Once Broken Faith (17 page)

“I like Grianne,” I said finally, turning back to Sylvester. “She's always been good to me, and she doesn't talk much. But right now, I can't accept personal staff from a noble who hasn't been cleared of the murder of King Antonio Robinson. Not without opening a
lot
of doors that I'd like to keep closed for as long as possible.”

Sylvester looked stunned. “But I'm your
liege
.”

“Yeah, and that makes it all the more important that I don't appear to be favoring you, since I've been ordered to investigate by the High King, and he's going to be watching for signs that I can't handle this,” I said. “If I question everyone but you while I'm running around with Grianne as my backup, and I don't find the
murderer, what does that look like? Because to me, it looks like I knowingly harbored a killer while I was pointing the finger at everyone else to keep them from noticing that no one was asking you anything.”

Sylvester's expression deepened, going from simple surprise to something bleak and bone-deep. It was like he'd realized, in that instant, how broken things were between us.

Faerie has always been a feudal society. Kings and Queens, Dukes and Duchesses, all the way down to the loyal courtiers and Knights, who do as they're told and protect the honor of the households that they serve. As long as Sylvester was my liege, he was supposed to have my absolute loyalty, unquestioning and unchanging, no matter what he did to me. I was supposed to be, quite literally, his dog, incapable of biting the hand that fed me. And maybe once I had been. Once, I'd been so happy to serve him that it had been physically painful. But times had changed, and no matter how much either of us wished it, they weren't going to change back.

“You must question me, then,” he said finally. “I won't ask if you believe I could do this, because I don't want to hear your answer, but you must question me, and I will answer you honestly. I'd offer you my blood, if I thought that would help you to judge the honesty of my words.” He paused then, looking at me expectantly.

I shook my head. “No. No blood, not yet. High King Sollys can't order every monarch in the Westlands to bleed for me, and that means I can't use blood evidence as the thing that proves my case. I already know you didn't do it.” I was almost relieved that Aethlin had given me such an easy out. If I rode Sylvester's blood, if I saw things from his side, it would be almost impossible for me to keep being angry at him the way part of me still wanted to be—the way I needed to be, unless I was ready to forgive. And I wasn't. Not yet. Maybe that was small and petty and
mortal
of me, or maybe it was the most fae
thing I'd ever done. For a society of immortals, they sure did enjoy holding a grudge.

Sylvester nodded, looking disappointed but not surprised. “Then how will you determine my innocence?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. I was thinking I'd, you know, ask you some questions and see how you answered them. Like who were you sitting with after I left the dining hall?”

“Luna, Li Qin, Elliot, Grianne, and a Baroness from Helen's Hand.” I must have looked blank, because he added, “Small, independent Barony from the territory between Silences and Evergreen. They have no neighbors for miles. Pleasant woman. Hamadryad. You don't meet many of them with titles to their names. So to speak.”

Hamadryads were similar to Dryads, as the names implied, but they weren't bound to their trees in the same way. They also had a tendency to use whistles, sighs, and hand gestures as names, which worked well for them, and meant the rest of us referred to them as “hey, you.” I nodded. “I'll confirm that with them. Why did the Baroness come down? Hamadryads tend to take multi-decade naps
without
elf-shot.”

“True, but they can't bond with their home trees while sleeping, and elf-shot rarely waits for them to gown themselves in green,” said Sylvester. “They'd prefer to sleep when they choose, and not be enchanted into it.”

“Fair,” I said. “What did you talk about at dinner?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Humor me.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “Li Qin's adjustment to being Duchess, however temporarily, of Dreamer's Glass. April's progress as Countess of Tamed Lightning. The two have been discussing bringing Tamed Lightning back into Dreamer's Glass, once Li Qin's appointment becomes permanent. April cannot produce heirs, and having a
second layer of protection would do them some good. Elliot and the Hamadryad discussed the best techniques for cleaning untreated wood floors without damaging them. Luna said little, and complained about the food.”

“When the argument between Antonio and Dianda began, what did you do?”

