Page 18 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)
I nodded, turning his hand sideways until I could see the large vein running along his wrist. Dame Altair leaned forward, looking almost disturbingly eager. I frowned at her before delicately pressing the sharpened edge of the shell into Simon’s skin, careful not to cut too deep.
Blood welled up, bright red and well-oxygenated, smelling of smoke and mulled cider.
The notes of cinnamon and cardamom were there, sweet, but mixed with crushed apples and cloves and allspice and star anise.
It seemed like a more complicated perfume than many magical scents, but really, it just wore its complexity openly, not buried under veils of detail and disguise.
I met Simon’s eyes and waited for him to nod approval. When he did, I raised his wrist to my mouth and pressed my lips against the wound.
The world went away, replaced by red. It was jarring and natural at once, like slipping into sleep after a hard day.
In the last instant of thinking as myself and not as the man who called himself my father, I realized this was my first true act of blood magic since escaping Titania’s enchantment.
That didn’t seem right. I’d worked so long to make myself comfortable with my magic that it seemed impossible I should have voluntarily set it aside like that.
But then the red closed around me, and the blood was all.
I wake alone. My chest feels like an empty hallway, a passage for ghosts to wander.
I have to return to the land tonight. The Queen—my queen, Arden Windermere in the Mists—has requested my presence, and even dwelling below the waves as I now prefer, her word commands me.
If she desires my attendance, I haven’t a choice.
I rise, slow and silent, and gather my clothing from the floor where I discarded it at dawn.
Helmi will not approve of my wearing it to break my fast, but they have left me alone, and even after months returned to my true existence, I fear their absence.
I hurry down the hall to the evening room where they go to dine.
Both turn when I enter, smiling at my presence.
Patrick, as always, smiles like I am the moon reborn, like he has never seen so beautiful a sight.
Dianda is more reserved, but she smiles with honest affection that is, I believe, beginning to ripen and blossom into genuine love.
We didn’t love when we were wed, but we were willing to try, and oh, we have been trying.
All three of us. Her waistline is a testament to that.
“So you’ve come to join us, sleepyhead,” said Dianda. “Anceline stands ready to see you to the surface when you’re prepared.”
“Then she’ll never see me there, as I may never be prepared,” I said. “I’ll go, but I won’t be prepared.”
“You can see your brother,” said Patrick. “And October. August says she’s been asking after you.”
The scene began to thin and fray around the edges, flashes of reality showing through the red. The desire to take another mouthful and continue to watch Simon with his spouses was stronger than I would have expected. I exhaled through my nose, lips still against his skin, and let the magic go.
The red wisped away and I was October again, entirely myself and not lost in anyone else’s memory.
I straightened and the Luidaeg was there, offering a carved brown sheath that looked to have been made from the outside of the shell, perfectly sized to keep it safe and prevent me from gutting myself by mistake.
I took it with a nod, wiping the shell’s edge clean on my sleeve before sliding it into the sheath.
“No debts,” I said. “I asked for nothing.”
“No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “Call it a gift to my favorite niece, and a courtesy to my dearest failure.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I tucked the little shell sheath into the front of my bodice, seating it firmly between my breasts, before I turned to face Arden.
“Blood magic is imprecise, but blood doesn’t lie,” I said, focusing on her, rather than the silently fuming Dame Altair.
“Consort Lorden has not set foot on the land since the breaking of Titania’s enchantment—which, you may remember, he was instrumental in undoing.
Without him, we might still be living in her gilded fantasy.
There’s no way he could have been responsible for abducting and obscuring Dame Altair. ”
Bahey nodded as I spoke, verifying my words.
Simon had produced a handkerchief from inside his vest and was busily wrapping it around the cut on his wrist. He looked at my handiwork with a small smile, then looked at me.
“There was a time when you would have hacked my arm open like it was a coconut and you had nothing more precise than a machete,” he said. “You’re learning subtlety. I approve.”
“Good to know,” I said, focusing on Arden. “My father didn’t do this, Your Majesty, and you know it.”
