Fifteen #3
“Old knowe seals itself off, reopens when its rightful holder comes home, and starts trying really hard to make her happy,” I said.
“There are parts that are still just the way they used to be, at least according to people who would know, but most of the knowe is updated and a lot more modern, to keep Arden from feeling like she’s living in a tomb.
” The halls we were walking through now looked like they could have been stolen from a luxury hotel.
The walls were white, the floors covered in a softly plush carpet, and decorative light fixtures bristling with drop crystals and globes of light hung from the ceiling.
It was almost funny. When I was Chelsea’s age, I used to look at knowes like this and wonder where the magic was.
Now, I looked at them and all I could see was magic.
This place, where Arden spent most of her time, was willing to transform itself to make sure that she was as comfortable as possible.
It might not like looking like the sort of place where checkout was at noon daily, but it would, for her.
That was the truest proof of love a building could offer. Redecoration may not seem like a big deal for a person, but for a knowe? It was everything. Muir Woods loved Arden Windermere, and always would.
We walked along the tastefully white-and-gray halls, the only real pops of color the blackberries in the carpet and the carnival glass in the windows, which the knowe had remained unwilling to change, until we reached a door like all the others.
I knocked. A moment later, Cassandra’s familiar, beloved voice called, “Leave it outside, okay? I’ll be out in a second! ”
“She thinks we’re lunch,” I said to Chelsea, who giggled anxiously. She might not have grown up in our society, but she’d picked up enough to be concerned about bothering the queen’s chatelaine.
I knocked again. “Cass, it’s me. Well, me, and Chelsea Ames. Let us in.”
Something crashed on the other side of the door. I lifted an eyebrow and stepped back, waiting.
Several seconds passed before Cass wrenched the door open, hair in disarray, lynx-tipped ears half-flattened against her head.
It was surprisingly feline of her, given that whatever her descendant line was going to be, it didn’t seem to be remotely related to the Cait Sidhe.
She was wearing a purple silk gown, tied shut at the waist and hanging off one shoulder like she’d just jerked it on—which, given her general dishabille, was probably what had happened.
“Aunt Birdie?” she asked.
“That would be me,” I said. “Can we come in, or is Walther indecent?”
“How did you know I was here?” called Walther, hidden by the shape of the door and Cassandra blocking the room with her body.
“Because I know my niece, and she wouldn’t be cheating on you with one of the stableboys,” I said.
Cass laughed, looking over her shoulder and then back to me. “He’s decent,” she reported. “Come on in.”
She stepped aside, and I moved into her quarters, closely followed by Chelsea.
Like most noble knowes, Muir Woods provided its permanent residents with multiple rooms, generally branching off a single center parlor.
In Cassie’s case, that parlor looked like it had been swiped from a hunting lodge.
The floor was dark maple, polished and uncarpeted, and the walls were papered in a lovely deep purple, highlights picked out with gold.
If I looked closely, I could see that it was a pattern of blackberries hanging clustered on the vine, ripe and ready to be picked.
There were two fireplaces, both of them crackling merrily away, but the room wasn’t overly warm.
Two doors opened onto hallways leading deeper into her suite of rooms, and there was a single large cathedral-style window, showing a moonlit slice of the grounds through a frame that dripped with purple and green glass blackberries.
Walther was sitting on a loveseat near the fire, wearing a pair of sweatpants, a mortified expression, and nothing else, not even his glasses. He looked at me defiantly, one eyebrow raised. “To what do we owe the distinctly unannounced pleasure, Sir Daye?” he asked.
“Uh,” said Chelsea.
“Yes?” I asked.
“There is a half-naked man over there, and the queen’s chatelaine is wearing a bathrobe,” she said. “I don’t think we should be here.”
“Ah, the wisdom of the young,” said Walther.
“You, shush,” I said. “Chelsea, before Cassandra was the Chatelaine, she was my niece, and as far as I’m concerned, that position still comes first. She’s wearing a day robe, not a bathrobe; you can tell by the way it’s not made of anything absorbent, but is too thick to be a negligee.
The half-naked man is her boyfriend, Walther Davies, who I know you’ve met before. ”
“He had clothes on at the time,” objected Chelsea.
I gave her a hard look. “You’re a guest here. If our host’s boyfriend wants to be topless, you need to politely pretend he isn’t. Emperor’s New Clothes the awkwardness away.”
