by Cait Spivey
“So, is Lady Malise among the ones who blame my aunt Fiona?” he asked.
He tried to keep his voice light, but Guerline sighed and covered her face with her hands. That was not the reaction he’d expected. Evadine had never been a favorite of his, but she was deeply clever and sensible. Certainly, she wasn’t taken in by low-minded fear-mongering, was she?
Guerline dropped her hands into her lap. “She’s frightened of the Kavanaghs. Your family. She—you have to understand, Desmond. So many of us have never even seen a witch who wasn’t from Thiymen, and you know how they look.”
“So she does want Fiona gone?”
“She wants all of them gone,” Guerline said.
He scoffed and stood up. “Why on earth—how can she? How can any of them? Do they even realize what the clans do for them?”
He paced in front of the sofa, clenching and unclenching his fist. He had to remain calm. Desmond’s duty, for nearly ten years, had been to educate the people about the clans. He’d always felt that, by and large, his efforts were successful. And perhaps they were. Perhaps the nobility simply didn’t care; perhaps they didn’t realize how vulnerable they would be without the witch clans.
Desmond couldn’t even begin to imagine an Arido without magic, or without the clans. The country was founded by witches and then handed over to humans. It was by the grace of his great-grandmother, Lirona Kavanagh, that the humans were involved in government at all. But the humans didn’t learn that history. They learned that Lisyne the Mother created the humans, and then made the witches to serve and protect them.
Who came up with that version? Desmond wondered. But he knew that answer too. The whole religion of the shifter gods was a story concocted by the Sitosen witches to explain away people’s memories of Lisyne, Seryne, and Tirosyne. He doubted that Neria, the previous leader of Sitosen, had expected her made-up legend would be used as ammunition against her successors.
“Guerline, what exactly is Evadine’s concern about the witches?” Desmond asked.
“She believes the Kavanagh sisters have too much autonomy. She thinks they ought to be more beholden to me, and that I shouldn’t treat them as equals.”
“I see,” Desmond said. “And what do you think?”
Guerline glanced into the empty fireplace. “Desmond, please don’t get angry.”
“I’m not angry!” he said.
She raised an eyebrow at him and he hesitated, then sighed. He was angry. At Evadine and all those who shared her opinion of his family, at himself for failing to prevent this. He was even a little angry at the unreadable expression on Guerline’s beautiful face. She’d never looked at him in that calculating way before. It was Evadine’s influence staring back at him, he realized. Evadine’s suspicion.
“What do you think, Guerline?” he repeated.
She watched him a beat longer before glancing down and back up. “I think the witch clan leaders, whoever they happen to be, are supposed to be the Lords Paramount of their region, and they’re supposed to be answerable only to the emperor—or me, in this case. That doesn’t mean I ought to treat them like vassals. I’m not worried about the Kavanaghs overthrowing me or any of that nonsense.”
Desmond smiled. He went back to the sofa and sat down, reached for Guerline’s hand and folded it in his.
“That’s good, Lina. Honestly, my mother, my aunts, only have Arido’s best interests at heart. And I can honestly say that they prefer you infinitely to your idiot brother, peace for his soul.”
She pulled her hand out of his and tilted her head back, then stood and paced in front of the couch just as he had done. Desmond waited. He could tell she was thinking by the way she chewed on her bottom lip and rubbed her thumbs over her fingernails. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Desmond couldn’t help a small smile. He enjoyed cataloging her habits and learning to read her. It made him feel even closer to her, and close to her was all he wanted to be.
Guerline looked at Desmond, and his smile faded as he realized that her thoughts were much less pleasant than his. Her hands now rested against her stomach, fingers tightly interlaced. He could see the whiteness of her knuckles. Desmond rose from his seat and crossed over to her. He sat on the edge of the sofa and took her hands in his, tugging her down to sit next to him.
