“It’s a good thing I hit him on the head first,” said Althea into the silence. Her eyes were the lightest Markon had seen them since entering the waterfae’s dome.
Markon burst out laughing and grabbed her hand. “I can’t thank you enough! I couldn’t have managed without you! Shall we leave?”
“As quickly as possible,” said Althea, and threw the fae dagger down beside its owner.
They took the Hold keys and left the fae locked together in the cage. Markon was reasonably certain that at least the bigger fae was dead, but he didn’t want to take any chances; and as Althea said, any time bought for them while the fae unlocked the door to the cage was time gained.
At the top of the rocky stairs they had to wait while a laughing, merry group of fae swept down the street, their eyes bright.
“They’re going to the execution,” said Althea in Markon’s ear. “They’re already pretty high and happy, so it won’t be long before the other guards come after us. The Queen likes to make sure the crowd’s at fever pitch before she starts an execution.”
“How civilised,” said Markon, and cautiously cracked the door open again. Althea slipped through first and he followed close behind, trusting to her sense of direction when it came to the dome. Behind them the noisy group of fae danced its way up the streets and merged with another, larger group that was also sweeping through the houses.
“This way,” said Althea, and hurried down a narrow walkway that opened into the next street. When they stepped into the street he thought it was familiar, but it wasn’t until Markon followed the direction of Althea’s eyes that he recognised where they were.
They had come back to the house in which they’d met the Queen.
“Wait here,” said Althea. She was pale but determined. “There’s something I have to get first.”
“Althea–”
“I know,” she said, and ran for the great double-doors.
Markon followed her at a carefully casual walk, his eyes darting up and down the street, but it was empty. Even the faint sound of the distant mob of fae ceased when he stepped into the foyer and hurried up the stairs after Althea. She met him at the top of the stairs in a flutter of white cotton, something small and metallic clasped in her left hand, and dragged him back down the stairs.
“Back the way we came!” she gasped, leaping the last few steps to the first floor.
They tumbled out onto the street at a run, Althea leading the way, and when it blurred around them Markon was for once not at all uneasy about travelling under speed of magic. He’d heard the ominous babble of fae voices rising again, and even as they moved along the streets at impossible speed, the back of his neck crawled with the awareness of the fae weaponry behind them. Then there were shouts and the drumming of feet, and he was too busy running to have any attention to spare for the shivery feeling that tried to tell him he was about to die very quickly.
They hit the edge of the dome before Markon was ready for it, plunging into the icy, pressing embrace of the sea while he was still gasping for breath. Salt water flooded his nose, but Althea was already forcing air into his mouth just as the fae had done earlier, albeit more pleasantly and with less of a fishy aftertaste. While he was still coughing on the seawater that had seeped in through his nose, she gripped him under the arms and bore him upward through the tugging current in a swift and disorienting spiral. Markon wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or if there really was a spreading cloud of waterfae polluting the water below them, just too far out of sight to be discernible as such.
He was sick with relief when he saw the ripple of light playing across the surface above them, and when they burst from the surf and into blessed, dizzyingly light freedom he hauled Althea from the waves without taking a moment to enjoy the delight of it. She was shivering in the warm air but Markon didn’t mention it because he had discovered that he was shaking too, and that it had nothing to do with the temperature.
Althea’s dress was still on the sand, a puddled mass of blue brocade that scattered sand and several tiny crabs when she picked it up and shook it out. Markon expected her to pull it back on but she hung it over her arm instead and said through her shivers: “We’d better get back through the Door before they find us again.”
“You can’t walk around the castle in your shift,” he protested, ridiculously shocked.
“Rather that than be caught again,” said Althea, with perfect good sense, and led the way back into the human world. She struggled rather damply into her dress again once they were back in the castle. Fortunately, despite what a dismayed Markon realised to be the noon sunlight outside, the hallway wasn’t busy in the slightest, and she was able to do so unmolested.
Watching her pull her laces tight one-handed, Markon said: “That’d be easier if you passed me the shard.”
Althea laughed and tossed it to him: blunt, broken and not particularly shiny. She wasn’t shaking now that she was back in the human world, and Markon was glad to find that he wasn’t, either.
“Is it part of the same sword as the other piece? And how did you know it was there?”
“I saw it when we were dragged in front of the Queen,” said Althea. “Even if I hadn’t seen it, I would have felt it. I’d rather give both shards to Carmine than let something like that stay with her.”
“Your next puzzle,” Markon said lightly; and when Althea was finished dressing he gave it back to her.
His guards, excellent fellows that they were, didn’t so much as turn their heads when Markon strolled past them, trailing sand and dripping seawater, and vanished into his suite. Parrin must have given orders, however: Markon was in the process of stripping his wet clothes and towelling himself dry when his son entered his suite at a decidedly quick walk.
“I told Sal you’d be back before nightfall,” he said. Despite the lightness of his voice there was a touch of relief to his smile.
Markon left his changing to hug Parrin briefly and roughly. “I couldn’t leave word. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Sal told me you were with Althea, so I knew you’d come back safely. I hope you don’t mind: I told everyone that you were sick and took all your audiences today.”
