by SM Reine
But that was exactly why she felt so suspicious.
The deadliest threats were the ones she didn’t see coming.
Secretary Friederling had asked that Deirdre protect him for a reason, and it wasn’t because he thought the unicorns might nuzzle him to death. There was more to the Summer Court than she could see.
Whatever dangers might have been lying in wait for Deirdre, they weren’t obvious as she settled into the comfortable seat of the carriage. It jolted into motion as the unicorns trotted back down the hill. Their hooves made a sound against the dirt path like wind chimes.
When they came down the hill and entered the trees, Deirdre got a better view of the village through the window of the carriage. The seelie lived in structures that looked like they had been grown out of the trees. They were covered in grass and soil and flowers, much like the memorial at Rylie’s sanctuary.
What Deirdre didn’t see were the seelie themselves.
It was a beautiful village all right, but it might as well have been a ghost town. The open windows with their fluttering curtains were portals into empty cottages. Fountains gushed in a town square that looked like it had never seen a single footfall. They trundled through a market that sold nothing at all, its carts and storefronts empty.
The Summer Court looked to be just as empty as its chillier counterpart.
Where were all the sidhe in the Middle Worlds?
“You said we’re meeting the king consort, right?” Deirdre asked. “Why not the queen? Does the consort have much power?” She wasn’t really wondering what the supposed “king consort” could get away with. Her mind was back in the frozen forest with Melchior—consort to a queen, offering to make her his favorite concubine.
“The king consort has a lot of power in the Summer Court,” Rylie said. “Before Genesis, Donne was a werewolf. Not a member of my pack—a different kind of werewolf.”
“There’s only one kind of werewolf,” Deirdre said.
“Two, actually,” Friederling said. “Cursed werewolves and wolf shifters. But they all got jumbled up after Genesis and we don’t bother differentiating between them. However, in the beginning, Rylie only led the cursed shifters.”
“When he was still a werewolf, Donne mated with a powerful witch,” Rylie said. “She became sidhe once the world was remade, so once she took over as queen, he became de facto king. The queen isn’t a fan of business or politics. We probably won’t even see her.”
“So we’re talking a queen-led monarchy where the queen doesn’t have anything to do with business?” Deirdre asked.
“Must be nice, don’t you think?” Secretary Friederling asked. “All the prestige, none of the hassle.”
“Donne’s better suited to leadership than his mate,” Rylie said. “If we can convince him that it’s in their best interests to participate in the oath, Leah will do whatever he recommends.”
“Titania,” Marion said.
Deirdre frowned. “Come again?”
Friederling gave a long-suffering sigh. “Leah and Donne are the informal names of the queen and king, but the queen prefers that they be called Titania and Oberon, as in Shakespeare.”
“I did say she’s a romantic, didn’t I?” Rylie asked.
A romantic or insane.
They were leaving the unsettlingly empty village behind, but the forest road through to the oceanside chateau wasn’t less creepy. The space underneath the trees was strangely dark, considering how sunny the Summer Court seemed.
Deirdre didn’t see a single living thing. No birds, no squirrels, not even gnats buzzing around the piles of rotted leaves gathered among the roots.
Yet she felt like they were being watched.
She shrank back from the window. “Since the king consort used to be a werewolf, does that mean he defers to you?” Deirdre asked.
Rylie laughed. “Wouldn’t that be convenient?”
“The seelie are allies of the pack,” Secretary Friederling said. “Politically equal if not equal in power. They don’t defer to anyone.”
“Probably for the best,” Rylie said. “If their king deferred to me, I’d have to make decisions for them too, and I’ve got enough of that going on at my end of things.”
A queen of the seelie who didn’t like to do queen things and a werewolf Alpha who didn’t want to be Alpha.
Deirdre would have laughed if it weren’t terrifying.
People who didn’t care about their status had been put in positions of great power by fate, popularity, whatever—not because they wanted that power. They were the begrudging recipients of power. Reluctant leaders.
