The start of a thrilling new fantasy series from bestselling author Holly Black about Jude Duarte, seventeen and mortal, who finds herself caught tangled in palace intrigues while trying to win a place in the treacherous High Court of Faerie, where she and her sisters have lived for ten years.
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Blurb
Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Description
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the Fae despise humans especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy himβand face the consequences.
In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
Book Summary
When Jude Duarte was seven, her parents were murdered by Madoc. Madoc takes Jude, her twin sister Taryn Duarte, and her older half-sister Vivienne to Elfhame. In Elfhame, they are raised among the gentry by him and his wife Oriana alongside Oriana’s son Oak. Jude aspires to be a knight in order to become a permanent member of the Court, but Madoc forbids her. Cardan Greenbriar, the youngest son of King Eldred, despises Jude and often bullies her at school along with his friends Nicasia, Locke, and Valerian.
Vivi wants Jude and Taryn to live in the human world with her girlfriend Heather, but Jude has grown too used to Faerie.
Cardanβs older brother Dain offers Jude the chance to be his spy in exchange for immunity to any glamour except his. Jude accepts. On her first mission to Prince Balekinβs home Hollow Hall, Jude steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. She discovers a letter from Orlagh, the Queen of the Undersea and Nicasiaβs mother, implying that Balekin will poison Dain with blusher mushroom. She also sees Balekin beat Cardan in a swordfight and lash him with his belt for not killing a human servant.
Jude meets the other members of the Court of Shadows: the Bomb, the Roach, and the Ghost. Later, at home, a piece of paper falls out of Alice in Wonderland and she discovers Cardan wrote her name all over it. She begins practicing mithridatism.
Valerian eventually discovers Jude is resistant to glamours and tries to kill her, but she stabs him. Locke invites her to a party at his house and gives her a dress that belonged to his mother Liriope. The next day, she discovers a golden acorn in the pocket of a dress Locke gave her that tells her about Liriopeβs death by blusher mushroom. This clue causes her to reconsider Queen Orlaghβs letter, which she decides was merely indicating the location of particular mushrooms.
On one mission, Jude attempts to free a human girl named Sophie, but Sophie commits suicide. Dain found out that she stabbed Valerian and is angry at her for acting recklessly. He forces her to stab her hand. That night, Valerian tries to kill her in her bedroom, but she kills him. Soon afterwards, she and the Ghost kill a messenger, who turns out to be one of Madocβs spies in disguise.
Before the coronation, Madoc gives Jude a sword forged by her biological father.
At the coronation, Balekin and Madoc stage a coup which kills the entire royal family except for Cardan. Jude and Cardan escape to the Court of Shadows headquarters, where she holds him captive. Cardan tells her, the Roach, and the Ghost that Dain killed a child he had with Eldredβs consort. He did so because of a prophecy saying if the child lives he would never be king.
Back home, Jude finds out that Locke has been dating her and Taryn at the same time and challenges Taryn to a duel. Vivi glamours them to stop, but the glamour does not work on Jude due to the geas. Madoc lectures Jude and tells her she can have anything she wants in exchange for Cardan. He also mentions a banquet held by Balekin. Vivi asks Jude if she wants to move to the human world again.
Jude comes to the realization that Oak is Dain and Liriopeβs child and that Madoc wants to rule through him. She later interrogates Cardan and kisses him. She makes a plan to crown Oak and Cardan swears himself to her for a year and a day.
On the day of the banquet, Jude and Madoc duel over the crown. Jude manages to win by poisoning Madocβs wine. However, it turns out that Jude has Oak crown Cardan so he can be her puppet king.
If you are the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.
β
Cardan Greenbriar, also known as High King Cardan or King Cardan and previously Prince Cardan, is a faerie and the current High King of Elfhame. He is the son of Lady Asha and youngest child of Eldred Greenbriar, great-grandson of Mab Greenbriar, brother to Balekin, Elowyn, Dain, Rhyia and Caelia Greenbriar, husband of Jude Duarte and uncle of Oak. He was also the ringleader of his inner circle of friends.