“We continued to eat our meals.” He frowned at my expression. “Don't look so judgmental, October, it doesn't suit you. A monarch—a
King
—wanted to brawl with a woman whose rank equals my own, who currently stands as chosen representative of another King. It wasn't my place to interfere, and if it wasn't mine, it wasn't Li Qin's either.”

“Purebloods,” I said, resisting the urge to grab and shake him. “I'll never understand purebloods. So you just sat there while they yelled at each other? What happened after that?”

“They settled their differences and resumed speaking more quietly. You may wish to speak to Duchess Lorden about what they discussed after the yelling ceased. We enjoyed dessert as a group, and were shown to our quarters to freshen up before the conclave resumed. I was accompanied to my quarters by Luna and Grianne. Elliot and Li Qin are down the hall from us. I'm not sure where the Baroness is housed.”

“Probably in one of the trees outside the knowe,” said Quentin. Sylvester jumped, looking at my squire like he'd forgotten we weren't alone. I turned more slowly, giving Quentin a curious look. Quentin shrugged. “Hamadryads like to sleep in trees a lot more than they like to sleep in beds. Unless she brought a tree with her from Helen's Hand, that's where she'll be.”

“She'll still have a room for her things and her staff, assuming she brought any,” I said, and turned back to Sylvester. “I'll be honest: I know you didn't kill King Antonio. It's not your style. But I do genuinely appreciate
you being willing to answer my questions. I'll come to you if I have more.”

“My offer of aid remains open,” he said. He paused before adding, “You look well, October. I miss you very much, and hope you will be able to come home soon.”

“I miss you, too,” I said. I didn't comment on his assumption that Shadowed Hills was home for me, now or ever. Let him have that much. No matter how mad at him I was right now, I had loved him for most of my life, and he had always deserved it.

Sylvester opened the door to let himself out, revealing Patrick Lorden hurrying toward us, face pale and sweat standing out on his temples, like he couldn't decide whether he should collapse or have a panic attack. Sylvester froze. So did Patrick. For a split-second, so did I.

Then I shoved my way past Sylvester, crossing the threshold into the hall, until I was close enough to see the hazy, unfocused look in Patrick's eyes.

“Patrick?” I asked.

His gaze snapped to my face, becoming clear. Then he grabbed my arms. He'd never done that before. His grip was surprisingly strong, and I had a moment to be glad any bruises would fade before Tybalt had a chance to see them.

Then Patrick spoke. “Dianda,” he said. “It's . . . you have to . . . please. You
have
to.”

“Have to what, Patrick? Is Dianda all right?”
Please don't let her be dead,
I thought desperately. She was my friend. She was my ally. More importantly than either of those things, she was the representative of the local Undersea. If she was dead, war might become inevitable.

He shook his head, letting me go. “No,” he said. “Please.”

“Please?”

“Come with me.” He turned and started down the hall. He hadn't gone more than a few steps when he broke into
a run. I ran after him, and from the sound of things, Quentin and Sylvester ran after me. I might have been angry at that, under other circumstances: I might have stopped and told Sylvester to go back to his quarters and let me do my job, to remember that he was the retired hero and I was the woman Patrick had come to find. I didn't slow down. I needed all the help I could get, and neither my pride nor my preference was going to change that. So we ran.

The room Arden had set aside for Patrick and Dianda was a floor down from mine—something that would have seemed odd, considering I was on the ground floor, if it weren't for the often alien nature of knowes. Knowes viewed geometry as a plaything, and were happy to rearrange it to suit their own needs, or the needs of their inhabitants. I'd have to ask Patrick how they'd dealt with Dianda's wheelchair, after all this was cleared up and I knew she was all right. For now, I just ran, and the others ran with me, until the open door to the Lordens' chambers came into view.

Dianda wasn't visible, but as I got closer, I saw the pond in the center of the room, larger than the average hot tub and recessed into the floor, surrounded by a ring of red brick that seemed less decorative and more a matter of making the area around the water less slippery. Water weeds rooted to the sides, drifting lazily and almost concealing the woman curled on the bottom, her fins spread in jewel-toned array, her eyes closed. She wasn't moving. She wasn't moving at all.

