Mother’s eyes widened. “I—I didn’t—” She swallowed. “Do you think I’m that vindictive?”
“I think there’s a part of you that never stopped loving Ged. You look at Sienne, with her inappropriate lover, and it hurts you to remember being in her position. Stop taking your pain out on her.”
Mother looked at Sienne. “Oh, my dear child,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
Sienne blinked away unexpected tears. “I thought you hated me,” she said in a tiny voice. “You said—”
“Please stop throwing my careless words back in my face,” Mother said. “I truly didn’t mean it.”
“I’m sorry,” Sienne exclaimed, and threw her arms around her mother. “You tried so hard, and I was so awful—”
“I never knew what to do with you,” Mother said. “You left home, and you were such a stranger when you returned, it was like we’d already lost you. And then you ran away.”
“Thank you for not letting me marry Rance.”
“Thank you for coming home even though you didn’t want to. Don’t think I didn’t realize what you could do with that spellbook.”
Sienne wiped her eyes and drew back enough to look her mother in the face. “I think we might be a little too much alike for comfort.”
“That’s probably true. Your father told me you gave him the silent treatment this morning.” She laughed. “I used to do that to him all the time, when he made me angry.”
“I was so angry. I was afraid I might do something rash if I spoke.”
“I understand.” Mother wiped her eyes and let go of Sienne. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“There will be time for more words,” Octavian said, rising. “Sienne, I promised Alaric I would tell you they haven’t given up on you. Do you have any messages you’d like me to deliver?”
Sienne glanced at her mother, who didn’t look upset at the idea. She contemplated the reality of a divine of Kitane playing messenger for her and said, “Tell them I’ll send word when I learn the time of my audience with the king. And that I’ll ask him to see all of us.” She thought about asking him to deliver her love to Alaric, but she felt shy about that, so she only said, “Thank you. For everything.”
“Averran in his wisdom acts in roundabout ways,” Octavian said. “I’m happy to have been of service.”
“I’ll show you out,” Mother said, opening the door. Sienne stood and tried to regain her calm. She wasn’t sure this new understanding with her mother would last—they were, after all, very much alike—but she already felt happier and freer than she had for days.
Mother returned after a minute and let out a deep breath. “I’m exhausted,” she said.
“Do you still want me to pay calls with you?” Sienne sighed. “I’ll…change my clothes.”
“Do you know, I don’t think I feel like calling on anyone today?” Mother said. “Let’s get everyone and go into the city. There must be a celebration somewhere we can join.”
“Really?” Sienne smiled. “You aren’t worried about insulting those women?”
“I’m the duchess of Beneddo. They should worry about insulting me.” Mother held out a hand to Sienne, who clasped it. “It’s past time we were a family again. You restored to us, Rance gone…I feel like celebrating.”
Sienne laughed. Deep in her heart, she still ached for her friends, and her worry over the werebears’ plight nagged at her, but for now, everything was all right. It was now down to the king to make the decision. Sienne could only hope he’d make the right one—and that they’d be in agreement as to what “right” meant.
23
It was three days before the message from the palace arrived: Sienne Verannus, to receive audience with King Derekian Fiorus, at ten o’clock in the morning, Endweek. She’d almost given up hope, had believed the king was so dismissive of her request he’d simply ignored it, but there it was, a palm-sized piece of thin card inscribed in gold lettering. Not Lady Sienne Verannus, and she didn’t know what to make of that. Was it an acknowledgement that he’d already made his decision? Or simply an oversight on the part of the clerk? She tried not to read too much into it.
Endweek morning, she changed her clothes five times before settling on the simplest of the gowns her mother had provided, a seafoam-green silk with flowing sleeves and a narrow skirt. She’d wanted to wear her scrapper clothes, but even washing them a second time hadn’t been enough to disguise the fact that they needed a true launderer’s care, and that the trousers were worn in the knee to be three shades paler than the rest of the fabric. And it had felt too much like a challenge, like making the king’s decision for him, and she didn’t want to do anything that might set his back up. She had to admit the gown suited her. Sienne might not love clothes as much as her mother did, but she could admire her mother’s excellent taste.
Her parents were in the hall when she went downstairs, dressed in court finery. “Oh, Sienne,” her mother said, then bit her lip and went silent. Sienne didn’t know if she’d been about to compliment her appearance or criticize her for not dressing more elegantly.
“Are you…you’re not coming, are you? I promised I wouldn’t run away.” Sienne’s heart, already aching with nerves, contracted at the thought of needing a chaperon.
“What the king decides affects us, too,” Papa said. “We didn’t want to wait here to learn the news. And…we thought you might need support.” If the king rejects you, his eyes said.
“We know how hard this has been for you,” Mother said. “If you want us to stay behind, we will. We want you to be…” Again her words trailed into silence, and Sienne wondered how she would have ended that sentence. Happy? Safe? Respectable?
“I want you to come,” Sienne said, and both her parents looked relieved, which made her feel guilty all over again. Yes, she’d been fighting for her life, but how much hurt had she done them in exchange for the hurt they’d caused her? She suddenly felt tired and wished it were all over, even if it meant giving in and giving up. But no, this wasn’t all about her. There was a whole magical race depending on her to take their case to the king. Giving up wasn’t an option.