“Good lad!” said Markon, smiling at him. Parrin had been trained to run the court by himself, but he’d never been thrown into it without notice before.
Parrin flushed slightly and tried not to look too pleased. “You’ve got bruises on your stomach,” he said. “And one next to your eye. What were you up to?”
“That,” said Markon, sighing with relief to be dry again; “Is a very long story. You’d better sit down.”
Day Eleven
Why was it, thought Markon in irritation, that whenever he wanted to talk to Althea, she was nowhere in sight? He’d slept later than he meant to, but he’d still been up and awake in time to allay the concerns of both his steward and Parrin, who seemed to be of the opinion that Markon was as feeble as a new-born calf.
“Thank you!” Markon had said acerbically, resisting Parrin’s solicitous attempts to help him into a dressing gown and shrugging a light jerkin over his shirt instead. “Parrin, I realise I won’t see forty again, but it’s really not necessary to treat me like a senile old man.”
“Not senile,” said Parrin soothingly. “Just a bit tottery!”
“Where’s Althea?”
“You couldn’t expect her to be here while you’re getting dressed!”
“I didn’t expect you to be here while I’m getting dressed, if it comes to that!” retorted Markon. “Why are you here? It’s not that I don’t love you, but I’d rather not be bundled into my dressing gown and slippers.”
“Althea said you might still be weary. She said to let you sleep.”
“That’s very kind of her,” Markon had said, and he’d gone in search of Althea despite Parrin’s protests. The amount of information that they’d gained from Faery was seeming increasingly less worth the risk of entering it, and he thought that he’d li
ke to catch her before she gathered any more magic and made her plans for the forthcoming night.
Unfortunately for his plans, the day was a busy one. Even after the midweek hearings were done with, small, petty problems sprouted from every conceivable task, stretching out the time he was obliged to spend on them; and when in frustration he at last sent for Althea, not even his steward could find her.
And that, thought Markon as he went down to dinner, was exactly like her! She was probably using a look-away type spell to wander the halls unmolested. His annoyance was only compounded by the fact that every person he met seemed to find it necessary to ask about his health, and after dinner he stole away to his library to get some peace and quiet. There was more work to do in the library, of course, but it was possible to ignore the paper-strewn desk if he wandered through shelves of books instead. The windows were a nice distraction, too. They looked out over the gardens, which at night were festooned with tiny pinpricks of light that managed to illuminate an improbably large area of greenery. Markon, smiling indulgently at the few pairs of lovers who were making use of the softly-lit walks, caught sight of a familiar couple and felt his stomach drop.
Althea and Parrin were in the garden, talking. Just like the day he’d interrupted them in the library, they were sitting very close together on the garden bench and leaning intimately toward each other.
I was wrong, thought Markon, as Althea put her hand on Parrin’s shoulder and smiled at him. I was very, very wrong.
There was a leaden weight around his neck that seemed to be slowly choking him as he turned blindly from the window. The contract...well, at least the contract wouldn’t need to be broken. Markon sat down at his desk, tidying a pile of papers and gathering his pens back into their holder. The ink bottle was missing, and that suddenly seemed important enough to merit a complete clean of his desk in order to find it. Slowly and methodically, Markon began to clean his desk.
The clock system had already signalled the half past eleven when Althea burst into the library, her blue eyes glittering. Markon looked up from his spotlessly clean desk, wishing that his heart wouldn’t leap so betrayingly every time she appeared.
He said: “You’ve been busy, I take it?”
“I know who did it!” Althea said. “Come along, Markon, I have to show you something!”
“Where are we going?” demanded Markon, but she’d already darted from the library again, her feet quick and light. He gave chase but Althea flew down the corridor ahead of him, just out of reach, her laugh floating back to mock him.
There was a Door down the stairs and around the corner, though Markon’s guard was nowhere in sight. More worrying than that was the fact that Althea had obviously left the Door open while she came to fetch him. Had his man gone through?
Althea smiled at him from the cusp of the Door and stepped through without waiting for him to join her. Markon, unwilling either to be left behind or let her go by herself into Faery, stepped from the corridor and into a typically Seelie forest, the sun filtering through the trees above with a gentle glow. It looked familiar. Markon threw an uneasy look over his shoulder at the door and saw with that it had closed completely, the forest an unmarred expanse of green and gold behind him. He drew in a long breath through his teeth: let it out slowly through his nose.
“You’re not Althea, are you?”
Althea rippled slightly in the soft air of Faery, and was quite suddenly no longer Althea. Markon took in the aged face with its golden eyes and cruel mouth, and recognised the first fae he and Althea had encountered in Faery.
“You’d best come along to the cottage, human,” she said. “I’d rather not cross your lady, myself, but I’m Burdened to do so.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” said Markon. He had his iron bands; and more importantly, proof positive that they worked. He was rather weary of being told what to do by the Fae.
The fae made a sharp motion at him—a spell of some kind, Markon thought, with a faint smile—and her eyes grew as hard as chipped amber when it became evident it wasn’t working.