He looked at her face and saw fear there, simmering quietly. His stomach clenched. He wanted to tell her not to be afraid, to tell her that she was brilliant and perfect and that everyone else could jump off a cliff—but he couldn’t. She came to the throne young, and she would spend her entire tenure as empress wondering who to trust and whether she was ever doing the right thing. It had driven rulers mad before. Suddenly, he was afraid too.
“Listen, Lina, I know it will be hard to do what needs to be done, but I promise I will help you. We can talk to her together, if you wish,” he said.
Her head snapped up, eyebrows furrowed, a frown pulling the corners of her mouth down. “What are you talking about?”
“If Evadine is spreading vitriol about the witch clans, she needs to be reprimanded,” Desmond said.
“And that’s your decision to make, is it? You know nothing of what she’s said or why!” Guerline snapped.
She broke away from him and walked around to the back side of the sofa. He watched her, keeping very still as he worked to tame the anger he felt. He studied the way she hung her head, red twists slipping past her shoulders and swinging in front of her; the way her hands gripped the cushions; the sound of her slow exhale, a sign that she too was grappling with strong emotions and trying to maintain her calm.
When she finally lifted her head, they both sighed again and offered each other small, tight smiles.
“I’m sorry, Desmond. Eva has taken some extreme positions with regard to the witch clans, that much is true. But she would not be a very good Chief Adviser if we agreed on everything, and I think her skepticism will be useful when we hold council with the witches,” she said.
“Hold council with them?” he repeated.
She nodded. “Yes. Actually, I was planning to write to you before you arrived. I want to arrange a meeting between myself and the Kavanaghs, or their representatives, to address some of my nobles’ concerns. To . . . get to know them again. According to the schoolmasters, the clans never even come to Del to test girls anymore, not for a century—I didn’t even know that wasn’t done any longer. They’re so distant, it’s easy to be afraid of them.”
Desmond sighed and sat down on an ottoman. “This is my fault.”
“What? No!”
Guerline dashed around the sofa and sat down in front of him, taking his hands in hers. He lifted his gaze to her and searched her face. Whatever frustration she’d had with him earlier was gone; her brown eyes bored into him, bright, with eyebrows raised earnestly, lips slightly parted.
“My duty has been to educate the humans, to help them see the clans’ benevolence. I’ve very obviously failed, at least here in Del!” He looked down.
“You’re only one man, Desmond, and the population has grown considerably since you started traveling. It’s been nearly ten years; it’s simply time to reevaluate. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed,” she said.
He switched their grip, holding Guerline’s hands instead, and slipped one hand out from between hers to rest it on top, applying gentle pressure and caressing her skin lightly with his thumb. Her flesh was soft; palace flesh, royal flesh. He felt the scrape of his calloused thumb against it, could almost hear it. Underneath his grip, Guerline’s hands seemed to have gone very still; yet they quivered with tension, as though she would not quite relax their weight into his hold.
That seemed odd to Desmond. He looked up from their hands and studied her face again, but her expression didn’t seem to have changed, except that her mouth was now closed. He reached forward and put a hand on her cheek, starting back toward her ear. Slowly, he let his hand drift along her jaw until his thumb rested on the corner of her mouth. Her utter stillness
was unmistakable.
Was it simply nerves? Did she feel the difference he felt, the one he’d been ignoring since he walked into the throne room and saw her? His skin came alive when he touched her, and he hoped, in a deep part of him that clenched at the thought, that it was the same for her.
She pressed her lips together and leaned away from him, standing, stumbling slightly as she tripped past his knee. He followed her movements with his gaze, letting the fingers that had rested on her cheek curl into a loose fist.
“Why don’t we go for a walk? The garden has grown up quite a bit since your last visit,” she said.
Desmond smiled. The garden wasn’t the only one.
At sunset, Desmond pulled himself away from the palace with some difficulty. He was practically intoxicated, giddy with reawakened feelings.
