As we walked, I wove my hands in and out of the air, tugging on it, teasing it, making it clear who I was and where I was going. Some knowes, like Shadowed Hills, require complicated rituals to find the door. Others, like the false Queen’s fading home, only need people to make it past the repulsion charms and general environmental unpleasantness. Arden’s knowe split the difference. She didn’t want humans wandering in unwittingly—obviously—but she also didn’t want to be inaccessible to her subjects. There were several approaches, some easier than others, and all of them required a certain series of gestures or syllables to tell the boundary that you were approaching with the queen’s own approval.
The world shivered around me, illusions adjusting themselves to show me what I needed to see. Glowing mushrooms appeared among the underbrush, and some of the banana slugs took on an even brighter glow, the consequence of eating both the fungus and the leaves dusted with pixie sweat. A flock of pixies swirled by overhead, wings chiming. I waved at them.
Behind me, Tybalt snorted. “I fully expect a battalion of them to appear at our wedding to hold your veil and demand shares of the cake.”
“It’s cute how you think I’m going to wear a veil,” I countered, and he laughed.
That sound was more encouraging than anything else could have been. It put a spring into my step, and in what felt like no time at all, I was cresting the top of the hill. The doors to Arden’s knowe were standing open, flanked as always by two guards in her livery—including, I was pleased to see, Lowri.
She waved when she saw us. I hurried across the clearing, waiting until I was close enough to talk to her without shouting before I said, “Tell me everything you can about Dugan Harrow.”
Lowri blinked. “I . . . what?”
“Dugan. Do you remember him?”
“Um, yes.” Her chuckle was dark and caustic. “I don’t know about you, but I tend to remember it when people try to stab my liege with iron knives. I was part of the band that arrested him and threw him into Her Maj—I mean, the false Queen’s dungeons.”
It occurred to me that I had no idea what the group noun for a bunch of guards was supposed to be. That had never seemed like a hole in my education before. “Was he one of you?”
“Him? No.” Her nose wrinkled. “The false Queen didn’t want her guards to be knighted. Most nobles, they can’t wait to show off this bunch of wee titled fools they have carrying swords in their name, but her? She was happier if we served only at her convenience and couldn’t go running off somewhere else even if we’d wanted to. He was never the type who wanted to get his hands dirty, but even if he had been, she’d never have allowed him to join the guard, because he came with a title. He’d never have needed her enough for her to believe his loyalty.”
“What was his title?”
“Baron.” She wrinkled her nose. “No land, no manners, but oh, he could lord it over us like anything—begging your pardon.” The last was a hasty addition as she finally seemed to register that the man behind me, in his jeans and plain green shirt, was Tybalt. “Not everyone with a title is terrible. Please don’t assume I meant yourself.”
“I try never to assume anything other than praise is a reference to me,” he said mildly. “It prevents misunderstandings.”
I rolled my eyes but kept my focus on Lowri. “So he was a jerk.”
“Even before he tried to stab his mistress in the heart, yes.” Her expression turned wistful. “Far be it from me to wish harm on another, but we might be in a better place, as a kingdom, if certain events had occurred more quickly.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “If she’d died without an heir, High King Sollys would have been forced to name someone else to take the throne, and we would never have gone looking for Arden. Awful as it was getting here, I sort of feel like this may be the best-case scenario.”
Lowri’s cheeks flushed. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“It’s okay. What happened to Dugan? After he was arrested, where did he go?”
“The false Queen had him taken to the dungeons. You remember the dungeons.”
Did I ever. They’d been so soaked with iron that both Tybalt and I had come close to dying. He’d actually reached the point of begging me to shift my own blood away from fae, so I would be human enough to survive. He’d expected me to do it, too, to take an escape hatch that was only available to me and leave him to die. We’d gotten out. We’d been lucky, and we’d had access to magic that Dugan, as a pureblooded Daoine Sidhe, could never have accessed.
“Yes,” I said tightly.
“She left him there for a fortnight. Long enough for him to soften, for him to start listening to what she had to say.” Lowri shook her head, expression clearly disapproving. “It’s torture. You know, the humans forbid it? They have more laws than we do, and half of them are about not hurting each other. Sometimes, I think they have the right of it.”
“You’re not alone in that,” I said. “What happened after a fortnight?”
“She let him go.” Her expression twisted, going from simple disapproval to outright disgust. “He tries to kill her in full view of the Court, and she lets him go. Like it was nothing to be concerned over; like it was ordinary. He’s a Baron, yes, but he’s not from a powerful family, he doesn’t stand at the center of some great web of obligations. She let him go because she wanted to, and not because she had to.”
“That’s about what I thought,” I said.
Iron is poison, in every sense of the word. It kills magic. It burns fae flesh. It distorts the world, making time slow down and then dissolve like sugar into water, so that everything that happens has been happening forever, and anything that came before the iron seems inconsequential. I don’t have many regrets about the increasingly fae balance of my blood, but my increased sensitivity to iron is one of them. The mortal world can be dangerous for someone who can’t stand the touch of a major metal.
