by M. J. Scott
That work had been going on for several weeks now and today, or this evening rather, it was finally time for the actual business of the negotiations to commence.
The building rose several stories above the square, the marble gleaming pink and gold and white in the light from the setting sun. It should have been welcoming. Instead, I couldn’t help feeling dread as I waited with the rest of the delegation in the area designated for the humans to gather.
All four races entered the building at the same time, watched by guards from all the races and, of course, by the extra forces of the Fae.
In theory we were all equal, but all of us were aware that the Fae could change the game with a blink of an eye. The Veiled Court’s delegation had gathered in the area to the right of ours and I found myself watching them, unable to look away.
I generally avoided contact with the Fae. I’ve never been to Summerdale, let alone the Veiled World. Too much risk for a half-breed like me. All it would take would be for one of my father’s family to decide to stake a claim on me for my abilities and I could find myself bound there for good. Safer to stay here in the City, free under the sun.
Still, despite the threat they represented, they drew the eye, those of the Veiled Court. Tall, slender, and fair in the twilight, more beautiful than anybody should be. All of them acting calm and collected and yet you couldn’t mistake the fact that every last one of them had half an eye and ear on the palanquin that rested atop the elaborately carved wooden platform they were gathered around. Hung with walls of silks of all possible shades that hid the interior from sight, and topped by the standard of the Veiled Court, it held a single occupant. The Veiled Queen.
Holly had met her, not all that long ago. Met her and found both loss and freedom at her hands. The queen was not a woman to be trifled with. The Fae queen had the power to flatten the whole City if she chose. It was her power that had bound the races to the treaty all those centuries ago and that same power had enforced the treaty all these years. But now she was fighting a rebellion in her own courts, if what Holly and Guy believed was true.
I couldn’t see a future swirling over the palanquin, hard as I might try. I didn’t know if the queen was protected against seers or if it meant that everything was going to go horribly wrong. I hoped it was the former. After all, I tried to tell myself, the queen had been holding the City together with her will for a long time. A petty squabble amongst her people wasn’t enough to make her abandon us now. Or was it?
As we waited, the tension in the air wound higher and higher, until you could practically smell the nerves—like acid and ashes—floating around us. Mail jingled and horses blew nervous snorts, and all around were the sounds of men and women making the kinds of small movements that soothe anxious nerves.
If one more person cleared his throat, I was going to have to punch him. Beside me, Saskia was not entirely immune from the general mood. Her hand dallied with the prentice chain around her neck, fingering the loops with twirls and taps that were no less damning for their air of long habit.
I resisted the urge to adjust my chain—wrapped as tightly as I could bear it, to ease the endless whirl of visions smoking the air—or my coat or my cravat. I would stand still if it killed me. The last thing I wanted was for the Kruegers or the Fae or anybody, hells take them, to see how sick I felt.
The DuCaine brothers stood on Saskia’s other side. They too avoided looking anywhere other than at the Treaty Hall. Which was fine with me. They had been furious with Saskia and me last night, though I hadn’t entirely worked out if that was because we hadn’t used the tunnels or because we’d killed the Beast and therefore ruined any chance of questioning him.
No one had come looking for him. Yet. Simon and Guy both seemed to think that the death might be thrown at the humans in the course of the negotiations.
But given that he had attacked us within a Haven—which we could prove, given the nice little preservation charm Bryony had worked over the charred patch of stone where his body had fallen—and that we could also demonstrate that his body had several bullet holes in nonlethal places—further demonstration that we’d tried to warn him off before killing him—I didn’t see what we could actually be blamed for.
Still, it hadn’t exactly put me in Simon’s and Guy’s good graces. They were grateful that I’d defended their sister, but they had taken both of us to task for nearly an hour over our general idiocy.
My announcement that I was going to remain part of the delegation after that had been something of an anticlimax.
As the clock struck eight and the last of the sun slipped below the horizon, the gaslights around the square whooshed into life. Then, as all of us turned to look, the final delegation came to meet us.
The Blood.
Descending from the long rows of black, windowless coaches that had been making a slow queue across the city from Sorrow’s Hill and LeSangre for the last hour like silent ghosts. I’d never liked groups of Blood together. There was something beyond inhuman in having so many of them in one place. White skin, white hair, black clothes, and the wink of too bright eyes against all that noncolor made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Made my brain sound a song of “predator, predator, run” in the way the Beast Kind never really managed.
The coach closest to the square was the last to open its door and I caught myself holding my breath, waiting to see who stepped down from it. I knew, of course. Knew without a doubt who it would be. Had known it since I had first seen the vision of him at the Krueger Pack House.
Ignatius Grey.
Stepping from the carriage with a slow precision that told me everything I needed to know. He believed he’d won already. Believed he would rule the Blood and, though the gods only knew what he might be planning, rule the City as well.
All the small noises in the square died as he descended. Everybody watched as he adjusted his long velvet coat and gazed around the square to survey those of us who waited. And I wasn’t the only one who shivered when a far-too-satisfied smile spread across his features.
