Page 29 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

“Not at all,” said Dame Altair. “But they should have allowed another blood-worker to validate your claims, if you wanted them to carry weight. It seems improper to allow a man’s claimed child and potential heir to be the one who absolves him of blame in a crime as heinous as kidnapping.”

“There’s nothing in the Law about kidnapping,” I said.

“Besides, you clearly know Simon well enough to point the finger in his direction, but not enough to know how he used his magic when he was actively pursuing villainy. If he’d abducted you, you wouldn’t be a biped now.

You’d be a tree somewhere on the verge of Golden Gate Park, if you were lucky.

If you were unlucky, you’d be swimming with the koi in the Tea Garden, and Oberon help you find a way free of that enchantment. ”

“ You did.”

“We aren’t of the same descendant line,” I replied, as coolly as I could manage.

“No, I suppose we’re not,” she said. “You’re something new, but you rebuked your Firstborn in an open forum. However will you learn to serve Faerie as you were intended?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, so for a moment, I allowed myself the simple luxury of glaring at her. My sullen silence probably confirmed half of her unthinkingly bigoted attitudes about changelings, but it made me feel better enough that I didn’t actually care. I just glared.

Dame Altair pursed her lips and leaned over, picking up a small silver and enamel bell from the table next to her seat.

“My, did I hit a nerve?” she asked, and gave the bell a delicate shake.

It didn’t make a sound, but the air felt briefly electric, like we were sitting in the eye of an approaching storm.

She set the bell down again. “I assure you that it wasn’t my intention.

I just find myself ever so curious about how things work for you.

You’re our only exemplar of so many unique things, however do you stand it? ”

“I have a good support system,” I said, through gritted teeth.

Her genteel hostility was beyond grating.

“Can we just agree that the evidence says Simon didn’t abduct you, and move on to discussing who might have done so?

Would you be willing to bleed for me? A sample of your blood could tell us a great deal about what actually happened. ”

She actually recoiled, shying away from me until her shoulders hit the back of her chair. It would have been insulting if it hadn’t been so bizarrely complimentary. It was like she thought I could call the blood through her skin without reaching for a knife.

“I won’t be doing that,” she said, tone going icy and brittle. “You can’t compel me to bleed.”

I couldn’t, but Arden could. Looking at the sheer terror on her face, I decided not to mention that. “It was only a request,” I said. “If we can both agree that Simon didn’t abduct you, I needn’t bring it up again.”

“I still say I smelled cinnamon,” she said sullenly.

“Simon’s magic smells of mulled apple cider, which means mulling spices,” I said. “It’s a complicated magical signature, and cinnamon features in the mixture, but it’s not sufficiently dominant to have been the only thing you smelled if he had been behind your abduction.”

She made a small sound of disagreement, mouth forming a downturned moue of disapproval.

“If Simon didn’t snatch you, which he didn’t, someone else must have done so,” I said, ignoring her displeasure as firmly as I could.

If she wanted to be a pouty little noblewoman about this, I could just steamroll her until I got what I wanted.

She wasn’t playing nicely with me. I felt no requirement to play nicely with her.

“Did you see the false Queen at all before you were pressed into her place?”

“No,” said Dame Altair, still sullen. “I was walking home from an evening outing—”

“To where?”

She stopped and frowned at me, clearly annoyed by my interjection. “I beg your pardon?”

“Where did you go that you were walking home and vulnerable? Did you have any of your guards with you?”

“My guard has been reluctant to accompany me on city streets since Ehren’s brother, Helge, stopped his dancing.”

Meaning she’d been employing at least two Bridge Trolls.

That was interesting in its own right. Bridge Trolls form very tight family bonds.

Even if they don’t have born siblings, they’ll go out and find siblings they can claim as their own.

Danny, who was presumably still sitting outside in his cab, lived with his sister, and I neither knew nor cared whether they were related.

For Dame Altair to have employed a Bridge Troll who’d died in her service and then retained his brother was… well.

Ehren suddenly moved to the top of my list of people whose magical signatures I needed to document for similarities to the smell of cinnamon.

Getting a Bridge Troll’s brother killed was an absolutely viable motivation for abducting someone, although it didn’t answer why he would want to free the false Queen—and that had to be a part of the motivation behind the whole mess.

