“That’s interesting,” I murmured.
“They have become quite close,” Micah replied. Before I could answer, Oriana extended her hand to Sadie.
“Come to me, Sadie,” Oriana commanded. “Pledge to me your loyalty, and all will be forgiven.”
I positioned myself in Micah’s arms so I was facing the dais. It looked like we would finally have all this pledging nonsense sorted out, and before dinner at that. Sadie, however, made no move to approach the queen. Instead, she remained rooted in place.
“’S’okay,” Max said. “It’ll be over in a flash.”
“No.”
“I’ll go with you,” Max urged, reaching for her hand.
“I said no.”
Every set of eyes in the hall, from the Gold Queen’s to the servants’, stared at my sister. Sadie had never refused to do anything in her entire life—from eating Brussels sprouts as a kid to taking a ridiculously overloaded teaching assistant’s position at school—all because she couldn’t bear to hurt someone else’s feelings. Yet here she was, refusing to pledge to the Gold Queen. What a great time to grow a backbone. After enduring our stares for a good solid minute, she explained herself.
“Why should I pledge my loyalty to this…this fool?” Sadie demanded. “I mean, I’m the one with the power. I’m the Inheritor of Metal, and she’s a basket case. Why are any of us following her?”
Micah released me from his arms, but I held on to his hand. I needed an anchor in this maelstrom of ridiculosity. “Sister, she is our queen,” he cautioned.
“Why?” Sadie demanded, rounding on Micah. “She’s a nut job! Why aren’t you king?”
Micah’s eyes went wide. “Silver is second to gold,” he began, but Sadie wasn’t buying it.
“Yeah, well, maybe those rankings should be reevaluated,” Sadie muttered. “Mom’s a queen, so why aren’t we following her?” She fell silent for a moment while Oriana’s outraged face got redder and redder. “No,” Sadie continued. “My loyalty is special, and I won’t be pledging it to anyone like her.”
With that, Sadie turned on her heel and stalked out of the Golden Court. Oriana just stood before her throne, spluttering and wringing her hands while Ayla covered her breast and drew her to her throne. Micah murmured an apology to the closest attendant, and we took the opportunity to follow Sadie.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said once we’d caught up to Sadie. She was waiting for us near the metal pathways, her face having taken on a sickly green cast.
“Me neither,” she replied. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”
“You’ll be fine,” Max said. “Everything you said was true. Oriana’s nuttier than a fruitcake.”
Mom murmured her agreement, and we turned to hop onto the metal pathway. I stole a look at Micah—his brows were furrowed, his mouth a slash across his face.
“Hey,” I said, looping his arm around my shoulders. “Talk to me.”
He blew out a long breath, then hugged me against him. “I…I just hope that this incident does not return to haunt us.”
We stood together for another moment, then we mounted the pathway and followed the others back to the manor. I sure hoped there were no far-reaching ramifications of Sadie’s refusal, but I knew we wouldn’t get off that easy.
10
The five of us followed the metal pathway, and we were home in the blink of an eye. Mom was off like a shot, seeking out Dad for their picnic at the brugh the silverkin had created in the back orchard. After I explained to Micah, Max, and Sadie why they should avoid the orchard for the rest of the day, and watched Sadie turn a most impressive shade of red, my siblings wandered inside the manor, intent on finding snacks. Micah and I followed them inside, but instead of trailing them to the kitchen I let Micah trap me in a corner.
“I missed you,” Micah murmured, nuzzling my neck. “Tell me where my wife was while I was being so rudely hauled off.”
“What, was the tea weak?” He nipped my earlobe at that, and I debated if I should continue teasing him. In the end, I decided to behave. “I went to the Mundane realm with Dad and Max.”
Micah pulled away, suddenly serious. “Weren’t you there just yesterday?”
