The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  This information did not disturb her in the least. Instead, she inspected him from top to toe, clearly unimpressed. “You don’t look like a fairy.”

  He smiled. He couldn’t help it; there was nothing more endearing than the frankness of mortal children, before the world taught them to censor themselves. “And how do you know what fairies look like?”

  To his surprise, her expression grew serious, and she chewed her lip as some complex internal decision-making process occurred. “Well,” she said, her tone defensive, her little shoulders stiffening as if she expected to be ridiculed. “There’s a fairy that lives in the kitchens. And you don’t look anything like her.”

  He stilled. “What does she look like?”

  “Well,” she said warily. “She’s a lot shorter.” She held out a hand below her own child’s waist height. “She comes up to about here, and she has big gold eyes. And funny ears.”

  A brownie. There was a brownie in the palace kitchens. He supposed it had only been a matter of time. The Iron Law had never strictly applied to the lowfae, but they had nonetheless largely retreated with their more powerful brethren, needing the magic that greater and lesser fae tended to propagate just by existing. Brownies liked human households and they tolerated iron well. They didn’t have much magic, but even brownies could use the small don’t-see-me glamour. Which meant—

  “No one else can see her,” she admitted, confirming his suspicions.

  High King’s horns. The Crown Princess of Prydein had the Sight. And no one had told her.

  “Some people can see things others can’t,” he said. “It doesn’t mean they aren’t real. It’s called ‘the Sight’, the ability to see through fae glamour. It is a gift.”

  Princess Evangeline’s whole body sagged with relief. Had she thought she was going mad, seeing things that weren’t there?

  “Oh. Her name is Bessie, she told me,” she added shyly. “I spoke to her once.”

  “Well, I am not the same kind of fae as Bessie.” It was a good thing he and not any other greater fae was the one having this conversation. Any other greater fae would have been greatly offended at being compared to a mere brownie.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside. “You’d better go by way of the window,” he said. “We’ll both be in trouble if you’re found here, I imagine.”

  “Can I come back and visit you? How long are you here for?”

  He ought not to encourage her, but her expression was so hopeful that he could not bear to crush it. “I’m not sure. But I’m glad to have met you.” He got to his feet and swept her a grand bow. “Crown Princess Evangeline.”

  She giggled. “I’m glad to meet you too, Prince Hallow—”

  “Hallowyn Tempestren,” he supplied.

  “Prince Hallowyn Tempestren. I’ll ask Mother if you can join us in the Octagon Garden. We always walk there before breakfast.”

  It had been a long time since anyone had said his true name so many times in one day. He’d adopted ‘Wyn’ years ago as a precaution against his father locating him. Obviously that was no longer a risk. Still, the sound of his name made him curiously uneasy.

  “Wait,” he said, as she began to scamper for the balcony. “You have a leaf in your hair.” He reached out to remove it and made sure he pulled a few hair strands with it, churning with self-loathing. She was a child, and far too trusting, and to use that naïveté for his own ends was repugnant, even though it wouldn’t harm her. He curled his fingers around the leaf and hair, careful not to lose the prize.

  Evangeline didn’t notice and beamed at him as he lifted her carefully over the edge and made sure she had a firm grip.

  Once she was out of sight, he closed the balcony doors and grimly contemplated the strands of long blonde hair he’d captured. It might not be enough, but it was worth a try. The spellwork on the dismae was keyed to the Prydinian throne, after all.

  22

  The Definitive Compendium Of Fairies In Common Folk Lore

  Marius was beginning to suspect the Definitive Compendium of Fairies in Common Folk Lore wasn’t as comprehensive as its name suggested. There was absolutely no mention of stormdancers in the index, for one thing. He sighed and added it to his pile anyway. It couldn’t be less helpful than Nymphs Through The Ages, which contained nothing useful—the author had merely illustrated a number of suggestively posed women wearing little more than a few fig leaves between them. He’d left that one on the shelf.

