The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  Guilt had him arguing with himself. He probably didn’t tell me because he was hiding from his psychopathic family at the time! And I bet Jack only knew because Father told him. Wyn didn’t even tell Hetta until he had to! Was Marius going to hold it against him forever? If only Wyn wasn’t courting Hetta—it made it hard to forgive him for everything else.

  “Marius?” Wyn repeated, amusement in his tone. “I didn’t realise a phone call with me would shock you into silence.”

  Gods damn it. Stop getting distracted! He railed at himself. “Why are you answering the phone anyway?” It was Hetta he’d said he needed to talk to when he’d left the initial message with the gatekeeper to set up a time. The phoneline directly to the house had yet to be installed.

  “Hetta is occupied, talking to the linesmen. A minor issue, but she has to sort it before we leave.” A pause. “And I wanted to speak to you.”

  “Leave? Where are you leaving to?”

  Wyn told him about the queen’s summons. “We’re taking the sleeper train down to Meridon. We’re staying at the Crane Hotel.” He gave Marius the address.

  “Not Malvern Place, then?” Stariel Estate owned a townhouse, though only because it was entailed. His father would’ve sold it otherwise, not having much use for Southern property.

  “I understand it needs major repairs to be habitable, even more so than the Dower House, and there are only so many projects the bank will fund, initially.” Wyn sighed.

  “Father let it fall to rack and ruin too, did he?” Marius guessed. He wasn’t surprised. “And you and Hetta are staying in town alone?” he asked sharply.

  “No.” There was another heartfelt sigh on the other end of the phone. “Alexandra and your Aunt Sybil are accompanying us. Apparently we cannot be trusted alone.”

  Marius gave a bark of laughter. “Good!” he said. “So why does the queen want you there? Does she know you’re fae?” If the rumour had reached as far as Knoxbridge undergrads, it wasn’t so far-fetched to think it had reached Her Majesty as well. But would she believe it?

  “Perhaps.” Wyn’s voice was carefully neutral. “We’ll be in Meridon for a few days in any case—if you come up, you can have dinner with us and find out what the result of the interview was.” Knoxbridge was only an hour’s train journey from the Southern capital. “But what were you calling for? If it isn’t for Hetta’s ears only.”

  “No, I’d rather burn your damn ears with it.” Marius told him about Lady Peregrine’s Society News. Wyn laughed at the phrase ‘downstairs personage’.

  “Technically accurate, I suppose.”

  It was sometimes difficult to remember that Wyn was a prince. He did dignified very well, but there was a strong streak of irreverence in him. Plus you’ve seen him wash dishes. There was something very un-princelike about washing dishes. How did domestic life work in the fae courts? Was it the same as here? Were there fae butlers and housemaids?

  “Do you mind it?” he asked. “That we treated you as a servant?” They still did, to a large extent, though it had become an uncomfortable thing. “It’s bloody fortunate you were head of staff and not still houseboy when this all came out—at least you haven’t had to deal with the servants not knowing what to do with you,” he thought aloud.

  Wyn laughed. “Marius, I have been treated as per the position I chose to occupy these last ten years. And better than most in such positions.”

  “But do you resent it?” he pressed. It bothered him when Wyn didn’t answer things outright. He was too conscious of the fact that although Wyn couldn’t lie, secrets could hide underneath every roundabout response.

  “No,” Wyn said. “I do not resent you or your family. Quite the opposite: I am deeply grateful that I found you all, and that you accepted me into your world.”

  Marius snorted. “Yes, we’re all so very accepting. That’s why you don’t take your true form in the house, isn’t it, even though we’ve all seen it now?”

  There was a short, pregnant silence on the other end.

  “I have not missed your tendency to locate those places where I am most vulnerable.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Well, on the other hand, you’ve made it easier to keep the entirety of Prydein from knowing the truth about you. I mean, no one has more than speculation outside of Stariel, and they’re used to believing things no one else does. Half of Knoxbridge would think I was mad if I tried to explain my land-sense to them, for instance, despite the fact that it’s neither new nor a secret in the North. Just carry on looking human while you’re down in Meridon and everyone will write it off as nothing more than superstitious Northerners,” he advised. “Maybe the queen simply wants to meet Hetta and figured she might as well address the gossip at the same time.”

