I drummed my fingertips on the table, losing patience, and said, “Look, perhaps we’re not that different. I kill people that I think are a threat to others, and so do you.” I glanced at Lyr. “Those hearts you keep talking about? They came from demons who preyed on human women. That’s who I killed.”
He seemed to be considering this for a moment, his entire muscled body eerily still, pale eyes locked on me. The weight of his gaze felt somehow heavy on my shoulders. “You don’t seem to be lying. Still, we can’t allow vigilantes to rule the streets. Where’s the proof of evil? Anyone could say the same. Without law and order, chaos reigns. We would drown in meaninglessness.”
“Sometimes laws have to be broken,” I argued. “It’s not like I could call on the knights to help. Not when my entire existence is criminal. Anyway. You’re breaking tons of laws. Torture is illegal. Improper disposal of bodies. I’m sure that’s a law.”
“What?” Midir looked genuinely perplexed. “Why would anyone care where the bodies went?”
“Humans care,” I said.
“Human laws are subordinate to sea fae laws.” Lyr shrugged. “Just as humans are subordinate to the superior sea fae.”
Gwydion let out a dramatic sigh. “To be honest, we don’t know what the human laws are. Humans are alive for like… twelve seconds, and then they rot and die.”
“And what are the sea fae laws I need to know?” I asked.
Lyr leaned over the table. “Do you really not remember?”
“It was a long time ago,” I said.
“Let me fill in the groundling.” Gwydion held up a finger. “One, only the knights are qualified to conduct executions. Not vigilantes such as yourself. We determine who is a threat and who is not, using our skills and superior knowledge. Two, the souls of those we kill are committed to the sea god so that they serve a greater purpose.”
“Three.” Shadows seemed to stain the air around Lyr. His mood appeared to have shifted suddenly, from amused to furious. “No one is allowed to slaughter guests, or those invited to break bread.”
It seemed oddly specific and pointed, but okay. “Guess I’m safe here then.”
“Four.” Midir’s spine was stiff as a rod. “No using iron weapons, because it pollutes the body and the soul. They prevent a spirit from passing peacefully into the afterlife. Princess.”
“Before I came back to life,” said Lyr, “I spent several hours in the sea hell, which felt like years, because my lungs were fucking exploding. So thank you for that.”
“Just to clarify,” Gwydion lifted his glass. “Irdion’s ghost will now be trapped on earth forever, watching you when you shower and things like that. I do hope you’re pleased with your choices.”
Ahhhh…. so that was why they all got upset about the iron. It wasn’t just the fact that it killed the fae, which I’d know. It was that it sent them to hell.
Chapter 14
“I mean…” I leaned back in my chair. “Does it make it better if I did not know what happened in the afterlife? Most fae don’t. It’s not like many people have experienced death, if they’re not demigods.”
“In any case,” said Lyr, “I helped Irdion’s soul to move on, but without me he’d be eternally tormented.”
I drained my wineglass. It was like drinking liquid sunshine. “In that case, I will not shoot you with iron again, unless I really need to.” I surveyed the room, desperate to change the subject. Where the heck was the food? “So where are the other knights?” I asked. “And Melisande?”
“The other knights eat after the Council of Three,” said Lyr.
“So the men eat first,” I said.
Gwydion crossed his legs. “We do have female knights here. They’re just not seneschals, like we are.”
Midir waved a dismissive hand. “Sometimes their contributions are worthwhile. But the gods designed men and women for different roles. Everyone knows that.”
Lyr rolled his eyes. “The gods did no such thing. Midir, you really ought to pull yourself out of the twelfth century.”
“Whatever.” The smell of delicious seafood tickled my nostrils, and my mouth began watering. It was tempting enough that I could forget about my company for a few moments.
I eyed the human woman who was bringing a tray of food to our table, her rosy face dewy with sweat. She looked like she’d been laboring over the food. She also looked like probably the best person in the room.
