by AJ Lancaster
Angus scanned her from top to toe. “Are you all right, Hetta?”
She looked down at her dress, which was flecked with bits of broken mosaic. It could’ve been much worse; at least it didn’t appear to be torn. “Yes,” she said shakily. She didn’t let herself think too hard about what had just happened, about how close the monster had gotten, because she thought she might be sick if she did. “I think so.”
Catsmere had pieces of plaster in her hair but didn’t seem hurt. She glanced up suddenly as the door opened. Rakken stalked in. He checked only slightly on the threshold, absorbing the scene before him in one impressive sweep of the room, and his mouth thinned as he took in the stunned and inebriated partygoers, who were just beginning to break into alarm.
“Hey, I say, what is that thing?” A thin, pale man staggered towards them.
“I think you should all leave now and recall this as a drunken fever-dream,” Rakken suggested to the remaining patrons. His power expanded through the room effortlessly, as it had at the station, and for a moment fae shone beneath his mortal skin. Thunder and citrus replaced the smoky liquor ambiance.
The partygoers fell silent and began to file towards the door as if sleep-walking, their faces slack. Hetta shuddered, but she didn’t try to stop them. Did that make her just as culpable?
“What’s going on?” Angus demanded in a low, angry voice.
“It’s just you, isn’t it?” Marius said to Rakken. “That’s not—you can’t all do that, can you?”
“All greater fae can compel,” Catsmere said. “It is part of what makes us such.”
“That’s not what I—” Marius began, but Rakken interrupted him, the deep anger Hetta had glimpsed in him before suddenly there and blazing in his eyes.
“Yes,” Rakken said. “My compulsion is magnified. That is one of the gifts the Maelstrom gave me. What do you think that means, Marius Valstar?”
“It means you’re sorely in need of a stronger code of ethics,” Hetta said matter-of-factly. Or a ruler who has one. “But what is this thing?” She indicated the severed head with a slippered toe, her voice trembling slightly. The adrenaline from earlier was wearing off. “Another of your sister’s creatures?”
“It’s called a kutrass. That trick with the light was well done,” Catsmere said. She drew a snow-white handkerchief from the folds of her elegant gown and wiped off her blade. The kutrass bled a pale greenish blue.
“How did she find you?” Rakken asked his sister. He’d folded his rage away, neat as a scalpel, but his expression remained uncharacteristically grim.
“Lord Penharrow said Wyn’s true name,” Marius said. “It wasn’t his fault; he didn’t know not to. And where were you?”
Rakken frowned at Angus, who returned the expression as the two men sized each other up. Hetta had to give Angus credit for taking the situation in stride. He was shaken but clinging on to his composure.
“There must have been a close resonance with the theatre, for Set to build a portal here so quickly. Unlucky,” Catsmere commented.
“We haven’t been introduced…Your Highnesses?” Angus hazarded. There was a strong familial resemblance between Rakken and Wyn; Hetta herself had noticed it the first time she’d met Rakken.
“This is Lord Angus Penharrow, Stariel’s neighbour. Angus, these are two of Wyn’s siblings,” she said tiredly.
Rakken dismissed Angus and turned his attention back to Marius, lingering on the blood on his cheek. “It’s just a scratch,” Marius said tiredly. “So stop fussing.”
Hetta didn’t think Rakken’s dispassionate inspection really counted as ‘fussing’, but Rakken merely shook his head.
“You are being impolite again, Marius Valstar.”
“Why is it only me who gets accused of impoliteness?” Marius complained bitterly.
Catsmere gave a soft huff of amusement and looked to her brother, whose expression darkened. He jerked his head in a stiff negative, and Catsmere shrugged as if to say it was none of her business.