They rode in the green and gold carriage in silence, watching men and women take down banners and bunting and remove wreaths from doors. They looked as weary as Sienne felt, like four weeks of nonstop frivolity had permanently drained them of cheer. She never had gone dancing. She might not go dancing with Alaric ever again.
She suppressed the melancholy thought and went over possibilities for this meeting. If the king let her friends come with her, Perrin would do the talking, explaining about the werebears and the decision of the settlement to aid them. She and the others would add details as needed. And Swift could make a personal plea. But if the king insisted on seeing Sienne alone…she was terrible at trying to persuade anyone to do anything, because she let herself be caught up in the injustice of whatever it was she was trying to change, and it tangled her words so badly she often ended up only convincing the person that she was mad. This was too important for her to fail.
She closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer: O Averran, you’ve brought us this far. Don’t let me let them down.
When she opened her eyes, her mother was looking at her strangely. “Are you well?”
“Nervous.”
“Derekian is intelligent and understanding. Even if he…tells you no, he won’t make you feel a fool for having asked.”
“I still say he could have told us you were safe,” Papa grumbled. “How long did he know where you were?”
“Since the beginning of first summer.”
Papa scowled and turned his attention to the passing scenery. Mother said, “It doesn’t matter now.”
Sienne nodded.
“How did he find out?” Mother asked.
“We foiled an assassination plot against him.”
Papa sat up, astonished. “You did what? You mean, you and your companions?”
“Yes. I’m not allowed to
share the details.”
Mother said, “Is that…usual? I thought you fought monsters.”
“We do. This was by accident.” She had a flash of a memory, of an emerald falcon artifact digging its claws deep into her arm, and involuntarily tried to rub the memory away. “He was grudgingly grateful.”
“I would think he would show you more respect than that,” Papa exclaimed. “Grudging…that’s typical of Derekian. He hates owing anyone anything.”
“Pontus, be nice. A king owing favors can be dangerous.” Mother turned to Sienne. “Is that why you believe he’ll listen to you?”
“No. He said he didn’t want to see us again. But I hoped it would be enough to gain the audience.”
Her parents exchanged unreadable glances. Sienne settled back and watched a couple of women carrying a papier-mâché statue of Delanie around the back of a dressmaker’s shop until the carriage took her out of sight. It seemed a rather permanent sort of decoration with limited utility. Maybe it would come out again on Delanie’s name day.
“It seems there’s more to scrapping than we thought,” Papa said, drawing her attention back to him. “Or are you unusual?”
“I think we’re unusual. Most scrappers just search ruins for salvage. We…we’ve fallen into bigger adventures. Mostly it’s been by accident.” Stopping an assassination, destroying not one but two evil undead creatures, killing a howler, acting as emissaries for a magical race…definitely not usual. And that didn’t include their quest to free the Sassaven. Sienne’s aching heart contracted again. Surely the king would have to see that what she had accomplished as a scrapper, what she would continue to accomplish, was far more important than making her rule a dukedom.
The carriage rattled over Half-Moon Bridge and trundled toward the palace, snug on its little isle that parted the Vochus River. Sienne preferred it at night, when magical lights in white and red turned it into a confectioner’s dream, something so solidly real it was hard to believe in lesser buildings. By day, it was still impressive, with arched passages and domed roofs and two towers that dominated the skyline. Sienne had been inside exactly once, when the king had kidnapped all of them and interrogated them because he believed they were complicit in the assassination plot. She thought that had been in one of the side wings, and she didn’t even know which one because the king’s wizards had used ferry to take them directly back home from the rather stuffy drawing room they’d been held in.
Now, the driver took them to the grand front entrance, with the broad, shallow stairs flanked by rows of fluted pillars and the arched doorway flanked by liveried guards. The guards held ceremonial pikes that looked much deadlier and less ceremonial the closer Sienne came. She waited for the Beneddo footman to help her down from the carriage, fearing she would trip over the narrow skirt without a steadying hand, then walked ahead of her parents up the stairs and through the doorway.
The shady interior felt ten degrees cooler than the sun-drenched outer court. Frescoes in blue and green added to the effect, the murals depicting fanciful scenes of sea creatures cavorting on the waves. Sienne recognized kelpies racing from crest to crest and wondered if the artist had known they were real. She’d never seen one, but Dianthe had. “Majestic from afar, sure, but get up close and those hooves are razor sharp,” she’d said. Sienne had dreamed of one day seeing them herself. That seemed unlikely now.
A woman dressed in scarlet and yellow approached them. They were Rafellin colors, but she looked unspeakably gaudy, like a tropical bird inexplicably interested in making friends. “Lady Sienne Verannus?” she said. “Come with me, please.”
“My parents,” Sienne said.