I was once a great princess with great power. And now I lived among humans, with economy brand custard creams and cans of corn. Maybe the food was terrible, but it wasn’t the worst thing, because I actually liked humans.
The servant lifted the lid off the dome, revealing salmon tinged gold with saffron. Nestled next to the fish were roasted, buttery morels and a salad of wildflowers: oxeye daisies, redbuds, violets, and clover.
This was the kind of fae cooking I’d once eaten every day. And right now, there was nothing else in the world but this meal.
Ohhh yes. I snatched my knife and fork off the table, measuring a perfect forkful of mushrooms and salmon together. As the fish seemed to melt in my mouth, I realized: a) that I was moaning out loud, and b) that Gwydion was still speaking to me. I swallowed my food.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said that I am fascinated by humans. I mean, sure, they’re inferior, but… fascinating.” His eyes sparkled, and he picked at his food. “And you lived among them. Did you watch television shows? Have you ever worn a flip-flop? Have you eaten beans wrapped in bread that has the thickness of human skin?”
A stared at him. “A burrito?”
“That’s it.” He grinned. “Wonderful. And the butter that isn’t real butter, but made of a tasteless oil and tinted yellow?”
Midir curled his lip at Gwydion. “Why are you being friendly to the dirtling?”
Gwydion shrugged. “I’m bored of insulting her now, and I don’t really care what she did. So she screwed her way around Ys and killed Irdion. Let’s move on. Someone was bound to kill that fuck pigeon at some point.”
I swallowed another mouthful of food—the morels perfectly browned in butter. “Fuck pigeons are still not a thing.”
Gwydion pointed his fork in the air. “And just like Lyr said, the fae are gracious-ish to our guests. Or at least we don’t slaughter them at dinner.” He arched a cautionary eyebrow at me.
There it was again. The “slaughtering at dinner” thing delivered in a strangely pointed way, as though I’d been spending the century murdering my guests over pizza.
I had the misfortune to catch Midir’s eyes. He still looked furious and wasn’t touching his food. “You may not care, Gwydion, but Irdion’s parents are wailing with grief at the loss of their son. His mother tore out all her hair. And her scalp is weirdly bumpy, like a kneecap. She looks ridiculous.”
I took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry I killed your friend. I thought he’d come to kill me. That was because he actually held up a sign threatening to kill me.”
“Of course he did,” Gwydion muttered under his breath. “Idiot.”
Lyr shrugged. “He did give an option, Aenor. Surrender or die a painful death. You refused the option to surrender.”
“Surrendering to someone who threatens a painful death is not a viable option,” I said. “If someone says ‘come with me or I’ll tear out your organs,’ you are well within your rights to slit their throat.”
Gwydion shrugged. “The way she phrases it, it sounds like she has a point.”
When Lyr leaned forward, all eyes turned to him. The torches sculpted his muscles with gold and glinted off his crown. “None of that is important now. You’re here for a reason.”
“Which is?”
“We have received credible information that we might be targeted soon by an army of spirits, hells-bent on destroying us. That is why you’re here.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Go on.”
“You’re here because I need your help to find an athame that will hel
p us expel these particular spirits,” said Lyr.
“An athame,” I repeated. “You need me to find a magical blade for you? I don’t get it. I’m just a Morgen. Tracking magic objects isn’t in my skill set.”
Lyr’s powerful magic poured off him. “It’s not your song that we need. It’s the native magic in your blood. The athame we seek is the Athame of Meriadoc, used to conduct powerful sea magic by your family. Long ago, one of my ancestors made it, but it was crafted for your family. The last person to own it was your mother. Queen Malgven was a great leader. Her ancient athame is capable of killing these spirits, conducting sea magic in an attack against them.”
“It’s true, my mother was a great leader. She did have some males around to help her keep the place looking cheerful and help her with the business of raising children while she ruled the kingdom. Like you said. The gods designed men and women for different roles. Everyone knows that.” I sipped my wine.
Midir’s gaze could have curdled milk.
