Chapter Three #2
But up in the tower that once held her, I found only an empty cell, its gate squeaking as it swung open in the darkness.
It’s another thing I’m too afraid to ask anyone about. If Bram knew I knew his mother was no longer at the Tower, he would
also know I snuck out to conspire against him.
Again, Rhion makes no effort to address my question. “We’re taking the waters today. Will you join us?”
“Oh.” I’m startled by his request. Bram’s court has been particularly taken with the old Roman baths since our arrival. They
sit in the natural hot springs and breathe in the mineralized air. The humans say the waters are good for your health, that
they can cure all sorts of ailments. But what good does that do an immortal?
“Don’t you . . .” I hesitate. “You live forever, so I’m afraid I don’t understand the point.”
Rhion cocks his head, confused at my reply. “But it’s fun.”
He sounds so much like Bram I recoil unconsciously.
My efforts at reconnaissance are going nowhere. I can no longer stand to be in Rhion’s strange house, surrounded by his awful,
glassy-eyed human pets.
I need to go home and find a private space to cry about the deer mask girl. It was a mistake to come here so soon after finding
her body. I can’t hold it together much longer.
“I do apologize. I hate to take my leave early, but I’ve only just remembered I have another appointment.” I gather my skirts
around me and start for the door.
Rhion stands, and a surprisingly genuine look of concern crosses his eerily beautiful face. “Will you come again?”
I pull my mouth into a smile with effort. “Of course, we’re friends now, are we not?”
Rhion looks unsure. “Take the waters with us,” he says urgently.
“Another day.”
“Bring your ladies-in-waiting.”
I’m nearly to the door when I stop and turn around, I can’t help it. The diamonds around his neck sparkle in the watery morning
light.
“You know Lydia?” I ask once more. My veins buzz with the confirmation that she must be in the Otherworld, that I’ve been
right all along.
Rhion turns his gaze to the floor. “Can one ever really know Lydia Benton?”
It’s a good question. One that’s haunted me.
Rhion glances around like he’s nervous we’re being listened to. It sets me on edge.
He takes two quick steps toward me and shocks me by wrapping me in a tight embrace. “What can you shatter with just one word?” he whispers, lips nearly brushing the shell of my ear.
I pull myself from his grip. And then, as if nothing odd has happened, he snaps back to his cheery self and waves me out the
door.
I take one last look back at him and realize, strangely, he didn’t seem drunk at all.
I wish I could spend the rest of the day in my room, wallowing with Pig, writing letters to Emmett and Lydia, then feeding
them to the fire, but a queen’s work is never done.
It’s been only four months since I was elevated far above my station, and given Bram’s distinct lack of interest in running
this country, it’s all fallen to me. I may be powerless among Bram’s faerie court, but in human matters, I’m the only one
keeping things afloat.
I love Emmett and Lydia too much to let them come home to a country in ruins. So, by the bloody tips of my fingers, I am doing
my best to hold it together.
First on the agenda is a charity tea with the other wives and high society girls at the Pump Room.
I’m taken down the hill in a sedan chair, essentially a chaise held up by two long sticks, with four footmen, one on each
corner, to carry me. The ride is unsteady, and I’d really rather walk by myself, but I have to create some illusion of propriety.
All along the route people wave handkerchiefs and take off their hats in respect.
I even hear a few echoes of “God save the queen!” Months ago, the first few times it happened, I was offended, automatically thinking of Mor, before I realized they meant me.
I still have to bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing out loud.
The Pump Room is the most fashionable parlor in all of Bath, the place to see and be seen for all the ladies of the ton. Strangely,
it’s stayed mostly human. While other court activities have become a mishmash of human and fae traditions, our unwelcome guests
have shown very little interest in joining us for afternoon tea in town. They’re almost always sleeping until early evening
after partying until dawn.
A hush falls over the crowd as I enter, and everyone dips into a hurried curtsy. In the corner, I spot Faith, Marion, Olive,
and Emmy, but it would be impolite to head straight for them like I want to.
I circle the room, greeting dozens of duchesses, baronesses, and marchionesses. Gleaming tiaras of diamonds sit in their sugar-spun
white hair, glinting in the afternoon sunlight streaming in from the arched second-story windows.
