Chapter 24 #2
“Because Highmark follows certain protocols.” She studied me with a level gaze. “And I’m about to break one of them.”
I sat up straighter.
She sighed. “Dorian is supposed to be publicly tried for attacking a member of my court.”
“Gawain is a member of your court?” Dorian had called him Maeronyx’s spymaster.
She gave a little laugh. “I’m not about to tell you that.”
“Why?”
“It would make me vulnerable. But he and Dorian have… a long history. And Gawain knew what he was doing by dancing with you. That much I’ll say.”
I sat forward. “I need to know.”
“Now isn’t the time for stories, I’m afraid. We’ve much to talk about before we leave this room, and you’ve Gawain to thank.”
“Thank?”
Liora leaned forward. “Right now, you look like a scared, confused queen who’s missing her veyre. Good enough reason to sneak down to the dungeons.” A soft, encouraging smile spread over her lips, as though I should understand what she didn’t say.
“I don’t—”
She raised a hand to stop me. “Let me be clearer. If you don’t leave your guest quarters tonight, you’ll be dead in the morning. Maeronyx and Iseris are plotting twelve different ways to kill you before you even set a toe in the Killing Fields.”
Wolves. I was surrounded by wolves.
“You think the mirror wraith was bad?” Her lips kicked up, as though she enjoyed the thought. “The tea? Those were evaluations, Eurydice. And demoralizations. The best enemy, my dear, is a demoralized one.”
The room felt suddenly smaller. “You said you didn’t know about the mirror wraith.”
“I didn’t.” Now her voice deepened, and the blue eyes narrowed. “But a good spymaster doesn’t work well on a short leash.”
Gawain, spymaster. Exactly as Dorian had said.
I forced words through my constricted throat. “Leave to where?”
“I’m sending you home. You and your veyre.”
“To Sylvanwild?”
A faint smile appeared, then vanished. “No, girl. To your scorched kingdom.”
“The Kingdom of Storms?”
“The very one.”
Home. A pang of longing sliced through me. “Why?”
“It’s where Drystan buried the blade.” A certain distance entered her eyes, and a wistful tilt of the lips. “In the place where no one can go.”
The cobalt-blue blade appeared in my mind’s eye. The sight of it cutting through my fate line. The feel of its magic entering my blood. “Carys’s dagger.”
She nodded once. “Of course, you could just stay there in your district. I recognize that. You might miss your little life. What were you, a potter’s daughter?”
My eyes closed. “Baker.”
“Ah. Well.” She paused. “If you should return to us, Eurydice, best be sure you have the dagger.”
My eyes opened. Now was my chance to prod. “Why should I not leave it be? Drystan buried it for a reason.”
“That depends on your philosophy, child.” Liora lifted her hand, pulled off the white glove with two pinched fingers.
She counted on her elegant fingertips, one by one.
“Perhaps to avenge those innocent fae who died in the trials. Hundreds of them, over the centuries.” She lowered one finger.
“Perhaps to end the system that has subjugated us since its inception.” She lowered another finger.
“Perhaps to finish what Carys started, rather than let her legacy rot in the dark.”
She paused with one finger up—her index finger.
“And the last?”
“Power,” she said. “Power like no one has known since that dagger was put under the earth.”
Her finger lowered—and her hand became a clenched fist as her thumb drew across the other four fingers. We stared at one another overtop her fist until she lowered it to her lap.
“I feel the fear in you,” she said. “See it in your eyes. Saw it the moment you stepped out of that carriage.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.
She leaned forward, until we might have kissed. “What if you didn’t have to fear?” Her breath tickled my cheek, sweet with wine. “That’s what I offer you. That’s why I know you’ll find it. That’s why I know you’ll return.”
“Why me?” I whispered.
“Why not you?” Her blue eyes mirrored mine in the semidark, wide and intent. “Another person lives inside all of us. And when we’re afraid, that person comes out. Sometimes, Eurydice, that person is capable of the most remarkable things.”
Liora and I emerged from the private chamber into the corridor’s golden light, she ahead of me. When she stepped aside, a pair of brilliant onyx eyes found mine.
Maeronyx stood against the far wall with arms crossed, as though she’d been waiting since we’d slipped past the curtains. Her black gown pooled on the marble. Behind her mask, those dark eyes moved from Liora to me.
“There you are,” she said, as if we’d kept her.
Liora’s jaw tightened before she broke into a smile. She glanced at me, then back at Maeronyx. Something passed between them—old, practiced. Liora had known Maeronyx would be here.
“I’ll walk the autumn queen back,” Maeronyx said. “It’s the least I can do after such a startle.”
She wanted us to be seen together in the halls. This was a public display.
Liora inclined her head, murmured something in Faerish, and left the way she’d come.
Maeronyx had already started walking in the opposite direction. Her stride was easy, almost idle, her boots soundless on the marble. I caught up. “I had not expected a winter escort.”
“Your hand trembles as if you were in Noctere.” A faint smile. "Don’t worry, I’ll keep you in the light, Eurydice. Highmark has so much of it.”
I clenched my hand. We turned a corner; fae we passed lowered their eyes—not to me.
“You have the best quality of a queen, Eurydice,” she said. “Brave, even when you’re afraid. That’s a rare trait among humans and fae.”
“You think because my hand trembles it means I’m afraid?”
“The toast in the solar—the fire lilies. Your idea?” She spoke as though she hadn’t heard me.
“Does it matter?”
“It was clever.”
“It was necessary.”
Her gaze almost met mine. “You have a cheeky way about you. That’s a young habit."
I half-smiled. She actually thought she could pierce me with jibes. “And a lowborn habit.” Better to name your attributes before anyone could furnish them as weapons.
We walked on. The corridor stretched long and quiet, candlelight catching the beadwork on her sleeves. “I’m told you were a baker’s daughter.”
Now that… how could she know that? “A bread baker’s, yes.”
“My mother baked. Not bread—a black cake with caraway, served at funerals. I hated it as a girl. Now I crave it.” She glanced sidelong at me. “Funny how the things we grow up with stay in the mouth.”
Such an ordinary thing to say. Such a warm, small, human thing.
“Do you miss it?” she asked. “Your kingdom.”
Constantly. “I don’t have the luxury of looking back.”
"I imagine you do miss it. It’s a hard place. I’ve always thought the humans there were remarkable—what they’ve managed to build with so little. The walls alone.” She shook her head. “And still so much we don’t know about what came before them.”
I might have said something to that. I might have asked what she meant. But we’d arrived at my door, and Maeronyx stopped as though she’d counted the paces from the start.
“Your Grace is kind to walk me,” I said, because it was what a queen said.
“Kindness is a queen’s way of saying she hasn’t decided yet.” She smiled when she said it—a real one, brief and unexpected, that crinkled the corners of her eyes behind the mask. “Good night, Eurydice Waters.”