by AJ Lancaster
She paused in the public avenue outside the palace and balled her hands into fists. The statue of Pyrania gazed impassively down at her. What was she supposed to do now? How could she convince the queen to let Wyn go? It had all gotten so much bigger than Stariel and gossipy magazine articles. Politics, she thought, remembering how the queen’s advisors had looked at her with disdain. This wasn’t her world, and they’d known it.
She couldn’t face the hotel, not yet. Aunt Sybil might have gone out—but knowing her, she’d be crouched waiting for Hetta and Wyn to return. Would her aunt hold her to blame for this? Would she take the queen’s side? At least she no longer needs to worry about protecting my imaginary virtue! But she couldn’t laugh at that because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
Agitation impelled her back into motion, and she found herself walking the familiar streets towards the part of Meridon still filed under ‘home’ in her heart. The theatre district was quieter than usual at this hour, and she drew to a stop outside the Sun Theatre with something cold and thorny settling in her chest. Was it homesickness? Last time I was here we’d just opened our first show at the Sun, she thought. A replacement illusionist had seen out the rest of the show’s run when she’d been summoned north.
And now the show was finished, an unqualified success without her, and Bradfield and the company had moved on. Upgraded, even. Bradfield’s newest show opening this week would be at the Griffin, several steps up in the theatre hierarchy from the Sun, which in turn had been several steps up from the tiny ramshackle places Bradfield had run shows out of in his early years as director.
Hetta picked at a spot on the pasteboard, revealing a sliver of familiar poster in amongst the new. Had it truly only been six months since she’d been here? It seemed much longer. It was unreasonable, but part of her hadn’t quite accepted that the company both would and could move on without her. This will never be home again, not really. Her heart gave a queer thump.
She shook her head and briskly set off for the Griffin. The stage door was located down a side entry, and a twist of the handle found it unlocked. She took a deep breath, not entirely sure what reception she’d get. The distance between her past and present selves yawned. Would Bradfield still treat her the same way? There’d been a handful of phone calls and letters that suggested nothing had changed between them, but in person, things might be different. Brad wouldn’t be expecting to see her so soon, though she’d promised they’d make it to opening night.
Anger swarmed up again as she thought of the queen’s high-handedness. She would prise Wyn out of the palace’s clutches before Brad’s show opened. She wouldn’t let herself consider the alternative, that this might drag on, that the queen’s uncertainty would change to enmity. She promised he’d be treated as an honoured guest, Hetta reminded herself. It didn’t ease the knot of fear in her belly. There’d been so many guards. And Wyn pretending very hard that the dismae didn’t affect him, attempting to project only warm and harmless humanity. And why should he have to pretend to be something he wasn’t?
She ignored the small voice that pointed out that he was doing all this for her. But why was he always so willing to martyr himself, anyway? She needed to free him as soon as possible just so she could shake him for his stupidly self-sacrificing tendencies.
Backstage was a hive of activity, and she wove her way through it unchallenged for about thirty seconds before she was noticed.
The company’s long-time lead actress, Sally-Ann, did a double-take. “Hetta!” she shrieked in her carrying stage-voice. Heads emerged from out of alcoves and behind bits of stored scenery. “You’re back!”
Hetta quickly found herself surrounded by a throng of actors, seamstresses, and stagehands. She didn’t recognise all the faces, but most of the old crowd was still here. They all knew of her rise in station, of course, and there was a hesitancy to them she hadn’t seen before.
“It’s Lady Valstar now, isn’t it? Do you want us to curtsey?” the backstage manager asked warily, folding her arms as she looked down at Hetta from her considerable height—Marjorie was six foot two, and broadly built.
Hetta grinned up at her. “Only if you consider it a necessary formality when greeting all your old friends.”
Marjorie’s face relaxed into a smile. “Omar does do a lovely curtsey,” she said thoughtfully, with a nod in the direction of one of the young actors. “He’s been practising!”