It wasn’t a surprise that someone like Everton Stark had arrived to try to seize authority. It was more of a surprise that it had taken so long for civil war to break out.
Scarier still, Stark might have been the first, but he would hardly be the last. The election would destabilize everything if Rylie lost. Once people saw that her control was tenuous—that she could be replaced—other gaeans would surely take the opportunity to jump on the conquering bandwagon. People like Chadwick Hawfinch, who had no morals and high aspirations.
The war wouldn’t be over once Stark took the lead. It would only be the beginning.
The carriage reached the chateau a few moments later. A sidhe with shining golden skin opened the door to their carriage and stepped back.
Rylie slipped gracefully out of the carriage, taking the attendant’s hand for balance. She couldn’t have needed it. Werewolves were preternaturally surefooted. But it looked to be some kind of seelie thing, judging by the way the seelie guy bowed over her hand. Some creepy modern chivalry thing.
Marion took his hand too. Even Secretary Friederling touched the sidhe’s hand, although he declined to hold it for longer than an instant.
Deirdre climbed out on her own.
The seelie kept his hand stretched toward her, looking expectant and a little confused.
“Touch him,” Rylie said. “You have to touch him.”
“I’ve had enough with sidhe magic this week,” Deirdre said. “Thanks.”
“You won’t be able to see anything inside the castle if you don’t touch him. He has to give you partial immunity to their illusion magic.”
“Partial immunity?”
“The Middle Worlds are overwhelming for non-sidhe minds,” Friederling said. “Everything you see here is an illusion constructed to preserve your sanity.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the forest and the ocean.
“Are the village and forest really empty?” Deirdre asked.
The sidhe guard leered at her. “Would you like to find out?”
She took the strap off her holster so she could draw her gun.
“Don’t,” Rylie said sharply. “Both of you need to calm down.”
Easy for her to say. Deirdre forced herself to take her hand off of her sidearm. “I don’t want anyone messing with my head. I’m not touching anyone while I’m here. I like this illusion just fine.”
Rylie gave the attendant an apologetic look. “She doesn’t understand the culture. I’m sorry, Storm.”
“And I’m unsurprised. She’s Stark’s Beta.” Storm dropped his hand and surveyed Deirdre with bald hatred. “Did you know that a Beta can be punished for the crimes of her Alpha among the seelie?”
“You’re welcome to try,” Deirdre said. “Come at me.”
“I’d like to remind you all that we’re here on a treaty,” Friederling said, checking his watch again.
“As if I’d forget,” the sidhe said.
He stepped aside to let them enter the chateau.
Deirdre passed him with her shoulders squared, her head held high, and the uneasy conviction that Stark would have been proud of her for being such a pain in the ass.
The only sound inside the chateau was the echoing of their footsteps, which bounced back at them a dozen times, making it sound as though there were a hundred people padding softly through the grand entryway.
Cobwebs d
angled from darkened chandeliers. The crystal sconces looked like they hadn’t been dusted in years, caked in so much dirt and sand blown in from the beach that they were opaque. The bookshelves were broken, and held books that looked like they had survived a house fire, spines cracked and pages curled. But Marion and Rylie gazed at them in open awe.
“It’s amazing, as always,” Rylie told Storm.
Deirdre took another look around. It didn’t look amazing. Amazingly miserable, maybe.
Friederling noticed her expression, and he smirked, as though laughing internally. “It’s nice to see the court in full bloom, isn’t it?”
“So nice,” Deirdre said, smiling thinly.
The foyer was a long room that led back into an open deck covered by a pergola. Dead ivy draped from the wooden slats, which was worn down by years of salty wind, blown in from a sapphire ocean. Against the vibrant sky, all the colors of the chateau were dull.
An old chair leaned against the stone wall dividing the patio from the ocean. At least, Deirdre thought it was supposed to be a chair. Its back was broken, the seat sagging, termite holes gnawed through the legs.
