The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  He buttoned his shirt-sleeves and slipped on his coat, continuing to ignore the cold itch of the dismae. It wasn’t a physical sensation anyway. He could itch his wrists raw without effect, but even knowing this didn’t quieten the urge. The spellworked iron tangled his innate magic into knots that, well, itched to be unravelled. It also dampened his leysight to the point of non-existence, as if he wore a thick veil all over, his sense of the world extending no further than his skin. He ran his hands through his hair just to feel something. How did mortals live like this? The fact that his magic had been growing stronger since the Maelstorm only made the sudden absence of it worse.

  The desire to change forms was nearly as strong as the urge to scratch, his instincts seeking an escape from the muffling effect of the dismae. No point, he told his instincts. The dismae would block his magic just as well in his fae form, and he suspected it would be even more disorienting. At least in his mortal form he was somewhat accustomed to having his magic flattened out.

  And at least this is a comfortable prison, he reflected as he began to absent-mindedly straighten his things. They’d given him a suite with a grand sitting room, which boded well. After all, why have a sitting room unless they meant to let him entertain people here? The rooms they’d put him in were lavish, undoubtedly meant for visiting ambassadors or heads of state. Although he supposed he was a visiting ambassador, of sorts—the first fae to officially interact with a mortal court in centuries. Hetta and Stariel could not truly be considered official, since he had adopted a human guise for most of his service there. He looked down at his wrists again, his coat sleeves hiding the metal. Not a promising start.

  He closed his eyes, drawing up calm enough to strategise. If he must be imprisoned here, he meant to make the most of his location, erase the difference between ‘enforced guest’ and ‘honoured guest’. And so I must become a prince again. Mention of his title had already shifted the queen and her advisors’ attitudes slightly in his favour, he judged. Or at least made them more wary of what influence he held in Faerie. He’d have to dance a fine line with that.

  Do you think if you play at being human for long enough, it will become truth? His brother Rakken’s words came to him, mocking, and he pushed them aside just as a soft knock sounded at the interior door. He opened it to find they’d sent him a servant to bring him breakfast and tidy his room, which astonished him more than it should have. He’d played a servant too long to fall comfortably back into the appropriate manner, which was to pretend that such people were invisible. And why ignore a potential source of information, anyway?

  “Good morning,” he said, waving her inside. “Mrs…?”

  She bobbed a curtsey. “Mrs Lovelock, Your Highness.” So the news of his rank had already been passed on to the staff. Good.

  Mrs Lovelock was a middle-aged woman with wary eyes that said she’d heard the rumours and that she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. Had she drawn the short straw, or had she volunteered in place of someone considered more impressionable? After a few moments of trying to draw her out, he was almost certain it was the latter. She wanted to protect innocent young maids from my bad influence and possibly unwanted attentions, if I had any. He did his best to be as human and non-threatening as possible. Usually he’d twist his natural allure sideways in an attempt to reassure, but perhaps the dismae would achieve the same effect? It was difficult to say—but in any case, Mrs Lovelock did not seem unnaturally distracted by him, so that was something.

  She bustled around, seeming determined to do her job and be gone, but drew up short at his already-made bed and spotless rooms.

  “I’d like to thank you—and the rest of the palace staff—for accommodating me so swiftly, since you did not know I was coming.” He smiled apologetically.

  “It’s no problem, Your Highness,” she said automatically, and not for the first time he envied the mortal ability to lie so casually and so trivially.

  “Would you take tea with me as thanks?” he asked her, indicating the tray she’d brought. “And if I selfishly confess to finding it somewhat lonely, breakfasting by myself?”

  She wavered, wrongfooted by this confusion of the normal hierarchy. He pretended he hadn’t noticed and poured her a cup of tea, gesturing firmly at the seat opposite. “Do you take milk, Mrs Lovelock?”

  She sat down uncertainly, apparently deciding it would be a greater sin to refuse than accept. “Ah, thank you, Your Highness, I do.”

  He handed her the cup. “Are there many other guests staying in the palace, at the moment?”