After almost two weeks in the false Queen’s dungeon, Dugan would have been willing to agree to anything if it meant he got to walk away. Anything. Like eternal loyalty, the kind that can be compelled with an oath or geas. The fact that he was helping her now made sense when I saw it in that light. And if she’d somehow convinced him she had a shot at retaking her throne . . .
Too many people had seen him attack her. The only way he was ever going to rise to true power was if she was the one to lift him up. As a Daoine Sidhe, encouraged by his Firstborn to ambition, the temptation to try must have been too great to resist.
“Where’s Arden?” I asked.
To her credit, Lowri barely flinched at my use of the queen’s proper name. “In the salon with your people. I believe they’re waiting for you.”
“Got it. It was good to see you.”
“Open roads,” she replied.
“Kind fires,” I said, and walked through the doors with Tybalt by my side. This was almost over. I just had to hang onto that. This was almost over, and soon, we would be going home.
We walked along the length of the receiving hall. The guards flanking the door motioned to the left when they saw us coming, and we reoriented ourselves, walking on. It seemed to work like that every time we came to a juncture: we would approach and a servant or guard or courtier would appear, quietly indicating the way we were supposed to go. It was all running smoothly, and I thought I could see Cassandra’s hand in the elegance of it all.
As Arden’s seneschal, Madden was in charge of serving as her good right hand when she couldn’t be present to make a decision pertaining to her kingdom. As chatelaine, Cassandra filled the same role on a smaller level, making decisions for the household. Cassandra had grown up in a house full of younger siblings, all attending human schools during the day while their parents were asleep. She was very good at organizing things as unobtrusively as possible.
One silent turn at a time, we came to a part of the knowe
I had never seen before, a wide, sunny parlor with panes of colored glass in place of a ceiling and bright carnival sheeting on the walls. Couches and loveseats dotted the floor, and household servants moved between them, offering sandwiches and cups of lemonade.
Arden and Nolan were seated together on one loveseat, while Madden sat in an oversized armchair, his feet tucked up under his body. May sprawled across an entire loveseat by herself. Quentin, who had been stalking a serving girl with a tray of sandwiches around the edges of the room, broke into a broad smile when he saw us.
“Toby!” He trotted in my direction as the others were still turning to look our way. His smile faded as he got closer. “Gillian. Is she . . . ?” He stopped.
The room seemed to be holding its breath. May, especially, looked like she was on the verge of breaking down in tears. I shook my head in quick negation.
“No,” I said. “No, she isn’t dead, no, she isn’t dying, no, she isn’t going to spend the next hundred years asleep. She’s . . . she’s going to have some adjusting to do, but she’s going to live.”
Even the servants had stopped moving as they listened to me. I kept my focus on Quentin and May, my family, the ones who needed to know this.
“She’s going to be a part of Faerie now,” I said.
There was a crash. We all turned. One of the serving men had dropped his silver tray, scattering drinks and appetizers across the floor at his own feet. He was staring at us, eyes wide and angry. His hair was brown, his eyes were green, and there was a glimmer in the air around him, like he was hiding something, like he was hiding himself.
I smelled cinnamon.
“I knew you were a liar,” snarled the servant. “I knew you just didn’t want to fix what you had broken. Well, you’re going to fix it now.” He lunged, grabbing Nolan around the neck and flinging a small vial at the floor in the same motion. Then he stepped backward, jerking the prince into the hole that had opened in the air, and was gone.
TWENTY-TWO
ARDEN SCREAMED. I IGNORED HER, rushing for the place where the hole had been and breathing in as deeply as I could. The smell of Dugan’s magic—cinnamon and cardamom and how had I been so stupid, how had I not considered that he was a courtier born and bred, fully capable of observing protocol well enough to conceal himself in a noble court—swirled around me. I breathed it in, searching for the shallower scents beneath it.
“What are you doing?” Arden’s hands grasped my shoulders, spinning me around to face her. “Who was that man? Where is my brother?”
“His name is Dugan Harrow, he works for the false Queen, and I’m trying to figure that out,” I snapped. “Tybalt?”
“Yes,” he said, and took Arden’s arm, pulling her back. She stared at him in shock. His smile was quick and cool. “I think you’ll find, my lady, that as a King, my title is equal to yours, and so while my setting hands upon you is rude, it is not a proper insult, nor have you the authority to punish me. Let her work. She does her best under pressure.”
He was still talking as I turned back to the place where Dugan had opened the door, doing my best to tune out everything but the thin scent of cinnamon and cardamom. The false Queen and her people had always been fond of borrowed magic. They had cultivated it, hoarded it for occasions just like this one. I had always wondered where they could get so many tricks—it wasn’t like the Luidaeg had been brewing for them—but things had started making a lot more sense when I discovered that Eira had sponsored the false Queen to the throne. Eira was the mother of the Daoine Sidhe. Of course, she could bottle blood and magic together. There was nothing to stop her.
Reaching under the cinnamon and cardamom scent of Dugan’s magic, I strained until I caught the faint hint of some sweet, half-familiar fruit. “It’s not pear,” I said aloud. “It’s close, but it’s . . . quince.” I breathed in again. “Juniper sap and quince. Whose magic is he using?”
