Fire Kin (30 page)

BRYONY

Ash
was king. King of the Veiled Court. He hadn't, from what I had heard, adopted the veils that had been the queen's conceit, so I wasn't going to call him the Veiled King. I was hoping not to call him anything at all. I hadn't seen him since he returned from Summerdale two days earlier, but there was no mistaking the sense of him that pulsed through the City. There was no longer an empty place at the center in the Fae lines of power. Once more they had a beating heart.

A heart gained while mine had been shattered again. And if I was ever to mend it, I needed not to see Ash. I'd used the very full hospital as my excuse and remained at St. Giles, getting my updates on the Templars' plans via Simon and Fen and Lily.

They told me about Ash's plans as well. I could avoid the man, but I couldn't avoid news of the new king, it seemed. I heard about how he had issued an ultimatum to Ignatius, giving him until the end of the week to rejoin negotiations for peace. About how he had sworn to bring Ignatius to heel if that ultimatum wasn't met.

More than I wanted to hear even if it was information I needed to know.

Ash hadn't come looking for me. I didn't know whether I was thankful for that or if it only made things worse. If I could feel any worse. Ash was king. Lost to me again.

But unlike before, this time he was lost but still close by. Still within reach. There was no pretending he didn't exist. That fact was undeniable. As was the fact that he didn't have to be out of reach.

If I was willing to give up everything I'd worked for and become a pretty ornament in the Fae Court.

It would make my father happy. It would make Ash happy, but the thought made me want to crawl out of my skin. No matter how much I missed Ash and how many times I found myself wishing for something to ease the searing ache in my chest.

So I did what any sensible person would do. I denied the pain and poured my energy into the hospital while we waited out the days until Ash's offer of negotiation expired. Day by oh so long day until only one more day remained.

Hiding, some might call it.

And if so, who could blame me for that? Hiding brought some small respite at least. This morning, I had retreated even farther, seeking sanctuary within the four walls of my office and giving orders for no one to bother me.

For half an hour there was blessed silence and I managed to actually reduce some of the tottering piles of paperwork that had taken root on my desk to mere stacks. Even on the brink of war, there was no end to the myriad details that had to be dealt with to keep St. Giles operational.

The details that had been in danger of going untended and unresolved in the chaos of the last few days. Perhaps some would call me callous for shutting myself away to deal with things so seemingly trivial, but surely it was more callous to let the hospital grind to a halt by neglecting something so basic.

If there was one thing the City needed right now, it was hospitals that operated well. St. Giles was the biggest hospital we had and the one that absolutely could not fail, given what lay beneath it.

I had just finished writing a response to an aggrieved note from my paymaster when Lily stepped into my office.

Literally stepped in. She appeared out of nowhere, coalescing like smoke in a way that still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end despite the fact that I'd seen her do so before. She was usually careful not to be too blatant with her abilities around the Fae—including me—out of respect for our beliefs or else out of something that only she could explain.

But this time she took no time for courtesies. And she held a baby in her arms.

I stared at her. At the baby. Then found my tongue.

“That's a baby.” Not my most brilliant comment, but I truly couldn't think of anything else to say.

Lily gave me a look that suggested her assessment of my remark coincided with my own and shifted her grip on the squirming bundle. The bundle squawked in protest.

I stood instinctively. “Where did you get a baby?”

She looked grim. “I found Violet and two other Fae women.”

“Violet? In the warrens?” I knew the answer to that already, but part of me had to hope that it wasn't true, that Lily had found her elsewhere.

But Lily nodded and my heart clutched, new pain added to the ache already there. Alive. After all these months. Months at the mercy of Ignatius Grey. Not a fate I'd wish on anybody.

“But how? The warrens are vast.”

She nodded. “Yes. And I've been searching for weeks. I thought I knew them well, but there are sections that I'd never seen before. They go on for miles and miles. I've been trying to make a map. I thought it would be useful when we have to go into the warrens for real.”

Lily the pragmatist. Apparently, unlike some of us, she didn't expect this to end in any way other than direct conflict with the Blood. I had to face the fact that I agreed with her assessment. I didn't think Ignatius would back down and come crawling back to Ash's negotiation table. “And yet you found Violet?”

“Holly made a charm to find Fae blood. Saskia helped her,” Lily said. She stared down at the baby. “And Captain Pell—I mean—the king, he did something to give it more power. It helped. They were very deep.”

Locked beneath the earth. No sun. No air. No living things around them. Practically buried alive. I shivered and tried not to let the horrifying image in my head linger. “Go on.”

“The charm took me deep. To a part of the warrens that I didn't know. At first I thought that the charm had gone wrong and that it was abandoned. Or empty at least. But I was shadowed and I could hear a baby crying.”

“But you can hear things in the shadow usually, can't you?”

She nodded. “Yes. But this was different. It sounded like the baby was right beside me. But distant at the same time. I can't explain it exactly. I followed the sound and found a suite of locked rooms. Violet was there and two other Fae women. And the baby. She was crying.”

Her voice sounded odd and she glanced down at the child again.

“Is she hurt?” I asked. I extended my healing sense toward the baby and then froze when I couldn't feel her.

“Lily,” I said slowly as I finally realized what it was I had missed about Lily's story and the implications of the baby being here in her arms. “I didn't think you could bring other people through the shadow.”

Her head came up slowly. Her gray eyes glowed with emotion. I couldn't tell if it was anger or wonder or a mixture of both.

