“He might regret it, but don’t you dare say he wouldn’t do anything of the sort again, because we both know he would if he thought it best.”
Jack’s scandalised objections had been a lot easier to deal with, Hetta reflected. There was too much truth in Marius’s words for comfort.
Marius didn’t wait for her response. He shook his head. “And look at us now, fighting over something he’s convinced you to keep secret! It was his idea, wasn’t it?” Hetta didn’t deny it. “I will strangle him,” he said, and his fingers flexed as if he were truly considering it.
“You most certainly will not!”
“Secret relationships might seem exciting,” he said, biting off each word, “but they are anything but.” Marius’s gaze turned inward, and she knew he was thinking of his ex-lover. “You should have someone who wants to show you off, not keep you a secret.”
“Forgive me for keeping my less-than-two-weeks-old relationship from all my nearest and dearest! Particularly when you of all people know the awkwardness of Wyn’s situation.”
“Two weeks, eh?” Marius became suddenly forbidding, tall and aristocratic, peering down his long nose at her. “He’d better not be taking any—any liberties.”
Hetta burst out laughing. “Liberties? That’s almost as bad as Jack’s accusations of ‘canoodling’!”
Marius was already scowling, but at this he straightened further. “Jack?”
“He…ah…inadvertently encountered the fact of our relationship two days ago.”
“What do you mean, encountered?”
Hetta gave Marius a sardonic look. “Do you really want a detailed answer, brother mine?”
His attempt to glower intimidatingly down at her was rather less effective when he blushed beet red and made a choking noise.
“I’d no idea my male relatives were such prudes,” Hetta continued, unable to resist. “Jack made a very similar sound.”
“I’m going to murder Wyn,” Marius grit out.
It belatedly occurred to Hetta that there was a kind of code between men regarding sisters and their supposedly being sacrosanct. She relented and was about to admit that she and Wyn had barely done anything more scandalous than holding hands—Marius didn’t need to know about the kissing, obviously—but again Marius spoke before she could.
“What if there were a child, Hetta? Did you even think about that when you—” But even he wasn’t quite game enough to go there. There was a horror in his expression that had nothing to do with Wyn and everything to do with imagining his sister as anything other than an utterly chaste human being.
Hetta was torn between laughter and irritation at both Marius and her own embarrassment. “Oh, Marius, much as I’d like the earth to swallow me up and transport me literally anywhere else in the world right now, I do appreciate the depth of your affection. You must love me, if you’re willing to contemplate such topics!”
The corner of his mouth twitched, and his eyes softened. “Of course I love you, Hetta.” He breathed out a long sigh. “I’m just worried about you.”
“Wyn and I haven’t done anything that could result in children,” Hetta admitted, her cheeks feeling unusually warm. “But there are precautions one can take, if we ever do.”
“You’d better bloody well not need to use them!” Marius spluttered, completely unable to meet her eyes.
Of course, it was at precisely this moment that the door to the broom closet opened, revealing their younger half-sister Alexandra.
“Not need to use what?” she asked, frowning from Marius to Hetta. Her blue eyes were wide and innocent, and with her guinea-gold hair hanging loose down her back, she looked about twelve rather than the nearly sixteen that she was.
“Never mind,” Marius said quickly.
“And why are you hiding in a broom closet?” she asked, her frown deepening. She took in her siblings’ flushed faces and shrank into herself. “Is everything all right?”
“Marius is merely giving me a dressing-down,” Hetta said cheerfully. “But I think he’s done. Were you looking for one of us particularly?”
“Um. Yes. I was looking for you, Hetta.” Alexandra examined the two of them curiously, looking for a hint of what their disagreement had been about.
“Well, you’ve found me,” Hetta said. “Would you mind very much letting us out of the closet first, though?”
“Oh, of course!” Alexandra scrambled to get out of the door. Hetta and then Marius emerged back into the hallway. Marius gave Hetta a meaningful look that said he wasn’t done with the conversation. Hetta ignored it, since she very much was done, and raised an expectant eyebrow at her sister.
Alexandra hesitated.
“Spit it out, Alex,” Marius said, though his tone was gentle.
“Um, well, it’s about Gwen,” she said in a rush. “You said her court helped you—the Court of Dusken Roses?”
“Well, someone from her court,” Hetta said. “It wasn’t Gwendelfear, though. It was Princess Sunnika.”
Alexandra’s face fell. For reasons Hetta didn’t understand, a friendship had formed between Gwendelfear and Alexandra. It had saved Alexandra’s life in the end, when Gwendelfear had healed her after an accident.
“You haven’t been seeing her, have you?” Marius asked sharply.
Alexandra gave a guilty start, and Hetta looked at Marius in surprise. It would never have occurred to Hetta to ask—a reminder of how much she still had to learn about her younger siblings. The gap created by her six-year absence from their lives hadn’t yet been filled.
Hetta turned her attention back to Alexandra. “You did go to see Gwendelfear.”
“No, I didn’t!” Alexandra looked everywhere but at her older siblings.
“Alex…” Marius said with a sigh. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Well, I only saw her the once!” Alexandra protested. “I just wanted to thank her for saving me. I never got to say thank you when she came.”