Lyr was tracing the rim of his glass with his fingertip. “A sorceress from my mother’s line forged the athame eons ago with the blood and bones of your ancestors. You are linked to the athame. If you tune into it, you will be able to feel its pull. It’s full of Meriadoc power, and you can hear its magic.”
My heartbeat pounded in my ears. Meriadoc power…
I poured myself another glass of wine. “Surely it drowned with everything else in Ys. It’s probably in my ruined kingdom. Which is nowhere near here, by the way.” Ys was all the way off the coast of Cornwall.
Shadows seemed to breathe on Lyr’s muscled body. “I have scoured the island’s ruins beneath the sea. It isn’t there.”
“So let me make sure I have this right,” I said. “This athame could be anywhere on earth, and I have to find it, just by listening for its magic, which only works if I happen to be near it. And if I fail to find it, you kill me.”
Midir tapped his fingertips on the table. “That’s an accurate summary.”
“The good news,” said Gwydion, “is that our Winter Witch Beira has promised us the athame is somewhere near the fortress. Though she didn’t really define what ‘near’ meant, and she sort of grunted it in a guttural growl. She said ‘near, near, near,’ over and over.”
I stared at him. “Fear. She was saying ‘fear.’ She says it repeatedly. Not near.”
Gwydion pointed at me. “You know what? You might be right about that. She is a little mental, to be honest.”
“And what exactly are these spirits that are supposedly coming for you?”
Midir twirled a knife-tip against his index finger. “I don’t think you need to know that, tunnel swine.”
Lyr refilled Midir’s glass. “She will figure it out very soon, and there’s no reason to keep it from her. We have heard that the fuath are searching for us.”
My stomach flipped. The fuath were mad spirits of vengeance—the ghosts of fae who lived on after death, propelled by fury. They could possess a person’s body and force them to do terrible things—to kill their husbands or wives, or light buildings on fire.
I knew them from my curse books—the one I’d memorized.
“Who is controlling them?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” said Lyr.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the pages of the curse book. “There’s a way to protect against them, you know. The fuath. I read it in one of my spell books.”
Gwydion steepled his fingers. “Do you care to share?”
I sighed. “If you’d simply come to me in my shop and asked for advice, I could have pulled out my rare and ancient reference book. You could protect yourselves from their spirits. But you drowned the book, so it’s ruined.”
Midir snorted. “That’s convenient.”
“It’s really the opposite of convenient,” I said. I remembered the charm, though right now I couldn’t bring the image to mind exactly. “But it was a mark. You make it with your own blood over another person’s heart, and then the fuath can’t leap into your body. I just can’t remember exactly what the mark looks like.”
“That wouldn’t entirely solve our problem,” said Lyr, “unless we marked every person on earth. The fuath can possess anyone near us.”
“Athame it is.” I finished the last of the fish on my plate. “But now that I know what the stakes are, and that you’re all certain to die without my help, maybe it’s time to revisit the terms of our contract.”
“Our contract,” Lyr repeated it like a foreign word.
“If you help us,” said Gwydion, “you can return to your dirt hole in one piece, and we can keep your garish head from spoiling the look of our gate. Everyone wins.”
“No. I need something better than what I have now. And Gina gets to stay in the Savoy forever.”
Gwydion frowned. “Did you hear the part about how you get to keep your head attached to your body? That doesn’t motivate you? What’s wrong with you?”
“It doesn’t motivate her,” Lyr answered for me. “She doesn’t care about her life sufficiently for death to be a threat.”
“Well,” said Midir, “That makes sense. She’s lost her power and her crown, and she lives like a peasant. What does she have to live for?”
“She cares about the human girl,” said Lyr.
Bile rose in my throat. Was that a threat? Maybe I’d miscalculated.
“If you successfully help me find the Athame of Meriadoc,” said Lyr, “I will ensure that your human can stay in her current lodgings permanently. The Savoy Hotel. You’ll live in an adjacent room. I will coordinate with the other Institutes. You will have total immunity, assuming you stop committing egregious crimes like torturing people to death in alleyways.”
