Thornlost (Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

mostly meaningless nowadays, mere historical curiosities, for the Fae had disdained the Kingdom these many centuries now for their own lands, only occasionally venturing into the world everyone else lived in. It wasn’t as if they’d accept just anyone who wore the crown as their king. Rafe, however, wasn’t so certain about the simple heirloom value. What if, he proposed, the Rights could bring the Fae to heel? Meredan could crown himself King of the Fae, and they’d have to come out of the Brightlands and bring with them all the magic they’d taken with them. Would that magic then be at Meredan’s service? If so, what would he do with it? Cade had looked startled by these notions, then shrugged. From what he’d seen of his great-great-whatever-grandmother, who’d told him the real story of how the Rights had come to be hidden, the Fae served no one but the Fae themselves.
    Cade believed, and Mieka agreed with him, that the symbolism was all that remained. But to gain that symbolism, the King might pay a truly obscene amount of money. It could be Alaen’s if he was of a mind to go find the Rights, which hinged on how much attention he’d paid to Touchstone’s performance, whether he’d connect the old family stories he and his cousin Briuly had heard with what he’d seen, and the chances of his being distracted from hopeless yearning after Chirene. Mieka wondered if the prospect of all that coin piled up in a bank would tempt the lady from her husband and children. He didn’t know her well enough to judge, but the possibility might goad Alaen into action.
    Cade was determined that the staggeringly rich Lord Oakapple should not benefit by the finding of the Rights. He had his good name back, and that ought to be enough for him. Mieka didn’t much care one way or the other who ended up with the stuff, except that he’d like to see the things for real. Just to make sure he’d got them right onstage. Cade had described them intricately from his glimpse in the Elsewhen, but—
    “Very clever of you,” Vered was saying, “to work it all out, no doubting. But it wasn’t Alaen or Briuly or any of the other Blackpaths or whichever relations did it, ’twas Cade. If anyone’s to be rewarded—” As Cade gave him an innocent smile, Vered whistled between his teeth. “How much?”
    “Why, what a very ill-bred question, Master Goldbraider!”
    “It was a commission, remember,” Mieka put in helpfully. “We did the job of it, he had to pay us.”
    And quite handsomely, too. Cade had got extra, of course, but the rest of Touchstone had profited as well. Mieka’s gaze strayed to the remodeled barn that was the direct result of the heavy purses Lord Oakapple—weeping with gratitude—had presented to them. Jeska had used his to rent very nice lodgings in a very nice part of Gallantrybanks. Rafe’s had gone into his savings. He and Crisiant were perfectly comfortable for now with their rooms above the Threadchaser bakery, but eventually they’d have children and Rafe would buy a house. Mieka still didn’t know what Cade planned to do with his earnings. He knew that the height of Cade’s ambition was to move out of Redpebble Square and into his own flat, but had heard nothing to indicate he’d even begun looking for a place yet.
    Now that he was twenty-one, of course, Cade would be coming into the money his grandsir had left him. That explained it, Mieka told himself. Cade had been waiting for the whole pile, at which point he’d buy himself a grand mansion and one would need a signed-sealed-and-beribboned invitation to get past thefootman. Foot
men
, he amended, to fetch and carry, and lots of pretty maidservants to clean up the clutter, a librarian to put all the books back in order after a research binge, a coachman to drive a shiny new carriage, and a groom for the horses—and please all the Gods that Quill wouldn’t pester him again about learning how to ride—
    “Mieka? Mieka!”
    He started, nearly