Rhianna, who had been having a quiet rapid-fire planning conversation with the handmaiden, abruptly fell silent.
A buzz under his words, Severin said, “I used to. It hasn’t paid off.” Then, in a different voice, he added, “Don’t worry, cupcake. Even if I make a mess, they can’t keep me away from you.”
Branwyn stared at him before pushing herself away. “They could kill me. Shatiel said that would pretty seriously inconvenience you.”
“It would kill me, too,” said Severin, leaning against the wall again. “But I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
This was in no way reassuring. “How kind,” she said frigidly. “Why did you lie to the Queen?”
“I didn’t,” he said, his voice flat. “I am here because you are. I told her all she needed to know.”
“She wanted to connect, you asshole. She wanted to help you.”
Severin’s lip curled. “Do you think I want to ‘connect’ to the Queen of Stone? Do you think I want to give her any part of me?”
“Do you want to find this kid or not?” Branwyn demanded. “Because if you do, you may have to start actually communicating with people.”
“Nah, cupcake,” he said. “That’s what I have you for. I’m just here to tear things apart.”
Branwyn glared at him in mounting frustration. “You are such a… a…”
Suddenly he was too close, his black eyes boring into hers. “A monster? A nightmare? An animal?” His grin cracked across his face and he whispered, “Woof woof.”
She stared up at him, and then shoved him hard. “Get away from me. You make me sick!” Branwyn threw herself into the corner of the elevator and slid down to sit on the floor, hugging her knees and hiding her face in her arms.
She was breathtakingly angry at him. Not nervous, not afraid, not even burning with hate. Just… angry. She was used to anger empowering her, driving her. But in this situation, what could she do? What could she build that would make things different, but not compromise her own integrity? There was nothing.
Rhianna knelt beside her and said quietly, “It isn’t as bad as you think. The Queen did help us after all. She gave us a powerful guide to our next destination. And at the Court of Summer, Gale’s Court, we’ll have a better chance of finding answers.”
Branwyn raised her head. Rhianna was oddly pale, but her demeanor was calm and encouraging. “Yeah,” she said. “Good idea.”
Severin was back leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. As far as Branwyn could tell, her rant had run off him like water off a duck’s back. At least this time it didn’t seem to have entertained him. His face was totally blank, but it wasn’t empty.
Small consolation.
She took a deep breath. “Before we go… Severin. This is Faerie. Everything has a cost, and sometimes it’s personal. Are you willing to give up anything to find this kid?”
“I’ve already given up too much, cupcake.” His eyes glittered. “What I have left, I’m keeping.”
Branwyn thought about that. It was frustrating, and maybe true. And yet, they had to find the kids. Her anger drained away, leaving behind only tiredness.
“Fine. Good to get that on the table. Well, I’ve worked with stubborn materials before.” Then she let Rhianna pull her to her feet and turned her attention to the handmaiden.
10
Between Stone and Summer
Rhianna and the Queen’s handmaiden had already worked out the details of the journey to the Summer Court while Branwyn had been busy with Severin. “Kind of one handmaiden to another,” said Rhianna. “It was only natural.”
Branwyn was willing to wait for the handmaiden to ready herself for a journey she hadn’t intended to start so soon. But she drew the line when the handmaiden encouraged her to take a bath and rest while she waited. Rest would too quickly become sleep, and sleep was too close to the darkness in the belly of Death.
Rhianna, clearly disappointed, also refused the offered bath. The handmaiden obligingly guided them instead to a room of alabaster overlooking a garden of yellow crystals and rose-gold wire, where the ranks of seating suggested that, in the Court of Stone, gardening was live entertainment.
The handmaiden also offered to guide Severin to the kennels. With a glance at Branwyn and a sparkle of amusement, she said to him, “Those new to ownership sometimes don’t realize how much exercise their hound needs.” He laughed and accepted the invitation, to Branwyn’s alarm.
