God, I’ll—”

            “Kill me?” I offer. “You Duartes are obsessed with my demise.”

            “Tell me you didn’t,” she repeats.

            I shake my head. A childish, cruel part of me wants to leave her in this panic – to not tell her. But I need her help. And Jude really would kill me. “I didn’t hurt her.”

            Vivi breathes out a soft sigh.

            “But Madoc has her.”

            That sigh whips back in as a gasp. Her eyes devour her face, bugging out of her head. “She went back to Madoc? Why?”

            “She didn’t go back; he took her. He thinks she’s Taryn.”

            Vivi’s hand covers her mouth. Then it rubs at her mouth, then it rubs at her eyes, her temple. Only when her palm settles down at the base of her throat does she speak, “If I tell you where Taryn is, you won’t hurt her.”

            “I won’t kill her. I give no other promises.” Before she can challenge me, I slip past her and toss open the only door in the house that is shut. On the other side, I’m greeted by the sight of a frightened Taryn Duarte.

            She yelps and dashes towards the back of the room, getting as much distance from me as she can. “Your majesty, what are you doing here?”

            I advance into the room – even as Vivi shouts after me – and seize Taryn by the wrist. “Sending Jude in your place was a nice trick. But do not attempt to play her part, you won’t succeed. You’ll only embarrass us both.”

            “You know?”

            Vivi answers her, “He knows.”

            Taryn’s fearful expression is nothing like Jude’s. Not white out lightning, but the nausea inducing drop after stepping off a ledge. “Is she okay?”

            I scowl. “Are you worried I killed her?”

            “No. Please, no.”

            “You think I did.” I scowl deeper, and if I looked like murder before, I can only assume Taryn’s terror is well deserved. “You thought I would kill Jude, but you still sent her right to me. You must truly hate her.”

            Taryn’s eyes go round. “I don’t. I—”

            “You turned out lucky, I suppose. I’d do something regretfully cruel to you long before I would dare hurt Jude.” My fingers dig into Taryn’s wrist, hard enough to leave a lasting mark. She grimaces. “If Madoc kills her, you will suffer the consequences.”

            “Enough,” Vivi’s voice rings out, but she seems far away. “Cardan, that’s enough.”

            “You’re hurting me,” Taryn says.

            I want to. I want to hurt her the way she hurt Jude and Jude hurt me. A bubbling fire is rising up in my chest, and it has nowhere to go but straight to my brain.

            My hand releases Taryn before I realize I even mean to. I take a short step back and Taryn darts away from me, running to the safety of Vivienne. And another mortal, colorful hair and a confident slant to her shoulders. She wasn’t there a moment ago.

            “Madoc?” Taryn repeats. “Jude’s with Madoc?”

            “He thought she was you. And when he finds out who she really is, he will kill her. You know that, yes?” When Taryn nods, I continue, “Then you know you need to help me find her.”

            Taryn’s gaze drops to her shuffling feet. “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t spoken to Madoc in weeks.”

            “Can you contact him?”

            She shrugs. “I’ve never gone out of my way to try before.”

            “Find a way.” I stalk back past Vivienne and Taryn. Useless. This was a waste of my time. Of Jude’s time – limited time. “Whatever it takes, find a way to contact Madoc and find where he’s camped.”

            The third mortal leans towards Taryn, whispering, “Isn’t that the king?”

            “What will you do once you find her?” Vivi asks, chasing after me all the way up to the door. As soon as I move back out onto the porch, she halts, only her voice following me on the wind. “You’re going to get her back, right?”

            I don’t look at her again. “I will get Jude back.”

Chapter Text

Three days gone. Jude, still gone.

            I’ve been pacing a small office in the court of shadows’ new lair for nearly an hour. I need to think like Jude. She’ll inevitably have done something by now – stupid and dangerous, probably; a betrayal, possibly; an escape, I can only hope – and while all my attention has been focused on finding Madoc, I may only need to find where Jude would go.

            Liliver must think me mad. She’s been following me as extra protection in case Madoc decides to make another attempt on my life. She watches from afar as I check Jude’s rooms every day. Multiple times. She’s never there.

            But I have to believe, for the sake of my weary mind – or possibly because of my weary mind – that Jude will come here, to me. If she escapes, she’ll come home.

            This office was meant to be Jude’s. After the Ghost’s destructive efforts, the old lair was lost permanently. I had a new one put together for Liliver and Van, and I ordered an extra room set up for Jude. For when she returned from the Undersea.

            She was back for so short a time. She barely got to make any use of it.

            The door to the office swings open abruptly, revealing Van standing on the other side with a stern scowl marring his green face. “Cardan Greenbriar, High King of Elfhame, stop pacing like a rabid dog. I am working.”

            The door slams back shut.

            I sigh. We are all on edge – in a way not even matched by the days Jude was in the Undersea. I’ve threatened the council not once but thrice.

            I need Jude back. She’s much better at threatening.

            Cautiously cracking the door back open, I check both ways before slinking out into the hall. I hear Liliver’s voice from somewhere deeper in the lair, talking fervently, furiously. There’s a thunk that I’m sure the wall did something to deserve. Van should never have taught her how to throw knives.

            I slip past the voices and into the stairwell. It’s a short climb up into the bedroom we’ve cordoned off. We wouldn’t want someone stumbling into the lair by accident.

            The guards are still waiting where I left them, two corners away from the bedroom, and they all snap to attention when they see me. None of them question where I’ve been. Although, I have seen them trading glances with each other when I leave them behind on a more regular basis than I should.

            A moment later, I catch a flash of bright, white hair moving in the reflection of mirror, not far behind me. Liliver is following me again. She catches me looking at her and waves at me. None of the guards see her.

            The main hall of the palace is near empty. All the celebrations have come to a grinding halt after the attacks, and I’ve been, admittedly, slacking off on my duties as High King. Frankly, the more I listen to petty squabbles between my subjects, the more I want to revert to harmless pranks and kicking dirt on people’s food. Life was easier when I could return pettiness in kind. Or throw people in rivers.

            A woman steps forward from the minuscule crowd, and her resemblance to Jude strikes me in the chest. I freeze between one step and the next. But in the same breath, I realize who she is.

            “Vivienne,” I greet.

            She doesn’t wait for me to say more. “I got a letter from Oriana. She knows where Jude is, and she’ll help us get her out of the camp.”

            Liliver remains hidden only barely. She moves so suddenly, so close to stepping right out into the light for everyone to see, that the movement catches my eye. She catches herself and slides back into shadow with a hand pressed tightly to her mouth.

            I snatch the paper Vivi is holding, my eyes scanning it too quickly to truly read the words. It’s all just gibberish to my mind except the Jude. And lower, Jude. Near the bottom, too, Jude.

            “Where is she?” I ask.

            “In the mountains with the Court of Teeth.”

            I stare at her with wide eyes. “The Court of Teeth.”

            “Yeah,” Vivi mutters, “Of all the damn places. But Taryn and I will come with you, we want to help. And there’s this woman who – well – she’s willing to help, too.”

            “Who?”

            Vivi clears her throat evasively. “Grima Mog?”

            That’s the ambassador Jude was accused of meeting with. They are working together, then? But against Madoc. Unless— “Grima Mog is of the Court of Teeth, if I remember correctly. Why would she help?”

            “I don’t know, but she eats people. So, I’m just counting my lucky stars that she is on our side.” Vivi purses her lips. “Are you going to help us or not?”

            I blink. “Of course.” Glancing around the room, I ask, “Is Taryn here?”

            “She’s in hiding at the moment.”

            I register the accusation. “Two hours. Gather what you need, I’ll meet you here.”

Van is resistant. His brow has been cocked up for the last ten minutes, and I’m prickling like a patronized child. “This is a trap,” he says.

            I look to Liliver for help.

            She shakes her head. “I’m not taking your side.”

            “I’m the king.”

            “Exactly,” she says, “Jude knows us – she knows you. If she is working with Madoc, she’ll know exactly who this trap will yield for her.”

            I won’t believe that. She Wouldn’t. “Liliver, I’m giving you permission to take my place on the throne if I get killed, maimed, or captured. Satisfied?”

            Liliver blinks at me passively. “You’re bribing me with a kingdom?”

            Van presses his palm against his forehead, muttering, “I miss Jude.”

            “Then come with me. We can get her back. Between a redcap, the full force of the Duartes, you, and I, we can get Jude back and evade capture. Or possibly evade Jude, if necessary.” I smile at Van as persuasively as I can – registering only faintly that I smiled at him just like this while I was tied to a chair once. “We can get her back.”

            “What will we do if she does try to kill you?” Van asks.

            “As if it would be the first time.” I shrug at the dry look they both give me. “If I have to hold her down to offer her everything she wants, so be it. But she won’t hurt me.”

            Van and Liliver share a look. Neither of them have anything more to say. Not to my face, at least.

Van stands by my side when I meet with Vivi, Taryn, and Grima Mog – whose reputation as a cannibal is matched only by the sheer sight of her. I do not wish to know what stupid thing Jude did to get Grima Mog on her side. It will probably give me nightmares of some kind or another.

            “Ready?” Vivi asks, not giving my green companion a second glance. Though, Taryn is staring quite a bit. “I have enough ragwort to sink a ship, and Grima Mog has proper steeds prepared for when we arrive.”

            Taryn squints at Van and snaps back when he meets her eyes. “Hello,” she says, “Have we met?”

            “No.”

            “This is the Roach,” I introduce.

            “I’m Taryn,” she says, smiling tightly.

            Van’s lips purse like he wants to laugh. “I know. You betrayed us once.”

            Taryn swallows hard.

            Vivienne turns her back on the lot of us and walks towards the entrance of the palace. Grima Mog falls into step beside her, and we follow. Taryn giving Van and I a wide berth.

            I’m wearing none of my usual finery – hardly recognizable as the High King without my crown and covered in flat black clothing. The moment I set foot outside the palace, I’m nothing more than another of the Folk. Outside, I am a shadow, melting into the rest.

            I am a boy flying up into the clouds, wishing they felt as fluffy as they looked. I am a hero in a mortal-world novel. I am off to rescue a woman I love. I am a knight; I am a spy; I am an assassin. I am nothing. And, for the first time since I became Jude’s puppet, that’s exactly what she needs me to be.

            Van guides us to land in the woods near Madoc’s camp. Grima Mog goes one way with Vivi and Taryn, bringing them to a campsite pre-set for them with steeds and fire where they will wait for us. I remain with Van, sneaking through the forest until the first tent comes into view.

            Soldiers are everywhere. Only half of them are doing their duties – most involving themselves in raucous games with cards and dice. If Jude is still here, I can’t imagine why. She could’ve escaped this with ease.

            A nervous twist awakes in my stomach. She Wouldn’t.

            Van crouches into a shadow and watches the movement throughout the camp, waiting for a sign of Jude. I stay back where I can pace without drawing attention. I can quiet my footsteps; but I cannot quiet my mind.

            Minutes may pass. Hours may pass. I glance only occasionally towards Van, but he hardly moves. His patience is a well I have yet to learn how to tap.

            A wet slap of snow strikes me in the temple. Van waves a hand for me to join him, ignoring the way I glower. I swipe snow from my face and kneel beside him. He points silently at the shape of a woman tromping through the tents.

            Jude. Her hair is braided like Taryn’s, and her hands are still covered. She looks the spitting image of Taryn besides the sour expression that only Jude would wear.

            She enters a tent, and I’m stopped from following by Van’s hand on my shoulder. He whispers, “We’ll wait until she’s fallen asleep.”

            And we do wait. It is brutal, snow soaking through the knee of my breeches, chilling me to the bone, so close to Jude, yet so far. Time is mocking me with its sheer length. Surely time isn’t usually this slow.

            Jude should be asleep by now. The moon is descending the sky, it will be morning soon. Too soon – I don’t want to be caught in the middle of the camp in full daylight.

            I grab a clump of snow and fling it at Van’s neck, smiling secretly when he grumbles. But he’s broken from his waiting – finally – urging me to follow him into the encampment. He moves silently on the snow, leaving no sign of his presence. It’s so unlike Jude.

            Jude and her footprints and her blustering attitude. She’s so close.

            Roach slips around the back of the tent, lifting the edge of it for me to crawl in. He follows in after me. His whisper barely stirs the air, “Watch out for knives.”

            I ignore him – I don’t think I even register what he said. All I can think is Jude. Jude is asleep in the bed, hair splayed across the pillow. She looks so vulnerable, so mortal. It’s Jude.

            Stopping by the edge of her bed, I reach for her without thinking. I want to touch her hair, the softness of her jaw, her lips. A memory of her hand against my mouth comes vividly to the forefront of my mind – the night she returned to me from the Undersea. Her skin had tasted of salt.

            I again ignore Van as he makes an indignant sound from the other side of Jude’s bed, and press my palm against Jude’s mouth. She wakes instantly.

            One of her hands grips my wrist, fingernails digging into my skin. Her other arm reels back and strikes me in the stomach with an elbow. I gasp at the splaying burn of pain. Oh, that hurt. Van laughs.

            “Jude,” he says, “We’ve come to save you. Screaming would really hurt the plan.”

            Jude’s eyes go round. Her head swings in the direction of Van. “You’re lucky I didn’t stab you!” she hisses furiously.

            I notice her hand under the pillow, gripping the handle of a dagger.

           “I told him to watch out.” Van flashes me an ‘I told you’ look before striking a match. “But would he listen? I’d have ordered him, if not for the little matter of his being the High King.”

            “Cardan sent you?” she asks, disbelief ringing clearly in her voice.

            Van rounds the bed slowly. “Not exactly.”

            The moment light touches my face, Jude’s expression falls. Any fear, any shock, any gladness disappears and is replaced with jarring numbness. She shakes her head slowly.

            “You shouldn’t be here,” she says.

            “I said that, too,” Van goes on, “Really, I miss the days when you were in charge. High Kings shouldn’t be gallivanting around like common ruffians.”

            I snort. “What about uncommon ruffians?”

            Jude sits up in the bed, swinging her legs out from under the covers. My laughter dies as the air squeezes out of my chest. I can see every curve of her body through her nightgown, and I am overcome again. I want to touch her. Van looks away.

            Eyes darting between us, Jude glances down at herself and launches to her feet. She paces across the tent. “How did you find me?” she asks, pulling a dress on over her nightgown.

            Van glances at me, notices the dumb look I’m still wearing, and answers for me, “Your sister Vivienne. She came to the High King with a message from your stepmother. She worried it was a trap. I was worried it was a trap, too. A trap for him. Maybe even for myself.”

            This might be a trap, I remind myself. If Jude keeps wandering around in so little clothing, I’d be alright with imprisonment.

            “Vivi went to you?” Jude’s voice cuts with accusation.

            “We spoke after Madoc carried you off from the palace,” I explain. “And whom did I find in her little dwelling but Taryn? We all had quite a lot to say to one another.”

            Jude still looks like she’s considering violence. Perhaps to me; perhaps her sisters. “I can’t go with you yet,” she says, pulling on boots now. She’s certainly going somewhere. “There’s something I have to do. And something I need you to give me.”

            “Of course it was a trick.” That expression – that hurt – returns to Jude’s face, sharpening the planes of her cheekbones and the purse of her lips.

            “Perhaps you could just allow yourself to be rescued,” I say; I plead. “For once.”

            “Perhaps you could just give me what I want,” she snaps.

            “What?” Van asks. “Let’s put our cards on the table, Jude. Your sisters and their friend are waiting with the horses. We need to be swift.”

            Jude looks at the both of us like we set her on fire. “You let them come?”

            “They insisted, and since they were the ones who knew where you were, we had no choice.” Van’s frustration is reading across his expression now. I can’t imagine why. The King and Queen acting as foot soldiers for no other reason than stubbornness – surely, that can’t be too irritating.

            I’ll give him something nice when we return to the palace. He’ll forgive me.

            Jude shakes her head at us, snatching the light from Van’s hand and stumbling around the tent for a moment. Her hand lands on a wineskin that she holds up for us to see. “This is dosed with a sleeping draught. I was going to take this to some guards, steal a key, and free a prisoner. We were supposed to escape together.”

            “Prisoner?” Van echoes warily.

            “I saw the maps in Madoc’s war room,” she tells us, “I know the formation in which he means to sail against Elfhame, and I know the number of his ships. I know the soldiers in this encampment and which Courts are on his side. I know what Grimsen is making in his forge. If Cardan—” I bridle at the use of my name, right in front of my face, as if I’m not worth negotiating with “—will promise me safe passage to Elfhame and to lift my exile once we’re there, I will give all that to you. Plus, you will have the prisoner delivered into your hands before he can be used against you.”

            “If you’re telling the truth,” Van says, “And not leading us into a net of Madoc’s making.”

            “I’m on my own side. You of all people should understand that.”

            I see hatred in Jude’s expression. Hatred like I’ve never seen from her before, and I realize Van may be correct. Jude might be betraying us – betraying me.

            “Since you’re mortal, Jude, I cannot hold you to your promises. But you can hold me to mine: I guarantee you safe passage,” I promise, “Come back to Elfhame with me, and I will give you the means to end your exile.”

            Jude’s eyes narrow. “The means to end it?”

            So suspicious. I suppose I’ve given her more than enough reasons to doubt my words. “Come back to Elfhame, tell me what you would tell me, and your exile will end. I promise.”

            Jude nods, and her gaze flicks back to Van. “Madoc is keeping the Ghost prisoner. Grimsen has the key we need—”

            “You want to free him?” Van interrupts, astounded. “Let’s gut him like a haddock. Quicker and far more satisfying.” I do not disagree.

            “Madoc has his true name. He got it from Locke,” Jude says. “Whatever punishment the Ghost deserves, you can dole it out once he’s back in the Court of Shadows. But it’s not death.”

            “Locke?” I echo. Even dead he manages to cause trouble. “Yes, all right. What do we have to do?”

            “I was planning to sneak into Grimsen’s forge and steal the key to the Ghost’s chains,” Jude says.

            Van gives me a warning glance. “I’ll help you,” he tells Jude. “But you, sire, will absolutely not. Wait for us with Vivienne and the others.”

            I shake my head. “I am coming. You cannot order me otherwise.”

            Van might just kill me otherwise. “I can learn from Jude’s example, though. I can ask for a promise,” his voice is bordering on outright rage. “If we’re spotted, if we’re set upon, promise to go back to Elfhame immediately. You must do everything in your power to get to safety, no matter what.”

            I look to Jude for help. Surely, she knows I can be helpful. At the very least, she’ll be glad to risk my neck. She doesn’t particularly like my neck at the moment. She says nothing.

            “Although I am wearing the cloak Mother Marrow made me, the one that will turn any blade, I still promise to run, tail between my legs,” I grumble. “And since I have a tail, that should be amusing for everyone. Are you satisfied?”

            Van grunts his approval, and we sneak from the tent. Jude keeps the poisoned wineskin with her – I wonder briefly whom she’s intending to use it on. The soldiers are all either drunk, asleep, or playing games now. Van is silent, as am I. If we get spotted, it will only be because Jude keeps straying back a few paces.

            Anytime she gets close enough to touch me, she freezes and waits for me to get out ahead again. That sour look she wore earlier is now pinned to my back. And my face when I dare to glance back at her. She’s beautiful.

            Approaching the forge, Van glances in through a window and Jude moves next to him. So only I’m treated like a plague. I bite my tongue against a resentful comment.

            “So you’ve seen this key?” Van asks.

            Jude leans close enough to the glass to get some of the grime on the tip of her nose. Rubbing at her face, she mutters, “It’s crystal and hanging on the wall. And he’s begun a new sword for Madoc.”

            “I wouldn’t mind ruining that before it’s put to my throat,” I put in.

            “Look for the big one,” she says, “That’ll be it.”

            I can’t gauge if the vague answer is evasive on purpose. Van frowns at her, the same thought flickering across his expression.

            Jude adds, “Really big.”

            I snort.

            “And we ought to be careful,” Jude says, glancing at her feet like she’s expecting a hand to come up from the ground and grab her. “There are bound to be traps.”

            “We’ll go in and out fast. But I would feel a lot better if the both of you stayed out and let me be the one to go in,” Van says. He gives Jude and I both a pointed look.

            Jude blinks. I wait.

            Van sighs, shakes his head at us. He kneels down and pries open the door cautiously, applying oil to the joints so they swing soundlessly. I enter the room last. The crystal key catches my eye, but I’m focused on searching out a really big sword.

            Jude grabs the crystal key, and Van finds the sword first. I linger by Jude’s side. It seems wise to keep distance between myself and the sword meant to kill me. And Jude doesn’t move away this time.

            She’s warm. I forget, when I’m away from her, the way mortals exude heat. The Folk do not. And I can’t imagine a life of never feeling that. It’s a soft caress to my side closest to her.

            It’s Jude.

            Van is halfway to the sword when the chime of a clock rings out. High up the wall, two inset doors open, revealing a round hole. Jude points and shouts. I react without a thought, grabbing her and pulling her into the protection of the cloak.

            Chest heaving with panicked breaths, Jude stares up at me, mouth open in shock. Something cracks inside of me. I bargained with the Undersea for her return; I pulled her from the chaos after Balekin’s failed coup; I’ve tried and tried to keep her from walking straight off the cliff of her own ego to her death. But I have never outright saved her life.

            I have never stepped between her and a weapon. And there’s no going back now.

            Jude has me. If she does intend to betray me, she’s already succeeded. She already has me. I love her. I love her.

            “Thieves!” A shrill voice cries out. When I glance up, I find a metal bird squawking out the alarm from the hole where the darts came. “Thieves! Thieves!”

            Jude gasps and pulls away from me, rushing to Van’s side. His skin is a sickly pallor, he’s kneeling and swaying unsteadily. He looks like death.

            “What was he hit with?” I call to her, searching around for anything useful. A weapon, an antidote.

            “Deathsweet.” Jude says. “The Bomb can help him. She can make an antidote.”

            I give up quickly on searching. The soldiers are coming, I can hear them moving around and shouting to one another outside the door. I go to Jude and Van, lifting his unconscious form in my arms.

            “Tell me this wasn’t your plan.” I plead. “Tell me.”

            “No.” Her voice is sincere, earnest, desperate. “Of course not. I swear it.”

            “Come then. My pocket is full of ragwort. We can fly.”

            Jude shakes her head at me, not meeting my eye.

