by Jim Butcher
“Orderly…” I frowned. “Wait. You work for me?”
“I prefer to think of it as managing your incompetence,” Sith replied. “I will answer your questions. I will be your guide while you are here. I will see to it that your needs are met.”
I folded my arms. “And you work for me?”
Sith’s tail twitched again. “I serve my Queen.”
Aha. Evasion. There was something he was avoiding. “You are to answer my questions, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mab order you to obey my commands?”
Twitch, twitch, twitch went the tail. Sith stared at me and said nothing.
Silence could generally be taken as assent, but I just couldn’t resist. “Get me a Coke.”
Sith stared at me. Then he vanished.
I blinked and looked around, but he was gone. Then, maybe a second and a half later, there was the snap-hiss of a beverage can being opened. I turned and found Cat Sith sitting on one of the room’s dressers. An opened can of Coke sat beside him.
“Whoa,” I said. “How did… You don’t even have thumbs.”
Sith stared at me.
I crossed to the dresser and picked up the can. Sith’s eyes tracked me the whole time, his expression enigmatic and definitely not friendly. I sipped at the drink and grimaced. “Warm?”
“You did not tell me otherwise,” he said. “I shall be happy to similarly fulfill any such command you give me, Sir Knight, but for those that contravene the orders of my Queen.”
Translation: I don’t want to be here. I don’t like you. Give me commands and I will give you hell for it. I nodded at the malk. “I hear you.” I sipped at the Coke. Warm or not, it was still Coke. “So why the tux? What’s the occasion?”
“Tonight is a celebration of birth.”
“Birthday party, huh?” I said. “Whose?”
Sith said absolutely nothing for several seconds. Then he rose and leapt down to the floor, landing without a sound. He flowed past me to the door. “You cannot possibly be that stupid. Follow me.”
My hair was still pretty messy. I slopped some water on it and combed it back, which was as close to neat as it was going to get, and then walked after Sith, my patent leather formal shoes gleaming and clicking on the stone floor.
“Who’s going to be at this party?” I asked Sith when I caught up to him. I hadn’t left my chambers in a while. My entire life had been eating, sleeping, and getting myself put back together. Besides, I hadn’t wanted to go sightseeing around Arctis Tor. The last time I’d been there, I’d pissed off the faeries. Like, all of them. I hadn’t fancied the idea of bumping into some hostile bogeyman looking for payback in a dark corridor. The door leading from my chambers opened by itself, and Sith walked through it with me behind him.
“The high and mighty among the Winter Sidhe,” Sith said. “Important figures from the Wyld. There may even be a delegation from Summer there.”
As we emerged into the capital of Winter, the corridors changed from what looked more or less like smooth, poured concrete to crystalline ice in every hue of glacial blue and green, the bands of color merging, intertwining. Flickers of light danced through the depths of the ice like lazy fireflies of violet and crimson and cold sky blue. My eyes wanted to follow the lights, but I didn’t let them. I couldn’t tell you why, but my instincts told me that would be dangerous, and I listened to them.
“Kind of a big event, huh?” I said. “Think there’ll be a problem with the paparazzi?”
“One may hope,” Sith said. “Dispatching the perpetrators of such an intrusion would be gratifying.”
The air was arctic cold. I could feel the biting depth of the chill, but its fangs couldn’t seem to break my skin. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t shiver. I didn’t shake. I chalked it up to the power Mab had given me.
Sith led me down a much dimmer corridor, and we passed in and out of patches of deep darkness and cold, sullen light. As we did, our shadows danced and stretched. After a few seconds, I noticed that Cat Sith’s shadow was larger than mine. Like, seven or eight times larger than mine. I gulped.
“The last time I was at a supernatural shindig, I got poisoned and then everything there tried to kill me. So I burned the whole place to the ground,” I said.
“An appropriate way to deal with one’s enemies,” Sith said. “Perhaps you will find Arctis Tor less flammable.”
“I’ve never met a place I couldn’t blow up, burn down, or knock over with enough motivation,” I said. “Think anyone at the party wants to kill me?”
“Yes. I want to kill you.”
“Because I annoy you?”
“Because I enjoy it.” Sith glanced up at me for a moment. His billboard-size shadow on the wall mirrored the motion. “And you also annoy me.”
“It’s one of my gifts. Asking annoying questions is another. Other than you, is there anyone at the party I should make sure not to turn my back to?”
“You are of Winter now, wizard.” His turned his golden eyes away from me again. “Don’t turn your back to anyone.”
Chapter
Three
Cat Sith led me down passages I had never seen on my previous visit to Mab’s seat of power. Heck, back then I had thought it consisted entirely of a wall around a courtyard and a single turreted tower. I hadn’t ever seen the complex beneath the ice of the courtyard. It was enormous. We walked for ten minutes, mostly in the same direction, before Cat Sith said, “That door.”
The one he spoke of was made of ice, just like the walls, though it had a thick ring of what might have been silver hanging upon it. I grabbed the ring and tugged, and the door opened easily onto a small antechamber, a little waiting room complete with several easy chairs.
“Now what?”