“The Sapling Throne,” Friederling said to Deirdre. He was enjoying her disconnect far too much.
Rylie giggled and sidestepped nothing, cheeks bright red. “Sorry,” she said to the nothingness that she had dodged.
Marion stepped back a moment later. She was reacting to the same thing that Deirdre couldn’t see.
It was chilling to see her companions interact with invisible people—like being surrounded by ghosts.
Even though she couldn’t see them, Deirdre felt the air stirring around her, as though there were bodies moving nearby. Judging by the speed and rhythm, it felt like they were close to her, as though orbiting her body. Taunting her when she couldn’t see them.
“My liege.” Storm dropped to one knee.
Deirdre braced herself to face a king she couldn’t see, so she was surprised when a man came striding across the patio, stepping in and out of the pergola’s shadow in turns.
He didn’t look like a man who should keep unicorns as pets. He looked more like the kind of man who would have been happy spending his weekends lying on his back underneath a car, getting covered in grease and only pausing to drink from a cold beer. His hair was shaved into a short mohawk. His shoulders were broad, face inexpressive.
But he came to sit on what Friederling had called the Sapling Throne, so he must have been the king.
He looked just as desperately miserable as the rest of the chateau.
“Thanks for seeing us today,” Rylie said.
He grunted. “Who all is this?” He even spoke with a faint East Coast accent. Like a court ruled by a cab driver from Jersey. “Secretary Friederling, I know you. And her?” He was looking at Deirdre.
“She’s Everton Stark’s Beta,” Rylie said. “Donne, meet Deirdre Tombs. Deirdre, meet—”
“Donne, yeah, I caught his name,” Deirdre interrupted. “What kind of name is Donne, though? Are we talking like, ‘I’m done with this’ kind of Donne, or John Donne, ‘God gets me all hot and bothered’ kind of Donne?”
“It’s more like, ‘Speak respectfully to the king of the seelie or you might get beheaded’ Donne,” Secretary Friederling said helpfully. He was standing in the corner by the window, twirling his cane in one hand so that the silver hawk’s head glistened in the light.
“I thought Sancho was Stark’s Beta,” Donne said.
“Sancho died,” Deirdre said. “OPA witches melted him.”
“While he was holding hostages at a benefits office in Pennsylvania, I’d like to add,” Secretary Friederling said without a hint of shame over what his agents had done to Sancho. He was twirling his hawk-headed cane in the light, catching the sun and flashing it over the stone deck.
It didn’t seem to bother Donne, either. “I always told Sancho that his mercenary crap would get him killed. But the mercenary crap was what he was good at. You don’t look like a mercenary.”
“I got the job because I have a habit of shooting people Stark doesn’t like,” Deirdre said.
“You probably got the job because you’re as stubborn as he is, I’m thinking,” Donne said. He could tell that Deirdre hadn’t taken Storm’s mild enchantment that would allow her to see the court. And he didn’t seem impressed. “Fix that, Storm.”
Deirdre backed away when the sidhe advanced on her.
She didn’t move quickly enough.
He grabbed her elbow.
When their bodies connected, a frisson settled over her, as though standing underneath the mist of a waterfall. Her vision blurred. The floor changed.
She staggered, disoriented by the change.
Colors swirled around her—bodies dancing and spinning across the patio, cloth flapping, flesh peeking out from clothing.
The seelie sidhe were indeed all around Deirdre. Hundreds of them.
She tried to step back, but there was nowhere to go. She was surrounded on all sides. She spun to find a wall of sidhe behind her, all glittering in the light like fistfuls of diamonds with leering smiles.
Even Storm had changed. He radiated, his hair flowing, eyes bright.
The chateau itself was covered in ivy and roses. The once-cracked stones were now whole. Wine flowed from fountains along the edges of the deck, dribbling down terraced planters. Naked women and men alike lounged beside those fountains. They sipped from the wine, cupping it in their hands to dipping their heads directly into the flow, laughing and flicking it at each other.
