The Wicked King

The Wicked King is the second novel of Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy, published in 2019. It picks up directly after the first book, with Jude having bound Cardan to her and installed herself behind the throne, which leaves her holding a court that would happily see her removed from it, with a title she gave herself rather than one Faerie recognises.

Cardan makes the job as difficult as he can. In public he humiliates her, and in private he is unable to leave her alone, which is worse for both of them than open hostility would be. Somewhere close to her is somebody working against her, and working out who it is means trusting almost nobody in Faerie, with the list of people she can rely on getting shorter as the book goes on.

The book is a court thriller as much as a fantasy romance. The alliances shift every time the court meets, the sea kingdom next door has its own claims to press, and Jude has to keep several deceptions running at once while remaining the person giving the orders. The mortal in the room is the one in charge, and she is starting to enjoy it more than is good for her.

The trilogy closes with The Queen of Nothing, and this middle volume assumes both the first book's ending and its bargain. Black keeps the narration with Jude, so the reader follows the politics from inside the deception rather than from a position of safety, and the book ends on a decision that the third volume has to answer for.