“I do,” she said, with a sigh.
Dame Altair sputtered. “Your Majesty ,” she said, sounding appalled. “I am titled nobility , and you would dismiss my situation with such ease?”
“Your title’s no shinier than mine, Eloise,” I said, keeping my tone easy and almost dismissive.
“A dame is equivalent to a knight. You have a knowe and servants. I have a paid-off house in San Francisco and a court comprised almost entirely of teenagers who don’t know how to operate the dishwasher.
I’m not really seeing how you get to call yourself ‘titled nobility’ like it puts you above anyone else. My father’s title eclipses us both.”
That was pushing it. He’d been an unlanded baron before he set his land-based titles aside to become Dianda’s consort, but even in Faerie’s sometimes overly confusing version of the peerage, a duchess outranked a dame.
Simon didn’t need to share his wife’s title to receive many of its benefits, including the precedence that meant he was treated as higher ranking than he technically was.
Isn’t the feudal system awesome?
“I understand your discomfort, Dame Altair, but I must agree with Sir Daye that her magic has absolved Consort Lorden of any blame in this matter.”
There had to be a better title for a ducal consort.
Even “Lord” would have sounded less awkward than continually reminding people about how he was banging Dianda.
And Patrick, I presumed, but because they had the same title in their mutual wife’s Court, that aspect of his sex life didn’t get shoved in my face quite as often.
Dame Altair visibly bristled but didn’t argue any further with her queen, just harumphed and turned her back, folding her arms across her chest in a show of petulance.
I was suddenly glad Arden wasn’t as fond of iron as the false Queen had been.
Dame Altair would have needed medical attention if she’d been bound by that much iron for even the duration of the court, much less however far in advance the switch had been made.
“I understand why we got distracted by Dame Altair’s obvious plight and clear distress,” I said. “But now that we’ve confirmed my father wasn’t responsible for what happened to her, I really think we ought to focus on the more important problem.”
“What could possibly be more important than my having been abducted and very nearly sentenced to a century of sleep?” demanded Dame Altair.
“How about the fact that the false Queen is missing ?” I asked.
“She’s a slippery thing, and she’s managed to evade capture and sentencing before.
We don’t know whether she has another puppet like Rhys lurking around somewhere for her to run to, and Silences is not going to take it very well if we lose her on a permanent basis. ”
To be fair, Arden looked as upset by the possibilities as I felt.
I could almost admire the elegance of her horror.
She didn’t move quickly or without deliberation.
Instead, with gracious slowness, she beckoned her brother to join her at the front of the dais, which he did through a swift transportation portal.
Using a cutout to move such a short distance seemed like a waste of magic, but I didn’t really know how much doing that took out of them, and if it got him to her more quickly…
Nolan reached out and took his sister’s hand, holding it tightly, and I paused, remembering that for them, Evening had never been the greatest monster lurking in the Mists.
The false Queen was the one who’d ordered Nolan elf-shot in order to keep her illegitimate grasp on Arden’s throne; she was the one who had looked at two terrified, grieving children and only wondered how she could make things worse.
“You are correct, Sir Daye,” said Arden, visibly composing herself.
“The false Queen must be found and brought to heel before anything further can transpire. All my knights will be set toward this goal, and I will send word to those of my vassals not in attendance and ask that they set their own knights the same.”
“Right,” I said, stomach sinking as I took in the full meaning of her words.
Sylvester had been unable to come to court.
He’d been allowed to make his excuses because his testimony wouldn’t have been vital; Shadowed Hills was one of the demesnes least impacted by the false Queen’s machinations, possibly because it was too rural for her to have cared much about, possibly because the false Queen had answered to Evening, and possibly because Simon had been able to take steps to protect his brother before his mistress could order him to act.
It was hard to say which was more likely to be true. It also wasn’t that important.
What was important was the fact that Arden was going to order her vassals—because even a polite request from a queen is an order when she holds your oaths—to mobilize their knights. And I was still a knight in service to Shadowed Hills.
Which meant I was about to be mobilized.