“That seems quite good.” Gwydion pointed at me. “I’d take that one.”
This was a good deal. “Fine. You have my oath.”
Just like that, Lyr could make it happen. Imagine having all that power…
At one point, that power had been in my grasp. A snap of my fingers, and I could have had guards protecting anyone I wanted. From a throne of pearls, I’d commanded an army of servants. Maybe I’d abused my power a little. Once, when a visiting dignitary annoyed me by staring too long at my cleavage, I’d turned his ears long and hairy, like a horse’s.
Terrible, I know, but what a thrill it had been.
I closed my eyes, breathing in the coastal air. In Ys, I’d wielded true power over the seas. I could flood a city with just a song, drown my enemy’s kingdoms.
And what if the athame that Lyr wanted so desperately could give me some of that sea magic back?
Chapter 15
For just a moment, I hungered for that power so sharply I had to clutch my stomach and remind myself to breathe. Then, my eyes opened again, and I pulled myself back into the present.
My lust for power would eat me alive if I didn’t control it.
“Fine. Life in the Savoy is worth fighting for, I suppose.” Soft beds, meals on silver trays. At least, I assumed so. Could be a pigsty in there for all I knew. “I’ll help you find your special magic blade. Or rather, my special magic blade that you’ll be stealing from my family.”
I twirled the stem of my wineglass between my fingers. “You know, you served during my mother’s reign. Some called her the Queen of Bones. She didn’t trust men at all, and I take after her. I don’t trust a single one of you.”
Lyr glanced down at his chest, which still had a black mark from the iron. “The feeling is mutual, Flayer of Skins.”
“I know there are things you are hiding from me,” I went on. “But here’s what I really don’t understand, Lyr. You hang my family’s sigil in your fortress. The white horse rising from the waters. You said you were loyal to Queen Malgven.”
“With all my soul.”
“If you were loyal to her when she was alive, then why have you treated me like rubbish? Why did you believe this cock-and-bull story about the silk masks and drowning my own kingdom? Yo
u should know a daughter of Queen Malgven wouldn’t be that dumb.”
He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table, and golden light flecked his eyes. “You don’t take after your mother. Your blood is poisoned. The fact that the gods stole your powers is a blessing to us all.”
Before I could respond, the sound of a ringing alarm bell stopped me. And underneath that bell, the high, keening cry of the fuath, a sound that sent shivers over my body. The pungent scent of seaweed floated in on the breeze.
They’d arrived early.
Lyr shot to his feet, and a dark burst of magic rippled off him. He slashed his hand through the air. As he did, the windows sealed shut with a dark magic—a gleaming shield of black, enclosing us.
The two other seneschals drew their swords, and the rest of the knights came running into the hall, swords drawn. Melisande ran for Lyr, her dark hair streaming behind her. She stood in front of him protectively.
“They’re already here.” Lyr spoke quietly, but his voice carried through the hall. “We were too late.”
Now, the air smelled of decay, like death was breathing all around us. I had the disturbing sense of being buried alive.
I closed my eyes, discreetly whispering a spell for protection. My magic crackled up my spine—my illegal, outlaw magic. But no one was watching me. Their eyes were all on the walls. It seemed no one knew what was going to happen next.
Forlorn screams of the fuath howled just on the other side of the sandstone walls, a rising wail that set my teeth on edge. So far, it didn’t seem like they could get in, but their eerie cries rang in my mind.
“They won’t be able to get in,” said Gwydion, as if reassuring himself. “Not without knowing where to find the secret entrance.”
I wasn’t entirely sure why everyone had their swords drawn. The fuath were spirits that inhabited people. Who did they plan to stab? Each other?
And with that thought, I stepped back into the shadows. No one was watching me as I pulled the dagger from the holster on my thigh. I might need it for protection if the fuath possessed those around me.
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