            I warn, “Jude.”

            “Vivi and Taryn are still waiting for me,” she says. “They won’t know what’s happened. If I don’t go to them, they’ll be caught.”

            Damn it. I know she’s right. I believe she’s not a traitor. And that makes it so much worse. She’s my wife; she’s my Queen. I exiled her; I lost her; now I must abandon her.

            I sweep the cloak off of my shoulders and drape it into her arms, ordering her, “Take this, and do not stop.” And I hope, for once, she does as I say.

Chapter Text

Expect an assassination attempt, most

likely in the great hall. Keep the High King

in seclusion.

            It’s Jude’s handwriting. I left her there, running back to the palace like a scared child with Van’s cooling body in my arms. I lost Jude; I may have lost Van, too. Liliver put on a brave face to help him, but he hasn’t woken up. The poison didn’t take long to take effect.

            I should be happy that, at the very least, he’s not dead. Instead, he’s stuck. Not awake; not asleep; not dead; not alive. Jude’s case is something similar. She may be anything – dead, asleep, plotting my murder – and I won’t know until it’s too late.

            Unless, of course, she sends me a… letter?

            I’ve been staring at the paper silently for so long, I’m surprised the assassination attempt hasn’t already happened. It’s a warning, not a threat. I take heart in that.

            But – I have a nagging worry in the back of my mind. Of Jude or for Jude, I don’t know yet. I left her out in the snow, and she was prepared to break the Ghost from his chains and return with her sisters. It’s been hours, and the only thing I’ve heard from her or any of them is this? I supposed Taryn would go right back into hiding, but Vivienne isn’t here either. Where are they?

            Where is Jude?

            And why did she send me a note through a musician rather than bringing it to me herself? If she’s truly trying to keep me alive, this isn’t the most expedient way to ensure my safety. She should be here. She should be nagging me. She should be threatening to kill me herself if I don’t do her ridiculous little tasks.

            Where is Jude?

            “What is that?” Liliver asks.

            I hadn’t noticed her entering the room. She looks haggard. “A letter from Jude, I think. Someone’s coming to kill me.”

            “Sounds dire.” Not when she says it like that.

            “How is he?”

            Liliver’s eyes are like black mirrors, reflecting nothing but the around. The darkness that shapes things – from the outside. She looks furious; she looks amused. But she is nothing but sad. And if that doesn’t set me on edge, nothing will.

            This is my fault, I think, contrite. I should have gone on my own. I earned the trust of the court of shadows, made them my friends. And, now, I’ll be their downfall.

            Liliver dodges my question, physically moving to the side like it will simply sail past her and strike the wall uselessly. “What are we doing about this assassin?”

            “Do you have a plan in mind? I’d be happy to hear it.”

            There’s that mirror again. This time the missing emotion is bitterness. And something a bit like a preemptive apology. “We should use you as bait. You’ll be useful as that – hard to screw up.”

            I wince. “I can do that. Flamboyant bait or watchful bait?”

            Liliver shakes her head. “Careful bait. I won’t be the last of us.”

            I wince again, a physical ache springing up in my chest. Jude, the Ghost, Van, Liliver, and myself. That was the team. They nearly killed me; they saved my life; they made me king. Now, it’s only two and a half of us left. Liliver, myself, Jude, maybe.

            “We need Jude back.”

            “I need you back, Cardan,” Liliver snaps. No black mirror, only shimmering, direct confrontation is in her eyes. “Only one of us is allowed to mope. It’s my damn turn.”

            “Alright.”

            “Alright then.”

            I pull my posture straight and shove the letter into my pocket. I am Cardan Greenbriar – Cruel prince, Wicked king, Killer, Lover, Bait. “I’ll assemble the council and have them enter the great hall with me. That’s where the attempt will happen, Jude thinks. I want you in the rafters.”

            Liliver nods agreeably.

            “I’ll leave my guard the same size it would be on the usual. But I will add more to the doors. I don’t want anyone realizing what we know.”

            “Then, better yet, give the guards the night off. Let them eat and dance and party in the great hall. More guards without looking suspicious.” Liliver flashes me a crooked smile. “Bring Nicasia, too. She may still be willing to save your life.”

            I snort.

            “Jude watching your back would be helpful.”

            “Yes,” I agree. “It would be. I have no idea where she is.”

            Liliver mindlessly bites the joint of her thumb. Her first two words come out garbled before her hand falls away. “How did she get you the letter?”

            “A musician.”

            She narrows her eyes at me. “Does she still think…?” she makes a motion with her hands that I’m not sure either of us can translate.

            “Huh?”

            “Execution.”

            Perturbed, “Huh?”

            “You know—” I do not “—does she think she’ll be executed the second she gets back, or crosses you?”

            Funny. “I have to assume she has ten plans to get out of execution, even if I were to decide on her death. And I promised her I would end her exile if she came with me.”

            Liliver cocks a brow at me. “But she didn’t come with you.”

            “She knows I won’t kill her. She knows I can’t kill her.”

            “Then she should be here.”

            I lean back in my chair – Jude’s chair – and study the office around me. I was attempting to think like Jude before. Perhaps I can do it now.

            Jude. Jude and her suspicions. Jude and her weapons, her threats. Jude and her desire for power – ultimate power, ultimate protection. She wanted so much once. I have to assume she still wants to be Queen. The question that keeps digging into my mind, the one I refuse to consider: Does she still want to be Your Queen. She could well be intending to take me out and take over the kingdom for herself.

            Jude. Jude and her mortal ears and her mortal body and her mortal warmth. Jude who lets nothing slip out of her hands – love, hate, power. Jude who grabs fate by its throat and squeezes it for all it’s worth. Jude who has so little life to live; yet surpasses the oldest of us. 

            Jude. Jude and the way victory looks like fear on her face. She wins – she’s always won over me – and she questions it, immediately, on the spot. She takes nothing for granted.

            “She’ll be there,” I say finally. “Jude doesn’t take things for granted. If she wants me alive – or if she wants me dead – she’ll be there to make sure it goes down exactly how she wants it to.”

Baphen and Lady Asha enter the great hall first. Then Nicasia goes in with her Undersea companions. The soldiers are already in, drinking and causing a ruckus – unknowingly right where I need them. I give a forewarning to my personal guard before entering the great hall.

            They know exactly the circumstances of my bait status. They’re more watchful than I’ve ever seen them. And Liliver is in the rafters – I can feel her watching me.

            A short glance up there reveals the briefest flash of her white hair. I think, for a second, that I see a dark shape in another corner of the ceiling. But it’s unmoving, just a trick of the light hitting the wood at a strange angle. Or it’s the Ghost.

            I angle the chair I’m sitting in, just in case. If the shadow does turn out to be an assassin, they’ll have to move in order to shoot me from where I am in the room. That movement should alert Liliver in time.

            Randalin is coming towards me. Now would be a great time for an assassination.

            Stopping just before my chair, he gives me a sweeping bow that allows me half a second to let irritation stamp across my face. Then Randalin’s looking at me, waving a piece of paper in my face. “Your Majesty, I received word of an assassination attempt.”

            “How did you get that?” I ask. It dawns on me a moment later.

            I flick a furious look at Liliver.

            “It was given to me by one of your guard. She believes an assassination attempt may happen here. Tonight. We must remove you from this room, now.” Randalin is vibrating with urgency.

            I lean back in my chair, stretching my legs out languidly. I plant my chin in my palm. Tilting my head slowly, I fix him with a look. “Everything is under control.”

            Randalin’s mouth falls open indignantly.

            I shoo him away with a wave of my hand. And I smile at his receding back. It’s a wicked grin that feels strange on my face – like a memory I wasn’t expecting, brought back by a familiar smell or a book I read once. “I need you back, Cardan.” Is that who I am?

            Movement, sudden and sharp. I look up to where Liliver was a moment ago, and find her several rafters over, raising a weapon. The dark shape – it is a person. A person about to be shot.

            I don’t know at what moment I realize it’s Jude. If it’s before the arrow zips through the air, making a soft sound unheard in the clamor of the Great Hall. Or if it’s the moment that she falls. It happens fast, too fast. There is no order of events. It may have all happened at once.

            I’m out of my chair in the same second that she strikes the table with an apocalyptic crash. She doesn’t manage to scream. She’s in the air, then she’s groaning softly, splayed brokenly out in front of me.

            My hand reaches up to touch my face. Maybe to hide my expression or to squeeze the fear back off of my skin and into the recesses of my mind. But I realize my hands are shaking. I’m shaking. My heart is thundering like a war drum, and I can feel it in every inch of my body, and it aches. I’m burning up. I’m so cold, my teeth are chattering.

            There’s blood on my hands, I think. But when I look, my skin is clear.

            “Jude Duarte,” someone says. “Broken her exile to murder the High King.”

            No. No, she’s not here to kill me. She’s – god – she’s hurt. Jude’s hurt, and I should be helping her, but I’m just standing here pleading with my hands to stop shaking. Pleading with the blood to leave me alone. I’ve been beaten; I’ve been whipped; I’ve been threatened with death; I’ve been nearly killed. I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

            Is she okay? I mean to ask aloud, but no words come from my mouth.

            “Your majesty,” says Randalin – that bastard. I should have him killed. “Give the order.”

            Give what order? To have her thrown in a dungeon awaiting her execution? I doubt she’d survive the dungeon with the shape she’s in. She just fell from the ceiling. She’s not going anywhere, doing anything. She’s hurt.

            She’s vulnerable. I move towards her, and I almost stop myself before I can get close. I almost convince myself not to be Cardan anymore. The ache in my fingertips wants to help her.

            “I need you back, Cardan.” Who is Cardan? The boy who threw Jude in the river? The King who married her and promptly exiled her? Am I the constant of unnecessary, flagrant, useless, cruel, wicked? “I need you back, Cardan.” I need to be a king. But I feel like a child, hiding beneath a table.

            Jude was hiding beneath a table when I found her. She punched me in the stomach. She put a knife to my throat. She kissed me. She threatened to kill me. That was this table – the one she’s dying on now.

            She was invincible, a kingmaker. She could strike and strike again without hesitation.

            When she turns her eyes up towards me, she is none of those things. Jude is fracturing around the edges, the mask I didn’t know she was wearing slipping away, and I’m seeing her for the first time. She’s a child, too. She’s terrified.

            “I lost your cloak,” she whispers, chest heaving with the effort to speak.

            Blood is soaking her side.

            Someone hurt her. I hurt her. She’s bleeding, she’s broken. She’s nothing.

            “You’re a liar,” I snarl – shocked by my own voice, Cardan’s voice returned to me in full force. “A dirty, mortal liar.”

            You swore you’d come back. You swore you wouldn’t stop. You were unbreakable. Now she’s something else, and I am so angry it feels like fire is alight in my palms. I press them against my sides, wishing the heat would abate. I love you. I’m sorry. Stay with me.

            I can’t speak.

            Jude closes her eyes, a soft whimper falling from her lips along with a tear, dripping off of her cheek. She’s hurt. Jude is invincible; Jude is scared.

            I love her in a way that binds my fear and fury together into a tidal wave of emotion that pours straight into my heart. I love her, and I could lose her. I love her, and someone hurt her.

            “Clap her in chains,” Randalin orders.

            I’m knocked loose from my freeze, everything rushing back in color and sound and sudden movement. A solider grabs Jude’s wrist and I react. A vine snaps out from the wall of the palace, seizing the soldier around the waist and tearing him away from Jude. He releases her. Frightened eyes turn to me from all across the room.

            “Do not touch her,” a command for all to obey.

            Jude grimaces.

            Randalin takes a tentative step forward. “Whatever can you mean? She’s—”

            “She is my wife,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear. Jude goes still. “The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile.”

            The shocked roar of the crowd rolls up around me, but I ignore every voice and every face but one. Jude’s eyes open for a moment, but she blinks and the light goes out. I panic, checking for her pulse. It’s weak, but she’s alive. The danger is gone, she’s resting.

            I wrap an arm under Jude’s shoulders and her knees, lifting her from the table and cradling her against my body. Her nose ends up pressed against my neck. I know she wouldn’t allow herself this closeness if she were awake. I revel in it for the time being. Carrying her through the crowd, I dodge anyone who may dare to place a hand on my wife.

            Finally, I’m tired of the charade. “The next person who touches Jude will suffer immediate and bloody consequences!” I shout. My voice doesn’t boom regally as I’m capable of. Instead, a shrill threat rings out, stilling the air.

            No one gets close to me again. Except Liliver, who’s already waiting for me at the door to the great hall. She looks sick. “I didn’t know,” she says, “I thought she was—”

            “Help me.”

            Liliver’s expression melts, resets, freezes into resolve. “I need supplies. Clean away the blood and make her comfortable.”

            “We’ll be in my rooms.”

            Liliver dashes off in one direction, and I go the other. I have to stop momentarily to adjust Jude in my arms without jarring her. She’s so still. I’ve seen her sleep only once, and she rolled around and muttered in her sleep – I would expect nothing else of her. Now she’s frighteningly comatose.

            She smells like blood. Red is staining my jacket, my shirt, my hands. I have blood on my hands.

            I kick the door to my rooms open unceremoniously and lay Jude out on the bed. I now have blood on my bed as well. Pausing, I adjust the pillow under her head. All the pillows in her old rooms were squished to one side, putting all the fluff beneath her neck rather than her head. It doesn’t look comfortable. But I do my best to replicate the way she sleeps normally.

            Peeling off my ruined jacket, I roll up my sleeves – not that it will help the destruction already wrought on the white material. I retrieve a pail of water and soak a rag in it.

            I partially undress Jude. Not in a fun way.

            I focus on the injury through her side, cleaning away the blood that’s dried on her skin and the fresh rivulets streaming down her belly. I move on to a small wound at the back of her head, dabbing at it gently. Scratches and scrapes litter her legs, and before I manage to clean them all, Liliver arrives.

            She’s a bustle of commands and tonics and bandages and stitches. By the time I move on to cleaning her arms and hands, she’s given Jude something for her pain – that should also keep her unconscious. Then she’s removing stitches she mutters, “Clumsy” at several times.

            I don’t watch Liliver re-stitching the wound. My stomach is already tied in enough nauseous knots.

            I just focus on her hands, cleaning between her delicate fingers and the lines of her palm. She’s not wearing the ring that I married her with. I try not to hesitate on that.

            Liliver steps back with a weighted sigh.

            “How is she?” I ask.

            “She’ll be just fine. Eventually.” Liliver looks away from me. “We’ll need to keep her drugged for a few more days, let the worst of the healing happen while she’s asleep. If she wakes up now, she’ll…”

            I know the end of the sentence. I want to hear it as little as Liliver wants to say it. The room goes deadly quiet.

            “Should I be worried?” Liliver asks, quiet as a breath.

            I am Cardan. Killer, Lover, Keeper. Collector of the rare and the dangerous – a goblin with sticky fingers, a bombmaker with white hair and a cocky disposition, a mortal bent on ruining everyone’s lives just to prove she can. They kidnapped me, but I ended up keeping them. Jude isn’t my only love.

            I round the bed as Liliver watches me like a caged animal. Without considering how uncomfortable this will be for the both of us, I hug her. She laughs incredulously against my shoulder and hugs me back. She pats my back.

            “You have nothing to fear from me,” I swear. “If I killed you for hurting Jude, she’d kill me for hurting you. Then we’d really be in trouble.”

            Liliver laughs again, honest this time. I pull away from her, but she follows me with her eyes, considering me. “I’m glad I helped kidnap you.”

            “On second thought, perhaps I should—”

            She hurls a spool of thread at me. The humor slowly fades from her face, though, as she packs up her supplies, leaving only the spool and a vial of golden liquid. “I need to get back to Van, can you take care of Jude from here?”

            “Yes,” I say.

            “If she wakes up—” Liliver holds up the vial and a dropper “—give her three drops of this and she’ll pass right back out. Make sure she gets some water in her, though.”

            I hesitate. “What if she needs to go to the bathroom?”

            Liliver hesitates, too. “Send for Tatterfell. Jude trusts her. She’ll be able to take care of her when you can’t or… shouldn’t.”

            I almost bridle at that. But once Liliver is gone to care for our other ailing friend, I send a guard looking for Tatterfell. The woman arrives with all the pomp and circumstance of a royal, despite being an indentured servant. She casts me a look I register as faintly judgmental. But she is dutiful in her care for Jude.

            The first day and night, I stay in the room. I watch over Jude and Tatterfell like a gargoyle. No one will hurt Jude again – not on my watch. Jude wakes only briefly, barely lucid enough to ask for water.

            I sit her up while Tatterfell gives her a cup of water. Then I’m administering the drug to knock her back out. She fights me for a moment, muttering something that sounds fearful. I wait until she’s comfortably asleep again before losing my mind over that.

            The second day I wander the palace while everyone is asleep. I check on Liliver and Van. She’s asleep curled up on the floor next to the bed he’s laid out on. Just as I was with Jude not long ago. It strikes me then, and only then, that Liliver is in love with Van. She loves him, just as I love Jude. What a strange little murderous family. Nothing like my original murderous family.

            I stay in the lair of the court of shadows for the second night. I sleep only after Liliver threatens me. I wake in a panic, sure I’ve been asleep too long. I rush back to my rooms only to find Tatterfell still watching over a sleeping Jude.

            Tatterfell tells me that Jude has woken up a couple more times, but her healing is coming along well. Two more days, she says.

            I allow Tatterfell the night off to rest, and I resume Jude’s watch. She wakes once and is frighteningly lucid. Before I even realize she’s sat up, she’s halfway out of the bed.

            Jumping up from the chair I’ve been dozing in, I catch her by her arms before she can cause herself any harm. I say her name, once, twice, thrice, “Jude. Jude. Jude!”

            She finally looks at me. “Cardan?”

            “Breathe,” I say, “Relax. You need to rest.”

            “No.” She tries to wrench out of my grip and pain lances across her expression. “No, let go of me. Let me go.”

            I do. Only because I fear she’ll do herself more harm with me involved. As she does have a penchant for doing, I realize. I step back, raising my hands innocently. “Alright. But you cannot be on your feet right now.”

            Jude’s eyes flicker around the room. She blinks a few times, shakes her head, sways on her feet. “You’re holding something.”

            “What?”

            “Why are you holding that?”

            I’m not holding anything.

            Jude takes a step towards me that would be threatening if her knees didn’t buckle. I catch her before she can hit the floor. “Is it for me?” she asks, muffled against my chest.

            “Is what for you?”

            She pulls back far enough to lock her eyes with mine. “You’re going to kill me.” An accusation.      

            “No. I’m helping you. I’m trying to save you. You don’t make it very easy, do you?”

            Jude passes back out without help from the drug only after murmuring, “You’re my weakness.”

            I situate her back on the bed. I spend nearly an hour coming to terms with that.

            The next day I hand off her watch back to Tatterfell and race from the rooms like Jude set them on fire. I check back up on Van and Liliver. No change. I continue to avoid the council. Unfortunately, I don’t manage to evade Nicasia. She accosts me in the hallway, demanding to know what I’m thinking. I dignify her question with a regal chuckle and leave her there.

            Vivienne and Taryn have been at the palace for quite a while, apparently. No one told me. I only find out when Vivi stumbles upon me and unleashes a hellfire of foul words and threats until I assure her that Jude is resting. Oak is at the palace, too, along with their colorful-haired mortal friend. Heather, I find out.

            I set them all up in Jude’s old rooms from when she was my Senschal. Oak declines an offer to have dinner with me, but Vivi and Taryn are all to happy to eat with me. If, perhaps, only for the chance to grill me about Jude’s condition.

            I leave Tatterfell to watch over Oak rather than Jude. Liliver promises to watch over her – although Jude is meant to wake up tonight. We’re no longer to give her any drugs. I can only hope she waits to wake up until I’m there.

            Or, considering how it went the last time she woke up to the sight of me, it’ll be better for her to wake up with someone else there. In the end, we decide for Lili – I don’t remember adopting the nickname, but it’s stuck, much to her chagrin – to wait outside the rooms and allow Jude to wake up and take care of herself on her own. Give her some privacy, some control.

            Vivienne scowls at me over her food. “You look awfully pleased with yourself.”

            I’m not. That seems to be my resting expression.

            “So this—” Taryn stumbles over the name “—Bomb is giving Jude medicines? Fairie medicines?”

            “The Bomb has cared for worse injuries than Jude’s on far more fragile mortals. The medicinal properties of the tonics are the only things you need to concern yourself with.” I haven’t eaten a thing.

            Nor has Taryn. “They’re not like Faerie fruit then?”

            I realize her concern the moment it hits Vivi and her expression alights with rage. “No,” I say quickly, “Nothing the Bomb has given her has any mind-altering effects. And allow me to stress: the Bomb is giving her medicines. Not me.”

            “And can we trust her any more than we do you?” Vivi asks.

            “Yes.”

            Taryn presses her lips into a thin line. “Isn’t she the one that shot at Jude?”

            “That was a mistake. We were looking for an assassin, and in the darkness, Jude certainly looked like an assassin.” I don’t allow the truth of that to ring in my head. The possibility. “The Bomb is a friend. She would not have hurt Jude on purpose.”

            Silence falls like a blanket. It is broken only once more before the dinner is blessedly over, and I excuse the Duarte sisters to return to their business. The moment they’ve disappeared, Lili enters from the shadows.

            “Jude’s awake and dressed in your clothes, last I saw of her. Tatterfell is taking care of her right now.”

            I’m hung up on ‘dressed in your clothes.’ I’d like to see that.

            Liliver plucks some food from my plate, eating it as she leaves, calling out, “You should go talk to your wife, Cardan.”

            I should. I don’t. Not immediately.

            I return to my rooms that Jude has vacated and change my clothes. I smooth gold onto my cheeks, hoping it will hide the pallor of my skin. The Folk aren’t known to show their exhaustion physically, but I can see it in my reflection. I look half as dead as Jude did when I first placed her on the bed.

            I remove the bloodied sheets and send for them to be cleaned and a new set brought in. Leaving the rooms, I turn the corner just before the council would have seen me. They’re talking amongst themselves, planting themselves outside my rooms. They’re ambushing me – they’re ambushing Jude.

            It is reasonable. I should have talked to them days ago. But I’ve been putting it off, and now I’m putting off something just as important.

