6
The morning hours dragged as Braithe and Idhri waited for Morgana to return.
Braithe tried to occupy herself making Morgana’s bed, tidying the few things she had brought with her, organizing the supplies in her basket.
Idhri stayed close to her, often in her way as she turned, but she understood.
He was even more tense than she was. She found a broom and put him to work sweeping the floor.
It didn’t need sweeping, but it seemed to soothe him to have something to do.
The summer sun was climbing near its zenith when Braithe, just putting away the broom, heard the latch of the door open.
It seemed too soon for Morgana to return, but perhaps it was the servants with their noon meal.
She went out into the hall. Idhri had heard the door, too, and he came from the kitchen, where he had been cleaning the fireplace.
The door opened, but the man who walked in with a confident step was not a servant. He was tall and dark, long-limbed, lean. Clearly fae. An aging, dissolute, unnervingly accurate version of Idhri.
Idhri gasped and ducked back into the kitchen, making the man smirk as he closed the door behind him. The fae man turned to eye Braithe with an insolence that made her stomach tighten with apprehension. “Who are you?” he demanded.
Braithe eyed him in return. The features that were gentle and sensitive on Idhri’s face were harsh, somehow broken, on this man.
His lips drooped at the corners, and his cheeks bore lines so deep they resembled scars.
His eyes were the same brown as Idhri’s, but clouded and dull, despite the flecks of gold that showed in them.
His eyelids drooped, and his hair hung in lank, oily strands to his shoulders.
A sinister-looking knife glinted from a leather scabbard at his belt.
Braithe said, with all the asperity she could muster, “I am handmaid to the priestess Morgana.”
He smiled without humor. “And who is that?”
“She is one of the Nine Priestesses of the Lady’s Temple on the Isle of Apples.”
“Ah. I have heard of that.” He took another step into the hall and glanced to his right, where Idhri huddled beside the fireplace. “Where is she now?”
“Priestess Morgana is with Councillor Emerlyn at the council chamber.” When the man’s eyes kindled at this, Braithe realized her mistake. She added hastily, “I expect her back any moment. With the councillor.”
His mirthless smile stretched into a grin that showed sharp, yellowing teeth. “I had best hurry, then.”
Braithe said, “What’s your business here, sir?”
“My, my,” he said. “Do you always speak so to your betters?”
Braithe lifted her chin. “Why should I assume you are my better?”
He took another step toward her and she braced her legs in order to stop herself from retreating. She was afraid of him and repelled by a strong feeling of revulsion that made her feel slightly sick. He projected a miasma of something shameful and cruel, and she wished he would leave.
He showed his yellow teeth again. “Well, my dear, I assure you I am indeed your better. I am Skye of the White City. Idhri and I have already met. There’s no need for you to be involved. I’ve come for Idhri. We have business.”
A wave of terror erupted from Idhri. Braithe caught her breath at the intensity of it. “Idhri stays with me,” she said. She tried to speak firmly, but her voice shook, betraying her.
“If that is your wish,” Skye said, gazing down at her as if she were a bothersome pet. “Then we will all go together.”
She had just opened her mouth to refuse when suddenly, inexplicably, Skye’s appearance altered.
His face softened. The lines in his cheeks eased.
His mouth no longer stretched in that unnerving grin but curved in a pleasant smile.
His clouded eyes brightened and sparkled with golden flecks. Even his hair looked softer. Cleaner.
“You must be hungry,” he said to her. His voice was still deep, but gentle and persuasive. It gave her the odd feeling of stepping into a warm, relaxing bath. “Allow me to take you and Idhri to a place just along the boulevard where we can get some food. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Idhri had gone very still. He stared at Skye, open-mouthed, but Braithe’s fear drained away.
She sighed with relief as she realized that the fae man was a friend.
An ally. She couldn’t imagine why she had thought for even a moment that he was ugly, or that he looked cruel.