“Well, when the two of you are finished being cryptic, can you do anything about this creature? I’ve probably ruined Brad’s opening night, but I can at least not leave a fae corpse behind for him to deal with.” Besides, leaving a dead monster here would only encourage people to think of the fae as dangerous. Which wasn’t exactly untrue, but that was quite beside the point. She hoped Brad’s patron wouldn’t blame him for the attack. And that Brad can forgive me for staining his carpet. A pool of greenish-blue blood was slowly spreading from the corpse. Maybe, if they were lucky and the audience continued to think it had all been illusion, the show could go on with no one the wiser. Surely even silly Southerners must realise that wasn’t illusion, though? The thought brought a half-smile to her lips. Listen to me embracing Northern superiority. She’d always dismissed the Northern tendency towards superstition as foolishly old-fashioned, but it had made it easier for them to believe in the fae.
“Well, Cat, shall we do Lord Valstar’s bidding and rain down destruction?” Rakken’s eyes glittered, lit with some uncanny inner light. Stariel quivered along her bond, uneasy.
Catsmere considered the scene. Hetta had the feeling she was assessing whether or not they could summon lightning within the confines of the room. “No,” she said decisively. Apparently even the twins’ control over their lightning powers had its limitations.
“What do you suggest, Lord Valstar? I can compel the mortals to believe whatever I want,” Rakken said unconcernedly, “but I do not have much taste for dragging a corpse about. And where did you plan to put it, besides?”
“Can you do air magic?” she asked. It felt oddly like a betrayal to ask someone who wasn’t Wyn to work with her, but one had to be pragmatic. She held out a hand and summoned a small flame to the palm of her hand. “I can burn it, but I’d rather not set the building on fire by accident.”
Rakken languidly stretched out an arm. “Alamein,” he commanded, and wind suddenly rushed into the room, lifting up the kutrass’s body and twisting its limbs in on themselves, a grotesque compacting of carapace and flesh into a wind-confined ball.
It was a relief to give her anger and distress an outlet. Fire sprang forth, white-hot and terrible. The twins twisted the air currents, and the corpse of the fae blazed bright as the noonday sun for a moment. Hetta snapped off the flames, though she wanted to keep pouring them forth, pour out fire as if it could take every negative emotion with it. There was nothing they could do about the blue bloodstain on the carpet, but it was much less incriminating than a body, and she’d run out of brilliant ideas.
Lord Angus tentatively nudged the pile of ash with a boot, and she started. She’d forgotten he was still here.
Marius spoke suddenly to Rakken, looking accusingly at his neck where, Hetta realised with a jolt, there was a very incriminating smudge of lipstick. “You didn’t answer my question: where were you when this kutrass attacked?”
“Talking to lowfae, as it happens.” Rakken gave a sharp, quick grin to Hetta. “A brownie saw my brother, the night of the palace attack, atop a building adorned with stone gargoyles.”
“Could they be more specific? There happen to be a lot of gargoyles in Meridon’s architecture.”
Rakken shook his head. “That is not my main point, Lord Valstar. My brother wasn’t alone—a lesser fae was with him. A lesser fae from the Court of Dusken Roses.”
“Gwendelfear.” Her heart raced. It was the first piece of actual fact and not speculation they had. “But where are they now?”
Rakken shrugged. “That, Lord Valstar, is what we are going to find out. I’ve heard there is a catshee in this city who knows more.”
Catsmere nodded, and the two of them made to leave, a pair of predators moving out on the hunt.
“Wait!”
Rakken looked at her impatiently. “Go and sit safe in your mortal lodgings.” His eyes were very green, like a jungle cat’s in the dusk. “We have hunting to be doing.”
“Not without
me.” She was sick of twiddling her thumbs, waiting and hoping that things would become clearer. And she didn’t trust the two of them not to drag Wyn straight to the Spires, if they found him.
Catsmere met her eyes, as if she knew exactly what Hetta was thinking. “He is our brother, Lord Valstar, our blood.” Perhaps our king, she didn’t say, but Hetta knew that’s what she meant anyway. “Your claim on him is weak, in comparison. Besides, you cannot fly. I am sorry.” And then they were gone.
36
Of Lesser And Greater Fae
Wyn snapped awake to the knowledge that he wasn’t alone.
“Well, that took you much longer than I thought it would, Your Highness,” a cool feminine voice said.
He stumbled from his half-risen position and landed painfully on his knees, so he wasn’t able to glare nearly as intensely as he wished to. I probably look ridiculous.