  He learnt that there were two small delegations in the palace at present, that the royal family took breakfast in their private quarters, that the Ekaran ambassador was to play an informal croquet round with some of the members of parliament on the Green Lawn in the palace gardens this morning, and that the new house manager really needed his head looking at if he thought untrained girls could be turned into acceptable maids overnight.

  He thanked Mrs Lovelock and let her go. She went with a slightly guilty expression. She hadn’t meant to chat with him for so long. Time to test how far my leash stretches, I think. He took a deep breath, fortifying himself and trying to ignore the disorientation of the dismae. I am a prince of royal blood. I can channel lightning. The Queen of Prydein is not my queen.

  Opening his door, he greeted the guard posted there with a polite but distant smile. “Good morning. Would you be so good as to accompany me to the Green Lawn? I have a great wish to take the air.” He stepped out as if he could not imagine a world in which the guard would not comply.

  “Ah—I’m not sure…” the guard stuttered, instinctively turning slightly leftwards. That must be the direction of the Green Lawn, then. “Your Highness, I think you’d better…”

  “Take you with me?” Wyn finished. “Yes, I quite agree. I perfectly understand Her Majesty’s desire to take precautions, but the Green Lawn is within the palace, is it not?” He smiled brightly at the man and began to walk down the left corridor. The guard followed, helplessly. “Tell me, what is your name?”

  18

  Newspapers And Coffee

  “A certain female Northern lord,” Hetta read aloud in disgust over breakfast. “Is that supposed to obscure my identity somehow?” She sat in her sitting room at the hotel, with Alexandra beside her on the chesterfield. Both of them were surrounded by newspapers, spread over every nearby available surface. An empty coffee carafe stood on the sideboard—and thank Simulsen that coffee was considered one of the standards of civilisation here, because it was the only thing keeping Hetta’s temper in check right now. Aunt Sybil brooded into a teacup from her armchair, uncharacteristically—but thankfully—silent.

  Alexandra gave an uncertain giggle. “It’s very silly, isn’t it, since you’re the only female Northern lord?” She put her own paper down. It was the most respectable of the papers, since Aunt Sybil had objected to Alexandra reading any of the scandal sheets. “They name you in the Meridon Times, but it’s buried in the back pages and very dull—they just say you had an audience with the queen to swear fealty. They don’t mention Wyn at all.”

  Hetta had asked the hotel to send up all the Meridon newssheets with breakfast. It had seemed a slightly outrageous demand, but she’d made it in her loftiest tone, and the hotelier had merely nodded and said: “Of course, my lord.” The perks of rank, indeed. If only I still didn’t have to channel my father in order to acquire them. She could try to emulate Wyn’s manner, but which one? The mild, respectful camouflage he adopted with Hetta’s stepmother? The kind but firm way he spoke to the staff? The gentle reproof he reserved for children? The frosty hauteur he used on the bank manager? His dry way of needling Jack when he was being stuffy? The wild passion she’d so far only glimpsed?

  Probably not that last one. She sighed.

  “It’ll be all right, Hetta,” Alexandra said, smoothing her paper nervously. “Won’t it?”

  “It will if I have anything to do with i
t,” Hetta vowed.

  Aunt Sybil sniffed. “Alexandra is right. These newspaper bleatings are for fools, and so I shall tell Seraphina when I call on her today. I cannot agree with Her Majesty’s position on this. Prince…Wyn is about as dangerous as a robin.” She grimaced at the choice between Wyn’s title and his name. Still, Hetta was oddly touched by her aunt’s willingness to wage war on her—or at least Wyn’s—behalf. “I do not approve of his—or your—conduct these past weeks, but I cannot deny his long years of loyal service to the estate.”

  “Thank you, Aunt,” Hetta said softly. Did any of Aunt Sybil’s friends have the queen’s ear? She doubted it, somehow, but it was still worth asking. “Do you know the Duke or Duchess of Callasham? Or the Earl of Wolver?”

