Page 201 of Nine-Tenths

I didn't expect it, either.

For a moment, we all eye one another, reassessing where we're each standing in this melodrama. Some of us are on the back foot when we expected to be on the front.

"Your Majesty," Simcoe says. He gestures at the guard, clearly expecting the queen to tell him it's okay to walk around her, or push her over, or even do violence.

"I find I prefer you and your insolence on the other side of a barrier for the moment," the queen replies, low and dangerous. Leicester chuckles. "Were you not towaitin the hearing chamber, sir?"

Hearing chamber?

"The Court of Peers," Dav says, and then shivers once all over before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to regain his calm. "I see."

"I don't," I admit.

Dav shakes his head. "It is a court."

Not a royal court. A legal court.

Shit.

Shit.

"But… we haven't…" I look back up at the queen. "You can't beserious. So that's it, then?" I ask, and yeah, okay, it's probably pretty rude, but my ire is too hot now for me to cower. "That's all we get? You won't evenletus talk and now you're, what, going to persecute us for evenattemptingto make the world a better place?"

"Yes!" Simcoe snarls with glee. The smooth demeanor of the social façade he'd struggled to keep up on Halloween cracks around the edges. "I came to investigate the delay—"

"A queen may take as much or as little time as she likes," Leicester corrects him.

Simcoe stops.

Swallows hard.

"Of course, Your Lordship," he simpers.

The queen hums thoughtfully. "However, now that you are here, perhaps it is time we joined the peers."

Simcoe grins triumphantly, and my hopes curdle.

"Your Majesty," Dav says desperately. "If there is to be punishment, please leave Mine Own out of it. All that he's done has come from a place of honest idealism and ignorance."

"And whose fault is it that he is ignorant?" Simcoe sneers.

"I take full responsibility," Dav says hastily.

"This is why you choose a Favorite from a coterie," Simcoe presses. "One that'strainedalready. First that girl, and now this. It's nothing but scandal after scandal with you, boy—"

"Hold on," I interrupt. "Youchose Laura Secord."

"Hmm, yes," the queen says. "Interesting double standard, Sir Francis."

Simcoe flushes angrily but says nothing.

The queen descends, the duke and duchess at her heels, Leicester behind them. "Let's not keep the peers waiting."

We're led to something that's less courtroom and more fancy sports arena. Opposite the grand entrance doors is a gloriously appointed box for the queen, with less ornate but equally elevated chairs on either side of her, already filled with Favorites and dragons in either scales or flesh. Those wearing humanshape are as elaborately dressed as Dav, right down to the slutty, Pride-tastic eye makeup to highlight their wide array of flame-colored irises.

The floor is sunken in four concentric rings, the lowest of which is maybe triple the size of a boxing ring and made of bare stone. The next up is carpeted in a rich maroon, studded on either side with two clusters of tables, chairs, and a stone prisoner's box directly opposite the royal one. Simcoe strides to the left-hand table, where there are several other dragons already waiting, and Dav leads me to the other. I set down the briefcase, relieved that my self-sacrificing idiot didn't march himself straight to the prisoner's box.

The next ring is filled with three rows of intricately decorated benches. They're empty on our side, but filled with Simcoe's supporters on his. The final ring consists of balconies looming over our heads, broken up with the high, arched windows of the palace, and lined with rows of raked seats. They are absolutelypackedwith dragons in elaborate circlets and tiaras, and Favorites bedecked with jeweled tokens. I spin the ring on my pinkie, taking comfort in its protection, for all that I resent it means I'm owned.