Master of One

by Jaida Jones

  “Ah.” The stranger getting a tongue bath from One had a country lilt to his voice. “I think I know which of you is the fae prince and which of you is the little one who steals things.”

  Rags whirled around at that. “Fae prince?”

  “It’s the prince part that surprises you?” the country stranger asked. “Not the fae part?”

  “We have much to discuss,” Shining Talon said. Rags could still feel the warmth and the weight of his hand, could easily believe that this fae was a royal member of the long-lost Bone Court, could have laughed at the ridiculousness that someone like that would want to look after someone like him. What Rags couldn’t do was form any words with his mouth. Or close it. It hung open, gawping. Fae prince? “But not here. Let us return to our quarters, where we will have more privacy.”

  28

  Rags

  They got back into their room the way they’d left it, climbing the wall and in through the window, only this time Shining Talon led them. One was busy nuzzling her new friend’s throat, sticking close to his side and giving Rags the side-eye whenever he got too close, or snorted in confusion, or waved his hands at no one to release his overwhelming feelings of fuck you, fuck him, and fuck me most.

  No need to convince their new friend to come with them. He went where One did.

  No one came out into the streets or caught sight of them. Morien had concealed them well. Rags didn’t care.

  Catch them, don’t catch them, what did it matter?

  Shining Talon was a fae prince.

  That made perfect sense, except in all the ways it made no sense whatsoever.

  In the room, One’s new friend asked, “Something happen here?” He nodded at the stew splattered on the floor, the spoon in the corner. In reply, One hissed, a sound that was suspiciously close to a mocking chuckle. “Oh. I see.”

  “See what?” Rags fixed the stranger and One with a glare, hoping to be accusatory, landing on puffy and indignant. “Is that— Are you— Can One talk?”

  The stranger shrugged and refused to meet Rags’s eyes.

  Rags shifted his focus to Shining Talon. “A prince?” Shining Talon nodded. “And you call me ‘my lord’? Ha!”

  The chaos, the indignation, flooded out of Rags in a single gust. He slumped onto the bed, leaned back against the wall, hit his head a couple of times half-heartedly. Wished this whole trip was something he could knock out of his skull.

  No luck.

  He was still in the room in the public house, Shining Talon the fae prince still staring at him with a mixture of regret and adoration, One the silver lizard still cozying up to the stranger’s nearest hand like a dog reunited with its beloved master.

  “It is the proper form of address,” Shining Talon explained, “for the one who woke me.”

  The sincerity in his tone left Rags chilled.

  “Okay, and who are you?” Rags asked the stranger at last, the fight sapped from his blood. A closer study of him revealed posture too good for your average farmhand, brown skin, dark hair lustered nearly auburn from the sun and grown long with neglect, a faint hint of stubble on his chin, and a light scar curving over his eyebrow. Stern gray eyes, a hardened mouth, an air of wariness—and weariness—that seemed more city than country. Calluses on his palms from years of swinging a sword, Rags guessed. He held himself as though the sword he’d once carried was gone from him like a missing limb. His gray shirt was speckled with dirt. “Who are you?” Rags asked again, more pointed this time, narrowing his eyes as he leaned forward.

  Might have milked an answer out of the guy if the door hadn’t opened, bringing icy air with it.

  Rags’s shudder let him know who was there without having to look.

  “Hello,” Morien said. “Are we having a party?”

  One snarled. The stranger dropped back into a defensive fighting pose that reminded Rags of every Queensguard he’d ever met, the formal style taught on the Hill.

  Give me one reason, One’s three eyes seemed to challenge Morien, because I’ve been waiting to tear your throat out.

  Shining Talon stepped between them. “One,” he said firmly, looking at Rags.

  Rags didn’t think that One was as vehement about keeping Rags alive as Shining Talon was, but after a tense moment, she backed down. Rags grinned shakily, didn’t feel it reach his eyes. “Did you not get your invitation?” he asked the sorcerer, voice cockier than he felt.

