He said nothing for a few seconds, then muttered, “Locked me out.”
“Maybe they weren’t home.”
“No, they were there,” he said, sounding oddly calm. “Mom was crying. Dad did the shouting.” He met my eyes and added, “I’d rather not repeat it.”
I floundered for the right words for a moment, then managed, “Aiden…I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Screw them.”
“What?”
“Screw them,” he repeated. “They don’t want me? Screw them.”
We stood there in silence, listening to the muffled bleating of Georgie’s sheep as they multiplied.
“This is probably a dumb question,” Aiden mumbled after a time, “but do you play Mario Kart?”
“I…can’t say that I have, no.”
“I brought my Wii,” he said, sounding hopeful. “If Hel could figure it out, anyone can. I mean,” he added quickly, “I know you’re busy and all, but…if you wanted. You know. No pressure.”
I hesitated, wondering if I should divulge my track record with sensitive electronics, then nodded. “Nothing on the schedule tonight. How difficult is this?”
“You ever played with a Wii?” he asked, then saw my expression and waved the question aside. “Okay, we’ll start with the basics. Come on.”
Halfway down the hall, Aiden paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, hey, I meant to ask—wall sockets.”
“What about them?”
“None in my room. I kind of need electricity.” His brow scrunched into thick wrinkles. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“We’ll work something out,” I said, following him down the corridor. “And you’re going to go easy on me with this game, yes?”
“Of course not.”
I punched him in the shoulder, and Aiden laughed.
Given my druthers that season, I would have rounded up my siblings—save Aiden—and shipped them off to a nice, secluded island, somewhere without the possibility of return passage. A little separation would have been good for all of us, as they’d made it clear from the start that they resented my presence. The five of them had always been the few children in Mother’s favor, and suddenly there was no more Mother to protect them—just me, the greatest asshole of the family, if not the race. It had to be a bit of a shock to the system.
I knew they blamed me for Mother’s death, and in all honesty, that blame wasn’t entirely undeserved. I hadn’t exactly tried to stop Toula, after all. But then none of them had been there when Mother set Robin on fire and left it up to me to mercy-kill him. They hadn’t smelled him roasting alive or heard him scream like an animal. None of them had yet been born when Mother murdered little Áed in front of me—not for anything the boy had done, but rather to plunge the knife in my gut and twist, amusing herself at my expense. Of course, they probably wouldn’t have cared. These were the same siblings who stood by while Mother dispatched her less favored children, who went on with their lives as if nothing were amiss when Mother sent Aiden to his supposed execution and raised Meggy’s stolen daughter as her own.
They still asked about Moyna on occasion, and Ji had once whined that I was being unfair, that I should bring her back where she belonged. I had driven my sister from the building with fireballs that morning, too furious to express myself any other way. I couldn’t forgive them for letting Mother ruin Olive and torment Meggy, and in that moment, as Ji dashed across the gardens with the hem of her dress smoking, I regretted only that my aim had been inaccurate.
But I couldn’t kill them.
Well, that’s not entirely correct—I could have done the job without much effort, possibly even in a five-on-one scenario. Aside from the power the realm gave me, I had almost two centuries on Doran, the eldest of the lot, and I’d had plenty of time to learn to fight dirty. Nanine wasn’t even three hundred, and she’d probably spent the bulk of those years in Faerie, sitting at Mother’s feet and trying out hairdos. Physically, I could have rid myself of them.
Then again, you don’t just kill your siblings because they annoy you. The realm protested in my head every time I so much as entertained a daydream in that direction, and I was sure there would be blowback from the court if I eliminated the rest of Mother’s line. My siblings I could have handled, but a full-scale revolt would have been unbeatable, especially considering that Valerius wasn’t the eldest of my subjects by a long shot. Nor was exile a feasible option. As little as I liked having them in Faerie, at least I could keep an eye on them there, and the thought of adding to the problem Oberon had created by moving his court out of the realm sat ill with me. And so I continued with the status quo, suffering as few of my siblings’ visits as possible and dreaming of taking them to unspoiled tropical paradises with nothing but open ocean for miles around.