“Go in,” Cat Sith said. “Wait for instructions. Follow instructions.”
“I’m not good at either of those things,” I said.
Sith’s eyes gleamed. “Excellent. I have orders to dispatch you if you disobey Mab’s commands or undermine her authority in any way.”
“Why don’t you go ask Eldest Fetch how easy that one is, Mittens?” I said. “Scat.”
Sith didn’t vanish this time. He just sort of melted into shadow. His golden eyes remained behind for a few seconds, and then he was gone.
“Always stealing from the greats,” I mumbled. “Lewis Carroll’s estate should be collecting a licensing fee from that guy.”
Unless, of course, it was maybe the other way around.
I went into the chamber and the door shut behind me. There was a table with what looked like handmade candies on it. I didn’t touch them. Not because I was worried about my svelte figure, but because I was standing at the heart of wicked faerieland, and eating random candy seemed like a less than brilliant idea.
There was an old book on the table next to the candies, set carefully and precisely in place beside the dish. It was titled Kinder- und Hausmärchen. I leaned down and opened it. The text was in German. It was really old. The pages were made of paper of the finest quality, thin and crisp and edged in gold foil. On the title page, under the title, were the names Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and the year 1812.
It was autographed, and personalized, “For Mab.” I couldn’t read the text, so I settled for the illustrations. It was better than reading those stupid celebrity magazines in every other waiting room, and was probably more grounded in reality.
The door opened soundlessly while I looked at the book, and a vision came into the room. She wore a velvet dress the deep blue-purple of twilight. She glanced back toward the hallway behind her as the door closed, and I saw that the dress plunged low in the front. She had matching opera gloves that reached to halfway up her biceps, and there was a garland of periwinkles in her dark hair that complemented the dress gorgeously. Then she turned back to me and smiled. “Oh, my,” she said. “You clean up nicely, Harry.”
I rose politely to my feet, though it to
ok me a couple of seconds to say, “Sarissa. Wow. You… barely look like you.”
She quirked an eyebrow at me, but I saw a pleased tilt to her mouth. “My. That was almost a compliment.”
“I’m out of practice,” I said. I gestured toward a chair. “Would you care to sit?”
She gave me a demure smile and did, moving with an absolute and liquid grace. I offered her my hand to help her sit, which she didn’t need. She gripped my fingers lightly anyway. Once she was seated, I sat back down myself. “Did you want a bit of candy?”
Her smile somehow contained gentle reproof. “I hardly think that would be wise. Do you?”
“Hell’s bells, no,” I said. “I just, uh… You make conversation when you’re, uh… I’m not sure what to…” I picked up the priceless copy of the Grimms’ tales and held it up. “Book.”
Sarissa covered her mouth with one hand, but her eyes twinkled. “Oh, um, yes. I’ve seen it a few times. I’ve heard rumors that Her Majesty worked hard to make sure the tales were put into print.”
“Sure,” I said. “Makes sense.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Oh, the Sidhe’s influence had been waning as the Industrial Age gathered steam,” I said. “By making sure the tales kept being told to mortal children, she made sure that she and her folk were never forgotten.”
“And that’s important?” Sarissa asked.
“If it wasn’t, why else would she do it? I’m pretty sure that being forgotten is bad for beings that live with one foot in the mortal world and the other over here. Wouldn’t shock me if she greased some wheels for Walt Disney, either. He did more than anyone else to bring those stories into modern times. Hell, he built a couple of fairylands in the mortal world.”
“I hadn’t ever thought about it that way,” Sarissa said. She folded her hands in her lap and smiled at me. It was a completely calm and lovely expression—but I had the sudden instinct that she was concealing unease.
I might not have been able to tell a couple of months ago, but she’d been on the periphery of several of Mab’s therapy sessions, and I’d seen her react to sudden fear and stress. There was that same sense of controlled tension in her now as there had been when a small avalanche of poisonous spiders—big ones—had come cascading out of the towel cupboard in the workout room. She’d been wearing capri pants and no shoes at the time, and she’d had to hold completely still while dozens of the things swarmed over her naked feet, until I could clear them off, gently and cautiously, so as not to threaten the little things into killing us.
That particular test had been all about regulating one’s reaction to sudden fear. Sarissa had done it, refusing to let her anxiety control her. She’d waited, expressionless and almost calm, looking much then as she did right now.
It made my feet start to itch.
She was expecting spiders.
“So,” I said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? Do you need me to perform some last-minute yoga routines?”
“You took to yoga like a duck to vacuum,” she said. “I know how much you love the routines, but I’m afraid I must disappoint you. Tonight I’m to be on your arm, by command of the Queen. I’m supposed to tell you the protocols for a gathering of the court and make sure you don’t get too bored.”
I leaned back in my chair and regarded her thoughtfully. “I can’t remember the last time I had that problem. And gosh, walking around with someone as lovely as you all night sounds like torture.”
She smiled and lowered her eyes.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“I didn’t use that like a rhetorical question,” I said. “I’m serious. I’d like to ask you something, but if you would rather keep it to yourself, that’s okay, too.”
