Chapter 27
“Iwas worried that growing up in the Seelie Court might have changed my brother’s son too much,” says Lisinder.
He receives us in a room much less intimidating than the grand cavern, and I wonder how often that throne room is actually used. Part of me suspects it was selected for our arrival specifically to intimidate us. Now we’re seated in velvet chairs beside Lisinder in a room that’s much more comfortable and almost, dare I say it, homey. Or maybe that’s just my impression because of the way I’ve been treated. Lisinder and the others seem to take it as a given that I belong at Ruskin’s side—that I deserve my place there. It’s a welcome change from the snobbery of the fae of the Seelie Court.
“Uncle, if you are speaking of the incident with Riverwings, I certainly have my regrets there.”
I listen carefully, wondering if Ruskin will explain further what happened. But Lisinder shakes his head.
“That is not what we are here to discuss. I can see you still have the Unseelie strength and drive in you, and I am inclined to believe you did not come here for trouble. So tell me,” he demands, “why enter my kingdom and court under such secrecy?”
I meet Ruskin’s gaze, a rare moment of connection since our argument. This meeting is too important to let our personal tension get in the way, so I try to let him see that I’ll follow his lead here—let him decide how much he’s willing to reveal. Our sneaking around was precisely because we didn’t want news of our struggles to reach the Seelie Court’s enemies. But that doesn’t mean Lisinder is one of them. Ruskin’s the one best suited to figure that out.
“The Seelie Court has experienced some misfortune recently and we come here seeking a solution,” Ruskin says.
Lisinder’s brows bunch. Through his usual serious expression, I see a look of genuine concern dawn. “Is it your mother? I know she hasn’t been well recently.”
Recently? Try two hundred years.
But I suppose to Lisinder, that may not be so much time at all. I’m more impressed that Ruskin has managed to keep the extent of her sickness from the Unseelie, not that it matters now.
“My mother is in fact better than she has been for a long time,” Ruskin says.
“I’m glad to hear it. I have long admired the High Queen. She was a good match for Lucan.”
I blink in surprise at the tone of the conversation. While he’s not exactly cuddly, Lisinder is so open—not speaking with double meanings or in vague terms. He cannot lie, and yet he seems to not even want to. It’s refreshing.
“The misfortune that has struck my court is magical in nature. Some believe it to be a curse. You have a man of learning here in your court, an old tutor of mine, whom I wish to consult on the matter. That is why we are here.”
It’s close enough to the truth that Ruskin gets away with it. Technically, I’m the reason we’re here, but by consulting on my power, Ruskin’s tutor will also be giving us answers about the iron eruptions.
“Ah, yes, old Cragfoot,” says Lisinder, stroking his beard. “He is very respected for his mind, of course, but also considered something of an eccentric in these parts. He rarely attends court gatherings. From what I hear he’d rather spend his time tinkering about with curiosities of all kinds.”
His eyes fall on me.
“He’ll like you,” he says, and looks thoughtful. I’m not sure it’s a compliment. It seems to have finally occurred to Lisinder that I have some kind of role in this situation, and he appears to be parsing what that means. He doesn’t seem inclined to press, however.
“Well, if answers are all you seek, then you have both earned the right to them. You’ll find Cragfoot in the Quartz Quarter.”
Ruskin inclines his head. “My thanks, Uncle, for your generosity and your discretion.”
Lisinder may not be using much subtext, but Ruskin certainly is. Right now, he’s asking the king to keep his mouth shut, but as Lisinder bids us goodbye, he doesn’t make any promises. All we can do is hope for the best.
It is a short walk from our rooms to the Quartz Quarter, so we decide to go now, even with the night drawing in. Ruskin looks like the heavy silence between us doesn’t bother him a bit, but I hate it, and as we walk I search about for something to say, hoping to ease the tension even just a fraction.
“I suppose this is very trusting of the king,” I say quietly. “Letting us wander his court so freely, I mean.”
For a moment, I’m not sure he’ll respond, but then he speaks.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. He’ll be making sure his spies are keeping an eye on us. We’re probably being followed right now.”
“Really?” I ask, glancing around behind me on the road, but I can only see the occasional Low Fae traveling from one building to the next, seemingly occupied with their own business.
“He’d be na?ve not to. But once he sees we truly are just here for Magister Cragfoot, he may relax a little.”
“He’s curious about me,” I say. “He knows I’m involved somehow. Aren’t you worried he’ll find out—” I glance around me, checking no one’s listening in, “—find out what’s really happening at the Seelie Court?”