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Physical Description
Cardan has curly, iridescent midnight hair and sharp cheekbones. He has long, black eyelashes and soft lips. His eyes are described as black with a golden ring around the pupils. He usually wears kohl under his eyes. Cardan is said to be lean and tall, with very pale skin. He has a number of scars on his back from his abusive eldest brother, Prince Balekin. Cardan possesses a slim, nearly hairless tail with a tuft of black fur at the tip which is often kept tucked away in the back of his shirt. He is described as more beautiful than the rest of the Folk by Jude.
He is almost always seen wearing extravagant clothes made of opulent fabrics, studded with shiny gemstones and exotic feathers and patterns. He wears a circlet of gold on his head. The official art of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, depicts Cardan as a tall figure with very pale skin, long black hair, and black eyes.
Personality
King Cardan is cruel, sarcastic, prideful, and manipulative. He is described as not being any good with a sword and doesn’t show any interest in the crown.
According to him, his redeeming quality is that he is no murderer. Often, he struggles to understand his emotions and tries to mask them with sneers and sarcasm. He’s admitted that he’s so good at guarding his heart, he can act as though he doesn’t have one. Even so, Cardan occasionally shows a softer side, along with fear, shame, desire, and even care. When he’s nervous, he smiles. Cardan is known for his charm and wit, which allow him to slyly escape danger. However, Cardan has shown that he does feel love, just never truly learned how to do so. He is also a sweet talker and can talk almost anyone into anything. He knows how to entertain.
Jude mentions that his glamour is more powerful and seductive than other Folk. As a prince of Faerie, no matter what he wants, he knows what’s expected of him. Cardan is very good at playing the fool to disguise his own cleverness.
Biography
Early Life
When he was born, Prince Cardan was deemed to be a harbinger of ill-luck after his birth by the Royal Astrologer, Baphen. His father, the former High King Eldred had disregarded Cardan when he was born.
Prince Cardan’s mother, Lady Asha, found having a child to be boring and irritating, so Cardan was heavily neglected in childhood. In an enchanted globe Jude found on former High King Eldred’s desk, she sees Cardan as a very small child. He’s dressed in a shirt that’s too large and hangs down like a gown, barefoot and streaked with mud. He wears dangling hoops in his ears, as though an adult gave him their earrings. Jude sees him try to get his mother’s attention only to be pushed to the ground. Young Cardan then ran off and picks a fight with an older boy, which finally gets Lady Asha’s attention and makes her laugh. At that, Cardan smiled.
When Cardan was young, Lady Asha left him to be suckled by a little black cat whose kittens came stillborn so that Asha could participate in revels at the High Court without needing to worry about her son. At one point it is said that Cardan was adored, but then forgotten. Given fine cuts of meat, but then forgotten about the next few meals. He was often dressed in fur clocks that were left till they became rags, looking to his mother for approval, which came only when he was awful. He was abandoned for long periods of time, weaned on cat milk and cruelty, left to roam the Palace of Elfhame like a little ghost. His other siblings often picked on him and treated him like a dog, throwing him scraps and things from the tables.
by Lauren Richelieu
One of Cardan’s brothers, Prince Dain, played a trick on Cardan that resulted in the High Court thinking Cardan had killed the beloved mortal lover of Val Moren, who was the seneschal of High King Eldred. Prince Dain saw to it that though Cardan protested, no one would hear his side of events by telling the story of the youngest prince’s recklessness and arrogance. Their father would not even allow Cardan an audience, «and so Prince Cardan’s reputation was made, he had little to do but further it.» As Lady Asha had been sentenced to the Tower of Forgetting, Prince Cardan was then sent to reside with his eldest brother, Prince Balekin, in Hollow Hall, enduring Balekinβs harsh punishments and cruelty, which included physical, verbal and emotional abuse.
School and Bullying
Prince Cardan and his inner circle, Nicasia, Locke and Valerian, often made sport of bullying Taryn and Jude Duarte at school. One time, Prince Cardan dirt into Taryn and Jude’s food and threatened to ensorcell Jude into eating the dirt. He told Jude she doesn’t belong in the Summer Tournament because it’s not for mortals and if she didn’t withdraw, she would wish she had. In retaliation, Jude secretly put salt in Prince Cardan, Nicasia, Locke, and Valerian’s food, so they attacked Taryn and Jude after classes by throwing them into the river. Cardan tells Jude that they will break her because she is mortal and fragile and that she should give up, to which she responds that she will never break.