“Gwendelfear,” he growled. The lesser fae smiled, showing faintly pointed teeth. She leaned against the far wall of the tiny metal room, entirely too relaxed for a lesser fae confronting a greater one. Her skin was dark and greenish in the dim light, her hair the yellows and greens of summer grass. Gwendelfear’s bright blue eyes with their flower-lobed pupils lingered on his dismae with something like satisfaction.
“You highlight very vividly the disadvantages of being greater fae.” Gwendelfear had more reason than most to feel the sharpness of the difference. Her father was a greater naiad, she’d told Wyn once, when he’d pressed her as to how she came by her healing abilities. That inheritance was unusual. The higher ranks of Faerie were less fecund, as a rule, but when they did bear children, the greater magics usually bred true, even if the bloodlines were mixed. By rights, Gwendelfear should have been greater fae.
“I take it you are responsible for my restraints? And does your mistress know of it?”
“Yes.” She smiled.
He realised his mistake in asking two questions at once and shook his head, trying to clear it. The dismae hadn’t shocked him again, but he still felt weak and watery. At least his limbs obeyed him this time as he struggled to his feet.
“Does Princess Sunnika know I’m here?” he repeated, watching her closely for confirmation. Would Sunnika truly be party to this? It didn’t match with their recent interactions, but perhaps he’d misjudged her. The High King knows it wouldn’t be the first time I trusted someone when I shouldn’t have. Had he been unforgivably naïve, believing an enemy princess might be sincere? After all, what fae wouldn’t have taken advantage of him, in the state he’d been in?
Gwendelfear didn’t answer, only hummed a small sound of pleasure. “Let me savour this moment: a mighty stormdancer bound by a DuskRose lesser fae. You cannot, after all, compel me not to.” Her smile sharpened, and he knew she was thinking of their last interactions. She had good reason not to like him much.
“No, but I can point out that I was already injured, already bound, and already unconscious when you brought me here.” He didn’t remember anything after that embarrassing fade-to-black on the roof. Gwendelfear must have found him there. “Is there much glory in taking such a prisoner?”
“I could still probably kill you now, crippled as you are,” she continued, as he took slow inventory of his various hurts. “Think of the glory that could be mine, ending a prince of the Spires!”
“It probably would’ve been better to try while I was unconscious,” he pointed out. “I shall take your lack of such attempts as a positive sign.”
Her sharp smile only widened. “Perhaps I wanted the pleasure of seeing you realise you owed your death to a lesser fae.”
He shrugged, faking a calm he was far from feeling. “I didn’t think you cared so greatly for my feelings.” The dried blood on his abdomen stuck and unstuck to his shirt as he got to his feet. However, no fresh blood dotted the material, suggesting the wound had finally scabbed over. How long had he been out this time? He wouldn’t be easy prey if he could help it. He tried to read Gwendelfear’s intentions. She might hate Wyn, but she didn’t necessarily hate the Valstars. She’d saved Alexandra’s life, once—and moreover, Alex seemed to consider her a friend, though he wasn’t sure whether Gwendelfear did. He thought about testing how much influence that relationship held and decided against it for the moment. It sat badly, bringing Alexandra into this.
“Oh, I don’t,” Gwendelfear admitted. “But your death tempts me, nonetheless.” Her eyes gleamed, the expression of avarice one he knew well, so common was it in Faerie and Mortal both. “I heard you swallowed your father’s powers, when you killed him,” she breathed.
The jolt from the dismae nearly had him flat on his back again, and he panted while the surge subsided.
“Is it true?” she asked, enjoying his discomfort. “Everyone is speaking of ThousandSpire’s youngest prince, powerful before his time.” In Faerie, power often but not always came with age.
“Your princess freed me of my broken oath. I went into the Maelstrom,” he said flatly. “That’s why my powers increased.”
Gwendelfear’s blue, whiteless eyes widened. Even a DuskRose lesser fae knew of the Spires’ Maelstrom. “But what of your siblings?” she asked, hunger still in her eyes.