  “This is One’s master,” Shining Talon said. If feeding information to a Lying One pained him, he didn’t let it show on his exquisitely blank face. A fae fucking prince, so devoted to Rags’s scrap of a life that he’d surrendered to a sorcerer without a hint of resistance. It made Rags furious for reasons he didn’t want to explore, hurt his chest in a different way from the shard of mirrorglass buried in his heart.

  “Then you are welcome, One’s master.” Morien didn’t bow, didn’t sound welcoming. An invisible wind stirred the scarves around his face and throat. Morien was doing something magical. “It is my understanding that there is no way to determine when another master might be chosen—might be found. Therefore you must believe I will not harm you. You are invaluable to my interests, which are the interests of the Queen.”

  “And if your interests mean nothing to me?” One’s master asked.

  Then I die horribly and painfully, Rags thought.

  “I insist,” Shining Talon said, “that we respect one another’s interests.”

  One’s master met Shining Talon’s eyes and held them. His focus flickered after that, his expression distant. He was listening to something no one else could hear.

  Yeah, One was definitely talking to him.

  The gaze he leveled at Rags next was scathing—pitying. Rags rolled his eyes and looked away.

  “‘Respect one another’s interests,’” One’s master repeated. “What would those be?”

  “A full pardon for you, Cabhan of Kerry’s-End,” Morien replied. “A rare gift for a deserter from the Queensguard, wouldn’t you agree?”

  A deserter? Queensguard were famous for having no fear—nor any other emotion.

  This one had run away. Intriguing.

  Rags didn’t miss the flash of anger in Cabhan’s eyes over his introduction. Definitely not emotionless.

  “And in return?” Cabhan asked.

  Not a total idiot, either.

  Morien took a look around the room. “I think it is time for you to meet my employer, before this situation grows out of hand.”

  29

  Cab

  Cab’s past had caught up with him.

  Fine. He told himself he’d always known it would. Told himself he’d been waiting for it. Told himself it was a relief to see it done. He’d never have to look over his shoulder again, or trail the next stranger who came to town, unseen, until he was certain they hadn’t been sent to take him.

  Told himself he was lucky he’d stayed away, hidden from the Hill, for a full year.

  He didn’t believe any of it. Not even with how practiced he’d become at lying to himself.

  His greatest fear to this point had come to a head after haunting his footsteps and corroding his soul, but it wasn’t the most important thing in his life anymore. Even if he hated every second of this, he could bear it.

  Cab stole a glance at One and nodded to let her know it was all right.

  She needed to let Morien handcuff him without trying to snap the sorcerer’s head off.

  As satisfying as it might have been to watch her try—to watch her succeed—he didn’t want to be the catalyst for the wholesale slaughter that would follow.

  Kerry’s-End folk still carried salt and iron in their pockets while walking at night, though no one had seen fae in hundreds of years. Superstition ran deeper than tradition, was their tradition.

  Unlike them, Cab wasn’t afraid. After One, even shocked seemed too strong a term.

  The Queen has more secrets than you know, he thought.

  And the fae prince
had a vested interest in keeping some fool of a thief alive. While Cab didn’t know why, he did know—from the set of Shining Talon’s jaw—that the fae was committed.

  Since the thief had been bound by a sorcerer, the same sorcerer who was clapping Cab in irons . . .

  There’d be no escaping the situation without making an ugly mess.

  Cab wasn’t confident he’d be of any use if One made a move and Shining Talon was forced to protect his interests.

  Innocent blood would be spilled, and Cab was done with that.

  Back when he was in service to the Queen, he’d fled before having his heart sharded by the mirrorcraft he’d come to suspect, nearly too late, made every member of the Queensguard an unquestioning, murdering slave. Escape hadn’t been enough to make him feel like a free man.

  I do not like to see you this way, One told Cab.

  I don’t like to be this way. But we have to be smarter than the sorcerer.

