Falin shook his head. “I’ve never heard of her.”
“Lunabella Blossommist,” Dugan said, tapping one long finger against his lips, his gaze distant as if digging through very old memories. “Summer court is the court most enamored with having several names, so she was probably born to that court. I would guess that was where your Stiofan originated as well, but as he has since left, it is possible she has moved on as well.”
It was a place to start, at least.
“Summer, huh. Think she smells of honeysuckle?” I asked, pulling my coat tighter around me.
Falin lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. “It seems more plausible than shadow or winter, certainly.”
“So then, how do we go about questioning a courtier from summer?”
“Now that,” Dugan said, giving me a small nod, “is a very good question.”
* * *
• • •
“I’m guessing walking into the summer court and asking to question Lunabella would not go over well?” I said as I stared at the coffeemaker in my office, willing it to brew faster. I was tempted to swap the pot for my coffee mug, but Falin and Dugan were present so it wouldn’t exactly be polite. “What is the normal protocol when you suspect someone from another court of murder? And please don’t say ‘war.’ That would be too big an overreaction for even me to believe.”
One edge of Falin’s lips tilted up at my last sentence, but it was a rueful amusement. It didn’t give me a whole lot of hope. “No, war is not the typical first response,” he said.
“Fae are long-lived and generally avoid anything that could endanger that longevity.” Dugan lifted his hands, his long fingers sliding gracefully through the air as he spoke, accenting his words. “Wars involve casualties. While there are several ancient battlegrounds from wars nearly forgotten in Faerie, the courts haven’t been in a conflict that involved a true war for as long as anyone can remember. War, true war, has been forbidden by the high king. The costs are too great.”
“He’s not wrong,” Falin said. “Even I have seen the ancient battlefields littered with the bodies of the dead.”
Yeah, and that was definitely a downside to no land of the dead. Entire areas of Faerie where the blood and bodies were forever fresh on the soil. And all the souls stuck forever in those sightless, motionless, undecaying shells. I shivered before fixing my gaze on Dugan again. “And yet you state that your reason for being here is to prevent war?”
“The shadows of Faerie have been whispering of war for some time. It is coming. All of Faerie may well be caught in it. I want to make sure my court survives.”
“Are the whispers prophecy?” The stream of coffee slowed, and I snatched the pot before pouring a tall mug for myself and two paper cups for the guys. “Or are they overheard discussions?”
Dugan accepted his cup and shrugged. “A little of both. Most prophecies make their way to our halls. Secrets too.”
“If it’s forbidden, how could it happen? Doesn’t Faerie more or less enforce rules and taboos on its denizens?”
“Yes, but the high king hasn’t been seen or heard from since shortly after the Magical Awakening. Some say he is losing his hold on Faerie, and if that is the case, his laws will no longer bind us.” Dugan lifted his coffee and sniffed the contents of his paper cup. His expression didn’t change, but he didn’t drink any either. “Had shadow’s courtier ended up in any other season, I would not worry so strongly that these deaths might be the tipping point that starts a war, but winter has . . . not been herself recently. Her rule—and ability to rule—might be in question, so she out of all the courts seems the most likely to act unpredictably.”
Dugan said all of this casually, as if discussing the weather or some inconsequential matter, but I noticed that he never looked at Falin as he spoke. For his part, Falin’s icy glare cut at Dugan, but he didn’t correct him or jump to defend his court or queen. I supposed he couldn’t have, as he’d said much the same to me about the queen only a couple hours earlier.
“At the rate at which the whispers of war are buzzing in the shadows, the high king’s law will not hold back war much longer,” Dugan said, still looking only at me. “I do not believe it is a question of ‘if’ it is coming. Only when and where.”
“Well, that is ominous.” And bad. I wasn’t truly part of any court, and I didn’t know how war in Faerie would affect me as an independent, but war anywhere was never good. Innocents would die.
And Falin would most certainly be caught in the middle of any war involving winter. The very idea made things in my stomach twist uncomfortably.
I took a long sip of my coffee. It was almost too hot for comfort, but I barely noticed. “So then back to my first question: How do we question a member of the summer court? There has to be some precedent for this.”
Falin nodded. “We can ask the Summer King’s permission to question his subject. And if that isn’t granted, a duel is the best avenue available.”
I nearly choked on the coffee. “Six months ago, a duel wouldn’t have even entered a conversation as a likely possibility, let alone be described as a ‘best avenue’ for anything.”
“Then you had a charmed childhood,” Dugan said. There was no malice or sarcasm in the words. He meant them.
I’d never thought of my childhood as particularly good. My father claimed that sending me away, disowning me, and the spell he’d locked my true nature away with had all been done to protect me. I’d thought he’d been full of shit and just didn’t want the hassle, but maybe he really was shielding me from the darker sides of Faerie. I tucked that line of thought away for another time and focused on the problem at hand.
“So how would that work? We would duel her for the right to question her as a suspect?”
“No, one of us would have to challenge her for answers. Three, traditionally,” Falin said, and I frowned. “It wouldn’t be ideal, but there are few resources for crossing court lines without the monarch’s permission.”