“What happened?” Hetta asked tiredly.
Alexandra shuffled her feet and then confessed in a rush, “We didn’t speak for very long.” There was a note of hurt in Alexandra’s voice. “She told me I shouldn’t have called her.”
“And it was just this once?” Marius asked.
“Yes, I—well, the truth is that Wyn caught me on my way back, and he persuaded me not to do so again without telling him.” Alex hunched slightly under the weight of Marius’s disapproval. “You’re not angry with him, are you? I thought you’d be pleased he talked me out of it.”
“I am pleased,” Marius said.
Alexandra frowned. “You don’t sound pleased. You’re angry he didn’t tell you I’d been to see Gwen, aren’t you? But I made him promise not to, so you shouldn’t blame him for keeping it a secret!”
This comment, obviously, didn’t improve Marius’s mood at all, and Hetta decided this was a politic moment to intervene. “Is that all you wanted to know, Alexandra? Whether Gwendelfear was the fae who helped us?”
Alexandra shook her head. “No, not just that. I mean, what I wanted to say was…have you seen…” She bit her lip. “Have you seen the creatures in the house?”
There was fear in her eyes, and Hetta realised abruptly that Alexandra was half-afraid she was going mad, seeing things that weren’t there.
Hetta rushed to reassure her. “The housefae, you mean? Brownies and so on.” Hetta hadn’t actually seen them, as such, for they were quick-silver fast, but she could feel them moving about.
Alexandra sagged with relief. “I think so.”
“What are you talking about?” Marius asked, frowning. “Creatures in the house?”
Hetta explained about the housefae, wondering why Alexandra had seen them but not Marius—and if any of her other relatives had noticed the small fae. She rather thought not, since no one had mentioned it in the hall.
She should ask Wyn about it when he was awake again. That thought sparked another: why spend all this time wondering about the f
ae when they could simply ask what was going on? Alexandra had summoned Gwendelfear; Wyn had summoned his godparent. Couldn’t they just summon up Gwendelfear again, or even Princess Sunnika, and ask what in Prydein was going on? Hetta would like to know what Princess Sunnika had meant by helping them at the bank. She was sure that she and Wyn would’ve found a way out of the situation…somehow, but it had still been a very convenient rescue. Hetta didn’t particularly like feeling obligated to Wyn’s old fiancée.
That trick Wyn had pulled with his godparent—it hadn’t sounded too difficult in theory. She itched to try it but reflected that it would be foolish to go summoning potentially hostile fae without backup. She reached out to touch Wyn’s presence. Focussing within the house was slippery and disorienting, as always, but eventually she found him, so deeply asleep that he didn’t even give his usual flare of acknowledgement when her awareness brushed over him. She sighed. She hated waiting.
“Are you all right, Hetta?” Alexandra asked.
“Ah, yes, thank you. I’ve just remembered something I need to do,” she lied, excusing herself before Alexandra could leave her alone with Marius again.
18
Unexpected Cats
Wyn woke in a frenzy of electrified awareness. He wasn’t alone. Fear thrilled through him, and he leapt to his feet in a rush of storm magic and protesting muscles.
“Hmmmmmrrowww?” Plumpuff the cat peered up at him curiously. Her eyes gleamed in the dark, reflecting the starlight coming through the open window. Wyn hadn’t bothered to pull the curtains before collapsing.
Wyn sank back onto the bed, heart pounding. “How,” he said to the cat, “did you get in here?”
Plumpuff butted her head into his leg—fortunately, his uninjured one—and then bounded up onto the bed beside him. His heart rate, which had been quietening, sped up as he spotted the small black bundle nearby. Carefully, he began to systematically search through the bedclothes. The three kittens had been tumbled among the sheets by his abrupt movement but appeared otherwise unharmed. He blew out a long breath of relief and gathered the furry bundles into a pile next to their mother.
Plumpuff settled down beside her progeny. They wormed their way towards her, tiny paws kneading as they nursed. Meeting his eyes, regal as a queen, she seemed to ask, “What are you looking at?”
How had they gotten in? Plumpuff would’ve had to carry her kittens one by one, which meant three separate breaches of his wards had failed to rouse him. Never mind the remnants of yarrow, iron, and lug-imp venom in his blood; that should’ve been impossible. He drew on his leysight to examine his wards and found them hanging as tangled as poorly stored yarn in the room’s corners. How had they unravelled without him noticing? Had he really been that insensate?
No catshee could’ve unravelled his wards. He reached for Ivy’s cane and levered himself off the bed with a wince. The dull ache of his calf sharpened as he put weight on it, but the limb held. Satisfied, he limped over to the door, where he could reach out and touch his wards. Touching wasn’t technically required, but he found it easier to work magic this way, particularly since he didn’t wish to take his fae form again just now. Losing control of his shape yesterday, and having Jack, Marius, and Caro unable to keep themselves from goggling at his strangeness had been…discomfiting. It reassured him to hold this mortal form he’d inhabited for so many years now, despite how it constrained his magic.