“I can't,” she said. “She's a wraith.”

The room spun around me for a moment. Another wraith. Ignatius was breeding wraiths. Just as we had feared. “I think we need Simon and Guy,” I said faintly.

•   •   •

Simon arrived before Guy did. He took one look at Lily holding the baby and shot a confused look at me before he went to Lily and repeated the same query that I had made about the baby's health.

“She's all right,” Lily said quietly. She gazed down at the baby, looking equal parts fascinated and apprehensive.

Simon extended his hand toward the baby, holding it there for a moment, but apparently he was satisfied with whatever he sensed. He turned back to me, eyes questioning.

“She found Violet,” I said in response to the unspoken query. “And the . . . child.” I tried to quell the instinctive antipathy I felt at the thought of a wraith child. Lily had taught me that wraiths could show loyalty and love, but the prejudices I'd been raised with ran deep despite my best efforts to ignore them. “In the warrens. With two other Fae women.”

“Their names were Alder and Heather,” Lily said absently. Her attention was on the baby. Watching her with a degree of wariness. As though she might explode.

Maybe she would. A wraith child was an explosive discovery. “Did they give you Family names?” I didn't recall an Alder amongst the Fae living in the City. There was a Heather, from one of the sa'Keriel lines, though, on the short list of names of the missing Fae women we'd managed to compile.

Lily shook her head. “One of them was sleeping. The other one, Alder, didn't talk. Violet said that Alder was the baby's mother. She asked me to take the baby.” She looked up at me. “Violet didn't look well. None of them did.”

I shuddered and Simon's head whipped back to Lily. “Wait. Are you saying this baby was born in the warrens?” He looked down at the child again. “Lily, is this baby a wraith?”

Lily nodded. “Yes.”

Simon said something low and foul below his breath. “Ignatius
is
trying to breed wraiths.”

“It seems he has succeeded,” I pointed out.

“Or Lucius did and he's just carrying on what was started,” Lily said.

“I still don't understand why,” I sighed. “I understand the appeal of a pet wraith as a weapon, but it was a major breach to take Fae women. Enough to bring the queen down on their heads if she'd had proof.” And enough to send Ash into a fury too, I thought. But that could be dealt with. It might not even be a bad thing at this point.

Lily and Simon exchanged another long look. “She doesn't know?” Lily asked. “You never told her?”

Simon shook his head. “There was never any need.”

“Need for what?” I asked just as Guy knocked on the door and opened it. He halted at the sight of the baby in Lily's arms.

“I get the feeling I missed something,” he said.

“Lily brought the child out of the warrens,” I said.

“She's a wraith too,” Lily added, cutting off the need for further explanations. She rocked the child a little, her movements uncertain. I doubted Lily had spent much time around babies. They weren't commonplace in the Blood Court or the warrens. Trusted didn't have children.

I watched the child for a moment, wondering if I should take her. Or Simon. I could heal a wraith—I had healed Lily before—and if the baby's mother was unwell, the baby was likely to be malnourished.

But she looked peaceful enough in Lily's arms and I didn't know what I would do if the baby shadowed. I didn't even know if wraith babies could shadow so young. Lily had brought her out of the warrens, but had the baby shadowed or was it the fact that she was a wraith that allowed Lily to move her through the shadow? I wished I knew more about how it worked. The Fae cast wraiths out as soon as their abilities were detected and they were generally discovered soon after birth. By their absence from the earthsong, not by shadowing. Looking at the baby's face, rounded and soft like any child's, I wondered why we did so. How a mother could give up her child. Then remembered what we'd been discussing before Guy arrived.

“There was something you were going to tell me,” I said to Lily and Simon.

“It's Lily's to tell,” Simon said. “If she wishes.”

Lily was silent as she looked at him a long moment. Then she shrugged. “If I tell you this, you need to keep it secret . . .” She hesitated. “Unless it becomes necessary to tell. But it will be safer for everyone if it doesn't. Safer for us, at least.”

Something about the way she spoke made me think “us” in this context meant her and the baby, not her and Simon as it usually did. “All right,” I agreed. “I won't tell if I don't need to. Guy?”

Guy nodded slowly. “Yes. I will keep your secret. Unless it needs to be known.”

Lily sighed. “All right. There's something I learned about wraiths from Lucius. When I went back to him after you and Simon took me, he drank my blood. And when he did, he was able to shadow.”

I gaped at her. I had never heard of such a thing. Never even thought it might be possible.

“Hell's balls,” Guy said. “That's—”

“Deadly knowledge,” Simon interrupted him. “If it became known, then Lily would be in terrible danger.”

“And the baby,” Lily said. “Any of my kind. If there are others.”

There had been other wraiths, in the past. I didn't know if there were any now. If there were, they had the sense to live far from the City and the Fae.

Something I was suddenly wishing I had the sense to do as well. Because there was someone else who needed to know this secret. “It is dangerous,” I agreed. “But we need to tell the king.”

“Why?” Simon said.

“Because Ignatius may know this as well. And if he does, then he doesn't need a grown wraith as a weapon—he just needs children to feed from. He just needs their blood. An army of vampires who can walk through the shadow? That would be the end of the City. So the king needs to know. He intends to make peace with Ignatius if he can. I think we need to change his mind. If there's any chance that Ignatius knows about this, then we cannot let him become Lord of the Blood. He needs to die.”

ASH