Tybalt removed his hand from my shoulder. Our approaches to nobles of the Divided Courts were similar: aggressive irreverence, bordering on disrespect. But he knew I could get away with more than he could here.
“We’re quite fond of it,” said Maida, lowering her napkin and smiling at me. “It is a pleasure to see you again, Sir Daye. We apologize for the difficulty of traveling here.”
“Pretty sure even being nobility doesn’t put you in charge of distance, and we took the Tuatha express the whole way.” I waved a hand, indicating Chelsea and Nolan. “Easy as pie.”
Chelsea raised a hand in the shyest of waves. For all her bluster and bravado in adapting to her life in Faerie, she was still a teenage girl who had only discovered how deep and complicated the strange roots of her immortal heritage went three years ago. She and the High Queen had more in common than she knew; they had both been born half human, although Maida’s blood had been adjusted by a hope chest, while Chelsea’s had been changed by yours truly.
And it wasn’t like I could tell her. The High Queen’s origins were a closely-guarded secret, extending even to her own Court. She wore cosmetic illusions when she went out in public, like now, to conceal the smallpox scars on one side of her face, left from a time before she’d been transformed. No one would guess, looking at her now, that she had come from anything but the purest Daoine Sidhe bloodline. She had hair the color of molten silver, falling around her shoulders in finely styled waves that looked less like hair and more like the consequences of pyroclastic flow. Her eyes were the color of blue topaz, and her features were delicately sculpted—not due to any illusions, just due to the gifts of her father’s side of the family.
But she had given up her mother’s side for the man beside her, who looked so much like an adult version of Quentin that it made my chest ache a little, because the boy who called me “Mom” and cried in my arms wasn’t my son, not really, not ever. He was theirs, and when he became the mirror to this man, he would do it in their presence, far away from me. Seeing High King Aethlin here, in his natural environment, really drove home the fact that this was going to be Quentin one day, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Plus it was probably treason to even wish that I could try.
Maida nodded to Chelsea, acknowledging her, then blinked at the sight of Nolan. His mismatched eyes were striking, and an attribute he shared with his sister, the Queen in the Mists. He smiled roguishly back at her, inclining his head. She nudged Aethlin with her elbow.
“Nessa,” said the High King, after a startled pause. “Were you intending to announce the rest of Sir Daye’s company, or are we expected to introduce ourselves to our own guests?”
“I didn’t think you’d insist on meeting a visiting knight’s entire retinue,” said Nessa, clearly flustered. Poor Gwragedd Annwn. We were throwing everything off for her.
Then again, she was the High King’s seneschal, and this was a fairly severe breach of etiquette. I frowned, all the “something is wrong here” warning bells that had been ringing quietly in the back of my head starting to go off like sirens and combining with Quentin’s warning to form one truly unpleasant conclusion.
Blundering into trouble isn’t my superpower, but it might as well be.
Nessa was clearly wearing an illusion, but we knew that; she needed one to deal with the rest of us without doing damage through her mere presence. Expecting one of the Gwragedd Annwn to walk around without an illusion on was like expecting Raj to give in to Chelsea’s occasional pleas that he attend something called “an anime convention” with no human disguise and as many feline attributes as he could sustain while remaining bipedal. I still eyed her thoughtfully, eyes slightly narrowed as I waited to see how she recovered from this fumble.
“You have my apologies, Your Highness,” she said finally. “There were so many of them, all arriving at the same time, that I did not get their names. It was an oversight, and one which I can rectify if given a moment—”
“Doing something now doesn’t rectify leaving it undone in the past,” said Aethlin, frowning now. His tone was sonorous, and for all that I avoid the company of Kings as much as possible—the Cait Sidhe kind excepted—I could hear the warning in it. However long this woman had been serving his family, her service was conditional on continuing to please him. And he was not pleased.