“Got you under protection, has she? Well, come or stay as you will. You’ll not get back to the human world now.”
In the end, Markon went with her. She couldn’t harm him with magic, and it was unlikely that such an elderly fae could do him physical harm so long as he didn’t let her get behind him with a weight in her hand again. Besides, he had a feeling that someone awaited them in her cottage, and since it was most likely to be the woman who had summoned the fae, Markon thought it expedient to find out who she was.
The elderly fae didn’t speak to him as they walked, she merely muttered to herself and wheezed a little.
Markon helped her over a shallow stream at one point, somewhat ironically amused to find himself helping the fae who had been sent to kidnap him, and though the fae didn’t thank him she did stop her muttering. She also stopped glaring at him every time he walked a little too quickly for her, and when they reached the cottage she stopped him at the door with one claw-like hand.
“Not much I can do to you now,” she said, and Markon was surprised to hear so little bitterness in her voice. Now she only sounded tired. “That glamour I worked on you was almost the last of my power. But that girl– she’s the kind that’ll dig out your heart with a spoon if she’s not got a knife. Don’t show her your back, human.”
There was a hooded figure by the fire-place when the fae showed Markon into her sitting room. As far as he could tell with her hood drawn, she seemed to be gazing into the ashes. One hand was propped against the mantelpiece, causing her cuff to fall back from her wrist where a plaited bracelet of faded red thread clung. A memory turned, whirred, and clicked in Markon’s mind: Parrin as a little boy, sick and bundled up so much he could scarcely move, plaiting bracelets with an upper maid.
“Nan!” he said. “It’s Nan, isn’t it?”
She turned to face him, shrugging off her hood. He remembered her from the upper kitchen as well, where she’d looked resentfully at Althea and made remarks about the kind of opportunistic women who tried to break Parrin’s curse.
Today she merely looked satisfied.
“Now you remember me,” she said. “Of course. Now that I’ve been forced to bring you here.”
“I’ll put the tea on,” said the fae, rolling her eyes. Markon felt a strong desire to laugh. She’d evidently had bear Nan company for some time now.
“You’re the one who’s been opening Doors to Faery,” he said.
“I shouldn’t have had to,” said Nan, with a look of cold dislike. “We were promised to each other, Parrin and I. But there’s always someone trying to take what belongs to me, so I did something about it.”
“Why did you send someone to get me? I’m no use to you.”
“I don’t care about you. But she’d go through all the cantons of Seelie and Unseelie just to find you, and I want her very much. She knows who I am.”
“Who are you talking about? Who is it you want to trap?”
“Me,” said Althea from the door. “It’s me you’re talking about, isn’t it, Nan?”
Nan’s face gained some animation in triumph. “I knew it! I recognised you because I’m just the same, and I knew you’d come.”
“Well, here I am. What do you want with me?”
“Kill her,” Nan said to the fae woman. “She knows it’s me.”
“So do I,” Markon said, as the elderly fae drew herself together wearily for a fight he was certain both she and Althea knew she couldn’t win. “Are you going to kill me, too?”
The girl’s eyes focused on him, and she said: “Yes, you’ll have to kill him too.”
“If she tries to harm either myself or Markon, it will kill her,” said Althea warningly. “Look at her! She’s got so little magic left that she can’t even regenerate it. She’s dying.”
“I don’t care,” Nan said sulkily. “The fairy godmother gave me the spell, and she has to obey me.”
Althea sighed. “All right, then. Fae, I bind you!”
The fae woman, white as chalk, stopped in her tracks with fear written across every line of her face.
“Good,” said Althea. “Now sit down and for pity’s sake drink some of that tea before you collapse! I’ll deal with you later.”
The fae said: “Ooof!” and sat down thankfully. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Markon passed her a cup and saucer because it seemed only polite, and poured out for her with the same faint feeling of hilarity that he’d had before.
“You’re a good human,” she said to him.
“Don’t feed the fae,” said Nan. “She’s meant to be doing her job. Why is everyone always against me?”
Althea, who had been watching Markon pour out with some amusement, said: “I can’t think why. I left you a little something at the door, fae. Markon, we should go now.”
Markon looked up just in time to catch the flat, poisonous look that Nan directed at Althea.
“I won’t go with you,” she said sullenly.
“You’ll have to,” Althea told her. “That poor fae is at the end of her magic: there’s not a thing she could do to stop us going back to the human world and taking you with us, even if I hadn’t bound her.”
“And there’s the little matter of facing trial for murder, conspiracy, and treason,” said Markon grimly.
“Well, I won’t,” Nan said again, but when Althea prodded her forward in the small of her back, the girl trotted along ahead of them resentfully. Markon wasn’t entirely sure that she had any idea of the kind of trouble she was in: she seemed content to mutter of their perfidy as she was slowly but surely edged back outside the cottage.
“We’ll all go through together,” Althea said, when they were in sight of the Door again. No, not the Door. A Door. It wasn’t the one by which Markon and the fae entered Faery. “This Door opens in Nan’s room, and I don’t want her darting away either here or there.”
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