“What of them?” he asked, trying not to show his confusion. What did Gwendelfear want from him? And where were they? He tried to hear anything beyond the dark room, but all he got was a kind of growling rumble, growing louder and then receding.
“They are more powerful than they should be, too.”
She wasn’t going to attack him, he decided. This sudden preoccupation with his family was odd but apparently made him valuable as a source of information. Maybe DuskRose wanted to know more about Aroset, her potential weaknesses, now that she was Queen of ThousandSpire, though if they intended to use him as a bargaining chip against her, they would soon discover his worthlessness in that regard. His lungs froze. ThousandSpire wasn’t the only court he could be used against.
“Are they?” he said eventually, deciding that was a safe enough answer.
Gwendelfear laughed. “All the courts know the storm children are unnatural.” Her eyes narrowed. “What other court has six royal offspring from the same pairing?”
Wyn laughed. It was true that such fertility was unusual for greater fae, and especially for royal fae, but: “I think it’s a stretch to call that unnatural.” Quietly, he tested how much the chains of the manacles would stretch.
“How else could two unblooded youths have killed Prince Orren?” she shot back, unwilling to be shifted off the subject. The enmity between the two courts had raged a long, long time in one form or another, but that was the moment that had fanned the fires to breaking point and led to the intervention of the High King himself.
But that had been years ago—why was Gwendelfear asking about it now? Her whiteless eyes glittered eagerly, but with a kind of desperation, as if the answer meant something personal to her. He forced his way back through her last few questions, trying to make sense of her train of thought. Understanding lit suddenly. She wants to be greater fae. He knew, in that moment, that this was one half of why she’d imprisoned him and that the other was vengeance for the way he’d imprisoned her. What a temptation he must have presented, defenceless and practically gift-wrapped with the dismae.
“Sunnika doesn’t know I’m here, does she?” he asked. “Are you hoping I have some secret to share that will transform you into greater fae? I do not know of such a magic.”
She jerked towards him with a snarl but pulled back before she came within reach. “I see no reason to answer your questions, stormdancer. I am not the prisoner here.”
Wyn pulled the chain taut again. The link closest to his left manacle had a worn spot, thinner than the surrounding iron. “Shall we stare menacingly at each other in silence, then? Or do you propose an alternative course of action?”
“There is no small pleasure to be had in watching you shock yourself into unconsciousness,” she purred.
“Tha
t may be, but I am no longer doing so at present,” he said mildly. “So my entertainment value is presumably limited.” That vibration came again, like an oncoming train. Trains! Hetta had described the underground trains of Meridon in her letters. They must be in one of the maintenance tunnels. Unease crawled down his spine. Just how far underground were these trains? How much iron was between him and the sky? At least the dismae meant he couldn’t tell if it was two feet or two hundred.
She tilted her head to one side. “What would you give me, if I freed you?”
Ah, here was the crux of it. “What do you want, Gwendelfear?”
37
Summoning
The kutrass attack didn’t stop the play, as it turned out, but Hetta couldn’t have faced it even if their seats hadn’t been destroyed. Similarly, she had no time for Angus’s attempts to take care of her. She thanked him for the news about the Lords Conclave, bid him a very firm farewell, and dragged Marius into the nearest hackney. Not that Marius required much dragging—he looked frayed nearly to pieces, deep shadows under his eyes. Hetta, in contrast, was jittery. She burned to run out into the night. The only problem was: then what? She couldn’t sprout wings to follow Wyn’s siblings.
It began to rain as the hackney took them back to the hotel. Hetta stared out into the rippling lamp-light reflections, wondering if Wyn was out there in the same rain. With Gwendelfear? Hetta wrapped her arms around herself. She remembered the way Gwendelfear had looked at Wyn with undisguised malice, the last time Hetta had seen her.
“Do you think Gwendelfear would…” But she couldn’t finish the thought.
Marius leaned forward and took her hand. “He’ll be all right, Hetta.”
She shook her head. “Just saying that won’t make it so. What if—” She took a breath. “What if Gwendelfear has hurt him?” Killed him, she couldn’t say. She began to shake. It was shock, she knew, the aftermath of the kutrass attack mixed with days of worry.