I knew the woman in Absalom’s memories, had known her my entire life. Of course I did. There’s nothing beautiful in this world that can’t be corrupted by the touch of Eira Rosynhwyr. She hadn’t even bothered to change the face she wore between Vesper Shallcross and Evening Winterrose. She was still the woman I’d always known. In more ways than one.
The kingdom is fallen. Iron in the water, iron in the ground, and those damn Roane saw it coming, but not the way it could be set aside. There are no more Roane in the harbors of New York, regardless of the kingdom, but that is small consolation for having lost so much. My lady has left me, and all because the Roane could not speak plainly, could not say “give the throne and the land to Shallcross, for he has been deeded tainted land, and deserves better than his lot.” This is all their fault . . .
I gasped and took another mouthful, forcing myself below the memories.
My rival goes to the night-haunts, his son to ascend in his place . . . the boy is weak, his reign will crumble, and the throne will pass to me as it should have from the beginning . . . my lady will return when she sees me holding power again, as I should have done from the beginning. My sweet Vesper will whisper my fears away as she has always done. In her company, I can be a better, stronger man. In her presence, I can be as glorious as our First commanded me to be.
That was because Vesper was his First, so of course she’d know how to follow the rules she herself had set down for her descendants. His memories of her were surprisingly carnal for the formal nature of the rest of his thoughts, and I could have gone my entire life without seeing Evening like that, even through someone else’s eyes.
But the son holds the throne and finds a bride, although no one seems to remember her mother; she springs from nowhere, like Venus from the tide, and she is beloved, because she is the Queen. I hate him all the more for having her by his side, when my own Queen is absent, gone to parts and places unknown until such time as I can be a man for her.
Is there anything Evening can’t make worse? More, is there anyone in Faerie who doesn’t need therapy?
Time is the only coin I have to spend in plenty. Time, and what remains of the treasury of Ash and Oak, which is no longer replenished, but is no longer needed for the care and comfort of my people. So I gather my strength.
I gather my supporters from among the lowest of the fae, the ones who think like men but are thought of as monsters, all because they were made by the Three rather than born from the bodies of their children. The Doppelgangers thrive in the absence of the Courts and are less troubled by the touch of iron than are so many of us. They have taken the lands that once were mine, and while they answer to no lord, they are willing to negotiate.
The plan is a slow one. The tinder is gathered, the bonfires ready to burn, and we build for years. I humble myself before the pretender, keep myself below his notice, serve at his table, sup on his scraps, and dream of the day when he kneels before me, beaten and broken and brought low, as he should have been since the beginning.
I gasped, breaking loose for a moment, not quite shaking the memory away. “Still don’t know if Fiac’s alive or not,” I said, almost apologetically, before pressing my mouth to Absalom’s wrist again. “This would go faster if you’d think about him, and not about how awesome and cool your grand plan is. It’s like sitting through the arthouse film version of some asshole’s evil monologue.”
Tybalt shot me a concerned look. I offered him a quick, wan smile, and dove into the memory again.
The kitchens are abuzz. There is to be a wedding, and the bride is apparently a monster who has insisted on bringing her private pastry chef to make the cake. It’s easy, in the offense this generates, to slip away and move my people into place.
Oh, Kerry was going to be thrilled about that.
Things improve; the bride is a known king-breaker and self-styled hero who causes chaos wherever she trespasses. She will provide the perfect scapegoat for the fall of a king. Some say she may have the missing Crown Prince in her company. If this is true, he’ll die with his father, and the High Kingdom will be settled on me with no possible complications. No one will question me when I appear, heroic savior from the past, to stop a changeling king-breaker from destroying the proper order of things. I need only get myself into position—
The Seer’s place will do—
I gasped again, breaking free completely. The shards of Absalom’s thoughts cluttered the corners of my mind, unctuous and somehow slimy, like they’d been as tainted as his land by years of exposure to ambient iron. I retched, trying to get the taste of his blood out of my mouth, but had the presence of mind—barely—not to spit on the carpet. Instead, I turned to Yenay.
“Do you have anything with a stronger flavor than water?” I asked. “Coffee, whiskey, strawberry soda, anything?”
“I have a Cherry Coke in the fridge,” said Yenay, sounding a little baffled. “Why do you—”
“Because I don’t actually like the taste of blood,” I said. “And this fucker didn’t taste very good, what with all the hatred and bigotry and ambient iron he’s carrying around with him.” I shot Absalom a glare. “On the plus side, I think I know where to find Fiac, and it looks like this asshole was serious about trying to pull off a coup without any actual violations of the Law. With Oberon missing, if he killed the Sollys family and claimed the throne, he’d be able to pardon himself. Who’s going to pursue a High King for his crimes? Who can? So he didn’t want to muddy the waters with deaths people could say were unnecessary.”
It’s been a while since assassination was the most common means of succession. I’ve always wondered how that was supposed to work, since we’re not supposed to kill each other except in times of war, but there have been periods where we knew, or at least strongly suspected, that literally everyone with a crown on their brow had committed murder to get it. Maybe all sitting monarchs are considered at war with one another, and it’s something they all know so absolutely that they’ve never felt the need to tell any of the lesser denizens of Faerie about their perpetual, loophole-creating conflict?
