The Fallen Queen

by Jane Kindred

  As much as Belphagor detested spending time with the principality

  under Aeval’s amused eye, he dreaded the angel’s company without

  her tempering influence. Kae’s hatred of him was barely masked in her

  presence; out of it, he indulged in open contempt. Ignoring the queen’s instructions, however, would result in a far less pleasant encounter, and so Belphagor forced himself to call on the principality after breakfast on the morning she departed. Hoping to redirect Kae’s anger, he

  brought a wingcasting die and a deck of cards Aeval had given him in

  a particularly indulgent mood. It seemed ages since he’d played.

  When the Ophanim admitted him, the principality stared at him

  with naked hostility.

  Belphagor held up the cards. “I thought I’d teach you one of my

  vices.”

  “Really.” Kae dropped his book onto his tea table. “I had no idea

  vices could be learned.”

  “Indeed they can, my lord.” Belphagor pulled up a chair beside

  the table and shuffled the deck.

  “And if I ordered you to leave?”

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  “I imagine she’d punish us both. I have no idea how she punishes

  you, but I don’t care for the way she punishes me. I’d prefer to avoid it.”

  “She punishes me by sending you to my suite,” snapped Kae.

  Belphagor began to deal the cards. “There are four suits and four

  choirs. I’m sure you’re familiar with the choirs.”

  “The natural order to which I belong and you do not? I think I’m

  acquainted.”

  “The four suits are based on symbols from the world of Man.

  Spindles, knives, tricks, and facets. Thus, forty-eight natural cards: three orders of angels in each choir, and four choirs in each suit. There are also two wild cards—the succubus and the incubus.”

  “Delightful.”

  Belphagor placed the die before him and set the rest of the cards

  on the table. “Technically, there should be rims to throw against, but if you cast the die without much force, I’m sure we can make this

  table work.” He picked up his hand and surveyed it, moving orders

  and suits together. “You need a matching set of orders or choirs, or a consecutive sequence of either for a winning hand. A ‘full choir’ is all the orders of a particular choir in the same suit: Dominion, Virtue, and Power of spindles, for example. A ‘full sphere’ is a single order in each of the four suits, such as the Principality of spindles, knives, tricks, and facets. Full choir beats a full sphere. ‘Fourchoir’—that’s the first order of each choir in the same suit; can’t be second or third orders—beats a full choir. That should be enough to start you off.”

  Kae stared at him. “Nobody would make a game like that. It’s

  nonsense.”

  “It’s your throw.” Rain battered the western windows of the suite.

  The pebbling sound on the glass behind Belphagor grew loud in the

  silence while the principality continued to stare. At last, Kae sighed and tossed the die across the table.

  “Salamander,” said Belphagor.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I called Salamander. It landed on Phoenix, so you’re clear. If it

  had been Salamander, you’d have to surrender a card.” Belphagor

  shifted a few of his with apparent purpose. “This is where I’d have

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  to increase my bet if we were playing for facets, but since I haven’t

  any and you don’t know wingcasting, we’re just playing for fun.” He

  nodded at Kae’s cards, still facedown on the table. “You’ll want to

  know what you’re holding.”

  The principality unfolded his arms and snatched the cards from

  the table, clearly baffled by the rules Belphagor had rattled off. “Now what?”

  “I throw.” Belphagor cupped the die and blew on it. “Call.” He

  cast with practiced ease.

  “Call what?”

  The die landed, showing the Serpent.

  “Well, if you’d called Serpent, you’d have won that round, and

  I’d be surrendering a card right now. There’s a different elemental

  creature on each face. Take a look. I can write them down for you to

  refer to until you’ve committed them to memory.” Belphagor set his

  hand facedown on the table and stood. “Do you have pen and ink?”

  Kae turned the dodecahedron die in his hand, then slammed it

  back onto the table. “I don’t need it written down. Just roll.”

  “It’s called throwing.” Belphagor took his seat. “Or casting. Hence

  ‘wingcasting.’”

  “Throw! Cast! I don’t care what you call it, just do it!”

  Belphagor cast again, and the principality called out, “Bear!” The

  die landed on Dragon.

  “There’s no bear,” said Belphagor. “There’s not even anything

  remotely resembling a bear on that die. Bat, Rook, Damselfly; Dragon, Phoenix, Salamander; Serpent, Ptarmigan, Toad; Swan, Crab, Eel. Three creatures of each element.”

  The principality clutched his cards, barely controlled rage in his

  grey gaze.

  Belphagor shrugged. “I suppose a dragon’s a little like a bear.” He

  lifted a card from his hand and put it face-up on the table. “There, now.

  You can take that if you wish. If it suits your current hand. Or you can throw again.”

  “Why do you have playing cards drawn on your sacrum? In the

  points of the crown?”

  Belphagor surveyed his hand. “I had no idea you’d spent so much

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  time staring at the ‘points of my crown.’” He leaned back and balanced on the gilded rear legs of his chair, wishing he had a pipe of firedust.

