And then Oak is herded toward the palace, with Tiernan behind him and Randalin complaining vociferously to the High King and Queen about the discomforts of the journey.
“You insisted on going north,” Jude reminds the councilor.
As soon as they pass through the doors of the Palace of Elfhame, Oriana embraces Oak, hugging him tightly. “What were you thinking?” she asks, which is so exactly what he expects her to say that it makes him laugh.
“Where’s Madoc?” he asks between being released by his mother and Taryn sweeping him into another hug.
“Probably waiting for us in the war room,” Jude says.
Leander comes up to Oak, demanding to be swung around. He lifts the boy in his arms and whirls, rewarded with the child’s laughter.
Cardan yawns. “I hate the war room.”
Jude rolls her eyes. “He’s probably arguing with Grima Mog’s second-in-command.”
“Well, if there’s an actual fight to watch, that’s different, obviously,” Cardan says. “But if it’s just pushing little wooden people around on maps, I will leave that to Leander.”
At the mention of his name, Leander capers over. “I’m bored and you’re bored,” he says. “Play with me?” It’s half request, half demand.
Cardan touches the top of the child’s head, brushing back his dark coppery hair. “Not now, imp. We have many dull adult things to do.”
Oak wonders if Cardan sees Locke in the boy. Wonders if he sees the child he and Jude do not—and will not anytime soon, it seems—have.
When she turns toward him, Oak holds up a hand to forestall whatever his sister is about to say. “May I speak with Cardan for a moment?”
The High King looks at him with narrowed eyes. “Your sister has precedence, and she would like some time with you.”
At the thought of Jude’s lecture and then the lectures of all the other family members who took precedence, Oak feels exhausted.
“I haven’t been home in almost two months and am sticky with salt spray,” he says. “I want to take a bath and put on my own clothes and sleep in my own bed before you all start yelling at me.”
Jude snorts. “Pick two.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You can sleep and then have a bath, but I am going to be there the moment you’re done, not caring a bit about your being naked. You can bathe and put on fresh clothes, and see me before you sleep. Or you could sleep and change your garments, no bath, although I admit that’s not my preference.”
He gives her an exasperated look. She smiles back at him. In his mind, she has always been his sister first, but right at that moment it’s impossible to forget that she’s also the Queen of Elfhame.
“Fine,” he says. “Bath and clothes. But I want coffee and not the mushroom kind.”
“Your wish,” she tells him, like the liar she is, “is my command.”
“Explain this to me from the beginning,” Jude says, sitting on a couch in his rooms. Her arms are crossed. On the table beside her is an assortment of pastries, a carafe of coffee, cream so fresh that it is still warm and golden, along with bowls of fruit. Servants keep coming with more food— oatcakes, honey cakes, roasted chestnuts, cheeses with crystals that crunch between his teeth, parsnip tarts glazed in honey and lavender—and he keeps eating it.
“After I left Court, I went to see Wren because I knew she could command Lady Nore,” he begins, distracted by someone putting a cup of hot coffee into his hand. His hair is wet and his body relaxed from soaking in hot water. The abundance that he has taken for granted all his life surrounds him, familiar as his own bed.
“You mean Suren?” Jude demands. “The former child-queen of the Court of Teeth? Whom you call by a cute nickname.”
He shrugs. Wren is not precisely a nickname, but he takes his sister’s point. His use of it indicates familiarity.
“Tiernan says that you’ve known her for years.” He can see in Jude’s face that she believes he took a foolish risk recruiting Wren to his quest, that he trusts too easily, and that’s why he often winds up with a knife in his back. It’s what he wants her to believe about him, what he has carefully made her believe, and yet it still stings.
“I met her when she came to Elfhame with the Court of Teeth. We snuck off and played together. I told you back then that she needed help.”
Jude’s dark eyes are intent. She’s listening to all the nuances of what he says, her mouth a hard line. “You snuck off with her during a war? When? Why?”