The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (The Folk of the Air #1) summary

     The book begins with Jude's mother and father being killed by a faerie named Madoc, who is seeking revenge because Jude's mother was his wife and she ran away from the Faerie world to be with Jude's father after staging her and her daughter's death in a fire.  We find out later that Jude's father also lived with the fae for a time because he wanted to train to be a master blacksmith with the fae and that is where he met Jude's mother.
      Madoc takes Jude and her sisters back to the Faerie world with him to raise them as his own with his wife Oriana and his son, a small boy named Oak.  One of Jude's sisters Vivi actually is Madoc's daughter (the daughter Jude's mother staged to be dead in the fire) but Jude and her sister Taryn are human, so they are constantly teased and bullied by the other faerie children as they are growing up for not being like the other fae even though they are being raised by the High King's general (Madoc).
      It is announced that the current fae High King (named Eldred) will be stepping down and one of his heirs will be replacing him as High King.  He has 3 sons and 3 daughters:  Balekin, Dain, and Cardan (the sons) and Elowyn, Caelia, and Rhyia (the daughters).  It is expected that Prince Dain will be the one to take the throne at the coronation ceremony happening soon.
      For a human to live in the Faerie realm they must have a skill that benefits the fae such as artistry, fighting skill, or smithing.  Jude goes to Madoc because she wants to be a knight and fight for the kingdom, but when Madoc tells her she isn't a killer and isn't ready for knighthood she gets angry and sets out to prove herself to the royal court.
      At school one day Cardan and his friends Locke, Valerian, and Nicasia are walking by Jude and her sister Taryn at lunchtime and Valerian kicks dirt onto their food.  Although Jude lets it slide at that moment she later puts salt onto all their food, which the fae hate.  They retaliate later that day by throwing Jude and Taryn into the pond where nixies are waiting to drag them under.  Cardan says he will allow Taryn to get out of the water if she denounces Jude's actions and apologizes for her.  She does and at that point Cardan finally allows Jude to get out before the nixies get her.
      At a fighting tournament Jude shows that she is good with a sword when she bests a lot of the fae in the tournament including Cardan, who doesn't take the defeat easily and tells her that she cannot really think she can best a prince.  He then tells her to get down on her knees and beg for mercy for defying a prince.  She tells him that she will keep defying him and shame him with her defiance. This starts an all out war between Jude and the fae prince and his friends, except for Locke.  Locke actually begins dating Jude and flaunting her in front of the other fae.
      After seeing Jude's skills in the tournament, Prince Dain meets with Jude at Madoc's castle in secret so as not to alert Madoc to the deception and asks her to pledge to him as one of his spies.  Knowing Madoc is not going to give her knighthood she accepts.
     Her first task is to infiltrate Hollow Hall, Prince Balekin's house, and find proof of treason.  She manages to sneak in as a human servant and finds a letter addressed to Balekin that reads "I know the provenance of the blusher mushroom that you ask after, but what you do with it must not be tied to me.  After this, I consider my debt paid.  Let my name be stricken from your lips."
     Before Jude can exit the manor she hears someone coming and hides under a chair.  Balekin and Cardan come in and Balekin tells Cardan to practice his swordplay with him.  Cardan grudgingly agrees but loses to Balekin and Balekin has his human servant whip Cardan as punishment for not besting him.  Jude sees now that Balekin is even crueler than Cardan and feels sorry for Cardan at that moment.  (side note: Jude goes back to Hollow Hall later on to try to find more evidence and although nothing turns up she helps a glamoured human servant named Sophie escape.  Sophie's glamour wears off the farther they get from Hollow Hall and Jude lets her know she is safe now and she's taking her back to the human world.  Jude enlists Vivi's help to sneak the girl out of the faerie realm and Vivi summons a flying horse to take them back across the sea.  Now that Sophie is fully awake she is terrified and can't live with the things she's seen so she slides from the back of the horse into the sea after weighing her pockets with stones.  Jude and Vivi try to search for her but she has gone too deep and they know she's dead.  She later shows up at the crowning ceremony as a reanimated corpse with the undersea queen but Jude doesn't interact with her or give any indication that she knows her.  Just putting this in here in case it mentions something about Sophie in the next book.)
      When she takes the letter back to Dain he reveals that he thinks the letter is from Queen Orlagh (the queen of the undersea) and that Balekin has been blackmailing her to get the poisonous blusher mushrooms to poison Dain so that he can take the throne instead.