Why, this man looked kind. He had an easygoing, avuncular manner. There was nothing to fear.
It would be a pleasure to walk out into the city.
She would enjoy seeing something of it beyond this little guesthouse.
It would be lovely to meet some of its people, to understand how they lived, what they did.
She and Idhri didn’t need to be stuck here on their own.
They could go out into the fresh summer air with Skye as their guide, have something nice to eat, then come back to wait for Morgana.
It would be perfect.
Morgana had always deplored the quarrelsome nature of the priestesses’ meetings in their inner room, but those fractious moments were nothing compared with the atmosphere in the Royal Council of the White City.
At least on the Isle, voices were rarely raised, and fists never.
The opposite was true of the Royal Council.
She had set off for the Council Hall intending to meet with Councillor Emerlyn in her private chamber to explain why she and Braithe had come to fae country.
When she reached the hall, a helpful aide, either a very young faerie or a human girl, pointed out Emerlyn’s door, but she said, “I’m afraid she’s not there. ”
“Where can I find her?” Morgana said, her voice tight and tense. Her dream weighed on her, in concert with the Blackbird’s fears. Lives depended on them accomplishing their mission as soon as possible.
The aide pointed down the corridor to a set of double doors.
“Is that the council chamber?”
The girl nodded. “You can tell by the racket.”
It was true. The volume of voices, punctuated by a sound like the slamming of a door or a thrown chair, rolled down the corridor toward them. Morgana raised her eyebrows. “Has something happened?”
The aide grinned, and Morgana thought she must be fae. None of the humans she had seen in this unfriendly city had smiled even once. The girl said, “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Just the way the council does business.”
Morgana thanked her and hurried toward the double doors.
The building was elegant, with a wide corridor and graceful arches over the doors.
Odd bits of art hung on the walls or rested in niches, tiny paintings and bits of pottery, the occasional miniature sculpture.
The pieces gave Morgana a sense of age, as if they had been made very long ago.
She had no time to stop and inspect them, but she was glad to see art in the White City.
Its streets and parks appeared deliberately bland, with nothing to draw the eye or invite a passerby to pause.
In fact, the perfection of everything felt forbidding.
There was no time to think about that now.
Morgana reached the double doors to the council chamber, where the volume of voices within struck her like an ocean tide, sometimes high, sometimes receding, but not in the least peaceful.
She put her hand on the latch of one of the doors and pulled it open a few inches to peer inside.
The chamber was large, with a high ceiling.
There were no windows, but there were candle sconces on every wall.
The space felt oddly empty, despite perhaps thirty or forty delegates sitting in curved rows before a raised dais.
Brown-garbed servants, all human, were passing between the chairs with trays of refreshments.
Councillor Emerlyn sat behind a wide desk on the dais, chin in hand, eyelids drooping, either from fatigue or disinterest or to mask her irritation.
It was hard to tell. There was nothing on the surface of the desk, no quill or parchment or inkpot.
Morgana hesitated, hoping not to disturb whatever animated discussion was underway.
Cautiously, she sidled between the doors into the chamber.
A sudden silence greeted her. Every conversation died, and every face turned her way.
The servants with their trays of refreshments startled like surprised deer and scurried out through a door at the far end of the room.
Emerlyn roused when she saw Morgana. She came to her feet, and at her gesture, Morgana crossed to the dais and stepped up to stand beside her. The gazes of the people in the chamber burned on her neck and cheeks. She tucked her hands into her sleeves and lifted her head, defiantly gazing back.
Emerlyn spoke to the delegates. “This,” she announced, “is the priestess Morgana. She has come from the Lady’s Temple seeking our help.”
A man in a charcoal-gray tunic and leggings stood up in the back row. His long hair was the same black and silver of the other fae Morgana had met. “Is this the one who claims to be the Lady’s daughter?” His question hung in the air, and a beat of silence followed.
He looked around at the others with a satisfied smirk.
He sat down, and another delegate stood up.