“We could question her at the solstice celebration that starts tonight,” I suggested.
“If she attends,” Dugan said, setting his untouched coffee on the edge of my desk. “And that’s a big ‘if,’ as she might not if she has committed crimes against winter. If she attends and we question her, even if she confessed to the murder, there would be nothing we could do but wish her to be merry because of the truces enacted around the celebration.”
“And you can bet she would be impossible to reach after the celebration in that case,” Falin added. “Better to pin her down when we are in a position that the queen could demand recompense of the Summer King.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what “recompense” would be when it came to a murdered courtier, but clearly stalling until tonight wasn’t an option. “Wouldn’t she be dead if you dueled?”
Falin shook his head. “Very few duels are to the death. Most are only until third blood or until one party yields. A duel for secrets would probably only be until first blood.”
“So a duel to question a suspect.” I shook my head, scoffing, and then said under my breath, “You better have three damn good questions. Who knew you could duel for answers?”
Dugan frowned at me. “You can duel for anything. Love, land, position, or yes, secrets.”
I blinked at him. “So how do you stop the strongest from taking everything?”
He stared at me, his expression torn between surprise at the question and disbelief that I could be so naive.
Right. Nothing.
Nothing at all prevented the strongest from taking everything from the weak.
That realization must have been written across my face, because Falin inclined his head slightly before saying, “The weak attach themselves to the strong for protection. Even then, for most it is safest to own nothing made of anything more valuable than glamour. And if one does have something of va
lue, to hide it away so that no one else decides it is worth fighting for.”
“That’s barbaric.”
“That is the way it has always been.” Dugan shrugged away the unfairness of it all. “But before we resign ourselves to dueling, we should ask the Summer King for permission to question Lunabella. Luck might favor us.”
Falin glanced at Dugan. “I don’t suppose you can contact the summer court?”
The Shadow Prince frowned and looked around. Not seeing what he sought, he turned to me. “Do you have a mirror?”
“In the bathroom.” I pointed vaguely in the direction of the small restroom attached to the Tongues for the Dead lobby. Dugan turned, heading in the direction I had pointed. I frowned after him. Despite his run-in with the Winter Queen and his brief exposure to the grave wind blowing off the land of the dead, he didn’t have so much as a single dark hair out of place. He certainly didn’t look like he needed to gussy up for his conversation with the Summer King. Then again, he was a prince calling on another monarch. Appearances likely did matter.
He paused when he reached the door to my office and glanced back. “Are you coming?”
“To the bathroom with you? No,” I said, finishing my coffee. I glanced at the cooling cup he’d abandoned on my desk. Dugan hadn’t actually drunk any. It would probably be fine for me to liberate it.
“Not the bathroom. To the mirror.” Dugan emphasized the last word.
Yeah . . . I got the feeling he wasn’t suggesting I fix my hair. Abandoning the coffee, I led everyone to the small bathroom. The tiny room was all but claustrophobic for one long-legged person, whose knees would inevitably hit the sink while sitting on the commode. It definitely wasn’t made for three.
Dugan shot the small space a dubious look from the doorway. “There’s no other mirror?”
“Maybe a hand mirror somewhere.” Rianna likely had one in her spell kit, but I didn’t want to dig through it without permission.
“That would be too small. This is barely large enough as it is.” He indicated the oval-shaped mirror. It was slightly larger than a dinner plate and some of the reflective material had flaked off the back, leaving dark spots. “We will make do.”
He stepped into the small bathroom, and then seemed unsure where to go to make room for the rest of us. Ultimately he stepped over the toilet, squeezing into the far corner beside the mirror. Falin gestured for me to go next, but there wasn’t really anywhere to go. Once Falin joined us, even though he pressed himself against the wall, I had to lean forward with one foot balanced on the toilet seat so that I could see the mirror around him. I could have sat on the back of the commode, but then I would have been brushing up against both men. If I was going to share personal bubbles with anyone, I’d prefer to keep it to just Falin.
Dugan pressed his hand to the mirror, and shadows crawled over the surface, swirling and slithering until nothing of the room was reflected in the darkness coating the glass. Once the mirror was nothing more than inky blackness, Dugan called out, “We seek an audience with the Summer King.”
Nothing happened.
I waited, watching the twisting shadows. Still nothing happened. I glanced at Falin, but he was staring at the mirror. I waited what felt like ten minutes, until my leg was cramping and I was considering sitting on the commode anyway.
“Is something supposed to happen?” I finally asked.
“It is happening,” Dugan said, not lifting his hand from the mirror or glancing away.
We waited a few more minutes and I fidgeted with my coat sleeve. The charm in it had already powered down. It wasn’t completely exhausted, but it would take some time to recharge before I could use it again. I didn’t need it right now anyway. I was very aware of the heat from Falin’s body pressed against my side.
“Are you sure this is working?” I asked, as I tried to figure out if I could switch which leg I had propped up without falling down. Not that I had room to fall.