Unspoiled tropical paradises with rabid jaguar populations, when I was of a mood.
Still, I knew that if Aiden was staying, I would have to make the introductions sooner rather than later, if for no other reason than his safety. The sooner the others knew to avoid him, the better I would feel about not keeping him supervised around the clock. To that end, two days after his brief return to the silo, I sent dinner invitations to the rest of the family and mentioned to Joey that if he felt like praying, I could use a favor.
Having spent most of my adult life alone to that point, I didn’t do dinner parties, and so I left the details to my staff and spent Sunday with Meggy on the beach, sitting on a blanket in the late September afternoon, reading a paperback with a mildly intriguing cover, and trying to forget the duties I was shirking. When I eventually dragged myself home, I found the smallest of my dining rooms set with a round table and gold china—all standard, as far as I could tell, but for the illumination. Someone had thrown about a thousand tiny floating lights up near the high ceiling, giving the overall ambiance more than a passing resemblance to that of Rigby’s tiki bar’s beachfront deck. Watching me appraise the work, one of my aides explained, “Considering the guest list, we thought a round table would be best—fewer ways to offend through seating.”
“Understood,” I said, noting that Syral and Doran’s place settings had been situated out of each other’s line of sight. “And the, uh…decoration?” I asked, pointing to the light show.
She grinned apologetically. “Lord Aiden’s idea. If it displeases—”
“It’s fine,” I interjected, and saw Aiden’s head poke around the doorway. “Going into interior design, are you?” I called.
“Nah,” he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets as he slipped into the room. “There’s this Mexican place, closest thing to the silo—they go a little crazy with the Christmas lights, but I’ve always kind of liked it. Festive, you know?” He glanced at the riot of twinkling colors above us, then shrugged. “Okay, maybe it’s not exactly formal…”
“So how good is the Mexican in Montana?”
Aiden made a face. “Well, I’m probably not the best judge of authenticity, all things considered, but let’s just say the owner’s name is Stan.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, suddenly missing Phoenix. “We’ll do something about that later.”
I left him with the aide, a soft-spoken half-blood who seemed to have an intuitive understanding of the situation, and returned to my chambers to get the sand out of my hair. Valerius caught me poking my cheeks in front of the mirror, trying to see how bad my fresh sunburn was going to be, and cleared his throat to announce his presence. “Pleasant outing, my lord?”
“Most things are pleasant beside the sea,” I replied, patting my windblown hair into order. “No emergencies?”
“None, though I may have taken the liberty of doubling the guard tonight.” I turned and cocked my eyebrow, and he nodded. “The last time Lord Doran and Lady Syral had a disagreement, the damage was rather…extensive.”
I flipped back to the mirror and started to try on different shirts, running through my mental catalogue of garments worn in the last fifty years. T
he Hawaiian number, at least, was definitely out. “Going to satisfy my morbid curiosity?”
Valerius had been at his job long enough to be unfazed as my clothes kept popping into and out of existence. “They destroyed the north wing of the palace. Your mother threatened to skin them alive if they didn’t clean up the mess.”
“She meant it, I’d wager.” The white button-down was easy, but I wasn’t convinced.
“She had a knife on hand. You know, togas make things much simpler. Always appropriate for formal occasions.”
I paused and gave him a look in the mirror. “And when was the last time you wore a toga? Within the past millennium?”
“It’s never been the fashion here, my lord.”
The captain hadn’t gone far from his roots—I’d yet to see him sport anything but a belted tunic and pants—but I couldn’t imagine even Valerius pulling off a toga in Faerie without ridicule. “And it hasn’t been the fashion outside the realm for quite some time,” I said, settling on a subdued green blazer. “Aside from toga parties…”
“Toga parties?” he echoed, perplexed.