            Pulling myself together, I go to Jude. Images are flashing through my mind on a never-ending reel of horror. “You’re going to kill me.” The crash of Jude striking the table. “I need you back, Cardan.” Jude’s blank expression in the tent when I woke her. “No. Of course not. I swear it.” That note. My letters. “You’re my weakness.” Jude crying. The bodies of Madoc’s men that I killed trying to keep her.

            It’s all a mess. But I am Cardan; I will figure this out.

            I clear my expression and knock on the door. Jude needs control, so I give her a blank slate to work off of. The last thing I want – the first on my list of fears – is Jude running from me again.

            Jude doesn’t look the same. She has pink in her cheeks and light in her eyes. Her hair is up in a braided crown, and she’s dressed in clothes as nice as they are not bloody. I move ‘running away’ to second on the list of fears. My first was apparently ‘Jude bloody.’

            “Walk with me,” I say.

            Jude’s lips flicker into a smile she quickly squashes. “Of course.

            Vivienne, however, glares at me, grabbing Jude’s wrist before she can walk to me. “You’re not well enough.”

            “The Living Council is eager to speak with her.” I pull an expression somewhere between mock innocence and triumph. I prepared for her to stand in my way. But no more Duartes are getting between me and Jude. Not Madoc and his war, not Taryn and her betrayals, not Oak and his future crown, not Vivienne and her… Vivienneness.

            Jude placates, “No doubt. And you should be happy, because the only danger anyone has ever been in at a Council meeting is of being bored to death.”

            We can agree on that.

            I offer Jude my arm as she steps out of the room. She hesitates, glancing fleetingly at my face. Then her arm slips through mine and she takes her rightful place at my side. The guard remains in step behind us. I’m aware they’re listening in curiously.

            Jude is aware, too. She lowers her voice to ask, “Is the Roach okay?”

            There’s my Jude. Some part of me had still feared that she was a traitor, an assassin out to get me. But this is Jude, worrying for her friend – our friend.

            “The Bomb has not yet discovered how to wake him,” I answer, dropping my voice as well. “But there is hope that she yet will.”

            Jude sighs heavily.

            “Your father sent a message. It was very unfriendly,” I understate. “He seems to blame me for the death of his daughter.” I spent rather a lot of time penning out a response that only amounted to ‘You Fucking Hypocrite.’

            “Ah,” Jude says.

            “And he has sent soldiers to the low Courts with promises of a new regime. He urges them to not hesitate, but to come on to Elfhame and hear his challenge to the crown. The Living Council waits to hear all you know about the sword and his maps. They found my descriptions of the camp to be sadly inadequate.”

            Primarily because they heard all of my descriptions through written correspondences sent through various knights. And most of my news from them was lifted by Liliver’s spying ears.

            “They can wait a little longer,” Jude says, and her voice strains, cracks. “I need to talk to you.”

            I suppose that’s what I came for. To talk. But I don’t like the way she says that. There’s resignation in her tone; there’s forced bravery in the tilt of her chin.

            “It won’t take long,” she assures me sharply. “Whatever your scheme is, whatever you are planning to hold over me, you might as well tell me now, before we’re in front of the whole Council. Make your threats. Do your worst.”

            The breath catches in my chest, and I feel like she’s just punched me in the stomach. Again. But, no, this hurts worse. This hurts differently. This hurts like stupid, helpless rage.

            Lili’s question comes back to me. Does Jude still think she’ll be executed if she crosses me? I ended her exile; I named her Queen. She should know – dammit – she should know that we are anything and everything but enemies. That old pattern has been torn to shreds in about a hundred different ways since she was taken to the Undersea. That rivalry ended months ago.

            But here we are again.

            “Yes,” I say, forcing the words from my clamped teeth. “We do need to talk.”

            I guide us away from the guards and into the royal rose garden, ensuring we can talk without listening ears following us. I have a feeling one of us is going to end up shouting. That’s usually how things go. Once we reach the center of the garden, I slow to a stop, still with Jude’s arm trapped in mine.

            “I assume you weren’t actually trying to shoot me,” I start, “Since the note was in your handwriting.”

            Jude talks too fast, “MadocsenttheGhost—” she pauses, resets. “I thought that there was going to be an attempt on your life.”

            I pin my eyes to a black rosebush, releasing her, finally. I don’t think I can form the words I need while touching her or looking at her. I still feel like I’m breathing her.

            “It was terrifying,” my voice comes out soft. “Watching you fall. I mean, you’re generally terrifying, but I am unused to fearing for you. And then I was furious. I am not sure I have ever been that angry before.”

            “Mortals are fragile,” Jude says.

            “Not you.” My invincible Jude. My ferocious Queen. “You never break.”

            I should know. I’ve tried.

            Jude shakes her head and steps away from me when I glance at her. She turns her attention to a blue rosebush. I realize her posture is an exact mirror of mine, and I smile. We are collectively… morons. Elfhame is doomed.

            “When I came here, pretending to be Taryn, you said you’d sent me messages.” Jude looks at me secretly over her shoulder, through her lashes. I think my heart stops. “You seemed surprised I hadn’t gotten any—” Please don’t ask “—what was in them?”

            Dammit. I turn to her with my fidgeting hands clasped behind my back where she can’t see them. “Pleading, mostly. Beseeching you to come back. Several indiscreet promises.”

            Rather than the mocking I’m expecting, Jude closes her eyes and makes a low sound in her throat I have never heard before. And would very much like to hear again. “Stop playing games,” she growls, “You sent me into exile.”

            “Yes,” I say, “That.” That. “I can’t stop thinking about what you said to me, before Madoc took you. About it being a trick. You meant marrying you, making you queen, sending you to the mortal world, all of it, didn’t you?”

            Jude crosses her arms. I can’t gauge if it’s defensive or offensive, but I briefly worry she’s going to punch me. “Of course it was a trick,” she repeats at me, “Wasn’t that what you said in return?”

            “But that’s what you do. You trick people. Nicasia, Madoc, Balekin, Orlagh. Me.” Me most of all. “I thought you’d admire me a little for it, that I could trick you. I thought you’d be angry, of course, but not quite like this.”

            Jude scoffs. A deadly tone, “What?”

            “Let me remind you—” before you stab me “—that I didn’t know you’d murdered my brother, the ambassador to the Undersea, until that very morning. My plans were made in haste. And perhaps I was a little annoyed. I thought it would pacify Queen Orlagh, at least until all promises were finalized in the treaty. By the time you guessed the answer, the negotiations would be over.  Think of it: I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown.” She looks back at me blankly. “Pardoned by the crown,” I repeat, “Meaning by the King of Faerie. Or its queen. You could have returned anytime you wanted.”

            Jude blinks. Like a shutter closing, her expression goes numb, just as it did back in Madoc’s camp. Every thought hidden, every emotion locked down. I don’t see shock or embarrassment or gladness or murderous intent.

            Then she’s turning on her heel and storming away. All I can think is, no. Don’t run from me. Don’t hide from me. A litany of curse words. And, it can’t end like this.

            I chase after her, calling her name, but I don’t think she hears me. She certainly doesn’t listen. She only reacts to me when I catch her by the arm. One moment, I’m searching for words to soothe the situation, the next there’s a shocking, hot pain across my face.

            I realize I’m no longer looking at Jude only when my vision returns from the blurry place the slap sent it to. Taking a breath that shakes on the way in and heaves back out, I turn my eyes back to her. She’s not looking me in the eye, though. She’s looking at the mark she left on my skin. Jude is breathing as heavily as I am.

            A little guilt has slipped into her expression. But so has that white-out lightning fear. No, not that.

            “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I take her hand, marveling that she doesn’t pull away. She laces our fingers together. “No, it’s not that, not exactly. I didn’t think I could hurt you. And I never thought you would be afraid of me.”

            The lightning doesn’t leave her expression as I hoped. Instead, it’s joined by an acidic hatred like sparks spit from a fire. “And did you like it?” she asks.

            I don’t think I can bear to hear that truth in my voice.

            Jude laughs scathingly. “Well, I was hurt, and yes, you scare me. You’ve always scared me. You gave me every reason to fear your capriciousness and your cruelty.” That burns more than any slap. But I don’t stop her because she’s finally telling me the truth. “I was afraid of you even when you were tied to that chair in the Court of Shadows. I was afraid of you when I had a knife to your throat.” When she was kissing me. “And I am scared of you now.”

            I wanted to know so many things about Jude. Things I knew she would never give up to me – whether I threatened her, hurt her, or was kind to her. Now, I want to vomit.

            “You despised me,” she keeps going. I keep listening, even as my throat closes like a vise. “When you said you wanted me, it felt like the world had turned upside down. But sending me into exile, that made sense. That was an entirely right-side-up Cardan move. And I hated myself from not seeing it coming. And I hate myself for not seeing what you’re going to do to me next.”

            My ears are ringing. I try to blink, but my eyes just stay closed. Jude’s hand still trapped in mine is squeezing hard enough to grind the bones in my hand. I let the pain coil up and down my arm like a tether to the ground.

            “What you’re going to do to me next.”

            I force my eyes open only so I can see where I’m going when I release Jude and step away. Turning my back on her, I’m able to force a breath in through my throat.

            “I can see why you thought what you did. I suppose I am not an easy person to trust. And maybe I ought not to be trusted, but let me say this: I trust you.” Another deep breath. “You may recall that I did not want to be the High King. And that you did not consult me before plopping this crown on my head. You may further recollect that Balekin didn’t want me to keep the title and that the Living Council never took a real shine to me.”

            If nothing else, perhaps this speech will make Jude less afraid of me because she’ll be reminded what a blundering idiot I am. Love me, Jude, please. Or at least, hate me less than everyone else we know.

            “I suppose,” Jude says, reminding me that I haven’t spoken in several seconds.

            “There was a prophecy given when I was born.” This is one failing I don’t have to take credit for, thankfully. “Usually Baphen is uselessly vague, but in this case, he made it clear that should I rule, I would make a very poor king. The destruction of the crown, the ruination of the throne – a lot of dramatic language.”

            I can hear the face Jude is making at my back. When I turn around, it is exactly as I expected.

            “When you forced me into working for the Court of Shadows, I never thought of the things I could do—frightening people, charming people—as talents, no less ones that might be valuable. But you did. You showed me how to use them to be useful.”

            You were the first person to ever look at me. My father, my brothers, the council, they all looked right through me. My mother only saw me when it befitted her. But Jude looked me in the eye and told me I could be something.

            I can’t say that to her. So I switch directions. “I never minded being a minor villain, but it’s possible I might have grown into something else, a High King as monstrous as Dain. And if I did—if I fulfilled that prophecy—I ought to be stopped. And I believe that you would stop me.”

            I don’t necessarily want to be murdered. But if it must happen, I would prefer it at Jude’s hands than anyone else’s.

            “Stop you?” Jude repeats. She gets a half smile on her face. “Sure. If you’re a huge jerk and a threat to Elfhame, I’ll pop your head right off.”

            “Good.” Jude snorts. I continue, “That’s one reason I didn’t want to believe you’d joined up with Madoc. The other is that—” the words stick in my mouth for a second “—I want you here by my side, as my queen.”

            Jude considers me, thoughtfully, suspiciously. That’s her victory face. Something else rises to the surface a moment later that I don’t recognize on her, disappointment.

            “But now that you’re High Queen—” that title dispels the disappointment “—and back in charge, I won’t be doing anything of consequence anyway. If I destroy the crown and ruin the throne, it will only be through neglect.”

            Jude laughs. “So that’s your excuse for not doing any of the work? You must be draped in decadence at all times because if you aren’t kept busy, you might fulfill some half-baked prophecy?”

            “Exactly.” She laughs again, and I wish I could think of anything funny to say. Alas, I’m rarely intentionally hilarious. I smooth a palm down her arm, and she doesn’t knock it away. Progress. “Would you like me to inform the Council that you will see them another time? It will be a novelty to have me make your excuses.”

            “No, I’m ready.”

            I believe her. She looks ready for battle or death by boredom or something I should not be considering less than five minutes after she slapped me in the face. I still want to see her in my clothes. I still want her to make that sound again. I wonder if I could get that sound out of her in bed – I want to try.

            The one night we spent together, on a couch, barely halfway out of our clothes, was perfect torture. It is a memory that shimmers into my mind at the most inopportune times. Always so vivid. I got a taste of the best food I will ever have, and then I was denied it over and over. I almost think it would be better if I never found out how beautiful Jude is beneath me. It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough.

            Jude moves to my side but stops when I hold my arm out for her again. She stares at my face again, a slow study. Then, with a tenderness she’s never spared for me before, she reaches out and swipes at the gold on my cheekbones. The heat of her skin touching the rawness of mine burns, but I don’t move. She swipes at the gold again, tilts her head, studies it for a moment, and makes one final adjustment.

            Perfect torture.

Chapter Text

The Council has set up their ambush in the foyer of my rooms, looking to all the world like a band of ill-intentioned drunkards who stumbled into the wrong house. Until the moment they spot Jude and I stepping into the room. Suddenly, everyone is awake, eyes shining bright – curiosity and something like hate. I almost pull Jude closer to me, behind me.

            But Jude is ready to face them. Despite the rather unnerving location they decided to ambush us from. If they’d invaded my rooms while Jude was still unconscious, I would have been furious. I can only imagine what Jude would have done.

            “Queen Seneschal,” Fala the Fool says, leaping to his feet to make a bow. It leans into territory of mocking, and I scowl.

            Randalin makes no move to bow, doesn’t even stand. The others begin to rise, all glancing at each other in silent conversation, silent coercion. 

            “No, please,” Jude says. “Remain as you are.” The discomfort stamps across the hard line of her lips, crawling up to form a frown in her brow. When someone makes a move to speak, the discomfort reaches her eyes and they blow briefly wide – looking almost terrified, on another person. Then, before anyone can speak, she launches into her description of Madoc’s camp.

            Her tone is clipped, her words well chosen, but I can still see the nerves showing through her fidgeting hands. She’s wearing her ring again. The one I married her with.

            At a mention of that sword Madoc is making for me, Jude’s eyes flicker towards me. She looks at me again when she begins listing the courts that are favoring Madoc’s side. And again. And again. I watch her closely, catching the expression she makes the next time her gaze snaps over to me. She catches me catching her and looks away, doesn’t look back.

            But that expression. A student to a teacher, ‘Is that what you wanted?’ ‘Did I do it right?’ Are you happy now? And I remember, with a hitch in my stomach, that this is what I asked of her in exchange for the end of her exile. She was to tell me and the council everything, and I would give her what she wanted. Even now, she’s checking. Making sure I’m pleased with her information, so I won’t… what? Banish her again?

            I twist around in my seat, throwing my legs over the arm and leaning back until the other arm digs into my back. My gaze firmly plants in any direction that isn’t Jude.

            “Well, Jude did get herself tangled up with Grima Mog,” says Randalin. He’s not looking at Jude either. “Leave it to you to spend your exile recruiting infamous butchers.”

            A brief but enticing image of throttling Randalin comes to mind. I expect the same reaction from Jude, but she remains shockingly passive. I’m looking at her again. Dammit.

            “So did you murder Balekin?” Nihuar asks, her curiosity pouring out at Jude like weapons.

            “Yes,” Jude says. “After he poisoned the High King.”

            All eyes turn to me, astonished and betrayed and demanding. I lounge deeper into my chair, only caring about one pair of eyes. But Jude’s eyes seem as determined not to look at me as mine are to look at her. “You can hardly expect me to mention every little thing.”

            Jude smiles. A faint, shadowy thing. It’s stamped out in seconds as three of the council members take to shouting over one another. Poor furious things. They want so badly to get rid of Jude. I’ve tried a few times – they’ll learn soon enough just how impossible it is once she’s got her claws out.

            I put up a hand for silence. “No. No, enough. It’s all too tedious to explain. I declare this meeting at an end.” I flick them away with a gesture often reserved for animals. “Leave us. I tire of the lot of you.”

            Jude smiles again.

            We wait until every council member has left, paying little to no respects to their Queen on the way out. I should do something about that. But, for now, I’m content with them being not here. Jude sits heavily, a sigh sweeping out of her and taking the tension in her shoulders with it.

            “I understand,” she says.

            “Understand what?”

            Jude finally looks at me, and she still has that faint smile on her face. “I could use a drink. A strong one.”

            I’m happy to oblige her. But our moment alone is interrupted – rudely – by a blinding flash of white hair and the booming voice of Lili. She enters the room like she owns the place; unlike the council, I think she really does have some claim staked to my rooms.

            “Long live Jude,” Lili announces, setting down a tray with a loud clatter. “No thanks to me.”

            Jude’s faint smile turns into a full-blown grin. Favoritism. “Good thing you’re a lousy shot.”

            Lili lobs a poultice at Jude. I catch it for her. “That’ll draw any fever from the blood and help the patient heal faster.” Flashing Jude a wicked smile, Lili adds, “Unfortunately, it won’t draw the sting from your tongue.”

            The poultice is taken from me as Lili sets herself up next to Jude, drawing bandages from her coat. She’s just beginning on her work when she realizes I’m still just over her shoulder. Perhaps because I’m leaning in, exhales blowing her white hair into her face.

            Lili nudges me with her elbow. “You should go.”

            “This is my room,” I argue. “And that’s my wife.”

            A peachy tinge touches Jude’s skin as she glances down at the poultice she’s now holding. Her lips purse together. Oh, that’s cute.

            “So you keep telling everyone,” Lili says, unimpressed. “But I am going to take out her stitches, and I don’t think you want to watch that.”

            She’s right. I do not want to see that.

            Jude lifts her chin, a challenge. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, “Maybe he’d like to hear me scream.”

            I look her in the eye, a challenge in answer. “I would.”

            Jude goes still. Thoughts flicker through her mind before my meaning clicks and the peachy color lifts higher into her skin, the challenge replaced with something that swims darkly in her eyes.

            “And perhaps one day I will,” I murmur, standing to leave obediently. As I pass Jude, I reach out to brush the backs of my knuckles across her hair, tangling a couple fingers into a lock of it. With the softest tug, I release her and leave.

Nicasia storms into the throne room with a battalion of Undersea warriors. And, though her face is a mess and her eyes rimmed in the vicious red of tears, my first thought is not of her. Where is Jude? Hopefully far from here. I look at where Lili has once again joined me as a shadow, gesturing for her to go. She’ll know what I mean.

            “Nicasia,” I greet, stepping down from the dais, only perhaps a third convinced she’s come to kill me. “Are you alright?”

            She gasps in a breath, one hand pressed to her sternum, fingers digging into her dress and tearing away beads. “My mother—” she chokes off.     

            Two thirds convinced. But I throw off caution, reaching for her hand and pulling it towards me. I haven’t touched her in weeks. It feels like slipping into clothes that no longer quite fit. I remember loving this; I remember it being my favorite; but now I only wonder where the luster went from it all.

            I shake my head for focus. “Nicasia, what about your mother?”

            “She won’t wake up.” Nicasia’s voice hardens like ice, wild as fire. “She was attacked – elf-shot – or something. It’s alive.” My body goes cold. “It’s in her chest, it’s killing her, but we can’t get it out and she won’t wake up. And – Cardan, it’s iron. It’s—” she breaks off again. 

            What was I just thinking about? All of it is gone. I don’t know anything but a reeling sensation of wrong. This is wrong. This is all horribly wrong.

            I lean into her, not sure if I’m comforting her or just trying to keep myself upright. War. We knew it was coming. But the reality of war is strikingly different than the monotony of meetings and discussions. Blood has been shed. This is all so wrong.

            Nicasia tears away from me, wheeling around to shout, “This is your father’s doing!”

            Jude is halfway in the room when she freezes. Her gaze flicks to me, back to Nicasia, to me again. Slowly, she takes a single step back. “What?” she asks.

            “Queen Orlagh,” I say, unsteadiness barely kept from my voice. I feel like a child again. Recounting what Nicasia told me, I feel like a prince again. Helpless, useless.

            Jude’s thunderstruck expression shifts only once. Guilt. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, the words echoing dully through the room. The mirror of me – helpless, useless. To her credit, she sounds sincere, despite the month she spent in Queen Orlagh’s prisons. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d laughed.

            With all the Undersea warriors around, I’m glad she didn’t. But she could have. I would have protected her from them if she had.

            “You ought to be,” Nicasia spits. She turns back to me with all the soft expectation of love and friendship. I’ve stuck myself back in the memories of Jude’s kidnapping, and I almost forget that I was also sorry for her just moments ago. “I must go to my mother’s side. The Court of the Undersea is in chaos.”

            I nod, and I watch her go. But I leave her a reminder, “We are your allies, Nicasia. Should you need us.” Should we need you.

            “I count on you to avenge my mother, if nothing else.” And she’s gone.

            Jude moves tentatively towards me, asking Randalin a question I don’t hear. My ears are ringing as they did the one dreadful night I spent in the Undersea. It’s all a mess, and it’s all wrong. Too much water under the bridge; too much blood in that water. I don’t remember who my enemies are, who my friends are.

            I wish Jude didn’t have that white-out lightning fear back on her face. Now that I’ve seen it once, I can’t seem to stop seeing it. She’s looking at me with fear in her eyes. I cannot fathom why.

            “The generals will wish to adjust their plans,” Randalin says with a significant look in my direction. “Perhaps we should summon them.”

            “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I suppose we should.”

            The room clears in a hurry, but I let myself stand in place for a moment, then two, then several more. I need a drink. I need to sleep. I feel like I haven’t slept in days. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I have slept in days.

            I don’t realize Jude is still with me until her footsteps echo through the hall. Then she nudges my arm. “Cardan?”

            “Hm?”

            “You look tired,” she says.

            I gaze down at her, the corners of her lips pulled down as her teeth sink into her cheek. “You look scared.” Of me.

            Her guard goes up. Emotion replaced with reason. “This was the Ghost’s doing.”

            “It must be.”

            “Madoc made it sound like he’d be coming here. To kill you. I was so sure.” Jude shakes her head ruefully. “If I’d realized…”

            “If you’d realized,” I repeat. “Would you have gone back to the Undersea?”

            Back. That word strikes her. “I don’t know. I would have tried something,” she says, “I wouldn’t have just let this happen.”

            “Well, then. I’m glad you didn’t realize.”

            Jude’s brows pull taut, but an unguarded smile touches her eyes, livening the brown to a liquid amber. Almost the color they are in the sun. I don’t see that often. I offer her my arm, and she doesn’t hesitate to take it.

