by AJ Lancaster
The evening was cold and blustery, distinctly chillier than the milder weather of Meridon, where spring had taken a fuller hold. Hetta huddled into her coat as they were pelted with greetings, demands for explanations, and introductions. The station attendant asked if they wanted help with their luggage. It was a far different reception to last time Hetta had returned home from Meridon. Then, the platform had been empty, with only the wind in the bracken and the baa-ing of sheep. And this time I’m returning home rather than leaving it. The thought pinged a strangely neutral note.
“Yes, thank you, to the kineticar,” she said to the attendant, shaking off the memory and picking up her trunk. “You two are welcome to help cart luggage,” she said to Catsmere and Rakken. “But you’re going to have to fly to the House since you definitely won’t fit.” Stariel swirled around the twins, respecting her permissions but wary of the power they represented.
The two fae changed and took to the skies in a flurry of green and bronze. The station attendant froze, mouth agape, and Jack was only a little less startled.
“They’re visiting fae ambassadors,” Hetta said to the attendant, who closed his mouth and swallowed. “Jack, be useful, will you?” She waved at the remaining bags, and Jack shook himself back into motion.
“Very good, my lord,” the attendant said weakly.
What would the staff and the rest of her family think of Rakken and Catsmere descending in a rush of wings? Or any of the villagers, who might look up and see them? It didn’t occur to them to hide what they are. She turned to find Wyn on the heels of that thought. In contrast to his siblings, he looked entirely human as he helped Marius gingerly lever himself into the front seat. Marius folded into the space with a groan.
“Lady Philomena may have something that can help,” Wyn told him. “Marigold tea, maybe.”
“We are going to have a long talk about magic and botany,” Marius grumbled, and shut his eyes with a grimace. “Later.”
Wyn closed the door and surveyed the view over the top of the kineticar thoughtfully. “I wonder if they finished patching the roof?” he mused. He met Hetta’s eyes and smiled, but there was a heaviness there. He knew it wasn’t his role to care about such things—or at least, not for much longer. Her heart gave a single, painful squeeze.
Hetta went to check on the state of the Dower House, but Jack spoke before she could. “They have, and the linesmen came to look at wiring up the house. They want you to do some trenching work next week, Hetta.” Her cousin waved a hand at the kineticar. “Pile in.”
It was a very squashed trip. A cold, prickling guilt grew as they slowed to pass through the village of Stariel-on-Starwater. She hadn’t thought much about Stariel while they’d been gone, hadn’t thought about its people or its concerns; she’d been far more focused on her own interests. Wyn had thought about them, but Wyn was leaving. She needed to be better at this. Stariel’s vast presence should’ve been reassuring after the muted connection of the last week, but instead she felt even more adrift.
Jack parked the kineticar in the converted garage at the back of Stariel House. Marius was steadier on his feet, though he still complained of his head, and Hetta went in search of her grandmother for marigold tea while Wyn and Jack helped him up to his room. There was no sign of Rakken and Catsmere, and when Hetta reached, she found them up by the Standing Stones. Stariel watched them with interest as they examined the stone circle. Of course they’d be impatient to leave. Well, they can jolly well wait, she thought, fiercely.
49
Home Remedies
“Marigold?” Grandmamma Philomena said when Hetta explained her errand. “Ah, yes, of course—it has spiritual healing properties.” She nodded sagely. “I think I have some in the stillroom.”
“How do you know so much about fae magic, anyway?” Hetta asked, following her grandmother through the house. Grandmamma was nearer ninety than eighty, but one wouldn’t know it from the erect, energetic way she walked.
Grandmamma waggled her eyebrows. “At my age, m’dear, one knows many things.” Hetta sighed, but the inexact answer didn’t surprise her. Grandmamma loved to be mysterious. But to her surprise, Grandmamma paused and added: “Young Alexandra didn’t get the Sight from the Valstar side.”
