Chapter Twenty-Three
Antonio
“This way,” said the soft-spoken yuki-onna, turning down yet another winding hallway.
The Monarch’s palace was ridiculously huge, inside and out. Antonio was certain he wouldn’t be able to find his way back out if you paid him, not that he would have charged. He wanted to be anywhere else.
Dinner with the Monarchs. And he’d thought nothing could beat hosting Michael and Angela.
He hadn’t expected it all to move so fast. But apparently murder was a highly respected precedent, and they had Wyte and Teth on their side. Or, as Wyte put it, “they keep checking the fine print, but the bastards are getting nowhere.”
Antonio felt like he was getting nowhere. Endless halls of alabaster and glass and he didn’t even know what-the-fuck else. Gold and sun motifs on every damn surface. Scurrying servants who didn’t spare them a glance.
Until, finally, the yuki-onna (dressed in white, of course) stopped and pushed open a gleaming golden door. “Through here, please. The Monarchs will join you shortly.”
White stone walls. A ceiling of fine gold metalwork. And … nothing. No table. No chairs. No fucking floor. Just open air and the abyss. Jagged stone far, far below.
Antonio took a stumbling step back. Grabbed for Declan’s arm. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. He’d played this game before.
“Do wait inside,” said the yuki-onna.
Declan’s anger lit through the bond, brushfire quick, there and gone. Replaced by a spread of measured calm, that tattoo-gun sharpness Antonio always associated with taking back control.
“Hollows do not see glamour. A moment.” Declan covered Antonio’s hand with his own. “There is a floor of what appears to be white marble, Antonio. It goes from corner to corner, with a thick gold rug where the table stands. No fires are lit. No additional walls.”
“Got it,” Antonio said, contained panic making the words flat.
“Will you walk with me?”
It was walk or betray his oath. Worse, betray Declan, who’d killed for this. Spent lifetimes trying to get where they were.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I know this one. Walk ahead of me, yeah? I’ll follow you.”
The Monarchs were doing this on purpose. Putting him in his place. They could go to hell. He squeezed Declan’s arm once more, then dropped his hand.
“Of course.”
Declan didn’t linger. Didn’t question him or insist on helping.
He smiled, and he walked out onto empty air, and he trusted that if Antonio said he could handle it, he could.
Ridiculous bastard, standing in the Monarchs’ invisible dining room in his usual punk get-up, a leather jacket, torn shirt, plaid pants, and boots.
Chains on his wings, made to look like tarnished iron.
Antonio loved him for all of it. The outfit and the way he smiled when he glanced back over his shoulder.
Antonio locked his gaze on the sluagh. Sexy, ridiculous Murderpunk. Fierce and defiant. The yuki-onna cleared her throat, but he ignored her.
Declan. Just Declan.
“I can see the walls and the ceiling,” he said. One step. Another. Eyes up, Antonio. You’ve played this game before. “That’s it. Not whatever you're resting your hand on. Or the floor.”
As soon as he was close enough, he reached for Declan’s shoulder, felt the bone of those wings brush his fingers instead of the prickle of magic. The man had taken his glamour down, like the defiant fuck he was.
“How charming,” Declan murmured as he leaned toward Antonio’s hand. Then he smiled, slow and wry. “Other than the decor, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
Antonio’s laughter came sharp and unexpected, sneaking past his lips and easing the hard clench of his jaw. “Zero stars.”
The words had hardly left his lips when a door appeared in the far wall, blurred in the way Faerie always was. A huge door, gold and ivory, that swung open with a bang. Dramatic sorts, these monarchs.
An enormous lion walked in first, with paws the size of dinner plates, golden wings, and the face of a man, green-eyed with light brown skin.
A sphinx. Between one step and the next, the sphinx was man-shaped, his mane of golden hair crowned with a diamond-studded circlet.
It had a sun in the center, nestled in fine gold leaves.
“Ah. Our prospective Councilors,” the man said, turning back to the doorway. “They’re here, my darling. I lost our little bet.”
The second Monarch seemed to step into being at his words. She had warm, sun-kissed olive skin and pale green hair, her eyes huge and sparkling. A zana, carrying with her the scent of new growth. Her crown was made of silver holly leaves, studded with pearls, a crescent moon at the center.
Other than the crown, they weren’t wearing a fucking thing that he could see. Probably, they had some very pretty glamour on, but the best he could do was keep his eyes away from her nipples and his dick.