  He was cynically surveying the rest of the spines filed in the ‘Mythology and Folklore’ section of the library when the shelf opposite exploded. He dropped his pile, automatically bringing his arms up to shield against the light. The world smelled suddenly of thunderstorms, tinged oddly with tangerine, but he hadn’t processed what that meant before he was flung to the ground as someone crashed through the bright wall of light and landed on top of him.

  Books and sharp corners dug into his back as the weight of someone large, male, feathery, and oddly familiar knocked the wind out of him. Familiarity snapped into sudden recognition: Prince Rakken, Wyn’s brother. Marius had never seen him in his fae form before. The light—it was a portal. As he stared past Rakken’s shoulder, a winged woman holding an enormous sword stumbled through the portal before it winked out of existence, leaving untouched shelves behind it. How does that work? The library went dim again, and he blinked rapidly, struggling to adjust to the change.

  The winged woman’s green eyes fixed on Marius. “Go to sleep, mortal,” she said, low and menacing. “Believe this a dream.”

  He felt the familiar ache in his head that indicated someone was trying to compel him. Shaking his head, he made an inarticulate sound of protest and wriggled, trying to shove Rakken off him.

  “Prince Rakk—” But Rakken’s hand covered his mouth before he got the name out. Vivid green eyes glared into his as Rakken’s weight pressed him uncomfortably into the toppled shelves. Rage burned in the fae’s expression, though the hand covering Marius’s mouth was ice-cold. Last time Marius had seen Rakken, he’d radiated glossy composure, but now he was jarringly dishevelled. Blood smeared his temples, and his dark hair was damp and half-escaped from its queue. Bronze horns rose from his head, and Marius stared at them in shocked fascination.

  “Compulsion doesn’t work on this one, Cat,” Rakken said to the woman without taking his attention away from Marius. His voice wasn’t the polished tones Marius was familiar with, instead coarse and strained as dry gravel.

  “Kill him then.”

  Marius jerked. What? Had she really just said kill? Was that a normal activity for Wyn’s brother? They were in a library! You couldn’t murder people in libraries! He struggled, which had absolutely no effect.

  Rakken’s eyes bored into his, so close Marius could make out the few gold threads among his otherwise dark eyelashes. “Do not try to speak my name again,” he bit out, each word clipped, as if it cost him an effort to speak. “Do you understand me, Marius Rufus Valstar?”

  Marius swallowed and nodded. He’d never seen Rakken like this. In his mortal form he’d been all mocking, languid charm and amusement at everyone else’s expense. There was no amusement in him now.

  Rakken nodded and removed the hand covering Marius’s mouth. He rose to his feet with a hiss of pain and a rustle of feathers, using the shelf for leverage. His wings were bronze, shading to green at the tips, and the feathers were as disarrayed as his hair, bent at odd angles and torn away in places.

  “You know him?” the woman asked Rakken. What had he called her? Cat—that must make her Princess Catsmere, Rakken’s twin sister, then. Aroset was the oldest sibling, wasn’t she? No, wait, there was another brother whose name he couldn’t remember. Curse Wyn and his confusing family. Was it a bad sign that both of Wyn’s sisters had tried to compel Marius within thirty seconds of meeting him? What in the hells was going on?

  Princess Catsmere had the same bronze-and-green wings as Rakken, though her feathers were straight and undamaged. Her
pointed, pixie-like face was at odds with both her cold expression and the intimidating sword she held, made of some glittering substance. Not iron, presumably. Fae couldn’t magic iron.

  “He’s the brother of the Lord of FallingStar,” Rakken ground out, narrowing his eyes at Marius.

  Both fae wore black leathers embellished with strange patterns on their wrist-guards and boots. Rakken had some kind of throwing stars attached to his belt, along with a long, glittering knife. And don’t forget Catsmere’s sword. Not that it was the sort of thing you could forget. The weapon wasn’t angled at Marius, but it wasn’t not angled at him either. It radiated an aura of hostile sharpness such that Marius couldn’t help leaning subtly away from it even though that probably wouldn’t make any difference if Catsmere decided to go back to being murderously threatening again.

