Once Broken Faith (16 page)

“I would speak,” said Dianda.

Several heads turned in her direction, Sylvester's included. He looked briefly bemused. Then he bowed again, and said, “I yield the floor.”

“Then speak,” said Arden.

Dianda rose from her wheelchair, fins and scales melting into legs as her gown, previously bundled around her waist, fell to cover her to the ankle. It was a striking, elegant movement, and I wondered how often she'd practiced it before she'd managed to get it right.

“I'm here to represent the Undersea,” she said. Her voice was level, calm; regal. She sounded like the reigning monarch she was, and it was more than a little jarring. Dianda was meant to be punching people and gleefully threatening everyone in range, not standing there giving her credentials. “We do things differently below the waves, as some of you may know. We've never stooped to the use of elf-shot. A sleeping prisoner must be housed, kept safe, protected; better to keep them awake and allow them to understand what they've done to earn their punishment. I have two questions for you, nobles of the land. First, if the Undersea can do without elf-shot, without a weapon that turns napping into imprisonment, why can't you? And second . . . are you not regents? Are you not the rulers of your lands? How is it that this cure can't be used as an opportunity to ban elf-shot entirely? Oberon's Law allows for death on the battlefield. If you
feel a war is so warranted that it can't be avoided, carry real arrows. Pay for your convictions.”

“That's easy for you to say,” snarled the King of Highmountain, jumping to his feet without being recognized or granted permission to speak. “The humans and their ilk aren't banging on your door, stripping away your protections by the hour. We can't
afford
to let our people die on the battlefield.”

“Tell that to the coral reefs, to the whales on the brink of extinction,” said Dianda. “Tell that to the dead and dying places in the sea. The humans live alongside you. They shit on us.”

“If you can't afford the deaths you'd risk, perhaps you can't afford to go to war,” said Patrick mildly. He didn't rise. Technically, Dianda was the one with authority to speak here: he was just the consort. Still, no one cut him off as he continued, in that deceptively mild tone, “I was raised in the Westlands; I moved to the Undersea after I was married. It was a bit of a culture shock, going from a world where elf-shot allowed us to cut each other down while pretending our hands remained clean to one where every battle was paid for in blood, but I came to see the sense of it. When the Undersea goes to war, the seas bleed. It's much less casual.”

“May I speak?”

I stiffened. The voice belonged to Tybalt.

Dianda glanced in his direction, looking only faintly annoyed. She didn't like many land-dwellers, and as a mermaid, she didn't think much of cats. But she and Tybalt were reasonably well acquainted, and she liked me; this might have been one of the only times when our association put him in
better
social shape, not worse. “I yield,” she said.

“Then speak,” said Aethlin.

Tybalt rose, fluid and elegant, as Dianda sat. “The Cait Sidhe have never used elf-shot,” he said. “I've heard the Divided Courts refer to us as brutes and barbarians—I'm sure no one in this room would ever speak of the
Court of Cats in such terms, of course, but I must speak as truly as you do, and I
have
heard these things—but to us, the helplessness elf-shot enforces upon its victims has always seemed the more barbarous thing. As the Duchess Lorden says, you must store them, protect them, shield them, and do it all for a century's time, and for what? So you can say you are not killers? We go to war to kill. Admit that, and let the cure be shared.”

He sat. Arden rose.

“We have much to consider, and the night grows old,” she said. “Your rooms have been prepared. My guards will stand watch alongside your own, to prevent tragedy striking us a second time. If you have any needs, please, relay them to my staff, and they will be met. For now, we are grateful for your presence, and we say good morning to you.”

The members of the audience began to rise and head for the exit. I stayed where I was, watching them go, studying their posture and expressions as well as I could without staring. Some of them looked annoyed; others looked frightened, or pleased, or even amused. No one was so obviously murderous that I felt like I could point a finger and say: “there, that's the one who did it.”

Duke Michel of Starfall attempted to approach the stage, and was stopped by two of Arden's guards, who moved smoothly from the wings to stand in front of him. The spells that shared everyone's words with the room must have been dispelled or put on hold by Arden's farewell, because I couldn't hear what he said, only see his frustration as he wasn't allowed to get any closer to the people in charge. The rest of the delegation from his kingdom was leaving. Finally, frustrated, he turned and went after them.

Of the four people seated on the stage, only Siwan rose and left with the rest. Arden's guards closed the door after the last of the audience was out. Arden herself held her position for a count of five, shoulders locked, chin up, the picture of a queen. Then she collapsed onto
her throne, curling her knees against her chest and putting her hands over her face. “I need a drink,” she said, voice muffled by her hands. “And then I'm going to need a drink for my drink, so the first one doesn't get lonely. Fuck it, just give me the bottle and walk away.”