That woman was so unpleasant that no one with any sense would have let her out.

“I see,” I said, as neutrally as I could manage. “So you went out alone shortly after the death of a member of your staff?”

“Yes,” said Dame Altair. She was starting to look anxious, although she was trying to hide it behind a veneer of arrogant serenity.

It wasn’t going to work, but I had to admire the effort.

“I needed to take some air, so I went for a walk, and to visit a friend of mine. Lady Pilar, who keeps her court at Buena Vista Park.”

I made a noncommittal noise, nodding.

Lady Pilar was a Silene, titled during her brief marriage to a Daoine Sidhe Count who had long since left the kingdom for greener pastures that didn’t include his ex-wife.

She’d been fairly active in local society when I was a child, but had withdrawn to her knowe at Buena Vista Park after she remarried.

Her second husband, a Tangie man I’d never met, didn’t care as much for the social whirl or the needs of etiquette, and had convinced her to stay home with him.

I’d never considered that she might still have friends.

I certainly hadn’t thought Dame Altair might be one of them.

She frowned. “You think I’m lying,” she accused.

“What I think is less important than finding out what really happened,” I said. “You went to visit Lady Pilar and her husband at Buena Vista Park, walked home alone, and were abducted by someone whose magic smelled of cinnamon. Do you remember anything else about them?”

“I never said I went to visit Pilar’s husband,” she shot back. “Eanraig is no friend of mine, and I no friend of his. He tolerates my presence for her sake, but only because he doesn’t have a choice in the matter.”

The parlor door swung open and a narrow-faced Candela appeared.

She was dressed in a variation of a Victorian maid’s uniform, down to the little white hat pinned atop her ashen hair, and her Merry Dancers circled her in an endless swirling dance, their skins glowing a pale slate blue.

She was carrying a silver tray, and she stopped just past the threshold.

Dame Altair turned toward her, but didn’t smile. “I rang for refreshments some time ago; where have you been?” she asked, and while her tone was mild, there was a venom there I couldn’t fully understand.

There are times when I wonder why anyone in Faerie chooses to serve the noble houses.

Hearth fae like my friend Kerry can feel compelled to stick near kitchens and bathhouses; they serve because their magic makes it easy and satisfying in a way that none of the rest of us can truly understand.

But they don’t make up the majority of the servant class.

Silene and Candela, Glastig and Tuatha de Dannan are all found in noble halls with reasonable frequency, and none of them have to be there. They stay of their own free will.

In Titania’s world, I was raised to consider myself fortunate to serve my betters, and I didn’t have a choice in whether I stayed or went.

But this wasn’t Titania’s world, and I couldn’t imagine what the woman in the doorway was getting out of her service to Dame Altair that was worth the way the lady was looking at her now, like she was lower than the scum the rest of us scraped off our shoes.

“Pardon, ma’am, but I didn’t know how many I was meant to be preparing for until I found Ehren in the hall,” said the Candela, her Merry Dancers dimming as the tide of words spilled out of her mouth.

Candela are famously terse. To have her babbling like that was almost alarming.

“I brought the drinks you rang for. Forgive me?”

“Unlikely,” sniffed Dame Altair, and gestured broadly toward the small table at the center of our little seating area. The Candela hurried forward, setting her tray down at the center of the table. Seen more closely, it contained a silver teapot, three cups, and smaller pots for cream and sugar.

Dame Altair watched this, then nodded sharply, and the Candela woman picked up the teapot, carefully filling each of the cups two-thirds of the way with liquid. Mine came out pink, Quentin’s yellow, and Dame Altair’s brown. I raised an eyebrow.

“No caffeine for pregnant women, but blackcurrant juice is safe and even beneficial, thanks to the vitamin C,” she said, mildly, as she began adding cream and sugar to her tea.

“Squires are by definition children, and lemonade is the appropriate drink to serve children in polite company. No trickery here, simply hospitality in its most basic form. Please, drink.”

She picked up her teacup and took a careful sip, tasting the balance she’d created. This done, she turned to the Candela and inclined her head. “Barely acceptable. Not a total failure. You may go.”