Part of me wondered whether, if he’d raised his voice and commanded us to kneel, we would have obeyed. Hypnotized en masse, like rabbits under the gaze of a raptor? Could he have won with a word?
Luckily we weren’t going to find out just yet. Because just as the silence deepened beyond bearing, there was a ringing peal of trumpets and all eyes turned to the Fae.
I kept watching Ignatius. His smile didn’t falter but it did grow tighter as he too turned to look at the Fae delegation. Lights bloomed, pale glowing orbs floating above the heads of those closest to the palanquin, a myriad of miniature moons casting silvery light that made the silk banners shine. Slowly the curtain at the end of the palanquin drew back. Stairs unfolded and then the Veiled Queen stepped out and descended.
The veils that covered her face were, for now, a pure white that glowed in the light of the floating orbs. That was either diplomacy or a promising start. The veils of the Veiled Queen reflected her moods, thickening and shifting color with her will. If they turned black, someone was going to die. White was safely neutral, neither good nor bad. Or so the protocol lessons had informed me, reinforcing what I’d already heard elsewhere. The square grew even more hushed as the queen moved slowly down the stairs, then extended one hand to the Speaker of the Veil, who waited for her.
Like his queen, the Speaker was robed in white, his dark hair—black in this light—bound back with a silvery band that echoed the silver of his eyes. I assumed the band wasn’t actually silver—which could be an insult to the Beasts and the Blood—but some Fae alloy. The Speaker’s face was carefully blank. He bowed deferentially to the queen as he released her hand but his expression didn’t give away any other hint of how he might be feeling.
I wondered how it felt to be him right now. Usually the Speaker was the Veiled Court’s liaison with the outer worlds. Grievances were taken to him and he spoke the queen’s will. But at the negotiations the queen herself took the
reins and he was just another of the Fae courtiers of the delegation, albeit one of the most powerful amongst them.
Looking at his face, you wouldn’t know that he was probably older than the City itself. There had only been one Speaker in all the time the Veiled Queen had ruled. The two of them held centuries of knowledge and power and secrets.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, a feeling of supreme insignificance swamping me as the queen stood and surveyed the assembled delegates. Finally she nodded and the horns sounded again and the doors of treaty hall swung inward. The air buzzed suddenly as even more layers of magic sprang to life around us.
Wards. Many of them.
It eased my nerves temporarily. Of all the places in the City, the Treaty Hall had to be one of the safest. Granted, taking part in the delegations, being a known delegate for one side or the other, exposed you to risks outside the walls of the hall, but inside, nobody would dare to commit an act of aggression. Not unless they wanted their delegation to lose a large portion of its rights, if not all of them.
The queen turned toward the doors and walked slowly to them, still grasping the arm of the Speaker. The rest of the Fae delegation followed her, and its allotted quota of guards.
After the queen had passed through the doors, the rest of the delegates moved in their predetermined order of entry to take their places.
Which had taken almost as much protocol and wrangling to decide upon as the treaty itself.
It was an accounting of the balance of power in each of the races, if you knew how to decipher it. How each race set precedence and how it assigned its delegates provided insight into its power bases and alliances.
The Blood votes had previously been held by Lord Lucius and he spoke for them all, but this year, since his death and the lack of a clear victor in the race to be the new Blood Lord, they had split their voting rights into blocs, as the Beasts and humans did. Still, we all watched with interest as the first group of Blood moved to follow the queen.
Unsurprisingly, it was Ignatius who led the way and after he had left, the numbers of Blood still assembled were substantially reduced. I wasn’t the only one swearing under my breath at this development.
It was official: Ignatius was winning. Something needed to be done about the man. Unfortunately, given it was treaty season, that something couldn’t be anything along the lines of someone making him disappear the way Lucius had, thanks to Simon and Lily.
After the Blood, the first of the human blocs, the council’s delegation, entered the hall. They were followed by the first Beast pack. Again I watched with interest to see who had won that honor.
The Roussellines, as it turned out, which did manage to surprise me.
I would have bet on the Favreaus being most in favor with Ignatius, but apparently the Beasts hadn’t yet made up their minds completely.
As the Roussellines moved toward the hall, I suddenly spotted Martin standing amidst the other Kruegers. He saw me too, and his lips drew back in a silent snarl.
Damn. My secret was out. Not that I could’ve kept it any longer than the next hour or so of the naming ceremony, but still, ice formed in my stomach as I read the rage in Martin’s eyes burning into me from across the square.
I’d known my choice would bring a reckoning with my erstwhile relatives, so I would just have to deal with it when it came. Hopefully after the treaty, after I had earned the right to rope Guy and maybe some of his other Templar brethren into helping me deal with whatever that reckoning turned out to be.
It seemed to take a long time for the rest of the delegates to process into the hall. The Templar delegation wasn’t the last of the humans to go in, so I didn’t have to wait until the very end.