“Yeah, but Dad’s got that plot he’s hatching against the government. He wanted us to walk around Capitol City and show the others that he’s returned.” Micah was silent, his eyes narrowed, and I became painfully aware of the fact that I’d gone behind his back. “Micah, don’t look at me like that. You wouldn’t have let me go, and I needed to. This isn’t just my father’s fight and it’s not all about him—this is important to me, too. The Mundane realm, the people in it, they deserve better.”
“You deserve better,” Micah muttered. “You don’t deserve to be in the middle of a war, and you don’t deserve to go in unprepared.” He sighed. “I fear your father’s motives. Vengeance can be blinding—it can lead to rash decisions, and I don’t want you—”
“—to get hurt,” I finished, still as stone, his hands heavy on my shoulders. “You don’t want me to get hurt, Micah, I get it. But this is my dad. He has a right to be angry. Gods, I do, too. You can say what you want about vengeance, but what this all comes down to is you don’t trust my father.”
I had been thinking it, but hearing myself say it made the words hurt more. Micah flinched, his lips tightening into a thin line. “I don’t,” he said finally. “You are right. I do not trust your father. He is being too secretive, with Maeve, with you and Max—”
“He’s my dad, and he would never put us in needless danger,” I interrupted, standing away from the corner—Micah stepped back, lifting his hands as I shrugged them off. “I trust him. That should be enough for you.”
“It’s not,” Micah said, so quickly and with such certainty that the words stung. His brow crinkled and he tried to backpedal. “I do not mean to say your trust is meaningless to me—”
“Oh? Well, that’s what it seems like,” I snapped. “News flash, I’m not standing by while the Peacekeepers have their way with the Mundane world, whether or not my dad’s involved. And the fact that he is should be a comfort to you, not a reason for you to hold me back.” I thought about Dad’s questioning me about Micah, how concerned he’d been, his comments about Jerome. “My dad cares about me, okay? He’s trying his best to get along with you. I guess he just had it in his head that I’d end up with some…Mundane guy.”
I didn’t want to bring Jerome up—I knew Micah would be upset. But my husband could read me like an open book. He quirked an eyebrow. “Any ‘Mundane guy’ in particular?” he growled.
I couldn’t lie to him. “Jerome Polonsky? That Peacekeeper? We ran into him. Turns out he’s on our side.”
Micah paused, thinking. “That is the man who called me your ‘boy friend’?”
“Yeah. Him,” I confirmed. Micah drew back, his brows furrowed even deeper.
“You seem to find him often,” he said, his voice low and even. “Nearly every time you journey to the Mundane realm, you come across him.”
“Not on purpose,” I said, ignoring his clipped tone. “I think he patrols the Promenade and the surrounding districts. Anyway, Dad said he’s one of the good guys. He spies on the government for Elementals. Dad told me he’d sent him to watch over me.” Micah’s face was blank, eyes unblinking. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“A ‘good thing’ is that my wife has rescued me from captivity,” he replied, still terse. “But then, she tells me she went on a potentially dangerous mission behind my back, and in the meantime meets with another man, one her father prefers for her, and these are all not particularly ‘good things.’”
“Micah.” I took his hands and pulled him against me. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh?” He resisted, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest. “Tell me what it is like.”
“This isn’t about Jerome. I couldn’t care less about him,” I insisted. Micah cocked a silver eyebrow, and I pushed on. “It’s
about my dad. He cares about me and about the Mundane realm. He’s not making me do this. I want to. I trust him, and that’s that.”
“Why?” Micah thundered. “How do you know he isn’t lying? About this other man, about why he returned to you now and not before, about everything?”
My mouth fell open—I had to clench my hands into fists to keep them from trembling. I knew Micah had little faith in my father’s plans, but to accuse him of lying to his own family? The family that spent sixteen years searching for any trace of him? No. I couldn’t take any more, at least not right then.
“Leave,” I demanded. “If that’s how little you think of my dad, and of me, then leave me alone. Now.”
Micah’s eyes widened, his body frozen, shocked. “Sara,” he managed, “we shouldn’t—”
“Leave me alone!”