“On that score, it’s not the king that I’m worried about. There may be many here who are unhappy with our presence, but he won’t go back on his word if he can help it. Nothing matters more to him than his honor.”
I notice a hint of irony in Ruskin’s voice.
“You disapprove?” I ask, surprised.
“I think that sometimes an obsession with honor can get in the way of seeing a situation clearly. Of choosing the most practical solution.”
I don’t argue, but that doesn’t mean I agree with him. Valuing honor doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me. Especially compared to the Seelie, who seem to mostly value their own importance.
The Quartz Quarter looks like it did this morning, only this time the crystals lining its streets glimmer in the glow of the faerie lights. Ruskin examines the buildings carefully, then selects one with a kind of rune scratched above the door.
“Here, this is Cragfoot’s mark.”
He knocks on the door and I feel unexpectedly nervous. If I’m going to be learning from this fae, I want to make a good impression.
The door swings open and I squint to make out the figure. He has the curling horns of a ram and goat-like eyes, his skin dark and leathery.
“That can’t be young Stiltskin, can it?” the fae grunts at Ruskin with a voice like stones grinding together.
“Maidar?” I blurt out.
Both fae turn towards me.
“What are you doing here?” Maidar demands, looking confused and mildly annoyed about it.
“You’re Magister Cragfoot?”
“You know him?” Ruskin asks, baffled. He turns to his old tutor. “You know her?”
“She’s the Thorn girl. She used to trade me for goods at the Styrland market—quality stuff too, before she disappeared and left me in the lurch.”
“I was a bit busy,” I say, nodding at Ruskin.
Maidar turns his penetrating gaze back on him. Ruskin towers over him and yet in that moment he seems to look quite small.
“What she’s doing in Faerie, Stiltskin? What trouble have you gotten her into?”
I stifle a slightly hysterical laugh when it seems Ruskin is lost for words. It’s suddenly easy to picture him as a scolded schoolboy.
“That’s why we’re here,” I say. “We need your help.”
Maidar blinks at us both a few times and then steps back to open his door properly.
“All right, then. I suppose you better come in.”
Maidar’s home is a labyrinth of scrolls and curios. Objects whose purpose I couldn’t begin to guess are stacked on top of precarious piles of books. I glance at the spines as he leads us through the maze, noting that some are clearly from Styrland, mixed in with fae texts in a language I can’t read. There are heaps of minerals scattered around, too. I recognize a bucket of augium in the corner, and a box of mismatched shards of ore that, on another day, would’ve fascinated me.
The old tutor brings us over to a spot beside a fireplace and starts making half-hearted attempts at hospitality, shoving tea into our hands without asking after our preferences and dusting off seats for us to sit in. He catches me looking at his collection of ore.
“Tell me girl, did you ever get the augium to work in the end?”
I take a sip of the tea, which is bitter, but not wholly unpleasant.
“I did. In the end, it was just the quantities that needed adjusting, much good that it did me.”
Maidar glances at Ruskin. “Is that how you came to be in Faerie, then?”
“In a way. Ruskin needed my skills, and we made a deal.”
“A deal, Stiltskin?” Maidar says, and his stare makes Ruskin shift uncomfortably.
“Eleanor isn’t here against her will, Magister Cragfoot, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Why do you keep calling him that?” I interrupt, unable to hold back my curiosity. “Stiltskin?”
“Rumpelstiltskin is what I called him as a lad. He’s always been unnecessarily tall, of course, and he’d never turn up to class without clothes full of creases. Not like your friend…what was his name? The Lionsvale boy. Always neat as a pin, that one.”
“Rumpelstiltskin…” I say, trying out the name in my mouth, imagining a lanky Ruskin running around in messy clothes. I can’t help myself; I start to giggle.
“It’s not that funny,” Ruskin grumbles under his breath, which of course only makes me laugh more.
“Anyway,” Ruskin says loudly, clearly eager to change the subject. “It turns out Eleanor’s talent at manipulating metals is in more than just alchemy. She has power, metallurgical magic, and we need you to help her explore it.”
“Magic, you say?” Maidar says, sitting up straighter. “When did that start turning up? When you got to Faerie, I presume?”
“Yes,” I say. “Eventually.”
Maidar nods. “Styrland’s a bad place for magic. Sucks all the energy right out of it. You were born with this magic?”
I glance at Ruskin. “I think so. I don’t know for sure.”
The unspoken words dangle between us—the weight of the secrets he can’t share. He remains silent.
I think Maidar catches the look Ruskin and I exchange, raising a bushy eyebrow, but he just asks another question.
“What is it you want to achieve exactly, with this magic of yours?”
“How do you know it’s something specific?” I ask.