            “Come,” I say, “I believe battle planning is your forte.”

It is ever so frighteningly her forte. I keep my mouth firmly shut as she deals with the generals – Yorn, the new Grand General, is an especial grating on her nerves based on her constant scowling in his direction. I chose him for that meekness. It was everything opposite of the dangers Madoc presented. Now, I realize, I traded one problem for another.

            Jude is receiving a mixed response to her commanding nature finally shining through. Some of the generals look displeased, sour. Some are curious, impressed. Others look frightened, and I do not blame them, as I am also frightened.

            Frightened, yearning, and lustful. That heady combination of Jude in my head and my treacherous heart and other places.  

            They’re talking about birds now. I don’t remember why. I’m too enthralled by the sight of her.

            “We can prevent Madoc’s soldiers from landing. Shoot down any birds that come our way,” Yorn is saying. Jude is glowering. “We have allies from the low Courts to add to our force.”

            “What if Madoc gets aid from the Undersea?” Jude asks.

            Astonishment ripples through the room, bordering on affront. Randalin speaks first – I have got to get rid of him somehow – his tone patronizing, “But we have a treaty. Perhaps you didn’t hear that because—”

            “Yes, you have a treaty now,” Jude snaps, cutting him off.

            When Randalin looks to me for help, I give him the deadliest look I have. He doesn’t seem to register it. If he knew the things I’m imagining, he would be running.

            “But Orlagh could pass the crown to Nicasia,” Jude continues, “If she did, a Queen Nicasia would be free to make a new alliance with Madoc, just as once the Court of Teeth put a changeling on their throne, they were free to march against Elfhame. And Nicasia might ally with Madoc if he would make her mother well.”

            All eyes turn to me, looking for my opinion. They want me to know more than Jude. They want me to have the power again – even if they’ve been trying to boot me from the throne since the moment I sat on it. They want to keep their superiority pristine.

            “Do you think that’s likely to happen?” Yorn asks me.  

            I smile at the scowl Jude turns on me, daring me to say what the council and generals want to hear. “Jude likes to suppose the worst of both her enemies and her allies. Her reward is occasionally being wrong about us.”

            “Hard to remember an occasion of that,” she says under her breath.

            Me. I don’t say that.

            Fand steps into the room at that moment, wary and uncomfortable. She stammers once trying to get her words out. “Your pardon, but I—I have a message for the queen from her sister.”

            “As you can see, the queen—” Randalin starts. I need to get rid of him.

            “Which sister?” Jude demands.

            I don’t hear the response, Jude and her knight having their own hushed conversation in the corner of the room. Members of the council are whispering to each other as well. I’m left unmoored in the center of the room, listening but hearing nothing. I peer around for any sign of Lili, but as far as I can tell, she’s not here. She must be with Van.

            She need not watch me in a room full of generals, I suppose. But without her presence, and with Jude’s back to me, I feel terribly alone so suddenly. It’s a familiar feeling. I think my knowledge of it gives it that ability to sink in so quickly.

            “There’s been a family difficulty,” Jude announces, “You will excuse me.”

            Fear sings up my spine at a pitch high enough to deafen. I don’t care where she’s going, only that she’s going. She’s leaving. The last time she left unexpectedly, she didn’t come back for a month. Not again. I’m keeping her, no matter what.

            “I’ll accompany you,” I say, already out of my chair by the time a frown settles on Jude’s mouth. She moves to speak, considers the challenge in my face, and thinks better of it. She heaves a single short sigh; I take it as surrender and sweep past her. “Good. We’re decided.”

            I hear her mutter, “We” under her breath. But she jogs to catch up with me and falls into step next to me. “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

            “Fand, where are we going?” I ask.

            Fand looks miserable. “To Hollow Hall.”

            “Ah,” I say, smiling at Jude, “Then I am already proven useful. You will need me to sweet-talk the door.”

            A weight is settling into me, but I’m not yet able to give it a name. So, I ignore it. Calling for a coach, I watch Jude briefly consider fighting me again, but she doesn’t. Again. Perhaps I should be worried about that. She also allows me to help her into the coach without a word of protest.

            Climbing into the seat across from her, I lean just close enough to inhabit both my own space and a bit of hers. This is the part where she usually kicks my knee away from her. Or threatens me. Or at least scowls at me.

            She just stares back at me, eyes empty.

            I lean my head onto the window of the carriage, dancing with the idea of taking a nap. I deserve one. I could use one. But my vision is filled with Jude. A sharp contrast of warm love—hot fear—to the cold, dense dread building in my veins. I can feel the slowing of my blood, the deadening of my body.

            The closer we get to Hollow Hall, the more I want to shrink back and hide. The more I want to lean forward and wrap Jude around myself like a warm, knife-happy security blanket.

            I knock one of my knees against one of hers. She glances at me and strikes back with significantly more force. And immediately looks away again. When I nudge her a second time, she kicks me in the shin. A third bump and Jude looks like she might leap across the carriage and strangle me. I smile at her.

            “Cardan,” she warns.

            “Yes, dear?”

            Her hand wraps around my knee. “Stop.”

            If she said it any other way, I would absolutely not have stopped. But she has a half-smile on her face that knows. And her voice is gentle. And suddenly every part of me that writhes and fights and seethes and snaps its teeth goes still.

            Jude’s smile doesn’t shift, and her hand doesn’t leave my knee. Even when she looks away from me, focusing on the world skimming past the window of the carriage. She starts drumming her fingers after a few minutes of silence, a nervous, impatient tic. I’m nervous, too, but a wave of calm has struck me and I’m happily drowning in it.

            I never thought Jude could have this effect on me.

            It lasts until the moment the carriage rolls to a stop. Then everything is rushing back in blazing Techni-color. Hollow Hall is a place of nightmares. Yet, it sits as still and firm as reality. It taunts me with the familiarity that I once thought was home. Now I know it for what it is. A cage.

            I step up towards the front door and all else falls back. Jude isn’t there anymore, nor the carriage or the guards. It’s all gone. Leaving only me standing before the cage.

            A hand brushes my shoulder, uneven fingers, the sparking sensation of her hot skin briefly touching the back of my neck. I know it’s Jude before I look at her. She’s still wearing that calming smile, and she’s standing close to me like she never has before. Not a Seneschal over my shoulder, or a wife by my side, but a guardian angel watching over me. Guardian devil.

            “Why are we here?” I ask.

            “This is where Taryn wanted to meet,” she says. “I didn’t think she even knew the place.”

            “She doesn’t.” She shouldn’t.

            The face on the door opens its eyes with a soft glow of magic. Its gaze alights on me, and a fond voice says, “My king.”

            “My door.” My voice hitches over that phrase, too familiar. A nice blooming rose in the center of a dead garden. But too connected to the harsher memories.

            “Hail and welcome,” the door says, swinging open.

            I motion towards Jude as we step in, asking, “Is there a girl like this one inside?”

            “Yes,” says the door, “Very like. She’s below, with the other.”

            Jude’s expression pinches nervously to match the dread that creeps in to wrap grasping hands around my heart. “Below?” Jude repeats.

            “There are dungeons. Most Folk thought they were merely decorative. Alas, they were not.” My voice comes out as steady as I mean it to. For once, I almost wanted it to fail me. I want that frightened look on Jude’s face to go sympathetic, comforting again.

            Instead, all the terrors I’m remembering flash through her eyes as horrific possibilities she blinks back, refuses to consider. “Why would Taryn be down there?” she asks.

            I have no answer for that. Or, if I do, I want to consider it as little as Jude does. Another betrayal. Another kidnapping. Another attack. I guide Jude down towards the basement, staying close, just in case anything jumps out of the dark. But the basement is musty and empty of all but Taryn who sits on an oubliette like a frightened child in hiding.

            When she sees me, she pushes herself to her feet with her arms wrapped defensively around herself. She sinks into a low curtsy.

            “Taryn?” I say.

            Taryn’s eyes brush away from me, landing on Jude. “He came looking for you. When he saw me in your rooms, he said I had to restrain him because Madoc had given him more commands. He told me about the dungeons and I brought him here. It seemed like a place no one would look.”

            Jude and I share a look, share a thought. The Ghost. She walks forward, glancing down into the pit, her body taut and nervous.

            I stay back where I can watch the room for threats. Where I can watch Taryn for threats. But she remains defensive, quiet, still. She glances at me and the answer to the question I haven’t asked yet is already brewing in her eyes.

            “You know him, don’t you?” I ask.

            “He would visit Locke sometimes,” she says. Her arms fold across her chest. “But he didn’t have anything to do with Locke’s death, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

            I shake my head. “I wasn’t thinking that. Not at all.” I already know she killed Locke, but I don’t tell her that.

            Jude’s voice cuts through loud and clear, cutting off anything else Taryn or I had to say. “Can you tell us about Queen Orlagh,” she asks the Ghost. “What did you do?”

            “Madoc gave me a bolt. It was heavy in my hand, and it squired as though it was a living thing.” The Ghost’s tone is haunted, his voice rough like shards of glass rubbing against one another. “Lord Jarel put a magic on me that let me breathe under the waves, but it made my skin burn as though covered in ice. Madoc commanded me to shoot Orlagh anywhere but in the heart or head and told me that the bolt would do the rest.”

            “How did you get away?” I ask.

            “I slew a shark pursuing me and hid within its corpse until the danger passed. Then I swam to shore.”

            I lean over the pit, looking down at the Ghost. Once a friend, once an enemy, now he looks only tired. “Did Madoc give you any other orders?” I ask.

            “Yes,” the Ghost says. And that’s the only warning we have before he’s climbed halfway up the oubliette. Any chains Taryn may have clasped him into are shed, probably long since unlocked. Jude takes a wracked, gasping breath before she manages to tear into motion, wrenching at the heavy seal to the pit to try and trap him inside.

            I pull my dagger from its sheath under my doublet. The blade is wicked sharp and the engraving along the handle digs into my palm, a reminder that flickers briefly through my mind Van. He taught me how to use this dagger, where to hide it.

            Taryn hasn’t moved an inch to stop the Ghost from killing the lot of us. But she opens her mouth and says steadily, “Larkin Gorm Garrett, forget all other commands but mine.”

            Garrett takes a sharp breath and slides back to the bottom of the oubliette, sagging against the wall. Jude watches with wide eyes. She flicks that shocked look to an equally surprised Taryn. Then to me. Her eyes go wider at the sight of my dagger.

            I tuck it away, smoothing my coat back out. “You know his true name,” I say to Taryn, “How did you come by that fascinating little tidbit?”

            “Locke was careless with many things he said in front of me,” Taryn says. No longer defensive, now defiant.

            “Climb up the rest of the way,” Jude calls down to Garrett.

            He does, carefully and slowly this time. A few minutes later, he manages to haul himself to his feet. He declines first Jude’s help, then mine. He stands on his own, but he sways on his feet.

            “Do you need to be commanded further?” Jude asks. “Or can you give me your word you won’t attack anyone in this room?”

            Garrett flinches. “You have my word.”

            “Why don’t we repair to a more comfortable part of Hollow Hall to continue this discussion, now that the dramatics are over,” I offer. It’s a command, in reality, but I’d rather the whole room not notice my hands are shaking and I’m desperate to leave this dank basement.

            Jude notices. She says nothing, only climbing the stairs ahead of us to call out for the guards to bring blankets. I take Garrett’s arm to help him up the stairs, and he doesn’t push me off. Although, he doesn’t look particularly happy about it. In the parlor, I plant him on the nearest couch and help Jude build a fire.

Silence settles until I can no longer take it, pacing back and forth. “So I take it you were ordered to—what? Murder me if an opportunity presented itself?”

            Garrett nods. “I hoped our paths wouldn’t cross and dreaded what would happen if they did.”

            “Yes, well, I suppose that we’re both lucky Taryn was helpfully lurking about the palace,” I say, glancing at Taryn venomously, but have to turn away before Jude notices.

            “I will not go to my husband’s house until I am sure Jude isn’t in any danger.”

            Jude’s posture sharpens, tightens.

            I hesitate, ensuring I have the right words to not find myself at the wrong end of a knife. “Jude and I had a misunderstanding. But we’re not enemies. And I am not your enemy, either, Taryn.”

            “You think everything’s a game,” she mutters. “You and Locke.”

            “Unlike Locke, I never thought love was a game. You may accuse me of much, but not that.”

            Jude interrupts us again. “Garrett, is there anything you can tell us? Whatever Madoc is planning, we need to know.”

            He shakes his head. “The last time I saw him, he was furious. With you. With himself. With me, once he knew that you’d discovered I was there. He gave me my orders and sent me off, but I don’t think he’d intended to send me so soon.”

            “Right. He had to move up the timetable.”

            “If the Council finds out we have Orlagh’s attacker in custody, things will not go well,” I say. “They will urge me to hand you over to the Undersea to curry favor for Elfhame. It will only be a matter of time before Nicasia knows you are in our hands.” Garrett’s expression sinks into resignation; Jude watches me cautiously. “Let’s take you back to the palace and put you in the Bomb’s custody. She can decide what to do with you.”

            Jude goes still. All except for a little smile spreading on her face. I’ve surprised her.

            “Very well,” Garrett says.

            I call for the carriage again. Taryn and Garrett sit across from me while Jude ends up pushed into my side. As if the world is slowly tipping beneath me, I find myself leaning closer and closer to Jude. She, in turn, slowly leans heavier and heavier against the wall of the carriage, gazing out the window.

            Exhaustion is drawing lines into her face. I doubt she’s even aware of the weight of me pressed against her. If she is, she’s doing nothing to welcome or reject me.

            Taryn notices, however, and she has a wary look in her eye I’ve never seen her wear before. In fact, I’ve only seen that look on Jude and Vivienne before. On Jude, it’s usually followed by an attack. But Taryn is refined manners and passive-aggressive frowns.

            I lean my chin into my palm, dropping my shoulders and attempting to take up less space in the carriage. Any softness I inject into my expression is lost on Taryn. “Did you enjoy your time back in the mortal world?” I ask.

            She scowls at me. “I did.”

            “Bring anything back with you?”

            “Is that against the law?”

            “Of course not,” I say, glancing at Jude for help, but she’s hardly listening. Garrett only gives me a curious look. “I was only wondering if you’d brought anything interesting. I hardly get to see the mortal world.”

            Taryn cocks an eyebrow at me. “I imagine that was your choice.”

            “No,” I say, “I’m fascinated with the mortal world.”

            Taryn’s other brow joins the first. Jude is giving me a sideways look.

            “Candy, for instance,” I add.

            “We have candy here,” Taryn says.

            I lean forwards. “Yes, but yours have artificial colors. How do you make colors that aren’t colors? And if the candies’ colors aren’t real colors, what color is candy?”

            Garrett presses a hand to his mouth like he’s stifling a laugh.

            Taryn laughs outright. “I don’t know,” she says, “It’s a chemical process.”

            “What’s your favorite kind of candy?”

            “Well—” Taryn glances at Jude and her expression goes suddenly soft, understanding touching her eyes. I don’t know what she’s understanding. “I have a particular liking for slushees. I’m not sure if those count as candy.”

            “Slushees,” I repeat, rolling the word around my mouth. “What’s a slushy?”

            She purses her lips. “It’s a drink. It comes out of this machine that mixes flavor in with tiny ice chunks. They’re all brightly colored. Pure sugar. My favorite is orange. Jude likes blue raspberry.”

            Jude glowers like Taryn just gave up her most dangerous secret.

            “Blueberry?”

            “No, blue raspberry,” Taryn repeats. “It tastes like the color blue but radioactive.”

            “Fascinating.”

            Garrett snorts.

            “What else?” I ask.

            Taryn tells a story of Vivi, how she used to sneak to the mortal world and steal bags of gummy worms whenever they all got homesick. I press her to describe gummy worms, but she doesn’t get far past, “They’re not actually worms” before we arrive back at the palace, and we’re all loaded out of the carriage.

            I help Garrett down, then immediately release him to catch Jude’s arm when her knee buckles on the way down from the carriage step. She steps away, falling out of my grasp.

            “I will escort the Ghost to where he’ll be residing,” I offer. “Jude, you ought to rest.”

            She looks ready to argue, but Taryn grabs her and begins to drag her towards the entrance of the palace. I’m grateful for her just this once. Garrett and I enter through the tunnels, cautious of anyone who could see us and report back to Nicasia and the Undersea. The only person we run into is a flamingly furious Liliver.

            She takes Garrett off my hands and hides him away in the lair of the court of shadows. And, as far as I can tell, she doesn’t intend to kill him. I resolve to check back in after an hour to recover from the day.

            It takes me several hours to return. By the time I do, I’m drunk enough to blur out any and every expression I saw on Jude’s face today. White-out lightning, sympathy, fury. I swim through the memories like they’re someone else’s, like they mean nothing. Like I can sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and rewrite it until it’s something I like.

            I laugh and I lord it over my kingdom and I tell myself that it’s enough. No matter how many times I sat in that basement of Hollow Hall, it means nothing now. Because I am High King. I took everything from Balekin, and Jude killed him. None of it matters now.

            But when I stumble into the lair of the court of shadows, crashing straight into Lili’s arms, her voice grumbling in my ear as she heaves me into a chair, I feel worse, not better.

            Lili leans over me in the chair, studying my eyes. “Are you drunk?”

            “That’s a fantastic idea.” I reach for the table where a bottle of wine sits abandoned.

            With a scolding sound, Lili slaps my hand away sharply. She points an accusing finger at my face. “I am not babysitting you tonight. Go to your wife.”

            I sit back, peering furiously at Lili and thinking in a twisting loop of ways to get out of this. But while I’m distracted, my traitorous mouth blurts out a truth I had no intention of sharing, answering a question no one asked, “Jude slapped me in the face today.”

            “Is that unusual?”

            “No.” My laugh holds edges of whimsy and hysteria equally. “It was the first time it ever hurt.”

Chapter Text

A pounding on the door drives me out of bed. Bed is perhaps a subjective term in this case – it’s more of a cot, possibly a very old couch – but I fell asleep on it last night. Either that or Lili knocked me out and dumped me on it. That latter sounds more likely. I don’t remember much of the conversation I had with her.

            It’s ringing around in my head like a bell – or maybe that’s the hangover – but I can’t quite dredge up all that I said to her. I hope I didn’t spill too many secrets. I hope she didn’t give me any good advice. I’ve forgotten it.

            The door to the office swings open and Liliver stands before me, ringed in orange light like a halo, like an angel. She’s holding a tray of teas. She truly is an angel.

            “Get your ass up,” she commands.

            An angel.

            I clamber to my feet and accept the tray she’s holding out to me. On second glance at the office, I realize it’s Jude’s. Color me surprised that I’d end up here. I can’t escape her when I try and I can’t escape her when I don’t. She’s everywhere.

            I grin to myself, using her desk to balance a cup and pour tea for myself and Lili, who’s still standing in the doorway. Any good mood she was in vanishes at the sight of mine.

            “What are you smiling about?”

            Handing her the cup, I say, “Jude.”

            She’s everywhere. She’s not nowhere anymore. No more looking, no more worrying. I can find Jude anytime I want. I could go to her right now, and I’d see her and she would be there.

            Lili cocks a brow. She must’ve given me good advice last night because when she sighs, it sounds a lot like ‘if I have to repeat myself one more damn time—’.

            Aloud, she says, “You and Jude are like two shoes tied together. Inseparable, but not particularly useful.” With a sharp look, “Or intelligent.”

            “Why are the shoes unintelligent?” This tea is incredible.

            “They’re inanimate.”

            “And that makes them unintelligent?” I pause. “Are you suggesting I’m inanimate?”

            I’m already pouring another cup of tea before I’ve fully finished the first. Lili holds out her cup for more, as well, without answering my question. She’s studying me, watching for something. Comprehension, most likely.

            The last thing I comprehended before this morning was Jude is falling. From there, it’s been a blurry mess of movements and thoughts and sounds, but never a full thought or a complete feeling. It was like someone snatched one of my ribs and ran off with it, leaving me with most of my rib cage, but not quite all of it. It left some of my heart exposed.

            But I’m comprehending something now: Jude is back.

            Also: Lili is now scowling.

            “Yes?” I prompt.

            “Did you hear anything I just said?”

            “No?”

            Lili looks half a second from throwing that hot tea in my face. “There’s a man in your wife’s bedroom, Cardan. Perhaps you should do something about it?”

            There goes the comprehension. My mind stutters to a full stop, like a skipping record, stuck on there’s a man in Jude’s bedroom. And it’s not me. I don’t ask what he’s doing in Jude’s bedroom. I set the cup down on the desk and push past Lili. Her laughter chases me up the stairwell, only muffled when the door to the lair closes behind me.

            I cross the bedroom that the secret passage opens into and toss open another door. Carelessly, assuming no one will be standing on the other side.

            Grima Mog the cannibal is, in fact, standing on the other side.

            I shrink back from her like a scared child. My eyes dart left, then right. No one else is around. I’m looking for Jude, I realize, my beautiful monster here to rescue me. But, no, she’s with another man. In her bedroom.

            “Your Majesty,” Grima Mog says. She smiles. “I made soup for Jude. I assumed you would want a say in when and how she receives it.”

            Unexpected. “I appreciate that.”

            She steps back, making way for me to leave the bedroom. “Shall we?”

            I slip past her, hugging up against the wall, just in case. I glance at her over my shoulder only once, just in case. “How did you know I was in that bedroom?”

            “Taryn knows of the lair.”

            Bloody Taryn. “And she told you about it?”

            Grima Mog makes a noncommittal sound. It might be a laugh. I don’t want to hear her laugh.

            Fand the knight is outside my rooms, standing with her back ramrod straight and her chin held high. Pride lights up her features, softens out the rocks of her jaw line, makes her look a little like I remember her in lessons. She sees me coming and manages to stand taller. She’s on the verge of competing with me for height.

            “Fand,” I greet.

            “Randalin,” she says.

            I stop walking, dead stop, nearly taking Grima Mog’s armful of soup to the back. I’ve never in my life been so insulted… “Excuse me?”

            “Councilor Randalin,” she says, “He’s in your rooms. Her Majesty allowed him to stay, but—”

            That’s all I need to hear. I should snap at Lili later for not specifying what Jude was doing in my bedroom with another man. Or for specifying that Randalin is the man. Jude is more likely to kill him than… anything else.

