“Despite the brain bleaching I now need, the fact is, Hayes, that you’ll be in jail,” Memory said. “How can you make her be your wife while you’re in jail?”
Hayes replied, but continued to look at Eloryn. “It doesn’t matter where I am, or what I am. King or prisoner, Eloryn will be my wife. She is legally and magically bound by contract, and I intend to follow through.”
Memory put her palms to her forehead as if she was trying to contain herself. “Gah! I hate you so much right now if someone doesn’t get you out of this room I’m going to pull your eyeballs out and vomit in the empty sockets.”
Half the room stared open mouthed at Memory as the guards led Hayes away, but Hayes just glared at Eloryn the whole way out.
Memory pulled a chair out across from Eloryn and flopped into it. “I’m sorry, I guess that wasn’t very queenly of me.”
“Are you all right?” Eloryn asked.
“Am I all right? How are you not a living emotional explosion right now?”
Eloryn took a deep breath. She didn’t know the answer. She just knew she had to believe they would find a solution, and believe that nobody could force her away from Roen. “I guess I’m simply putting all my energy into not vomiting in someone’s eye sockets, which is a horrendous concept, by the way.”
Roen laughed, but it was short and sharp with anger. “Although if anyone were to deserve it right now, Hayes would have my vote.”
“Good luck to Hayes, thinking he’s going to get a wife and family while he’s in prison forever,” Memory said.
Eloryn stared at the table again. “But he will. I must marry him, even if the wedding takes place in his cell. And a wife has certain duties under law.”
Memory paused for a second, clearly trying to add up the meaning. “Women have to have babies as a legal duty? Hell no, not in my kingdom they don’t. Bedevere, do I have a legal advisor? If I do or don’t, bring me one. We’re going to find a way out of this. Including starting right now, we’re going to change the laws about what ‘duties’ women have in this land.”
“Oh. My. God. That’s it. I’m done. I quit being queen,” Memory said. She dropped her forehead onto the stack of paperwork on the desk in front of her and pretended to drool incoherently.
“You never did like homework,” Will said with a sly grin. “Made me do it for you half the time.”
Memory let out a groan that went for as long as she could force breath out. Rubbing her eyes with one hand, she flicked through the stack of unfinished documents and compared it to what she’d completed so far. Her first day of paperwork as queen was not proving very productive.
The monarch’s office was a dark room, filled with timber furniture in rich chocolate tones and a desk bigger than what Memory thought a dining table should be. Going in there that morning had seemed fun, exploring all the quill pens, ink pots, shifting rulers and other gadgets around the desk. The room made her feel important, like a proper queen. Then the paperwork began.
At least the chair was comfortable, and she rocked back in it and stuck her tongue out at Will where he sat cross-legged on a sideboard. He was reading a copy of Shakespeare’s complete works, which they were both amused to find on the shelves. It seemed the fae imported all sorts of things back when they still travelled between the worlds.
“Can I help?” Will offered.
Memory sighed and picked up her next piece of parchment. It was velvety and thicker than the modern paper she remembered. “Nah, I’m okay. I need to get through this. It’s part of my job now. And to be honest all I’m really doing so far is sorting things into stuff I know what I want to do about but not how to do it, stuff I can sign and be done with, and things I’m completely clueless about.”
There was a knock on the door and Memory pumped a fist into the air and whispered, “Distraction! Yes!”
“Do come in,” she said formally.
Peirs opened the door and remained standing in the threshold. He was out of his guard uniform and wore a simple fawn colored suit that matched his graying sandy-blonde hair. He held his cap in his hands against his chest and weariness accentuated the fine wrinkles across his face.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “I’ve been doing as you instructed, undoing the wrongs Hayes committed. While undergoing this task, I’ve been visiting a number of prisons Hayes established for the masses he deemed to be wrongdoers, troublemakers, or undesirables. At one such prison I have found someone I thought you might like to see.”
Peirs extended his arm, and from behind the door Clara stepped out, bringing with her a young girl with wiry red hair. The child’s eyes were full circles, wide with awe and fear, and although she was clean, in fresh clothes and with an additional blanket around her shoulders, Memory could see the girl was even skinner than she had been when under Maeve’s care at the orphanage. Skinnier and shaking like a leaf.
Memory got to her feet, a deep frown aching her forehead. In a few steps she was around her desk and kneeling in front of the girl to look her eye to eye.
“Hey, Isa,” she said softly. “Where’s your sister?”
Isa shook her head.
“Do you know where Maeve and the others are?”
Isa’s lips pulled in and she shook her head again.
Memory stood back up and gave Peirs a questioning look.
He leaned toward her and whispered so the girl couldn’t here. “After we got her out of the prison, while we got her fed and cleaned up, she said she saw Maeve and the others get taken by gaunts. She was the only one left. Apparently she was trying to find you when she got caught by Hayes’s militia.”
How dare they? She’s just a child. Memory felt the fires in her chest roaring. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Clara, can you find Isa a room in the guest wing below my chambers, and a handmaiden to look after her?”
“Already sorted,” Clara replied, her eyes watery and lips tight.
