Lady Asha. Cardan’s mother.
I knew she was a courtier before, saw it in the crystal globe on Eldred’s desk, but now it is as though I am seeing her for the first time. She wears a high-skirted gown, so that her ankles show along with little shoes cunningly made to resemble leaves. Her whole gown is in shades of autumn, leaves and blossoms of more cloth stitched over the length of it. The tips of her horns have been painted with copper, and she wears a copper circlet, which is not a crown but is reminiscent of one.
Cardan said nothing to me about her, and yet somehow they must have effected a reconciliation. He must have pardoned her. As another courtier leads her out to the dance, I am uncomfortably aware that she is likely to acquire both power and influence quickly—and that she will do nothing good with either.
“Where is the High King?” Nihuar asks. I didn’t notice the Seelie representative until she was beside me, and I startle.
“How ought I to know?” I demand. “I wasn’t even allowed inside the palace until today.”
It is at that moment that Cardan finally enters the room. Ahead of him are two knights of his personal guard, who step away from him once they’ve escorted him safely to the brugh.
A moment later, Cardan falls. He sprawls across the floor in all his fantastic robes of state, then begins to laugh. He laughs and laughs as though this is the most amazing trick he’s ever performed.
He’s obviously drunk. Very, very drunk.
My heart falls. When I look over at Nihuar, she is expressionless. Even Locke, staring over from the dance floor, looks discomfited.
Meanwhile, Cardan snatches a lute from the hands of an amazed goblin musician and leaps up onto a long banquet table.
Strumming the strings, he begins a song so vulgar that the entire Court stops their dancing to listen and titter. Then, as one, they join in the madness. The courtiers of Faerie are not shy. They begin to dance again, now to the High King’s song.
I didn’t even know he could play.
When the song is over, he falls off the table. Landing awkwardly on his side, his crown tilts forward so it’s hanging over one of his eyes. His guards rush over to help him up off the floor, but he waves them away. “How is that for an introduction?” he demands of Lord Roiben, although they have in fact met before. “I am no dull monarch.”
I look over at Balekin, who is wearing a satisfied smirk. Lord Roiben’s face is like stone, unreadable. My gaze goes to Madoc, who watches Cardan with disgust as he fixes his crown.
And yet, grimly, Roiben goes through the motions of what he’s come here to do. “Your Majesty, I have come to ask you to allow me vengeance for my people. We were attacked and now we wish to respond.” I have seen many people unable to humble themselves, but Lord Roiben does it with great grace.
And yet, with a look at Cardan, I know it won’t matter.
“They say you’re a specialist in bloodshed. I suppose you want to show off your skills.” Cardan wags a finger in Roiben’s direction.
The Unseelie king grimaces at that. A part of him must want to show off immediately, but he makes no comment.
“Yet that you must forgo,” Cardan says. “I’m afraid you’ve come a long way for nothing. At least there’s wine.”
Lord Roiben turns his silvery gaze on me, and there’s a threat in them.
This is not going at all the way I hoped.
Cardan waves his hand toward a table of refreshments. The skins of the fruit curl back from the flesh, and a few globes burst, spilling out seeds and startling nearby courtiers. “I’ve been practicing a skill of my own,” he says with a laugh.
I go toward Cardan to try to intercede when Madoc catches my hand. His lip curls. “Is this going according to your plan?” he demands under his breath. “Your puppet is drunk. Get him out of here.”
“I’ll try,” I say.
“I have stood by long enough,” Madoc says, his cat eyes staring into mine. “Get your puppet to abdicate the throne in favor of your brother or face the consequences. I won’t ask you again. It’s now or never.”
I pitch my voice low to match his. “After barring me from the palace?”
“You were ill,” he returns.
“Working with you will always be working for you,” I say. “So, never.”
“You would really choose that over your own family?” he sneers, his gaze going to Cardan before cutting back to me.
I wince, but no matter how right he is, he’s also wrong. “Whether you believe me or not, this is for my family,” I tell him, and to Cardan I lay my hand on his shoulder, hoping I can guide him out of the room without anything else going wrong.
“Oh ho,” he says. “My darling seneschal. Let us take a turn around the room.” He grabs me and pulls me toward the dance.
He can barely stand. Three times he stumbles, and three times I have to hold most of his weight to keep him upright.
“Cardan,” I hiss. “This is no meet behavior for the High King.”