That put a crack in her mask. I saw her eyes flick up quickly to my face for a moment, and then back down. “Why wouldn’t I want to answer your questions?”
“Because we’ve been working together every day for eleven weeks and I don’t know your last name,” I said. “I don’t know what you do in the real world. I don’t know your favorite color or what kind of ice cream you like best. I don’t know if you have family. You’re very, very good at talking about things that don’t matter, and making it seem like the only conversation that could possibly have made sense.”
She very carefully did not move or answer.
“Mab’s got something on you, too, doesn’t she? Just like she does me.”
There was another moment of stillness. Then she said in a bare whisper, “Mab has something on everyone. The only question is whether they realize it or not.”
“I get that you’re afraid of me,” I said. “I know you saw Lloyd Slate in action when he was the Winter Knight, and I know exactly what a peach of a human being he was. And I figure you think I’m going to be like him.”
“I didn’t say that,” she said.
“It wasn’t an accusation,” I said, as gently as I could. “I’m not trying to trick you into saying something. I’m not hoping that you’ll give me an excuse to do something to you. Okay? I’m not like Lloyd Slate.”
“Neither was he,” Sarissa whispered. “Not at first.”
A cold little feeling wobbled through my guts.
See, that’s the tragedy of the human condition. No one wants to be corrupted by power when they set out to get it. They have good, even noble reasons for doing whatever it is they do. They don’t want to misuse it, they don’t want to abuse it, and they don’t want to become vicious monsters. Good people, decent people, set out to take the high road, to pick up power without letting it change them or push them away from their ideals.
But it keeps happening anyway.
History is full of it. As a rule, people aren’t good at handling power. And the second you start to think you’re better at controlling your power than anyone else, you’ve already taken the first step.
“This is the reality, Sarissa,” I said quietly. “I’m the Winter Knight. I’ve got Mab’s favor and blessing. I can pretty much do as I damned well please here, and I won’t have to answer to anyone but her for it.”
The young woman shivered.
“If I wanted it,” I said quietly, “if I wanted y… to hurt you, I could do it. Right now. You couldn’t stop me, and no one else would do a damned thing. I’ve spent a year on my back and now that I’m moving again, um… my various drives are clamoring for action. In fact, Mab probably sent you in here to see what I would do with you.”
The pleasant mask faded from Sarissa’s face, replaced with wary neutrality. “Yes. Of course she did.” She switched her hands, moving the bottom one to the top, carefully, as if she worried about wrinkling her dress. “I know exactly what role she has in mind for me, Sir Knight. I am to”—her mouth twisted—“be at your convenience.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “That isn’t going to happen, obviously.”
Her eyes widened slightly. She held completely still. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not Lloyd Slate,” I said. “I’m not one of Mab’s pet monsters—and I’ll die before I let her make me into one. You were kind to me and you helped me through a bad patch, Sarissa. I won’t forget that. You have my word.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It isn’t complicated,” I said. “I won’t take anything away from you. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. Period.”
I couldn’t interpret the expression on her face when I said that. There could have been anger in it, or suspicion or terror or skepticism. Whatever was going on in her head to make her face look like that, I couldn’t translate it.
“You don’t believe me,” I said. “Do you?”
“I’ve lived a third of my life inside Arctis Tor,” she said, and turned her face away. “I don’t believe anyone.”
In that moment, I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone so entirely lovely look so utterly alone. A third of her life in Winter? And yet
she could still be compassionate and friendly and caring. She’d probably seen things, had to face ugliness that few mortals ever did—the Unseelie were endlessly enthusiastic about their amusements, and they liked their games nasty and cruel.
But here she was, facing a fate she must have feared since she was a child—being given to a monster to be devoured. Facing it calmly. Staying in control of herself, and still managing to be warm to me, too. That told me she had a lot of strength, and strength has always been something I found attractive in a woman. So has courage. So has grace under pressure.
I could really get to like this girl.
Which, of course, was why Mab had chosen her—to tempt me, to make me convince myself to abandon the high road so that I could have her. Then, once I’d done one little thing, she’d start scattering new lures in front of me, until eventually I picked another one up. Mab was Mab. She had no intention of keeping a Knight with a conscience.
So she was planning on assassinating mine an inch at a time. Once I’d abused my power over the girl, Mab would use my guilt and self-loathing to push me to the next step, and the one after that.
Mab was one cold-blooded bitch.
I looked away from Sarissa. I was going to have to keep her safe—first and foremost from me.
“I understand,” I told her. “Or at least I understand part of it. My first mentor wasn’t exactly Officer Friendly, either.”
She nodded, but it was an entirely noncommittal gesture, an acknowledgment that I had spoken, not a statement of agreement.
“Okay,” I said. “Uncomfortable silence is uncomfortable. Why don’t you tell me what I need to know for tonight?”
She collected herself and slipped back into her pleasant demeanor. “We’ll enter next to last, just before the Queen. She will present you to the court, and then there will be a meal and entertainment. After the feast, you’ll be expected to mingle with the court and give them a chance to meet you.”
“That’s the protocol? Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws’?”
Something like a real smile brought a little light to her eyes, at the sight of which my glands did not go pitter-pat. At all.