Memory bent back down to the girl. “We’re going to find your sister and the others, and bring everyone back here, I promise. Won’t it be fun, living in the palace together?”
Isa made no movement to respond.
“I was a bit scared of getting lost when I first started working here,” Clara said, smiling at Isa. “But don’t worry, I’ll draw you a map, and soon you’ll be running all over like you own the place.” Clara scooped the girl up, and carried her away on her hip.
Memory waved to them, then headed out of her office as well, beckoning Peirs and Will to follow her. Will jumped silently from the cupboard he’d been perched on and walked at her side.
“Have you had any luck tracking those fae critters who work for Providence?” Memory asked as she took long strides down the polished marble hall.
Peirs shook his head. “We’ve checked through all known unseelie fae territories in Caermaellan, and even seelie ones, but found nothing. We’ve spotted gaunts trying to take people a few times, but haven’t been able to follow them. As soon as they’ve noticed us they leave their victim and flee, or worse, turn and fight to the death, the crazed beasts. They seem to have no fear for being Branded, and are blatantly showing more hatred toward humans.”
“I’d like to blatantly show my hatred right back again,” Memory muttered. “Have things always been this bad?”
Peirs’s grin was wry, stretching the skin on his cheeks. “Not like this, but there has always been tension between the unseelie fae and humans. They are monsters, and they see us as inferior animals. That’s why the Pact was made to include Branding, to protect each side from the other. In the old times, we used to be free to hunt the monsters for sport. I figure that’s the only reason the unseelie fae went along with the Pact because they were so under threat. But many in the unseelie court have outright stated they didn’t want the Pact as it was, that humans should have been made subservient to the fae.”
Subservient to the unseelie fae? Memory could just imagine the kind of horrors that would involve. Still, having seen a fae creature
suffer the fate of a Branding, she was pretty sure it fell under the category of horror as well.
Peirs slowed his stride, and Memory turned to see why. He still held his cap clutched against his chest. “Your Majesty, it is my fault the children have been taken. I should have stayed to protect them.”
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda, nonsense. This isn’t your fault. This is the fault of the damned vampires.”
Peirs raised an eyebrow. “There really is no such thing as vampires.”
“Color me unconvinced.” Memory started walking again and Peirs and Will matched her step.
“This is new, what we’ve been seeing, and targeted solely on Caermaellan,” Peirs said. “Some unseelie fae, like trolls, have been known to eat humans, but never drain their blood in the way we’ve seen in the bodies we’ve found. It’s almost medical precision. No teeth.”
“But we know it’s those rotted dark fae though,” Memory said. “How were they able to take everyone without being Branded?”
Will spoke up then, although his voice was quiet. “Fae tricks. Lost children are easy targets. They’re easy to seduce and trap with promises of riches or happiness, a home, or even a simple bite of food.”
Peirs nodded. “And when they make the wrong deal, they lose any protection from the Pact.”
Vampires or not, Memory knew she had to find and stop the fae doing this, and find out what their connection to Providence was. No matter what, Providence had taken enough blood.
Memory took the stairs up and headed into the Round Room. She found the room a mess, with piles of splintered wood in small stacks all over the marble floor. Eloryn sat amongst them, sorting the pieces out, holding them to her ear and whispering to them in turn. She’d managed to recreate almost a quarter of the round table from the shattered and charred timber that remained after the explosion. A makeshift desk sat in the corner, out of the way, where Roen, Roen’s father and a mousey legal advisory sat bleary eyed. They looked over contracts and searched through legal precedents to find a way to prevent Eloryn’s marriage to Hayes. Eloryn looked particularly worn. Memory was sure she hadn’t slept for days.
Memory worried about her sister, how she’d become so focused on repairing the round table, but Eloryn had said it helped her to think, and to relax, and that it was her way of trying to find a solution.
“How is it going?” Memory asked.
Roen looked up from the desk, his eyes red rimmed with grey smudges beneath. “Going splendidly if we want to amend the marriage contract for requiring a dowry or we wish to allow the husband’s family to inspect the bride before the wedding to approve of her or her virginal status. The more I look at the laws in detail, the more I’m beginning to agree with your sentiment, Mem.”
“That Avall kind of sucks for women? Yep, worked that one out back in etiquette class.”
Eloryn placed a finger length splinter of wood against the restored section of table and spoke a few words. The wood crackled softly as it melded and blended back together. “We’ll find a way. We can fix this.”
“I’m glad you’re still feeling positive, sis, because I need to break up your team. I need Roen for something else. I want Roen to find the place the gaunts are taking people and draining their blood. We think they have Maeve and the kids.”
Everyone around the room stopped their work and looked at Memory.
“I know you probably want to be here, finding a way to stop Hayes’s crazy demands, but I need you out there. You’ve got mad ninja skills like no one else I know. Finding Providence’s blood drinkers is important.”
Roen looked at Eloryn for a long moment, then turned back to Memory. He nodded, his jaw tight. “I know. I’ll do it.”
Brannon stood up from the table and put his hand on Roen’s shoulder, the look of pride on his face overwhelming.
