“Bring me the crown, Cardan,” Balekin says.
Prince Cardan turns on his elder brother the same cool and calculated gaze with which he has regarded so many other creatures before he’s torn the wings from their back, before he’s cast them into rivers or sent them from the Court entirely. “No, brother. I do not think that I will. I think that if I did not have another reason to cross you, I would do it for spite.”
Oak looks up at me, searching for confirmation that he’s doing okay in the face of all this shouting. I nod with an encouraging smile.
“Show Oak,” I whisper to Cardan. “Show him what he’s supposed to do. Kneel down.”
“They’re going to think—” he starts, but I interrupt him.
“Just do it.”
Cardan kneels, and a hush goes through the crowd. Swords are returned to sheaths. Movements slow.
“Oh, this is amusing,” says Lord Roiben in a low voice. “Who might that child be? Or whose?” He and Queen Annet share a very Unseelie smile.
“See?” Cardan says to Oak, and then makes an impatient gesture. “Now the crown.”
I look around at the lords and ladies of Faerie. Not one of their faces is friendly. All of them appear wary, waiting. Balekin’s expression is wild with fury, and he pulls against the bolt, as though he might rip his hand in half before he allowed this to happen. Oak takes a hesitant step toward Cardan, then another.
“Phase four,” Cardan whispers to me, still believing we’re on the same side.
I think of Madoc, dozing away upstairs, all his dreams of murder. I think of Oriana and Oak being forced apart for years. I think of Cardan and how he will hate me. I think of what it means to make myself the villain of the piece. “For the next full minute, I command you not to move,” I whisper back.
Cardan goes utterly still.
“Go ahead,” Vivi says to Oak. “Just like we practiced.”
And with that, Oak puts the crown down on Cardan’s head, to rest on his brow. “I crown you.” Oak’s little-kid voice is uncertain. “King. High King of Faerie.” His eyes go to Vivi, to Oriana. He’s waiting for one of them to tell him he did well, that he is done.
People gasp. Balekin gives a howl of fury. There is laughter and outrage and delight. Everyone likes a surprise, and the Folk like one more than almost anything else.
Cardan looks at me with helpless rage. Then, the full minute of my command up, he rises slowly to his feet. The fury in his eyes is familiar, the glitter of them like banked fire, like coals burning hotter than flames ever could. This time I deserve it. I promised he was going to be able to walk away from the Court and all its manipulations. I promised he would be free from all this. I lied.
It’s not that I don’t want Oak to be the High King. I do. He will be. But there’s only one way to make sure the throne remains ready for him while he learns everything he needs to know—and that’s if someone else occupies it. Seven years and Cardan can step down, abdicate in Oak’s favor and do whatever he wants. But until then, he’s going to have to keep my brother’s throne warm.
Lord Roiben sinks to one knee, as he promised. “My king,” he says. I wonder what that promise will cost. I wonder what he will ask us for, now that he has helped give Cardan a crown.
And then the cry goes up around the room, from Queen Annet to Queen Orlagh and Lord Severin. From the other side, Taryn stares at me, clearly shocked. To her, I must seem mad, to put someone I despise on the throne, but there is no way for me to explain myself. I sink to my knees along with everyone else, and so does she.
All my promises have come due.
For a long moment, Cardan just looks around the room, but he has little choice, and he must know it. “Rise,” he says, and we do.
I step back, fading into the throng.
Cardan has been a prince of Faerie all his life. No matter what he wants, he knows what’s expected of him. He knows how to charm a crowd, how to entertain. He orders the broken glass cleared away. He has new goblets brought out, new wine poured. The toast he gives—to surprises and to the benefits of being too drunk to show up for the first coronation—causes all the lords and ladies to laugh. And if I notice that his hand grips his wineglass tightly enough to turn his knuckles white, then I imagine I am the only one who does.
Yet I am surprised when he turns to me, eyes blazing. It feels as though the room is empty but for us. He lifts his glass anew, mouth curving in a mockery of a smile. “And to Jude, who gave me a gift tonight. One that I plan to repay in kind.”
I try not to visibly flinch as glasses lift around me. Crystal rings. More wine flows. More laughter sounds.
The Bomb elbows me in the side. “We came up with your code name,” she mouths. I hadn’t even seen her come in past the locked doors.
“What?” I feel as tired as I have ever felt, and yet, for seven years, I will not be able to truly rest.
I expect her to say The Liar. She gives me a tricksy grin, full of secrets. “What else? The Queen.”
It turns out I still don’t know how to laugh.
I stand in the middle of Target, pushing the cart while Oak and Vivi pick out bedsheets and lunch boxes, skinny jeans and sandals. Oak looks around in mild confusion and pleasure. He keeps picking up things, puzzling over them, and then setting them down again. In the candy aisle, he adds bars of chocolate to the cart, along with jelly beans, lollipops, and chunks of candied ginger. Vivi doesn’t stop him, so I don’t, either.
It’s odd to see Oak with his horns glamoured away, his ears looking as round as mine. It’s odd to see him in the toy aisle, trying out a scooter with an owl-shaped backpack over one arm.
I expected that it would be hard to persuade Oriana to let him go with Vivi, but after Cardan’s coronation, she agreed that Oak being away from the Court for a few years was for the best. Balekin is imprisoned in a tower. Madoc woke in a rage, only to find that his moment for seizing the crown was past.
“So he’s really your brother, right?” Heather asks Vivi as Oak kicks off on the scooter, flying through the greeting card aisle. “You could tell me if he was your son.”
Vivi laughs delightedly. “I’ve got secrets, but that’s not one of them.”
Heather wasn’t thrilled about Vivienne showing up with a child and a half-baked explanation about why he had to live with her, but she didn’t kick them out. Heather’s sofa pulled out into a bed, and they agreed he could sleep there until Vivi found a job and they were able to afford a larger apartment.