“I think you're doing very well,” said Maida, sounding amused. Her gaze went to me. She sobered, amusement fading. “Sir Daye. Would you come here, please?”

I'd been waiting for this summons. That didn't mean I was happy to hear it. I stood, brushing off my pants like that could take the smell of blood away, and walked toward the stage. Quentin followed. Technically, he hadn't been invited, but as my squire, the lack of an explicit “come alone” meant he was allowed to accompany me anywhere I went. He was supposed to be learning by watching what I did. Hard to do that from a distance, no matter how much I might sometimes wish otherwise.

Maida's gaze flicked to Quentin. She wanted him here less than I did. I could understand that. She didn't tell him to go. I could understand that, too, and I was grateful. Being his mother gave her no authority over him when he was acting as my squire. Being High Queen gave her plenty of authority—it just wouldn't have been appropriate for her to exercise it.

“Did you tell the assembly everything you knew of King Robinson's death?” she asked.

“Mostly,” I said.

Aethlin raised an eyebrow. “It's amazing how you can find a response other than ‘yes' or ‘no' to a question that shouldn't be that complicated.”

“Nothing about this is uncomplicated,” I replied. “I told the assembly everything in broad strokes; I left out the details. King Robinson didn't smell the magic of whoever attacked him, but he heard a sound like tin foil being ripped, and he felt a small amount of disorientation. I'm wondering if we have a teleporter playing silly games.”

“Tuatha de Dannan don't make a sound when we open portals,” said Arden.

“No, and he didn't feel cold or shortness of breath, which means he wasn't pulled through the Shadow Roads,” I said. “That rules out the Cait Sidhe. I'm pretty sure he'd have noticed if it had been another Candela messing with him. How many types of teleporter are there in Faerie? Roughly?”

“No one knows,” said the Luidaeg. I glanced over my shoulder. She was still seated, slumped in her chair like the bored teenager she sometimes resembled. Her apparent age was as fluid as the rest of her. It was jarring how young she could look. “If all the descendant races were still out there, it would be dozens. But some of them have died out. Some have been slaughtered. I haven't seen an actual Aarnivalkea in centuries. They were never that common to begin with. I think the Lampads are still around. Maybe. It's hard to say.”

“Did no one ever think to keep track?”

The Luidaeg lifted her head and looked at me. Her face was young, but her eyes . . . those were very, very old. “We kept track of our own children, October. We did the best we could. Look how well that turned out for me.”

There was a momentary, uncomfortable silence. The Luidaeg wasn't widely associated with a single descendant race, because most of her children and grandchildren were dead, killed by merlins who'd been armed by her sister. The Roane were on the verge of extinction. The Luidaeg, in her grief, had been holding herself apart from them for centuries.

Maybe keeping track wasn't that easy after all.

I turned back to the waiting monarchs, all three of whom looked concerned, in that “I am in a room with an unhappy Firstborn” way, but none of whom looked like they
understood
. The Luidaeg's status as mother of the Roane wasn't commonly known. For the first time, it occurred to me that Quentin would be carrying an awful
lot of secrets when he took the crown. Whether that would make him a better king was yet to be determined.

“So there are options for who could have been messing with him, if that was even what was happening,” I said. “How do you want me to proceed?”

“We have a king-killer among us,” said High King Aethlin gravely. “You're known as a king-breaker. If we don't want people to assume that you've escalated—which we don't—you'll need to find out who did this, and avenge King Robinson.”

“I already got that far on my own,” I said. My own voice was flat. This wasn't what I'd been hoping would happen. “I can't look for a killer and attend every minute of this conclave. I need three things from you.”

“You may ask.”

“I need permission to leave this room whenever I need to. I may not even enter it unless the evidence leads me here. I can leave Quentin to observe, if you like; he's my squire, he'll tell me everything that happens.” And that would nicely deal with both the issue of making sure the future High King understood what had been decided, and with my discomfort at the idea of stalking a killer through a half-familiar knowe with my teenage squire.

“Um, what?” Quentin gave me a sidelong look. “Backup? You're supposed to have it, or Tybalt looks at me like I've done something really wrong, and I hate that.”

“Don't look at me,” said the Luidaeg. “Unless another one of my siblings shows up, I'm staying and witnessing this whole shit show.”

“Lowri,” I said. “Or Madden. Either of them has Arden's trust, which means they can't be questioned without questioning the queen. Or I can call May and have her come stand between me and whatever's out there.” Having a completely indestructible roommate was occasionally useful.