But as I crossed the threshold and felt the tingle of wards brushing across my skin, I was forced to wonder again what exactly I thought I was doing. Then Saskia came up beside me, her hand moving subtly to brush against mine, easing the pressure building in my head, and I remembered.
I could just picture my mother laughing at me. “All that for a girl,” she’d say. “Only fools let love lead them around by the nose, Fen lad.”
She’d tried her best to teach me that lesson, but apparently I was a poor student of common sense as well as protocol.
I followed the rest of the delegates into the entryway, keeping pace with Saskia and, like many others, craning my neck to look around me, now that I was actually inside the mysterious Treaty Hall. I hadn’t really known what to expect. All four races had contributed to the construction of the hall, in money or labor or materials, and it was a testament to leashed power.
The floor we walked was a polished gray stone—granite, I thought—the color of the dark heart of a frozen river. From it, the walls rose to curve to a vaulted ceiling far, far above our heads. Or, I thought, suddenly confused, as I considered the outward appearance of the hall, perhaps that was an illusion. The chamber we stood in seemed taller than the walls outside. The walls were covered in an intricate mosaic depicting each of the four races and parts of the City—some of which I didn’t recognize. Perhaps the buildings in them had fallen into obscurity and ruin long ago. The hall was old, like the treaty itself.
But as astonishing as that room was, it couldn’t really distract me from the room we were walking toward: the Treaty Hall itself. Tall brass doors stood ajar at the end of the entrance hall and the delegates were filing through, one by one, past the Fae guards who were checking names against the pages of a thick leather-bound book. From beyond, I heard the hushed humming of many muffled voices, but I couldn’t yet see the room itself.
I reached the door and got my first glimpse of the hall—it was even more imposing than the entrance hall. The walls here weren’t tiled; instead they were paneled in carved woods. Arches and columns twined with vines and flowers and tiny animal faces, seeming to grow up toward the ceiling like a forest run riot. The four sides of the hall were lined with tiered rows of seats, each divided into subsections by carved wooden screens, some waist high, some higher, so that the space seemed to be almost like a series of small rooms. Each wall had two narrow aisles running up the tiers to allow access to the seats. Behind the top tier was another series of screens that I had been told hid the corridors used by the servants of the hall and the guards who accompanied the most important members of each race.
The tiers were filling with the delegates, those who had entered first taking the prime seats nearest the front, closest to the floor.
A floor of white marble veined with the palest of green, the expanse of it broken by a sparkling golden circle inset in the stone. This was the speakers’ circle, where those addressing the delegates stood while they held the floor. It marked the dead center of the room, and around it, several feet back from the circle itself, the four points of the compass were marked by smaller circles of black stone set in the marble. On the circles stood pedestals of the same dark stone—each of them about four feet high. The pedestals were topped by polished ebony chests, bound with locks and chains of gold.
The circles served only to draw the eye to the circle. I was glad I wasn’t going to have to stand there under the gaze of so many hostile eyes and speak my piece to try and convince the races to agree to one concession or another. No, it was bad enough being part of the delegation without bringing myself to further attention than was necessary.
Saskia and I followed Liam, filing up the stairs to take our place in the fourth row of seats, behind the councils’ delegates and the official representatives of our own delegation. I managed to ensure that I sat next to Saskia. I might as well have some small pleasures in the days to come. Though as I settled myself beside her and breathed in the scent of her skin, I began to think that that might be a mistake. I needed to focus on what was about to happen here, and she was a definite distraction.
But it was too late to move. Protocol demanded that once you had taken your seat, you moved only at the allotted times for breaks or discussions or to leave the chamber for th
e official sessions of negotiation and bargaining that each delegation undertook in the myriad rooms that filled the rest of the building. We would be locked in the Treaty Hall from dusk until dawn neared and the Blood had to retire for the day. Then everyone would leave and the hall would be sealed again until the next day.
I watched the seats around me fill. The humans had the east side of the hall and the Blood the west. The Fae were north and the Beasts south. The volume of conversation in the room grew louder and louder as the delegates continued to take their places. The buzz of voices had a nervous edge to it.
The process of getting everyone situated took a long while, during which time I had nothing to do but sit and watch. The seats were padded, but only thinly, and my legs already felt cramped. Perhaps humans had been shorter in the time when the hall had been built. I was a little taller than most human men, thanks to my ancestry, but it didn’t usually disadvantage me. Now I was beginning to think that the next two weeks might cripple me.
After the seemingly endless parade of delegates making their way into the hall, they had all finally taken their places. The keepers of the hall—one representative from each race who had been tasked with opening the building and ensuring the security of the wards—then appeared and took their places at the four pedestals around the speaker’s circle.
The whispered conversations died away instantly, the tension in the room rising. All eyes turned toward the keepers. One by one, they stepped forward and produced the keys that were the symbols of their position. Then, each of them in turn used the keys to open the boxes on the pedestals and draw out the treaty stones, raising them to display to the delegates before placing them on the pedestals.