Since his ill-fated attempt to court Dona, Desmond had not formally pursued anyone. This was not to say that he had been chaste. He had been with many witches, all of them hoping to birth daughters to the Kavanagh line, and he had been with his fair share of human girls too. He was as careful as he could be. He avoided taking to bed girls who seemed interested in marriage, and he kept a stock of contraceptive wraps and potions for himself and those ladies not interested in pregnancy. Through these means he had indulged in a very successful romantic life, leaving no broken hearts, only fulfilled desires. These brief and amiable affairs suited his traveling lifestyle better than monogamy.
The last golden light of the sun flashed off a rippled windowpane. Desmond blinked against the unexpected brightness until his eyes readjusted to the purpling hues of evening.
He had forgotten how red Guerline’s hair was.
It was like fire in the sunlight. Red hair was fairly rare in Arido, and Desmond was almost certain that he had found all the red-headed girls in the empire. Guerline, though—her hair had these threads of gold through it, blonde woven through the dark red twists. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten that. It had been hard to focus on anything else that afternoon, as they wandered through the palace gardens.
Well. He had been able to focus on some other things. Like the way her breasts bounced behind the tight, stiff panel of her bodice, or the curve of her back, or the swishing motion her dress made with every step, the figure-eight movement of her wide hips while she walked. Had she always moved like that? How had he missed it before?
“It’s not just that, though,” he said to Keno. The gelding flicked an ear back but otherwise kept clip-clopping through the Third Neighborhood. Desmond held the reins loosely in one hand and looked up at the buildings on either side of the street, moonlight and darkness turning everything different shades of blue.
“She’s got a good head for this. Ruling, I mean. She’s got patience, she’s thoughtful. She wants to get as much information as she can before she starts making decisions. It might be mostly out of fear right now, but if she keeps it up, I think it will be a very effective way to govern. What do you think?”
Keno ignored him. Desmond made a face at the back of the horse’s head.
“Anyway, she’s smart, is what I’m trying to say. I think she’ll be all right. She’ll do well.”
He smiled. He had always been fond of Guerline, since they were both young. Now, he wasn’t just fond of her; he admired her, powerfully. He admired her strategy so far, and he especially admired the fact that she was still Guerline. She still loved to dance, still wanted to learn about magic, still played with his hair and smiled her sweet smile at him, still stared at him like she was memorizing his face. She was his dear friend and his empress, all in one.
The spires of the palace were just barely visible over the tops of other buildings when Desmond reined up outside an inexplicably large, ramshackle tavern in Del’s Fourth Neighborhood. It was so awkwardly built that the upper floors were lopsided. The second and third floors leaned forward over the street and slightly to the left, practically resting on the neighboring building. The builders had tried to compensate with the fourth floor, which leaned away from the street and hung over the alley behind the tavern. All the windows blazed with light, and the tavern floor roared. After tying Keno to a post, Desmond ducked his head under the wooden sign, which showed nothing but a crudely painted eye, and entered the building.
The back wall was dominated by a tall, thick bar flanked on either side by stairs. The rest of the open room was filled with tables and chairs, many of which were overturned and damaged. Two drunk men wrestled in one corner, their fellows surrounding them in a tight circle to keep the fight contained. A dwarf, two people in long green tunics, and an old man gambled at a table right next to the door. A large group stood in the center of the room, swaying and singing three different verses of the same song simultaneously and loudly.
It was a typical evening at Dagda’s Eye.
Desmond carefully made his way to the bar and ordered a pint of beer from the bartender, a short bald man with bushy eyebrows and a suspicious, squinty gaze. He eyed Desmond carefully as he poured the beer into a horn mug. He seemed to accept what he saw, though; he set the mug in front of Desmond and moved on to someone else. Desmond took a big gulp of the beer and wiped the foam out of his mustache with his sleeve. He turned around and leaned against the bar just as a short blonde woman approached him. She stopped in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Witch-son,” she said.