The stillroom was on the second floor, and the layered scent of dried herbs always brought Hetta fond memories. Her grandmother strode decisively for the jar cupboard and began to rummage. She hummed to herself, steel-grey curls bouncing as she shook a jar and put it back, dissatisfied with the dry-rice sound. “Have you stitched things up with your young man yet?” she asked.
Hetta traced her fingers along the wooden table that ran down the centre of the room. “It’s complicated.”
Grandmamma made a dubious sound. “I can have a word with him if he needs to be brought up to scratch.”
Hetta gave an involuntary giggle at the suggestion, wondering just what, exactly, Grandmamma would say to Wyn. But she shook her head. “Thank you, Grandmamma, but he’s already asked. Sort of.”
“Proposing is not a sort of question, Henrietta,” Grandmamma said disapprovingly. “One proposes or one does not.”
“Try telling him that,” she said with a sigh.
“He must be nervous, then, about your answer.” Grandmamma tsked.
Hetta opened her mouth to say something about the High King, but instead what came out was: “He’s leaving.”
Grandmamma paused with a jar in hand. “Well, have you asked him not to?”
“It’s not that simple,” she protested. How could she ask Wyn to put her above the Spires, above his family, above his people? And if she did and he agreed, how could she live with herself, being responsible for whatever further destruction Aroset wrought? She thought of Marius, lying deathly still in the carriage, and of the casual way Rakken had compelled an entire station’s worth of people. “I have to put Stariel first, and he has to go home.”
Grandmamma’s expression was sympathetic rather than accusing, but Hetta felt the need to defend herself nonetheless.
“But he’s going to come back and visit—or, well, we haven’t worked it out yet, but we’ll figure something out.” A lump grew in her throat, as if she might burst suddenly into tears. She blinked them back, furious with herself. I’m not going to turn into a weeping mess. Honestly, it’s not as if I’ll never see him again!
Grandmamma put the jar down. “And that’s putting Stariel first, is it? You having half a fiancé, bound to somewhere else?”
The words rocked Hetta back on her heels. “Yes!” she said. No, she thought. The negative slammed against her ribs, making them ache.
“Well, if that’s what makes you happy,” Grandmamma said slowly. She picked up a jar. “Here’s the marigold. Let’s see if it can help my grandson.”
Hetta brought Marius the tea, ignoring the doubt that Grandmamma’s question had dragged to the surface. Marius was perched wanly on the edge of his bed with Jack and Alexandra hovering nearby. He accepted the tea with gruff thanks and threw them out. “I don’t need you all standing about watching while I lie here and feel sorry for myself!” he said peevishly.
“Will he be all right?” Alexandra asked anxiously once they were out in the hallway. She lowered her voice and glanced at Jack. “Do you think Prince Rakken was right about”—she bit her lip—“the other thing?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s a good sign that he’s recovered enough to banish us from his side,” Hetta said, trying to convince herself. She looked at Jack. “Do you know where Wyn is?”
“The housekeeper wanted him,” he said. “Meanwhile, you need to talk to Councillor Talbot. The man’s a pest! He doesn’t approve of the
linesmen coming from outside the district.” He began to fill her in on what had gone on in her absence. She tried to listen, but it washed over her, drowned out by a mental ticking clock. They were at Stariel. The Standing Stones were ten minutes’ walk from the house. Rakken and Catsmere were already there and probably expected Wyn to join them as soon as possible. And then—then they would build a portal to the Spires, and Wyn would be gone.
“Hetta, are you even listening?” Jack complained. Alexandra was watching her thoughtfully.
“No, no, I’m not,” she said vaguely. “Excuse me.” She shed the pair and went in search. She found Wyn mediating between the new housekeeper and her late father’s valet, who’d been with the Valstars since before Hetta was born. She didn’t intervene—that would only escalate the dispute. The servants’ hierarchy was Wyn’s business.