  He paused, twining the cord of the receiver around his thumb. “Wyn, she is my sister. You can’t carry on like this forever. I don’t want the whole country to be talking about her like she’s some kind of…scarlet woman. Caro’s going to write to the magazine offices, but the gods know if that’ll stop them printing whatever they were intending to.”

  “I have, as mortals say, ‘honest intentions’ towards your sister,” Wyn said. “But there are…certain complications.” A pause. “We’ll see you next week.”

  After the conversation had ended, Marius stared down at the phone and wondered how in the world he was supposed to protect his younger sister from the Queen of Prydein.

  14

  Meridon

  A strange mix of emotions welled up in Hetta’s chest as the train came into sight of Meridon.

  “It goes for miles!” Alexandra exclaimed. The overnight experience in the narrow sleeper compartments hadn’t put a dent in her enthusiasm for the trip. She’d never been further south than Greymark.

  Aunt Sybil muttered something about how the city had grown since she’d last visited, but Hetta wasn’t really listening as she retrieved her overnight bag. Last time she’d been here, she’d been about to make this journey in the opposite direction, setting off to Stariel for the first time in six years. Bradfield’s new show had just opened, and she’d lamented the need to be gone for a few weeks to attend her father’s funeral and the Choosing Ceremony. It had never occurred to her that she wouldn’t be coming back. I’m sorry I never got to say goodbye to you, she told the city silently as the train pulled into Celerebank Station.

  The three of them bustled to join the crowd spilling out onto the platform. Wyn had lodged in a separate part of the train, as it was divided into ‘men’, ‘women’, and ‘married couples only’. Wyn had probably had an uncomfortable time of it, as the train billets were not built for those of more than average height.

  Overhead, the vast metal-and-glass roof created an effect like a vast birdcage. Sound echoed within its steel ribs, the whistle and grind of engines mingling with footsteps on hard floors and hundreds of voices chattering. Had there always been this many people in Meridon? she wondered as she directed their group towards the back of the train to collect their luggage and tried to locate Wyn.

  This would be his first visit to Meridon, she mused as she scanned the crowds. Somehow she’d overlooked that, between one thing and another. A sudden desire to show him the best of her city filled her, and despite the disorienting busyness of the station and the gnawing worry about Queen Matilda, a giddy anticipation began to creep over her. Maybe this trip didn’t have to be purely official business, after this audience with the queen was done. She could play tour guide—take Wyn to all her old haunts. Bradfield had invited her to the opening of his newest play, which began later this week. She and Wyn could go together. Who cared what Aunt Sybil thought? This was Meridon, the city that had given Hetta her freedom when she’d most needed it, and she’d be dashed if she let her aunt ruin that with Northern conservatism.

  Ignoring her aunt’s low grumbling about “too many people; vastly impolite; that girl’s hemline is quite shocking!”, Hetta spun around, trying to spot a glimpse of platinum blo
nd hair in the crowds. Finally, she found him. He was waiting beside the baggage compartment, their luggage already stowed in the trolley beside him. His face lit up when he caught sight of her.

  “And I was worried you’d be lost without my guidance,” she said wryly when she reached him, gesturing at their luggage. But close up, she could see the odd tightness in his expression. She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the iron,” he murmured. His gaze lifted to the glass-and-metal roof. “I didn’t realise there would be quite so much of it.”

  Iron between him and the sky. “Well, it is a train station. There’ll be less of it outside. I’ll go and locate a cab.”