“Can't do that,” said the Luidaeg, almost lazily. “A Fetch shows up now, all these people lose their shit. Never invite a death omen to a murder party.”

May was
not
going to be happy to learn that she'd just been disinvited by the Luidaeg. I pressed on, saying, “I'll figure something out. I'll be careful. But I need your support in this.”

“That was the first thing,” said Aethlin. “You said there were three.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The second is that I need to be able to remove people from the conclave to talk to them, with your authority, so no one can say, ‘No, I don't talk to changelings.' There's a good chance our killer is here for the conclave. Before anyone takes offense, I'm also going to need to talk to the staff, and see whether anyone moved here from Angels, since our other option is that somebody with a grudge saw an opportunity and took it.”

“You don't think that's what happened, though, do you?” asked Maida.

I shook my head. “No, because if Arden had anyone on staff who could do what King Robinson described, I think I'd know about it. I could be wrong, which is why I still want to talk to them, but . . . it feels wrong. If I could ask for blood—”

“No.” Aethlin's voice was hard as he cut me off.

I blinked at him. “But blood can't lie. We'd know.”

“And I would be the High King who'd betrayed all his subjects by requiring them to bleed for someone who did not hold their oaths. Blood can be used for more than just divination. It can be used to bind, to compel loyalty. I won't order them to bleed for you.”

I knew all too well how blood could be used to compel loyalty. That was Evening's entire modus operandi. I still stared at him, fumbling for another way. “What if . . . what if they bled for you? You're Daoine Sidhe.”

“My blood magic is not as strong as it could be,” Aethlin admitted. “I would exhaust myself while
learning nothing useful. No blood. Not until you have cause to demand it.”

Well, this was just swell. “Got it.”

“What was the third thing?” asked Maida.

“I sort of have a bad track record with kings and queens and accusing them of things and them getting pissed at me,” I said. “I need you to tell everyone here that they can't leave until we find the killer, and make sure they know that I'm doing this because it's my job, not because I think it's fun to harass the monarchy.”

“But you
do
think it's fun to harass the monarchy,” said Quentin.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “That's not the point.”

“Sir Daye,” said High King Aethlin, pulling my attention back to him. “Can you find the person who did this?”

“I don't know,” I said. “But I can sure as hell try.”

“Then you will have everything you've requested, and may the root and the branch grace us with the answers that we need,” he said.

I nodded but didn't speak. I was going to have to solve another murder.

Goody.

I
SAT ON THE FLOOR of the quarters I was sharing with Quentin, my back to the door and my head in my hands. People were shouting in the hall outside. The process of telling the kings and queens that neither they nor their retinues would be allowed to leave the knowe until we found King Robinson's killer was in full swing, and people were
pissed
. No one likes having their freedom restricted. As it turns out, fae monarchs like it even less than most. There would be privacy spells cast eventually, allowing everyone to have a little peace and quiet while they were in their rooms, but that was going to take time.

At least Raj had already gotten out of here. At least May was at the house, and could feed the cats.

At least.

“They sure can yell,” said Quentin.

“Don't speak poorly of your peers,” I said.

He didn't say anything. I lifted my head and he was grimacing at me. “Don't call them my peers,” he said. “It's weird.”

“But it's true,” I said, and dropped my head again. “Any one of them would be happy to tell you that you have more in common with them than I do, being a
pureblood and all. And that's before they know that you're . . . you know.” Until the privacy spells came down, I wasn't going to call him a prince. That was a risk too big for me to take. “To most of these people, I'm no better than a dog.”

“Arden's seneschal
is
a dog half the time.” Quentin walked across the room and sat next to me, settling with his back against the door. “I don't think being a dog is so bad. Dogs are loyal. And fun to be with. And won't call you names, or get mad at you for things you can't help, like who your parents are.”

“You are a weird kid.”

“Whose fault is that?” I could almost hear him smiling. If I looked up, I knew he'd be looking at me, one corner of his mouth curved in lopsided amusement. He'd been with me long enough that I probably knew the man he was becoming—the man who was sitting beside me—better than his mother did.

There was something sad about that. Blind fosterage keeps the children of the nobility safe, and when the choice is that or what King Gilad had done, failing to acknowledge his children out of fear of losing them, I could almost understand. It was still a terrible loss. Childhood is precious whether or not you live forever. Quentin and his parents would have centuries to be adults together. They should have been allowed to see him being a child.

