Page 3 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

I pluck the metal from Mary’s fingers before I release the protection around her. The queen stumbles; Lady Livingston offers her a discreet hand to steady her while angling her wide ruff to block her from the others’ view.

“What devilry did you do, Alyth?” Mary snarls at me in a voice just barely low enough to go unnoticed. “Give us privacy and explain yourself.”

Lovely. I just saved the queen’s life, and she’s angry at me.

I cannot truly make our conversation silent to any eavesdropping ears, but I can send our quiet voices to the ceiling instead, and I can twist the magic lines to make it easier for human eyes to slide past us.

Now that she’s not frozen in place, Mary takes a moment to look at the chaotic distraction of Lady Seton’s dress falling apart. She frowns, and I think for a moment that she’s mad I put her friend in such an ignoble position, but no.

She’s upset the attention isn’t on her. It’s just like her; she wants the magic to keep our conversation secret, but she somehow wants everyone to still notice her and bow to her.

Before she can vent her ire at me, I hold up the needle the queen had selected, even if she cannot see the faint strains of foul magic tainting it.

I’ve been compiling every text I could find on Red Cap weapons, and I recognize this one.

“If this pricked your finger,” I tell her slowly, enunciating every word, “it would drain every drop of blood in your body until you were nothing more than a withered husk.”

Mary’s anger turns to shock. “Another—”

“Red Cap weapon, yes.”

Lady Livingston and Lady Reres, not bound by the glamour thanks to their own fae blood, exchange a worried look.

I have to work quickly. I can make people ignore the queen for only so long; everyone in this room has been trained to pay attention to her, and it would be far too draining on my magic to keep this up.

“Was it him?” Mary asks.

She means her husband, of course.

“I don’t know,” I say, and that is what worries me.

The queen’s frown deepens. “If I were Queen of England, it would be simple to chop his head off.” Her voice is wistful, but her shoulders slump in defeat. “But I’m not. Yet.”

Mary has enough enemies, and even if she is technically next in line for the English throne, it’s not wise to remind anyone of that. “Let’s keep talk like this to ourselves.”

“This whole situation is unacceptable.” Mary squares her shoulders, no small feat under her heavy black gown and stiff white ruff.

“I agree,” I snarl, not liking her tone or the implication that I’ve failed.

“I wish I had your power,” she says, her eyes searching mine. “Maybe I would have known not to marry Darnley if I could have seen his…” She searches for the right word.

“Auras,” I supply. “The colors tell me only a little. Moods, intents, things like that. But would it have done you any good? You didn’t believe me when I tried to tell you—”

She raises her hand, and I obey the command to stop talking.

What’s the point? I warned her not to marry the “long lad,” as she calls her tall husband.

Darnley came to court reeking of glamours—glamours to make him handsome, charming, witty.

Perfect. And she fell for it, head over heels, skirt over head, ring over finger.

As soon as they were married and it was officially too late to change anything, the glamours fell away.

The problem, though, is that it may not be him this time.

“We have to assume this is much larger than one man’s ambition,” I say in a low voice. Lady Reres still hears me; her back is stiff, her shoulders bunched together. “This could very well be the start of a war. Although…” I add, my voice trailing off.

“Yes?”

“I told you,” I say, my voice dropping lower. “I could…handle the problem of Darnley.”

She bites her lip.

Even with Mary’s knowledge that her husband is not a good man to be around—putting it mildly—she refuses to let others know the extent of Darnley’s treachery.

“I cannot risk my baby being declared a bastard,” she told me the night after David’s murder.

“There are plenty of bastards at court,” I reminded her. Every king before her had multiple mistresses. Seemed sometimes half of Scotland was related to one King James or another.

“Bastards at court are fine,” she said primly. “But not a one of them is allowed the throne.”

“We can kill Darnley regardless,” I pointed out. “You obviously conceived while married. It’s fine.”

“It’s not.” The queen’s voice brooked no argument. “Look at what happened in England.”

Damned England. That country ruins everything.