Omar dutifully spread his non-existent skirts in a grandiose curtsey, to a general rumble of laughter, and the tension broke. Now assured that Hetta hadn’t transformed into an autocratic ogre, they began to pepper her with varying degrees of inappropriate questions.
“Did you get sick of the Northerners and come back to join the company again?”
“Is that dress illusion or did you get up all fancy just to see us?”
“Do you have scads of money now? We could name a box after you for a very reasonable fee…”
Hetta laughed and tried to answer them all, strangely dislocated in time and space. They hadn’t changed at all, this irreverent crowd, most of whom had never been further than an hour north of Meridon.
“The dress is real, and I’m just back for a visit. Oh, I’ve missed you all terribly.” And she had. Her throat closed, thick with sudden emotion. She’d never had the chance to say goodbye to her old life, and here it was, hammering her with poignancy and laughter and the smell of cheap fabric and fresh paint. They talked excitedly over each other without waiting for her answers, trying to cram six months of news into single sentences.
“You won’t believe what happened to Angela while you were gone!”
“We heard the wildest stories about you, Hetta!”
“Yeah, we even heard you was shagging a fairy prince!” This came from one of the seamstresses, who grinned nervously when her words created a small hush as everyone waited to see if she’d crossed a line or not.
“Alas, you are misinformed,” Hetta told her primly. She heaved a great sigh. “There has, I regret, been no shagging. My prince has stronger principles than I and has so far held out against me.”
They burst into laughter, and she smiled. It felt good despite the anxiety tearing her apart. I’m picking up bad habits from Wyn, misleading with truth. What would he make of her theatre friends?
“All right, all right,” she said after the initial round of greetings had simmered down a fraction, “I’d no intention of causing such a riot. Where’s Bradfield? Don’t you all have jobs to be getting on with?”
They groaned, but eventually dispersed and even provided directions, and she found herself with a free path to Brad’s office, a tiny room half-below street level.
“My gods, they’re making a racket out there, Arthur!” Brad said without looking up as she came into his office. The narrow windows near the ceiling looked out at foot-height into the alley behind the theatre, letting in only dim light. Her ex-director was hunched over what looked like stage plans, paper covering the entire surface of his battered desk. His black, wildly curly hair stuck up in a way that meant he’d been grabbing handfuls of it in frustration.
“It’s not Arthur, Brad,” she said softly. “It’s Hetta, descending upon you in all her lordly glory.”
That sent him spinning about like a top, his elbow catching on a ruler and sending it clattering to the floor. “By the marsh goddess, Hetta! I thought I wouldn’t see you till tomorrow earliest!”
“A change of plans,” she said wryly as he rose and embraced her.
He was still reed-thin, and he wore his favourite plum velvet smoking jacket paired with a soft white cravat, though the fashion was decades out of date. Bradfield’s style had always been both finicky and entirely individual. He was much the same height as her, and they stood face to face, drinking each other in for several long seconds.
“You look well,” she said. It wasn’t surprising. He always looked well, if slightly manic, in the lead up to opening night, deep brown skin and eyes glo
wing with the fires of obsession. It was only afterwards that the weight of exhaustion would hit him.
He grimaced. “A painfully inane observation, my girl. But if we must exchange such everyday pleasantries, you look terrible.” He flourished a hand at her outfit. “Though very smartly turned out, I will say.”
“I’ve been visiting the queen.”
He laughed and then choked when he realised she was quite serious. “Egads, you really are a lord!”
“Did you think I made it up?”
“It’s just”—he smoothed a hand over his jacket—“a bit of a mental adjustment. Is it too early for a drink?”
“It’s definitely not too early,” she said fervently.
“Well, in that case, let us celebrate both your rise in the world and your return,” he said with a grin, returning to his desk. He fished a bottle of brandy out of his bottom drawer and eyed it. “Gods only know where to find a clean glass though. I think we left the last lot up on the roof.”