The smell of pennyroyal drifted into the room. I raised my head. Tybalt was standing half in shadow by the far wall. The interplay of light and darkness cast stripes across his skin, making him look like the tabby pattern of his feline form had somehow managed to carry over to his fae self. He met my eyes. Relief flooded his expression, and he took a step forward, leaving stripes and shadows behind.

“October,” he said. “It took long enough to make my way here that I began to fear I'd waited too long, and
you would already be off on your fool's errand, clawing your way down the walls of the world. I assume you're partially responsible for the restrictions placed upon our movement?”

“I told the High King and Queen that we needed to lock down the knowe,” I said, and tensed, waiting for him to get mad. If the rest of the nobility was pissed about being confined to Muir Woods, a King of Cats might explode.

“Good,” he said, continuing across the room toward me. “As it happens, no amount of ‘please stay put' can sever cat from shadows. I've already walked the Shadow Roads to my own Court to inform Raj that I am under a quaintly optimistic form of house arrest and he is not to return tomorrow. I'll remain here with the rest of you until this is over. Shade will not be attending, as we do not wish to leave
all
the cats of the Bay Area without firm supervision.”

“I like the phrase ‘quaintly optimistic,'” I said.

Tybalt smirked. “Yes, well. If I've already broken the wall, gone out, done my business, and come back, who's to say your large assortment of overly entitled rabble won't do the same? I'm sure some of them were looking forward to a lovely afternoon of tourism before the conclave resumed.”

“Riding cable cars, looking at sea lions,” I said.

“Maybe punching them, if we're talking about Dianda,” said Quentin.

“Now, now,” tutted Tybalt. He sat down on my free side, closer than Quentin, so I could feel the reassuringly solid warmth of him. I inched closer still, resting my head against his shoulder. “The Duchess Lorden no doubt has an excess of sea lions, which she can use for pugilistic exercises whenever she feels the need.”

“How are they going to keep her from drying out?” asked Quentin. “She's, you know. A fish when she sleeps.”

I grimaced. “Please don't use the ‘f' word. She's a mermaid. That's different.”

“She'll still dry out if she doesn't sleep in a lake or something.”

“That's easy,” I said, relieved to have a question I could answer. “One of the guest rooms has a private ‘reclining pool' in it, according to Madden. They've put Dianda and Patrick there. She'll just sleep in the water.”

Quentin looked dubious. “That doesn't sound very comfortable.”

“Especially not for the poor, bipedal Duke.” Tybalt pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “I am deeply grateful that you do not transform into anything unpleasant when you sleep.”

“If you two are going to start talking about your sex life, I'm going to go help Queen Windermere's staff make the beds,” said Quentin. I lifted my cheek from Tybalt's shoulder and smiled at my squire.

“You know I wouldn't do that to you,” I said. “I want you to voluntarily show up for the wedding.”

Quentin laughed, and was starting to reply when someone rapped on the door. His laughter died, taking his smile along with it. Tybalt and I both twisted to look at the door, like it would somehow reveal the identity of whoever was on the other side.

It didn't. “Who is it?” I called.

“Sylvester. Please, may I come in?”

I exchanged a startled look with Quentin as I picked myself up from the floor, Tybalt a reassuring presence behind me. As my liege, Sylvester could technically order me to open the door, now that he knew for sure that I was in here. The fact that he hadn't done so probably meant he was here because he wanted to try rebuilding some of the bridges between us. That was a good thing. That was an important thing. That was a thing I'd been meaning to force myself to do for months, ever since the
last time I'd been at Shadowed Hills. And it was absolutely not the sort of thing I wanted to deal with when I was getting ready to go out looking for a murderer.

I'd paused too long. Sylvester sighed, and said, “I promise you, October, I'm not here to make you have a conversation you're not ready for. This is about Antonio's death.”

“Just a second,” I said. Turning to Tybalt, I asked, “Can you please go walk the halls? Watch for anyone acting suspicious. See if anything looks out of place. Talk to the bats in the attic, if you have to. Just . . . do my job while I deal with my liege, okay?”

“For you, the world,” he said, and kissed me, quick and glancing, before turning to stride across the room, moving toward the shadow he'd used to enter.

I didn't wait to watch him disappear. I just straightened my shirt, ran my hands through my hair, and turned back to the door. Quentin stood, moving to fall in behind me in the squire's position as I opened the door for Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills, my liege, substitute father figure, and technically, step-uncle.

Faerie gets confusing sometimes.