But Starting to enjoy the leash already still burned. She wasn’t his fucking regulator. Shatiel should have known better. If Severin screwed this up, she’d be disappointed in him, but the sooner she found that out, the easier it would be for her to return to not caring.
When the handmaiden returned only a moment later, she was quick to reassure Branwyn. “Do not fear. Nobody in the Court will taunt him now, and I have put him in the hands of a talented faeling who shares some of his interests.”
“What interests?” asked Branwyn. “Wait, never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Well, I do,” said Rhianna brightly. “I’m interested. Miss Maiden, is ‘kennel’ a euphemism for a brothel in Faerie?”
“A brothel?” demanded Branwyn.
“Well, if I can’t take a bath…” began Rhianna delicately.
The handmaiden laughed again. “Ah, no. The kennels house the hunting beasts, and the faeling is a specialist in training the most recalcitrant. There are those in the Court who would enjoy coupling with a monster no matter how he used them, but I felt introducing them would not have calmed him the same way.” She smiled at Rhianna. “But I do think you would have enjoyed the baths.”
“Is a faeling like a changeling?” Branwyn asked, eager to move the topic away from Severin and brothels.
“Let me see… They are both of mortal origin, but only a Queen can create a faeling. As a result, they have far more independence and power than changelings. They are often quite troublesome and are thus rare. But the beastmaster is worth it despite his temper.”
Somehow this didn’t seem to be far enough away from the previous topic. Branwyn said, “Ah. And… I’m sorry if I missed it earlier, but do you have a name of your own?”
“I do not. I am bound to pumice, but I should not like to be called such. I am simply the Queen’s handmaiden.”
Rhianna caught Branwyn’s eye from the other side of the handmaiden, giving her a look that meant, Ask me about this later.
Branwyn pulled her mouth to one side, and then said, “All right. Can I call you Handmaiden then?”
The handmaiden considered the question seriously. “To address me, that is appropriate. But to speak of me, please use it as my role rather than my name.”
“So, ‘Hey Handmaiden, dinnertime!’ but ‘the handmaiden is hungry’?”
The handmaiden inclined her head demurely. “Thank you. It would not be fitting elsewise. And while we travel, how would you prefer to be addressed?”
“Branwyn,” said Branwyn firmly. “Just Branwyn. But, uh, you can introduce me to others as the Artificer, if you think it will help.”
“Very good.” The handmaiden curtseyed. “I will go now and arrange our travel. You will not have an extended wait here, but you may visit the garden through that door if you wish.”
Rhianna asked, “Would it have been a longer wait elsewhere?”
“A hurried bath relaxes no one,” said the handmaiden, and retreated from the chamber.
Branwyn turned to contemplate the garden again. “In my experience, it’s perceptual rather than actual time compression. But I should have hacked together a reliable timepiece before we came anyhow.” She didn’t know how long they’d been in that dark place, in the belly of Death, but she had an uncomfortable suspicion it had been longer than she wanted to share.
Rhianna joined her. “Well, we’re not working toward a clock time, are we? How’s your hammer holding up?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll swear a lot when the souls start discharging.”
“So… you were pretty upset earlier. Anything you want to talk about?” Rhianna asked, carefully casual.
Branwyn shook her head slowly. There was plenty she wished she could talk over with Rhianna, but she was going to stay professional on this project even if it killed her. Talking would just turn into fighting, and fighting might be deadly right now. “What did you have on the handmaiden?”
Rhianna looked down at her hands. “She’s nice, isn’t she?”
Branwyn narrowed her eyes. “That’s it?”
“I don’t think she’s ‘simply’ a handmaiden, despite what she said. But she is nice.”
Branwyn looked back at the crystal and wire garden again. “Sometimes people are.”
Rhianna sighed. “I suppose so.”