The next day, when Prince Cardan was talking to Taryn Duarte and making her cry, Taryn’s twin sister, Jude, slams Prince Cardan against a tree and warns him to stay away from her sister. Later, at the Summer TournamentΚ»s mock war, Prince Cardan mocks and provokes Jude and she begins to viciously fight him. She beat Prince Cardan and ended up winning the competition for her entire team. Afterward, Prince Cardan demands her submission, but Jude tells him that she will shame him with her defiance and that while he might win in the end, she will make sure to take everything she can away from him on the way down, which leaves Cardan speechless.
Later, Valerian forces Jude to eat faerie fruit and begins to choke her with it, so Prince Cardan shoves Valerian off her saying that if she dies, his prank will be over before it begins. While she is high on the fruit, Cardan and his friends mock her. Prince Cardan tells her to kiss his foot and tell him how much she admires him, but stops Jude and takes her home. Before she can leave, Cardan stabs her finger and makes her bleed so that she will suck on her finger and the salt in her blood will reverse the effects of the fruit.
Life Outside of School
At Hollow Hall, Prince Balekin forces Cardan to demonstrate his skills with a sword and when Balekin easily overpowered Prince Cardan, Balekin tells him he is weak and instructs a human servant to beat Cardan with a belt. Prince Cardan grabs the sword and Balekin tells him to go ahead and kill the human, but Prince Cardan replies that he is not a murderer.
While Prince Cardan was at a party at Locke’s estate, Jude was there with Cardan’s friend Locke as his lover. Despite being drunk and having two faerie girls all over him, he couldn’t stop staring at Jude.
The Coronation Ceremony
At Prince Dain’s ceremony, Prince Cardan teases Locke by messing around with Taryn and Jude by stepping between Locke and Jude when they were dancing and chiding Locke.
When the crowning began, Prince Cardan was missing. He wasn’t there when Prince Balekin slaughtered the royal family, but Jude Duarte found him drunk under a table after the revel continued as if the killings never happened. Prince Cardan tells her that his father, High King Eldred, hated him and then leads Jude up to the palace floors. When they get there, Jude threatens him with a knife and takes him to the Court of Shadows, a secret organization of spies that used to work for Prince Dain. Jude ties Cardan to a chair and waits for other members of the Court to show up.
The Court of Shadows
Two more members of the Court of Shadows, the Roach and the Ghost, arrive and with a prompt from Cardan, the Ghost admits that he was the one who poisoned Liriope with orders from Dain. Jude then leaves Prince Cardan in the Ghost and the Roach’s care while she returns to Madoc’s Stronghold.
The next day, Jude returns to the Court of Shadows to interrogate Prince Cardan. When she asks him why he hates her so much he avoids the question until Jude threatens to shoot him with a crossbow. Cardan then admits that he envies her because Madoc loves her despite her being his foster daughter when Prince Cardanβs own father despised him. He also envies her because she doesnβt have an abusive older brother and because he believed that she stole Locke from Nicasia, making Nicasia cry. Jude then reveals that when spying in Hollow Hall, she had found a paper on which he wrote her name over and over again with intense hatred, but when she asks him about it he hesitates. After more threats, Cardan admits that he is attracted to Jude and thinks about her often, and hates himself for wanting a mortal. Jude then kisses him and he kisses her back.
Cardan proposes a bargain where Jude will tell Balekin that Cardan will crown him in exchange for lands and gold for Prince Cardan and Jude be given whatever she wants, but Cardan tells her that he does not want to be High King. Jude then tells Prince Cardan and the rest of the Court of Shadows about how her foster brother, Oak, is of the house of Greenbriar and implies that Prince Cardan will crown her brother. Her plan is to then send Oak to the mortal world until he is old enough to be the High King. She persuades Cardan to swear himself into her service because she tells him she cannot trust him with the crown of Elfhame in his hands. Prince Cardan helps Jude recruit allies from other Courts to back up their plan.