Faerie doesn’t quite run on the feudal system, at least not according to Bridget, who is both a human academic and Irish and actually made a study of the true feudal system at one time. We run on a cheap copy, emulated when it was new and cool, but modified to suit the needs of a people who live forever and whose basic needs can be as varied as “basically human,” “must sleep for six months of the year or wither,” or “sets themselves on fire every night.” There’s no one-size-fits-all for us, and the purebloods who first decided on our system of titles and loyalties were smart enough to recognize that even as they mimicked an essentially unfair means of governance. A seneschal who defied a mortal king might find themselves imprisoned or beheaded.
Nessa was unlikely to face any consequences beyond dismissal. But people who aspire to be the seneschal of a king usually plan to do it for centuries, and if Quentin remembered her, she had already been here for at least a decade. She would have no concept of what came next, because doing that kind of long-range planning was ridiculous. The world could end in nuclear fire before it was time for Quentin to inherit and send her peacefully into a pampered retirement with the rest of the old King’s Court.
Stepping in was a necessity, if only for the sake of the seneschal. “We’re a bit much,” I said politely. “Both independently and as a group. May I present His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Nolan Windermere in the Mists.”
Nolan bowed, as formal and precise as if the etiquette had been completely without flaw and this was exactly the way a prince should always be introduced. “Your Majesties,” he said. “I am grateful for your hospitality and will carry word of your exquisite courtesy back to my sister, Queen Arden Windermere in the Mists.”
“You were rather more unconscious the last time we saw you,” said Maida, with a flicker of amusement.
“Yes,” agreed Nolan. “My sister, who is a very wise and very stubborn woman, and an excellent queen to her people, arranged to have me wake as soon as was permissible, that I might stand witness to her reign and to the bright restoration of our family’s Kingdom.”
“You do her proud,” said Aethlin.
“My sister’s chatelaine also travels with me,” said Nolan. “Mistress Cassandra Brown in the Mists.”
“Hi,” said Cassie, with a small wave. “I, uh, feel like there’s a lot of etiquette here that literally nothing in my life has ever come close to preparing me for, but it’s an honor to be here, and I’m looking forward to the wedding and stuff.”
Maida cocked her head. “I’m afraid I don’t recognize your bloodline, dear. Who claims you?”
“Um, my boss is Queen Windermere, and my graduate advisor is Professor Weinstein, and my parents are Mitch and Stacy Brown, and Toby’s sort of my aunt, which is why they asked me to come to their wedding, and please I would like to stop talking now.”
“Oh, to hell with this,” snapped the Luidaeg, and shoved her way to the front of the group, leaving Oberon behind as she pushed her way between me and Tybalt. Apparently his “hidden in plain sight” trick meant they were intending to keep his presence unannounced as long as possible.
Maybe that was why Nessa hadn’t thought to get everyone’s names, something that really was a shameful breach of etiquette. Any half-trained courtier knows you announce guests in the presence of a king and queen, and most of the available monarchs aren’t even the high kind. But if Oberon was projecting a “don’t notice, don’t ask questions” spell somehow, it might have stopped her from realizing she hadn’t asked certain essential questions at all.
The Luidaeg
stood there in silence for a moment, an apparently human teenager facing down the two most powerful seated monarchs on the continent. Then she curtsied, so deeply it seemed like her forehead would have to brush against the floor.
Her hair, always an inky black, suddenly seemed to be dripping ink, or maybe tar, onto the straps of her overall and down her exposed arms. It soaked through the fabric of her overalls, gathering at her feet and on her hands, and when she straightened up again, it fell away, leaving her wearing a purple-black medieval gown with a subtle pattern of tentacles worked all through the fabric. It was striking, although not as striking as some of the dresses I’d seen her conjure for herself, improbable things made of the living, surging ocean.
“I am Antigone of Albany, called the Luidaeg by those in this modern world who know me,” she said, and her voice was soft, but it carried to every corner of the hall. She kept her eyes on the High King as she spoke, eyes solid black and slightly narrowed. “My party was offered hospitality but not asked to prove ourselves—and believe me when I say that any party I choose to claim belongs to me, and you should be grateful for our presence.”