      Jude is given a geas (a magical protection) by Dain as reward for joining him which makes her immune to fae enchantments but he tells her that she is only immune to enchantments from anyone other than him.  He puts this into effect at this time and forbids her from speaking of or writing about anything she sees within his circle of spies called the Court of Shadows.  She is then introduced to his other spies; Roach- a goblin, Ghost- a fae who is described as looking at least half-human and Bomb- a doe looking girl with white hair.  They begin training Jude to become a better spy and thief for Dain's court.
      Due to all her training with the spies and Madoc she isn't getting enough sleep and so she falls asleep during school one day while it is being held in one of the tall towers. She is woken by a kick from Valerian and when she wakes she sees that all the other fae have left except them.  He proceeds to try to glamour her and tells her to get into the tower window and proclaim that Cardan wins and she can't take it anymore and then to jump from the window and kill herself.  She tells him she'd rather not and proceeds to try to get away.  Angry that he sees she is immune to glamour he attacks her and she stabs him to get away.
      When Prince Dain finds out she attacked Valerian he tells her that she is to stay her hand unless he tells her otherwise.  When she tries to balk at this he glamours her into picking up a knife and tells her to stab it through her hand.  He then releases the glamour and waits for her to do it on her own to prove her loyaly and she does so that she will not lose her place in the Court of Shadows.
      Valerian later shows up at her house in the middle of the night to try to kill her but in self defense she kills him instead and hides the body so that no one will know, especially Dain.
      That same night Ghost comes to train her some more.  He tells her they have an assignment.
      A messenger is coming to Dain's manor from Balekin's disguised in the High King's Livery and they are to kill them before they get to the royal quarters in case an assassination is planned against Dain.
      Ghost has Jude shoot the arrow that kills the messenger and when they see the body Jude realizes it is one of Madoc's spies but doesn't understand what it means since Madoc is aligned with Prince Dain.
      A few days later the coronation ceremony is about to take place and so all the kingdom has gathered for the party.  Jude dances with Locke and is confused because he asks her if she loves him enough to let him go.  She realizes later he has been playing her the whole time when she sees him and Taryn together and that he is going to marry Taryn, who had told Jude she had a fae suitor who was planning to propose but wouldn't reveal who it was.
      At the coronation ceremony Dain is about to be crowned High King but Balekin steps up and says that he wishes for a duel for the right to the throne.  When looking around Jude realizes that all the guards at the ceremony are Madoc's and Balekin's guards rather than the royal guard and she sees now that Balekin's plan was to hide in plain sight while waiting for this to happen and Madoc is his accomplice.
      Madoc kills Dain before Jude or the Court of Shadows members can react and then Balekin tells High King Eldred to crown him instead.  When Eldred refuses Balekin kills Elowyn.  Eldred still refuses so Dain kills him too.  He then tries to persuade his sisters to crown him since it has to be someone of the royal line to do the crowning before the coronation can be accepted and Caelia steps forward to do it to stop the bloodshed but Ghost shoots and kills her from the rafters in revenge of Dain so that Balekin will not be crowned.  Rhyia kills herself before Balekin can try to coerce her to be the one to crown him.
      Balekin orders Val Moren (the High King's poet and seneschal) to crown him and Val Moren states he cannot as he is not of the royal line.  Balekin orders it anyway but when Val Moren crowns him the crown burns Balekin and he has to take it back off.  He begins screaming for Cardan to come do it but Cardan is off drunk somewhere so Balekin orders everyone to start searching for him.
      The other fae present from the Seelie, Unseelie, and free fae courts tell Balekin that he has 3 days to accept the crown and be coronated or otherwise the Faerie kingdom will have no ruler.  Although they are a bit shocked at these recent events, treachery in the fae world is common so they agree to accept Balekin if he is crowned.
      Jude finds Cardan drunk under a table and she pulls him out and kidnaps him, taking him to the Court of Shadows to try to decide what to do with him.  Roach and Ghost meet her there and they discuss selling Cardan back to Madoc and Balekin so that they can get enough money to start new lives elsewhere since they all know Balekin will be a tyrannical ruler.
      Jude tells them to give her some time and go home to try to figure out what's going on since Madoc doesn't suspect that she worked for Dain.
      Upon arriving home she confronts Taryn first and challenges her to a duel for the treachery and lies she has been living regarding Locke.  Vivi tries to stop them with glamour and Jude almost ends up decapitating Taryn since the glamour doesn't work on her.  Vivi tries to question Jude about why glamour isn't working anymore on her but Jude skirts the question.
      Vivi tries to convince Jude to run away with her to go live in the mortal world with her and her girlfriend Heather and Jude asks her to let her think about it.  Even though they were stolen from the mortal world, Jude wants to fit in with the fae since she considers that land her home due to how young she was when they were taken.