Roen gave a small bashful chuckle. “To be honest it will be good to get out onto the streets again. The best luck to ever strike me has been when I’ve been working. Maybe I will find some luck again to help us here as well. Different ways of dealing with problems work for different people.”
Eloryn rose from the floor and scattered a stack of splintered wood when she rushed over to Roen and held him tight. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a solution to this before you get back.”
Peirs bowed to Memory. “Let me accompany him. I need to help. I need to right this.”
“Of course,” Memory said. “I’d go too, but there’s more I need to do here.”
Will, who had been standing to one side during the conversation stepped forward. “Do you want me to look too?”
“Yes, if you can. But somewhere else. I need you talking with the fae to find out what they know. There has to be some gossip to be had, and Mina strikes me as the kind of girl to gossip.”
Will flinched ever so slightly, making his icy blue eyes flash. “I will go to her.”
He turned to leave, and Memory caught him by his hand. “Come back soon, ‘kay?”
Will turned away, his expression hidden behind tangled hair. “I’ll try.”
Chapter Six
Eloryn walked slowly through the halls of the castle toward Thayl’s old quarters. She had grown so used to hearing many sets of footsteps walking with her wherever she went, that now she was without her guards she felt very alone. She knew there was only one person she truly missed, and made a silent wish that Roen would stay safe and return to her soon.
Her sister had summoned her, and when Eloryn reached the entrance to what had been Thayl’s chambers, she nodded to the guards that used to be hers waiting outside, then stepped in to see Memory.
Eloryn gasped. “Mem, you look… Stunning.”
Memory grinned bashfully and tugged at the short skirt of the new outfit she wore. “Not bad, right? This was Clara’s newest mission. I gave her my old clothes and asked her to work with the seamstresses to come up with something that was more me. I kind of just wanted some new pants, but I think they saw the little skirt-belt-thing on my jeans and rolled with it.”
Eloryn smiled. The outfit was traditional enough not to cause a scandal, but at the same time very much suited her sister. Fitted pants in grape purple had lace cuffs around Memory’s ankles, and around her waist a full bustle hung from the back with a shorter frill of skirt at the front. The seamstress had incorporated pink lace onto the front of the tight bodice, in a cascading collar reminiscent of the heart design on Memory’s shirt from the other world. A black, ruffled shrug jacket kept the whole ensemble modest and practical.
Memory had also taken to wearing most of her old piercings again, except the one in her lip, and over the top of lace gloves, she wore the collection of bracelets, buckles and cuffs that she had worn the day Eloryn first met her.
Eloryn hid her smile and stuck her nose into the air. “First hamburgers, now this. You’ll have everyone wanting fashion like yours.”
Memory laughed. “Just wait until I introduce Avall to coffee.”
Smiling back, Eloryn ran her finger over a layer of dust on the desk beside her. “So, where do we start?”
“I guess I’ll have to import some coffee beans or trees from the other world somehow…”
“I meant with your search plan, here, now,” Eloryn said.
“I was honestly hoping you’d walk in and be all bam, solved the mystery with superhuman senses of observation and deduction, Sherlock Holmes style.” Memory turned on the spot, looking around the room. “But you didn’t. So I guess we just poke around.”
“You really do think far too much of me,” Eloryn said.
The rooms had barely been touched since Thayl was deposed. Eloryn knew the Council had been through once, looking for clues to Thayl’s powers, but left quickly when they found no magical documents. His chambers consisted of a single large room that served as bedroom, lounge and office, unlike the royal chambers Memory and Eloryn now occupied which had a separate bedroom and sitting room each. The room hadn’t been on the cleaners’ rounds for a while, an
d grime had settled across all surfaces. Thayl’s old clothes, worn during his imprisonment, still lay on the floor in front of an open wardrobe.
Eloryn frowned at the bed, which was small, a single bed only. As though Thayl had never even imagined sharing his bed with another person again after Loredanna died.
Eloryn made her way to the bedside table and began flicking through the books stacked there, searching for a journal or some other clue.
Memory followed, and bent down next to the bed, feeling around its base for anything hidden. She glanced at Eloryn a few times as she did so. “How are you hanging in there, with that whole nasty forced marriage business?”
Eloryn paused for a moment, then continued to flick through the copy of Troilus and Criseyde, although she doubted it would be of much relevance to their search. “Hayes has set a date for the wedding, a week from today, to be held in his cell.”
“He’s being a right asshat about this, isn’t he? I’m starting to rethink my position of anti-killing.”
“Don’t. I do not want his death on my hands or yours. We will find a solution. Anything broken can be fixed. Changing the laws about a woman’s rights in marriage will help me a little, but unfortunately I will still be married, just with more rights.” Eloryn closed the book and a puff of dust blew into her face, stinging eyes that already felt raw. She blinked them clear. “It would almost be funny if not so horrible. We fought Hayes for wanting to arrange marriages for us, and now I’ve locked myself into an arranged marriage with him.”
“If it weren’t for this damn fairy oath, I would whoosh him away to the rest of the world for you.” Memory winced as she reached her arm full length under the bed, fumbling around.
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