  “Does your wife know you’re preoccupied with the male posterior?”

  Kae tossed his cards in Belphagor’s face.

  “There’s no hand-casting. Just die-casting,” said Belphagor

  without flinching. “Your cousin was a much quicker study.”

  “What cousin? What are you talking about?”

  “Nenny, of course.” Fear flickered in the principality’s eyes

  whenever Belphagor mentioned her name. “Which others do you

  suppose I’ve met?”

  “Anazakia? You taught her wingcasting? I thought you said she

  was raving.”

  “This was before.” Belphagor didn’t bother to disabuse the

  principality of the notion of his cousin’s insanity. “When she came to the dens of iniquity in Raqia.” He paused. “Before you slaughtered

  her family and stuck a sword through her.”

  Kae leapt to his feet and yanked Belphagor from his chair. “Liar!

  Why do you slander me?”

  Belphagor considered silence his best course of action, but

  it enraged the principality further. Kae shoved him against the tall

  window at his back. Belphagor’s skull shattered the glass, and he

  landed on the veranda in a rain of shards and freezing water.

  The Ophanim surged into the room and were on him in an instant.

  They hauled him to his feet, their natural tendency toward electric

  shocks magnified by the conductivity of rain.

  The principality stayed where he was, his face unnaturally white,

  watching the Ophanim drag Belphagor toward the door. Whether it

  was rage or fear that had drained Kae’s face of blood, he couldn’t tell.

  Belphagor’s own blood poured over his eyes and splattered on the

  bone silk suit.

  Before the Ophanim took him away, Kae grabb
ed Belphagor’s

  arm. “I hope she beats the hell out of you for spoiling your suit. I hope she whips you until that crown of yours is nothing but a bloody mess.”

  There was something odd about the principality’s touch.

  Drenched to the skin in the icy spring rain, Belphagor nearly missed

  it. In the same way a firespirit like Vasily ran hotter than normal, the

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  principality was cold.

  196 JANE KINDRED

  Devatnadtsatoe: Assumptions

  from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia

  Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk

  The streets of Heaven turned to slush while Helga whisked me

  through side alleys and narrow streets to her apartment. In her kitchen on the outskirts of Raqia, still trembling from the shock and the damp, I waited for her to warm a cup of cocoa on the wood stove.

  “I was afraid I’d never see you again.” She cupped my cheek, not

  quite believing I was before her. “In fact, I hoped I’d never see you

  again, though it broke my heart. As long as you were safe away from

  here.” Helga took my chin in her hand and turned my head from side

  to side. “I thought as much.” She shook her head and let go of me to

  stir the cocoa. “When I realized the vial was missing, I knew it would only be a matter of time before your shade was restored and your

  cousin discovered you were alive. How long have you had it back?”

  “Belphagor thought it was your sleeping draught. When the

  potion began to wear off, he opened the vial.”

  Helga set the wooden spoon on the table with an angry snap. Like

  the scent of vanilla in the cocoa she was making, it reminded me of

  days past. Whenever Azel and I irritated her with our misdeeds, we

  knew we’d gone too far when she set down whatever she was holding

  with that definitive snap.

  “That devil. He picked my pocket. Wasn’t the only thing he stole.

  I’m afraid I made a terrible choice of a guardian for you. When I heard he was here in Elysium, I used the callstone. I expected to see him in

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  the street. And then there you were, my own dear girl, after all the

  trouble I went to in getting you out.”

  “I thought I’d done it.” I held out the smooth stone from my

  pocket.

  Helga plucked an identical charm from her apron. She clutched it

  between her thumb and forefinger the way one might hold a stone to

  skip it over the water. “It doesn’t work that way, dear. Only this one calls the other. What were you doing with it?”

  “Belphagor gave it to me when he thought the Seraphim were

  going to kill him. I forgot I even had it.”

  “The Seraphim?” Helga clutched her collar. “They found you?”

  “I sent them away.”

  “What do you mean, you sent them away?”

  I shrugged almost apologetically. “I don’t know how. Perhaps only

  because I didn’t stop to think. My radiance brought a storm, and with

  the wind of Belphagor’s radiance, it turned into a twister, and it…

  doused them.”

  “You called a storm. Your radiance, your ‘wings’ called down

  water from the Heavens?”

  I nodded, and she pressed her fingers to her lips in a characteristic

  gesture of stifled doubt. She took the cocoa off the heat and poured

  it into a mug. For a moment, I was thirteen again, hiding in Azel’s

  nursery from the angelic history tutor on a cold winter afternoon. But there was no Azel to conspire with.

  Helga pulled up a chair while I sat at the table and warmed my

  hands against the mug. “Things are very different now,” she said,

  perhaps thinking the same thing. “The queen has changed Heaven. In

  some ways for the better, but in others… ” She shook her head. “When

  I heard that demon was in her employ, I didn’t believe it. I feared the worst. What in the world is he doing here, Anazakia? What’s going

  on?”