  She left Aunt Sybil and Alexandra with Wyn and went and found a horse-drawn hackney rather than a kineticar, trying to minimise the amount of iron they’d encounter. Iron didn’t hurt fae, he’d told her, just interfered with their magic. He’d never shown unease around iron before—so why was it affecting him so badly now? Perhaps it was an issue of scale, since she supposed there was significantly less of it at Stariel. Or was he more sensitive to it now with his increased powers? Would he be all right, in the hotel they were staying in?

  She was fretting, and only realised she was doing so when Wyn climbed in beside her—to Aunt Sybil’s displeasure—and said in an undertone: “I’m not about to expire, Hetta. I was only…unprepared for the station.”

  “Do people truly choose to live so very squashed together?” Alexandra peered out the hackney window, humming with excitement. “What’s that building with all the stone gargoyles on the top?”

  “The Natural History Museum,” Hetta told her absently, trying to read Wyn’s expression. He was always so very good at pretending to be all right when he wasn’t.

  He raised a sardonic eyebrow at her. Stop worrying; I’m fine, he might as well have said. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but he did at least look a little less tense than he had on the platform.

  The hotel they’d chosen was in a good but not fashionable part of Meridon, more comfortable than the hostels she’d stayed in between flats in her years away, but far from the grandest accommodations on offer. She was Lord Valstar now, not an anonymous illusionist, but Stariel was still financially struggling. The hotel was a compromise between those two facts. Aunt Sybil had grumbled about staying in a hotel at all—apparently it wasn’t “quite the thing!”—but this sadly hadn’t been enough to dissuade her from coming.

  The hotel staff treated them all with utmost politeness as they ferried them all to their rooms, but their expressions held a spark of interest that suggested at least some rumours about her had reached as far as Meridon. So this was what infamy felt like. I suppose my anonymous days truly are behind me then, even here. The thought cost her an odd pang.

  Nostalgia is giving you a rose-tinted view of the past, she admonished herself. Remember how ghastly some of those boarding houses you lodged in were! This hotel was worlds nicer. She couldn’t go back to her illusionist days, so she might as well enjoy some of the privileges that came with rank—such as the fact that she’d gotten bigger and better rooms than the rest of the party. Rooms plural—she had a separate sitting room as well as a bedroom dominated by an enormous metal-framed bed.

  She considered the bed, and butterflies swirled lazily in her stomach. There was no Stariel here to interfere. The bond pinged very faintly as she stretched absently towards the estate. At this distance, it was barely there at all. Excellent. What were the chances of getting Wyn alone, in that bed, without risk of interruption from her relatives?

  Could she set Aunt Sybil and Alexandra loose on Malvern Place, the dilapidated townhouse? Perhaps the lure of planning renovations could keep them out of her hair. Her aunt loved to have opinions about things. Though do I really trust her opinions on décor? She’d better first make sure it wasn’t her aunt who’d approved the aged pink-and-green wallpaper in the hallway outside her bedroom at Stariel.

  She shook herself out of her thoughts as she began to change into formal clothing. Get through the audience with the queen first before you start making plans for house refurbishments you definitely can’t afford yet. She set about making up her face, falling into the familiar routine.

  Now, the question was, should she augment her cosmetics with illusion? With Hetta’s luck, Queen Matilda would be like Aunt Sybil and think illusion low-class. Her aunt had taken to wearing a quizzing glass in the last few months, just so she could criticise Hetta if she used magic to alter her appearance—the specially made lense allowed people to see the distortions caused by illusion. It hadn’t stopped Hetta from using illusion as she pleased. But perhaps discretion might be the better part of valour today. Although if Queen Matilda is the sort of person who examines people through quizzing glasses, then she’s going to disapprove of me regardless.

  She stared thoughtfully into the mirror when she’d finished. Her face didn’t look anywhere near serious or old enough to be a lord, despite her efforts. On the other hand, I do look extremely pretty. Prettiness was just another sort of illusion, a construct of skill, paint, and fashion rather than magic, but it was nice to have the armour in place, regardless. Her dress was blue, with long sleeves and a high collar, suitable for the formality of the occasion, and she’d paired it with long dangling earrings containing sapphires. They’d been her mother’s. She tapped at the silver, sending the jewels spinning. What would her mother have thought of all this? Hetta had never known her, as she’d died in childbirth. She frowned at her reflection, wondering suddenly about Wyn’s mother. She’d been conspicuously absent from both the Court of Ten Thousand Spires last year and from all of Wyn’s stories of growing up in Faerie. Was his mother dead too? The subject had somehow never come up between them.

