by Sarah Hoyt
Instead, he found himself looking at familiar features, familiar dark, curly hair, familiar green eyes. He looked wholly human, though he was wearing clothes a little better than those expected of a servant.
“Gabriel,” he said. And then, “Is it really you? How is it possible?”
“It is really I,” he said, and there were almost no magical echoes in his voice. “Not for long. A few hours. Now and then. But once you learn to control it… I can be myself. On Earth, I can be myself. Now and then. For a few hours. If you would—”
A long time later, Marlon said, “You’re not going to do something foolish and pretend to age along with me, are you? Because it won’t fadge, my dear. I’d know. And it would be worse than—”
“You won’t age very fast,” Gabriel said. “You have too much fey blood for that.”
“No. But I will age faster than the eternal king of Fairyland.”
Gabriel sighed. “Yes. And no, I won’t pretend.”
Marlon squeezed his hand. It felt warm and alive and human, and a little calloused, as it had been. “Good,” he said. “Good.”
For Love
She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t endure it. One more official portrait with Louis Hess, the Prince of Lombardy, and she was going to go completely insane.
Nell could take the lessons in magic, the lessons in managing a kingdom, even the lessons in deportment and attire, but she could not endure pretending to be in love with someone while her heart was breaking for Seraphim. Not that there was anything wrong with Louis. At least, not that she knew.
“I wasn’t in love with your papa when we married,” her mother told her, while they looked over the wedding clothes, one more time, on the eve of the wedding.
Nell sighed. Her mom looked up at her, and Nell had the impression there was laughter behind her eyes, though she looked grave. “But I wasn’t in love with anyone else, either. And I’ve seen the way you look at Darkwater.”
Nell made a dismissive gesture.
“The thing,” her mother said. “Your marriage to the prince of Lombardy was decided before you disappeared and your father couldn’t stop it or go back on his word.”
“I know, Mother. We’ve been over this.”
“Yes, well.” Her mother smiled. She went to a corner and came back with a valise. “Look, your father can’t break the contract, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be broken. And once it’s broken, it can’t be put back together. We’ve made arrangements….” The smile turned into a grin. “We’ve not waited and prayed to get our daughter back all these years to see her made unhappy. Go, Nell, seek your happiness. We will be ready to pardon when all is done.”
In The Night
“Milord, there is a gentleman wishing to speak to you,” the footman told Seraphim, who looked up from the ledger he’d been frowning at, without seeing it, for hours. The room was too quiet. The house was too quiet, now that he lived here alone. And there was no shortage of money and—
And Nell was to be married tomorrow, and forever out of his reach. Not that she’d ever been in it.
“Yes?” he said welcoming this distraction.
“He is at the door, with a carriage.”
“What?”
“He says the Princess Royal has had a horrible accident, and she wants to see you, she wants you at her bedside before she—”
“Nell!” Seraphim said. This was worse than the idea of her marrying. He got dressed in his coat, and his hat; he got his cane, all in a rushed dream. He ran down the stairs.
The young man waiting at the bottom was vaguely familiar as one of the king’s secretaries, which surprised him, since he was wearing a driving cape, and the attire of a coachman. But he supposed that, even in extremis, the royal family must keep these things private.
“She asked that you come, Your Grace,” he said.
“Of course. Of course,” Seraphim said, plunging into the open door of the carriage.
The carriage was dark. There was no lamp lit inside, as there would be normally, but he was too panicked to worry, and then, when he thought to worry, his eyes had started to adapt, and the carriage was bowling along at a fantastic speed over cobblestoned roads, rocking so hard he was afraid it might tip.
But his eyes had started adapting, and he could see, sitting opposite him, very pale, very composed, Nell in a traveling dress and hat.
“Nell!” he said. “What is the meaning of this?”
“We’re getting married,” she said. “There is a priest waiting to marry us at Canterbury, in the dead of night.”
“What? But— Nell, you can’t be eloping with me!”
“I’m not. I’m kidnapping you and marrying you.” Her little face was very serious.
“But… my dear… your duty…”
“I will do my duty,” she said. “But Mama said it is no part of my duty to sacrifice my heart for an old treaty.”
“Lombardy will take offense.”
“Well, then let them.” She looked at Seraphim very seriously. “We’ll send Jonathan Blythe to them. They’ll end up believing this was all their own idea.”
Seraphim opened his mouth, closed it. He thought of his lonely study, his lonely life. “My dear, we can’t, we—”
“Seraphim Ainsling – if you don’t want to marry me, tell me now, and I will order the carriage turned around.”
He opened his mouth. He closed it. “You know very well I can’t tell you that.”
“Very well. We have an hour before we get to the chapel.” She smiled at him. “And it’s a very long time since you last kissed me.”
Table of Contents
His Grace
Two Brothers
The Agent
The Lion, The Witch and The Pyramids
The Trouble With Heroes
The Price of Heroism
The Coils of Duplicity
A Step In The Dark
Two Attacks and an Alarm
A Mother’s Heart
The Spider And The Web
Lady In The Lake
Changeling
The Duke’s Duty
The Fear Of Dark
Bump In The Night
Trapped
In Darkness And Despair
A Strange Land
After The Bird Has Flown
A Rude Wakening
A World of Hurt
Into The Lion’s Den
Mirror Mirror
Madhouse
And The Dead
Dangerous Roads
Mystery On Mystery
All The Paths
Waking And Dreaming
Out Of Time
Cat’s Cradle
Straying
Symbol and Sign
The Threads of Time
For My Lady Fair
Prisoner and Guards
The Coil Winds
A Pure Mind
A Blessing Of Unicorns
The Duke’s Duty
Healing
The Lord’s Duty
The Ties
Losing It
The Explosion, The Princess, and The Brother
A Matter Of Duty
A Ghost Of A Chance
A Friend In Odd Places
Little Necromancer Lost
Battle Call
The Knot
The Princess And The Precipice
Between The Dogs And A Hard Place
Sugar And Spice
Very Unlikely Heroes
A Fine Catch
A Matter of Power
Blindly
The Princess And The Power
Falling
Unleashed
The Tree, The Dragon, The Drunkard
Something Sickly, Something Sweet
The Weight Of The Crown
Mirror and Crown
The Land, The King, The Magic
An Irregular Man
Dragon’s Den
Rogue’s Progress
This Unwanted Crown
> The Duke’s Trial
The Land’s Heart
A Fighting Title
King and Kingdom
Fire and Flood
A Time To Choose
Rings on her Fingers
Duke and Duke
A Moth To the Sun
Paying Dues
Breakfast In Family
A visitor
For Love
In The Night