The Cruel Prince

At Hollow Hall, Jude feigns being an enchanted human servant. As she’s cleaning Cardan’s empty bedroom, she discovers that he lives at Hollow Hall, not with his father, the King, as she expected. She sneaks into a deserted tower and finds a suspicious letter from an unsigned writer, and quickly copies it. Balekin and Cardan enter the tower room, and Jude hides. After besting his younger brother in a sword fighting skirmish, Balekin thrashes Cardan, and Jude feels the first bit of sympathy for her rival.

Jude reports back to Dain about the letter she found, and he tells her it’s from the queen of the undersea kingdom, giving Balekin poison to kill Dain. Dain questions Jude about her experience in Hollow Hall, which makes Jude realize she enjoyed the thrill of evading capture. One of Dain’s other spies, a goblin called the Roach, shows Jude the spies’ secret underground lair, called the Court of Shadows.

The Roach introduces Jude to Dain’s other two spies: a male faerie known as the Ghost, and a female creature with the nickname the Bomb. (Jude realizes that she saw the Bomb at the party in Chapter 3.) They tell her that until Dain assigns her next mission, they’re going to train her.