King Henry, eighth of his name, ruled before Elizabeth.

And his willingness to toss aside wives—either through divorce or beheading—led to a quite literally bloody succession mess.

Queen Elizabeth is sometimes even called a bastard—often by Mary herself—despite Henry being married to her mother before her head was removed from her shoulders.

And she had to fight to take her place on the throne of England, a fight that saw her half brother and half sister die and a cousin lose her head before Elizabeth could take the seat.

Even now, so many years later, there are constant calls for her to be overthrown. And most of them are rooted in the idea that she’s illegitimate, a handy excuse for all the Catholics who don’t want a Protestant ruler and all the men who don’t want a female one.

Killing Darnley—executing him for his treason—would cast doubt on baby James’s legitimacy for the throne, despite the marriage contract. I don’t agree with Mary’s point, but I understand where she’s coming from.

Still… “I could make it look like an accident,” I tell her.

The king consort could take a nice tumble into the sea, perhaps; the kelpies would gladly drag him under for me. The banshees love a man like Darnley; they would delight in screaming at him until his brain exploded.

She doesn’t tell me no.

Tension and anticipation curl inside me, like a snake waiting to strike.

“I think…” Mary says slowly. “No. Not yet.”

The snake sighs, disappointed.

My role is to protect the Seelie Court—and by extension, Scotland—and if I determine that Darnley is a threat, then, well…

I don’t have to obey the queen, not in matters that threaten the security of the fae realm. But Darnley is merely a stepping stone for this plot, I’m sure of it. I need to know how he got the stone he used to kill David.

Where it came from.

If the other weapons I’ve found are also from him.

If there are more traitors in this court.

“The Red Caps,” Mary says, pulling me back to the present, “they’ve not tried to reenter Scotland for many years, correct?”

I nod. Not since the Romans attacked. It was Hadrian’s Wall, I think, that inspired the Seelie Court of so long ago to erect a magical barrier. Let the Red Caps join the Romans. And let their wars spill blood on lands other than this one.

“Why now?”

“I don’t know,” I confess. “It could just be that someone found a stash of their weapons and is using them on their own. It could be that some discontent Red Cap is trying to sow chaos. They really are just monsters, eager to kill every man, woman, and child.” I shrug. “Any of these are possibilities.”

What I don’t say is what I truly fear: that after centuries, the Red Caps have finally discovered that I am the weakest guardian of the wall since its inception, and they know I’m not good enough to protect everyone.

I have nothing to support that other than my own self-doubts. Technically, every Leth and fae in Scotland helps with the wall by tithing a little bit of their magic back to the land.

But it’s my job to ensure the wall holds.

I meet Mary’s eyes. “I have to go check on the border. To make sure…”

Mary shakes her head. “No,” she says forcefully enough that the bounds of my silence glamour are tested. “I need you here, to protect me.” Her gaze flicks to the needle I still carefully clutch.

“You’ll remember that I outrank you in the shadows,” I growl, “and while it suits me to protect you while I’m protecting Scotland, you’d best also remember that’s a choice I made, not an obligation I’m bound to.”

Lady Livingston sucks in her breath. No one talks to the queen like this.

“You think I don’t put my country first?” Mary says, glaring at me.

I don’t bother answering. We both know that Mary likes the gold and the respect but not the responsibility. I would sympathize with her, but I don’t even get gold or respect.

“I’ll be back in a day or three,” I say, turning on my heel.

“You’re not dismissed!” Mary calls.

I flick my hands, and the glamour that hid us evaporates. I send another glamour in its place—a dark mark on the queen’s face.

It works perfectly.

“Your Highness!” Lady Seton—now properly clothed again—exclaims in shock. “What’s on your face?”

Mary gasps in horror, her hands going to her cheek. The other women all turn to her, calling for cosmetics and cloths, assuring her it isn’t a blemish and can be cleaned.

Lady Reres gives me a subtle nod, approving of my distraction.

No one else notices as I stride out of the room.