Hollow Hall
At the feast at Hollow Hall, Prince Cardan walks in with Jude on his arm, shocking everyone. Balekin does not immediately seize Cardan as he now knows the importance of a willing participant in a coronation
As planned, the Bomb, another member of the Court of Shadows, sets off an explosion and the Roach shoots bolts at Balekin to distract his guards while the Ghost steals the blood crown amidst the chaos. When Jude finally gets ahold of the crown and gives it to Oak, she tells Prince Cardan to show Oak what he should do as the one being crowned and Cardan kneels, beckoning for Oak to do the same. However, Jude commands Prince Cardan to stay completely still in his kneeling position while Oak performs the coronation ceremony and places the crown on Cardanβs head, as he practiced with Vivi, and Prince Cardan becomes the new High King.
King Cardan is furious at her betrayal, as he does not want to be High King, but still appoints Jude as his seneschal while also telling her that he has not yet forgiven her.
It has been five months since Cardan was crowned High King. Cardan does not take his obligations seriously, leaving Jude to do all the work as his seneschal. All he does is drink, party, and pretend to be High King. He also refuses to attend meetings with the Living Council. His subjects come up to him and ask him questions, one of them being Grimsen, who is in exile. He comes to Cardan to ask to have his exile lifted. Cardan grants him that on the condition that he will show Cardan his loyalty in his deeds, rather than with his words.
Then Mother Marrow comes forward, and gifts Cardan a piece of fabric woven of spidersilk and nightmares. She tries to trick Cardan into a geas but is stopped by Jude. Jude is informed that Balekin wishes to speak with Cardan and goes to meet him herself. She meets Cardanβs mother Lady Asha in the Tower of Forgetting.
She comes back to find that an attempt was made on Cardanβs life by a crossbow while he was drunk and in bed with another faerie. He got away safely but has a wound. Jude moves him to her bedroom while she inspects his room and in his drunken state, he tells her to kiss him over and over again until he is sick of it. He falls asleep before Jude can reply. Jude finds out there is a secret passage in his room and after exploring it, finds Nicasia crying. Nicasia says that she didnβt mean to shoot at Cardan, but the faerie next to him out of jealousy.
Jude tells Cardan about Balekinβs wish to meet with him but Cardan refuses his demands. They find out that Balekin is working with Queen Orlagh of the Undersea. Jude tells Cardan to seduce Nicasia to find out more about Queen Orlaghβs plan. Cardan uses his seductive talents on Jude instead and they start kissing. They end up in bed together. Jude later reveals they did not go all the way. Cardan finds out from Nicasia that Queen Orlagh is planning to rebel against him and they soon receive a warning. They think that the Undersea plans to hurt Oak, who is coming to Elfhame for Taryn and Lockeβs wedding, and take appropriate precautions. But the Undersea abducts Jude instead.
Cardan does everything he can to get Jude back. He agrees to all of the Underseaβs terms, even letting them attack his kingdom without retaliating. After Jude returns, she finds out that Cardan and Madoc blamed each other for her abduction.
Later, when she goes to the palace to tell Cardan that Balekin and Orlagh plan Cardan’s murder. Cardan confesses some of his feelings, making Jude speechless.
On the night of the masquerade party, Cardan seems like he’s drunk and was poisoned by Balekin with wraithberry. When Jude takes him to her room, the Bomb comes and gives him clay. Saying that it will draw out and contain the toxins. Balekin offered to give Jude the antidote for the crown. When Jude comes back, Cardan realizes that it was Taryn who posed as Jude to get Cardan to free Madoc from his vows to the crown and allow him to take half the army. Cardan offers for Jude to be the High Queen which she accepts. He then requests that she frees him from his vow of obedience. Jude frees him and they are married.
When Cardan finds out Jude killed Balekin, he exiles Jude from Elfhame to the mortal world until the crown pardons her.
Cardan is first seen when Jude comes into the court as Taryn. Cardan asks questions and then tells her to come to his room. There, he tells her that he knows she is Jude and asks why she has not answered any of the letters he sent her. He tells her the exile was a trick.
Madoc attacks and takes Jude. While she is planning her escape, Cardan comes to save her with the Roach. When Jude tells them that the Ghost is there, they agree to go with her to get the key from Grimsen. While there, they set off a trap of poisoned needles. Cardan, wearing Mother Marrow’s invincible clock, steps in front of Jude, leaving the Roach to be hurt. Jude then urges Cardan to take the Roach back to the Bomb for treatment. Cardan gives Jude his clock for safety.