  Oh, if that’s all. One’s lips twisted in what Cab recognized as her smug smile. I think we can manage that.

  Creeping dread didn’t consume Cab as he was led downstairs, noting the lack of an audience for his procession out of the public house and out of town. He was empty of emotion, just as the public house was empty of patrons. He should have been afraid of what was to come, desperately bargaining for control of his fate. But he didn’t feel anything. Except for resignation, and a soft glow beneath: the knowledge that One existed in this world, and they’d managed to find each other. A piece of himself he’d never known was missing.

  Compared to that revelation, his newfound captivity seemed a small burden. There was an inevitability to it, like he’d have wound up on this path no matter which turns he took.

  He didn’t examine the Queensguard’s faces too closely, hunched his shoulders, and hid his expression behind his too-long hair. He let a Queensguard strong-arm him onto the front of a nervous mount, then gave One the look again that meant she needed to stand down.

  You’re accustomed to giving orders, she said.

  I was a rising star on the Hill. No use for Cab to hide anything from her. In fact, he had the suspicion that she already knew everything, and he was surprised only by how much of a relief it was to share his experiences with someone, anyone else. Until the raid on House Ever-Loyal. After that, I ran.

  Smart boy, One replied.

  30

  Rags

  Four days of riding, two of those in sheeting rain. Morien had cast a spell to shroud them in fog that not only protected them from view but also kept the group uncertain of the scenery around them. Rags felt as though he hadn’t yet returned to his own world from the fae ruins.

  When the fog cleared, Rags found that instead of arriving at the city, they were on the grounds of a fancy country house, where Morien had them stay on the border of the grounds until nightfall.

  Rags sneezed for the fifth time that hour and wiped his nose savagely with the back of his still-damp sleeve.

  If Shining Talon said anything about the human body, disease, and the simplest of weather conditions, Rags was going to . . .

  Going to what? Sneeze in his eye?

  Bitter helplessness flooded his belly. He glowered at the country house, waiting for them across a well-manicured lawn, entertaining himself by picking out all the ways he’d sneak in if this were a normal job. Where a window might be cracked open or a cellar door might be unlocked. He settled on climbing up a cypress tree to the second floor and in through a window left temptingly ajar.

  Once he’d finished that, he listed off the shit he could have stolen from a fancy place like this one, full to the brim, if Rags knew the type, of pointless, expensive tripe nobody needed. Porcelain piss-pot, because Ever-Nobles wanted only the finest receptacle for their shit. Fancy candlesnuffers with gold-inlaid handles. Diamond candelabras. Pokers carved to look like wild animals of the hunt. Maybe a collection of polished spoons to spook Shining Talon with.

  Rags grinned.

  “It is good to see you smile,” Shining Talon murmured.

  Rags stopped grinning immediately.

  The twin moons had risen to a point directly overhead, flooding the grounds with gray-white light. They were nearly round, what some called full, on account of how a double moon could look like an Ever-Lady’s heavy silver bosom hanging in the sky.

  He’d already stopped smiling, but now Rags was filled with new depths of irritation. They couldn’t cross to the house in the bright open, not after waiting through dank twilight for the sun to set. Night on this heath was cold and cruel as a gutterwench’s tongue. And who knew when a proper cloud cover would sweep in and end their—

  An unnaturally quick grumbling of clouds appeared over the moons as Rags started thinking about them—Right, we’ve got a sorcerer with us, doing sorcerer shit. On Morien’s command, they made their way to the house in darkness so black, Rags couldn’t see his hands when he raised them in front of his face.

  However, the horses knew where to go. When the darkness finally broke with the sound of a slamming door, Rags found himself inside a stable with the others, Shining Talon standing too close for comfort.

  “I could barely see you in the aberrant dark.”

  “I’m fine,” Rags muttered. “I don’t disappear when the lights go out.”

  “You are no Lying One,” Shining Talon agreed. “But a thief may vanish when it suits him.”

