by AJ Lancaster
Behind her, the door opened, and a maid brought in a carafe of coffee. Hetta inhaled in anticipation, desperately in need of the comfort, but instead found herself gagging, her stomach giving a worrying roil.
“Ugh—take it away!” she ordered as the horrible smell drew closer. “The beans must’ve gone off.”
The maid blinked at her. “My lord?”
“Take it away!” The smell was making her both intensely nauseated and also angry. How could coffee let her down at such a time?
The maid jerked into motion and carted the carafe out again. The smell still lingered, and Hetta dug her hands into her knees through her skirts, willing her stomach to stop churning. Cool air curled around her, smelling of rain, and took the scent with it. Hetta breathed out a long sigh of relief and gave Wyn a look of deep gratitude for the air magic.
“It didn’t smell bad to me,” Alexandra said. She looked quizzically at her mother, who avoided her eyes.
Several of Hetta’s family members were giving her strange looks. Cecily’s wide eyes flicked between Hetta and Wyn. Her stepmother had gone a deep pink and was looking fixedly at the ceiling, and Aunt Sybil’s gaze had gotten even narrower.
Cecily’s expression turned knowing, and Hetta had a sudden urge to throw a cushion at her cousin’s head to show what she thought of her condescending smile.
They know. Her stomach flipped with something other than nausea. No. She was being paranoid.
“Henrietta, I would like to speak to you privately,” Aunt Sybil said ominously, nostrils flaring.
Hetta was abruptly tired. Tired of hiding, tired of judgement, tired of worrying. It all seemed so petty in the scheme of things, compared to the Conclave and Aroset and DuskRose and the fact that her baby might die if she couldn’t complete the High King’s task in time. What did it matter if they did know?
She tilted her chin. “Whatever for, Aunt?”
A muscle twitched in Aunt Sybil’s jaw. “A delicate matter.”
“If you are referring to my own ‘delicate situation’, then I’d as soon as not talk to you about it. It’s none of your business.”
Silence expanded out from her, the room slowly falling quiet with little hisses of what did she say? But she felt lighter than she had in weeks.
Aunt Sybil stuttered into motion. “Henrietta! How could you shame the family so! This is what comes of you associating with those loose theatre people!”
“I have never been to the theatre, my lady, and you must allow me to be a full and equal participant in this,” Wyn said mildly, coming to stand behind Hetta’s chair. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she wrapped her fingers with his, hoping to hide the fact that they were trembling.
Aunt Sybil went a deep and furious purple. “You must marry immediately!”
Wyn’s hand tightened on hers but his voice remained steady. “I fully intend to marry Hetta; I have already explained the reason why that cannot be as soon as I would like.”
“You should have thought of that before—” Jack snapped off the end of his sentence.
A hint of rainstorm and spice twined around the room. “I realise there is an…awkwardness surrounding this, in mortal culture, but for me this is a joyful thing.” He gave a wry smile. “Although a somewhat daunting one. I hope we can lean on you all for support.”
Thank the gods for Wyn; her own voice had stuck in her throat.
“What’s a joyful thing?” little Laurel piped up from the doorway.
“Laurel, dear, you should be in bed.” Lady Phoebe rose and went to her daughter. There were still spots of colour on her cheeks, but she met Hetta’s gaze deliberately. “Hetta, come and have a chat with me later.”
Lady Phoebe ushered a protesting Laurel out. The interruption had temporarily derailed her relatives’ swelling outrage, and before they could turn their attention back, Hetta stood.
“Good night, everyone.” She fled.
18
The Rose Gate
It wasn’t cowardice that made her avoid mealtimes with her relatives the entire next day before DuskRose’s ball; she was simply too busy preparing to have time for them. Her relatives, unfortunately, had plenty of time for her.
Jack was, surprisingly, the best of them, because he simply pretended she wasn’t pregnant and spared them both the awkwardness of discussing it. He wanted to know just how long exactly she was planning to be gone, and what needed doing in the meantime, and could he shoot Prince Rakken while she was gone? She ended their conversation feeling more in charity with him than she’d been in some months.