  “The Duke of Callasham is also Lord Greymark,” Aunt Sybil said disapprovingly and with a heavy subtext of: which you ought to already know.

  “Oh.” Her aunt was right; she really ought to have known that the duke also held one of the most prominent Northern titles, because that meant he was on the Northern Lords Conclave. Which meant Angus had been right too—she ought to have cared more about politics. Guilt and irritation both prickled at her. “Have you met him and his wife?”

  Aunt Sybil grew thin-lipped. “The duchess is very young and lively, or so I have heard.” Hetta took that for a ‘no’.

  She frowned at the sheet under her hands and snorted again at the headline: A Brewing Northern Scandal? The paper hadn’t quite been able to bring itself to print the word ‘fae’, instead making do with ‘wild rumours about Mr. T’s past’ and ‘eye-witnesses report a concerning altercation in Alverness’—which was just repeating what Lady Peregrine’s Society News had already said.

  I need to find out what they’re going to print in their next issue, she thought grimly. The magazine was printed in Meridon. How had they gotten hold of a story so far to the north in the first place, and why had it surfaced now, just when she and Wyn most needed to make a good impression on the queen? She mulled over who ‘eye-witnesses’ might be, turning her memory back to last year, when she and Wyn had made rather a mess at the bank in Alverness after a swarm of fae creatures had attacked. None of the staff had seen Wyn in his fae form. Well, none except the bank manager’s wife. Who admittedly did dislike Wyn. Could Mrs Thompson have written to the editor? But why wait until now to do it?

  She put the newspaper to the side. “I’m going to the palace,” she announced.

  “May I come?” Alexandra asked. It was plain she didn’t wish to be left to visit Seraphina with Aunt Sybil. “I mean, if it won’t cause trouble,” she added quickly.

  “I don’t think we can be in any more trouble than we are already,” Hetta said with a sigh, contemplating the papers.

  Probably it would’ve been more proper to take a hackney from the hotel to the palace, but she needed to work off some of her restless energy, and the centre of Meridon was dense but surprisingly compact. Everything enchanted her sister as the two of them walked: the elektric street lights, the black liveried kineticars, the shop windows, even the street hawkers. The air had a gritty tang to it—not strong in this quarter, where the wealthy had long since converted to heat stones rather than the old coal fires, but still present.

  “Do you ever miss living here?” Alexandra asked, eyes wide as she took in a man walking four large poodles past a telephone box.

  “Sometimes,” Hetta said absently. Memories swam up: arguing illusionary theory in coffee shops, exploring street markets, late-night revelries, glorying in being young and free and wild. The images thronged around her, close enough to touch and yet as distant as if they belonged to someone else. What did you do with the knowledge that you could never truly return to a place you’d once called home? More than mere miles separated her from her old life, now. She put a palm against her dress and pressed the ring beneath it against her skin, and Stariel gave a low beat of acknowledgement.

  She realised Alexandra had been quiet for several blocks. Do try to be a better tour guide, Hetta’s conscience prodded her. It wasn’t her sister’s fault that Hetta was having an internal crisis. She began to point out landmarks with snippets of information—for a given value of ‘landmarks’.

  “The Dresborough market is held down that way, under the glass roof, on Saturdays. There’s a stall there that sells the most incredible baked goods—we should go if we’re still here next weekend.”

  “Hetta,” Alexandra said suddenly, pulling on her elbow to bring the pair of them to a stop. Hetta followed her gaze through the crowd but couldn’t see what had worried her sister. “I think…” She bit her lip.

  “What do you think?” Hetta coaxed.

  “I thought I saw Gwendelfear,” she blurted. “But she can’t be here, can she?”

  “Where?” Had Princess Sunnika sent her handmaiden to spy on them? What in the nine heavens for?

  Alexandra pointed between a flower stall and a paper stand. “It was just a moment, and then she turned the corner.” A crease formed between her brows. “I could see under her glamour without even trying. I couldn’t do that, last time.” Gwendelfear was lesser fae, which meant she couldn’t change shape and used glamour to make her appearance more human-like. But Alexandra could see through illusion and glamour both, and her Sight had been growing in strength these past few months.