It was a woman in a robe of such a pale gray it was nearly white.
It matched the color of her wispy hair, and when she spoke, her voice thin with age, Morgana saw she was even older than Emerlyn.
She said, querulously, “The Lady had no daughter.”
Emerlyn responded with a touch of annoyance. “The Black Mage says otherwise, Dama. I believe you know that.”
Another woman cried out, “A lie!”
A man in the front row rose with a noisy clatter of his chair. He shouted at the second woman, “You accuse the Black Mage of lying?”
Suddenly it seemed everyone in the chamber was shouting except for Emerlyn and Morgana.
The noise was deafening, but it was the angry energy in the chamber that stunned Morgana.
She turned to Emerlyn, spreading her hands in confusion.
Emerlyn, with a disgusted glance at the delegates, pointed to the double doors that would lead them out of the chamber.
Morgana had no choice but to follow Emerlyn out.
She could hardly raise her voice above the tumult.
When she closed the double doors behind the two of them, the cessation of noise came as a physical relief, though she wanted to stamp her foot in frustration.
She drew a breath and palmed her sigil to steady herself.
Emerlyn started down the corridor toward her chamber. “You see what I have to deal with,” the councillor said over her shoulder. “They will argue among themselves until they tire of the topic, and then they will start on something else.”
Morgana caught up with the councillor so they were walking side by side. “Was all that aroused by the question of my parentage?”
“It’s not a new dispute,” Emerlyn said. “And it’s only slightly less pointless than some of the other things they argue about. It will be nearly impossible to get any information from them.”
She stopped outside her door to murmur a cantrip. This one was more elegant than the one for the guesthouse.
Raven’s wing and tortoise shell,
Willow grove and shadowed fell.
The door swung open to reveal an airy space, sparsely furnished with a large desk and two matching chairs at one side.
This desk bore a quill in a stand, an inkpot, and a stack of parchment scrolls.
An inlaid table held an enameled carafe and cups.
A closed door at the back of the room had a small window in it, through which Morgana glimpsed an inner courtyard.
Another door led to what appeared to be a bedchamber.
As Morgana stepped inside the room, a wave of magic met her, significantly calmer and more disciplined magic than she felt in the streets. That, she understood, was because it was Emerlyn’s own.
“Ah,” she said. “I see now why the council chamber felt empty, though it was full of noisy people.”
Emerlyn nodded. “Magic is forbidden in the council chamber. Blocked at the doors. It always has been, at least in my time. It would be too dangerous to allow magic there, when tempers run so high.” She gestured to one of the chairs.
“Most of the delegates, I fear, possess no more self-control than a gang of unruly children.”
Morgana was on the point of sitting when a sensation of danger seized her. She pressed a hand to her solar plexus, where a tremor of alarm shivered, then grew. Her heartbeat sped, and she had to stand still, the other hand pressed to her sigil, as she tried to think what the problem could be.
Braithe. It was Braithe. The two of them were too close for Morgana not to sense her handmaid’s panic.
“Something is wrong,” she said. “I have to go.”
“What is it?” Emerlyn asked.
“I do not yet know. May I speak your cantrip?”
“I didn’t set it when we came in.”
“Good.” Morgana threw the door open and started down the corridor toward the entrance of the building. She slowed her steps a little when she realized Emerlyn was beside her.
“You sense something,” Emerlyn panted, striving to keep up with Morgana’s long strides.
“Yes.” Morgana judged it would be better to face whatever it was with the councillor at her side, so she shortened her steps even more to accommodate the older woman. “Braithe has occasional surges of magic, but in this case it is strong. Something threatens her.”
Outside, Emerlyn said, “Come this way,” and turned into an alley that sliced between the white-walled buildings. “It’s not as easy a walk as the boulevard, but faster.”
Morgana suppressed her desire to run. She hoped Braithe was wearing her charm. She palmed her sigil and asked the Lady to make sure that was so.