Page 17 of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“Stuff it, Ladhar,” Jude says with a roll of her eyes. “Okay, we’re on it. Don’t say the High Court never did anything for you.”

That night, Cardan lies in bed, looking at the ceiling, long after Jude falls asleep.

At first, he thinks it is the unfamiliar scents of this world keeping him awake, the iron tang that hangs over everything. And then he thinks that perhaps he has become too used to velvet coverlets and mattresses piled up on one another.

But as he slides out of bed, he realizes it isn’t that.

After their meeting with Bryern, Jude was entirely amenable to his suggestions. Yes, they should immediately send a message to Queen Gliten and command her representatives to present themselves to be reprimanded. Yes, absolutely, they ought to send for reinforcements. And sure, he could look at the map, although it was tucked into her rucksack, so maybe he should look later. After all, they had time.

Heather cooked something she called “plant-based meat” for dinner, formed into the shape of “hamburgers” and dressed with two sauces, leaves, and slices of raw onion soaked in water. Oak ate two. After dinner, Cardan found himself at a picnic table outside, drinking rosé wine from a paper cup and laughing over every detail Vivi supplied about Madoc’s attempts to fit into the mortal world.

It was an entirely lovely night.

Marriage means sharing each other’s interests, and since his wife’s run toward strategy and murder, he’s used to her throwing herself at absolutely everything that crosses her path. If she isn’t doing that now, there’s a reason.

He pads out to the kitchen and takes her leather rucksack. Fishing around, he draws out the map from Bryern. Beside it, he finds the ancient leafy metal armor that Taryn—of all people—discovered in the royal treasury.

He shakes his head, sure now of her plan.

Sometime before dawn, she will wake, dress herself in that armor, strap on her mortal father’s sword, sneak out, and go fight the creature. That’s what she always planned, why she wanted to come without retainers or knights in the first place.

It would serve her right if he sat at the kitchen table and caught her as she tried to sneak out.

But when he takes the map to the window and reads it by the dim light of the streetlamp outside, he realizes something else.

Over the stretch of woods where the creature is supposed to dwell is markedASLOG. And that’s when he remembers the last time he heard Queen Gliten mentioned—she was the one who cheated the troll woman out of what she’d earned. Now Aslog is being hunted, both by Queen Gliten’s Court and by Jude, if she has half a chance.

Maybe he has the power to fix this. Maybe he’s actually the only one who can.

Oak looks up sleepily from the couch he’s been exiled to, but upon seeing Cardan, he turns over, kicking the blankets off his feet and burrowing deeper into the cushions.

Cardan has seldom navigated the mortal world alone and finds himself fascinated by the strangeness of the landscape. The road stretches out in front of him, sand and slag and crushed stone bound in stinking oil. He passes closed grocery stores, hairdressers, and pharmacies with lights still on. Everything reeks of iron and rot, but in a way, he minds less and less as he grows more accustomed to being here.

He has put on one of Vivi’s hoodies over his clothes, strapped Jude’s sword across his shoulders, and glamoured himself both to hide the sword and to pass for human.

Although he has the map from Bryern, he quickly realizes it has no street signs and assumes a level of familiarity with the area that Cardan doesn’t possess. After a few confused turns, he heads toward a gas station in the hopes of getting better directions.

Inside, a television is on, broadcasting the Weather Channel above a bored-looking, silver-haired clerk. Snacks sit beside electric cables, along with three refrigerators full of cold drinks and frozen dinners. A shelf of local delicacies features bags of saltwater taffy and something called crab boil. A spinner rack full of used paperbacks, mostly thrillers and romances, rests in the middle of the center aisle. Cardan browses with a lazy turn of his hand. One novel, titledThe Duke’s Duke, with a photo of a shirtless man on the cover, rests beside sequels:Too Many DukesandDuke, Duke, Goose. Another book,The Sleepy Detective, features a drawing of a single closed eye.

What Cardan doesn’t see are maps.

“Your pardon,” he says, approaching the man behind the counter, intending to glamour him. Jude isn’t there to be upset by it, and he could ask the man questions that would be highly suspicious otherwise. But with Aslog so much in his thoughts, he can’t ignore his memories of Hollow Hall and the horrors of the ensorcelled servants there. He decides he will rely on humanity’s intrinsic strangeness and hope for the best. “Might you have some means by which I can navigate your land?”

“Ayuh.” The man reaches into a cabinet where cigarettes and various medicines are locked. He takes out a folded paper—a map, three years out of date. “Not many people in the market for these anymore, what with phones. We stopped ordering ’em new, but you’re welcome to take this.”

Cardan smooths it out on the counter and tries to spot where he is and where he’s going, comparing this map with the memory of Bryern’s scrawled and unhelpful document.

The clerk points to paperback books stacked up near the gum and candy. Their covers are purple, with cartoonish dead trees and a title in a dripping-blood font. “If you’re looking for interesting spots in the area, I wrote this myself and am my own publisher, too.A Guide to the Secret Places of Portland, Maine.”

“Very well, sir, I shall have it.” Cardan congratulates himself on his skill at passing for human.

And if it seems as though the man mutters something about flatlanders as he rings up the purchase, well, whateverthatis, Cardan is certain it has nothing to do with the Folk.

Of course, he has no human money. But the High King of Elfhame refuses to pay with glamoured leaves, as though he were some common peasant. He hands over glamoured gold instead and walks out with his purchases, feeling smug.

Under the streetlight, he flips through the man’s book. An entire section is given to alien abduction, which he wonders whether Balekin might be responsible for—years passing in what seemed like hours was a common result of the memory-mangling that followed ensorcellment.

He learns about a ghost who haunts a busy street in town, drinking deeply of beer and wine when patrons’ backs are turned.Ladhar, he guesses. He flips past tales of ghost ships and one of a mermaid rumored to sit on the rocks and sing sailors to their doom.

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