“What was that about?” she asked when she entered his office after she sensed its other occupants had left. It was all so very familiar, and for a moment the normality of it shook her.
Wyn’s eyes danced. “The proper recipe for cleaning silver, if you’d believe it. And also…piskies.”
“Oh. Are they all right?”
“The piskies or the staff?
“Both. And the silver, I suppose.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I think I’ve persuaded them that the piskies aren’t a danger, though it sounds as if there may be a war brewing between the piskies and the other housefae. You may need to assign the brownies house territory, but make it clear that you’re only doing it as it affects your living quarters or you’ll have wyldfae across the estate clamouring at you for favour.”
“Right,” she said. “And the silver?”
He smiled. “It wasn’t really about that. My absence has created…certain tensions in the staff hierarchy. I attempted to remain neutral. They’ll work it out between themselves.” His expression darkened, but he didn’t say the words they’ll have to aloud. She heard them anyway, and she crossed the space between them to wrap her arms around him.
She’d wanted to talk to him about Marius, about Aroset, about when and how exactly he was proposing to go to the Spires, but the words washed away under the steady thump of his heart under her cheek, the familiar scent of him. She didn’t want words, just now, and she tugged his head down to kiss him.
She kissed him desperately, as if just getting close enough would mean she could somehow keep him, and he answered with the same urgent need. How dare the Court of Ten Thousand Spires try to take him from her when they’d only just begun? How dare his sister be a murderous villain? She felt the back of her legs hit the desk as they pressed more tightly together, trying to eliminate all the spaces between them. His magic and hers thrummed in the air, combining in a riot of colour and scents. She wanted to drown in the taste until she forgot about responsibility and annoyingly cryptic grandmothers and the knowledge that two greater fae waited by the Standing Stones.
“Hetta,” he said hoarsely. His eyes were black as night when he pulled back for a breath. Lust fought with sorrow in their depths, and it triggered her anger all over again. How dare he be sorry about this! She kissed him again.
How dare he be sorry when he’d been doing his level-best to convince her to let him go entirely? When he’d made her love him despite all the complications he brought with him? When she’d come to rely upon him being there? She poured her anger into the kiss, working his shirt loose of his belt so she could dig her fingers into the flat planes of his stomach. He groaned and pulled her closer, tangling his hands in her hair.
Distantly, she knew this was a delayed reaction to fear and uncertainty, and that this wasn’t the wisest location in the world for such activities, but she didn’t care, and she wasn’t prepared to stop for even the few minutes it might take them to relocate. From his reaction, Wyn clearly agreed with this assessment.
Afterwards, his expression was as unguarded as she’d ever seen it, full of yearning uncertainty. Neither of them spoke as they righted themselves, stretching the intimacy as far as it would go. She helped him straighten his bowtie, and he smoothed her hair behind her ears.
“I am glad that Stariel has, ah, calmed down, as it were,” he said, a slight roughness in his words.
He was right, though thinking of the faeland summoned its interest. It curled lazily around her for a moment, still trying to tell her something she couldn’t quite catch. It subsided when she reassured it there was no need for its further involvement just now.
“I wonder what changed?”
Amusement flickered briefly around his mouth. “I think Stariel may have discerned its encouragement was no longer needed.”
She let out an incredulous laugh. “Oh. Oh. Well, if it wanted me to successfully seduce you, it was going about it completely the wrong way.” She sent an indignant thought in Stariel’s direction.
“Faelands do not think in mortal—or even fae—terms,” Wyn pointed out. His focus drifted towards the darkening view of Starwater through the narrow windows—which fortunately nothing overlooked, given recent activities. You couldn’t see the Standing Stones from this angle, though Hetta could feel them. Rakken and Catsmere acted as a sort of beacon, pulling her own attention if she wasn’t careful. “Do you remember showing me how to skim a stone, years ago?” he asked suddenly.