He giggles at that. I think of how serious he was last night in his rooms and how far he seems from that person.
“Cardan,” I try again. “You must not do this. I order you to pull yourself together. I command you to drink no more liquor and to attempt sobriety.”
“Yes, my sweet villain, my darling god. I will be as sober as a stone carving, just as soon as I can.” And with that, he kisses me on the mouth.
I feel a cacophony of things at once. I am furious with him, furious and resigned that he is a failure as High King, corrupt and fanciful and as weak as Orlagh could have hoped. Then there is the public nature of the kiss, parading this before the Court is shocking, too. He’s never been willing to seem to want me in public. Perhaps he can take it back, but in this moment, it is known.
But there is also a weakness in me, because I dreamed of him kissing me for all my time in the Undersea, and now with his mouth on mine, I want to sink my nails into his back.
His tongue brushes my lower lip, the taste heady and familiar.
Wraithberry.
He’s not drunk; he’s been poisoned.
I pull back and look into his eyes. Those familiar eyes, black, rimmed in gold. His pupils are blown wide.
“Sweet Jude. You are my dearest punishment.” He dances away from me and immediately falls to the ground again, laughing, arms flung wide as though he would embrace the whole room.
I watch in astonished horror.
Someone poisoned him, and he is going to laugh and dance himself to death in front of a Court that will veer between delight and disgust. They will think him ridiculous as his heart stops.
I try to concentrate. Antidotes. There must be one. Water, certainly, to flush the system. Clay. The Bomb would know more. I look around for her, but all I see is the dizzy array of courtiers.
I turn to one of the guards instead. “Get me a pail, a lot of blankets, two pitchers of water, and put them in my rooms. Yes?”
“As you wish,” he says, turning to give orders to the other knights. I turn back to Cardan, who has, predictably, headed in the worst direction possible. He’s walking straight toward the councilors Baphen and Randalin, where they stand with Lord Roiben and his knight, Dulcamara, doubtlessly trying to smooth the situation over.
I can see the faces of the courtiers, the glitter of their eyes as they regard him with a kind of greedy scorn.
They watch as he lifts a carafe of water, tipping it back to cascade over his laughing mouth till he chokes on it.
“Excuse us,” I say, wrapping my arm through his.
Dulcamara greets this with disdain. “We have come all this way to have an audience with the High King. Surely he means to stay longer than this.”
He’s been poisoned. The words are on my tongue when I hear Balekin say them instead. “I fear the High King is not himself. I believe he’s been poisoned.”
And then, too late, I understand the scheme.
“You,” he says to me. “Turn out your pockets. You are the only one here not bound by a vow.”
Had I been truly glamoured, I would have had to pull out the stoppered vial. And once the Court saw it and found wraithberry inside, any protest would come to nothing. Mortals are liars, after all.
“He’s drunk,” I say, and am gratified by Balekin’s shocked expression. “However, you are unbound as well, ambassador. Or, shall I say, not bound to the land.”
“Have I drunk too much? Merely a cup of poison for my breakfast and another for my dinner,” Cardan says.
I give him a look but say no more as I guide the stumbling High King across the floor.
“Where are you taking him?” asks one of the guard. “Your Majesty, do you wish to depart?”
“We all dance at Jude’s command,” he says, and laughs.
“Of course he doesn’t wish to go,” Balekin says. “Attend to your other duties, seneschal, and let me look after my brother. He has duties to perform tonight.”
“You will be sent for if you’re needed,” I tell him, trying to bluff through this. My heart speeds. I am not sure if anyone here would be on my side, if it came to that.
“Jude Duarte, you will leave the High King’s side,” Balekin says.
At that tone, Cardan’s focus narrows. I can see him straining to concentrate. “She will not,” he says.
Since no one can gainsay him, even in this state, I am able to finally lead him out. I bear up the heavy weight of the High King as we move through the passageways of the palace.
The High King’s personal guard follows us at a distance. Questions run through my mind—how was he poisoned? Who actually put whatever he drank in his hand? When did it happen?
Grabbing a servant in the hall, I send out runners for the Bomb and, if they are unable to find her, an alchemist.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say.
“You know,” he says, hanging on to me. “That ought to be reassuring. But when mortals say it, it doesn’t mean the same thing as when the Folk do, does it? For you, it’s an appeal. A kind of hopeful magic. You say I will be well because you fear I won’t be.”