A grand crystal chandelier hangs above the assortment of round tea tables, and in the corner a stone Romanesque fountain bubbles
with water pumped directly from the hot springs below us.
Somewhere in the second-story balcony, someone gently plays a harp.
I listen to the duchesses’ and the baronesses’ and the marchionesses’ tales of woe. For hours, I circle the room, lay a comforting
hand on their shoulders, and watch as they cry.
Some long for trivial things, like the return of their old nose, the one they got from Queen Mor that disappeared when her bargains were broken.
But some tell me much worse stories. Lady Bexley weeps for her husband, Lord Bexley—owner of the most elegant gambling club in London.
A group of faeries killed him two months ago over a game of poker gone wrong.
They’d been enchanting the cards, and he tried to throw them out. He paid for it with his life.
Duchess Alton’s daughter has disappeared, vanished in the night a few weeks ago, only days after complaining she kept hearing
strange music in the garden.
Baroness Trilby’s tenant farmers have abandoned their land after a charismatic group of faeries promised them bargains that
would leave them so wealthy, they’d never have to touch a plow again. The farmers’ whereabouts are unknown, but the market
town surrounding their estate will starve once winter comes if a secondary source of food isn’t found.
I pull out the small notebook I keep in my reticule and make a note to ensure extra wheat and preserves are sent to Ripon
this winter. I’ll send some letters as soon as I get home. We can pay for it out of the royal vault. I don’t even think Bram
checks how much money we have.
It feels as if there’s no way I can do enough to save these people. My people, now.
After the ladies’ tea, I’m carried back up the hill and begin my late afternoon meetings with the husbands.
These men—lords, dukes, and the like—used to be Queen Mor’s advisers who would carry out the day-to-day tasks like collecting
taxes, tracking farming, reading through crime reports, and the rest of the minutiae required of running a country.
Bram stopped meeting with them almost immediately upon ascending to the throne.
The second week of his reign, when the chaos of Mor’s broken bargains was still at its peak, he stormed out of a meeting, calling it “boring.” He knocked over a vase for good measure and hasn’t entertained their requests for an audience since.
But I saw all their letters, piled up on Bram’s desk, detailing the problems our citizens are facing without a responsible
adult at the helm.
I’d never call myself a responsible adult, but I am queen, so it’s my job to pretend the very best I’m able.
Which is why twice a week, I put on my tiara and I sit with perfect posture on a remarkably hard chair and I listen to the
men who were supposed to be Bram’s advisers but who are now mine.
“It’s called a steam engine,” one of the lords explains, gesturing to a complicated diagram I only half understand.
He pulls out a stack of illustrations next. “With one of these locomotives we could move people between cities in a quarter
of the time it takes to get there by horse and carriage. It would open up commerce between towns. Other countries are decades
ahead.”
“It requires tracks?” I say, examining one of the pencil drawings.
He nods. “Yes, ma’am. We’d have to increase mining or imports.” Lord Langley’s got a curly gray mustache and a bowler hat
slightly too small for his bald head. He is the current speaker of Parliament, a distinction that didn’t mean much under Queen
Mor’s autocratic rule but now carries a significant increase of duties in her absence.
“Mor would never have allowed for that, but there’s a decent chance Bram won’t notice at all. Farmers would have to be compensated.
It won’t do to destroy our crops and people’s livelihoods over this,” I say.
He scribbles some notes. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And the coaching inns. If people no longer need to stay overnight to travel, we must make sure they can still make a living somehow. Send solicitors out to speak with the proprietors.”
A memory flashes through my head, a night at a shabby thatched-roof inn called the Swan. It was the first time Emmett kissed
me.
“Are you quite all right, ma’am?” Lord Langley asks.
I blink hard. “Yes, of course. Please carry on.”
For the next few hours we talk through all manner of bureaucracy, and I leave the meeting feeling satisfied. I so often feel
like a sparkly but unwanted accessory in Bram’s court, it’s nice to be useful. It gives me something to think about other
than my maddening terror for Emmett and Lydia.
I don’t see Bram that afternoon, but I do leave a message with our footman that I’m dining out with Faith and Marion should
he be looking for me.
Faith and Marion have taken up residence at an unfashionable address on Queen Street, a narrow town house made of Bath Stone
with gutters that clog when it rains. They live with Marion’s maiden aunt, Gabrielle, a woman of about ninety who is nearly