Page 15 of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Does it matter?” Nicasia was clearly exasperated. “Either. Both.”

It shouldn’t matter. The human girls were insignificant, nothing. In fact, he ought to feel delighted that Nicasia had such swift cause to regret what she’d done. And if he felt even angrier than he had before, well then, he had no cause. “At least you will have the pleasure of seeing what the Grand General does when Locke inevitably mishandles this situation.”

“That’s not enough,” she said.

“What then?”

“Punish them.” She took his hands, her expression fierce. “Punish all three of them. Convince Valerian he’d like tormenting the mortals. Force Locke to play along. Make them all suffer.”

“You should have led with that,” Cardan told her, getting to his feet. “That I would have agreed to just for fun.”

It wasn’t until he was glaring down at Jude, standing waist-deep in river water, fighting the current, that he realized he was in trouble. Ink swirled around her from the pot Valerian had dumped out. Sharp-toothed nixies lurked not far off.

Jude’s wet chestnut hair was plastered to her throat. Her cheeks were flushed with cold, her lips turning bluish. And her dark eyes blazed with hatred and contempt.

Which was fair, he supposed, since he was the reason she was in the water. Valerian, Nicasia, and even Locke jeered from the bank.

Jude ought to be cowed. She was supposed to bow and scrape, to submit and acknowledge his superiority. A little groveling wouldn’t have gone amiss. He would have very much liked it if she begged.

“Give up,” Cardan said, fully expecting she would.

“Never.” Jude wore an unnerving little smile in the corners of her mouth, as though even she couldn’t believe what she was saying. The most infuriating part was that she didn’t have to mean it. She was mortal. She could lie. So why wouldn’t she?

In this, there was no winning for her.

And yet, after he told her all the soft, menacing things he could think of, after he left her clambering back up onto the riverbank, he realized he was the one who had retreated. He was the one who backed down.

And all through that night and for many nights after, he couldn’t rid his thoughts of her. Not the hatred in her eyes. That he understood. That he didn’t mind. It warmed him.

But the contempt made him feel as though she saw beneath all his sharp and polished edges. It reminded him of how his father and all the Court had seen him, before he had learned how to shield himself with villainy.

And doomed as she was, he envied her whatever conviction made her stand there and defy him.

She ought to be nothing. She ought to be insignificant. She ought not to matter.

He had to make her not matter.

But every night, Jude haunted him. The coils of her hair. The calluses on her fingers. An absent bite of her lip. It was too much, the way he thought about her. He knew it was too much, but he couldn’t stop.

It disgusted him that he couldn’t stop.

He had to make her see that he was her better. To beg his pardon. And grovel. He had to find a way to make her admire him. To kneel before him and plead for his royal mercy. To surrender. To yield.

Choose a future, Balekin had commanded him when he’d first brought Cardan to Hollow Hall. But no one chooses a future. You choose a path without being certain where it leads.

Choose one way and a monster rends your flesh.

Choose another and your heart turns to stone, or fire, or glass.

Years later, Cardan would sit at a table in the Court of Shadows while the Roach taught him how to spin a coin over his knuckles, to set it whirling and have it land the way he wished.

Cardan tried again and again, but his fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

“Tails, see?” The Roach repeated the movement, making it look frustratingly easy. “But a prince like yourself, what possible reason would you have to learn a rogue’s trick?”

“Who doesn’t want to control fate?” Cardan answered, setting his coin to spinning again.

The Roach slammed his hand down on the table, breaking the pattern. “Remember, all you really get to control is yourself.”

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