  “You look like a pair of assassins,” Marius said without thinking. His gaze snagged on a long gash in the fabric across Rakken’s chest. Touching his own shirt where the fae had fallen against him, Marius brought away fingers red with blood. “Are you all right? You seem to be bleeding.” It was hard to tell, in the dim confines between the shelves.

  Both fae ignored him. “Why is he here? Where did we come out, Mouse?” Catsmere asked her twin.

  Rakken’s gaze flicked over Marius and the shelves. “A mortal library, perhaps Knoxbridge. It’s in the south of this land. The resonance makes sense.”

  “Hey, are you all right down there? What’s going on?” Voices came from the far end of the shelf stack. Students. Marius struggled his way to standing. What should he do?

  “See nothing out of the ordinary,” Catsmere commanded in the direction of the voices, and a cold wave passed over Marius’s skin. “Leave this building now.” The students subsided and left without another word.

  “You can’t just—just compel people because you want to!” Marius said, skin crawling.

  “Yes,” Catsmere told him with a flash of teeth. “I can.”

  “A man’s mind is sacrosanct!”

  “To you, perhaps,” Catsmere said, bored. “If you are of FallingStar, do you know where our youngest brother is?”

  “What do you want with Wyn?” Marius sure as hells wasn’t going to give Wyn up just for the asking of it, especially not knowing whether these two were allies or enemies. “And why are you bleeding?” he asked Rakken again.

  The pair exchanged glances, and Rakken’s expression smoothed, a civilised mask sliding into place over the burning rage.

  Sudden realisation thrilled through Marius. “You’re angry because you’ve failed. You lost the battle for your court. Your sister is ruling the Court of Ten Thousand Spires. Princess Aro—” He cut off as Rakken’s knife was suddenly at his throat.

  He hadn’t even seen the fae move. He should be afraid, but it was all too unreal. Instead, he blinked uncertainly up at Rakken, frozen in place. It was rare that he had to look up at other men. This close, the impossible green of his eyes was even more impossible. No one had eyes that colour. Like sphagnum moss, he thought inanely. Or new spring growth. Why the fuck am I thinking about plants? He has a knife!

  “I am loath to kill you, Marius Valstar,” Rakken said silkily, “but I will, if you give away our location through your careless use of true names.”

  “Sorry,” he croaked. “I didn’t know. How does that work, exactly?”

  Rakken considered him for a moment and then lowered the knife and stepped back. “Magic.” He definitely was injured. Despite his sudden movement, or perhaps because of it, his breathing was laboured, and he rested one hand on a shelf for balance.

  “Yes, but how? And what exactly constitutes a true name?” Another realisation hit him. “You’re going by Cat and Mouse? Really? You’re Mouse?” Shut up shut up shut up, he censored himself, too late.

  “You do not have permission to call me thus, Marius Valstar.” But something that might have been humour glinted in Rakken’s eyes, so Marius took that as permission to start breathing again. Almighty Pyrania and all the little gods.

  “Well, what do you want me to call you then?” Marius asked.

  “Your Highness seems perfectly sufficient.”

  “You do realise that’s going to cause a stir if anyone overhears us?”

  “Rake, then, in extremis.”

  “We are wasting time, Mouse,” Catsmere broke in.

  “If Set knew where we’d gone, she’d already be here,” Rakken replied calmly. He pressed a hand to his chest, against the wound, and narrowed his eyes at his bloodied fingers.

  Catsmere looked unconvinced. “Yes, but she won’t have to search hard to find little Hollow, if he’s still at FallingStar.” They were talking about Aroset, Marius realised. Catsmere shot him a sharp look. “Is our brother on your faeland? Mouse claims you mortals care for our youngest sibling’s welfare. If this is true, you should tell us where he is.”

  Fae couldn’t lie, but… “Why? Because your sister’s the new Queen of Ten Thousand Spires?”

  “No,” said Rakken. “Because she isn’t.” His voice snapped on the last word, citrus and rain swirling in response to his sudden anger.

  Marius rubbed at his forehead. “I forgot how exhausting fae are. So someone else is ruling ThousandSpire then?”

  “Oh no, our sister is definitely ruling ThousandSpire,” Catsmere said with a worried glance at Rakken. She took Marius’s measure. “Where are your healing supplies? I need to bind my brother’s wounds.”