“His Doppelgangers were more than happy to kill in his name,” snarled Tybalt.
Yenay, who had ducked away into the stacks, came back without the ledger, and with a bottle of Cherry Coke in her hand, which she offered to me without saying a word. I removed the cap and took a long, fizzy drink, washing the taste of blood away, before looking back to Tybalt.
“They were, and he deserves to be punished for that. Which he will be, once we’ve finished flushing out the people he still has loose in the knowe—I don’t know how many, which I have to assume is because he was intentionally thinking about other things, like how much he missed fucking his wife,” I said, eyeing Absalom. He looked unaccountably smug. “But Fiac is alive, and we should be able to get to him before that changes. And the High King is alive, and this one will never take the throne. Now that we know the loophole he was planning to exploit, the foundation documents can be appropriately updated.”
Absalom glared at me, Tybalt’s hands holding him in place. I smiled sweetly back at him. He glared harder. Villains don’t like it when you act like their threats aren’t threatening.
“We can update the decree if the High King okays it,” I said, in the calm, patient tone of someone who was being forced to explain something to a small child who didn’t want to listen. “That’s why people don’t point these things out when they happen. They’re keeping them as weapons to be used later.”
Well, this weapon had been used, and while it was bloodied, it had failed to strike its actual target.
I shifted my smile to Tybalt, allowing it to melt around the edges and turn sincere.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Let’s get married.”
Tybalt blinked. Then he smiled back. “I was beginning to be afraid you’d never ask.”
eighteen
The High King had managed not to get poisoned again after he resumed interviewing his staff, in part because Walther had swept the room for toxins before lighting several candles for Cassandra, who stared at them as the door opened and closed, saying, “Yes . . . no . . . I can’t tell, ask the questions,” and throwing the new arrivals off their guard while the actual guard stood with swords at the ready. Neither her yes nor her no was being taken as absolute proof one way or the other, but it gave them a starting point, and by the time Tybalt, Quentin and I came back, she had a one hundred percent success rate at identifying the Doppelgangers.
Of whom there were several. Absalom had been moving his people into place for a long time and had only accelerated the process when he heard about our arrival. Not all of his loyal subjects were Doppelgangers, either; a few were the descendants of people who’d sworn themselves to him when he still had a kingdom, or courtiers from Ash and Oak proper. Having centuries to live means having centuries to hold a grudge.
One of them, a Gwragen, had been part of the High Queen’s household staff for a hundred and forty years, and had been responsible for the illusions that allowed Absalom to infiltrate the kitchen, and later replace Fiac. She had started to weep when she was revealed as a traitor, insisting over and over again that she’d never done anything wrong or broken any laws; she had simply cast a few illusions when her true liege asked her to, allowing him to pass his days in comfort and care. She was awaiting sentencing along with the rest of Absalom’s people, all of them stuffed into the less pleasant part of the dungeon.
Less pleasant, and already occupied when the High King’s men dragged them down there. All the people who’d been replaced after Nessa had been knocked unconscious and tucked away there like last week’s dirty laundry, intended to be forgotten—including the absent chatelaine. They’d been elf-shot first, so we didn’t have to worry about dehydration or starvation. That was the good thing. The section of the dungeons that wasn’t designed like some sort of abusive time share contained a lot of iron. That was the bad thing.
Oh, it wasn’t a lot of iron by the standards of a truly abusive monarch. The iron in the entire structure wouldn’t have been enough to replace one room in the false Queen’s old dungeon. But it was enough that all the people who’d been stowed there had signs of iron poisoning, some more severe than others, and the Court alchemists were finally going to have something to do, what with the need to treat them all before they could be woken.
Which Walther would not be doing since he needed to be at the wedding with the rest of us.
I stood perfectly still on the low platform Stacy had erected in the middle of the fitting room, my arms stretched out to either side of me, forcing myself to take slow, even breaths as my dearest friends attempted to crush the life out of me at Stacy’s instruction.
“Tighter,” said Stacy. “Toby, if you let your arms drop, I’m giving Tybalt copies of those pictures we took at the arcade when we were sixteen.”
“You’re a monster,” I managed, as May and Julie yanked the strings of my corset tight again, knocking the breath out of me for a moment. Stacy smiled.
“That should do it, ladies,” she said. “Go ahead and tie her off. Toby, you can put your arms down now.”
“I hate you,” I said, dropping my arms back to my sides. “Why do I need a corset, anyway? It’s not like the dress isn’t going to fit.”
Fae dresses tend to come in two major categories: entirely illusionary or extremely expensive and loaded down with enchantments. Either way, they always fit. Gain weight, lose weight, wear a corset, don’t wear a corset, they fit. So this was pointless.
Stacy smirked at me. “Can you breathe?”
“I can, yes.” A corset that actually fits properly isn’t uncomfortable: it’s snug, like wearing a too-tight pair of jeans, but other than making bending difficult, it doesn’t really change things all that much.