  They crossed the street to inspect the location, but there was no sign of the fae girl. Was Alexandra disappointed or glad about that, Hetta wondered? Aroset had used Gwendelfear’s enchanted locket to lure Alexandra beyond the bounds of the estate last year. Did her sister blame Gwendelfear for that?

  “Well, if she is here and following us, I wish her much joy of it,” she said eventually. But what did it mean that DuskRose was watching them?

  19

  Holding Court

  When Hetta arrived at the palace, two guards escorted her and Alexandra to the green, where she found Wyn ingratiating himself with two members of Parliament and a foreign ambassador over croquet. For a good few seconds, she simply stared at the tableau. He was all right, then. A laugh tickled in her throat. Here she was, fretting herself to pieces over fae and mortal politics both, while Wyn was playing sports in the spring sunshine! Of course, she knew that wasn’t what was truly going on here—but still!

  However, her amusement turned to a strange unease as she drew closer. Wyn looked particularly human and buttoned-up, the cuffs hidden under his coat. He’d clearly been ruthlessly channelling his most charming self, because the group looked utterly relaxed, with the kind of casual masculine camaraderie that came with knowing yourself to be both among and one of the social elite—and Hetta felt abruptly like an outsider, peering in.

  Wyn looked round and met her gaze, and for a moment, relief shone in his eyes; he was just as uneasy with the situation as she was.

  “My Star,” he said, inclining his head. The two men with him gave Hetta and Alexandra once-overs, and the atmosphere changed subtly as Wyn performed introductions, becoming more guarded in that way that men so often were in the presence of women. Hetta wasn’t sure if it was only that or if they’d heard something more about the infamous Lord Valstar to make them look at her with a kind of interested wariness. Though you’d think a female lord wouldn’t be so astonishing, in the court of a female monarch, she couldn’t help thinking irritably.

  There followed an extremely tedious interchange of small talk, and she heaved a sigh of relief when the politicians finally excused themselves, leaving the three of them alone. Or, well, not alone at all, since three guards still watched from a polite distance. Was it really necessary to be so personally guarded within the grounds of the palace itself?

  Deciding she didn’t care what the guards thought, she tucked her arm into Wyn’s. Alexandra tilted her head like a bird, as if she wondered whether she ought to object in Aunt Sybil’s stead. Hetta gave her her best older-sister look, and Alexandra blushed and looked away.

  “I admit I didn’t expect you to begi
n politicking right off the bat, though clearly I should’ve,” she said to Wyn. “I’m amazed you haven’t managed to stage a coup yet.” Wyn was right that getting anyone and everyone at court on their side was a sensible idea, but it still sat oddly with her.

  Wyn smiled down at her. “Give me time.”

  As they strolled the edge of the green, she asked Alexandra to repeat what she’d said about spotting Gwendelfear. There were bluebells starting to bloom beneath the trees, and the air was almost warm. Winter lingered longer in Stariel.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if Princess Sunnika sent one—or more—of her court to keep track of us,” Wyn said after listening to Alexandra’s account.

  A faint crease had formed between his brows, but his tone was gentle as he directed his words at her sister. “But only greater fae can compel, so you need not fear that from Gwendelfear.”

  “Of course I’m not afraid of Gwen!” Alexandra said, in an exasperated way that made Hetta believe her. Did that mean her sister still considered herself friends with the lesser fae?

  Alexandra looked between the two of them, lingering on their joined hands, and wrinkled her nose. Her shoulders drew up, and she abruptly announced: “I’m not going to hover like Aunt Sybil.” She glared at the guards. “Or them,” she muttered. “I’ll go sit over there and sketch the building.” She waved her ever-present sketchbook in the direction of a bench under the stately line of trees.

  “Thank you, Miss Alex,” Wyn said, half-smiling.

  “Well, if you’re going to be my brother-in-law, you might as well just call me Alex, you know.” She ducked her head and trotted off to the bench, her cheeks red. The guards watched her impassively.