“While it is almost incomprehensible in the mortal world of cell phones, instant communication isn’t exactly popular in Faerie.” Falin breathed the words into my hair. And I knew that was true enough. In the past when I’d needed to get a message to someone in Faerie, I’d scrawled a letter on a leaf. A mirror did seem slightly better. If it worked.
“Also, he is a king,” Dugan whispered. “Taking his time is his prerogative.”
“And wasting it is a foolish and dangerous endeavor,” a booming voice said from inside the inky darkness covering the mirror.
The glass cleared, but instead of reflecting the three of us crammed in the small bathroom, it filled with what I thought at first was just an image of the sky. Near the bottom of the mirror was a picturesque scene of fae in wildflowers surrounded by several trees lazily blowing in a gentle wind. A faun played a set of pipes near the very edge of the mirror’s view; a woman with green skin and brilliant purple flowers growing in her hair played a harp beside him. A group of women who had bark for skin danced to the music, dragging with them a young man with shaggy dark hair who looked suspiciously human. Near the bottom of the mirror was a man lounging among the flowers. He was shirtless, his skin a tanned gold and his chestnut brown curls glowing with gold and red highlights in the afternoon sunshine. A small crown of twisting green vines was almost lost among the curls. A delicate-looking fae lay with her head in his lap, her eyes closed and peaceful, her shimmering butterfly wings fluttering softly in her slumber. Another fae sat behind him, weaving small forget-me-not flowers into his curls.
“A prince, a knight, and . . .” The king leaned forward, peering hard at me through the glass of the mirror. “What might you be?”
“An investigator,” I said at the same time Dugan said, “The planeweaver.”
I tried to hide a cringe, but the king’s chestnut eyebrow rose. He waved off the fae decorating his hair and leaned even closer to the mirror, filling most of it so that we could only see slips of a cloudless sky around him.
“Now, that does make this call more interesting.” His gaze swept around the small room. “Where are you calling me from? That is surely neither the shadow nor winter court.”
“We are in a less-than-ideal spot in the mortal realm,” Dugan said.
“And your monarchs know you are contacting me?”
I didn’t shoot a nervous glance at Falin, but it was a near thing.
Dugan, however, didn’t miss a beat. “We are acting within the instructions we were given.”
And that was why getting an honest answer out of fae was damn difficult. Not being able to lie didn’t mean the truth you got out of them wouldn’t imply a lie. Dugan was instructed to stop a war by the Shadow King, and we were charged with finding Stiofan’s killer by the Winter Queen, so we were, in fact, following the tasks we’d been given. But neither monarch had sanctioned—or even knew we were—contacting the summer court. And I was pretty sure the Winter Queen wouldn’t approve.
“I see,” the Summer King said, measuring Dugan’s words.
The image in the mirror rippled. Then the image swirled, breaking apart into a mesh of colors with no distinction. I glanced at Falin, afraid we’d offended the king before we’d even gotten a chance to ask about Lunabella.
Falin held up a hand, silencing the questions on the tip of my tongue. He gestured toward the mirror. The shapes were becoming more distinct again, the most obvious of which was a very feminine, and very naked, ass and pair of legs. The woman’s skin was silvery and covered in scales. She took a step forward, and a water droplet fell from her ankle. The image in the mirror rippled.
“Are we talking to the king from inside a pool?” I asked.
“A pond, more likely,” Falin answered in a low whisper.
Dugan shrugged. “Anything reflective works for this spell.”
The scaled woman, who must have been a water fae of some sort, set a bowl down in front o
f the Summer King. He smiled at her and nodded slightly, acknowledging her action. It surprised me. He seemed warm, even kind, interacting with his fae. It was no huge gesture, but I couldn’t imagine the Winter Queen doing the same.
The king waited until the scaled fae had vanished from our view before turning back to us. The pleasantness he’d shown his own fae hardened as he studied us again. It wasn’t that he looked particularly unfriendly, but certainly less jovial, less open.
“Winter is no friend of summer. I do not take it as a great thing to be called upon by her bloody hands. But, last I had heard, shadow was no friend of winter either. So what brings these two very different men together?” The king looked at me as he spoke.
I opened my mouth to say it wasn’t me, but that wasn’t completely true. Finally I said, “A request.”
“Really? And what might that be?”
“We are—” Falin began, but the king cut him off.
“I do not wish to speak to you, Knight.” He turned to Dugan before the other man could speak. “Or you, Prince. You are both insignificant and uninteresting.” He fixed me with his brilliant green eyes and flashed me a dazzling smile. “Planeweaver, you interest me. You may speak.”
A muscle in Dugan’s jaw bunched, but he said nothing. Falin turned toward me, fixing me with a look that spoke volumes of caution. I didn’t need the warning. The Summer King might seem warmer than the Winter Queen, but he was still a king of a Faerie court, and he couldn’t hold that position without being both cunning and ruthless.
“We are looking to speak to a fae named Lunabella, who we believe is a member of your court,” I said, making sure my phrasing was neither a question nor a request.
“And for what purpose would you like to speak to her?” the king asked.
I shot an imploring glance at Falin, wishing we’d discussed what needed to be said before we started this damn call.
“Don’t look at him, look at me,” the king said, leaning in closer.
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