Opening
With her new role as a spy for Prince Dain Greenbriar, Jude Duarte seizes a path toward power—only to be stripped of agency by a public assault that hardens her resolve. These chapters track her ruthless pivot from victim to operator, as court cruelty forces her into the shadows, secrets, and poisons that might finally let a mortal survive in Elfhame.
What Happens
Chapter 11
Jude rides the high of joining Dain’s network, certain she finally holds leverage. At dinner, Madoc praises her tournament performance but refuses to back her knighthood. Taryn Duarte, aloof, announces she will skip lectures. On the way to the palace, a white stag crosses Jude’s path—an omen she clings to. In astronomy, her sharp answers nettle Nicasia, and Prince Cardan Greenbriar derails the lesson out of boredom.
Nicasia sneers at Jude’s “mortal eyesight” and slaps her, and the theme of Cruelty and Bullying spikes when Valerian shoves faerie fruit between Jude’s lips. Dain’s protective geas does nothing; the fruit dissolves her will. Cardan kicks Valerian away, then scatters the salt that could save her, prolonging her humiliation. Giddy and pliant, Jude obeys commands to strip to her underwear. Cardan redirects the cruelty, ordering her to kiss his foot—until Locke claims her and says he will take her home.
Cardan, seething, stabs her thumb with a jeweled pin. His petty act backfires: the salt in her blood breaks the fruit’s spell. Staggering but lucid, Jude lets Locke lead her away. He studies her like a puzzle and murmurs, “like a story that hasn’t happened yet.”
Chapter 12
Jude returns to Madoc’s fury. He demands names, swearing murder. Calculating the fallout of his wrath—especially if it touches a prince—she lies and claims she ate the fruit willingly. He knows she lies but stands down. The moment crystallizes her Fear and Powerlessness and the tangle of Family, Loyalty, and Betrayal: she protects him from himself by keeping him in the dark.
Instead of begging for safety, she asks for harsher training. It’s her clearest pivot toward Power, Politics, and Ambition. Later, a servant’s dress appears on her bed, and an owl-faced hob lands on her balcony with her first mission: infiltrate Hollow Hall, home of Prince Balekin Greenbriar, and uncover treason.
Chapter 13
Jude skips lessons to prepare. Vivienne Duarte senses danger and tries to help; Jude refuses, choosing secrecy over family. Disguised as a servant, she rides a giant toad to Hollow Hall. Inside, the human staff drift in drugged stupors—kept docile with faerie fruit—while fae lie amidst the debris of a decadent revel.
Hunting for Balekin’s study, Jude blunders into Cardan’s chambers and finds a worn copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from her mortal childhood. She pockets it. In Balekin’s study, a letter mentions “blusher mushroom.” As she traces a copy, Balekin and Cardan enter. Jude hides beneath a massive chair and witnesses Balekin’s “lesson”: verbal degradation followed by a staff beating and an order for a human servant to whip Cardan’s bare back. The horror reframes Cardan—not only as a tormentor, but as someone shaped by relentless abuse.
Chapter 14
Jude slips from Hollow Hall and reaches the palace to deliver the copied letter to Dain. He recognizes Queen Orlagh’s handwriting—Nicasia’s mother—and concludes Balekin is sourcing poison to kill him before the coronation. He introduces Jude to a goblin called the Roach and binds her with a powerful geas forbidding her from ever speaking of his service, his spies, or their secrets.
The Roach guides her through secret tunnels to the Court of Shadows, Dain’s spy headquarters, where Jude meets the Ghost and the Bomb. Their mission is simple: secure Dain’s ascension. They welcome her but insist she earn her own code name. The Ghost escorts her home through the passages. Jude returns aboveground now fully initiated into the war beneath the throne.