He turned to go, but stopped in the doorway and spoke without looking at me. “Sara, we need to talk about this. Not argue, talk. I need to tell the Silverkin of Sadie’s decision so we can properly prepare for whatever Oriana may send our way, but we cannot ignore this. We will talk later.”
I said nothing, and after a moment of waiting, he left to tell the servants we were harboring a traitor.
Speaking of traitors, I came across my dear sister in the main parlor, huddled on the couch under a blanket. “Where’s Micah?” she demanded before I could ask why she was hiding out in her own private blanket fort.
I sighed. It was better if she didn’t know we’d fought. “He went to tell the silverkin all about your lack of pledging,” I replied. “Keeping the little guys in the loop and all.”
“Why do they need to know?” Sadie asked.
“In case any more gold warriors come by, I guess.” I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but Micah was probably setting guards at key points around the Whispering Dell. From the look of terror on Sadie’s face, I gathered she, too, was thinking about what Micah was guarding us against.
“Sara, I was stupid,” she whispered. “I was mad, and she’s such a basket case and all that blood is so gross, but I should have sucked it up and pledged.”
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to soothe her. “Let Micah handle it. He knows about these things.”
“What if she attacks? What if Micah—or you, or Dad, or Mom, or Max—is arrested because of me?” Her head drooped forward. “Some Inheritor.”
I reached over, and patted her shoulder. “At least you stood up to her. Someone needed to.” Really, it amazed me that no one else in the Otherworld had any issues with that lunatic running things. If Oriana got much crazier, she would qualify as a Mundane politician.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to stand up to royalty,” Sadie pointed out.
“Don’t worry—Micah knows what he’s doing.” At least when it comes to this. I patted Sadie’s hand and asked a silverkin to bring her some cocoa. “Cocoa makes everything better, you know,” I said when Sadie grumbled that I was treating her like a baby. I decided not to mention she was acting like one.
Once Sadie was sipping her cocoa, I sneaked out to the orchards, careful to avoid Mom’s picnic in progress. I loved having all the fresh fruit I could eat just a few feet away, especially after years of enduring the Peacekeepers’ tasteless nutritional regimens. While I was selecting a few plums, I heard a string of curses fit to make a sailor blush. The source of the cursing turned out to be my mother, stalking toward the manor.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date?” I asked. She halted and treated me to one of the most violent glares I’d ever experienced. After almost a full minute of this, I added, “Are you going to talk or just try to kill me with your eyes?”
At that, Mom visibly deflated, her fury transforming into something closer to heartbreak. “Too bad I’m the only one who thought it was a date.” She sank to the ground, holding her head in her hands.
“What happened?” I asked, crouching down beside her.
“Your father had a sandwich, then he went for a walk,” she replied.
“There had to be more than that,” I said.
“There was not. I even pointed out that I’d recreated the brugh. He looked at me like I was a fool to do such a thing.” Mom raised her head, now staring at the sky. “I suppose I am. All these years, I waited for my Beau to return. But he wasn’t waiting for me.”
“Hey.” I put my arms around Mom. “Did you ask him how he feels?”
“I asked him if he bloody well regretted taking a wife,” she replied.
“And?”
“And he said that he loves me still, and to just give him a bit of time.” Mom sighed and drew back to wipe her eyes. “Time. All we’ve had is time.”
“But he said that he still loves you,” I pointed out.
“That he did,” Mom said, then she fixed me with a motherly gaze. “Sara, don’t worry about me and your father—it’ll all work out. Go be with the man who loves you.”
Right. He was the last person I wanted to speak with at the moment, but my mom didn’t need to know that. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked.
“Yes.” Mom smiled, and that was all the encouragement I needed. I scooped up my plums and headed inside, being careful to avoid both Sadie and Max along the way. I did not want to get wrapped up in any of their drama. Not tonight, anyway. I needed to clear my head.