Rivers of magic and music swelled around Deirdre. It was overwhelming—almost too much beauty in one place for her to tolerate.
No wonder Rylie was blushing.
“Now we can talk,” Donne said.
The Sapling Throne was far more glorious with the illusion magic lifted. Its roots sank into the stone underneath it, seamlessly growing from the chateau around it, its back tangling with the vines on the pergola. It curved around the king’s body as though a living thing trying to embrace him.
Donne was still a mohawked man in a black t-shirt who seemed annoyed by the fact he had to show up in court, though.
The revelry was sickening. All these people having so much fun on the beach, dripping in leather, lace, and liquor—and two nights earlier, Deirdre had slept in a gym with a leaky roof and a bunch of homeless shifters.
“When was the last time you spoke to Ofelia? Do you know what’s happening in the Winter Court?” Rylie asked. Nothing had changed for her. Only Deirdre was currently stunned to silence.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Donne said.
“Would you have heard if Ofelia had been deposed?” Rylie asked.
He glanced around at the partiers, then gestured to draw Rylie nearer to him. “What makes you ask?”
Rylie gave Deirdre an expectant look.
Apparently that was her cue to speak.
“Rhiannon and Melchior,” Deirdre said, trying to focus on Donne’s relatively ordinary face and tune out the dancing and laughter. The sidhe weren’t warping reality around them as much as usual, but it was still a powerful temptation. “They attacked Stark the other day. They claim that they’re in charge of the Winter Court.”
“Go on,” Donne said.
“What else is there to say? Rhiannon says she’s queen now. Melchior thinks he’s eligible to replace Rylie as Alpha. The only way that can happen is if they’ve taken over for the last queen.”
A scowl crossed Donne’s square face. Before Deirdre could figure out what that expression was supposed to mean, he stood smoothly, bringing miles of rippling muscle vertical and running a hand over his mohawk. “That can’t be right,” he said. “I’m going to contact Ofelia through the looking glass.”
Donne entered the chateau, leaving them alone with the Sapling Throne. The chair seemed to curl in on itself without his presence, diminishing slightly in the absence of its king.
Deirdre watched him leave with her jaw d
ropped. He walked away, just like that, as though they hadn’t traveled between universes in order to meet him.
XI
The only person who seemed disturbed by Donne’s quick exit was Deirdre. She turned to Rylie and Marion. “Is that it?” she asked. “I drop a couple of names and he’s gone?”
“Possible revolution is worrying. Besides, we can’t negotiate yet anyway,” Rylie said. “There are rituals we have to observe first. Courtesies.”
“Like the one where Storm paws me without my consent so I can see all the naked faeries?”
“A lot like that, yes.” Marion’s whole face was bright red, but she was smiling.
A couple of seelie women peeled away from the pillows against the wall and draped themselves over Secretary Friederling. They were easily differentiated from mortal women by the shine to their hair, the glimmer in their eyes, the crystalline fragmentation of their skin—and the nudity.
Deirdre was comfortable with nudity. As a shifter, she had to be. But there was an innocence to the naked body among shapeshifters. They were nude because they had to be, not because they were angling to get down and dirty. In all her years around naked shifters, Deirdre had never seen them do anything sexual to each other.
That was not the case with the seelie.
The women plastered themselves to Friederling, stroking their shimmering fingers over his sleeves and making cooing sounds.
“The hell are you doing?” Deirdre asked.
Secretary Friederling unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “I may look like an old politician, but even I have something the seelie want.”
“This is the ritual?” Deirdre asked. “Massages?”
“I should have warned you,” Rylie said. Marion started taking video on her cell phone. Rylie plucked it out of her hand. “You know better.”
The seelie women helped Secretary Friederling shed his shirt, fingers moving over his buttons from collar to hem, exposing miles of lean muscle. He looked like the kind of man who ate nothing but chicken breasts and kale for two meals a day and could have run from his office in the District of Columbia all the way to Los Angeles.