The hush that had begun when she chose to speak endured past her speech, as every eye in the room stared at her. Stared at her, I realized, the obvious danger, the thing that needed to be monitored at all costs. No one was looking at the nondescript man behind her, who could have been a changeling or could have been something simpler, but either way lacked her aura of palpable, radiant menace. She had, simply by flashing her fangs, become the most dangerous thing in the room.
If King Aethlin had been holding a fork, he would have dropped it. As it was, he pressed his hands flat against the table and inclined his head, managing to give the impression that he was bowing fully and formally without moving out of his seat. It might have been more polite to rise. Judging by the faint shaking in his shoulders, I wasn’t entirely sure he could.
“Milady sea witch,” he said, infusing the Luidaeg’s most common nom de plume with all the respect he would have put into her proper name. “We were not made aware that you were coming.”
“As if I was going to miss the wedding of my favorite niece? Please.” She studied her fingernails, which gleamed razor-sharp in the light. “You’ve been to the Kingdom I currently call home. You should have guessed I’d be here. Can we call off this charade? You know who we are. You invited us. Standing on ceremony means you’re never on solid ground, and I’m hungry.”
“I . . .” High King Aethlin stopped, catching himself. “Of course. My apologies, milady. I should have anticipated you and been prepared with proper honors.” He snapped his fingers, pointing at a nearby server. The man jumped and scurried over, beckoning for the Luidaeg to follow him to the table that had been left open for our use.
She went without argument, having clearly decided that playing along would get her to dinner faster, and the others followed her, either inured to doing her bidding by long exposure or unwilling to take the risk of upsetting her. I stayed where I was. The Luidaeg isn’t as murderous as she likes to make herself out to be, and I wanted to keep an eye on Nessa.
The High King’s seneschal was also standing her ground, looking faintly lost as her charges wandered off to take their seats and place their drink orders. The servers had pitchers of water, beer, and what looked like apple cider, as well as bottles of both red and white wine. It was all a bit like preparing to dine in a very strangely themed restaurant.
“Did you require something further, Sir Daye?” asked Maida.
I held up a hand—another line crossed into irredeemable rudeness—and said, “I don’t know yet. Highness, is it some sort of horrific insult to the crown if I use blood magic in your presence?” Quentin had asked me to do this discreetly. With as many missteps as Nessa had made during this brief introduction, I wasn’t sure I could wait.
She looked startled as she sat back in her chair. “Insult, no, but confuse, absolutely. What is so dire that you would need to call upon the blood in a royal knowe?”
Flower magic is illusion, and common enough that no one bats an eye when it’s used in the presence of kings and queens. Water magic is transformation, and perhaps the most common thing I’ve seen used by kings and queens. Blood magic, though . . . blood magic is magic itself. The more I learn about it, the more I resent the fact that the magic that flows from Oberon has somehow been coopted as the primary gift of the Daoine Sidhe, who belong so unquestionably to Titania.
With blood magic, a spell can be made or unmade, gifts can be shared across bloodlines, and heritages can be unraveled like skeins of yarn woven from silence and secrecy. All we have to do is breathe them in. With the diners carefully kept at a distance from the high table, and the High King and Queen both known quantities, this was the closest thing I was likely to get to being alone with Nessa.
“Tell you in a second,” I said, and closed my eyes. I breathed in, tasting the heritage of the people around me. It’s a small enough act of blood magic that it doesn’t require anyone to actually be, you know, bleeding, which means it’s something I’ve always been good at, even back when powering a spell with blood felt weighty and portentous, something to be done only under the direst of circumstances.
Yes, there was a time when my blood stayed mostly inside my body, where Tybalt assures me it belongs. How things have changed.