Silence fell between them, and it wasn’t a comfortable one. Eventually Branwyn shook herself and went through the indicated door and down two flights of stairs to the garden. She spent some time inspecting the wire sculptures, trying to focus on the art. But she kept glimpsing Rhianna leaning on the window edge above, her head on her hands like she was a little girl. It was distracting. It hurt. She wanted her sister back, and she didn’t even know how she’d lost her.
When it was time to go, Branwyn was standing in front of three crystals with wire woven thickly between them. It was positioned as a base for a complex secondary structure, but the woven wires weren’t able to to catch and support the burden. She was trying to decide if she could turn it into a metaphor for her own relationships when Rhianna called to her from above. No, she decided. She’d have to make her own sculpture if she wanted to portray that, and it would involve a lot more than crystals and rose-gold wire.
In the viewing room, the handmaiden awaited. Rhianna was holding all the bags and bouncing on her toes with impatience.
“Ah. Are you refreshed from your meditation?” asked the handmaiden.
Branwyn shrugged noncommittally. “I appreciated having a few moments with nothing new to deal with, at least. Thank you.”
“Of course. This way.” The handmaiden led them out into the corridor, but it was different now. The walls were obsidian and rounded like a natural tunnel.
“Is changing the halls challenging?” asked Rhianna.
“Sometimes,” said the handmaiden. “The Court itself is alive, and it must be directed. The Queen is the only one who can truly command its patterns. The rest of us merely request. Often it’s less trouble to just take the long way. But that would be hard on you.”
The corridor widened like the horn of a trumpet as they traversed it, ending in a broad arch that opened onto a cracked, flat landscape that stretched unbroken to the horizon. They emerged from the side of a cinder cone that wasn’t much taller than the arch it contained. Nearby, a large, flat triangular rock dominated the view. A pavilion had been erected on the rock’s upper surface and a steep white filigree staircase led from the ground to the rock’s top.
“Our transport,” said the handmaiden. “Please ascend.”
On top of the rock, railings lined the edges, with cushions strapped to the rail at the wide end. Four low seats had been pulled from the stone in front of the pavilion. Severin lounged in one, his hands clasped behind his head.
Lazily, he said, “It took you long enough. And you didn’t even take that bath, I see. You missed out.”
“We looked at art,” said Branwyn curtly. “We didn’t wait very long.”
The handmaiden stepped onto the stone’s surface, then bent to retrieve the staircase. It folded into a small parcel as she lifted it. “There may be a jolt as we start, so please take a seat.”
“This whole stone moves?” Branwyn asked. It seemed contrary to what stones did. When the handmaiden had mentioned transport, she’d imagined a carriage drawn by stone horses: something thematic, but familiar. This was just a big rock.
“It is a sailing stone,” said the handmaiden. “It can travel quite fast.”
Branwyn took the seat furthest from Severin and then regretted it when Rhianna plopped down right beside him.
“You look like you had fun,” she told him.
He tilted his head back to watch the handmaiden. “I reminded some cave lions what it was like to be prey.”
Rhianna laughed. “You mean you chased cats? Woof, woof.”
Branwyn winced and regretted it as Severin’s eyes slid over to her. He smirked at her discomfort. “It was something to do. I don’t like waiting around.”
The handmaiden said, “The beastmaster mentioned the cats were easier to handle after working with you. He seemed much amused.” She entered the pavilion and touched the table within.
Somewhere, water began to trickle, growing in flow and sound until it was a low roar. Then, with a crackle and a pop, the water stopped. After a moment, the sailing stone gradually slid sideways and in a circle. It was far too much like being in a car that had lost traction. Branwyn spasmodically clutched at the sides of her chair, and even Rhianna swayed, but Severin, the jerk, laughed and kept his hands behind his head.
The sailing stone completed one lazy spin and started another, and Branwyn began to have worrying thoughts about teacup rides as faerie transport. Then, something clunked from the pavilion and the sailing stone shot forward at a rate that took Branwyn’s breath away.
After a moment, both the sense of momentum and the impact of the wind faded. It wasn’t quite like being in an airplane or a car, but it was a lot better than spinning their way to another Court. She could get used to it.