Chapter 15
Jude finds Locke entertaining Oak and her sisters. Locke urges her back to lessons—the “great game” needs her. In the stables, he nearly kisses her before Taryn interrupts. Later, Taryn confesses she is in love with a faerie who will petition for her hand at the coronation, but a binding secret bars her from naming him. Jude’s dread spikes: what if it’s Cardan? When Jude shows Taryn the Alice book, a folded slip falls out. After Taryn leaves, Jude opens it: her name, “Jude,” scrawled over and over in Cardan’s furious hand.
A dressmaker, Brambleweft, arrives the next day. Quietly, she reveals Dain’s instructions: stitch hidden pockets into Jude’s coronation gown for weapons and poisons. Jude’s Belonging and Otherness collide—she is being outfitted for a court that will never fully accept her. On Dain’s advice, she begins mithridatism: ingesting small doses of toxins—faerie fruit, wraithberry, blusher mushroom—to build immunity. The regimen makes her violently ill. The Ghost finds her and trains her in stealth. Jude commits to a brutal routine: lectures, swordplay with Madoc, deliberate poisoning, and spycraft, forging herself into a weapon.
Character Development
Jude’s humiliation becomes the furnace for her transformation. She stops asking to be included and starts carving out power through secrecy, skill, and pain tolerance.
- Jude: Refuses victimhood; lies to shield her volatile guardian; seeks harsher training; embraces espionage and poison to control her own body and fate.
- Cardan: Revealed as a victim of Balekin’s abuse; his cruelty reads as armor and misdirected rage; the obsessive scrawling of Jude’s name shows fixation shaded by loathing and desire.
- Locke: Plays savior at Jude’s nadir and courts her as if she’s narrative fodder, hinting at voyeuristic motives behind his charm.
- Taryn: Pursues safety via romance and assimilation, widening the rift with Jude’s combative path.
- Madoc: His ungovernable wrath makes him unreliable as protector, pushing Jude toward subtler, safer forms of power.
Themes & Symbols
Power and its costs define this stretch. Jude is stripped of agency, then chooses instruments of covert power—secrets, stealth, and poison—over the brute force she associates with Madoc. Politics become survival: spying for Dain grants influence, but his geas proves she is also a controlled asset.
Cruelty ricochets through Elfhame’s hierarchy. The fruit-induced assault shows public, gleeful sadism; Balekin’s “training” exposes private, systemic abuse. The cycle explains how victims can become perpetrators, complicating Jude’s view of Cardan.
Symbols sharpen these ideas:
- Faerie fruit starts as subjugation—mindless pleasure enforced by others—then becomes a tool Jude reclaims via mithridatism, converting humiliation into resilience.
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland mirrors Jude’s fall into a rule-twisting world; its nonsense logic becomes a survival manual.
- Poison signifies clandestine power. It’s the schemer’s weapon and, for Jude, a discipline that rewrites her limits.
Key Quotes
“Kiss my foot.” Cardan reroutes public cruelty into ritualized humiliation, exposing how power in Elfhame operates through spectacle. His command also reveals the line he won’t cross once Locke intervenes—authority maintained, annihilation averted.
“Like a story that hasn’t happened yet.” Locke flatters Jude while objectifying her. He casts himself as audience and editor, signaling that his interest may be driven by narrative thrill rather than care.
“We’re all mad here.” The Alice line reframes court logic as intentional absurdity. Jude must read madness as method—learning to navigate whims, masks, and contradictions without losing herself.
“It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” This Red Queen dictum becomes Jude’s credo. As a mortal among immortals, mere survival demands acceleration; advancement requires extremity—poisons, lies, and relentless training.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot the novel from schoolyard torment to statecraft and shadow war. Jude’s induction into the Court of Shadows embeds her in the succession crisis, while the geas binds her to Dain even as it empowers her. Balekin emerges as the true, lethal antagonist; Cardan gains dimension through revealed trauma, altering his dynamic with Jude from simple bully-victim to a volatile, intimate rivalry.
Jude’s choice to practice mithridatism crystallizes her ethos: she weaponizes what once controlled her. By embracing the tools of Faerie—secrecy, poison, spectacle—she stops reacting and starts strategizing, setting the tone for the ruthless player she is determined to become.