  Rakken looked like he was about to argue with her, but she stared him down, and after a fraught silence he bowed his head in acquiescence.

  Interesting, Marius couldn’t help thinking. He hadn’t expected to see anyone tell Rakken to shut up and have it actually work.

  “Well?” Catsmere prompted.

  Marius tried to think. It felt like corralling a flock of pigeons, some part of him still having trouble accepting that two greater fae were here in Knoxbridge, bleeding on the carpet. “I have some supplies in my greenhouse,” he said eventually. “But you can’t come traipsing through the library dressed as fae assassins with wings and horns and bleeding everywhere. Can you…change or something?”

  Catsmere frowned. “You wish us to take mortal forms to draw less attention?”

  “Er…yes. Can you?” he asked, looking at Rakken. He knew from Wyn that fae healed better in their native forms.

  “I appreciate your concern for my welfare,” Rakken said, “but it is unnecessary.” Between one moment and the next, he shifted forms. The great bronze wings folded away, and his features became softer, less angular, his ears losing their upswept tips. Despite his words, he staggered, throwing out a hand to catch himself on the shelf, the other automatically going to the wound on his abdomen.

  Catsmere followed suit, though humanity didn’t fit her as easily. There was still something a little too alien in the way she held herself, in the restless way her eyes swept their surroundings. The leather outfit and sword only exacerbated things. After puzzling at it, Marius realised it was because everything about her still screamed warrior, jarringly unfeminine.

  He looked to Rakken uncertainly. Should he offer him a supportive shoulder or would the fae take offence? Catsmere took the decision from him by matter-of-factly arranging her twin’s arm about her left shoulder, still holding the sword in her right hand. There was something terrifyingly focused about her, like a hunting falcon.

  He pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to Rakken. “Press that to the wound so you stop dripping everywhere.”

  Rakken took the offered scrap of material without comment.

  He wasn’t sure how to explain the twins’ appearances, even minus the wings and horns. Some kind of student shenanigans, maybe? A costume party? Oh, don’t mind the blood, it’s just tomato sauce… But such explanations weren’t required, as the gazes of the few people they passed slid away from them as if there was nothing surprising about them at all.

  “You’re using glamour,” Marius said disa
pprovingly to Princess Catsmere, though he wasn’t actually sure which one of the twins was responsible. “Why isn’t it affecting me?”

  “Do you always say whatever comes into your head out loud?” she said acerbically.

  “In my experience, yes,” Rakken said. He’d put on a mask of insouciance with his human form, but his coolly amused tone didn’t quite hide the strain in his voice. Just how badly was he wounded? The black leather hid bloodstains, but Marius could see flashes of red in the handkerchief scrunched under Rakken’s fingers.

  He nodded at Rakken’s injury. “Was that from your sister? Your other sister, I mean, unless you have a charming nickname for her as well?” Rakken’s expression grew smooth and remote, and Marius had a strange flash of familiarity: it was exactly how Wyn reacted under stress. “And what did you mean, back there with the portal, that the resonance made sense? Why would ThousandSpire share a connection to the university library?” For Simulsen’s sake. Stop! Talking! he instructed himself.

  Catsmere frowned at him. Supporting her brother’s weight didn’t appear to affect her, though they’d now descended two flights of stairs and Rakken looked frayed about the edges. He sighed at Marius’s question.

  “It makes sense that my library would resonate with another in the Mortal Realm,” he said. “Though I didn’t anticipate your presence.”

  “You have a library?” Marius couldn’t help the surprise in his voice, for Rakken couldn’t look less like an academic. He was so powerfully muscular, and now they were out on the street, the sunshine brought out the gold strands in his dark hair and warmed the deep bronze of his skin. Oh dear. You shouldn’t be noticing things like that! Do not admire the dangerous and possibly evil and definitely male fae! If he’d needed any more confirmation of just how terrible his judgement was when it came to base matters, here it was. He boxed up and squashed the attraction into the deepest corner of his mind and imagined slamming the door shut on it.