How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5)(4)

You can’t frighten me, Cardan thought.

“Welcome, my princes,” said the door, swinging open to admit him and Balekin into the ominously named Hollow Hall. As Cardan passed through, a wooden eye gave him a companionable wink.

You can’t befriend me, either, he thought.

Balekin led his youngest brother to a room full of furniture covered in velvet and silk. A human woman stood in a corner, dressed in drab gray, her hair streaked with silver and pulled back into a tight bun. A worn leather strap lay across her palm.

“So I am supposed to make you into a proper Prince of Elfhame,” Balekin said, letting his greatcoat, with its bear-fur collar, drop to the floor, kicking it aside to be picked up by some servant, and then settling himself on one of the low and luxuriant couches.



“Or a delightfully improper one,” Cardan said, hoping to sound like the sort of younger brother who might be worth taking under Balekin’s wing. He led one of the largest and most influential circles at Court, the Grackles, who were committed to merriment and decadence. It was well known that the courtiers who attended the revels in Hollow Hall were indolent pleasure seekers. Maybe there was room for Cardan among them. He was indolent! He liked seeking pleasure!

Balekin smiled. “That’s almost charming, little brother. And indeed, you ought to flatter me, because if I hadn’t taken you in, you might have been sent to be fostered in one of the low Courts. There are many places where an inconsequential Prince of Elfhame would be the source of much diversion, none of it comfortable for you.”

Cardan didn’t flinch, but for the first time, he understood that as terrible as things had been up to now, something worse might yet be ahead.

Ever since Dain had tricked him so that the arrow that slew the lover of his father’s seneschal seemed to have belonged to Cardan, ever since his mother had been sent to the Tower of Forgetting for his supposed crime and Eldred had refused to hear the truth, ever since he had been sent from the palace in disgrace, Cardan had felt like the boy in Aslog’s story. His heart was stone.

Balekin continued. “I brought you here because you are one of the few people who see Dain for what he is and are, therefore, valuable to me. But that doesn’t mean you’re not a disgrace.

“You will choose clothing suitable to your station and no longer wear garments that are dirty and torn. You will stop scavenging what you can find from the kitchens or stealing from banquets, but sit at a table with cutlery—and use it. You will learn some modicum of swordplay, and you will attend the palace school, where I expect you to do what they ask of you.”

Cardan curled his lip. He had been forced into a blue doublet by one of the palace servants and aggressively groomed, down to the combing of the tuft of hair at the end of his tail, but the clothing was old. Loose threads hung from his cuffs, and the fabric of his trousers was worn and thin at the knees. But since it had never bothered him before, he refused to let it bother him now. “All will be as you say, brother.”

Balekin’s smile grew lazy. “Now I will show you what happens if you fail. This is Margaret. Margaret, come here.” He gestured to the human woman with the silvery hair.

She went toward them, although something was unsettling about the way she moved. It was as though she were sleepwalking.

“What’s the matter with her?” Cardan asked.

Balekin yawned. “She’s ensorcelled. A victim of her own foolish bargain.”

Cardan had little experience of mortals. Some came through the High Court, musicians and artists and lovers who had wished for magic and found it. And there were the twin mortal children that Grand General Madoc had stolen and insisted on treating as though they were his own born daughters, kissing them on the tops of their heads and resting his clawed fingers protectively on their shoulders.

“Humans are like mice,” Balekin went on. “Dead before they learn how to be canny. Why shouldn’t they serve us? It gives their short lives some meaning.”

Cardan looked at Margaret. The emptiness of her eyes still unnerved him. But the strap in her hand unnerved him more.

“She is going to punish you,” Balekin said. “And do you know why?”

“I am certain you are about to enlighten me,” answered Cardan with a sneer. It was almost a relief to know that curbing his tongue wouldn’t help, as he’d never been very good at it.

“Because I won’t dirty my hands,” Balekin said. “Better you experience the humiliation of being beaten by a creature who ought to be your inferior. And every time you think of how disgusting mortals are—with their pocked skin and their decaying teeth and their fragile, little minds—I want you to think of this moment, when you were lower than even that. And I want you to remember how you willingly submitted, because if you don’t, you will have to leave Hollow Hall and my mercy.

“Now, little brother, you must choose a future.”

It turned out that Cardan didn’t have a heart of stone after all. As he removed his shirt and sank to his knees, as he fisted his hands and tried not to cry out when the strap fell, he burned with hatred. Hatred for Dain; for his father; for all the siblings who didn’t take him in and the one who did; for his mother, who spat at his feet as she was led away; for stupid, disgusting mortals; for all of Elfhame and everyone in it. Hate that was so bright and hot that it was the first thing that truly warmed him. Hate that felt so good that he welcomed being consumed by it.