Hetta sat down on the only other chair in his office and held out a hand imperiously.
He raised his eyebrows but gave her the bottle. “Very lordly.”
“You’ve no idea, Brad. None.” She wiped the lip of the bottle, took a swig, coughed, and handed it back with a shake of her head. “This is vile!”
“It is,” he agreed. He put the bottle aside without drinking any himself. “Not that I mind, but what brings you here needing my brandy at such an ungodly hour?”
“Hardly ungodly. It’s nearly midday.” She sighed and began to pull off her gloves, more for something to do than because she particularly wanted them off. “And I came because I need a favour.”
“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” he said, crossing one leg over the other.
She smirked. “I need to know who has the queen’s ear—who has influence at court—and I’ve no idea where to even start. I thought you might know some names, at least.”
Bradfield’s eyebrows went up. “And you’re asking me?” He smoothed his velvet jacket grandly. “Obviously, I just came from tea with the queen myself!”
“Don’t tell me you don’t read the society pages, because I know you do. And even if you don’t, you’ve been dropping hints like rocks about your latest conquest being blue-blooded, so you can’t be completely ignorant of court politics.” She’d been half-amused, half-worried that Brad was tangling with someone titled and—from the sounds of it—in the public eye. Meridon was much more liberal than the North, but still, it seemed dicey, pursuing someone whose rank would protect him, but not Bradfield, if things went sour.
A short, annoyed silence fell.
“His name was Simon,” he said at last. He reached for the brandy, unscrewed the cap, and took a deep draught. “And he was a bloody dickhead. Threw me over for a fresh-faced lawyer, if you can believe it.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out to pat his arm. She was sorry, though not exactly surprised. Brad’s love affairs were usually short-lived things.
He waved her away. “No, no, it’s for the best. Better not to get caught up with the aristocracy. See also previous remarks regarding general dickishness.” A glimmer of humour caught at his mouth. “And I don’t mean that in the enjoyable sense.” He gave a long, theatrical sigh. “Besides, he was awfully strait-laced everywhere except where he wasn’t…laced. It was growing tiresome.”
“Well, if you will have a weakness for uptight men, what can you expect?” she teased.
He raised the brandy bottle in a half-salute of agreement. “You wound me.” But his eyes sparkled, his humour restored. “Ah, well. Enough of that maudlinry. You’re right, I could probably give you a list of names cobbled together from gossip and hearsay. But what have you gotten yourself mixed up with, old girl, that you need the queen’s ear for?”
Hetta wrapped her fingers around her folded gloves, tried to think of the right words, and then gave up with a trill of laughter. “Oh, there’s no way to explain it that won’t sound completely ludicrous to you! So here it is, the shortest and most ludicrous of explanations: I’ve a beau.” Her hand went to the lump of the ring under her neckline.
“Well, congratulations, but that’s not exactly ludicrous. Or news.” The twinkle in his eye said he’d seen the dashed magazine article.
“Oh, hush. I’ve a beau who it so happens is both Stariel’s steward and a winged fae prince. The queen has taken exception to this, mainly for the latter reason, and he’s foolishly agreed to let her imprison him in the palace, which I know is at least half because he wants her permission to marry me and probably half because he thinks he’s solely responsible for cementing peace between humans and fae or some such thing. And despite his occasionally extremely trying tendencies towards martyrdom, I’m not going to simply leave him there and hope it all works out and Her Majesty doesn’t suddenly decide executing him would be the best course of action.” She fought an uncharacteristic urge to burst into tears and pasted a smile on her face instead. “Sorry, Brad. That was rather more than I ought to have burdened you with.” She felt very small and alone suddenly, conscious of the distance between her and Stariel.
Bradfield was a difficult man to truly surprise, though he often adopted the emotion if he thought it would help him deal with the dramatic personalities of the actors. But he stared at her for a moment, the bottle frozen halfway to his lips. His eyes went wide.
“Egads, you’re serious!”
“Afraid so.”