“I do enjoy a risky wager, my heart,” she said, with a twinkling laugh. “Especially when it comes to the bold little sluagh who courted our dear Tsuri.”
“Ah, the ill-made dreams of callow youth. They never do think matters through. But no matter, Tsuri has their dryad now.” The sphinx held his hand out to the zana, palm up. “And you, Declan, have your Hollow it seems. Sit, both of you.”
Sit in the chair he couldn’t see. Stuck either waiting for Declan to help him or groping around and making a show of exactly how helpless they’d made him. And all while the pair of them were rubbing losing Tsuri in Declan’s face.
“Tsuri and I were just discussing how well it all worked out,” Declan said, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over the back of what must be a chair. “Each of us found the bond that best suited us.”
Christ, he didn’t deserve this man. He’d been braced for Declan to pull out the chair for him, guide him down to sit. (Like a pet. Like a child.) Instead, Declan gave him a marker to aim for, then sat–not on air, no matter how it looked–in the chair next to his jacket.
For an instant, Antonio forgot where they were, and who was watching. He flashed Declan a smile as he pulled out the seat he couldn’t see. “Lucky me.”
“It’s important to recognize one’s reach,” the sphinx said, and if that wasn’t a veiled threat, nothing was. “Now, we’ll have our little meal and get this done. The second oath taken for this Seat in as many years. Darling, we must wager on how long before the next.”
Antonio sat, eyes on Declan instead of the Monarchs.
The chair tingled against his skin, a low-level uncomfortable prickling.
The four of them sat on nothing, around an empty space.
Antonio shifted in, cautious, until he found the lip of the table, then rested a thumb against it, so he wouldn’t lose track.
“That’s no simple call, light of my world.” The zana spared Declan the barest glance, not even looking at Antonio. “The lack of eternity for them does narrow down the field a bit. I’m torn between a week, and the full few centuries they’ve left.”
“Ah, yes. There is that. It comes to not much either way. Tell me about this unfortunate fad, Declan. What inspires not one, but two, of our people to throw their eternities away? Do you think the death aligned will continue in the habit? So concerning, losing our beloved subjects. Sluagh and kelpie are not what one would call common.”
“Fewer and fewer,” the zana agreed. “Such a shame.”
Antonio pressed his thumb harder into the table to keep from talking, saying exactly who should be ashamed for the dwindling of the unseelie.
“I cannot speak for Everil,” Declan answered, in that calm fae way he put on when he needed to. “For me, seven fae potentials turned me away. So, four hundred years it is. And worth it, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Ah, an act of desperation. You realize, there are those among our subjects who are deeply concerned about this trend. But they, too, are young. They fail to understand the long view.” The sphinx patted the zana’s hand as he spoke.
“And that, young Declan, is why the Council’s powers are limited.
We cannot have children second guessing their elders.
They might act rashly when all that is truly required is patience and careful management. ”
Careful management, like only keeping the pretty babies.
Or, like the library dragon had mentioned, they could drive the unseelie to seek human bonds, to get rid of the lot of them in a few centuries. Christ, the last thing they needed was the Monarchs to take to the idea.
“I wouldn’t expect it to catch on,” he said, flat, looking fixedly at the sphinx’s thick eyebrows. “Most humans would rather have the internet than a few extra years.”
“If the Council has their way, there won’t be an option for the fad to become anything but a twice over,” Declan added. “A century ago, the suggestion of limiting veil travel was only backroom whispers. Now they speak of stopping it completely, in earnest. Your heirs are fond of the idea.”
“Such a motion needs to be approved by us, first.” The zana spoke with such patronizing kindness that Antonio had to bite his tongue. “The Council thinks in mere centuries. The long view is ours to maintain.”
“Ever insightful. Truly, without your wisdom, all of Faerie would be lost.” The sphinx waved a lazy hand over where the table probably was. “My dear, if you’d do the honors? I believe our guests must be hungry.”
Christ, if these two were any more full of themselves, they would explode.
“Of course.” The zana waved her hand in the air. “I’m a fan of seafood.”
Nothing changed. Antonio’d been ready for this part. The deliberate cruelty of it. To sit and wait while Declan cut the food he couldn’t see, fed him prickling, tasteless lumps he’d have to swallow down. The Monarchs wanted him put in his place, and they knew exactly how to go about it.
What he wasn’t ready for was the bright burn of indignation through the bond, needle sharp and steadying.
“You seek to harm Antonio,” Declan said, after a long beat. “And myself, by extension.”