Jude assumes that there is going to be an attempt on Cardan’s life and rushes back to the palace. She sends Cardan a note, which he seems to set aside to play as bait. The Bomb mistakes Jude as the assassin and shoots at Jude. She falls and lands on the banquet table. Later, Cardan admits that he had been scared for her when he watched her fall. Cardan stalks towards her and calls her a dirty mortal liar. However, when the guards come to chain her, Cardan commands them not to touch her, and then announces that Jude is his wife and the High Queen of Faerie.
After Jude wakes up from being healed, he takes her to the garden and reveals that she could have come back to Elfhame at any time she pleased since she is a part of the crown. Cardan mentions that he had thought she would figure out the riddle and by the time she had, he would have created a treaty with the Undersea. Cardan states that he thought Jude would have admired him for being able to trick her.
During a meeting with the Living Court, in which they question Cardan about why Jude was back and why he had not gone to them before marrying. Cardan sends them off and the Bomb enters. Telling Cardan he should leave while she takes out Jude’s stitches. Cardan does go, reluctantly.
He then meets with Nicasia, who tells him that someone shot her mother through the heart and the arrow won’t move. After the Seafolk leaves, the Living Council meets once again to try and figure a plan to stop Madoc. Jude gets a letter from Taryn to meet her Hollow Hall, she excuses herself, however, Cardan insists on going with her. There they find the Ghost and Taryn. Taryn uses the Ghost’s true name to make him forget Madoc’s commands.
Cardan asks the Ghost if killing him was the order, and the Ghost confirms it. Upon Taryn’s accusations, Cardan tells her that he doesn’t think love is a game, unlike Locke. On the way back, Cardan manages to get Taryn to tell him about mortal food. Taryn later tells Jude that he was trying to impress her.
Later, Cardan comes back to his and Jude’s chambers to find the counselor, Randalin verbally attacking Jude about how no one wants her. He asks Jude to leave the room so he can have a talk with Randalin, when she refuses, he takes the counselor out and then has their talk. Afterward, Tatterfell and Heather arrive. He invites Heather and Vivi to come to the ball in the evening.
As Jude is getting ready, Cardan advises Jude to lie to the Lowe Courts to make them believe that the High King will triumph over Madoc. At the ball, Cardan and Jude make their way to the great hall and are greeted with many kisses. Cardan then welcomes all the Lower Courts, saying that the loyal ones are welcome and has his hospitality. But the oath breaks has Jude’s hospitality of knives.
Cardan and Jude head back to their chambers. Cardan compliments Jude on looking intimidating. Jude replies that after his speech, it wasn’t too hard. They then began to kiss, Cardan telling Jude she looks like a knight from a story, possibly filthy. When Jude freezes, Cardan immediately lets go and tells Jude they don’t have to, though Jude stops him and tells him she needs a few minutes. She goes into the wardrobe and comes back undressed. Jude then begins to tease Cardan with begging as he had imagined in Hollow Hall. He tells her he is forever undone by her and they then make love.
The next few days are spent planning and trying to figure out how they’ll stop Madoc and try to convince the Lower Courts to join Cardan’s army. Cardan and Jude try to also convince Grima Mog to join his generals. During the planning, Grima Mog and Fala offer that they go out and fight Madoc. Cardan points out that Madoc will call a truce and they need to hear him out. Jude points out that Madoc wants a duel, and it would be very hard to say no. The Bomb adds that they could just tell Madoc to surrender his weapons. Cardan detests the idea, as he is too prideful and that would make him look like a coward.
Madoc comes before the Courts and tells Cardan that he is unfit to rule, demanding that Cardan gives him the crown to be the ruler. Defiantly, Cardan takes the Blood Crown and cracks it in half. Due to Grimsen cursing everything he made to preserve it, the curse turns Cardan into a large serpent. After everyone is evacuated, it begins to snow in the brugh, something that’s never happened. The earth also cracks underneath serpent Cardan. Following this, Cardan recalls that being a serpent was like being in the dark, he couldn’t reason and his only feelings were hatred and the desire to destroy. As a serpent, Cardan seems to be poisonous to the land, leaving behind black trails. The Court of Teeth attempts to bridling the serpent but don’t succeed. They then bargain with Jude and give her the bridle instead.