He offered her the bottle again. “You need this more than me.”
She laughed but refused. “Would you recognise any of the nobles on sight? There were two advisors with the queen, but she didn’t introduce them.” It seemed as good a place as any to start. She grimaced. “One of them was a duke, but I admit to not paying much attention to the list of Southern peerage at school.”
“Astound me, then,” he said, gesturing broadly.
She’d forgotten that Brad was used to her illusion, comfortable with it in a way that no one at Stariel yet was. Still, she remembered how to play to an audience. Concentrating, she pulled up the images in her mind’s eye, using Brad’s chair as a stand-in for the queen’s throne-like one. He laughed as the queen’s image overlaid him and the worn wood became stiff brocade beneath him.
“Gods, you’re a loss to the company, Hetta,” he lamented. “Not to say anything against Ida,” he added hastily of Hetta’s friend and the illusionist who’d replaced her. “But she’s not yet a master.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, chuckling as they rose in and out of the ghost shapes of the queen’s slender hands. Hetta had kept the illusion of the queen simple, focusing her energies on the two advisors.
“Do you know either of them?” she asked, glad to be sitting down. The draw of magic left her tired. She’d gotten too used to having Stariel to draw on, made the illusions too detailed too quickly. She wrapped her hands around Wyn’s ring and pulled. A trickle of energy came from the stone, the taste of Stariel suddenly strong on the back of her tongue, the effect not unlike swallowing a strong shot of coffee.
Bradfield’s amusement snapped off as he stood to examine the men. He narrowed his eyes at the fair-skinned advisor and said shortly: “That’s Simon. The Earl of Wolver.” He glared at the illusion for several long seconds before forcing himself to look at the other. “And that is the Duke of Callasham,” he identified the dark-skinned man, then went straight back to glaring at the Earl of Wolver. “He looks tired, don’t you think? Bloody prettyboy running him ragged,” he grumbled.
She snapped her fingers, winking the illusion out of existence. “Sorry, Brad, I didn’t mean to confront you with your ex-paramour in your own office.”
Bradfield took a swig of the brandy and collapsed back into his seat, his expression dark.
Hells—not only an earl, Brad, but one active at court? Really? That was skating awfully close to potential disaster if it came out, but Brad had never had much sense when it came to his love lif
e.
“But thank you,” she said, keeping her worries to herself. Brad had said the relationship was over now, after all, and even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t thank her for sticking her oar in. She’d never had the smallest ability to persuade him to take the path of less risk. “Do you know anything about the Duke of Callasham?” she asked, to distract him from the earl.
Brad was still scowling at the patch of carpet that had recently contained the Earl of Wolver, and he visibly shook himself out of his sullenness before answering. “His grace’s wife likes experimental theatre. She’s booked a box for opening night with a bunch of other nobs. Come along and you can hoity-toity with the rest of them beforehand, if you think it will help get your prince out of his golden cage.”
“I’m willing to try anything,” she admitted. On impulse, she reached out and gripped his hand. “Thank you, Brad.” She felt a little less alone than before, though still woefully out of her depth.
He waved her off. “It’s nothing. Lordship’s making you sentimental.” But he looked pleased.
17
Politicking
The dismae itched, and Wyn resisted scratching at them for the thousandth time as he examined his reflection critically. He hadn’t slept well under the suffocating weight of them, but he was determined not to let it show. Queen Matilda and her court mustn’t know how much they affected him. He’d demanded the palace send for his belongings from the hotel yesterday, so he was at least clean and well-presented this morning. Though not quite princely, he thought with narrowed eyes. Appearances mattered, in Mortal just as much as Faerie, though the specifics of appropriate attire differed greatly between the two. He wondered if he could demand an appropriate wardrobe from the queen by arguing that she was forcing him into an ambassadorial role that he, obviously, hadn’t packed for. At least mortal males’ formal costuming was reasonably similar regardless of rank. The problem would’ve been much worse in Faerie.