Chapter 12
The next morning, I was woken by a knock. Exhausted from the late night, I was slow to rise, but some of the fog cleared when I found Triana outside, smiling. “They came,” she said, hands moving excitedly.
“Other humans?”
She nodded. “And faeries from the other houses, wanting to serve here instead.”
My heart lifted. My speech last night had reached the right ears, and Blood House was about to swell in size. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
I threw on a red dress, securing it with an iron-gray sash, then hurriedly redid my braid, which had gotten ragged during the night. Then I woke Lara and convinced her to join me.
“It’s too early for this,” she said grumpily as we headed down the stairs.
“No, it’s not.” I couldn’t stop smiling. “People actually came.”
Her expression grew softer. “It was a good speech. Daring, too. Imogen looked ready to stab you for seizing everyone’s attention at her party.”
“That’s why it was important to do. If everyone keeps acting like this is Imogen’s Accord, Imogen’s party, Imogen’s plan, then she’s already won.”
“No princess has ever tried to recruit members before. The Fae take house loyalty seriously—Gweneira said encouraging faeries to defect was about the most shocking thing you could have done.”
“Do you know Gweneira?” I asked. “I’ve never heard you talk about her before, but you seemed close last night.”
“I’ve decided to be more strategic and start cultivating allies for us.” She looked almost embarrassed to admit she’d been playing politics. “Since she’s on your council and fighting for control of Light House, I thought it would be a good place to start.”
I grinned. “Lara, that’s wonderful.”
“We’ll see if I’m any good at it. But Gweneira was interested to hear my opinions on Earth House, and when she found out I don’t know much about other successful coups, she promised to send over some history books.”
“So you’re going to be my political advisor?”
Her smile was half grimace. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“And you think I do?”
“I like Gweneira so far, though,” Lara said as we reached the ground floor. “She’s calm and reasonable. I hope she ends up in charge of Light House.”
It was hard to imagine a Light faerie being reasonable, but their favored trait was discipline, and they supposedly cared deeply about justice. The danger came when the worst of them—like Prince Roland—defined what justice meant.
The door to the house was open, letting in the murmur of conversation. Maude and Triana hovered in the entrance, alternating between talking to each other and signing to the humans outside. Triana caught sight of me and grinned.
Maude was more hesitant to smile, but she seemed a bit happier than she had been the first day. She nodded at me, then signed the number 117 and pointed outside.
There were that many people here? I could barely believe it.
Sure enough, the entrance hall was filled.
Approximately eighty were humans, ranging from children to the elderly; I spotted Maude’s friend Bruno, who had apparently softened in his opinions, as well as other familiar faces from the workrooms. Most of the rest were Underfae, but there were five Noble Fae hovering at the back of the crowd, looking ill at ease.
Their attire marked them as members of Earth House, and Lara made a soft noise of recognition before waving to them.
“You know them?” I asked.
She nodded. “The three teenagers are—I mean, they were Selwyn’s friends. The two elder faeries often challenged Oriana about neutrality.”
Earth House defectors here to defy the Fae’s ancient traditions because of me.
I faced the crowd as Lara took her place beside me. “Welcome to Blood House,” I called out. “I’m Princess Kenna, and I’m glad you’re here.”
The Underfae looked nearly as nervous as the humans, darting glances over their shoulders as if expecting someone to arrive at any moment to punish them. Betraying a house bore severe consequences, so I would need to claim them for Blood House quickly.
I tallied them up, finding a mostly even split between Earth, Light, and Illusion Underfae.
I recognized most of the Earth faeries, though I didn’t know them well.
The servants were always on the move, and with so much of my time taken up with Lara, I hadn’t formed the same bonds that the kitchen or cleaning faeries had with one another.
“This is my trusted advisor, Lady Lara,” I continued, gesturing at her.
“You are welcome to take shelter in Blood House for as long as you like, but you must swear fealty to not just me, but the other faeries and humans who live within these walls. We are a small house, and this needs to be a safe place for all of us.”
A Light asrai stood near the front, watching me with sunlike eyes. Her long fingers were laced together at her heart, and it was hard to tell with those brilliant eyes, but she looked like she might be crying.
