Chapter 5
Imarch on. Whatever was going on back there had nothing to do with me.
All that matters is that I get the key to Tristan right now, with enough time to rush back to Smithfield, back to the bloody portal before it closes.
Then I’ll join Vero and put as much distance as possible between me and that poor woman’s corpse.
With my blood pounding in my ears, I follow the cobblestone path that curves around to the left. The Tower Bridge spans the Thames in the distance.
I desperately want to see Tristan. He and I grew up together.
Instead of a regular school, we studied in the Undercroft, Auberon’s underground spy academy.
Literally underground—beneath the king’s castle.
We’ve both killed more people than I can count.
If anyone can handle the unwelcome news of my chaotic and violent night, it’s him.
I spot him standing beneath a birch tree, looking out over the river. Moonlight gleams off his dark, wavy hair.
If he weren’t in such sinfully perfect shape, he might pass for a tourist drifting through London at night.
But anyone paying attention would see the way his shirt strains over shoulders carved by hours of swordsmanship.
They’d notice the ink along his arms too, the dark leaves coiling over hard muscle, rendered with a craftsmanship that could only be Fey.
And then there are his eyes, metallic green shot through with gold.
He always makes my heart skip a little beat when he looks at me too long. It’s no wonder he’s left a trail of brokenhearted women behind him. I’ve had a crush on him for as long as I can remember.
Technically, we were always just friends, but seeing him makes my cheeks flush. You can’t blame me. The man looks like masculine perfection, and I spent my teenage years sleeping next to him.
Even now, after the night I’ve had, my pulse races when his eyes slide to mine, and all thoughts of Owain dissolve.
Tristan, however, doesn’t look happy to see me. His jaw tenses, and he leans back against the railing, folding his arms like the very sight of me is exhausting.
When I’m close to him, he grabs my elbow and pulls me near, whispering, “Who did you kill, Syn Malleore?”
I frown. “What sort of greeting is that? How do you know I killed someone?”
He peers down at me. “Because I’m highly skilled in espionage, and you bear the distinct mark of a murderer.”
“What mark?” I lean over the river’s edge, looking at my reflection.
My heart jolts.
There, glimmering off the water’s surface, are golden rays radiating from my head—a halo. “Oh, gods. What is this?”
“Unless you’re an aristocrat, there’s only one way to get that golden glow, and it’s slaughtering the noble who possessed it.”
My stomach tightens. “What the fuck?”
He crosses his arms. “First, tell me who you killed.”
I turn back to him, heaving a deep, shaky breath.
“The baroness from the Waste Land. I was trying to help her get away from the Iron Legion, and on the way here, she attacked me. She was a telepath, and she overheard me fantasizing about killing Auberon. Apparently, she was a fan of his, because she started shouting at me that no one should hurt a king, and that someone like me could destroy the world, and cursed be the hour I was born. Then she tried to choke me. She was completely unhinged. I had to fight back.”
Tristan goes very still, staring at me, and my pulse quickens. I can tell he’s exercising a large amount of restraint before speaking, which makes me wonder exactly how much trouble I’m in.
“Okay…” he says slowly.
“What?” I grab his forearm. “What are you not telling me?”
“You killed Alis of Listenoise. The niece of King Pelles of the Waste Land. This is bad, Syn. The monarchists will kill you if they find out. Did anyone see you?”
I shake my head. “No one saw me kill her. But I passed two more Fey with the same halo. They seemed certain I was from the Waste Land. They mistook me for the baroness. I think they were trying to reconcile the aristocratic halo with my shitty clothes.”
Tristan’s gaze bores into me. “Fuck.”
“What, exactly, is going on, Tristan? I know I’m not part of Avalon Tower’s spy guild, but you need to fill me in right now. Why are all these rich Fey with halos showing up around the Tower?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw, and I can almost see the gears turning in his head, as though he’s weighing how much to tell me. But I know him, and given the right circumstances, he has a hard time resisting a bad idea.
“Come on, Tristan. I know you’re dying to tell me. I’m in danger, aren’t I? I doubt that hiding information from me is going to keep me safer.”
“Fine. You remember the Veiled Court?”