At first, Jude plans to use the bridle, but then she realizes that Cardan would hate to be trapped and that it was unfair for Jude to call it love. She then lobs serpent Cardan’s head off and he comes out of the serpent naked and covered in blood. Jude runs to him, and Cardan embraces her before pulling away as knights approach him with a clock. This Cardan doesn’t take, instead choosing to joke about not wanting to start wearing clothes again. Grima Mog comes up to Jude and asks if Madoc should be chained up. Cardan answers for Jude that Madoc should be chained. Hustled into a carriage, Cardan asks Jude how long he’d been a serpent. Jude replies that it had been three days. Upon arriving at the palace, Cardan insists on seeing the throne room. Which was destroyed when Cardan turned. Using his powers over the earth, Cardan calls a throne and splits it in half. Making one for Jude.
In the epilogue, the courts accept Cardan as their High King and Jude as their High Queen. Cardan then gives the Ghost, the Roach, and the Bomb masks that conceal their identity. Later, he and Jude go to the mortal world and there Taryn, Vivi, Heather, and Oak buy pizza as a celebration.
For the first nine years of his life, Carden frequently slept in the hay of the stables when his mother wanted him out of their rooms. He would pretend that he was playing hide-and-seek, and no one found him because he had picked such a clever hiding place. It is on one of these nights in the stables that Carden meets Aslog. Aslog asks Cardan if he is one of King Eldred’s offspring. Cardan tells Aslog to go away, which she simply laughs. Telling him he has bad manners. Cardan imperially tells Aslog that he’d tell his father, though knowing that his father wanted nothing to do with him. Neither did his siblings unless it amused them. Aslog then decides to tell Cardan a story. She tells him that she’ll ask him what he thinks the meaning of the tale is.
The tale goes that there was a boy who said awful things to everyone. Voicing whatever terrible thought he had. Telling the baker her bread was bad, the butcher that he was ugly, and his siblings that they were useless. He scorned the maidens of his village, calling them dull. He soon annoyed the town witch and she cursed him with the stone heart he acted like he had. He could not feel love, hate, or fear. The boy then had no reason to do anything. No reason to scorn the town, no reason to get up in the morning. Eventually, his mother made him go out into the world to find his fortune.
The boy found a tavernkeeper who he could work for and in exchange get soup, a place to sleep, and some money. After three days, the boy asks if there are any other places to work. The tavernkeeper tells the boy that there is a baron who wants to marry off his daughter. She is said to be fearsome and no man can stay three nights in her chamber. But if a man succeeds in doing so, he gets the daughter’s hand and dowry.
The boy was bathed and readied to meet the baron’s daughter. And then something entered the room. A monster with fur and sharp teeth. All of her previous suitors had ran away in terror and fear, but the boy did not. His heart of stone stopping him. The monster snapped her teeth at him, and when he didn’t show fear, she curled up on the end of the bed. It went on like this for the second night. The boy not being frightened of the monster girl. On the third night, the monster girl came closer and nuzzled the boy. When the boy didn’t move away, she batted at him with her head, slamming his back into the wall. Breaking his stone heart. The boy felt a strange love for his bride and with tears he told the monster girl that she cured him. Only the monster took the tears as a sign of fear and sprang on the boy. Tearing him in pieces.
Cardan exclaims that it is a terrible story. That the boy would have been better off staying at him. Aslog, however, tells Cardan that the moral of the story is that a sharp tongue is no match for a sharp tooth.
A few years later, Cardan is forced to live with his elder brother Balekin. Balekin informs Cardan that he is supposed to make him a proper Prince of Elfhame. Cardan hoped to be the kind of little brother that Balekin might take under his wing. Balekin reminds Cardan that he is lucky Balekin took him in, or he might have been sent to one of the Lower Courts. Balekin instructs Cardan what he will do, choose clean clothes, stop scavenging for his food and use cutlery, learn swordplay, and go to palace school. Balekin then motions for a mortal slave, Margaret, to come.
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Then Mother Marrow comes forward, and gifts Cardan a piece of fabric woven of spidersilk and nightmares. She tries to trick Cardan into a geas but is stopped by Jude. Jude is informed that Balekin wishes to speak with Cardan and goes to meet him herself. She meets Cardanβs mother Lady Asha in the Tower of Forgetting.