Ignoring his high-handed manner with some difficulty, I follow him behind the throne and off the dais, where a small door is set against the stone wall, half-hidden by ivy. I’ve never been here before.
Cardan sweeps aside the ivy, and we go inside.
It is a small room, clearly intended for intimate meetings and assignations. Its walls are covered in moss, with small glowing mushrooms climbing them, casting a pale white light on us. There’s a low couch, upon which people could sit or recline, as the situation called for.
We are alone in a way we have not been alone for a long time, and when he takes a step toward me, my heart skips a beat.
Cardan’s eyebrows rise. “My brother sent me a message.” He unfolds it from his pocket:
If you want to save your neck, pay me a visit. And put your seneschal on a leash.
“So,” he says, holding it out to me. “What have you been about?”
I let out a sigh of relief. It didn’t take long for Lady Asha to pass the information I gave her to Balekin, and it didn’t take long for Balekin to act on it. One point to me.
“I stopped you from getting some messages,” I admit.
“And you decided not to mention them.” Cardan looks at me without particular rancor but is not exactly pleased. “Just as you declined to tell me about Balekin’s meetings with Orlagh or Nicasia’s plans for me.”
“Look, of course Balekin wants to see you,” I say, trying to redirect the conversation away from his sadly incomplete list of stuff I haven’t told him. “You’re his brother, whom he kept in his own house. You’re the only person with the power to free him who might actually do it. I figured if you were in a forgiving mood, you could talk to him anytime you wanted. You didn’t need his exhortations.”
“So what changed?” he asks, waving the piece of paper at me. Now he does sound angry. “Why was I permitted to receive this?”
“I gave him a source of information,” I say. “One it’s possible for me to compromise.”
“And I am supposed to reply to this little note?” he asks.
“Have him brought to you in chains.” I take the paper from him and jam it into my pocket. “I’d be interested to know what he thinks he can get from you with a little conversation, especially since he doesn’t know you’re aware of his ties to the Undersea.”
Cardan’s gaze narrows. The worst part is that I am deceiving him again right now, deceiving by omission. Hiding that my source of information, the one I can now compromise, is his own mother.
I thought you wanted me to do this on my own, I want to say. I thought I was supposed to rule and you were supposed to be merry and that was supposed to be that.
“I suspect he will try to shout at me until I give him what he wants,” Cardan says. “It might be possible to goad him into letting something slip. Possible, not likely.”
I nod, and the scheming part of my brain, honed on strategy games, supplies me with a move. “Nicasia knows more than she’s saying. Make her say the rest of it, and then use that against Balekin.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think it would be politically expedient to put thumbscrews to a princess of the sea.”
I look at him again, at his soft mouth and his high cheekbones, at the cruel beauty of his face. “Not thumbscrews. You. You go to Nicasia and charm her.”
His eyebrows go up.
“Oh, come on,” I say, the plan coming together in my mind as I am speaking, a plan that I hate as surely as I know it will be effective. “You’re practically draped in courtiers every time I see you.”
“I’m the king,” he says.
“They’ve been draped over you for longer than that.” I am frustrated having to explain this. Surely he’s aware of the response of the Folk to him.
He makes an impatient gesture. “You mean back when I was merely the prince?”
“Use your wiles,” I say, exasperated and embarrassed. “I’m sure you’ve got some. She wants you. It shouldn’t be difficult.”
His eyebrows, if anything, climb higher. “You’re seriously suggesting I do this.”
I take a breath, realizing that I am going to have to convince him that it will work. And that I know something that might. “Nicasia’s the one who came through the passageway and shot that girl you were kissing,” I say.
“You mean she tried to kill me?” he asks. “Honestly, Jude, how many secrets are you keeping?”
I think of his mother again and bite my tongue. Too many. “She was shooting at the girl, not you. She found you in bed with someone, got jealous, and shot twice. Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for everyone else, she’s a terrible shot. Now do you believe me that she wants you?”
“I know not what to believe,” he says, clearly angry, maybe at her, maybe at me, probably at both of us.
“She thought to surprise you in your bed. Give her what she wants, and get the information we need to avoid a war.”
He stalks toward me, close enough that I can feel his breath stirring my hair. “Are you commanding me?”