  I blew on the cocoa to cool it, watching my breath ripple across

  the surface. In Aeval’s employ. It was worse than I’d feared.

  “I’m not really sure what he’s doing. He kept his word to you,

  though. At great personal risk.” I took a tentative taste. “Once he

  realized who I was, the idea of the fortunes he might gain took hold

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  of him. He meant to extort ransom from you until he saw it wasn’t

  practical.”

  Helga clucked her tongue in anger. “I suspected he might. Forgive

  me, Anazakia. When I saw he’d brought in that scoundrel Vasily, I

  almost backed out of the arrangement. But there was no time.”

  My stomach jolted at Vasily’s name. I jumped up and ran to

  Helga’s sink, and lost what little cocoa I’d managed to drink. When I

  faced her again, she regarded me with a look I remembered well. She’d

  guessed my secret and was waiting for me to confess.

  “Oh, Helga.” I knelt beside her chair with my hands over my belly.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  She stroked my hair, not needing to ask what I meant. “My poor

  girl. What a terrible thing I’ve done. I knew Belphagor’s reputation

  and I thought you were safe with him. But the other I was unsure of.

  I only knew him by his history. If I’d known they would hurt you… ”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Seduced you, then. Still, I blame myself.”

  “No.” I looked up at her, my face flushed. “I seduced Vasily.”

  “Anazakia Helisonovna!”

  “They were both perfect gentlemen. As far as demons can be.

  It just happened. After Belphagor left, Vasily and I were alone. And

  he…” I blushed again and averted my eyes. “I wanted him, Helga. I

  wanted someone.”

  “But that one, Anazakia! You don’t know his background. He’s

  not for the likes of you.”

  “He seems gruff, but he’s very tender underneath. Or he can be,”

  I added, thinking of our last few moments together. I looked at her,

  curious. “Where would you have heard the reputations of demons?”

  “Nenny. Dearest. Don’t you know?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m not one of the Host. I grew up here, in Raqia.”

  She couldn’t have shocked me more if she’d told me she was my

  own mother. There were other Fallen servants at the palace, but none

  so intimately involved in our lives. Their appearance was obvious.

  Helga spoke with refinement, carried herself with grace. She seemed

  no different from ourselves.

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  “How did you think I knew my little spells? The remedies I gave

  you children?” Helga had always carried hard sweets with her that she

  called her “remedies,” and had given them to us when one of us had

  a fall or an upset stomach. They’d always made us feel better, but I’d believed it was only from the comfort she brought.

  I stared at her as if her demon soul could show through the Helga

  I thought I knew. “It never occurred to me that Mama would hire one

  of the Fallen to be so close to—” Azel. I seized her hand. “Helga, I have to know. When my shade returned, I remembered seeing my

  family. All of them. I remembered what Kae had done.” I gripped her

  hand tighter, desperate for her to tell me what I wanted to hear. �
��But I didn’t see Azelly. Did you hide him, too? Is he safe?”

  Helga put her other hand over mine, and tears rolled down her

  cheeks. “I was too late. I found him in his bed.”

  I slumped to the floor beside her. The thread of hope I’d clung to

  since discovering the locket disintegrated like a frayed stitch. What is hidden is not lost. But Azel wasn’t hidden after all. I reached into my coat and pulled out the silver locket.

  Helga gasped. “You have it!” She lifted it from my hand and I

  cried out to stop her, but she opened the locket, and the light of the fern flower blazed into the dusky room. Helga jerked back, snapping

  the locket shut, and the chain broke away in her hand. She clasped it

  to her breast, both of us blinking to rid our eyes of the image burned into them. “What is this, Anazakia?”

  “It’s a fern flower.” I reached for it, but she made no move to give

  it back.

  “The tsvetok paporotnika,” she breathed.

  “You know it?”

  “Oh, yes, Nenny. I know it.” She stared at the locket. “I’ve never

  seen one before. I don’t know if anyone has. But I spent a midsummer

  or two in the southern lands.”

  There was much about Helga I’d never guessed. I’d thought of her

  only in terms of her function in our lives, never giving any thought to what life she might have had before coming to us.

  She scrutinized me intently. “Did you use it?”

  “What do you mean, did I use it? Use it how?”

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  “To entrap that fool Vasily. Did you use the tsvetok to influence him?”

  My eyes widened. “Did I what? What are you talking about?”

  Helga let out a sharp laugh. “Oh, my dear. You’re so simple. You

  didn’t even know what you had.” She tucked the necklace into her

  bodice and stood, brushing her skirts.

  I opened my mouth to tell her I needed the flower, that it would

  protect me from Aeval, but my tongue felt oddly heavy.

  She extended her hand to help me up, her gaze intent. “I think it’s

  best I keep the locket, don’t you?”

  I nodded and let her pull me to my feet, struck by an overwhelming

  sense of my childhood awe of her. I felt I’d been caught with something I oughtn’t have. It was her locket, after all. I could no more expect her to return it to me than if she’d found me looking at bawdy drawings