My heart leaps at the fortress’s name, nostalgia twining with regret.
I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard all about it—a court that moved around the kingdom from year to year, hidden by magical mists.
They say that once, it stood on the lost island of Avalon—and before that, in London.
Some of Auberon’s most powerful advisors lived in the Veiled Court.
A very few of his most elite spies were granted the privilege of becoming Knights of the Veiled Court—even one or two lowborn rabble from the Undercroft.
When I was a teenager, I imagined myself there all the time. Curled up on a hard dirt floor, I pictured Tristan and me drinking from crystal goblets on a balcony above a garden. I envisioned fine gowns, soft pillows, crystal glasses of mead.
The golden possibility of the Veiled Court might have been the only thing keeping me going back then.
“Of course I remember,” I say. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve thought about it while stepping over a puddle of someone else’s vomit outside my flat?
I think about it every time I see someone in my neighborhood injecting heroin into his knob, which is more than you’d expect.
I think about it whenever I have to buy value-brand margarine because butter is too expensive.
Yes, you could say it’s been on my mind once or twice. ”
Tristan cocks his head with a quizzical expression.
“Right, well, King Auberon may not be dead, but he’s gone, and so are his advisors.
Many of them are now imprisoned in the dungeons by the commoners; others have been executed.
But someone from the Veiled Court has been sending these invitations to aristocrats around the Fey world.
Only they can get into the Veiled Court.
Ravens brought invitations to every forgotten, hidden Fey island across the globe, summoning their high lords and countesses.
You know the lost Isle of Shalott? Not lost anymore.
The ravens found it, and they invited members of their noble houses. ”
“They want a new king, don’t they? I hate the nobility.”
“You and me both, Syn. I hate every bone in their bodies.” He sighs. “Unless it’s my own.”
Of course—he really does have a history of shagging aristocratic women.
When it comes to work, he’s strategic and completely logical, but the rest of his life is anarchy. Once, after a fight with a lover, he disappeared into the forest for two weeks. He returned to the Undercroft naked, bruised, and covered in dirt.
Auberon kept him locked in a dark hole for weeks after that, starving him.
Tristan absolutely cannot resist the lure of adventure, which is why he’s been imprisoned more than once, even by his own spy organization in Camelot.
Sometimes, I wonder if he craves being locked up. After all, it’s how we spent much of our youth. It’s familiar.
“Tristan, what else do you know?” I whisper.
“People are getting into the Veiled Court with these invitations. The raven brings the invitation, explaining where to go. When the invitation is opened, the golden halo appears. It’s a portal key, and it vanishes once a person crosses the threshold into the Veiled Court.
But the halo will reappear if someone leaves the Veiled Court without being formally dismissed.
If you never show up at all, you’re stuck with it. All of this is only for the nobility.”
“Then why do I have a halo? I come from a long line of peasants and gravediggers.”
“Because if someone with the halo is killed, the magic seeks a new bearer. It’s completely illegal to kill them, of course, but the Veiled Court’s magic is older than laws.”
“So, what is your role in this?” I ask cautiously.
“That’s the third way in. I planned to infiltrate as a humble servant.”
My eyebrows flick up. “I know you’ve played many roles in your life, but I’m not convinced humble is one you can reasonably pull off.”
“It wasn’t exactly easy to arrange, you know.
I was supposed to act as Alis’s manservant.
The Waste Land’s borders are completely closed.
It’s fog and swamps and decay if you try to get through.
Messages can only arrive by raven, and even then, half of them die.
We had to use magic enchantments in our letters to convince the baroness that I was one of her uncle’s own valets, lost outside the Waste Land boundaries for decades.
We were supposed to reunite right here. But then you killed her. ”
I touch his arm. “Who is sending out the invitations, exactly?”
He holds my gaze for a long time before he answers. “Someone called Niniane is in the Veiled Court. She’s an ancient priestess, and she’s an obsessive monarchist. We believe she’s calling people in for a council of nobles to choose the next king.”
“So, they’re just ignoring the republic’s new courts,” I say. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
“Shakespeare again?”
I don’t answer because I’m too busy thinking, Fuck kings.