I tried to find an explanation that wouldn’t offend him and realized the effort was wasted. “An excuse for students to wrap themselves in bedsheets and drink until they vomit.”
As Valerius tried to process this, I turned when someone rapped at the door, then relaxed and beckoned when Joey cracked it open. “Princess Buttercup is on a rampage?”
“No, Georgie’s napping off her tea,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Aiden wasn’t sure of the dress code tonight. I said I’d check on it for him.”
“Pajamas, for all I care,” I replied. “Look, Joey, you don’t have to babysit—”
“I’m not,” he said with a little shrug. “Been kicking his ass at Mario Kart all afternoon—porta-generator, good call. Georgie wants to play, but it’s tough without thumbs, you know?”
“Glad someone can challenge him,” I muttered, giving the mirror a final inspection.
“Yeah, he said you were still figuring it out.”
“Damn bananas.”
“Welcome to the club. Hey, Val,” he added, leaving me to brood. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”
Valerius nodded, then stopped and frowned at Joey. “Have you heard of this ‘toga party’ phenomenon?”
“Sure,” he began, then paused, a look of realization crossing his face. “Oh, this is news to you.”
“You’ve been to one?”
Joey had the grace to look sheepish. “Maybe?”
“Maybe?”
“Okay, yes. College is a time for doing things you’d never do as a real adult.”
The captain closed his eyes and sighed softly. “Please tell me you at least had the sense to wear a tunic underneath,” he said, then looked at Joey again in time to catch his confusion. “Tunic. Sleeves. No?”
Joey shook his head.
“You walked around in a bedsheet. And…drank?”
“A fair bit,” he reluctantly admitted.
He crossed his arms and scowled. “You can’t possibly make a toga out of a sheet! The proportions are wrong, you can’t drape it properly—”
“Knots, safety pins, gallon jugs of wine. Presto.”
“Was it at least a white sheet?” I asked as I experimented with cufflinks.
Joey’s face had begun to burn. “If you must know,” he said with affected dignity, “it was floral. But it was clean, and that’s saying something. One of the girls had a tie-dyed flannel toga, so I wasn’t the worst.”
Valerius snorted. “Your women walked around in togas as well, did they?”
“It was a theme party!” he protested.
“Only prostitutes wear togas!”
“Says who?”
He spread his arms and looked at Joey with deep incredulity. “Apparently, the one man in this room who has ever worn one properly!”
“Good point,” Joey mumbled, and saw me trying not to laugh. “Don’t even start, Colin.”
“At least you figured maille out on your own,” I replied.
He rolled his eyes, muttered threats about Ren Faires, and slinked off to find Aiden.
The first of my guests arrived a few hours after sundown—and five minutes late, but then I hadn’t anticipated anything less from them. Syral and Huc often traveled as a pair, dark-haired and remarkably alike in their features but for their eyes, her father’s blue and his father’s black. Syral seemed to take her fashion cues those days from Jane Austen and Huc from Ziggy Stardust, but their motions were strangely synchronized, their affectations similarly disinterested, their glances at each other frequent and indicative of silent conversation. From what I had gathered, Huc had been Syral’s pet when he was small and she was between lovers, and he had absorbed many of his sister’s mannerisms by observation. Then again, their difference in age was perhaps only seventy-five years, so they had had ample time to adapt to each other.
I let the staff seat them beside each other and bided my time in another room, watching them. I had no need of hidden cameras—not when the realm itself was only too happy to show me what was transpiring outside of my sight. The sensation was beyond strange, like seeing a second reality layered onto the one before me (and leaving me confused as to which I was actually viewing if I paid too much attention to the vision), but it had its uses. That night, I was trying to see how the alliances had shifted before I threw Aiden into the middle of a war.
Syral gave a lazy wave when Nanine was shown in, but Huc stood and kissed our youngest sister’s hand. She was always pretty, but that evening, Nanine had swept her blonde waves—Mother’s hair with better style—into a pearl-studded chignon. She sported an absurd confection of pink lace and black opera gloves, looking rather like she’d been playing dress-up in an attic, but somehow still seemed radiant, a brown-eyed angel with a child’s ringing laugh and at least three confirmed murders, changelings she had wearied of and sent my way for disposal.