“You may all accompany me,” the woman said. She made it sound like a privilege. Sienne followed the tropical bird, too nervous to pay attention to her surroundings. She was aware that the halls had ceilings high enough that the lights affixed to the walls didn’t illuminate them fully, and that those lights were magical, but the paintings and sculptures lining the halls passed in a blur. Her mind ran a constant sequence of possibilities: facing the king with her friends, facing the king alone, sitting in an antechamber while her parents argued the king around to their point of view. That last was unlikely, since it wasn’t their audience, but they were on a first-name basis with the king, they were a ruling duke and duchess, and maybe it wasn’t so unlikely that he’d listen to them over her…
“You may wait here,” the tropical bird said, and Sienne came to herself and realized she’d walked a few paces past the woman. Here was a room big enough to be an audience chamber by itself, but empty of everyone but themselves. A few chairs upholstered in scarlet velvet, their frames carved and gilded past the point of comfort, stood under several tall, narrow windows with palm-sized square glass panes. Some of the panes contained red or yellow glass rather than clear, making a random, blotchy pattern on the wall opposite.
One of the yellow blotches fell on a door that was so ordinary as to look out of place, as if it led to someone’s linen closet rather than to, presumably, the king’s audience chamber. Sienne swallowed. The door made it all horribly real.
“You’ll be summoned when it’s time,” Sienne heard the tropical bird say, and was struck with fear that the others wouldn’t get there on time. Would the king think they’d disrespected him, and deny their request before they’d even made it? She walked toward the door, stopped, and paced back toward the windows. The tropical bird was gone, and Sienne’s parents looked at her in concern.
“Sienne,” Papa said, “he’s still just a man. We raised you to be respectful, not servile.”
“I know.” So much was riding on this. She made herself stop pacing and looked up at the windows, trying to find a pattern in what was meaningless. Who had thought the random panes were a good idea?
More footsteps sounded, and she turned in time to see another tropical bird, this one male, enter the antechamber, followed by Dianthe and Perrin, Kalanath, Swift, and Alaric, bringing up the rear. Her heart stopped for one agonizing moment, then lurched into movement, pounding so hard it made her shake.
She took half a step toward them. Alaric’s eyes came to rest on her, fierce and burning, but he said nothing, just stood motionless near the door, tense as if he were a spring wound tight. She glanced at her parents, hating herself for not just going to him, but she’d promised, and suppose staying away was part of that?
Her mother looked her way. A sad smile touched her lips, and she nodded, so slightly. Sienne walked toward her friends, feeling that any moment someone would call her to heel. Then she was running, and Alaric came toward her to snatch her up and hold her so closely it soothed her aching heart. He was dressed more nicely than she’d ever seen him, even on the nights they went dancing. She sensed Dianthe’s hand in his wardrobe. “Don’t cry,” he whispered in her ear. “You’ll ruin this tunic.”
She laughed damply and sniffled back tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“I don’t know. For not coming home.”
“It’s not your fault. Don’t worry, Sienne. Everything will be fine.” He brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her with such tenderness it nearly made her cry again. If she had to leave him…maybe her mother could find meaning in sacrificing love, but Sienne could only feel the sheer terrible waste of it.
She stepped away and hugged her friends, one at a time, even Swift, who looked like he wished to be well away from Sienne and her family drama. “Will the king see all of us?” he asked in a low voice.
“I don’t know. The card I received was addressed only to me. Were you summoned?”
“We were not,” Perrin said, “but when we presented ourselves at the front door, we were admitted with no demurral. I choose to take it as a good sign.”
“They knew our names,” Kalanath said. He looked almost naked without his staff. Sienne realized none of them were armed. “I think the king remembers us.”
“Hard to forget
,” Dianthe said.
Alaric was glaring at Sienne’s parents. “Alaric, don’t,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.
“They kidnapped you and made you miserable. That doesn’t make me love them.” He looked about two heartbeats away from erupting.
“They meant well. And the law is on their side. Please, don’t start a fight.”
“I’m starting to hate the laws of this supposedly civilized city,” he rumbled, but turned his back on the duke and duchess. To their credit, Sienne’s parents didn’t look as if Alaric frightened them, though they watched him the way travelers watch a waterhole, looking for hidden carricks. She was sure they wanted her to return to their side, but it would have felt too much like deserting her friends, and expecting the two groups to mingle was about as likely as getting a lamb to snuggle up to a lion.
The small, incongruous door opened. A man dressed all in black with a tunic that screamed “secretary” stepped through. He surveyed the room. “There are certainly a lot of you,” he said. “Which of you is Sienne Verannus?”
“Lady Sienne Verannus,” Papa said.
“As you wish,” the man said. “Lady Sienne?”
Sienne stepped forward, suddenly very grateful she’d worn the gown. “I am,” she said, proud that her voice didn’t quaver.
“The king will see you now,” the man said, indicating the doorway.
“I—asked for him to see all of us,” Sienne said.
“I am aware of this. His Majesty chooses to see only you, my lady.” The man said “my lady” with the slightest ironic emphasis. Sienne heard her father harrumph with irritation.
Alaric squeezed her hand gently and released her. She walked away without looking back, certain if she did she would burst into tears. She’d never felt smaller in her life.
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