            I’m half expecting to walk into a crime scene when I open the door. I’m half expecting to cause a crime scene when I hear Randalin’s voice, “That’s why I implore you to relinquish your title.”

            Jude is perched on the arm of the couch, not quite sitting, not quite standing. She looks ready for battle. Besides that she’s hardly wearing anything – and what she is wearing is mine. That’s distracting. I’m already thinking up a dozen ways to get her in more of my clothes. A dozen ways to take those clothes off.

            Randalin’s voice again, “We did not send for you, and we do not need you!” He stands, rounding on me with a fury that dies from one breath to the next.

            I smile. I must look truly wicked because Jude smiles, too. “Many think that,” I say, “But few are bold enough to say it to my face.”

            “Your Majesty,” Randalin sputters, blanching straight to the color of death. He can tell Jude to lay aside her right to rule without a thought, but shouting at me unintentionally? How terrifying. I really should get rid of him. “Great shame is mine. My incautious comments were never intended for you. I thought that you—” he stops, glances around the room like it will protect him. “I was foolish. If you desire my punishment—”

            “Why don’t you tell me what you were discussing? I have no doubt you’d prefer Jude’s levelheaded answers to my nonsense, but it amuses me to hear about matters of state nonetheless.” I move deeper into the room, closer to Randalin and his mewling.

            Jude is watching me curiously.

            Randalin takes a minute step back. “I was only—” only “—urging her to consider the war that her father is bringing. Everyone must make sacrifices.” Sacrifices.

            A look crosses Jude’s face, somewhere between a wince and a smile. It’s a look I’ve seen on Lili recently.

“That’s why I wrote the letters!” I defended, kicking at Lili’s chair with one foot. The alcohol weighed too heavily in my system, and I barely managed to even rock her.

            She kicked back at me fiercely, nailing me in the shin. “You should’ve gone to see her in the mortal world!”

            “She would’ve killed me.”

            “Which works faster? Jude’s knives or your ability to apologize?”

            I thought about it. I thought about it some more. “Jude’s knives.”

            Lili groaned against a hand splayed across her face. Garrett sat on the counter in the corner, eating a muffin crumb by crumb and watching curiously.

            “She can throw those,” I continued, “I can’t throw an apology at her. Unless, I write down the apology, ball it up, and throw it. Then she’d be more likely to kill me and read it later.”

            Lili groaned again. “Cardan, you’re hopeless.” But her expression sterned, became something between a wince and a smile. It’s her advice-giving expression. What follows is often a veiled insult. “Jude took the banishment at face value because she still thinks you’re fighting against her.

            “You’re always fighting against her,” she continued, “Both of you spend every moment of your lives playing Poker with each other! But, Cardan, you work together better than you ever will apart.”

            “I know.” My voice came out a lot closer to a whine than I was meaning. Garrett hid a smile in a bite of muffin.

            Lili kicked me in the shin again. “Whatever you used to do to her, do for her. Let her see how powerful you are—” I take that as a high compliment “—as an ally, a tool—” Less complimented “—rather than something for her to fear.”

            I hesitated. “Did you know Jude is afraid of me?”

            “Did you not?”

An ally.

            I turn to Jude, allowing myself a brief moment to appreciate the sight of her once again. In my clothes. “Jude, would you give me and the councilor a moment alone? I have a few things I would like to urge him to consider.” Her brow cocks up. She knows exactly what I mean. “And Grima Mog has brought you soup.”

            “I don’t need anyone to help me tell Randalin that this is my home and my land and that I am going nowhere and relinquishing nothing.” Jude talks directly to me, ignoring Randalin the same way I did.

            Allies. I like this.

            “And yet,” I say, clamping a hand down on the back of the councilor’s neck. It could be almost friendly if I weren’t digging my fingers into his skin. “There are still some things I would say to him.”

            Randalin’s shoulders pull up higher and higher the longer I hold onto him, only dropping when I hustle him into a separate room and push him away. He turns to me with the look of prey cornered. Good.

            “Randalin,” I say his name smoothly, dredging out all the menace I used on Jude once. Never again. “I wish for you to remember only one thing in this: I am the King—” he opens his mouth to speak, and I hold up a hand for his silence “—I am Jude’s King. We both know how long she has truly been in charge, don’t we?”

            “Yes, your majesty.”

            “And we both know the way things can fall apart when she’s gone. You remember, yes? When she was in the Undersea?” I wait for recognition to dawn. During Jude’s time in the Undersea, I came very close to relieving Randalin of an ear. I had the knife in one hand and his face in the other. If not for my internal Jude keeping me in check, he would have had a much worse day.

            As soon as the threat settles in, I continue, “Jude is the only reason you’ve continued in your position here, toddling around with both ears and an over-inflated concept of your importance. Jude is the only reason any of us are still here in our capacities.”

            “But—”

            I resist the urge to grab him by the face again. “No. I will have no more of this from you. Randalin, you have three options from here on out. One: you stay out of Jude’s way and continue as you are. The kingdom prospers.” I flick one of his ears. “You keep both of these.

            “Two: you continue to get in Jude’s way, and I’m forced to rid the palace of you. We need Jude. We do not need you. And if you become a hinderance to the safety and security of Elfhame – well, we all must make sacrifices.”

            Randalin ducks his eyes away from mine.

            “Three: you dare to threaten, manipulate, or coerce my wife into something she doesn’t like, and she takes care of you herself.” I glance down at his hands. “Are you shaking, Randalin?”

            “Yes, your majesty.”

            “Imagine what Jude could do to you. She has these brilliant knives that sever tendons from bones. You’d keep your legs and arms, but you’d never be able to use them again.”

            Randalin’s eyes go wide as saucers.

            I smile. “We understand each other now. Choose the first option, Randalin.” Before he can leave, downright racing towards the door, I add, “And don’t ever enter our rooms without permission again.”

            And he’s gone.

            I follow him back out into the foyer and watch Jude’s expression flicker into a smile at the sight of Randalin disappearing hastily. She turns towards me and yes, that look again. Allies.

            We did something together.

            Heather is standing there, too. She’s whispering something to Jude. That’s alright, they can do things together, too.

            “There’s a ball tonight to welcome guests from some of my Courts. Heather, I hope you and Vivienne will come. The last time you were here, we were poor hosts. But there are many delights we could show you,” I say.

            “Including a war,” Grima Mog adds – I didn’t know she was still here, and I barely contain a startled noise. The cannibal is smiling. “What could be more delightful than that?”

“Give and take,” Garrett said. Without prompting. Still eating that damned muffin.

            I snapped around to look at him. “What?”

            “Jude is a give and take fighter. She never just knocks straight in and wins, nor does she only use her weapon. If you want to do the allies thing, you need to let it go both ways. Don’t do everything for her – it’ll make her feel…” he trailed off thoughtfully.

            “Useless?” Lili offered.

            “Like you think she is,” Garrett said. “Babysat.”

            I frowned at the both of them.

            “Play to her strengths, too. Make sure she knows she’s as needed as you are.”

I change faster than I ever have in my life. I hardly dare to let Jude out of my sight. I was hoping to see her in my clothes one more time, but when I return, she’s dressed in a gown. It looks like chain mail, armor. This is almost better.

            There’s an absolute eyeful of marble, tawny skin on display, and I have to focus on not glancing down every few seconds. I still do occasionally. There’s a flush slowly touching her cheeks. She’s going to make me crazy if she keeps up with that little embarrassed expression. I love her nervous. This kind of nervous.

            I sit in a chair nearby but far enough I can’t touch her. Even if I want to.

            Tatterfell is busy with Jude’s hair. Jude is busy staring at me in the mirror when she thinks I’m not looking.

            “Tonight you’re going to have to speak with all the rulers,” I tell her. My voice sounds too loud in the silent room.

            Jude frowns immediately. “I know.”

            “Because only one of us can tell lies,” I continue. Give and take. “And they need to believe our victory is inevitable.”

            “Isn’t it?” she asks.

            “You tell me.”

            Her frown twitches, reluctantly becoming a smile. “Madoc has no chance at all,” she lies dutifully. She looks nervous again. “Has the Court of Termites arrived?”

            “I am afraid so.” I’m nervous now. Standing only makes me nervous upright. Nevertheless, I offer Jude my arm and shove everything down but: Allies. Together. “Come, let us charm and confound our subjects.”

            Jude nearly has to elbow Tatterfell off of her in order to accept my arm and rise. Together, we go to the great hall, Fand and the rest of the guards flanking us. Fand is taking well to the leadership Jude gave her. I don’t know how well my guards are taking to her, however. Two of them are glancing at her the way Randalin looks at Jude.

            I might have to do something about that.

            As we stride in and are announced, a hush falls over the brugh – a deafening silence, “The High King and High Queen of Elfhame.”

            The goblins and grigs, hobs and sprites, trolls and hags – all the beautiful and glorious and awful Folk of Elfhame look our way. All their black eyes shine. All their wings and tails and whiskers twitch. Their shock crackles in the air, shoots through Jude, pulling her posture high and tight. Her arm feels suddenly like a rock against mine.

            Then everyone and everything rushes forward to greet us. Jude is physically torn away from me at some point, separated by a great mass of Folk. I can still hear her, lying and greeting and lying more. I hear the compliments thrown her way, the bright and the colorful and the hollow and sneering. I push towards her once or twice, ridding her of a particularly snide conversation companion.

            Soon, too soon, I’m swept away as well. I can no longer keep near enough to her to hear what she says. I do my best to skirt any subjects I wish to lie about. I do my best to send certain concerning questions Jude’s way. She can comfort them.

            By the time I reach the front of the room and the dais, Jude has broken off to talk with Vivienne and Heather. I’m glad to see her safely separated from all the stares and whispers, but she looks less than happy. I don’t blame her. Too many – too many – of the Folk still dare outright challenges to her, against her. They come to me, they whisper to me, they try to be my ally. Like they’re in on some plot I’m hatching to rid myself of Jude.

            I’ll rid myself of them instead, if I must.

            I raise a goblet for attention, throwing my voice as far as I can get it across the room. “Be welcome on the Isle of Insmire,” I say, “Seelie and Unseelie, Wild Folk and Shy Folk, I am glad to have you march under my banner, glad of your loyalty—” I look directly at Jude “—grateful for your honor. To you, I offer honey wine and hospitality of my table.” Threading a threat into my voice, I continue, “But to traitors and oath breakers, I offer my queen’s hospitality instead. The hospitality of knives.”

            A swell of noise flushes through the room. All eyes go in Jude’s direction. White out-lightning fear touches her face, then something a bit disparaging towards me. She’ll be fine.

            And if she’s not, I sent Lili to watch out for her. I can see her white hair hovering not far from Jude’s shoulder just in case. Jude hasn’t noticed her there – she must have gotten rusty in the mortal world.

            The chaos ebbs off slowly, slowly. When I finally make it back to Jude’s side, she looks worse for the wear. Be it in a homicidal way or an exhausted way, I cannot yet determine. I know she’s got one of those brilliant knives stashed on her somewhere. If we weren’t in public, I might have gone looking. I think I’d end up on the business end of the knife. That’s half the fun.

            “All right?” I ask her.

            She nods. “You?”

            “I’m hungry.”

            “For what?”

            An innocent question I don’t give the less-than-innocent answer to, for both our sakes. And Lili’s, who is still standing not far away. I turn towards her and ask, under my breath, “How does the room sound?”

            Jude startles when Lili appears from the darkness. “Better than when you entered,” Lili says, “Possibly best-case scenario.”

            “Possibly?”

            “Hard to tell. Eighty percent success now. Might go down if you stay too long, might go up.” Lili looks to Jude. “Opinions?”

            Jude shakes her head. “If we stay too long, that blue one will take a bite out of me—” she points at a liege I recognize only vaguely “—he kissed my hand earlier. With his teeth.”

            Lili and I share a glance. “We’ll go,” I decide. Leaving Lily with instructions to continue listening to the room for another hour or two, I guide Jude out of the great hall. Every courtier we pass bows towards Jude.

            She barely acknowledges it, but her hand grips my arm tighter and tighter with each show of respect. I clear my throat once, halfway to the door, when it gets painful. Jude gives me the briefest apologetic look, and I’m still swimming happily in it by the time we get out the doors and into the hallways of the palace.

            Fand steps right up into position at Jude’s flank – and my guards at mine – as we weave towards our chambers. I send mine away long before we reach the doors. Jude tells Fand to stay close. I wonder what that means.

            Is she nervous again?

            She doesn’t look nervous. The moment the door to our bedroom closes, she’s slumped against it. I slump against a bedpost, too, just long enough to remove my crown and toss it onto my bedside table. Jude breathes a deep sigh of relief, kicking off her shoes. I get the briefest glimpse of her ankle and – sure enough – she has a knife strapped to the inside of her ankle.

            I might die. If I don’t get to touch her right now, I might die. If she pushes me away, I’ll make sure to die in the lair of the court of shadows. Garrett can laugh at me all he wants.

Garrett laughed and then he laughed some more. Not remotely chagrined. He laughed harder when I scowled at him. “You threw Jude – Jude Duarte – in a river.”

            “It was more of a shove.”

            “She was bloody terrified of you when we first met. I mean, she joined us almost solely for a geas to protect herself from you. Van mentioned your name once, and she left the room.” Garrett was still laughing. “I thought – I mean – I thought the worst. But a river? Good god. A river.”

            “She could’ve died,” I said. “I almost killed her.”

            Garrett shook his head at me. “I’m more surprised you survived.”

            I scowled harder.

            “You should take her there for a picnic. ‘Hey, Jude, remember that time I tried to kill you with a river?’” Garrett took a solid smack to the knee from Liliver for that.

            “‘Hey, Jude, remember that time I handed you over to the Undersea?’” I shot back.

            Lili kicked me in the shin again. “Menaces. The both of you.”

            “How do I make up for that, Lili?” I ask her, miserably. “What if the rest of our lives is that. ‘Hey, Jude, don’t get too comfortable with me. I may try to kill you again. Or worse.’”

            Lili pursed her lips. Bordering on sympathetic. “Do you still want to hurt Jude?”

            “Of course not.”

            Garrett snorted. I growled at him – an animal noise I don’t make often, though I hear it from other Folk all the time. It’s a frightful sound. Maybe I’ve become too attached to Jude, I thought, because I’ve started adopting mortal mannerisms. Like not growling at people.

            Lili pulled back in her chair, sitting up straight and putting an extra inch of space between us. A frightful sound. “What do you want from Jude?”

            “I want—” I don’t know “—I want—” another growl, “Her. I want her.”

            “Then tell her, you menace.”

Telling Jude what I want is easier said than done. We’d be here all night if I told her every thing I want from her. I want her to make that low noise again – the one she made out in the gardens yesterday. I want her in my clothes. I want her in no clothes. I want her blushing again. I want her beneath me again. I want her to threaten me, and shout at me, and cling to me, and kiss me.

            I want everything she has to give.

            “You were very formidable tonight, my queen,” I say. At the sound of my voice, Jude’s eyes snap open and lock on me.

            I move towards her like magnetism, like a force is pushing against me, forcing me to cross the room to her. Always forcing me to be closer to her. It’s all rushing to my head, and I might die, and she’s that blushing nervous again. She smells like burnished metal and floral perfumes.

            She stands straighter when I get close, back pressing tighter into the door. No white-out lightning. “After that speech you made,” she says, softly, “it didn’t take much.”

            I smile and her eyes drop sharply to my lips, then linger.

            “It cannot be anything other than the truth or it never could have left my tongue.” Speaking of my tongue, I run it along the sharp edges of my teeth. Jude watches.

            Her pupils are starting to eat up the brown of her eyes, making her look as animal as my growl sounds. When her gaze lands back on mine, it’s hot and half-lidded. I’ve seen her drunk only once – it was similar to this.

            “You didn’t come to bed last night,” she whispers.

            I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think you’d let me. I didn’t think I should. I was afraid if I came to this room, I would kiss you and touch you and lose every wall I’ve ever built. I was afraid you’d let me. I was afraid you’d want me to.

            I can’t say any of that. Slowly, matching her soft tone, I say, “I’m here now.”

            Jude’s brows draw together, putting a little frown into her forehead to match the one on her lips. Her attention falters, slips off of me, darting to the room past my shoulder.

            Tipping my head, I catch her eye again. Taking her hand, I lace our fingers together. She’s biting her lip and all I can think is: mine. Everything else is just feeling, just movement I’m not intending that slides through my body like I’ve been willed by an outside force. That magnetism.

            I love you, I could tell her.

            I want you, I could tell her.

            The words are there. They would be so easy to say. I already know they would slip right off my tongue as easily as any other truth – because they are, truth. Painful truths that weigh on my head until my neck is sore from holding it.

            I could tell her, and I could give that to her. Would it weigh on her, too? She already has enough to carry around on her shoulders. She’s always carrying too much.

            So I say nothing. I lean in, slowly, giving her time to pull away. She doesn’t pull away. She closes her eyes and resolutely waits for me. She never has to wait. She’ll never have to ask. I kiss her. And I kiss her. And I kiss her – until the locked up tension in her shoulders eases and her head falls back onto the door, opening her up for me, allowing me to take any weight I can off of her.

            I’d like to take her dress off of her. I don’t try. Yet.

            Suddenly, the wind changes, and she’s kissing me. She’s kissing me fervently, all thrumming desire and pent-up rage. Her mouth is a weapon – my favorite – and she uses it as well as she does any other. One of her hands sneaks up into my hair and tugs, pulls. What was I thinking when she bit her lip? I don’t remember. Probably something similar to what I think when she bites my lip.

            A growl slips out of me, and Jude kisses me harder. She’s mauling me at this point. I let her go, holding onto her waist for dear life. My strangle-hold on self-control and common-sense is loosening bit by bit. If this keeps up, I’ll forget everything.

            I’ll forget white-out lightning. I’ll forget making things up to her. Allies and give and take and we’ve both definitely tried to do legitimate physical damage to each other at least once. It will be only what I do to Jude and what she does to me.

            Do I want that? Does Jude want that?

            I’d give anything for Jude to want that.

            My control is yanked again – my hair is yanked again – and I pull back just enough to take a breath and re-center my mind. Re-strangle my desire. I need to stay in control, just in case.

            There’s a lot of ‘Just In Case’ going around. I don’t think Jude’s gotten the message. She lets me duck past her lips – before she can start kissing me again – and take my tongue and lips and teeth to her neck and jaw and all that marble skin. She’s pink now. Everywhere flushed. Her skin is so hot, she’s so alive.

            “You looked like a knight in a story tonight,” I murmur against the column of her throat, feeling the thrum of her vocal chords against my lips when she makes a soft sound. “Possibly a filthy story.”

            She kicks me in the leg—that’s my girl—and I kiss her again, harder. Control, strangling, hot. She’s tearing away everything I’m thinking. She’s killing me.

            Her hands wrap into fists around my doublet, first pushing me away, then pulling me. Only when she gets herself settled against a wall does she drag me back against her. Tightly. I can feel every inch of her on every inch of me and I might die.

            She bites my lip again; her hands are beneath my shirt – I don’t even know when she untucked it – and her fingers are moving up and up and up my spine. Pressing and tracing and killing me.

            Control. I don’t remember what I’m in control of. My primary faculties. Heart still beating? Definitely, loudly. Am I breathing? I don’t think so. Is Jude still wearing all of her clothes? Shockingly, yes. Do I want this? Does Jude want this? I band my hands around her hips and lift her up, testing her reaction. Her legs wrap around my waist, and she takes happily to the new angle she can kiss me at. From above me, she has all the control.

            Control. I only got halfway down her throat before. Pulling away from her lips again, I start back where I left off. This is better, I think, I have a little more control when I do this. I have a better angle now, too. I can reach her collar with my mouth. She even tastes hot. I wrap a hand into all that hair covering her shoulders and pull it out of my way.

            Control. The last of it slips for only a moment before Jude goes suddenly, dreadfully still. Control. I pull back as quickly as I can without outright dropping her on the floor. I hook a hand through her knee to help her back on her feet. Control. As soon as she’s steady, I’m off of her and halfway across the room. Control. Steady, is that what I thought? She’s not steady. Neither am I.

            What have I done?

            “We need not—”

            “No,” she says, quickly, too quickly. “Just give me a second.” She bites her lip again. Control. “I’ll be right back.”

            She leaves. Not just leaves, she darts away, she runs away. Disappearing into the wardrobe, she leaves me with as many questions as I have fears and a whole lot of overheated skin. It’s not overheated for long. A chill sweeps through me.

            What have I done?

            She didn’t stay long enough for me to determine what her reaction was. Was it fear? Was it anger? Is she actually going to come back? I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. If she doesn’t come back, I’ll go find Lili and spend another night in the lair of the court of shadows. They won’t mind me being there.

            I should give Jude space. She might just need time and space. She fell from the ceiling less than a week ago! What am I expecting? I shouldn’t be expecting anything from her. I don’t think I am expecting anything from her. Am I?

            What have I done?

            When did I become a confused youth again?

            If I’m expecting anything from Jude its an attack. Knives, words, mockery, blood. I don’t know. I don’t know that I care. I upset her. She’ll do what she always does.

            I’m okay with that. I’m pacing around the room like a trapped animal, digging a hand into my hair and desperately clinging to any common sense she left me with, and I’m okay.

            Is Jude okay? I briefly consider asking. She’d probably kill me if I did.

            Control.

            Control.

            Con—

            Jude steps out, and for a second, I’m convinced my eyes are playing tricks on me. She’s not wearing her dress anymore. She’s not wearing anything anymore. Jude is all skin and blush and muscles and breasts and hips and—god.

            She smiles at me, tempting, mischievous. That’s terrifying.

            “Come here,” I say. I’m not sure if I meant to sound commanding or if I meant to say it at all. I want to know if she will. I want to know what game she’s playing – because she’s definitely playing with me now.

            She crosses the floor to me obediently. Then she sinks to her knees right there. I can feel the air move when she breathes. “Is this what you imagined I’d be like, back in your rooms at Hollow Hall, when you thought of me and hated it?” she asks, “Is this how you pictured my eventual surrender.”

            Shit. She already knows. Damn her.

            “Yes.”

            “Then what did I do?” she asks, laying her hand on my thigh, fingers splaying out. That’s terrifying. What is she doing? Humiliating me, intending to stab me, something worse. I can’t tell.

