The Queen of Nothing recap

Exiled to the mortal world by Cardan minutes after marrying him, Jude Duarte is stuck in a human flat with her sisters and her brother, taking odd jobs from passing fey. When Taryn's husband, Locke, turns up dead and Taryn must answer for it before the High King's court, Jude goes back to Faerie in her twin's place. She finds Elfhame sliding into civil war: Madoc has taken the north, allied with the vicious Court of Teeth and the treacherous smith Grimsen, and means to take the crown by force. Jude's masquerade collapses, and with it the pretence around the marriage, since the wedding made her High Queen in truth and the banishment never undid it. Captured by the Court of Teeth, she frees the bridled girl the court rules through and escapes. In the final confrontation an old prophecy is fulfilled and Cardan is turned into a monstrous serpent; Jude kills it and he is restored. She defeats Madoc in person and exiles him, and she and Cardan rule Elfhame together, with Jude choosing Faerie for good.

Previously: mortal twins Jude and Taryn Duarte were raised in Faerie by Madoc, the redcap general who killed their parents. In The Cruel Prince, Jude fought for a place at the High Court, became a spy for Prince Dain, and was betrayed by Taryn over the fey lord Locke, who courted both sisters. Prince Balekin murdered the High King and his heirs with Madoc's help, and Jude responded by capturing the youngest prince, Cardan, and putting him on the throne on condition that he obey her for a year and a day, blocking Madoc's plan to rule as regent through her small brother Oak, the secret true heir, whom she sent to the human world. In The Wicked King, Jude ruled as Cardan's seneschal while fending off assassins, Madoc's scheming and the Undersea's demands. Taryn married Locke. Jude was abducted by the Undersea and only freed when Cardan bought her back with a treaty and with Balekin, who became ambassador to the sea. When Madoc finally moved against the throne, Cardan and Jude married before the court, making Jude High Queen and destroying Madoc's claim to a regency, and then Cardan immediately exiled her to the mortal world, giving no reason. Madoc's forces remained in the field, and Jude, unable to disobey a royal command, was stranded among humans.

Months into her exile, Jude is living in a mortal flat with Vivi, Heather and Oak, going quietly out of her mind. Barred from Faerie and refusing to be useless, she takes small commissions from fey who cross into the human world, which is how she comes to the attention of Grima Mog, an exiled redcap general who has been hunting humans in the city. Their encounter ends in mutual professional respect and gives Jude her first solid news of home: Madoc is in open rebellion, Elfhame is heading for war, and the High King's position is worse than the court admits. Jude ignores messages from Faerie out of pride and refuses to ask anyone for a way back. Then Taryn arrives with a problem that only a twin can solve: her husband, Locke, is dead, she will have to answer for it before the High King, and the court can compel a fey to speak the truth. She asks Jude to go to Elfhame in her place and be Taryn for a day.

Jude crosses back into Faerie wearing her sister's face and her sister's life. At court she is questioned about Locke's death, faces the High King she has not seen since he banished her, and gets through the inquiry without being unmasked, which puts her inside the palace with an exile still hanging over her real name. What she finds there is a realm in crisis. Madoc has taken the north and allied himself with the Court of Teeth, a brutal court from the frozen reaches, and his rebellion is no longer a rumour but an army. Old friends from the Court of Shadows are still in place and still willing to work with her. Cardan is ruling more capably than she expected and is no more forthcoming than he ever was. Jude, who came for one day, stays.

The masquerade ends: Cardan knows exactly who has been standing in his court in Taryn's clothes. The confrontation forces out what neither of them dealt with at the wedding. The marriage was real and binding, the crown recognises Jude as High Queen of Elfhame in her own right, and the banishment never altered that; Cardan's account of why he sent her away is that he was trying to put her out of reach of what was coming, whatever it cost him afterwards. Jude's exile is lifted and her position acknowledged, so that for the first time she holds power openly rather than through an oath or a proxy. It also makes her a target of the first rank, because Madoc's claim depends on there being no legitimate ruler in the way, and the war moves closer to the palace.

Madoc's alliance shows its full shape. The Court of Teeth is led by Lady Nore and her consort, who rule through a captive child, Wren, kept obedient by an enchanted bridle, and their price for backing Madoc runs through the crown of Elfhame itself. The smith Grimsen, restored to favour and trusted with the court's most important work, has been serving Madoc all along, and the crown he has made carries a flaw of his own devising. Jude is taken prisoner and carried north, where the Court of Teeth try to break her the way they broke Wren. She refuses to be an instrument, gets close enough to the bridled girl to free her, and Wren turns on the guardians who used her. Jude escapes with her life and with what she has learned about the crown, the smith and exactly how Madoc intends to take the throne.

The war reaches the palace. Madoc holds the crown Grimsen made and the force to back a claim, and he applies the pressure he knows works: he threatens the people Cardan and Jude will not sacrifice, so that surrender starts to look like the cheaper option. Cardan proves willing to give up the crown rather than let Jude be killed for it. Jude, meanwhile, learns the old prophecy attached to Cardan's birth, that he would be the ruin of the crown of Elfhame, and understands that Grimsen's flawed workmanship and the prophecy are the same trap. Every faction converges on the palace, with Oak's claim, the Undersea's treaty and Madoc's army all in play, and Jude is left to work out what a High Queen can do that a general with an army cannot simply take.

The prophecy is fulfilled: Cardan is transformed into a vast serpent that ravages the palace and cannot be reasoned with, and the ruin foretold at his birth arrives. Jude, High Queen in her own right, kills the serpent, and Cardan is restored whole from the body of the thing he became, the curse spent rather than postponed. With it, Madoc's rebellion falls apart. Jude faces her adoptive father directly, defeats him, and instead of killing him has him exiled from Elfhame, stripped of command and claim; Grimsen is destroyed by his own handiwork. Jude and Cardan rule together as High Queen and High King, the marriage public, the exile revoked, and the throne no longer contested. Oak is free to grow up without a crown waiting on him, Taryn is expecting Locke's child, and Jude, who spent her life demanding a place that could not be taken away, decides to stay in Faerie.

The prophecy spoken at Cardan's birth comes true: he is transformed into an enormous serpent that tears through the palace and its people, no longer able to answer to anyone. Jude, who is High Queen in her own right, is the one who can end it, and she does, killing the serpent, at which point Cardan is restored whole out of its body, the curse discharged rather than merely delayed. Madoc's rebellion collapses with it. Jude faces him directly and beats him, and rather than execute the man who raised her she has him exiled from Elfhame, stripped of his command and his claim. Grimsen's treachery ends with him undone by his own craft. What is left is a settlement: Jude and Cardan rule Elfhame together as High Queen and High King, the marriage acknowledged and the exile revoked, with the Undersea's treaty intact and a court that has run out of ways to argue that a mortal cannot hold the throne. Oak's future is his own again, since nobody now needs him as a puppet, and he can be brought home or left to grow up in the mortal world as he chooses. Taryn is carrying Locke's child, and the sisters are on repaired terms. Jude, who spent the whole series wanting a place that could not be taken from her, chooses to stay.