      Jude goes to talk to Oriana and she sees a golden acorn on Oriana's dresser.  It is the same type of acorn that was in the pocket of Locke's mother's dress that he let Jude wear during a party.  That acorn had a secret compartment where Jude had found a hidden message that said "my dearest friend, these are the last words of Liriope.  I have three golden birds to scatter.  Three attempts to get one into your hand.  I am too far gone for any antidote, and so if you hear this, I leave you with the burden of my secrets and the last act of my heart.  Protect him.  Take him far from the dangers of this Court.  Keep him safe, and never, ever tell him the truth of what happened to me."
      At the time, Jude believed the message was speaking of Locke but now she begins putting everything together;  Oriana was a consort of the High King before she married Madoc as was Liriope.  Liriope was Dain's wife but he killed her when he found out she was pregnant with the High King's son which would jeopardize his taking the throne, hence the message about the mushrooms from previous chapters.
      When Jude questions Oriana on this she admits it.  She was close with Liriope and when she found Liriope dead she cut the baby out and took it for her own to raise it, as Liriope wished.  This means that Oak is another in the royal line and HE can be placed on the throne too.  Now Jude understands why Madoc wanted all the other royals dead, so that Oak could be placed on the throne and Madoc would be there to be the regent and have control until Oak came of age.  She is still confused on what Balekin has to do with this but figures that Madoc probably planned for Balekin to die during the coronation too and it just didn't work out that way.
      After finding all this out Jude goes back to the Court of Shadows and finds Cardan untied and the other spies playing cards and talking and laughing with him.  Jude pulls him into the other room to remind him that he's her prisoner, not a guest, and at this point she strikes a deal with him to be her ally and be under her service for one year and one day.
      She tells him not to skirt the truth nor lie to her anymore if she's to let him live and it's at this time he admits that the reason he hates her so much is because he was jealous of her, thinking she had a good life with a father and family who loves her and his family despises him. He also tells her that he hates her because he can't get her out of his head and he hates that he thinks of a mortal so often.  She realizes he's telling the truth and to spite him kisses him but then realizes she actually wants to kiss him so she quickly pulls away.
       They go back into the other room with the Court of Shadows and she lets them know she has a plan.  She is going to bring Cardan with her to the crowning ceremony and pretend she helped capture him to bring to Balekin but then Cardan will place the crown on Oak's head as the king instead. Vivi will then whisk Oak away to the human world to hide with her and her girlfriend until Oak comes of age while Jude and Cardan distract the other faerie at the crowning ceremony.  Jude doesn't want to leave Oak at the court because she knows that Madoc will either find a way to always have control and cause endless wars or teach Oak to be as vicious as he is, so she knows she can't leave Oak on the throne for now.
       They all agree to the plan and arrive to the ceremony as planned.  Jude drugs Madoc with a slight dose of poison to keep him away while everything goes down.
      They steal the crown but in the midst of the chaos Roach accidentally throws it to Taryn instead of Jude since they look alike and Jude begs Taryn to forget their grievances for one moment and think of what is best for Oak and the kingdom and although she realizes Jude is betraying Madoc and the family, Taryn gives Jude the crown to put on Oak.
      When Jude gives the crown to Oak to hold Oak is frightened and Jude has Cardan come over and tells him to kneel next to Oak to show him what to do.  He does but then Oak places the crown on Cardan's head.  Too late, Cardan realizes Jude has betrayed him and has made him king even though that was the last thing he wanted.
      Jude's inner dialogue reveals that she did this because she knew if Oak was crowned that Madoc would go to the ends of the faerie kingdom and Earth to bring Oak back, so having Cardan on the throne until Oak comes of age is the best way to keep Madoc out of power.  She then sends Vivi and Oak away to go into hiding while she stays in the faerie kingdom to try to keep things under control for the next seven years until Oak grows up and has been raised to be a good king by Vivi.  She knows that Cardan doesn't want to be king and so will willingly step down and give the crown to Oak once the time comes.
      As the book ends, Jude confronts Cardan after the ceremony and he tells her that although he has pledged to be under her service for one year and one day and a faerie cannot break their pledge, he will be sure to make it an unpleasant experience for her and she tells him that she knows all too well.
She then goes to see Vivi and Oak in the human world and they have moved in with Vivi's girlfriend Heather, although Vivi still hasn't told Heather that she's a faerie and is instead claiming Oak is a relative.  When Jude sees they are safe she returns to the faerie realm to begin work as a spy in Cardan's court.