Mistress was so beautiful, the last told me as she died at my feet, suddenly finding herself wizened and too ancient to stand. Beautiful and cold, like autumn’s first killing frost.
Next was Ji, petite in every sense but for her mass of black curls, which bounced around her as if to make up for Nanine’s subdued tresses. It was Syral’s turn to rise and greet, a perfunctory exchange of kissed cheeks, followed by a quick look at Huc, whose slow blink seemed to speak volumes in reply. Nanine giggled as Ji produced a fishbowl-sized margarita, then considered the others, glanced down at her red sheath of a dress, and changed into something Marie Antoinette might have commissioned.
Finally, nearly an hour late, Doran showed himself into the room, sporting a blue robe embroidered with gold and glittering with what I assumed to be diamonds. Ji rose to embrace him, but the others sat and stared, silently drinking in the quasi-festive glow.
“Any bloodshed yet?” Valerius asked beside me.
I let the vision fade and blinked until he came back into focus. “No, but the night is young. How do the wagers stand?”
“If I told you,” he said with a faint smirk, “that might change the odds.”
“Fair enough.” I rose, straightened my shirt, and took a deep breath. “Think this is a bad idea?”
“Honestly, my lord?”
“Don’t answer that,” I muttered, and set off to greet my guests.
Doran was the first to notice my entrance, which he acknowledged with a sigh. “I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to grace us,” he said, leaning back in his chair and studiously avoiding Syral’s dagger eyes. “Or starve us. Suppose they’re equally likely, aren’t they?”
“My sincere apologies,” I lied through a smile, “but I was unavoidably detained. I see the drinking has commenced,” I added, glancing at the ring of unmatched stems and highballs around the table as I took my chair.
“Just passing the time,” Syral chimed in, and raised her glass in brief salute. “And…we’re expecting a seventh?”
she asked, indicating the empty place beside mine. “Not Moyna, surely?”
“No, I’m afraid she has an early morning,” I replied, straining to keep my smile in place. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Who, the mongrel?”
I glared across the table at Nanine, who smiled back at me and shrugged. “Word travels,” she said. “I could think of no other reason for this gathering.”
Huc’s eyes narrowed, and he looked back and forth between Nanine and me. “What mongrel?”
She examined her pink fingernails with practiced carelessness. “Mother’s little mongrel. You remember, Moyna was an infant, and then Mother had the boy…”
His dark eyes widened in recollection. “Yes, that mongrel. I thought she got rid of it.”
“So did I,” said Syral, leaning around Huc to stare me in the face. “Were we mistaken, dear brother?”
I studied the table, trying to decipher Ji’s well-rouged smirk and Nanine’s little grin. Doran’s expression was unmistakable, however, and I hurried on before he could come up with any ideas involving homicide. “Aiden’s fifteen,” I said, trying to meet every gaze simultaneously, “and he’s come home. I thought you should meet him.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Doran snorted. “You called us here to see a mongrel, Coileán? Is that how little you think of us?”
“Witch-blood,” I said quietly. “And our brother.”
“You’d bring that here,” Ji interrupted, “but you won’t bring our Moyna home?”
Doran had begun to color, and he went to his feet before Ji finished speaking. “I will not break bread with her,” he said, pointing at Syral, “on account of a damn mongrel!”
Huc started to rise, but Syral pushed him back into his chair. “Sit, dear,” she said, giving Doran a particularly venomous look. “He’s not worth the effort. Let him rage in peace.”
“Come over here and say that,” Doran spat.
From his position in the shadows at the back of the room, Valerius pointedly cleared his throat, and my siblings turned as one. “Lords and ladies,” he said calmly, “I’ve been instructed to inform you that there will be no violence this evening.”
The Faerie King Page 14