Aunt Maude wanted to know whether they’d thought about names, and did Hetta want to know which names had been in the family for more than five generations? Hetta did not at this immediate moment, no.
A red-faced Alexandra shuffled in around noon and said shyly that no matter what anyone else said, she would love her new niece or nephew unreservedly, a sentiment that had Hetta hugging her while blinking back unexpected tears.
Her cousin Cecily turned up in her office at afternoon teatime to advise her pointedly on the efficacy of chamomile tea for settling upset stomachs.
“But you mustn’t eat anything with spices in it,” she warned. “Or strong flavours. They result in a bad-tempered babe.” She set out the last word carefully, as if waiting for Hetta to deny it.
“That can’t possibly be true.” Hetta put her pen down.
“Oh, it is! My friend had such a craving for ginger biscuits throughout and then not a wink of sleep for months after little Robert was born! And I made sure to avoid all but the mildest foods, and the girls are so even-tempered—everyone remarks on it!”
Hetta privately held a different opinion regarding Cecily’s twin girls.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she hedged. She rolled the pen back and forth over the accounts book, wishing one of the female cousins she was closer to could advise her. But Caro and Ivy didn’t have children. The age gap between her and Cecily was only five years, but in a large extended family that might as well have been decades, and Hetta was too conscious that anything she said to Cecily might reach Aunt Sybil’s ears.
As if on cue, Cecily added, “Of course, it wasn’t very wise of you to…anticipate the wedding night.”
“You never…?” Hetta didn’t want to know, truly, but she couldn’t resist asking.
Cecily straightened, the resemblance to her mother strengthening. “Certainly not!”
Hetta looked down at her hands. “Well, thank you for your advice, but I really need to be getting on with this.” She gestured importantly at the list in front of her, which was long since complete.
Cecily stood. “Don’t hesitate to ask me if you have questions.”
“Thank you.”
It wasn’t rational to be annoyed at Cecily for trying to help when Hetta had wished for exactly that opportunity so recently. She should’ve asked about the dizzy spells, and about other things, but it had been kick Cecily out or start throwing pens at her.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway; Hetta knew it was one of the servants in the same way she knew the location of her limbs. There was a tentative knock before a maidservant entered with a tea tray. There were ginger biscuits on the plate.
Hetta eyed them thoughtfully after the maid left, stomach grumbling. Dash it all.
She ate the biscuits.
Ivy let herself in two minutes after Cecily had left, but since she came with a pile of old journals under one arm, Hetta felt much more interested in what she’d come for.
“Well, now I understand a bit more why you and Wyn were feeling so rushed for time,” Ivy said as she sat down. She bit her lip. “What’s it like?”
“Being pregnant?”
“No, eating biscuits. Yes, being pregnant!”
Hetta considered this. “Mainly extremely surreal so far.” She gestured at the journals. “Have you found something more?”
Ivy nodded, pulling the top one from the pile and leafing through to the page she’d mar
ked. “I said old Lord Marius I wasn’t much of a diarist, but I’ve since discovered that his wife Adda was much more reliable. She wrote every day. This is one of her journals, tucked accidentally into one of her husband’s.” Her nose wrinkled. “I hope the others still exist somewhere else in the clutter and weren’t simply discarded for not being the lord’s. The number of times—” but she stopped herself from getting off-track at Hetta’s pointed gesture at the diary she held. “Oh, yes. Well, Adda clearly wasn’t that interested in the wider politics of the time. She writes mostly of the house and her children.”
Hetta perked up. “Including Ewan?”
“Including Ewan. Listen to this: ‘Ewan is very set on this fairy girl of his, though I must admit to some doubts. The girl herself seems to mean well, but she is still the oddest creature, bringing wild things into the house as if they were pets, turning up in a dress of thistledown! I’ve told her if she wants to make Ewan a good wife, she’ll have to change her ways, and to be fair to her, she seemed willing enough. But Ewan is still so young! I cannot help but wish he would not think of marriage so soon.’”