The arrow protruding from her left shoulder may have had something to do with that.

I skidded to a stop just before I hit the brick demarcation between room and pondside. The water was clear and cool and so much like the ponds in the Japanese Tea Gardens that my stomach did an unhappy flip before contracting into a tight ball of dread. No matter how far removed I was from my own time in the water, it was always going to be terrible for me.

“We need her out of the water,” I said, and my voice sounded distant and thin, like it was being ripped away by some unfelt wind. “Sylvester?”

“Of course.” My liege pushed past me and plunged into the pond, heedless of what that would do to his clothes.

I lifted my eyes, not wanting to watch him wrangle Dianda's motionless body out of the weeds, and found Patrick standing on the other side of the pond, his own eyes fixed bleakly on the water. “Patrick,” I said. “What happened?”

“I don't . . . I . . .” He looked up. He looked so
lost
, like this was one of those situations he'd never even allowed himself to consider, out of fear that thinking it might somehow make it true. “We met here. For the first time, I mean, back when Gilad was King and she was about to become Duchess of Saltmist. We ran away from this fancy banquet in her honor and ate cake in the kitchen. I thought it would be nice, romantic, even, if I brought her some cake, since we're here again. So I left her alone. I left her alone for ten minutes. No more.”

And when he'd returned, she had been lying elf-shot at the bottom of the pond. I glanced around the room, finding the plate of cake where it had fallen a few feet from the door. That explained the faint scent of chocolate in the air—it was possible we were dealing with someone whose magic smelled of chocolate, of course, but that was unlikely enough that I didn't need to focus on it. Not until we'd run through all other options.

I looked back to Patrick. “Can she drown?”

It wasn't as odd a question as it seemed. Of Patrick and Dianda's two sons, only the younger had inherited his mother's ability to breathe water. Dean could drown, despite being a mermaid's son. To my great relief, Patrick shook his head and said, “Not in her natural form. I think . . . I think if she'd been on legs and been pushed into the water, it might be different, but she was relaxing
when I left to get the cake. That's why she didn't go with me. She didn't want to put her feet back on.”

There was a splash, followed by a wet, meaty smacking sound. I turned back to the water. Sylvester had hauled Dianda out, her tail hitting against the bricks as he dragged her to dry ground. I grabbed her flukes, lifting them before too much damage could be done to the delicate scales marking the transition between flesh and fin. Dianda wasn't going to thank us if she woke to find her tail damaged.

“Is there a bed?” I asked, hoisting my portion of unconscious mermaid. Quentin moved to support her midsection, and between the three of us, we were able to lift her with relative ease, keeping Patrick from needing to get involved. There were a lot of things I was happy to ask him to do. Carrying his elf-shot wife wasn't on the list.

“Yes,” he said. “This way.” White-faced and shaking, he turned and led us across the room to a latticework door. It was more like a screen than anything else: he pushed it aside to reveal a covered balcony, open to the night air on three sides, with a large canopied bed at the center. The bedposts were carved into blackberry vines rich with fruit, and the bedclothes were the rich purple and fragile lilac of the berries and flowers that normally accompanied the vines.

“Sometimes I really admire Arden's commitment to her theme,” I commented, as we carried Dianda over to the bed. There was a shrill note to my voice, like part of me knew I was whistling past the graveyard, and still couldn't stop. Dianda was my
friend
. Maybe more importantly . . . this really looked like a declaration of war.

We slid her onto the mattress. Patrick leaned over to brush her wet hair away from her face, grimacing. He didn't say anything, but I knew a small part of what he was thinking. When Merrow transformed from fin to
flesh, they magically became dry at the same time. He'd probably never seen her with a pillow under her head and water in her hair. In that moment, she could have been dead.

As if he'd read my mind, he said, “Di loves pillows. She sleeps with me in the bed as often as she can, just because she enjoys having something under her head that isn't a mossy rock. Linens don't do so well when you submerge them.”