Page 14 of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“I have seen enough of your maudlin display to understand that you have lost some favor with Nicasia?” Balekin said.

Since he wasn’t sure he could stay upright, Cardan sat. And since a chair wasn’t immediately beside him, he sat on the floor.

“Do not invest a dalliance with greater significance than it warrants,” Balekin went on, coming around from behind his desk to peer down at his younger brother not entirely unsympathetically. “It is a mere nothing. No need for dramatics.”

“I am nothing,” Cardan said, “if not dramatic.”

“Your relationship with Princess Nicasia is the closest thing to power that you have,” Balekin said. “Father overlooks your excesses to keep peace with the Undersea. Do you think he would tolerate your behavior otherwise?”

“And I supposeyouneed me to have influence with Queen Orlagh for something or another,” Cardan guessed.

Balekin didn’t deny it. “Make sure she comes back to you when she tires of this new lover. Now take yourself to bed—alone.”

As Cardan crawled up the steps, his head ringing with hoofbeats, he thought of how he’d vowed not to be one of the fools groveling for the affections of some princess of the Undersea and of how, if he wasn’t careful, that was exactly what he would become.

Cardan had his polished boots resting on a rock and his head pillowed on the utterly ridiculous mortal book he’d been reading. Since the one with the girl and the rabbit and the bad queen, he’d discovered he had a taste for human novels. A hob in the market traded them to Cardan for roses smuggled out of the royal gardens.

Nearby, sprites wearing acorn caps and wielding glaives the size of toothpicks battled above a sea of tiger lilies. He glanced up to see Nicasia standing above him, a basket over her arm.

“I wish to talk,” she said, and settled beside him, arranging a blanket and some little cakes dotted with dried fish and wrapped in kelp beside a bottle of what appeared to be a greenish wine. Cardan wrinkled his nose. There was no reason for her to go to all this trouble. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t behaved perfectly civilly toward her and Locke. The four of them menaced the rest of the Court as thoroughly as before. And if his cruelty had the sharp edge of despair, if slights and taunts were all that fell from his tongue now, what did it matter? He had always been awful. Now he was just worse.

“Have one,” she offered.

If he wasn’t going to rule by her side in the Undersea, he didn’t have to eat the food there. “Perhaps once you’ve told me why you’ve disturbed my repose.”

“I want you to take me back,” she said. “None of our plans need to change. Nothing between us needs to change from the way it was before.”

He yawned, refusing to give her the satisfaction of his surprise. Those were the words that he’d hoped for her to say when he’d discovered her with Locke, but now, he found he no longer wanted them.

In the end, he supposed Balekin had been right. Her dalliance had been a mere nothing. Balekin was probably also right when he said that only with her by his side would Cardan have some measure of political power. If he lost her, he was only himself, the despised, youngest prince.

Luckily, Cardan cared very little for politics. Or reprimands from Eldred.

“No, I don’t think so,” Cardan said. “But I am curious about your change of heart.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one sprite tumbling into a flower and emerging heavily dusted with carrot-colored pollen. The other held up its glaive, victorious.

For a long moment, Nicasia didn’t speak. She picked at a fishcake.

Cardan raised his eyebrows. “Ah, you didn’t make the choice to leave him, did you?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” she told him. “And it affects you as well.”

“Does it?” he inquired.

“You must listen! Locke’s taken one of the mortal girls as his lover,” Nicasia said, obviously attempting to keep her voice from shaking.

Cardan was silent, his thoughts thrown into confusion.

One of the mortal girls.

“You can’t expect me to pity you,” he said finally, voice tight.

“No,” she said slowly. “I expect you to laugh in my face and tell me that it’s no more than I deserve.” She looked out toward Hollow Hall, miserable. “But I think Locke means to humiliate you as much as he does me in doing this. How does it look, after all, to steal your lover and then tire of her so quickly?”

He didn’t care how it made him look. He didn’t care in the least.

“Which one?” Cardan asked. “Which mortal girl?”

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