“You don’t come all the way to the Unseelie Court for a bit of light studying.” Maidar jabs a finger at Ruskin. “And you don’t bring a prince either. He needs you for something, doesn’t he?”
Now, there’s a complicated question. But I settle for giving Maidar the answer he’s expecting.
“It’s the Seelie Court—it’s in trouble.”
“And it seems that Eleanor is the only one who can do anything about it,” Ruskin adds.
Maidar steeples his hands, looking intrigued. “Well, now you have my attention.”
We walk back from Maidar’s home a little more relaxed than when we went. Ruskin’s old tutor was fascinated when we explained the problem and current limits of my power to uproot it. He immediately started pulling out books and scrolls, and told us to come back tomorrow, when his real work with me could begin.
I was relieved when Maidar didn’t think twice about helping either of us. After our challenging welcome at court, I thought he might be reluctant. Whether we passed the trials or not, we’re obviously not exactly popular in this place, and I wouldn’t blame Maidar if he was reluctant to associate with us. But either because of his history with us both, or perhaps simply because, as Lisinder suggested, he doesn’t pay much attention to court politics, it doesn’t seem to matter to him. I wonder about the source of Lisinder’sown suspicion—this Riverwing incident he mentioned has awakened my curiosity once more. How right was the king to hold this against Ruskin? Was what he did so terrible?
Ruskin has accused me once before of not asking for his side of story. On an impulse I bring it up now, wondering if I will get another brush off or, as Ruskin wants me to believe is more likely, a reasonable explanation.
“What was the king talking about, when he mentioned you pardoning those fae, the Riverwings? Was that what really happened?”
Did you really just let murderers walk free?is what I don’t say, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. It appears Ruskin knows exactly what I’m thinking even when I edit my words.
“If my uncle is ready to let it go, Eleanor, I think you should be too,” he says with a sigh.
I shake my head.
“Your uncle knows what happened—he knows what he’s letting go. I don’t. Doesn’t it matter that I want to know? That I’m asking? You’re always telling me to trust that there’s two sides to everything. So explain it to me. Tell me your version. Or should I go on believing that you just didn’t care enough to give the Unseelie justice?”
“I don’t think it counts as trust if you always need excuses and proof before entertaining the idea that I might not be a monster.”
I consider what it would be like, to just blindly take him at his word, without elaboration.
“I can’t just swallow everything without question,” I say, but my tone isn’t confrontational. I need him to understand this as much as he wants me to understand him. “You know that’s not who I am.”
He’s quiet for a moment, then seems to make a decision, and nods.
“All right. The situation with the Riverwings happened very early in my reign. Ever since I was named Prince Regent, there had been rumblings from factions that were against having a half-Unseelie ruler. The Riverwings were two brothers who’d gotten into a brawl in the borderlands with some Unseelie High Fae. It was an even fight by most accounts, but in this instance, it was the Unseelie who happened to lose. The Riverwings killed them, then fled back to the Seelie Court. The Unseelie families demanded they be punished.”
“So why didn’t you punish them? Everyone’s always going on about how important it is to keep the peace between the courts. Didn’t this threaten that?”
“There is no Seelie law against defending yourself, and there was no proof the Riverwings started the fight. If I’d sided with the Unseelie victims against my people, I risked rebellion. It would’ve been proof to all my naysayers that I was my father’s son in the worst way. They never would have trusted me again, and I wouldn’t have been able to hold on to the throne. Once I was removed from power, I’ve no doubt those factions would’ve installed someone who would have driven us right back into war with the Unseelie.”
We reach the corridor with our chambers. Two separate rooms, side by side, though at the moment the distance between us feels much greater.
“On the other hand, by pardoning them, I knew I would only anger a small part of the Unseelie court. The families of the victims were calling for blood, but most were willing to agree it had been a fair fight—and there’s no Unseelie law against defending yourself either. If I had punished them, would justice really have been served?” He shrugged. “I’m still not certain. If it happened today, I don’t know if I would respond that way again, but my position is much stronger now, and it’s easy to forget the way uncertainty can chain you to the safest course of action.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that enough? Or do you have more questions?”
I know this hurts him, my lack of faith, and guilt twists my gut.
“That’s all,” I say. “Thank you.” It feels like an inadequate response, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
After we say goodnight, I’m still haunted by my fears about Ruskin, the ones I can’t seem to keep at bay. I see so much darkness in his past and his present, and yet he’s had to make some impossible decisions in a world where choosing the wrong option could lead to catastrophe.
Eventually, the burden of the day’s events catch up with me, and sleep washes my worries away.