“Good,” said Stacy, and punched me in the stomach.
I blinked at her. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Did you feel it?”
“Not really.”
“That’s why you have to wear a corset,” said May, walking around to join Stacy in front of me. “A corset means if you get stabbed on your wedding day, you won’t be the one bleeding.”
“Unless they stab you someplace the corset doesn’t cover,” chirped Julie.
“Yes, that’s very helpful,” said Stacy. “Keep being snide while we’re trying to convince her she approved the corset when she told us she didn’t care about her wedding dress.”
I sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Besides, your tits look amazing,” said May.
I grinned at her. “Yeah, they do.”
“Close your eyes,” commanded Stacy, before we could go any further down the route of discussing my breasts. “It’s time for us to get you dressed.”
“I’m still not allowed to see the dress?”
“No.”
“My own wedding dress. That I’m expected to wear for the rest of the night.”
“That is correct.”
“That will be on my actual body. That dress. Is the dress I’m not allowed to look at.”
“Yes,” said Stacy, with surpassing patience. “That is the dress you’re not allowed to look at but will be wearing to your wedding. Tybalt asked. I agreed.”
“I’m just going along with this because it’s funny,” said Julie.
“I think it’s sweet,” said May. “Come on. Let us get the dress on so I can fix your hair.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “This whole thing has just been you arranging a massive ‘I told you so’ to punish me for abdicating my responsibilities regarding this wedding,” I accused.
“Yup,” said Stacy. May just laughed.
For the next several minutes, I kept my eyes closed as they poked, posed, and pushed me into the positions they wanted, occasionally instructing me to raise or lower my arms. A cascade of heavy fabric descended around me, adding another layer of snugness to the existing weight of the corset. I smelled roses. Stacy tugged at the fabric covering my back.
“Laces or buttons?” I asked, unable to suppress the note of despair in my voice.
“Both,” she said proudly.
I groaned.
With all three of them working, they were able to get me secured inside the dress in what was probably a reasonable amount of time yet felt much longer as I stood there with my eyes closed and listened to the rustling. There were no adjustments required; the dress did all that itself, reacting to Stacy’s tugging and twists. When they finally stepped away, Julie whistled.
“You clean up good, girl,” she said. “Be nice if you had any color in your cheeks, but we can’t have everything in this world.”
“You only agreed to come to the wedding to keep an eye on me for your uncle,” I accused, without heat.
“Hey. You’re going to be family now. I figured if I could help him get the wedding day he wanted, I could swallow my pride to see it happen.”
My eyes were still closed, and so I didn’t have time to react as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and yanked me into our first hug in years. Lips close to my ear, she said, “This is where I’d tell you not to hurt him, but you already have, and you’re going to do it over and over and over again, and that’s okay, I guess. That’s what you both want. You help him heal more than you do him harm, and that’s even better than never hurting him at all.”
She let go, pushing me away from her in the process. I staggered but didn’t fall off the platform.
“Here.” Stacy took my hand. “Come sit.”
“What?”
She guided me off the platform and across the room to a chair, where she put her hands on my shoulders and pushed me firmly down. “We’re going to finish getting you ready, and you’re going to sit there
and put up with it,” she said firmly. “And if you have a problem with that, you can take it to the complaint bureau.”
“That consists of your mother, Evening, and Titania, in case you were hoping you’d get some sympathy from them,” said May.
I made a face. “Ugh, no thank you. I know two out of the three, and anyone who’d raise a kid like Evening can’t be someone I want to spend any time with.”
“Parenthood is hard,” said Stacy. “You know that. Maybe we can’t blame Titania for everything.”
“We can blame her for more than enough,” I said firmly. “No complaint bureau.”
“Stop talking. I need you to not be moving your face,” said Stacy.
What followed was a familiar dance, one we’d been performing as a group since we were seventeen and Stacy figured out that leaving me alone with a tube of mascara would result in mascara in my eye, not around my eyes. She applied my makeup with quick, confident strokes, while May twisted and bent and teased my hair into place. The smell of roses grew even stronger, making me suspect she was using something other than pins to secure her work. With the importance purebloods place on roses, there’d been no way I was going to avoid them. I kept my eyes closed and tried to relax.
Absalom had been arrested, and we had managed to flush out what certainly felt like the majority of his people. This should be the safest possible time for us to distract the rest of the guard. With the size and nature of the crowd we had in attendance for the wedding itself, there was no question as to whether we could defeat whatever army had been raised by a king without a kingdom, however much he’d been willing to exhaust his former treasury in the pursuit of a new throne.
And even with all that being true, I was worried about the distraction we were about to provide. After all, Absalom’s entire plan had hinged on the necessity of a distraction, and while blood can’t lie, blood memories tend to focus on what the one bleeding has experienced or been thinking about most recently, which is why a lot of blood memory begins with “ow hey that hurt.” He could still have kept secrets from me, just by shoving them aside when I cut him, focusing on bigger, more important memories—which would explain why there’d been quite so much sex with Evening in what should have been more recent recollections.
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