  How can I marry someone who I still know so little about? But she knew the important things, she argued with herself. She knew Wyn was kind and loyal and wryly humorous and so determined to do the right thing she worried it would be the death of him. A fierce possessiveness curled through her veins. He was hers.

  The thought gave her pause. She wasn’t on Stariel lands now; that possessiveness hadn’t been due to the faeland’s influence. In a way it was reassuring—not that she’d doubted her attachment to Wyn, but Stariel’s newfound enthusiasm for its steward had muddied the line between her and Lord Valstar’s wants. Of course, Lord Valstar was welcome to want to marry Wyn as well—and it was, in fact, rather convenient that she did, since the separation between the two of them was entirely fictitious—but the point still stood.

  There was a soft knock at the internal door, and Hetta had a moment of disorientation where she reached for Stariel for information and received nothing in return. How inconvenient not to be able to just magically know who was knocking at her door. But it wasn’t hard to guess, judging from the timepiece that said they’d better leave for the palace soon.

  “Come in,” she said, turning away from her reflection.

  He’d changed into more formal attire as well, his pale hair slicked back, black bowtie crisp below the strong column of his neck. He looked very human, but the sight woke dissonance in her. He wasn’t human. She saw him once again at the Standing Stones, with glittering blue wings unfurled, hair disordered from the wind, lightning curling around his forearms. Which one was the truer him? Both? Neither? Was it right that she was making this impossible man try to be human, just for her?

  “You look beautiful.” His russet eyes warmed as he took in her appearance.

  “You’re wearing one of your shirts,” she noticed suddenly—the ones with button-up slits at the back to allow for wings. With his coat and waistcoat in place, there was no outward difference between his ordinary shirts and the modified ones, except that she recognised his wardrobe now.

  “I suspect it would scandalise your queen if I did not wear a shirt.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, unimpressed. “Are you planning to go all fae on her?” Was that sensible?

  He spread his arms wide
. “I am not planning to flaunt my…less than human attributes, but I thought it best to be prepared. It’s not, after all, supposed to be a secret anymore.”

  “True,” she said, uneasy for reasons she couldn’t explain. She looked at the timepiece. “We’d better leave.”

  He hesitated. “Hetta, I have a…gift for you.”

  “That’s not usually a reason to look anxious.” Because he was anxious; she could tell.

  He went to speak but stopped himself before reaching into his trouser pocket to retrieve something. He brought his closed hand up into the space between them and uncurled long fingers to reveal a ring.

  The ring rang with familiarity, and she stared at it, her pulse loud as an oncoming train as she reached out to take it from him. The stone set into the silver was almost but not quite star indigo, a rare substance found within Stariel’s borders. Her bond with Stariel, muted at this long distance, sparked as the stone touched her bare skin.

  “It’s like it has a piece of Stariel inside,” she said wonderingly when the land’s response came. “How did you…?”

  “I cannot take credit for it,” Wyn admitted. “The stone came to me through Lamorkin, as the vessel for a powerful translocation spell, but Stariel did something to it when we found out you were imprisoned in the Spires. The translocation spell is no more, but Stariel’s imprint on that stone remains. I’m curious as to whether it might allow you to draw on the estate’s magic even outside its boundaries.”

  “I thought we were trying to encourage Stariel to be less involved in our affairs?” she said archly as she turned the ring over in her hands. “But this does seem to magnify the link.” She sent a question towards Stariel and felt the land reach towards her curiously, muted but definitely more there than when she’d tried before. Just how much would it allow her to draw on Stariel’s magic outside its bounds?