            She must be angry with me. I don’t know what I did, but she’s killing me now and she knows it.

            “I imagined you telling me to do with you whatever I liked.” I grimace.

            Jude laughs. A surprised sound that squeaks a little bit. “Really?”

            “Along with some begging on your part. A little light groveling,” I smile but it’s embarrassed and terribly fake. I want to crawl under something. I’d prefer Jude stabbing me – she is still wearing that dagger at her ankle. It’s the only thing she’s wearing. “My fantasies were rife with overweening ambition.”

            But isn’t this what Lili told me to do? Tell Jude what I want? I doubt this is what she meant.

            Jude slides off of her knees, lying back on the stone floor, opening up to me in every way possible. Her hands reach out towards me like a plea. “You may do with me whatever you like,” she says, “Please oh please. All I want is you.”

            I wish she couldn’t lie. If I didn’t know – too damn well – that she’s lying to me, mocking me, I would die right on the spot. Instead, it’s a knife driven into my heart and held there.

            I tear my eyes away from her, looking up at the roof just long enough to suck in a deep breath of blessed air. Blessed oxygen, give me sanity. I can’t take it any longer than that. I can’t keep looking at Jude laid out like that, so small and so open and so vulnerable against the cold stone floor.

            I get down on my knees, caging them over her and leaning my hands down around her head. I cover as much of her as I can. My arms strain with effort, but I lean just enough for her to feel the warmth of my clothes, but not enough to put my weight on her. I don’t know my permissions yet. But the more vulnerable she looks, the less I can keep track of Control.

            The knife is still in my heart. Damn her. It’s such a sharp ache, I almost check for blood dripping off my chest.

            Jude’s fingers sink back into my hair, not pulling, almost massaging. That’s not helping. I turn my head to the side and kiss her wrist. I think it’s a safe place to kiss. I don’t lose any control kissing her there, but I do feel an intimacy that shouldn’t be allowed with the knife in my chest. I can feel her pulse racing. Racing.

            Is she still nervous? Is she afraid? I can’t tell. She must be angry, but her heartbeat usually flattens out when she’s angry. I think angry is her calm.

            “Mock me all you like,” I say, keeping my lips on her wrist, feeling her heart rate. “Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” I love you. I want you. Damn you. “By you, I am forever undone.”

            I don’t wait – I don’t dare – to see the face she makes at that. I already have one knife in my heart. What’s she going to do? Put another knife in there? My chest will get crowded.

            I kiss Jude again, and she doesn’t push me off. Her mouth opens for me, and she makes that sound – a low moan in the back of her throat, almost a growl like mine. A shudder wracks me from my core all the way out to the tips of my fingers, and I arch against her like a cat reaching for the sun.

            Her hands draw closed into fists, gathering up the velvet of my doublet. She pulls on me, and my arms threaten to give way. Locking my elbows straight, I don’t give her an inch. Instead, she gives me an inch. She leans up to catch my mouth again.

            I feel a tug at the clasps on my doublet. She’s opening it with hands shaking. I’d help her, but my hands are shaking, too. What is she doing? What is she doing? I’m confused and half the blood in my body must have rushed downwards because there’s not any left in my brain. I sit up onto my knees, and Jude follows me up.

            It takes some scooting on her part, but she gets herself into a sitting position, legs trapped beneath me and hands still furiously working at my clothing. I lean experimentally away, just to see what she’ll do. Her eyes snap up to mine, battle mode. With a little hitch of her knees, she shoves me back forward and returns to her work as I catch myself on her shoulders.

            I give in. Whatever she’s doing, it’s worth it. It’s okay to want something that’s going to hurt me, I tell myself.

            As soon as Jude has the clasps of my doublet undone, I pull it from my shoulders and throw it across the room. My shirt comes off with a tug, and it joins the doublet across the room. Jude’s gaze, her attention, is so sharp against my bare skin, it’s palpable. The backs of her knuckles press against my stomach, move in a slow circle, then another. Massaging at the muscles of my abdomen.

            Her eyes flare open wider when I shiver. She looks up at my face, takes me in briefly, and her expression shutters into a decision. I’ve seen that look before – it’s usually followed by knives. But this time, she leans towards me and presses her lips to my chest. Ever. So. Gently. The softest exploratory kiss. I shiver again, holding my breath. I won’t give her the satisfaction of feeling me gasping for breath.

            “I’m not mocking,” she whispers against that same spot the knife went in. There’s a knife in my chest, and she’s holding it there. Is she?

            She kisses me again, then there’s a brief scrape of teeth. But it doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel the pain of her mocking anymore because she wasn’t mocking. I could choose not to believe her, but why should I? I’m not mocking, she whispered, with concession in her tone.

            Jude telling me the truth. I never thought I’d see the day.

            I nudge at her neck with my hand so she’ll look up at me again. “We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to remove it.”

            Jude cocks her head at me. The brown of her eyes is gone, replaced by devouring black of desire. “Is this another riddle? If I answer it, will you go back to kissing me?”

            “If that’s what you want.”

            It takes more effort to climb off of her than I was expecting. By the time my weight has settled on the floor, I have to lay down to let the tension go. To catch my breath. She’s killing me – there was never a knife in my heart – she’s still killing me.

            Jude leans over me, her expression hardening into challenge. “I told you what I wanted. For you to do with me whatever—”

            “No,” I interrupt. “What you want.”

            She considers me for a long moment, frowning. Then, without answering my question, she rolls me onto my back and straddles me. Fuck. That’s obscene. She has to shove one knee between my legs in order to settle comfortably onto my thigh. I put my hands on her calves just to put my hands somewhere that isn’t where I desperately want them. I can see everything. I already know what she feels like. I want to feel her again.

            All those vivid memories are pounding through my mind. I’ve been denied a repeat for so long. This time I deny myself – for now – and wait for Jude. I wait even as my heart pounds in my ears loud enough to deafen. I’m biting my cheek hard enough to draw blood.

            Is she taking her time just to torment me? Probably.

            Jude’s hand touches my chest again, one finger digging into the hollow of my throat. She frowns, and her hand curls into a fist like she wishes I still had a shirt on to grab me by. She settles for wrapping her fingers around the back of my neck and pulling.

            I sit obediently upright. We’ve switched positions. She looked so perfect beneath me, somehow she’s even better above me.

            She taps my lips with one finger. Tap, tap, tap. Then she kisses me, slowly. She leans into her new height advantage, splaying one hand against my throat, she pushes at my jaw until I have to lean back and give her more and more of me to take over. She’s conquering me. She’s killing me. She’s definitely tormenting me.

            “What did we usually do?” she asks, but she kisses me again, long and languid, before I can answer.

            I barely manage to get out a “Hm?”

            She takes her time. Finally, “When you imagined this, what did we usually do?”

            “Jude.” I groan. “I imagined you in a lot of indecent ways. Yes. I’m sorry.”

            She shakes her head. “That’s not what I asked.”

            “Must you bring it up?”

            She nods this time. She’s still kissing me.

            “Jude,” I growl. Reaching between us, I put one hand against the base of her stomach. With only the pad of my thumb, I put pressure on that brilliant sensitive spot women have. I love that thing.

            Jude’s gasp hitches and breaks the kiss. She tips her head away from mine but makes no moves to get away from my hand. She’s blushing ferociously. “Cardan,” she growls back.

            “Why do you want to know?” I ask.

            Something wild touches her eyes. “Huh?”

            “I imagined you in a lot of indecent ways,” I repeat. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.” I press harder. “I’ve apologized for those imaginings. Repeatedly. Under various states of duress. Yet, you continue to bring it up. Why? To torture me?”

            She shakes her head. Her lips are pressed tightly together.

            I move my thumb in a short circle. She looks at me like she wants to kill me. “Is it to humiliate me?”

            “No,” she says, but it comes out like a gasp, like a whimper.

            “Then why?”

            Her eyes dart around the room, snap closed when I apply more pressure, and flare back open challengingly. “You know too much,” she says, and this time it’s like a snarl. Her hand wraps around my wrist and yanks my hand away. “You know how I work. You have advantages.”

            She’s right. I love using them. Especially when it gets her blushing and snarling.

            “If I know what you like, I get an—” she looks past me again, like she’s reading the right word off the wall “—an edge.”

            “Jude,” I say, placatingly, “I do believe you already have enough edges.” I pull that knife from the sheath on her ankle as punctuation. Then I throw it across the room, just to be safe.

            She watches it sail away with a forcefully empty expression. “You’re killing me,” she whispers.

            “The feeling is mutual.”

            She scowls at me. “You know what I mean.”

            “I do.” I smile at her, though I’m sure telling her this much is a terrible idea. “You could do anything to me, Jude, and I would like it. Stab me, bite me, kiss me, kill me. It’s all the same to me. If it’s you – if it’s what you want – I’ll take it.” Her hand holding my wrist has gone tight as a vise. “This isn’t a battle. You’ve already won.”

            She stares at me. She just stares, silently, for so long, I start wondering if giving her permission to stab me will come around to haunt me far sooner than expected. I’m glad I threw that knife. I hope I threw it far enough.

            “What do you want?” I ask her.

            Jude takes a deep breath. She’s released my wrist. Her hands sneak up into my hair, barely there until they tighten into fists around enough of my hair to control me with. “I want—” she says, but she doesn’t say. She just pulls until my mouth opens and kisses me.

            This kiss is apocalyptic. She kisses me like a fire is burning outside our doors and we have ten seconds to get everything we want out of each other before we both burn to ash.

            Her legs move, widening and shifting and fumbling until she’s over my hips and she can settle her weight where she wants it. Where I certainly want it. My groan turns feral when she grinds down against me. I get the message.

            She helps me shuck off my pants, not particularly caring about gentleness. As soon as I’m naked, too, she grabs me – just fucking grabs me by the cock like that’s not the most sensitive part of my body. I bury a stuttering gasp into neck. I hold very still. She doesn’t ask for my advice; she’s figuring it out for herself.

            One of my hands ends up on her cheek, a gentling touch for what I know is coming. I fear I should warn her. I don’t know if she knows.

            Jude gets herself into the right position and doesn’t hesitate. Another stuttering gasp tears through me as she buries me in all that impossible warmth all in one go. Pain lances across her expression, and I murmur an apology. I ask if she’s okay.

            She takes the pain out on my palm, biting my hand sharply. I let her.

            If I thought her skin was hot, this is a whole different kind of warm. It’s feverish. Like I’ve been in the ice and snow for so long, I started to forget what cold was. Until someone lit a fire, and it all came rushing back at me, all at once. The cold and the hot. I’m so cold. I’m always so cold. And she’s so warm.

            Her teeth ease their assault on my palm, and she makes a short experimental move. Her brow furrows, confused, frustrated. She shifts, moves again. She’s killing me. This time she gets what she wanted, pleasure smoothing out her expression. She smiles softly.

            She figures out the rest very quickly. When she moves forwards, then backwards, she gets something she likes. Side to side, she gets a reaction from me. She likes simply pushing down, too. Jude finds a rhythm with those, and all the turning of gears going on in her mind shuts off. She stops thinking, and she just starts moving, and she doesn’t stop.

            Wrapping one hand around the base of my throat, she pushes me back down to lay on the cold floor. She holds me down. She doesn’t have to, I think she just wants to.

            Everything I imagined, all those times I thought I knew what it would be like, bullshit. Absolute garbage. I was imagining this like a victory – like I was defeating Jude. But this isn’t victory, nor is it defeat. This is Jude, and this is me, and we don’t have any walls between us, this is us.

            Jude likes to hold me down. Jude likes to just feel me. Jude idly twists my curls around her fingers. When she likes something, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, pausing like she’s filing that away to remember for later. She does that when she fights, too, when she finds an opponent’s weak spot.

            I’d know. I have many weak spots.

            I like giving Jude a little jolt when she’s not expecting it, a little extra pressure here, a short snap of my teeth at her hand there. I like her pulling my hair. I can put a palm on her thigh and feel the ripple of muscle there.

            This is a full palette of color when I was only ever seeing the world in shades of grey. Victory, defeat – bullshit. This is so much better.

            Jude comes, with a sound that lashes between whimper and snarl, just before I do. I’d never seen Jude without a fight pent up in her body until right now. She lays atop me, nuzzling into my shoulder, and goes soft. I make a valiant effort to breathe slowly, gently, so I don’t jostle her. She’s still twining one of my curls around her fingers.

            Curling in.

            Curling out.

            Curling in.

            “Jude?” My voice is hoarse.

            “Mm?” So is hers.

            “How do you feel?”

            She’s silent for a long moment. Still curling in, curling out, curling in. “Good.”

            As badly as I want her to wax poetic about just how good it was, I don’t ask any more questions of her. I give her a couple of minutes to settle, then I roll out from under her and sit up to snag the blanket off of our bed. I yank it down and wrap it around Jude and I.

            She takes more blanket than I do. I don’t complain. Mostly because she’s still snuggled up close to me, and I will walk on glass before I do anything to ruin that.

            “I missed you,” she whispers, so quiet, it barely carries even in a silent room. “In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you.”

            I pull her in closer, tighter. “My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned.”

“Jude disbelieves half of what I say, and she knows I can’t lie!” I argued, leaning back precariously in my chair. Perhaps a head injury would do me good right now. “How do you prove that you love someone?”

            Lili’s brows pulled low over her eyes. “By loving them.” Like it was that simple.

            I growled again.

            “By loving them and loving them and loving them. Cardan, look at me,” she demanded. When I reluctantly turned my glower directly towards her, she continued, “By loving them with your actions and your words. By loving them with a smile or a glare. By just loving them. And never stopping.”

            Garrett had nothing to say about that. He just sat there and nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

            “That’s all you have to do, Cardan,” Lili commanded imperiously, “Love her.”

Chapter Text

Two days. Jude and I have two days of relative peace, spending our days in the war room surrounded by arguing generals, a masked Lili, the whole living council, and the cannibal Grima Mog. Relative is an operative term. At the very least, Randalin has gotten himself under control. He’s only spurred my scorn once.

            We retreat from the war room both nights to sleep for a few hours before beginning again. Sleep is not an operative term. There’s resting but little sleeping. We’re both too on edge to properly face our respective nightmares. But Jude allows me to drag her into the bed and hold her to my chest until we can both breathe normally again.

            The one time I managed to fall asleep the first night, I was awoken only an hour later by Jude. It was not a rude awakening, though. Rather slow, gentle. My first real sensation was realizing her lips were on my throat, followed by a little nip that dragged me fully into reality. I woke her the second night, repaying the favor. She called it revenge; I only smiled.

            “Madoc wants the lords and ladies and rulers of the low Courts to see a show,” Grima Mog says, hours into a third day of this nonsense. “Let me fight him. I would be honored to be your champion.”

            Grima Mog has been making various thrusts at leadership amongst the generals, and I’m half tempted to simply replace Yorn with her. I’d have to talk to Jude about it first. But she seems not entirely with the conversation at the moment.

            She’s just staring out a window at the land and sea beyond. Waiting. We’re all waiting, waiting, waiting. Only a matter of time.

            Fala the fool is muttering something incoherent that I deign to ignore.

            “No,” I say, “let Madoc come and call for his parlay. Our knights will be in place. And inside the brugh, so will the archers. We will hear him out, and we will answer him. But we will entertain no games. If Madoc wishes to move against Elfhame, he must do so, and we must strike back with all the force we possess.”

            I feel Jude shift, feel her eyes on me. I almost don’t meet the look, knowing what I’ll find there. That empty well of sadness – that unending pit of fury. She wants to kill Madoc as much as she wants to save him.

            “If he thinks he can make you duel him, then he will make it very hard not to,” she says, her voice tinged in concern.

            “Ash him to surrender his weapons at the gate,” Liliver says, “And when he will not, I will shoot him from the shadows.”

            Tempting. “I would appear quite the coward. Not to even hear him out.”

            Jude’s expression falls to contemplation, then dread.

            “You would be alive, while your enemy lies dead. And we would have answered dishonor with dishonor,” Lili’s voice is nearly as concerned as Jude’s was. Perhaps more exasperated. I’m surprised, after three days of this argument, that she has not called me inanimate again. She certainly seems to want to.

            Randalin shifts nervously in his seat before speaking, “I hope you are not considering agreeing to a duel. Your father wouldn’t have entertained such an absurd thought for a moment.”

            “Of course not,” I say, “I am no swordsman—” Jude’s lips twitch halfway to a smile “—moreover, I don’t like giving my enemies what they want. Madoc has come for a duel, and if for no other reason than that, he should not have one.”

            “Once the parlay is over,” says Yorn, looking back at his plans, “we will meet on the field of battle. And we will show him the wages of being a traitor to Elfhame. We have a clear path to victory.”  

            A clear path, and yet I have a sense of great foreboding. Jude is staring at Fala the fool with such intense curiosity, I’m sure she’s not doing much better than I am. Lili’s hand is on my shoulder, her fingers squeezing gently.

            Van still isn’t awake. With Garrett there to watch over him, Lili’s been staying around Jude or I as much as possible. I fear she’s given up on him. I fear she may be right to. Which leaves three and a half of us: Jude, me, Lili, Garrett, maybe. How many of us will Madoc take out when we meet him again?

            A winged messenger bursts into the room, winded. “They’ve been spotted,” he says, “Madoc’s boats are coming.”

            Mere moments later, a seabird alights with a message for us. Based on the hand the messenger has placed on his sternum, panting for breath, I believe he was aware the bird was just behind him. I give the messenger a placating nod of approval and send him away. General Yorn and Liliver go to assemble their forces and prepare for Madoc’s arrival.

            Jude is standing next to me, but doesn’t seem sure where to move next. I clasp her hand in mine, tugging until her eyes meet mine. So lost. “It’s hard to work against someone you love,” I say. I remember the feeling well.

           And if I have to throw myself between Jude and Madoc to spare her from him or her from losing him, I will. I will save Elfhame; but I will save Jude first. Because, for once, I don’t think she’ll do it for herself.

It’s early – barely sunset – when Jude and I prepare to move to the throne room. Jude is regal from head to toe, but her hands are wringing together relentlessly. I keep catching the movement from the corner of my eye, barely hearing what Liliver is saying to me.

            “And, Cardan,” Lili’s voice sharpens, and her hand nudges my shoulder. I snap my attention to her. “Do give me a signal, please—” please. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say the word. “I’d rather kill Madoc and face those repercussions than risk losing either of you.” Her eyes flicker to Jude. “We’ve already lost enough.”

            Lili kisses my cheek before she moves away, reiterating to Jude how cautious we must be. “I’m glad I helped kidnap you,” Lili said to me once. I’m glad, too. Even if, perhaps, that makes me a little stupid.

            Then, everyone is gone from the room but Jude and I. She looks me in the eye, searchingly, thoughtfully. “Madoc says you will duel for love,” she says.

            I frown. A terrible thought skitters through my mind. “Whose?”

            Jude only shakes her head.

            By you, I am forever undone.

            “It’s you I love,” I say, and I’m shocked the words make it past my throat. But they ring endlessly in the echoes of the room. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, scabrous thing. But it is yours.”

            I walk away from the shock in her eyes. From her mouth, already open to say something. I’m not sure I can bear to hear it. If she confesses back at me, I will be nailed into my coffin – there’s no way I could survive another day of loving her so much. It will kill me; Madoc will kill me. “Madoc says you will duel for love.”

            And if Jude throws my words back at me as knives, tearing through me in a moment, Madoc won’t have to kill me.

            “You probably guessed as much,” I say, hand resting on the door, preparing to open it. “But just in case you didn’t.”

            Just in case we lose each other.

            I open the door, stepping out into the flood of the living council and retinues of guards. Fand is standing at the ready, solemn and furious. At every mention of Madoc’s name, she looks prepared to march right out to wherever Madoc is and spit on him. I’d almost let her, if I thought she’d survive it.

            Jude comes out after me, her skin flushed hotly, lips a thin, furious line. Her hands are twitching in and out like she means to storm right up and throttle me. Even Fand gives her a nervous look.

            “The traitor and his company have entered the brugh,” Randalin says, ever oblivious to Jude, “Waiting on your pleasure.”

            “How many?” I ask.

            “Twelve,” he says, “Madoc, Oriana, Grimsen, some of the Court of Teeth, and several of Madoc’s best generals.”

            A small number and a mix of formidable warriors with courtiers. I can make no meaning of it, except the obvious. He intends both diplomacy and war. He’s going to kill me nicely.

            As we walk through the halls, Jude glances over to me, and the fire has left her eyes. I give her a brief smile, but it feels like a wince. I would die for her. What a strange and unfortunate thing to be thinking while marching quite possibly to my death.

            And then we are ushered onto the dais, like players upon a stage about to begin a performance. We look out at the rulers of Seelie and Unseelie Courts alike, at the wild folk who are sworn to us, at the couriers and performers and servants. I note Oak, half-hidden high up on a rocky formation, watching. Taryn’s there with him.

            I glance at Jude, she’s watching them.

            Lord Roiben stands off to one side, his demeanor forbidding. At the far end of the room, I see the crowd begin to part to allow Madoc and his company to come forward.

            Jude is flexing her fingers again, back to looking prepared for a throttling.

            As Madoc strides across the brugh, his armor shines with fresh polish. But it is otherwise unremarkable—the armor of someone interested in the reliable rather than the new and impressive. The massive sword is slung over his shoulder, ready to be drawn in a single movement. And on Madoc’s head is that blood-caked cap.

            He’s not come to talk, then.

            Lady Nore and Lord Jarel enter over Madoc’s shoulder, dragging with them a small child on a leash that seems dug into her skin. I scowl at the sight and find Jude doing the same. The blacksmith, Grimsen catches my eye amongst the crew, his gaze locked on the blood crown, slightly askew atop my brow.

            “Lord Madoc,” I greet, “Traitor to the throne, murderer of my brother, what brings you here? Have you come to throw yourself on the mercy of the crown? Perhaps you hope the Queen of Elfhame will show leniency.”

            Madoc barks a harsh laugh. Jude twitches. “Daughter,” he says, “Every time I think you cannot rise any higher, you prove me wrong. And I, a fool to wonder if you were even still alive.”

            “I am alive. No thanks to you.” Her voice is a chill that races down my spine. I’m glad not to be on the receiving end of it this time.

            Madoc is hardly swayed by it.

            “This is your last chance to surrender,” Jude says, “Bend the knee, father.”