A shiver of unease went over me at the sight of her. Trusting the Light and Illusion Underfae was going to be difficult, I realized. They had come seeking shelter, but what guarantee did I have that they weren’t spies? If I didn’t take this risk, though, the house would never grow.
I could at least exercise a small amount of caution. “I’d like to talk to each of you to find out why you want to join the house and what you’d like to do in these walls. Can you please form a line?”
They moved into place, though many looked ready to bolt.
Let me know if anyone else comes near , I silently requested of the Blood Shard.
It hummed agreement in my head. I tasked Maude and Triana with managing the line, and Lara and I settled into a small study in the corridor outside Blood House and started the interviews.
The human interviews were fast and easy.
I wasn’t going to force them to explain why they wanted to join the house, so all I asked were their names, where they were from, and if they were interested in leaving Mistei once I could arrange transportation.
Almost all said yes, though a few expressed the same concerns Maude had—that they doubted they would find welcome in their old villages.
I informed them they would not be expected to act as servants and could simply rest until we figured out a path for everyone.
Once I’d spoken to each person and performed the mental task of adding them to the house, the Underfae began interviewing.
The first two were a dryad and a brownie who had defected from Earth House, wanting to follow Lara.
The dryad, Nadine, had apprenticed under Alodie and offered her services as our head servant.
Lara and I sent them out of the room while we debated to set a precedent for the others waiting outside, but there was no debate to be had.
We knew them, and we would certainly need a head servant to manage the growing household.
So I closed my eyes and communed with the Blood Shard, offering the two Underfae safety.
The next two faeries, both from Illusion House, wanted to interview together.
One was a sylph wearing a purple shirt that was slit in the back to allow his long, filmy wings to poke through.
The angle of his wings was odd—they stuck out crookedly rather than falling straight down his back.
On his shoulder perched one of the more minuscule Underfae: a lavender-haired pixie the size of my finger, with the blueish-purple wings of a butterfly.
“Princess Kenna,” the sylph said. He bowed as low as he might to a queen. The pixie flitted up from his shoulder at the movement, gave him an irritated look, then executed a bow of her own in midair. “I’m Jory,” the sylph continued, “and this is Maela. We’ve come begging shelter.”
“Will you tell me why?”
“Even with the king gone, I can’t stand to stay in that house.” Jory shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself. “Please let me stay, Princess.”
I hesitated. It was easier to trust the faeries who had left Earth House because I knew what went on within those walls, but Illusion House was very different.
“You should show her,” Maela told Jory. Her voice was light and tinkling, so soft I leaned in to hear better.
Jory sighed, then turned to present his back to me.
His wings twitched, but instead of snapping up and out to lift him off the ground, they jerked into a half-extended position.
The slit in his shirt allowed me to see where they merged with the pale skin of his back.
The bases of his wings were covered in ropes of scar tissue.
“The king cut them half off,” the sylph said sadly. “All because I dropped a plate when he was passing by. Now I’ll never fly again.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
Jory turned to face me again. “It doesn’t matter if Princess Imogen is better than him or not; she’s still his blood. I can’t stay there.”
I looked at Maela. “And you?”
The pixie held out her arm, and I realized her tiny hand was missing—only a bandaged stump remained. “I stole milk for a babe who wasn’t suckling. The weak are supposed to die naturally in Illusion House, so I was punished.”
My jaw dropped. “They cut off your hand for feeding a baby?”
She nodded, her heart-shaped face set in lines of fury. “The day you killed the king. They haven’t gotten around to throwing me out of the house yet, but they will.”
She could have chosen to take shelter in one of the outcast colonies. Instead, she was here.
I sent them out of the room and discussed the issue with Lara.
To my surprise, she was immediately in favor of taking them in.
“They’re from Illusion House,” she said, “but servants are different. They barely have magic anyway, and you saw her hand. Illusion won’t keep her no matter what. Why not let them serve here instead?”
I agreed, and so the decision was made.
Both Underfae looked shocked when I told them. “It’s real,” Maela whispered, looking at me in awe. “What everyone’s been saying about you—it’s actually real.”