When I reached Micah’s and my chambers, I found them empty, as I’d expected. He’d said that he needed to speak with the silverkin, and I figured that would take some time. I drew a hot bath, snacked on the plums I’d gathered, and tried to relax as much as possible before Micah came up for his “talk.”
By the time I hauled myself out of the tub, my flesh having gone pinky-red thanks to the super-hot water, I felt surprisingly calm. We’d both been angry, and we’d both said a lot we didn’t mean—we could talk through this. But when I stepped into our bedroom, prepared to set everything right, Micah still wasn’t there. I debated searching the manor for him, but I was warm and feeling positively boneless thanks to the bath. My exhaustion overwhelmed me. In a gesture of peace, I put on Micah’s favorite lavender nightie and snuggled into our bed. I knew he’d be beside me soon, and we’d figure everything out then.
When I awoke the next morning, I was still alone. Now I was officially freaking out—Micah was not one to break engagements, least of all with me. Before I could summon the silverkin and commence a countywide search, Micah himself stumbled through the bedroom door.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
“Dealing with the ramifications of your sister’s refusal to pledge to Oriana,” he rasped. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his voice was rough as if he’d been arguing for hours.
“Did you go back to the Gold Court?” I asked.
“I had to,” he replied. “My choices were limited—either return to the Gold Court and speak with Oriana directly, or have her warriors descend upon the manor.”
“Why didn’t you take me with you?” I didn’t want to be upset with him, but I couldn’t help it. I mean, I was Micah’s wife now. Wife, not some stupid consort! This was my business as much as his. Would he ever see me as his equal?
“I wanted you to stand beside me,” he replied. “Believe me, I did. I came to this room, intent upon telling you to make ready to meet with the queen, but when I saw you asleep in our bed, so peaceful, nothing in this world could have made me disturb you.” Micah paused to yawn, then added, “You are beautiful when you sleep, Sara.”
What girl could argue with that? I held out my arms, and Micah tumbled into my embrace. “Was it that bad?” I asked as I brushed back his hair and kissed his forehead.
“Yes.” He coughed, and rubbed his throat. I called for Shep and asked him to bring Micah some tea with honey.
“So, are we in trouble?” I asked, while the silverkin scurried off.
“Somewhat.” Micah rubbed his temples for a moment before he continued. “A fair few agree with your sister and consider Oriana unf
it to rule. Those of copper would like to see Sadie on the throne.”
“You saw them?” I gasped. We’d suspected Oriana had forbidden others of copper from contacting us, though they still had managed to send gifts. In fact, our atrium was overflowing with them.
“A few. They are Sadie’s staunchest allies.” My heart swelled at that, but what Micah said next pretty much quashed it. “Then there are the rest.”
“The rest?” I repeated.
“Before Elementals were ruled by factions, there was a royal family,” Micah began. “Their lineage was recorded on a single charmed document, but it has been stolen. Apparently, it was stolen by those of copper.”
“Why would someone steal it?” I wondered.
“Those of copper claim that they stole the scroll because it substantiates Sadie’s right to rule,” Micah continued. “Those opposed to copper claim that copper stole it because it refutes her, and they wish to hide the fact. Until the scroll is located, no one will know.” Great. The only thing everyone agreed upon was that those of copper were a bunch of thieves.
“They’re hanging all of this on a dusty old scroll?” I asked. “I mean, anyone can write up a scroll, put Sadie’s name on it, and charm it. Seems like something that Oriana’s opposition would try, too.” Shep chose that moment to reappear beside us and deliver the tea to Micah.
“Thank you,” Micah said as he sat up, accepting the teacup from the silverkin. Shep bowed and scuttled off to disinfect something. “Let me have my tea, and I will tell you more.”
I watched Micah sip the hot beverage, all the while practically jumping out of my skin. Were we going to have to go into hiding? Again? Was there anywhere left to go? Then Micah set his teacup on the side table and took a look at what I was wearing.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, caressing the lavender satin that covered my hip. “You remembered.”
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