She blinked as the memory came tumbling out of the distant past. “Yes.” At the time she’d been surprised no one else had taught him the trick already, but it made more sense now. Perhaps it wasn’t a game young fae played—or, more likely, one played by young princes. “You weren’t a very apt pupil. I think you sank nearly every stone in Stariel without a single skip before you got the hang of it, and even then, you never could get as many skips as me.” She frowned. “Which, now I think about it, seems improbable.” His lips curved, though he didn’t turn from the window. “I can’t believe you pretended you didn’t know how to skim stones just to butter me up!” she accused.
“Oh, I wasn’t pretending,” he said. “You did teach me.” He smiled, a hint of mischief in it. “But I may have learnt as slowly as I dared. I liked watching you demonstrate. You had a way of weighing each stone in your palm before you threw, as if you were measuring its worth.” The great lake’s surface was a dark blur in the dusk, but Hetta could see all the way back to that long-ago morning. The much-younger Wyn had shyly followed her instructions, all awkward angles and bones, height not yet fleshed out properly. And here he was now, more than a decade later, both of them grown into themselves, his profile achingly familiar and beloved.
“You have to go,” she said, suddenly unable to bear the pretence of it, the ticking clock she was sure they could both hear. “We should go.”
“Yes,” he said, finally meeting her eyes.
“Would you stay, if I asked?” The question escaped before she could help it.
“Are you asking me?” He went very still.
She almost did, the words burning on the tip of her tongue, but then she shook her head. “No. No, I’m not. I won’t ask you to put me before your people and everyone else Aroset might hurt, and you’re being unfair, wanting me to.” It didn’t matter what either of them wanted; there wasn’t a better alternative here. But Grandmamma had been right too—how could she build a life with someone as intimately tied to another faeland as she was to Stariel? She knew what it was like to share half your soul in that way.
To her surprise, for Stariel didn’t often comment on her thoughts, it sent her a memory: ThousandSpire, reaching through the portal for Wyn, and Hetta and itself pushing the incursion back. There was a distinctly possessive edge to the image. she told it sternly.
Taking a deep breath, she said the words she didn’t want to say. “And I’m being unfair to both of u
s.” Her heart wasn’t breaking. Hearts didn’t break—that was just a stupid metaphor.
It only felt like it.
50
Paperwork
Wyn’s heart crystallised. He knew Hetta was about to speak bitter truths, and he did not want to hear them. And yet, this too was part of why he loved her. He’d always known she wouldn’t let him go too far, take too much, that he could trust her to hold her line in the sand. It had made it safe to love her. As if I could have stopped myself. But he didn’t regret it, not even when he saw her swallow and draw that hard line between them now.
“I don’t want it to matter, that you’re fae, or this thing with the Spires. But it sort of does, doesn’t it?” She drew herself up, each word becoming firmer. “You can’t rule another faeland and still put me and Stariel first. You can’t, Wyn, and I know that better than anyone. It’s only going to hurt us both—and our respective faelands—to pretend that’s not the case, isn’t it?”
“I…” He trailed off, because he could not find a truth that wasn’t jagged edges to counter her words with. He swallowed. “What of your mortal queen?”
Her smile was wan. “That’s exactly the point, isn’t it? She’s using us and our respective positions as leverage against each other. It would be better for ThousandSpire if you could negotiate with her without that hanging over you.” She paused and added reluctantly, “And better for Stariel if I wasn’t tying myself to someone intimately bound to another faeland.” And better for me, she didn’t say, but he saw it in her eyes.
I won’t go to the Spires! he wanted to cry, but he couldn’t—not with the memory of the attack at the station still fresh. Aroset couldn’t be allowed to hurt anyone else, and this was the only way to stop her. He’d known it was impossible, when Hetta had talked of finding a way to be together, but oh, how he’d wanted to be wrong. But there was no denying she would be better off without her loyalties divided, better out of fae politics. All the Valstars would be—as this morning’s attack at the station had proved in painful detail.