He doesn’t try to interrupt, so I have no choice but to barrel on.
“After I tricked you into being the High King,” I say. “I thought once you hated me, I could go back to hating you. But I didn’t. 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. But then you saved me from the Undersea when it would have been much more convenient to just leave me to rot. After that, I started to hope my feelings were returned. But then there was the exile—” I take a ragged breath. “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,” he says. “And you do love me.”
“I love you,” I confirm.
“Because I am clever and funny,” he says, smiling. “You didn’t mention my handsomeness.”
“Or your deliciousness,” I say. “Although those are both good qualities.”
He pulls me to him, so that we’re both lying down on the couch. I look down at the blackness of his eyes and the softness of his mouth. I wipe a fleck of dried blood from the top of one pointed ear. “What was it like?” I ask. “Being a serpent.”
He hesitates. “It was like being trapped in the dark,” he says. “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.”
I start to speak, but he stops me with a gesture. “And you.” He looks at me, his lips curving in something that’s not quite a smile; it’s more and less than that. “I knew little else, but I always knew you.”
And when he kisses me, I feel as though I can finally breathe again.
My coronation comes a week later, and I am stunned at how many of the low Court rulers, along with subjects of the realms, travel to witness it. Interestingly, many take great pains to bring mortals as their guests, changeling children and human artists and lovers. It’s utterly surreal to see this attempt to curry favor, and it’s gratifying all the same.
Cardan chose three faerie makers to be given places in the household of Elfhame. One is Mother Marrow. The second is an ancient-looking hob who seems to hide behind an enormous and heavily braided beard. I am surprised to find that the third, a mortal smith, corresponded with my human father. When I meet him, Robert of Jersey spends some time admiring Nightfell and tells me a funny story about a conference they both attended a decade before.
Since the makers have settled in, they’ve been busy.
The ceremony begins at nightfall, and we have it under the stars on the new Isle of Insear. Braziers blaze, and the sky is thick with sea spray and incense. The ground beneath us is moon-blooming phlox.
I am in a gown of deep forest green with crow feathers covering the shoulders and sleeves, while Cardan wears a doublet ornamented with bright beetle wings. Baphen, in one of his long blue robes—with many celestial ornaments in his beard—will conduct the ceremony.
Oak is outfitted in white with gold buttons. Taryn kisses him on the forehead, for courage, since he will have to put the crowns on both of our heads.
“Long has the Greenbriar tradition been held in the High Court,” Baphen begins. “Blood crowns blood. And while the crown is gone and vows of obedience with it, we will yet follow tradition. And so, High King, accept your new crown from Oak, your blood and your heir.”
Oak looks unhappy about being called the heir, but he takes the crown from the pillow, a circlet of rich gold with nine points in the shape of leaves around the band. Being High King, Cardan isn’t supposed to kneel to anyone, so Vivienne lifts Oak. With a laugh, my brother places a new crown on Cardan’s head to the delight of the crowd.
“Folk of Elfhame,” Baphen says, using the ritual words that Cardan never received before, rushed as our last ceremony was. “Will you accept Cardan of the Greenbriar line as your High King?”
The chorus goes up. “We will.”
Then it’s my turn. “It is uncommon for any Court to have two rulers. Yet you, Jude Duarte, High Queen, have shown us why it can be a strength instead of a weakness. When the High Court was threatened, you stood against our enemies and broke the spell that might have destroyed us. Come forward and accept your crown from Oak, your brother and your heir.”
I walk forward, standing as Vivienne swoops my brother back into her arms. He plops the crown on my head. It is a twin to Cardan’s, and I am surprised by the weight of it.
“Folk of Elfhame,” he says. “Will you accept Jude Duarte as your High Queen?”
For a moment, in the silence, I believe that they will renounce me, but the ritual words come from their many mouths. “We will.”
I grin irrepressibly at Cardan. He smiles back, with a little surprise. It’s possible I don’t smile like that very often.
Cardan turns to the crowd before us. “Now we have boons to distribute and betrayals to reward. First the boons.”
He signals toward a servant, who brings forth Madoc’s sword, the one that split the throne of Elfhame.
“To Grima Mog, our Grand General,” he says. “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.
He continues. “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 comes forward to make a low curtsy.
“Last,” he says. “We would like our three friends from the Court of Shadows to step forward.”
The Ghost, the Bomb, and the Roach 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.
Cardan beckons, and pages come forward, carrying pillows. On each is a silver mask, denoting nothing of gender, just a gently blank metal face with something slightly impish about the curve of the mouth.
“You who dwell in shadows, I wish for you to stand with us sometimes in the light,” says Cardan. “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. When they do, there’s a sort of distortion around them.
“You are kind, my king,” says one, and even I, who know them, cannot tell which is speaking. But what no mask can hide is how, once they give their bows and depart, one masked figure takes another’s gloved hand.
Or how the third turns his shiny metal face toward Taryn.
Then it’s my turn to step forward. My stomach flutters with nerves. Cardan insisted that I be the one to pass judgment on the prisoners. You won the day, he told me, and the lion’s share of the hard work along with it. You choose their fate.
Whatever punishment I see fit, from execution to exile to a curse, will be considered just—the more so if it’s witty.
“We will see the petitioners now,” I say. Oak has moved to one side and stands between Taryn and Oriana.