            He laughs again, shaking his head. “I have never surrendered in my life. In all the years I have battled, never have I given that to anyone. And I will not give it to you.”

            “Then you will be remembered as a traitor, and when they make songs about you, those songs will forget all your valiant deeds in favor of this despicable one.” Jude is spitting mad now.

            “Ah,” he says, “Jude, do you think I care about songs?”

            I pull to my full height, pushing my voice out into the room for attention. This argument will get no one anywhere. Besides one of us skewered on a sword. And with that massive one on Madoc’s back, I’d rather not find out who. “You have come to parlay, and you will not surrender, so speak. I cannot believe you’ve brought so many troops to sit idle,” I say.

            Madoc puts his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I have come to challenge you for your crown.”

            I laugh. It rings false. “This is the Blood Crown, forged for Mab, first of the Greenbriar line. You can’t wear it.”

            “Forged by Grimsen,” says Madoc, “Here at my side. He will find a way for me to make it mine once I win.” Once I win. Swaggering bastard. “So will you hear my challenge?”

            Jude is glancing between Madoc and I with increasing unease in her eyes.

            “You have come all this way,” I say, “And called so many Folk here to witness. How could I not?”

            “When Queen Mab died,” Madoc says, drawing the sword from his back. Jude and I share a glance. There are words shining in her eyes – frightened words. “The palace was built on her barrow. And while her remains are gone, her power lives on in the rocks and earth there. This sword was cooled in that earth, the hilt set with her stones. Grimsen says it can shake the firmament on the isles.”

            I note a flash of white hair from Liliver’s position. She’s flapping a hand towards me that seems to be screaming, Stop this right now. Let me stop this. “Please,” she said to me.

            “You were my guest until you drew your very fancy sword,” I drawl, noting the way half the eyes in the room narrow at me. “Put it down and be my guest again.”

            “Put it down?” says Madoc, “Very well.” He slams it into the floor of the brugh. A thunderous sound rocks the palace, a tremor rumbles through the ground beneath us. The Folk scream. Grimsen cackles.

            A crack forms on the floor, starting where the blade punctured the ground, the fisher widening as it moves toward the dais, splitting the stone. I grab onto Jude, yanking her towards me just before it passes us. It would have gone right between her feet. But she doesn’t seem to care, her hand is pressed to her mouth as she watches the throne in horror. The ancient throne of Elfhame cracks down the middle, its flowering branches turned into splinters, its seat obliterated. Sap leaks from the rupture like blood from a wound.

            “I have come here to give that blade to you,” Madoc says over the screams.

            I’m still clinging to Jude. My heart is about to pound out of my chest, but my blood is icy and thick. That throne – my throne. “Ruination of the throne.” That’s what they said I’d become. And they were right.

            “Why?” I demand.

            Madoc smiles. “If you should lose the contest I propose, it will be yours to wield against me. We will have a proper duel, but your sword will be the better by far. And if you win, it will be yours by right anyway, as will my surrender.”

            A feeling like intrigue lashes through me. Some part of me has separated off, leaving behind the common sense and reality of the situation. Again, as I felt with the alcohol burning in my stomach three nights again, I see the room as if it’s a story. Something to write down and puzzle over. Something to contemplate, but not something to fear.

            Jude is afraid. Her fingers are shaking, nails digging in sharply to my arm.

            “High King Cardan, son of Eldred, great-gradson of Mab.” Madoc has all the authority of a king when he speaks again. Posturing bastard. “You who were born under an ill-favored star, whose mother left you to eat the crumbs off the royal table as though you were one of its hounds, you who are given to luxury and ease, whose father despised you, whose wife keeps you under her control.” I damn near lose it at that barb thrown in Jude’s direction. “Can you inspire any loyalty in your people?”

            “Cardan—” Jude starts, then stops abruptly. Her eyes flicker between me and the crowd.

            “I am under no one’s control,” I say, “And your treason began with planning my father’s death, so you can hardly care about his good opinion. Go back to your desolate mountains. The Folk here are my sworn subjects, and your insults are dull.”

            Madoc smiles again. “Yes, but do your sworn subjects love you? My army is loyal, High King Cardan, because I’ve earned their loyalty. Have you earned one single thing that you have?” Jude. “I have fought with those who follow me and bled with them. I have given my life to Elfhame. Were I High King, I would give all those who followed me dominion over the world. Had I the Blood Crown on my head instead of this cap, I would bring victories undreamed. Let them choose between us, and whomsoever they choose, let him have the rule of Elfhame. Let him have the crown. If Elfhame loves you, I will yield. But how can anyone choose to be your subject if you never give them the opportunity to make any other choice? Let that be the manner of the contest between us. The hearts and minds of the court. If you are too much the coward to duel me with blades, let that be our duel.”

            I understand. Like a lightning flash – like Jude’s fear, white-out, obliterating everything in its path – I understand what he meant, that I will duel for love. He’s laid forth all the people who didn’t love me. My father, my mother, my family who he slaughtered while I lay drunk and half-alive. And he thinks it will make me fight him.

            “A king is not his crown,” I murmur to no one and everyone and only Jude.

            Madoc doesn’t realize that I never cared to fight him. I was only ever fighting for her. For someone else who was never given love. Jude who had to fight for Madoc’s approval, bleed for his love. Who lost her parents before she could remember them and never stopped clawing to get to the top.

            Madoc reads something off my expression and continues, “There is something else. There is the matter of Queen Orlagh.”

            “Whom your assassin shot,” Jude says. A murmur goes through the crowd.

            “She is your ally,” says Madoc, denying nothing. “Her daughter one of your boon companions in the palace.”

            I scowl.

            “If you will not risk the Blood Crown, the arrowhead will burrow into her heart, and she will die. It will be as if you slew her, High King of Elfhame. And all because you believed that your own people would deny you.” Madoc thinks he’s won.

            Jude thinks he’s won, too.

            But Madoc doesn’t realize – how could he, from his vantage point – that my fight ended three nights ago. I don’t need to defeat Madoc to garner that love I was denied. I already won. Before Madoc knew I would be his eventual villain, I’d already stolen in and taken the one thing he thought was his. I have Jude, and with her, I cannot possibly lose.

            I take the crown from my head.

            The crowd gasps.

            Jude whispers, “What are you doing?”

            He wants my crown? He can have it. I never wanted it, and perhaps I don’t need it. Do my people love me? I’d like to believe so, but this wager is hardly the blow Madoc intended to deal. His eyes, though alight with interest, seem to realize he’s miscalculated.

            This is too easy, he seems to be thinking. He should’ve just tried to kill me.

            “A king is not his throne nor his crown,” I say, “You are right that neither loyalty nor love should be compelled. But rule of Elfhame ought not to be won or lost in a wager, either, as though it were a week’s pay or a wineskin.” A relieved breath goes through the room. “I am High King, and I do not forfeit that title to you, not for a sword or a show or my pride. It is worth more than any of those things.” It is worth my home, my family, my love. Liliver, Van, Garrett, Jude.

            Who is Cardan? He’s High King of Elfhame, a lover, a killer, a keeper of the strange and prone to kidnapping. And he is worth more than a crown or a throne.

            The stars said I would be a failure? What do they know? They’re too damn far away to see anything. But Jude, she sees something in me – she saw something in me before she put the blood crown on my head in the first place. Maybe she saw a pawn; maybe she saw a chance. Maybe I am both things.

            I am worth my choices. I am worth who I care about and what I will do to protect them.

            “Besides which,” I continue into that deafening silence, “two rulers stand before you. And even had you cut me down, one would remain.”

            Jude gives me a secret smile, still laced with nerves.

            But I’m still not done. “You want the very thing you rail against—the Blood Crown. You want my subjects bound to you as assuredly as they are now bound to me. You want it so much that risking the Blood Crown is the price you put on Queen Orlagh’s head.” I smile, and it means to slice and kill. “When I was born, there was a prophecy that were I to rule, I would be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.”

            I point behind me at the throne, cracked in half. “Behold, half of that has come to pass.” I laugh. “I never considered it was meant to be interpreted literally. And I never considered I would desire its fulfillment.”

            The Blood Crown, never meant for me. No, it was meant for my brothers. The ones who beat me, abandoned me. Who would have ravaged Elfhame for all it was worth. And no one would have stood against them because the Crown calls it their right.

            What good is a magic crown with no common sense? Just like the stars: short-sighted.

            Then again, perhaps it was meant for me. “Queen Mab created this crown to keep her descendants in power,” I say, “But vows should never be to a crown. They should be to a ruler. And they should be of your own free will. I am you king, and beside me stands my queen. But it is your choice whether or not to follow us. Your will shall be your own.”

            As mine never was.

            Elfhame is worth more than my pride, more than my love. Because it gave me my pride and it gave me my love. If my people wish to choose another, so be it. I will lose everything, if that is what’s required of me. But it will be my choice. On my terms.

            With my bare hands, I crack the Blood Crown in half. I’m briefly shocked by the brittleness of the metal. Like it was meant to be broken.

            Jude makes a sound both gasp and whimper. I want to apologize to her, comfort her. But I cannot turn from my people, not as the ripple of shock runs through their faces. Shock, then fear, then appreciation.

            “Folk of Elfhame, will you accept me as your High King?” I call out to them.

            And they don’t so much as hesitate. Heads bow all across the room in an exultant wave, swearing fealty to me. There’s thunder in my chest, ringing in my ears. They chose me. They didn’t even give me a chance to doubt, to fear that I’d been wrong. They choose me.

Madoc’s mouth is hanging open, and I’ve never seen him so put out, so furious. He might just kill me after all.

            Grimsen is shaking his head furiously. “Nonononono!” he cries, “My work! My beautiful work! It was supposed to last forever!”

            Water drips onto my face, thick and sticky and smelling of blood. I glance up to the sky for the source, but realize it came from my eye. It’s coming from my eye in thick drizzles now. I touch the liquid and my fingers come away black.

            Pain sizzles down my spine, crackling through my head. I don’t even get the chance to make a sound as pressure fills my chest, breaking me from the inside out. My mouth can’t form words around the puncturing, tearing agony. I don’t think I have legs anymore.

            My ribs, they’re gone now, too. I’m being cocooned, I’m being smothered, even as I detonate. The sensation rocks through me, stealing away and leaving with my mind. I don’t—I can’t—I reach out but I am dragged beneath a wave of black, unending water. Pain, fear, fury, they’re all the same thing and they’re all out of reach.

            I think I can see, I think I can feel. I’m not sure.

            Jude, I plead, I scream through whatever is left of me, Jude, help me.

            My gaze finds Grimsen, but he looks all wrong. He’s not in color. He’s quite blurry, in fact, and I briefly recognize that I shouldn’t recognize him with this limited vision. But I know its him. He did this to me. He did this to me.

            There’s heat around me and it feels like fire branding my skin. The lights are too bright and the blacks of the room are too deep. Something’s coming for me. Danger, my senses ring, danger. But fury is my driving force.

            He did this to me.

            The taste of blood would make me vomit, I think, if I knew anything at all. But I hardly know anything.

            Jude. A word I don’t know the meaning of. A face I don’t recognize. The only word I know, the only face I remember. Jude.

            Such noise. It’s so loud, it fills my head to bursting, and I can’t get away from it. Not until a final, deathly crack, followed by silence. Darkness. I am shut in, left alone at last. I wrap myself into a circle and close my eyes. There’s something horribly wrong about my body, but I can’t place it. All I know is the comforting stillness, the quiet darkness. And I rest.

            I think I deserve to rest. I think I won. But I don’t remember whom I was fighting.

            When my eyes open again, it is only because of the pain in my chest. Do I have a chest anymore? All I know is the pain. There’s something inside of me that wants out. It’s tearing claws through my insides, beating at my skull. It wants out. Let me out.

            The floor is littered with sharp objects, piercing through my skin if I get too close. I try to use them, I try to slice myself open and let it out so it will stop crying. But I can’t get it out. I can’t get out.

            Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude. Jude.

            What is Jude?

            “Cardan?” A voice rings through the room. It’s just soft enough to rouse me, not loud enough to hurt me. It knows to be gentle.

            I lift my head, realizing I’d fallen asleep again. I think I dreamed of her. Jude. Or perhaps that is Jude, standing in the doorway, looking at me. I want to run my fingers through the knots in her hair, but I don’t have fingers anymore. I have teeth. I doubt she’d like those so close to her head.

            I watch her as she comes closer, and she watches me.

            I know her. I know her. I know her.

            Jude leans down, placing her hands on the ground, apparently ignoring me now, as she murmurs into the floor. She pleads with the earth, but it gives her nothing. Help me, Jude. I think she’s trying.

            The thing inside me is crying again. Tears feel slick in my stomach, making me nauseous. I rest my head again, just to still the throbbing dizziness that’s sweeping through me.

            My eyes open again to find her closer. Much closer. Jude is next to me now, and she’s not afraid. Or if she is, I can’t taste it off the air. Her gaze is distant when she looks at me. Perhaps her eyes aren’t working properly either.

            “Remember what I said to you in the garden?” she asks. And I realize, abruptly, I understand her. I know what she’s saying to me. “I told you I’d pop your head right off if you became a threat to Elfhame.” She laughs derisively. “Well, fuck you.”

            The thing inside of me laughs. I think it likes her. Jude.

            She says, “I won’t do it. I won’t kill you, Cardan, I won’t. I can’t.” Her voice breaks. “I’m a human, so you can’t hold me to my promises. You’re out of luck there, buddy. You should’ve been more cautious. You should’ve known. Damn you, you should’ve known I’d never do it.”

             I reach out to her, pulling closer, but I don’t think she notices. She just stays there as silence prevails and tears stream down her face. Where they strike the ground, the earth changes, flaring with heat and light. She doesn’t see it. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

            The door creaks open and light pierces my eyes. I rear back from it, glaring down the new person in the room. White hair. I think I should know the white hair.

            The white hair moves closer, and I move threateningly closer to it. It hesitates. It’s come here for Jude, and I won’t let it take her. The thing inside of me likes Jude, and I won’t let her go.

            But she’s standing and she’s walking away from me without a backwards glance. She’s leaving me. Again. The thing inside me weeps and screams and beats against my skin, pushing at me from the inside with such force I swear I’ll pop. I try to escape the pain, I try to eat, I try to rest. I keep ending up back in that room, I keep looking, but I find nothing.

            The sun is too bright, and the night is too cold. I hide in the dirt, and I duck into the water.

            Still the thing inside me is never satisfied. Jude, it cries, Jude, help me.

            There’s a rumble of sound coming towards me, where I’m resting in open field, and I can’t ascertain what it means. It seems someone has brought rather a large meal for me, if I’m seeing things properly. I don’t think I’ve seen things properly in days. But the movement, it halts rather far from me. Fearful of me.

            The thing inside me shouts and I turn to see her. Jude. She’s here again.

            “Cardan,” she says, so quiet. I don’t know Cardan anymore. It’s meaning has slipped. “It’s Jude. Jude. You like me, remember? You trust me?”

            I can understand her again. I still don’t know how, but I know her. Jude. My Jude. Urged by the thing inside me, screaming like it never has before, I move closer to her, closer. Closer, it pleads inside me. I want to bring her into focus, I want to see her. One last time.

            Jude, my love, all those stars, I could never read them. Oh, they tried to teach me, but I never saw what I was meant to. The future, the past, meaning, possibility. All I saw was you. But you knew them, you could read them.

            When I’m gone, I’ll go up there and write these words for you. I hope you see them, if only so I can say one more time, I love you.

            I love you, Jude.

            Save me.

            Jude places a hand on me, and I can feel her heart beating. It’s so steady despite the tears streaming down her face. “I do love you,” she whispers, echoing the thing inside me, “I will always love you.”

            The thing inside me goes quiet, the pain stops, I’m not exploding anymore. I’m only still. I feel no bite of pain as the blade slices through me. I don’t feel a thing.

Light, unbearable light. Cold winds sweeping across my bare skin, drying the blood onto me. I manage to squeeze a hand closed and nearly weep with joy as I realize I have a hand again. And legs and a chest, and I can breathe, I can move, I can think. A fog lifts from my mind, and I manage to stagger to my feet, reaching towards that light. Reaching out—

            Sound reaches my ears, clanging of steel and shouts and cries. I don’t recognize it all at first. But I see Grima Mog battling not far away, and it clicks. Madoc’s war.

            I step out onto the battlefield and the descending quiet is deafening. My toes squeeze down into grass that instantly blooms higher, sharper. I take another step and fissures open up around me. Power is spilling out of me in an unending torrent, taking with it the rage of the serpent, the pain of the transformation, the fear, the helplessness.

            “The curse is broken,” I say, and my voice booms. The rest of the battling goes still. “The king is returned.”

            Movement catches my eye, and I nearly lurch backwards, but no. It’s Jude. She’s running to me, her sword abandoned on the ground, her skin a sickly pallor. Between one breath and the next, she’s wrapped her arms around my neck. Heedless of the blood, of the cracks my footsteps are leaving in my wake. She only buries her nose against me and cries into my chest.

            I hold her. I hold her like I just died because I think I did. I hold her like she’s the only solid thing in a world of impossible dreams. My fingers are digging into her skin, and I have half a mind to apologize, but she’s strangling me, so I doubt she minds.

            Still, she smells like burnished metal and flowers. Jude.

            The terror hits me then, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’ve been screaming and fighting and crying to get out for days. I died.

            Jude, Jude, jude. She’s holding me to the ground, keeping me here as my mind spins and spins. The fear leaks from my head into my body, and I register that I’ve begun shaking. I doubt I’ll ever stop shaking.

              Jude only clings to me harder, like she knows, and she’s telling me I won’t let go.

            I let go, stepping around her just before a retinue of soldiers can reach us. I’m not sure if I’m shielding her or me, but there’s a pulsing fear in my chest – I can’t be vulnerable now. I can’t show fear here.

            A knight offers me his cloak and I wave him off regally. “I haven’t worn anything in days,” I drawl, my throat threatening to give out on me. Jude is staring at me sharply. “I don’t see why I ought to start now.”

            “Modesty?” Jude plays along, and I want to drag her back into my arms. I love her.

            “Every part of me is a delight.”

            One of the knights drops a daring glance down my body. I choose to ignore that as Grima Mog is now approaching. And, I think, for the first time, I’m not afraid of her. Even though there’s blood and muck smeared all over her skin, her face, her lips. She bares her teeth in a smile, and I bury a grimace deep down.

            “Your Majesty,” she says, addressing Jude rather than me, “Do I have leave to chain your father?”

            Jude opens her mouth and nothing comes out. Only a dead-eyed stare locked on the middle distance where something gold is glimmering in the grass.

            “Yes, chain him,” I say. If Jude wishes to release him, she can do it later. For now, I just want her off this battlefield. I want both of us off this battlefield.

            Preferably before I catch another glimpse of my own severed head.

            Jude has to practically heave me up into the carriage when it arrives, climbing in first then dragging me by the wrists. Her fingers briefly slip in the slick blood. But she gets me settled in across from her and throws a blanket over me. I don’t argue with her. My skin is growing colder by the minute and a terrified voice in my head is telling me I’m dead. I’m dead and my body is getting cold because my heart is no longer beating.

            I have to look out the window of the carriage to ask, “How long have I—”

            And Jude doesn’t make me finish. “Not even three days,” she says, “Barely any time at all.” She looks out the window, too, and I suppose that’s the end of the conversation for now.

            There can be more later. When I’m not shaking; and she’s not shaking. And perhaps when we’re not both covered in my blood. Better yet, we can wait for true privacy, where I can show her just how glad I am to be back.

            Jude doesn’t speak again the entire time we’re in the carriage. She doesn’t even breathe with enough force to make sound. I glance at her chest once or twice to make sure she’s breathing at all. The only signal she’s still with me in there comes halfway through the ride when her hand reaches the short distance between us, and her fingers bury into my hair.

            I rest my head against the window and close my eyes, relaxing into the feeling of her fingers idly separating out my curls before the blood can dry them into a mess. She’s gentle, so achingly gentle, like I’ve never felt before.

            We arrive at the palace in record time. The driver is quite interested in getting rid of the naked, bloodied king as fast as possible. I don’t blame him.

            I shrug off the blanket in favor for a large, velvet cloak handed to me by a palace servant. It’s warm and heavy against my skin. The initial comfort is buried under that voice in my head – again – bleating in panic. I’m being smothered.

            Jude steps up next to me and bumps right into my shoulder. I’ve watched Jude for too long to think such a graceless misstep could be accidental. Especially not when she’s giving me a soft smile, eyes perhaps distant, but locked with mine. She bumps me again, and it convinces my feet to move.

            She follows behind me – close behind me. Like she’s worried I’ll run off and shed my skin.

            Randalin is the first of the living council to show his face. Perhaps the only one whose curiosity outweighs his fear. Or perhaps his fear is that I died and now he has to take orders from Jude for the rest of his miserable life. Based on the sheer relief that splays across his features, I can bet it’s a bit of both.

            His eyes track the blood in my hair and on my face and he grimaces. “You will want to bathe perhaps,” he says.

            I can already feel how comforting hot water will be, to my skin, to my mind. To be clean and clothed and safe again sounds a dream. But another sensation is still stirring through me. Fingers in my hair, a bump to my shoulder.

            There’s something I have to do first. “I want to see the throne,” I say.

            Jude doesn’t argue, but she considers it. Her brows are drawn together tightly by the time we reach the brugh. Overturned tables litter the room, the smell of rotting fruit pervasive. The crack Madoc created has widened since I saw it last. Splitting straight up the dais and through the center of the throne. The flowers are all wilted. The place looks dead.

            But I can feel the life still pulsing through the roots and vines. I reach for it, knees wobbling with relief when my magic reaches up to meet me. Rocks and stones bubble and shift until the crack in the floor has bee filled. It’s still visible, just barely, like a vein beneath skin. Mended but not forgotten.

            Stretching my command out to the throne, I push the throne apart down the middle where it was split. I push until they’re far enough that briars can coat them, shape them, and create not one, but two thrones. One for me, one for Jude.

            I considered creating such a thing when I was still facing off with Madoc. The thought had occurred like a shooting star in my mind. One throne split into two. Two people merged into one.

            “Do you like it?” I ask Jude, not braving a look at her face yet.

            Her voice chokes on only one word, “Impressive.” She sounds like she wants to laugh.