Arden gasped. I looked over my shoulder. She was staring at me, looking even more stricken than she had before.
“My father,” she whispered. “That was his.”
“Your father’s magic? Are you sure?”
The look she gave me could have split stone. “I’ll never forget my father’s magic.”
“Okay. That’s . . . that’s good. He’s been dead a long time. There shouldn’t be anything confusing his trail.” I turned back to the trailhead, such as it was, and inhaled again. “Arden, what are you willing to do to find your brother?”
“Anything.” There was no pride in the word, no anger, only the earnest need of a woman who was no longer willing to be alone in the world.
I understood the feeling. “Good,” I said, drawing the silver knife from my belt. There was a gasp that ran around the room as the real servants realized I’d drawn a weapon in the presence of the queen. Madden even growled, the sound cut off quickly as he realized what I was doing.
It was good that they were loyal to her. It was good that they were willing to get angry on her behalf. She was still going to bleed for me. Maybe this was what it was like for the Luidaeg: she always knew why she was asking me to let her hurt me, but she didn’t have the vocabulary, or the time, to explain it all.
I held out my free hand. Arden slipped hers into it, and I ran the edge of my knife across the back of her knuckles, cutting as shallowly as I could. Blood welled up fast and red and all too tempting. There was a time when I couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Now I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.
“Think about your magic,” I said, and raised her hand to my mouth.
Her blood tasted like her magic, like blackberries and the trees, and her memories slammed down on me like a hammer.
He’s gone Nolan is gone he’s gone and she isn’t going to be able to get him back, I’m going to lose him forever and it’s all my fault, I should never have—
I broke the connection with a gasp, blinking away the red-tinged veil of Arden’s fear. “Arden, please. Think about using your powers. I know it’s hard to stop focusing on your brother, but this is how we follow him.” I could feel the trail and she couldn’t. She had the magic to follow it, and I didn’t. By borrowing her magic, I could bridge that gap and try to bring him home.
“I’m trying,” she said in a small voice.
“Try harder,” I said, and took another mouthful of her blood.
This time, the memories slammed down harder, carrying with them the effervescent joy of using her magic freely after spending so many years concealing herself from Faerie. Images of Arden opening a gate to get from one side of the gardens to the other, all for the sheer delight of doing so, danced across my mind. I grasped them as firmly as I could, swallowed one more time, and reached.
An archway appeared in the air, smelling of her magic but also of mine, a blend that should never have been possible. My head spun, pain lancing through the space behind my ear in quiet warning that even when I was using someone else’s blood to set the shape, it was my own power fueling the enchantment. That was fine. That was dandy. I didn’t need to stay on my feet for much longer.
“Quentin, watch her,” I snapped, and jumped through the arch, the knife still in my hand.
I landed heavily in the mists of the false Queen’s receiving hall, my legs buckling beneath me. I turned my fall into a roll, remaining low to the ground, where the mist would have a chance of concealing me. Something moved near me in the gray. I didn’t think. I just turned and swung, aiming for what should have been the center mass of anything human-sized.
Tybalt grabbed my wrist, stopping me before I could actually stab him, and raised an eyebrow in silent question. I grimaced and shook my head. If he didn’t want to be stabbed, my expression said, he shouldn’t sneak up on me in foggy rooms full of potential enemies.
It said something about how well he had learned to read me that after a beat he sighed silently and let my wrist go, ceding the point.
/>
“I know you’re there,” called Dugan. “Did you really think I wouldn’t hear you? You walk like an ox, Sir Daye. It’s a wonder you’re allowed shoes, with as loudly as those mortal feet of yours seem determined to tread.”
I remained low to the floor, even going so far as to press one finger to my lips and signal Tybalt to silence. He gave me a disgusted look. I shrugged. Yes, he’d been taking care of himself for longer than I’d been alive, but this was my show, and I needed him to take his cues from me.
“You lied, Sir Daye. You told my mistress you couldn’t restore what wasn’t there anymore, and then you turned around and gave your daughter her eternity back. Naughty girl.” He sounded almost amused. “My lady doesn’t care for liars, but there’s still a chance for you. Anything can be forgiven, if you’re useful enough. If you’re willing to work for the privilege of returning to her good graces.”
Dugan paused, clearly expecting me to say something. When I didn’t, he stomped his foot, making an audible huffing noise.
“You’ve done your best to ruin everything, but you’re just one woman, and you can’t be everywhere. You’ll always be vulnerable. You’ll always be a target. Why not give it up now and join the winning side?”
He was somewhere ahead and to the right. I began crawling through the fog, keeping my head low. Tybalt matched me, moving with a little less grace than I was accustomed to seeing from him. The sight woke a strange, out-of-place ache in my chest. He should have been in cat form by now, slinking along on four legs and ready to pounce. Instead, thanks to my mother, he was stuck like this. It wasn’t fair.
This wasn’t the time to dwell on past damage. I rolled closer, grabbing the collar of Tybalt’s shirt and pulling him as close as I could. Pressing my lips to the curve of his ear, I breathed, “Get the others,” before shoving him away.