“Deserter,” he said.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Desmond cracked a grin first. Someday, he might like to see how long they could hold out, but he wouldn’t compromise Bridget’s position in the guild by making her break first in front of her fellow thieves. She grinned back at him and they clasped hands.
“Desmond. It’s good to see you,” she said.
“And you, Bridget. How go things here?”
Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked down. “Brogan be dead.”
“Peace for his soul,” Desmond said. “Then you are . . .”
“Aye. I lead the guild now.”
Desmond lifted his mug to her in salute and smiled. “Congratulations to you, then, however bittersweet the circumstances may be.”
She gave him half a smile in return and sat on a barstool next to him. There was a mug of beer in front of her before she reached for it. Her eyes never left Desmond.
“I thank ye. Now you. What brings you back to Del and Dagda’s? Must be three years past since you sought us out.”
“Oh, I’m here to marry the empress.”
“Ha! You ain’t the only one, witch-son, the way I hear it,” Bridget said.
Desmond raised an eyebrow. “And what do you hear?”
“I hear Lord Warren’s made himself available to Empress at all hours of day and night. I hear Lord Warren don’t contradict Empress on nothing. I hear Lord Warren be writing heaps of letters to the head of his northern estate.”
“You hear a lot,” Desmond said.
“I’ve a lot of ears,” she said.
He frowned. “Well. I’m not worried about Lord Warren.”
Bridget tossed her blonde braid, a perfect match to Desmond’s, over her shoulder and stared at him.
“What are you worried about, then?” she asked.
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
A smirk crept slowly onto Bridget’s lips, and Desmond blushed despite himself. She had the most intense stare he’d ever seen this far from a witch palace. Her eyes just seemed to bore right to the heart of a person—which was undoubtedly why she’d risen through the ranks of the thieves’ guild so quickly, though she was only about a year older than Desmond himself. Criminal skill was often only half as important as the ability to strike fear into the hearts of one’s rivals, and Bridget had both.
It wasn’t fear rising in him as she stared him down, though. He hadn’t meant to imply anything and Bridget knew it, but that wasn’t going to stop her from teasing him. She glanced at a shadowy nook next to one set of stairs.
&n
bsp; “This way.”
She slid off her barstool and wove through the writhing crowd on the tavern floor. Desmond followed easily. Bridget may have been small enough to duck and weave, but he was large enough that obstacles moved for him.
Between the staircase and the wall was a narrow hallway. It was almost too narrow for Desmond to fit through, but he turned sideways and sidled in. It ended in a staircase going down, into the cellar. Bridget had disappeared into the darkness. Desmond hesitated; then light flared up in the room beneath and the thief queen poked her head over the stairs.
“Come on then, and shut the door behind,” she said.
Once Desmond reached the floor of the cellar, he turned around and pulled the door shut above him. As he did, it flashed blue light and he felt the wood shudder. He rolled his eyes and turned to Bridget, who shrugged.
“Secret meetings should stay secret. Warding be one of the only tricks I got left, and it’s useful to me,” she said.
“You might have more tricks if you’d stayed at Sitosen Castle longer.”
“Witching never suited me, Desmond, you know that.”
“You were only there three years!”
Bridget laughed. “And that was more than enough.”
Desmond grinned back at her and sat down on a barrel. He was too tall to stand up straight down here in the cellar. Seated, he was only just shorter than Bridget.
“No matter. You’re not the rogue witch I’m worried about.”
Bridget’s grin vanished. She put her hands on her hips. “A rogue witch? In Del?”
“Two. The Maravilla twins.”
“Damn.”
“You remember them?”
“Well enough, though I was but a child. They was my instructors for third cycle. Mean, they was. Superior like. Looked at me like I was a rat. I reckon they weren’t fond of my mother,” she said. Desmond gave a sympathetic nod. Bridget’s mother was Tesla, who had been appointed Hand of Sitosen after the twins were banished. “I ain’t surprised they gone rogue. When?”