The hairs on the back of Hetta’s neck stood up. Another Valstar had tried to marry a fae, much more recently than her original ancestor. Well, if you could call three centuries ‘recent’. Hetta tried not to think too hard about the fact that he’d died before succeeding in it.
“Is there more?”
Ivy made a frustrated sound. “I’m sure there must be another diary of hers covering the time period around his death, but she reached the end of this one just weeks before that.” She held it up to show Hetta; all the pages were filled with flowing handwriting. “I’ll keep looking.”
Hetta charged Jack with transporting the dusken rose while she finished her preparations; she didn’t trust Rakken not to change his mind and destroy it. Waiting for them in Stariel’s rose garden, she turned slowly to examine the small circular space with its geometrically laid out beds and carefully began to unpick the wards against translocation in a defined area. Evening was settling in, making spindly shadows among the greenery. The roses were caught between seasons, new glossy leaves beginning to unfurl. They looked much healthier than the black, leafless stick of the dusken rose.
Wyn landed with a soft thump behind her. “Forgive my lateness,” he apologised.
Hetta turned and froze.
Gone was her mild-mannered butler. In front of her stood a prince, breathtaking and unmistakably not human. He wore Spire-garb now, a rich black fabric made of luxurious shadows and dark gleams. The high collar emphasised the strong column of his neck but left a deep V of skin visible. Hetta hadn’t previously considered collarbones to be a particularly erotic body part, and yet, there was something in the sight of that narrow strip of skin that sent heat right through her.
Wyn had always been able to assume an air of authority when needed, but it had always been a very civilised authority. There was a wildness to him now, despite the undoubtedly expensive finery. Each horn was encased in its own net of filigree, winking with tiny jewels, and his silvery-white hair hung loose around his pointed ears. Even his feathers seemed shinier than usual.
She wanted to touch him, to reassure herself of his solidity. He didn’t seem quite real, all glittering darkness and iridescent blue feathers under the sluggish moonlight. And yet she hesitated, trying to reconcile the man she loved with the one in front of her.
And then he smiled mischievously, and familiarity flooded her. There you are, she thought.
“Have I stunned you into silence with all my glory?” He turned in a slow circle, spreading his hands. Silver rings glinted on several of his fingers. “Rake didn’t wish me to shame the Spires by presenting with insufficient finery,” he explained. “Also, he lent me one of his space-saving spells.” He put a hand into the velvet pouch attached to his belt to demonstrate and pulled out a thermos that couldn’t possibly have fit without ruining the line of his clothing.
Hetta blinked as he replaced it. “How abnormally helpful of him.” She reached out to smooth his shoulder. The fabric was sleek and buttery to the touch, with no obvious fastenings.
“How does it fasten?”
“Behind my wings,” he said, holding a wing out in a rustle of dark sapphire to show her.
Hetta frowned at the nearly invisible fastening, unable to figure out how anyone could do it up without the need for impossible contortions. “But how—”
“Magic.”
Hetta laughed. “It seems curiously mundane to use magic to do up buttons.”
“You thought fae princes would have some more exciting mechanism?”
“Well, yes,” she admitted.
“I could ask the brownies to fasten it for me, next time, if you’d prefer,” he said with a straight face. A note of sobriety entered his eyes. “Though I’d prefer not to repeat this specific outing.”
“Me too. Not least because I feel decidedly under-dressed. Can you tell?”
Wyn gave her a thorough inspection. “No. I can taste your magic—and I’m familiar enough with your wardrobe to guess what’s real and what’s illusion—but I cannot see through it. If anyone can, the display of magic will be more important than mortal fashion in any case—illusion is rare, in the courts. It’s not a fae magic.”
Hetta had compromised on her outfit. Part of her had wanted to show the fae that she could dress like a queen too. The more sensible part didn’t want to go tramping through Deeper Faerie searching for Irokoi in a ballgown.