  “Nothing about this suits me,” Rags growled. Then, because he got the sense that Shining Talon wouldn’t leave him alone unless he offered more, he added more affably, “I’m not going anywhere.”

  It was true. Not merely because he didn’t know where the fuck they were and didn’t relish wandering through open dales and rambling fields alone, unsheltered, and on foot, but because he was necessary the same way their new pal Cabhan was necessary. Another silver animal waited for Rags, according to Shining Talon’s account, and if Shining Talon had lied about that, Rags would be the one to pay the price.

  He wondered what his piece would look like. Were they all lizards?

  He was getting ahead of himself.

  One and Cabhan made a perfect pair. She’d reacted so strongly to Cab that it was hard to ignore the silence of Rags’s lump. Logic would naturally conclude that the thing wasn’t meant for him after all. A mistake had been made. Rags was stuck with it only until they found the right poor bastard to be its proper master.

  Why couldn’t you have been a diamond? he thought in the direction of the lump in his pocket. A really big, expensive one?

  Anyway, Morien hadn’t killed the ex-Queensguard for defecting—a crime punishable by slow, public, excruciating death. He wouldn’t kill Rags for the same reason. Morien needed them alive to form the Great Paragon.

  Rags was tired and shivery and about to sneeze again. He didn’t expect to get the rest he needed tonight, and Morien confirmed his suspicions when he dismissed only the Queensguard.

  Morien didn’t instruct them to follow. He turned and exited through a different door than the one the Queensguard had taken, leaving Rags and the rest to trundle after him.

  31

  Cab

  Cabhan knew where they were when he saw the crest above the stable door. The book and the pen meant this place belonged to House Ever-Learning.

  The architecture of the place was much like that of House Ever-Loyal. Cab couldn’t help but remember his last sight of those halls, also in the dead of night.

  A piercing scream that lanced through him with equal parts horror and determination. The distant shatter of glass. The crunch of smashed bone—

  What an ugly home. One’s voice sliced through the memory, dispersed its fragments like a cloud of dust. Has too many doors. Its walls are too narrow. And it’s far too high above the ground for decent company.

  Thanks, One.

  One sniffed, said nothing more.

  Cab’s shoulders ached from riding cuffed. He was wet and tired, but his mind was just beginning to stir it
self from restless slumber. Waking from the stupor he’d induced deliberately at Kerry’s-End, choosing not to think or feel.

  Ever-Learning had lost its Head of House some years back when Judge Ever-Learning died of fever, followed only days later by his wife. Their young son had risen to take the reins of the House and had done well, a savvy political player by the young age of twelve. Owned one home in the city and another in the countryside, if Cab remembered right.

  With a rush of relief, he realized they weren’t going to be presented at court. This place reeked of the artifice of simplicity, an Ever-Noble simulacrum of humble country life.

  They’d dismounted and entered through another door, another Ever-Learning crest above the lintel. Too small to open onto a great room. More like a private study.

  Much of his training for the Queensguard had been learning about the Silver Court. The Houses, their crests, their hobbies. Cab had been a dutiful and dedicated pupil.

  Lots of recruits were like him. Village folk, with no ties to the nobility. Being forced to learn everything about the Ever-Nobles made devotees of soldiers. You fought harder to protect what you knew. Simple.

  The door opened onto cases of books, a low desk, and two wirey-furred wolfhounds. The Ever-Learning family dogs were a lean-faced hunting breed. Cab had seen Lord Faolan walking his more than once when they were pups.

  They’d grown.

  Dogs. How bothersome, One said. They’re always barking about something.

  True. After they got over their initial shock, the hounds began to growl, then broke into defensive woofs. One’s forked tongue darted out. Tensions might have exploded if Lord Faolan hadn’t risen from his seat behind the desk and issued a single command: “Sit.”

  The barking stopped. The dogs stepped backward to flank their master, then dropped into twin wary crouches.