“Now?” he asked, but she was already on her feet, wriggling out of her dress. Naked, Nicasia ran toward the waves, beckoning him.
With a laugh, he kicked off his boots, following her. He liked swimming and spent hot days in a pond near the palace or bobbing in the Lake of Masks. Sometimes he would float, staring up at the sky and watching the drifting of the clouds. In the sea, he threw his body against the waves, daring them to drag him out with them. If he liked that, then surely he would like this better.
He disrobed on the beach, the water cold on his toes as they sank in the sand. When he waded into the surf, his tail lashed unconsciously.
Nicasia pressed a finger to his lips and said a few words in the language of the Undersea, a language that sounded like whale song and the screeching of gulls. Immediately he felt a sting in his lungs, an interruption of his breath. Magic.
Orlagh had many enemies in the Undersea, and she sent her daughter to the land not just to firm up the alliance with Elfhame but also to keep Nicasia safe. He wondered if he should remind her of that as he let her lead him out into deeper water. But if she was determined to be daring, then he would be daring with her.
Water closed over his head, making Cardan’s dark curls float around him. Sunlight receded. Nicasia’s hair became a banner of smoke as she dove, her body a pale flash in the water. He wanted to speak, but when he opened his mouth, water flowed in, shocking his lungs. The magic allowed him to breathe, but his chest felt heavy.
And even though her enchantment protected him, he could still feel the oppressive cold and the stinging of salt in his eyes. Salt that curbed his own magic. And darkness, all around. It didn’t feel like the expansiveness of splashing through a pond. It felt like being trapped in a small room.
Give this up and you’ll have nothing, he reminded himself.
Silver fish swam past, their bodies bright as knives.
Nicasia swam lower, guiding him until he could see the lights of an Undersea palace in the distance, glowing buildings of coral and shell. He saw a shape that looked like a merrow pass through a school of mackerel.
He wanted to warn her, but when he opened his mouth, he found that speech was impossible. Cardan fought down panic. His thoughts scattered.
What would it truly be like to be a consort to Nicasia in the Undersea? He might be as inconsequential as he was in Elfhame, but even more powerless and possibly even more despised.
The weight of the sea seemed to press down on him. He no longer had a sense of up or down. One was always suspended, fighting against the current or giving in to it. There would be no lying on beds of moss, no barbed words easily spoken, no falling down from too much wine, no dancing at all.
Not even that mortal girl could leave a footprint here without it being instantly washed away.
Then he spotted a glow, distant but sure. The sun. Cardan grabbed hold of Nicasia’s hand and made for it, kicking his way to the surface, gasping for air he didn’t need.
Nicasia broke the surface a moment later, water flowing from the gills on the sides of her throat. “Are you all right?”
He was coughing up too much water to answer.
“It will be better next time,” she told him, searching his face as though she was looking for something, something she rather obviously didn’t find. Her expression fell. “You did think it was beautiful, didn’t you?”
“Unlike anything I could have imagined,” he agreed between breaths.
Nicasia sighed, happy again. They swam toward the beach, wading onto it and gathering up their clothes.
On their way back toward their homes, Cardan tried to tell himself that he could grow used to the Undersea, that he would learn how to survive there, to make himself consequential, to find some pleasure. And if, as he had floated in the cold darkness, his thoughts turned to the curve of an ear, the weight of a step, a blow that was checked before it could land, that didn’t matter. It meant nothing, and he should forget it.
A
s Cardan was no longer in disgrace from the palace, Eldred expected him to come to dinners of state, although he was placed at the far end of the table and forced to endure the glare of Val Moren. The seneschal still believed Cardan was responsible for the murder of a man he loved, and now that Cardan had committed himself to villainy, he took a perverse delight in the misunderstanding. Everything he could do to get under the skin of his family, every vicious drawling comment, every lazy sneer made him feel as though he had a little more power.
Playing the villain was the only thing he’d ever really excelled at.
After the dinner, there was some speechifying, and Cardan wandered off, heading into one of the parlors, on the hunt for more wine. With guests present, Eldred had no way to reprimand him, and, unless he got completely out of hand, it would only amuse Balekin.
To his surprise, however, his sister Rhyia was already there, candles flickering beside her, a book in her lap. She looked up at him and yawned. “Have you read many human books?” she asked.
He liked Rhyia best of his sisters. She was seldom at Court, preferring the wild places on the isles. But she had never paid him any special attention, and he wasn’t sure how to behave toward her now that she was.
“Humans are disgusting,” he said primly.
Rhyia looked amused. “Are they?”
There was absolutely no reason to think of Jude in that moment. She was utterly insignificant.
Rhyia waved the book at him. “Vivienne gave me this. Do you know her? It’s nonsense, but amusing.”
Vivienne was Jude and Taryn’s older sister and Madoc’s legitimate daughter. Hearing her name made him feel uncomfortable, as though his sister could read his thoughts.
“What is it?” he managed.
She put it in his hand.
He looked down at a red book, embossed in gold. The title was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. He frowned at it in confusion. It wasn’t what he’d thought a mortal book would be like; he thought they would be dull things, odes to their cars or skyscrapers. But then he recalled how humans were frequently brought to Faerie for their skill in the arts. Flipping the book open, he read the first sentence his gaze fell on.
“I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn.
Cardan had to flip a few pages back to see whom the Unicorn was discussing. A child. A human girl who had fallen into a place that was apparently called Wonderland.
“This is really a mortal book?” he asked.
He leafed through more pages, frowning.
“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
Rhyia leaned over and pushed a fallen strand of his hair back over one of his ears. “Take it.”
“You want me to have it?” he asked, just to be sure.
He wondered what he’d done that was worthy of being commemorated with a present.
“I thought you could use a little nonsense,” she told him, which worried him a little.
He took it home with him, and the next day he took it to the edge of the water. He sat, opened the book, and began to read. Time slipped away, and he didn’t notice someone coming up behind him.
“Sulking by the sea, princeling?”
Cardan looked up to see the troll woman. He startled.
“You recall Aslog, don’t you?” she asked with something acid in her voice, an accusation.