He tugged one of the tendrils of the ward back into position, and Stariel pounced, jerking it away. Faelands didn’t typically express emotion as lesser creatures would understand it, but as Stariel crouched like a cat waiting for his next move, he swore the land radiated smugness. Does that make me the mouse in this situation? He reached for the ward again, only to have Stariel flick it out of reach once more. Apparently, yes.
“Dammit,” he growled. “That’s mine!” A fierce surge of magical possessiveness surged up and outwards, so strongly that he could almost feel phantom wings flex. Stariel flopped back, much like a puppy knocked off balance.
Wyn was almost as startled as Stariel, but he quickly braced himself for the faeland’s reaction. What was he thinking? Hadn’t he learnt anything from last time? This is not a good time to try out insanity, Hallowyn! he told his subconscious sternly. He had as much chance against Stariel as a gnat; he shouldn’t challenge it. Why was he having so much difficulty remembering this fact of late?
Stariel didn’t react straightaway, circling him with the unsettling focus of a hawk. So Wyn stretched out his fingers and grasped the end of the unravelled ward. It was that or stand there twiddling his thumbs. Stariel let him slot the ward back into place, though its presence strengthened. Why had it decided to undo the wards on his room? Perhaps it simply had a soft spot for wandering cats.
Or—he frowned and expanded his senses. The leylines brought unwelcome news; all his house spells had been shredded to some degree or other. Stormwinds only knew what state the ones on the wider estate were in. They were all small weavings, but they were numerous, and it would take him time to repair them all. If Stariel let him repair them.
When he’d smoothed his emotions back down again, he limped around the room fixing the rest of his wards. Stariel remained impassive, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He ached, but he doubted he’d be able to go back to sleep with Stariel watching him so intently, so instead he made his way to the washroom and filled the basin with warm water. Scrubbing the residue of Mrs Thompson’s mixture from his skin was so deeply satisfying that he wondered that he’d been able to sleep at all with it still on him. Each pass of the cloth quietened the off-key jangle of the anti-fae substances.
Should he remove the bandages? Hetta would probably scold him, but he eyed their now less-than-pristine appearance with distaste and began to unwrap them anyway. The soapy water stung as he washed his forearm, and he had cause to regret his decision as the wound began to bleed sluggishly again. He grimaced but persevered, then pressed a dry towel to it. The laundry was going to be hellish for the laundry maid this week. He made a note to make sure the extra service was rewarded.
The cleaning ritual steadied him, and he limped back to his bedroom feeling much less pathetic. Plumpuff raised her head when he came in, decided he wasn’t worth the trouble, and settled back to sleep. Stariel weighed on his shoulders as he found a clean shirt, but it hadn’t unravelled his wards in his absence. Maybe his possessive outburst had made it rethink undoing his spells again. He hoped so. Otherwise, his job had just become substantially more difficult.
He eyed the cat and her litter but decided to leave them be for now. He would bring up a box for them when he returned. The need to sieve through the implications of the attack at the bank had him restless, and he always thought better in motion.
By the time he was halfway down the first set of stairs, he was having second thoughts about the wisdom of leaving his bed. Besides the stabbing pain of his leg, all his muscles felt weak and watery. He stopped on the landing to rest. Each panted breath echoed in the silence of the house, the cool shifting of the night currents. At least the one benefit of it being so near to Wintersol was that it would increase his healing rate; he was already tired of limping.
It was darker here away from the windows, dim enough that he had to lean significantly on his fae nature to see. He should take care—using his fae abilities to augment his night vision would make his eyes glow if he wasn’t careful, and that would certainly surprise any of the staff making an earlier-
than-usual start to the day. But he could hear no footsteps from the belly of the house. Clarissa and the other kitchen staff would not be up for another hour.
His muscles warmed as he moved, and he was almost able to ignore his leg by the time he made it to his office, but it was still a relief to drop into a chair behind his desk. Closing his eyes, he tried to concentrate, but his thoughts whirred towards unpalatable conclusions and he opened them again almost immediately, seeking distraction. A large map of the estate was spread out on the table before him—he’d borrowed it from the map room two days before, to better plan the improvements the bank’s loan should fund. He traced the small black blobs denoting cottages, guilt and frustration following in his finger’s path. Had he permanently spoiled Stariel’s chances with the bank?
Footsteps sounded outside, and Hetta came in carefully balancing a plate, accompanied by a bobbing light made from her own magic. She took in his position, lips quirking, and came into the room.
“Cake?” he asked.
She put the cake down on the desk beside the map. “You always did have a sweet tooth, and if fae magic works anything like human magic, you ought to be starving.”
He was, though his other concerns had pushed it from the front of his mind.
“Thank you,” he said formally. “Any particular reason why you are awake so early?”
“I asked Stariel to wake me when you were conscious.” She frowned. “It’s reacting very strangely to you.”
Wyn paused. “I think it might be jealous of me.”
She blinked. “Well, it shall just have to learn to share.” Reaching out, hesitantly at first, she began to trail her hands lightly over his shoulders and down his arms, as if reassuring herself that he was whole. “You look much better than you did last night.”
He leaned into the caress. “I still feel wretched. You should definitely pet me some more to make me feel better.”
The Prince of Secrets Page 16