“But—”
“No.” I turned to Cassandra, who was watching us with amusement. “Sorry. She’s still new enough to be shocked.”
“That’s Sir Etienne’s kid, yeah?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“She’s actually less sheltered than I’d expect, after everything you’ve told me about her situation. What can I do for you?”
“Why do you assume I need something?”
“It’s the middle of the day and you’re here with a random member of your Urchin Squad.
Of course you need something. That, and Karen told me to expect you sometime in the next day.
She didn’t know exactly why, only that it was going to be urgent when you finally showed up, and it was going to be related to Blind Michael in some way.
” Her face hardened. “He’s not back, is he? ”
“No, thankfully. None of our enemies can actually raise the dead so far as I know, and he’s definitely dead. I put him in the ground myself. You don’t need to worry about him.”
“Then what’s going on?”
I glanced to Walther. He was an ally, and had been for a long time. I knew I could trust him. I just had to reassure myself that he was okay with this.
His look of mild annoyance had faded, replaced by a much-more-customary expression of concern. Whatever I had to say, he was ready to hear it. That was a good thing. I returned my attention to Cassie.
“Has Arden told you what happened with Raysel?” I asked.
She frowned. “She told me Raysel had left unexpectedly, and you’d gone after her. I assumed she was dealing with a panic attack.”
“You’re not entirely wrong about that, but for ‘panic attack,’ insert ‘parental kidnapping.’ Knowing Raysel, she’s having a panic attack by now, and it’s not likely to end until we get her home.
Her own mother snatched her after the queen found in my favor, and she’s been taken a second time, by some of Blind Michael’s Riders. ”
“What do you need from me?” There was no hesitation.
Chelsea, on the other hand, gasped. She hadn’t been there when I was dealing with Melly, and hadn’t heard in such blunt terms what had happened after Luna abducted her own daughter. I put a hand on her shoulder, as much to stop her from portaling out to start her own search as to steady her.
“According to another of Blind Michael’s Riders, they’d been told what Luna was planning by two people who’d had previous encounters with the Hunt.
A woman, who I already found, and a man who ‘ceased to be a brother’ after his older sibling was taken.
I know it doesn’t work that way, I know Jessica is still your sister even now, but with the way the purebloods react to death—”
“As soon as it was determined that his brother or sister had stopped their dancing, he would have been treated as an only child,” said Cassandra grimly. “Do you think he’s here?”
“Like I said, I found the woman, and she said he was here in Muir Woods. The carvings in the front hall gave me some idea of who I might be looking for, but I’m perfectly willing to be wrong. Who can you think of in the queen’s court who’s male and might have lost a sibling to Blind Michael?”
“He would have to be from somewhere else,” said Cassie, voice going thoughtful. “I know everyone in the Mists who’s had a local encounter with Blind Michael.”
My shock must have shown on my face because she snorted, shaking her head.
“It’s a small club, no one wants to be a member, and we all talk to each other,” she said.
“It took a little while for me to be invited, because I’m a changeling, and I actually got my brother and sisters back, but they were still taken, and so I qualified for membership.
No one from out-kingdom has joined us in a while. ”
“But someone from out of the kingdom could have been a victim, and you wouldn’t know about it.”
“Right,” she said. “We’ve had a few new arrivals since the breaking of Titania’s Ride. Eion, who I think you know, and Beathan, who came down from Silences when the borders opened. But Eion is from Wild Strawberries.”
“Is he from Wild Strawberries originally, or is that just where he lived most recently?” I asked. “I know he’s not opposed to moving his family around to try to improve their situation. That’s unusual in a pureblood.”
“Even more so in a Hamadryad,” she said. “But he’s here with his wife, sister, and daughters. Would he really be plotting to hurt Rayseline?”
“I don’t know what the man I’m looking for said, or what part in this he had,” I said. “I just know that someone talked, and I need to find them so I can know what was said. Where can I find Eion?”
“Because he came here with his family, he’s not in the standard guards’ quarters, and Hamadryads have specific needs,” said Cassie. “They have a suite of rooms that opens on the back arbor, where they have easy access to trees.”
Chelsea squirmed under my hand. I turned to face her.
“You say you want to be knighted one day,” I said. “That means listening to your knight. That means you don’t run off half-cocked before we figure out exactly what’s been going on.”