The handmaiden took the remaining seat. “Soon we will pass from the Queen’s Domain into the wild Marches. That will comprise the longest part of this trip. It is ordinarily quite dangerous for even low fae to travel the Marches away from the Road, but the sailing stone makes such risks inconsequential.” She gave them a sunny smile.
“Great!” said Rhianna. “Time for lunch.” Before Branwyn could respond, she found two energy bars shoved into her hands. “You can have the chocolate ones and I’ll have the peanut butter ones.”
“Where’s mine?” asked Severin.
Rhianna gave him a doubtful look. “Do you really need food?”
“Doesn’t Umbriel eat sometimes?”
“He does,” Rhianna conceded. “But he’s nice. I figured a guy like you subsisted on sheer malice.”
Severin laughed again, and Branwyn’s insides roiled. Somehow Rhianna got along with all of them: her Advisor, Shatiel, the handmaiden. She even entertained Severin.
Rhianna always had possessed a knack for amusing those more powerful than herself. It had come in handy on their youthful joint misadventures, but the world was different now and at some point she would get hurt.
Branwyn realized she was just staring at her energy bars and started methodically eating them. She had no appetite, but she damn well wasn’t going to let that stop her. As Penny had pointed out the night before, not taking care of her body meant her mind jumped all over the place, and she was tired enough as it was.
And by the time she’d finished with both bars, she was hungry. “Hey, give me some more,” she said. “I know there’s other stuff in that backpack. Give me one of those rice and bean packets.”
“Uh-uh,” said Rhianna. “My Advisor was very insistent we not eat faerie food, so this has to last us.”
“Oh,” said Branwyn, a dark thought occurring. “Handmaiden, what does happen if mortals eat faerie food?”
The handmaiden, who looked as though she was enjoying the sailing stone’s speed enormously, dragged her gaze away from the horizon. “Many mortals who partake of our food find that mortal food can no longer sustain them. A smaller number find faerie food does not nourish, and those die if not returned to the mortal world.”
Silence fell as Branwyn and Rh
ianna looked at each other. The kids have been here for months.
Severin slowly unclasped his hands from behind his head and brought them onto the arms of his seat.
Suddenly Rhianna said, “I’m not going to worry about this. I’m sure my Advisor must have a plan if the kids we rescue can’t eat human food. Plenty of kids already have non-magical problems eating food. Which sucks, but technology can help with.”
Branwyn said, “Plus, whoever took them from Tucker presumably wanted them to live, or why bother? So this isn’t an issue.”
Both sisters nodded firmly at each other, but Severin didn’t relax again.
Shapes appeared on the horizon they sped toward: round hills rising like domes from a forest that started with unnatural abruptness. Near the edge of the playa, the sailing skewed to run parallel to the large, knotted old trees. When it reached the meadows beyond the forest, it spun again and gave a jerky hop, landing in the meadow. There, the sailing stone’s locomotion was no longer smooth and frictionless, but as bumpy as a bad road.
“It will be bumpier as we get further from the Domain,” said the handmaiden apologetically. “I hope it won’t distress you. The Queen’s son rather enjoyed it.”
Branwyn turned to reassure her. The black diamond in her hammer started sparking again, whining in her mind. She fumbled it free from its loop on her jeans, a sudden premonition telling her she didn’t want to have the black diamond that close to her body when a soul discharged.
She was right. As soon as she lifted the hammer over her head, the black diamond gave up trying to contain the energy and a dark shockwave expanded silently around her. Part of the shockwave passed through the pavilion’s upper supports, leaving cracks behind. Rhianna said, “Oh!” and Severin’s eyes narrowed.
“Uh,” said Branwyn. “Hell. Damn. That was bigger than I expected.”
“What was that, please?” inquired the handmaiden, rising to her feet. The sailing stone was still moving, although the pace had slackened dramatically.
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