Hetta wrapped her arms about herself, feeling the sturdy fabric of her coat under the illusion of a flimsier, silken outer garment that was borrowed from a fashion plate in one of Phoebe’s bridal catalogues. The heartstone was warm and hidden underneath. The colour had shifted a few shades darker, to summer-sky blue. It seemed to be working, because there hadn’t been any more elektric shocks since she’d started wearing it.
His gaze lingered. “You look beautiful,” he said, but the words were contemplative, covering some deeper thought process.
“You’re not going to convince me not to go or to let you go without me. Especially since the invitation was originally to me.”
He didn’t deny what he’d been thinking. “I know. Just…be careful. They will try to rattle both of us if they can. If you harm a member of Tayarenn’s court, it will break guestright.”
“What if they attack me first?”
“Then they have already broken guestright, and you are within your rights to defend yourself. But do not let them goad you into striking the first blow.”
“I can control my temper, you know,” Hetta said, more amused than irritated. Her eyes widened. “Oh, you’re reminding yourself rather than me.” She hadn’t realised his control was so frayed. He’d said he was struggling with more aggressive impulses, but it was quite hard to believe it, given his tight self-control. “Are you truly worried about that?”
He made a loose gesture with one hand. “Well, I’m glad to know I give a convincing appearance of restraint, at least.” His gaze grew distant, and something dark flickered in the depths. “I am reckless, when it comes to you. I always have been.”
She threw her arms around him. “That’s a ridiculously melodramatic thing to say.”
His wings flared out, silver catching in their depths. “I’m about to wade into a court filled with people who despise me, along with the woman I love, dressed in night and silver. I am feeling…melodramatic.”
“You certainly are. ‘Night and silver’ indeed!” Their faces were only an inch apart, their breath mingling. His eyes darkened. “The lipstick is real,” she warned him, with real regret. She’d clung to that small bit of realness, needing the reassurance when so much of her current appearance was false. It no longer seemed like such a good idea.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “You prefer real lipstick when you’re nervous. You always wear it to village council meetings.” He gave a heartfelt sigh. “Perhaps I could kiss you very gently?”<
br />
She laughed, though his observation startled her. Did she really do that? She hadn’t made the connection. “Lips are tricky to illuse well. They move a lot. I don’t want to risk the magic slipping at an awkward moment.” It came out sounding defensive.
“I am nervous about many aspects of tonight, but not about your illusion. I think you give your own mastery too little credit, love.”
He stiffened and pulled away just as footsteps sounded on the paved path into the rose garden. Jack marched with the dusken rose held as far away from his body as possible. Caro and Ivy padded alongside, bright with curiosity. Rakken trailed silently behind the party, expressionless.
“Well?” Jack demanded. “Where do you want the thing?”
“Put it down there.” Hetta pointed to a wooden arch between the two flowerbeds where she’d already peeled back the wards.
Jack put the pot down, and Hetta practically felt Rakken’s distaste.
Am I really going to do this? Is this really in Stariel’s best interest? The heartstone sat heavily against her skin.
“Can I re-set wards after we plant it?” she asked Rakken. Gate or not, lesser and greater fae still needed her permission to enter if they wanted their powers to come with them, but wards would stop anyone from simply wandering out of the Gate and into Stariel before she noticed; Jack had promised to keep a watch on it until they returned.
Rakken’s eyes narrowed on the plant, as if he were reconsidering destroying the dusken rose, but eventually he said, “Yes. Lay a circle out, both physically and magically, if you please, Lord Valstar.”
Hetta took a deep breath and concentrated. The earth parted, creating a thin circle of damp loam about them. Unasked, she called for the granite of the Indigoes. She wanted something harder and more permanent than soil for this. The effort made her sway, and Wyn caught her arm. When she opened her eyes, a stone band interrupted the grass surface, the archway in its centre. She blew out a breath of relief that it had worked exactly as she’d wanted it to for once.