Page 27 of With Wing And Claw

‘Oh, yes.’ Inga shrugged, long hair tumbling down over her shoulders. ‘Wishing you much wisdom in dealing with that. I do suggest you deal with it, though.’

‘Who do you think youare?’ Thysandra snapped, anger and bewilderment finally getting the best of her. ‘You can’t come stomping in here and make demands just because you’re no longer working here. I’ll make my decisions however I see fit, and—'

‘Ah, yes.’ The other woman sighed. ‘Emelin already mentioned you might be a little stubborn about the matter.’

Thysandra’s mind went blank.

‘Emelin?’ It came out infuriatingly breathless. ‘What in the world doesEmelinhave to do with this?’

‘Oh, she’s more or less my niece,’ Inga said dryly. ‘I’m Allie’s sister – you know Allie, don’t you? Very moving family reunion, I can tell you. Very useful, too. Emelin told me some immensely interesting things about your time with the Alliance.’

Fuck.

Fuck.

‘So I strongly suggest you make a good attempt at securing a decent future for the humans living under your rule.’ Inga finally pushed herself off the shelves she’d been leaning against and straightened, still unsmiling as she stuck her hands into the pockets of her servant’s frock. ‘Would be a shame if someone got carried away by vengeful feelings and slit your traitorous throat. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, though – I can usually be found in Rustvale.’

Thysandra barely even heard that last sentence, standing paralysed between the looming bookcases as the weight of yet another complication came crashing onto her shoulders. Funerals and festivals. Miles and miles of archives she couldn’t for the life of her make sense of. And now the bloody humans wantedrights, as if saving a court full of bloodthirsty fae wasn’t enough of a burden already?

There was absolutely no way she was going to explain to the likes of Bereas and his friends why they would be sharing the court’s scarce resources with a huddle of former servants. Worse, she might not even be able to explain it to Nicanor.

And then they would wonder …

Fed to the hounds.

‘Anything else I need to clarify?’ Inga added, her impassive voice coming from miles away. ‘It’s my first free day in months. I’d prefer not to spend all of it at work anyway.’

Lightning struck.

This is not the right aisle if you’re looking for grain stores …

‘Wait.’ Too loud, too abrupt – her voice was a thunderclap in the eerie silence of the archives. ‘Wait a moment, please. You’re saying you work here?’

Inga’s eyes narrowed. ‘Worked.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Thysandra hastily agreed, because damn it all, verb tenses were not what she was concerned about right now, ‘but you know your way around the place? You’ve been here for a while?’

‘The last twenty years.’ A snort. ‘Agenor got me this job to keep me safe after Al was banished from the island. Pretty decent of him, considering that I refused to talk to him at the time, but I suppose he isn’t the worst ingeneral.’

Hardly high praise – for the male Thysandra had respected more than perhaps anyone else at the court – but she decided to let that point go. ‘So if I need someone reliable to dig into some numbers for me, could you do it? I’ll look into the human issue in the meantime. We could make a simple bargain—’

‘Oh, no,’ Inga interrupted, visibly inching backwards. Her face twisted into a disgusted scowl. ‘You’ll keep your foul magic away from my body, Your Majesty. I can look into the registers if it helps you, but you can trust me on my word or don’t trust me at all – I’m not going to bind myself to you.’

Oh, comeon.

‘Not even if it means you can hold me to my promises too?’ Thysandra tried, fearing the worst and seeing her suspicions confirmed as that almost-human face darkened even further. ‘If I bargain to do something about the human position …’

‘I don’t need a bargain for that,’ Inga said, huffing. ‘If you fail us, I’ll just let your people know that you sold them out by blathering about the bindings to the Alliance. Should kill you faster than any bargain would.’

Hell take her; it would.

Thysandra closed her eyes. The last of those hard-won illusions of security were rapidly dissolving.

‘Alright.’ Deep breaths. Swift thoughts. She had to keep herself together now; crumbling on the cold floor of the archives wouldn’t keep her alive. ‘Let’s try another approach. What can you tell me about Gadyon?’

‘He’s mostly alright,’ Inga said, sounding unwilling to admit it. ‘Has been sneaking us extra food whenever the village supervisors put us on rations.’

Which suggested some moral compass from the brand new head of the archives. A certain defiance towards the Mother, too, and a willingness to do the sensible thing rather than making decisions based on nothing but pride and glory – not much to go on, but at least it wassomething.