Aethlin and Maida were close enough to register: pure Daoine Sidhe from side to side. Whoever had held the hope chest that removed Maida’s mortality had done an excellent job. The people to either side of them also registered; Tuatha de Dannan and Puca, respectively.
But no Gwragedd Annwn anywhere. Something else, something I couldn’t identify, but that was subtly, delicately wrong. It was like going into the toy aisle of a department store, looking for a Barbie, and finding nothing but third-party knockoffs, their faces indefinably wrong, their hair a few cents cheaper and almost the exact color and texture of straw. A copy, in other words, something pretending to be Gwragedd Annwn.
Pretending very, very well. I opened my eyes, turning back to the High King, and smiled politely. “I appreciate your tolerance of my little habits,” I said. “I do have another question to ask you, however, if you would indulge me?”
Aethlin frowned. “What do you need?”
“Can you please produce your seneschal? If the copy is this pleasant to speak with, I would like to meet the real one.”
six
Ahorrified gasp went through the room. Aethlin half-rose, apparently thinking better of it before he could get fully to his feet, and planted his hands flat against the table again. “Are you insinuating something, Sir Daye?” he asked.
“Nope.” I was being a jerk in a royal court again. I was finally back in my element, even if I was doing it in a dress way too fancy for the activity. “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m stating, blatantly, that whoever this woman is,” I pointed to the woman I still thought of as Nessa, for lack of anything better to call her, “she is not your seneschal. She’s not Gwragedd Annwn. She’s faking it well enough that I can’t actually tell you what she is, but she’s been an impostor since we got here.”
Nessa looked at me with wide eyes, either horrified or doing an excellent job of pretending she was. “Nessa?” High Queen Maida sounded more confused than anything else. “Is Sir Daye correct?”
The false Nessa looked briefly bewildered, like she didn’t know how to react to this. Then she lunged to the side, wrapping an arm around my neck and yanking me against her. I didn’t resist. This was at least interesting, and I was sure the royal kitchens would make me a sandwich if dinner got canceled.
Something sharp pricked my right side, pressed hard enough to make it very clear that I was being held at knifepoint. I sighed. Maybe I was going to need two sandwiches.
High King Aethlin had finished rising as soon as not-actually-Nessa grabbed me. He was storming his way around the
high table while several courtiers had appeared as if out of nowhere to get the queen to safety. Everyone seemed to be on the move, treating this as an unusual and frightening moment of chaos. I, on the other hand, was finally relaxed. We were back on familiar ground. Maybe the false Nessa was an early wedding gift, designed to make me feel more comfortable.
No. Tybalt might be willing to do a lot of things to soothe my jangled nerves, but nothing that involved the possibility of me getting hurt. We’re still sorting out the limits of my accelerated healing. There was no way he’d put himself in the position of being the reason we discovered my limits.
“You don’t want to do that,” I said.
“Speak for yourself,” snarled the woman who I now felt safe saying was distinctly not Nessa. Louder, she shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!”
“Please,” I said, in a tone that made it clear I was objecting to her words, not begging for my life. “If I’m a tyrant, you’re a fluffy little duckie. Which might be more welcome than whatever the hell this is right now. Where’s Nessa? Who are you? I’d say you only have a few more seconds before the royal archers are in position, so I’d talk fast if you’re trying to deliver some sort of message.”
“The only message I need is written in your blood,” she said, voice dropping toward a register that managed to be deeper and shriller at the same time, a neat trick, made less exciting by the fact that I could feel the hand on my throat changing shapes, the fingers getting longer, the nails getting sharper, the skin getting cooler and faintly clammy, like I was being clutched by some terrible thing that had slithered out of the closed cave where it was meant to linger.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” I said, and stomped down, hard, on her foot. No matter how much her body shifted, she still had feet, and feet are filled with lots of convenient little bones that go “crunch” when you subject them to sufficient pressure. There was a satisfying cracking sound, and she cried out in pain, still in that higher-lower impossible voice.
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