Chapter Twelve
I crash onto the stone floor of the cloister.
“What are you doing, Crest?” An Illusion guard peers down at me, a debt ring on each arm.
“Waiting on my mistress,” I say, climbing to my feet.
“I do not see her anymore.” He surveys my dirty clothes. “What has happened?”
“She’s with the king in the courtyards. Do you not feel his power?”
It’s a dangerous game, baiting a halfling guard. They can be understanding of those below them or eager to please those above. Yet the guard’s eyes go glassy, head leaning to one side as if listening.
“They sent me away,” I say.
He coughs, stepping back. “I understand.”
“Do you serve Lord Dominik directly?”
“As heir, he commands all of the guards. ’Tis tradition in the Illusion House.”
“Let your superiors know that the king courts Lady Kassandra.”
The guard’s face flames, but he nods, marching off. Leaning against a column, I stare out at the darkened gardens, now silver-lined in the moonlight.
A shadow flickers to my left.
I jerk back, hissing.
“It is only me,” a voice says. A hooded figure emerges from an arch, passing in front of the moon. Death looms before me, shadows skittering away from his robes like spiders.
“Only you?” A terrified laugh catches in my throat.
As I grow accustomed to Death, like eyes in darkness, another feeling rises above the fear, one more powerful, one meant for the fae. I stumble upon the shores of my anger once more, a small island of reprieve in my muddled grief.
“Are you well?” he asks. “You look tired.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, thank you.”
I spit on the toe of his boot. He glances down.
“Mm,” he grunts. “Brave or stupid, spitting on Death.”
“I just see a dog who sits when Master commands it.”
That gaze narrows like a panther’s. Have I struck a chord? “Stupid, then,” he amends.
“I’m a gift to the king. It would be stupid to do anything to me. Besides, my mistress would know, too.”
“There are many ways to harm without leaving a mark.”
I only exhale when he looks away, willing my legs not to shake.
“I assume you knew the faerie who died,” he says. “The younger brother sought to protect you.”
I hate you, Avery. I hate you and I will never, ever forgive you. I hope the king hurts you.
Tears burn my eyes.
“You didn’t hesitate,” I rasp. Humiliation should drag me down, but it would first have to pry me from grief’s iron grip. “You didn’t hesitate at all.”
That raised hand, our gazes locking. We never shared a goodbye, any goodbye. I never got the chance to tell him what he truly meant to me. I never will.
“It’s not my job to hesitate,” the executioner says.
“A dog, like I said.”
The air around us drops. It is a funerary silence, filled with buzzing insects and bellowing bullfrogs, swishing grass. The executioner could reach out and dissolve me into mist. He could use his shadows to strangle me or unsheathe his sword and cut in places others will not see.
Instead, he says, “Your friend is in a safer place now.”
“How can you know that?”
He says nothing for a moment, then, “Your soul is weary.”
“Are you offering to eat it?”
“You can always declare the Desert Walk. Either you perish in the sands and join your friend once more, or complete the Walk, reach the House of Death, and be absolved of your balances.”
“Death or banishment; either way I will be free,” I mutter. It is tempting, so tempting, like finding a plot of land to rest on after years of walking. But although my legs feel like giving out and my heart like giving up, I cannot.
“I must protect the younger brother,” I say.
“Then that is your reason to keep going.” Before I can press the executioner further, he turns. “Something has upset the king.”
The ground trembles. In the corridors above me, the pound of feet, guards shouting.
“What’s happening?” I ask, but he has already disappeared, the last wisp of smoke fading from the air.
I push off the wall and sprint through the Illusion hedge.
Kassandra sits on the stone bench alone, her nose pink, lips smudged with color. By the time I reach her, Death is already by her side.
“Is everything okay, my lady?” he asks. “Where is the king?”
“He left,” she says. “He returned to his chambers.”
“Thank you, my lady.” Then he is gone once more.
Kassandra stands, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes empty. What has happened? Despite myself, I reach into my skirt pocket for a handkerchief and offer it to her. She dabs her face with it, then meets my gaze.
Her brows pull together. “Stop looking at me like that.”
Like what?
“Let’s go.” She moves beyond me, and I follow, hands clasped together, head down. As she marches out of the gardens, she balls up the cloth, then snaps it open again and again. As we head down the eastern cloister to her apartments in the southern building, she spins around.
“If I tell you what happened, will it stop the press of your puzzlement? Or do I have to retire myself tonight to get a reprieve from your maddening emotions?”
We fall into a brief silence, only punctuated by the occasional rumble of the earth.
“The least you can do is talk back,” she huffs.
“So you’d rather I be disrespectful?”
She glares at me, an icy fire once again sparking in her eyes. “He asked how I forged the diamond dagger. He wanted me to replicate the Illusion.”
“And did you?”
“I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry, my lady,” I say.
“I could not replicate the Illusion because it was not an Illusion.”
Somewhere, an owl calls. “If it wasn’t an Illusion, then what was it?”
“I don’t know. I meant it to be real. A real…creation. But House Illusion is not capable of such a thing. No fae is, save for Reign.” She wraps her arms tighter around herself.
The owl calls again. Who who who.
“That is why the king left?” I ask.
“He’s lending the dagger to House of Healing to see if Eli can test it, see if I left some type of magical residue on it so they can trace the true source of its power.” My mistress turns away, pacing down the corridor once more. “Perhaps my magical marker will reek, too.”
Her words should sting, but they don’t. Now I see that they come from a place more complicated than cruelty. They come from grief. They come from unspent energy and anxiety and rage because she is strong in a way that females are forbidden to be, and that makes her dangerous.
In two days, I will begin to serve the king.
Perhaps I can glean the answers, arm Kassandra with them to help tip the scales of power in our favor.
How would Kassandra reward such an act of service?
Paying off the debt of a young faerie boy should be nothing to her.
But I need leverage to ask this. High Fae only know how to speak in games and deals.
It’s worth a try. There is so little left I can lose. Besides, now I know what rules the Heart of Illusion, and it is no male. And I know, for certain, her interest in me is of a different nature.