For his part, Sylvester looked . . . relieved. The emotion in his face was more complicated than that, seeming composed of equal parts exhaustion, worry, and pleasure, but relief was the end result. Fae don't age, but there were shadows in his honey-colored eyes that hadn't been there the last time we'd been face-to-face, and his russet-red hair was less carefully combed than it should have been. All these were small things, things I'd been able to miss from a distance. With him right in front of me, I couldn't ignore them.

“October,” he said, and smiled.

For a moment—a single, heartbreaking moment—I wanted nothing more than to throw myself into his arms and let the familiar dogwood and daffodils scent of his magic surround me. He'd been my mentor, my
teacher, and my surrogate parent for almost as long as I could remember. Compared to that, our estrangement seemed to be of little consequence, something so recent and pointless that I wanted to throw it aside. I just couldn't.

He'd lied to me. He'd kept secrets that had caused me and the people around me to suffer. He'd done it because of promises he'd made to my mother, and while I could respect his desire to keep his word, I couldn't forgive the fact that he'd hurt me in the process. Some prices were too high to pay. “Sylvester,” I said, moving to the side. “Please, come in.”

His smile died as he realized that an open door was not the same thing as forgiveness. “Of course,” he said, and stepped past me, allowing me to close the door. Before I could ask, he said, “Luna is in our quarters, resting. Queen Windermere was kind enough to provide a room with a door which opens on the garden, considering Luna's special circumstances.”

Luna was a Blodynbryd, a rose who walked like a woman. I nodded. “It was smart of you not to bring her along. I'm not sure she's in the mood to talk to me. Ever again.”

“I know.” He didn't make apologies. He didn't try to justify his wife's behavior. He just looked at me, and I was struck again by how
tired
he seemed.

The longer I looked at him, the worse I felt about our estrangement. This needed to end. I took a deep breath, and asked, “All right: why are you here? I don't think it's because you want to find out whether Tybalt still wants to strangle you. Which, by the way, he does.”

“Congratulations on the occasion of your engagement,” said Sylvester. “Given our current circumstances, I know you won't accept this offer, but should you like, you would be more than welcome to hold your wedding at Shadowed Hills. I would be delighted—no, I would be
honored
—to witness your marriage.”

“It seems like everyone in the Mists wants to choose my wedding venue for me,” I said.

“If Toby had her way, she'd be getting married at the city hall,” said Quentin.

“Nothing wrong with a good civil ceremony,” I said. “Sylvester, not that it's not nice to see you and everything, but why are you here?”

“Because I wish to offer assistance,” he said. “Grianne is willing to help you look for King Antonio's killer. You know her well enough to know that she'd be a valuable ally, and I would feel better knowing you had someone with you who could remove you from the situation quickly, should it turn hazardous.”

I frowned, tilting my head as I asked, “What makes this situation any different from all the other dangerous situations I've walked into? If there's something you're not telling me, that's really a habit that you should get out of. Now, if possible.”

Sylvester was silent for a long moment before he sighed, and said, “Normally, you have Tybalt with you. It's no secret that he and I aren't friends—”

“He tried to kill you. He
used
to respect you, you know. I'd never seen him bow to a noble of the Divided Courts before he bowed to you. You've pretty much spoiled that.”

“It seems I'm even more adept than my brother at spoiling things, and he slumbers for his sins,” said Sylvester. There was a profound weariness to his tone. “Regardless of your lover's hatred of me—hatred I do not contest having earned, believe me—I trust him to keep you safe and well. If I can't fight beside you, he is who I'd choose for the position. But he can't hold that position and sit the conclave at the same time, and with the doors sealed to keep us on the inside, I assume he can't summon any additional monarchs of the Cait Sidhe to free him from his duties.”

“No, he can't, or at least he won't,” I admitted. “You're sure you want to loan me Grianne?”

“I would rather loan you Etienne. Unfortunately, the doors are locked, and he's not inside.” Sylvester shrugged. “We work with what we have.”

“You taught me that.” I took a step back, looking around the room Arden had assigned to me and Quentin as I tried to buy a little time.

It was less fancy than the guest quarters in Silences, thank Maeve, with redwood flooring and walls papered in an art deco blackberry pattern. The sliding door to our balcony was stained glass, worked in a riot of blackberry blossoms and bright California poppies in shades ranging from honey to wildfire. Blackout curtains hung to either side, ready to be drawn when we needed to block the morning sun. As in Silences, Quentin had a smaller secondary chamber, barely big enough for a single narrow bed. That was standard housing for knights with squires. We'd earned bigger beds and actual wardrobes for our clothing. They were still proving themselves, at least supposedly. As far as I was concerned, Quentin had proven himself several dozen times over—but until he had his knighthood, this was how it was going to be.