“Ah,” he says. I am not sure he believes me.
“Did you see who shot at you? And why didn’t you tell your own guards what really happened?” I demand.
He gives me an exasperated look. “I saw a blur of black. And as to why I didn’t correct the guards—I was protecting you and the Court of Shadows. I didn’t think you would want the whole royal guard in your secret passageways!”
To that, I have no answer. The disturbing thing about Cardan is how well he plays the fool to disguise his own cleverness.
Opposite the bed is a cabinet built into the wall, taking the whole length of it. It has a painted clock face on the front, with constellations instead of numbers. The arms of the clock are pointed toward a configuration of stars prophesying a particularly amorous lover.
Inside, it appears merely a wardrobe overstuffed with Cardan’s clothing. I pull them out, letting them fall to the floor in a pile of velvet cuffs, satin, and leather. From the bed, Cardan makes a sound of mock distress.
I press my ear to the wood backing, listening for the whistle of wind and feeling for a draft. The Ghost does the same on the other side. His fingers find a latch, and a thin door springs open.
Although I knew the palace was riddled with passageways, I never would have dreamed one was in Cardan’s very bedroom. And yet… I should have combed over every inch of wall. I could have, at the least, asked one of the other spies to do so. But I avoided it, because I avoided being alone with Cardan.
“Stay with the king,” I tell the Ghost and, picking up a candle, head into the darkness beyond the wall, avoiding being alone with him again.
The tunnel is dim, lit throughout with golden hands holding torches that burn with a smokeless green flame. The stone floor is covered in a threadbare carpet, a strangely decorative detail for a secret passageway.
A few feet in, I find the crossbow. It is not the compact thing that I have carried. It’s massive, more than half my size, obviously dragged here—I can see the way the carpet is rucked up in the direction whence it came.
Whoever shot it, shot it from here.
I jump over and keep going. I would expect a passageway like this to have many branches, but this one has none. It dips down at intervals, like a ramp, and turns in on itself, but it runs in only one direction—straight ahead. I hurry, faster and faster, my hand cupped around my candle flame to keep it from going out.
Then I come to a heavy wooden slab carved with the royal crest, the same one stamped in Cardan’s signet ring.
I give it a push, and it shifts, clearly on a track. There’s a bookshelf on the other side.
Until now, I have only heard stories of the great majesty of High King Eldred’s rooms in the very heart of the palace, just above the brugh, the great branches of the throne itself snaking through his walls. Although I’ve never seen them before, the descriptions make it impossible to think I am anywhere else.
I walk through the enormous, cavernous rooms of Eldred’s apartments, candle in one hand, a knife in the other.
And there, sitting on the High King’s bed, her face stained with tears, is Nicasia.
Orlagh’s daughter, Princess of the Undersea, fostered in the High King’s Court as part of the decades-ago treaty of peace between Orlagh and Eldred, Nicasia was once part of the foursome made up of Cardan and his closest, most awful friends. She was also his beloved, until she betrayed him for Locke. I haven’t seen her by Cardan’s side as often since he ascended to the throne, but ignoring her hardly seems like a killing offense.
Is this what Balekin was whispering about with the Undersea? Is this the way Cardan was to be ruined?
“You?” I shout. “You shot Cardan?”
“Don’t tell him!” She glares at me furiously, wiping wet eyes. “And put away that knife.”
Nicasia wears a robe, heavily embroidered with phoenixes and wrapped tightly around herself. Three earrings shine along her lobes, snaking up the ear all the way to their bluish webbed points. Her hair has gotten darker since I saw it last. It was always the many colors of the sea, but now it is the sea in a storm—a deep greenish black.
“Are you out of your mind?” I yell. “You tried to assassinate the High King of Faerie.”
“I didn’t,” she says. “I swear. I only meant to kill the girl he was with.”
For a moment, I am too stunned by the cruelty and indifference to speak.
I take another look at her, at the robe she’s clutching so tightly. With her words echoing in my head, I suddenly have a clear idea of what happened. “You thought to surprise him in his rooms.”
“Yes,” she says.
“But he wasn’t alone.…” I continue, hoping she will take up the tale.
“When I saw the crossbow on the wall, it didn’t seem it would be so difficult to aim,” she says, forgetting the part about dragging it up through the passageway, though it’s heavy and awkward and that couldn’t have been easy. I wonder how angry she was, how unthinking in her rage.