            And I turn to her, taking in the eyes blown wide, the lips pressed together against a smile that wants so desperately to form, it’s creating tears in her eyes. They don’t fall, but they shimmer. And Jude lets me see them.

            With that, I allow Randalin to escort us back to our rooms. Jude follows half a step behind me the whole way, not speeding up to stay by my side even when I slow down for her. Her eyes have gone distant. Frankly, I’ve gone distant as well. I hardly notice the Folk waiting for us in our rooms. The only two things I notice are the water prepared for me and that Jude has disappeared.

            I scrape away the blood so thoroughly my skin remains a shade of red when I’m done. I still don’t feel clean. Perhaps Jude was right to fear I’d shed my skin. I want out of it. I want to scrub out my brain to rid it of the memories.

            Putting on clothes takes a moment, as I debate which fabrics will hurt my raw skin. And which will be heavy enough to send me back into a panic. I avoid those.

            Whether or not I look the part of a returned king doesn’t matter. I allow the sweep of Folk celebrating to drag me into the brugh. They’re dining on the remains of the serpent. They’re eating me. Poetic justice. I look around for Jude. When I don’t see her, I look again. I had hoped she would be here. If she were, she would find humor in this – and I could find humor in her.

            But she’s not here. So I take my seat at the head of the table and entertain whoever requires my attention. My mind isn’t in the distraction and my heart isn’t in the humor, but no one seems to mind. As long as I’m not trying to eat them anymore.

            Van enters the room – Van, upright, alive, grinning at Lili like she’s the sun. I jerk upright so suddenly my knee strikes the table. A sting of pain I hardly notice as I battle for composure, standing slowly and striding across the room. I make it to them without bursting out into a run – just barely. But the moment Van turns that smile onto me, I think I might die.

            “You’re alive,” I say.

            His smile tips a bit sideways. “So are you.”

            “How—”

            “Jude,” he says, “You?”

            “Jude.”

            Lili sidles up next to me, bumping me with her shoulder – Jude must’ve learned that from her – and kissing me on the cheek. “We should be paying her more,” she says.

            Lili’s never been so radiant. So damn happy. Her whole face screaming We did it, We won, We survived. It washes across me, cleaning off the blood the water couldn’t get off of me. We triumphed. I survived. Even Van survived.

           Holy shit, we did it.

           I manage to wrap an arm around Lili before she realizes what I’m doing, and grab Van before he can pull a knife on me. I hug them both, perhaps squishing them against each other and myself. But I don’t care. Lili makes a muffled sound of discontent, and an elbow strikes me in the ribs.

            Releasing them, I laugh breathlessly at the scowl Van is wearing. “Glad to have you back,” he says, and it sounds a bit like a threat.

            I know I have to return to my table before someone seeks me out and finds Van and Lili. They still have to remain in the shadows. I should do something about that. But for now, I step away from them with a final smile.

            Lili catches my eye again not long after I reach my seat. She winks.

            “The High Queen of Elfhame, Jude Duarte,” a page announces, her name lashing through the room.

            By the time I see her, she’s already staring back, eyes locking on to mine even from the opposite end of the room – even with that mortal sight. I doubt she can see it, but I smile at her. Confidently sweeping across the floor, Jude takes the seat at the opposite head of the table. So far away.

            She hesitates when she notices the serpent meat, and I raise my voice to say, “I always supposed I’d be delicious.” On either side of me, laughter titters. Jude snorts. But she doesn’t touch the meat, nor does she glance at it again.

            I stand – without striking my knee this time – and wait for a hush to descend on the hall. “Tomorrow we must deal with all that has befallen us,” I announce, “But tonight let us remember our triumph, our trickery, and our delight in one another.”

            Celebrating bursts through the room like a thunderclap. Dancing and drinking and eating and shouting. Lili and Van are still hiding in the shadows, now throwing grapes back and forth to each other. Van never misses Lili’s mouth. She misses only once, and I’m fairly sure it’s intentional. Jude notices me laughing and glances to them. Her smile softens at the sight of Van and Lili, so happy. So happy.

            I drink enough to feel the buzz in my head, pleasant and warm. But not enough to lose the iron grip I’m keeping on my mind. If I lose control again, I fear the serpent will find me. Somehow.

            At the sight of Randalin approaching, I wish I had, in fact, drunk myself stupid. I scowl at him, but it hardly slows him down.

            “Your pardon,” he says.

            “Councilor,” I greet, leaning away from the fervor in his eyes. I refuse to let him ruin my good mood. “Were you hoping for one of these little honey cakes? I could have passed them down the table.”

            “There’s the matter of the prisoners—Madoc, his army, what remains of the Court of Teeth,” Randalin says, entirely heedless of the murder on my face, “And many other matters we were hoping to take up with you.”

            “Tomorrow.” When Randalin looks about to argue, I continue, “Or the next day. Or perhaps next week.”

            He balks, and I leave it at that.

            Taking one last drink, for courage, I stand and move around the councilor, aiming straight for where Jude is sitting. She watches me the entire time. Waiting.

            I extend a hand to her. “Will you dance?”

            “You may remember than I am not particularly accomplished at it,” she says, but she rises and takes my hand. She allows me to guide her toward the dancers, sweep her into the movement.

            She allows us to dance in silence for thirty seconds – barely. Her eyes remain locked on my face the entire time as color rises in her cheeks and thoughts races across her expression so plainly, I can read every single one.

            “I don’t know what to apologize for first,” she says, quietly, piercing the silence quickly, like she fears I’ll shut her down. “Cutting off your head or hesitating so long to do it. I didn’t want to lose what little there was left of you. And I can’t quite think past how wonderous it is that you’re alive.”

            I take in those words slowly. She’s sorry for cutting off my head – I suppose I should feel something about that, the beheading. I don’t. She didn’t want to lose me. That one sticks and rattles around in my mind. She’s happy, too. Am I surprised? I honestly can’t tell.

            “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words,” I say. “You don’t want me dead.”

            “If you joke about this, I am going to—”

            “Kill me?”

            Jude narrows her eyes at me, all pursed lips and frowns. It’s adorable. God, I love her so much. I can’t stand dancing anymore – it’s not enough – so I take her hand in mine again and drag her out of the music. Intrigue lights in her eyes and settles into something unreadable when I lead her into the secret chamber behind the dais. There are memories here.

            They flash through Jude’s expression at the same time they touch mine.

            “I only know how to be cruel or to laugh when I am discomposed,” I say. The truth hits Jude before it quite strikes me that I just told her something I hadn’t intended to divulge.

            I sit on the couch, but Jude stays standing, letting go of me. She looks down at me, lashes shielding her eyes from view. I try to gauge what she’s thinking about, but it’s all blank. A nervous spike drives through my mind.

            I’m bracing for a blow to my pride when Jude opens her mouth and says, so quickly I can hardly understand her, “I love you.”

            My heart stammers painfully in my chest. The world goes utterly still. I have a sense that the air itself is waiting to see what I’ll say. Or maybe that’s just Jude – she looks half a second from exploding. I keep my hands planted against my legs so I can’t touch the ache in my chest. I don’t want her to see it.

            “You need not say it out of pity,” I say, quietly, because I’ve waited so long. It’s gotten so silent it seems a crime to break it now. But I do, because I need to finish, “Or because I was under a curse. I have asked you to lie to me in the past, in this very room, but I would beg you not to lie now.” Not about this. I’d rather wait centuries to hear her say those words, than hear them as lies now. “I have not made myself easy to love.”

            Jude’s shoulders drop from where she was holding them, defensively. She takes a single step towards me, our knees touching.

            “I first started liking you when we went to talk to the rulers of the low Courts,” she says, “You were funny, which was weird. And when we went to Hollow Hall, you were clever. I kept remembering how you’d been the one to get us out of the brugh after Dain’s coronation, right before I put that knife to your throat.” Good times. “After I tricked you into being High King, I thought once you hated me, I could go back to hating you.”

            I almost stop her there. I almost tell her the truth – I didn’t hate you. I was desperate for you.

            “But I didn’t,” she says with such fervency in her eyes, I don’t dare interrupt. “And I felt so stupid. I thought I would get my heart broken. I thought it was a weakness that you would use against me.” I wince. “But then you saved me from the Undersea when it would have been much more convenient to just leave me to rot.” Romantic. “After that, I started to hope my feelings were returned. But then there was the exile—” she sucks in a breath that sounds like a saw blade.

            Her eyes close before she says, “I hid a lot, I guess. I thought if I didn’t, if I let myself love you, I would burn up like a match. Like the whole matchbook.”

           “But now you’ve explained it,” I say. “And you do love me.”

            “I love you.”

            I can’t even try to stop the smile spreading on my face. My heart is pounding a war drum in my chest, but it’s just as I said to her, “This is not a battle. You’ve already won.”

            “Because I am clever and funny,” I tease. Jude tries to glower and fails. She’s smiling, too. “You didn’t mention my handsomeness.”

            “Or your deliciousness,” she throws back. “Although those are both good qualities.”

            I reach for her, and she lets me. My hand curves on her hip, pulling her to me, pulling her atop me onto the couch. Her weight pressed against me is shattering. So different from the clothing that made me feel smothered – this feels like safety. Like a shield. Her hair brushes my neck and I shiver.

            “What was it like?” she asks, “Being a serpent?”

            I hesitate, another shiver threatening me. “It was like being trapped in the dark. I was alone, and my instinct was to lash out. I was perhaps not entirely an animal, but neither was I myself. I could not reason. There were only feelings—hatred and terror and the desire to destroy.”

            Jude’s brows have pushed low, sorrow, sympathy. I stop her before she can say anything.

            “And you,” I admit. I tear out the truth and lay it bare for her. “I knew little else, but I always knew you.”

True to my word, I wait a week before dealing with the prisoners. In part, I wait so long to pair up the handing out of judgements with Jude’s coronation. Two birds, one stone. In another part, I want to make Randalin simmer a while longer. And in biggest part, I want time with Jude.

            We spend the week damn near inseparable from each other. Our time in the bedroom is predominantly taken up by actual sleeping, too tired from our respective ordeals to do much else. I don’t push for anything. As long as she’s in my arms, I have nothing to complain about.

            This is almost better. An intimacy I never imagined she’d reserve for me. She has a tendency to nuzzle up against me when she’s half asleep and it is the cutest damn thing — I think it might kill me.

            When Jude’s coronation – and mine, in a way – rolls around, after a week, Randalin is vibrating with the need to get this over with. He has been nipping at my heels like a small dog the entire morning, and I would almost deign to skip the ceremony if I didn’t think Jude would kill me.

            She’s beaming, the whole time. Oak puts the crowns on our heads, with the help of Taryn, holding him up in the air. He manages to plop mine on at the exact cant that I usually wear it at. I think I may be rubbing off on him. Jude occasionally gets this look of… Oh, boy, in her eyes when she looks at Oak and I together. Like she’s worried I’ll try to give him wine.

            I don’t give him wine. I do teach him how to pull minor pranks on Taryn and Jude.

            Baphen performs the ritual words for my coronation – re-coronation. A chorus of voices agree to follow my rule. When Oak crowns Jude and the chorus goes up again, she turns a radiant smile to me. It’s so unrestrained, it squeezes her eyes all squinty. I’d kill to make her smile like that again.

            I turn back to the crowd to announce the next scheduled event – though, I can hardly tear my eyes from Jude. “Now we have boons to distribute and betrayals to reward. First the boons.”

            I signal toward a servant, who brings forth Madoc’s sword, the one that split my throne. Taryn and Oak disappear towards the back of the dais and Jude takes a short step to the side, giving me deference. We already decided to share the work today. Jude will deal with the criminals. I look forward to it.

            “To Grima Mog,” I announce, “Our Grand General. You shall have Grimsen’s final work and wear it for so long as you should remain in our service.”

            She receives it with a bow and a clasped hand to her heart.

            I continue, gesturing with a hand to Taryn – who has slipped from the back of the dais seamlessly into the crowd. She steps forwards. “Taryn Duarte, our tribunal was never formally concluded. But consider it concluded now, in your favor. The Court of Elfhame has no quarrel with you. We grant all of Locke’s estates and land to you and your child.”

            There are murmurs at that. Taryn offers a low curtsy before disappearing back into the crowd.

            “Last,” I say, “We would like our three friends from the Court of Shadows to step forward.”

            Garrett, Lili, and Van walk onto the carpet of white flowers. They are shrouded in cloaks that cover them from head to toe, even covering their faces with thin black netting. I beckon to the pages, who come forward, carrying pillows. On each is a silver mask, denoting nothing of gender, just a gently blank metal face. I made sure they each had an impish curve of the mouth.

            To fit my friends. This was one other reason I waited so long. I had to ensure there was a gift for them. Something worth their services.

            “You who dwell in shadows, I wish for you to stand with us sometimes in the light,” I say, “To each, I give a mask. When you wear it, no one will be able to recall your height or the timbre of your voice. And in that mask, let no one in Elfhame turn you away. Every hearth will be open to you, including mine.”

            They bow and lift the masks to their faces. With the masks on, a distortion shrouds them. Better than any cloaks.

            “You are kind, my king,” one of them says. I struggle to determine which of them it is. Van, I think. My mind fights even to consider them when they’re wearing those masks.

            But I know them. I know they’re smiling. And when one of them takes another’s gloved hand, I know which are Lili and Van. Garrett is, rather concerningly, glancing off towards Taryn. I may remind him what happened to her last love interest.

            Jude steps forward, her arm brushing mine. She gives me a short look that I know means, “My turn.” I move back, gladly taking a spectator role. I can feel Randalin giving the back of my neck a harsh look.

            “We will see the petitioners now,” Jude says, her voice thundering through the room. She has certainly settled into the role of High Queen. She has more authority in that sound than even I can carry most days.

            Two knights come forward and kneel. One speaks first. “I have been tasked to plead for all those whose story is as mine. Once we were part of the army of Elfhame, but we knowingly went with General Madoc to the North when our vows were lifted. We betrayed the High King and—” he stumbles over the words. “We sought to end his reign. We were wrong. We wish to atone and to prove we can and will be loyal from this day forward.”

            Then the second speaks. “I have been tasked to plead for all those whose story is as mine. Once we were part of the army of Elfhame and we knowingly went with General Madoc to the North when our vows were lifted. We betrayed the Hight King—” no stumble “—and sought to end his reign. We have no wish to atone. We followed our commander faithfully, and though we will be punished, still we would not have chosen otherwise.”

            Jude takes a long moment to consider, staring out at her people – our people. “It is the parlance of the High court that the soldiers are called falcons,” she says.

            The silence is deafening.

            “For those who do not with to atone, become falcons in earnest,” Jude says, “Fly through the skies and hunt to your heart’s content. But you will not have your own true form back until such time as you hurt no living thing for the space of a full year and a day.”

            The knight looks half a second from trying to kill us. Again. “But how will we eat if we can hurt nothing?” he asks.

            “The kindness of others will have to sustain you,” she says. “To those who would atone, we will accept your vow of loyalty and love. You will be once again part of the High Court. But you will be marked by your betrayal. Let your hands always be red, as though stained with the blood you hoped to shed.”

            Jude glances back at me, and it’s the first sign of her nerves I’ve seen yet. I give her an encouraging smile. She smiles back.

            The next petitioner is Lady Nore from the Court of Teeth. Queen Suren trails behind her. Suren’s crown is still sewn to her head, and while no leash binds her, the hole in her wrist is still there, the skin around it still raw.

            Jude calls for a servant to come forward with the bridle, still unused.

            “We would have followed you,” says Lady Nore, going down on one knee. “We made you an offer, and it was you who rejected it. Let us return to the North. Have we not been punished enough?”

            Jude’s expression goes cold. “Lord Jarel,” she says tightly, “tried to trick me into bondage. Did you know of it?”

            I know of it. Jude told me, and I deeply considered reacting badly to the news. Jude was surprisingly blithesome about the whole thing.

            Lady Nore is silent. She also knows.

            “And you?” Jude asks Suren.

            The girl gives a frightening, savage little laugh. “I know all the secrets they think they hide away.” Her voice is thin and rough from disuse. I find myself tipping back on my heels away from her.

            Oak is none so nervous. He tugs on Jude’s sleeve, waiting for her to lean down before whispering to her.

            When Jude pulls herself to her full height again, she says, “My brother has asked for leniency. Queen Suren, will you swear your loyalty to the crown?”

            Suren glances at Lady Nore as if looking for permission. Lady Nore nods.

            “I am yours, High Queen,” the girl says. Her gaze shifts to me. I don’t like her eyes on me. “And High King.”

            Jude turns to Lady Nore. “I would like to hear you make a vow of loyalty to your queen.”

            Lady Nore looks startled. “Of course I give you my fealty—”

            Jude shakes her head. “No, I want you to give it to her. Your queen. The Queen of the Court of Teeth.”

            “Suren?” Nore’s eyes dart around as though looking for an escape. For the first time since coming before us, she looks afraid. I’m not sure I disagree.

            “Yes,” Jude says, “Swear to her. She is your queen, is she not? You can either make your vow or you can wear the golden bridle yourself.”

            Nore is gritting her teeth. She mutters, just barely uttering the words. Queen Suren’s expression turns strange, remote.

            “Good,” Jude says, “The High Court will keep the bridle and hope it never needs to be used. Queen Suren, because my brother interceded for you, I send you on your way with no punishment but this—the Court of Teeth will be no more.”

            Lady Nore gasps. I once again notice Lili, knowing it’s her by the way she’s bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. She suffered at Lady Nore’s hands once. A fitting end for their rivalry. Nore, deposed; Lili, a part of the High Court.

            Jude isn’t finished yet. “Your lands belong to the High Court, your titles are abolished, and your strongholds will be seized. And should you, Nore, attempt to defy this command, remember that it will be Suren, to whom you swore, that punishes you in whatever way she sees fit—” Lili looks a second from cheering at that “—Now go forth and be grateful for Oak’s intercession.”

            Suren, no longer a queen, smiles in a way that’s not friendly at all, and I notice – at the same moment Jude does – that her teeth have been filed into small points. Their tips are stained a disturbing red. Jude and I share a glance. I’m fairly sure it means, Uh oh. But Jude composes herself so quickly, I may have imagined it.

            I match her posture. Pulling myself tall and intimidating because the final penitent brought forth is Madoc. His wrists and ankles are bound in a heavy metal that, from the pain in his face, must have iron in it.

            Madoc does not kneel. Nor does he beg. He only looks from one of us to the other, and then his gaze moves to Oak and Oriana.

            Jude takes a breath like she means to speak, but no sound comes out of her. I want to reach out to her, but I can’t show that weakness, not right now. Not for Jude – she’d never forgive me for it.

            So I take the barest step forward, just enough to brush against Jude’s shoulder. And I address Madoc sharply, “Have you nothing to say? You had so much before.”

            Jude exhales very slowly.

            Madoc tilts his head toward Jude, apparently ignoring me. “I surrendered on the battlefield,” he says, “What more is there? The war is over, and I have lost.”

            “Would you go to your execution so stoically?” Jude asks, her voice glacial. Oriana gasps.

            But Madoc is only grim, resigned. “I raised you to be uncompromising. I ask only for a good death. Quick, out of the love that we had for each other. And know that I bear you no grudge.”

            Jude inhales sharply. I’m still standing too close to her, but she seems ill-inclined to push me away. If any of the crowd were to stand this close, they would notice the nausea turning her scowl into a grimace. Vomiting on Madoc’s face would be a fairly fitting punishment, I suppose.

            “I told you once that I am what you made me, but I am not only that,” she begins, and her voice isn’t as authoritative as it was a moment before, nor is it frigid. She sounds sad. It makes me hate Madoc all the more, but I tip away from Jude, letting her hold herself up, push herself through. As she’s always done. “You raised me to be uncompromising, yet I learned mercy. And I will give you something like mercy if you can show me that you deserve it.”

            Madoc’s gaze snaps up.

            Randalin has been shuffling his feet back there for a while. I thought I heard him clear his throat a moment ago. But he dares to speak now, “Sire, surely you have something say about all—”

            “Silence,” I snap. The look I give Randalin spells murder. The look I give Jude is gentle. “Jude was just getting to the interesting bit.”

            Jude doesn’t glance at me, but I see her eyebrow do a short kick. “First,” she says to Madoc, “You will swear to forget the name that you know. You will put it from your mind, and it will never again fall from your lips or fingers.”

            “Would you like to hear it first?” he asks, smiling faintly.

            I can now pick out Garrett in the crowd, despite the mask, because his shoulders go tight. Next to him, another of the Shadows reach out and elbow him. A short, comforting nudge.

            “I would not,” Jude says. “Second, you must give us your vow of loyalty and obedience. And third, you must do both of those things without hearing the sentence for your crimes, which I will nonetheless bestow on you.”

            Madoc’s body language flickers so fast I can’t read it. For a moment, it’s like his mind is suspended all around us, but the lights have gone out. I don’t think even he knows what he’s feeling. He glances towards Oriana and Oak, just once, so fast I almost miss it.

            Then his shoulders set, and he says, “I want mercy. Or, as you said, something like it.”

            “I sentence you to live out the rest of your days in the mortal world and to never put your hand on a weapon again,” Jude announces. Her tone is unreadable now, as unreadable as Madoc. I wonder if she learned it from him.

            “Yes, my queen,” Madoc says, bowing his head.

            As he’s led away, when he’s just barely too far away to hear, Jude whispers, “Goodbye, Father.”

            The day drags and drags, and I give Jude enough space to cope, but not enough to feel too terribly. Lili keeps us company, as does Van, and Garrett. Even Taryn manages to not betray anyone. But once the party slows, once I finally get to drag Jude somewhere secluded, I see what’s coming before it strikes.

            I think I know it’s coming before even Jude realizes. The first tear that falls down her face shocks her. After that, no holds barred, she cries, and she cries. I hold her, and I hold her. And, excluding the time she killed me, this is the first I’ve seen her cry. She doesn’t hide it from me. She breathes through it until sleep takes her, nestled into my lap, tucked against my chest.

            Though pain is still etched into her features, I know when she wakes up, the end will have passed, and a beginning can come. She’s lived her life in a world that wished to kill her. Now, it’s hers, and I am hers. And – no matter if I have to hold on to her for dear life, or if I have to threaten Randalin a thousand more times – this beginning, this something new, it is ours.