I itch to sneak out of Locke’s demesne and back into the Court of Shadows. I want nothing more than to visit the Roach and the Bomb, to hear gossip from the Court, to be in those familiar underground rooms. But those rooms are gone—destroyed by the Ghost when he betrayed us to the Undersea. I don’t know where the Court of Shadows operates out of now.
And I can’t risk it.
Opening the window, I sit at Taryn’s desk and sip nettle tea, drinking in the sharp salt scent of the sea and the wild honeysuckle and the distant breeze through fir trees. I take a deep breath, at home and homesick all at the same time.
The inquest is set to happen when the first of the stars is visible in the sky. I arrive at the High Court in Taryn’s bronze dress, with a shawl over my shoulders, gloves on my fingers, and my hair swept into a loose chignon. My heart races, and I hope that no one can sense the nervous sweat starting under my arms.
As the High King’s seneschal, I was accorded a certain kind of deference. Although I lived eight years in Elfhame without it, I got very used to it very quickly.
As Taryn, I am watched with suspicion when I push my way through a crowd that no longer automatically parts for me. She is the daughter of a traitor, the sister of an outcast, and the suspected murderer of her husband. Their gazes are greedy, as though they hope for the spectacle of her guilt and punishment. But they still are not afraid of her. Even with her alleged crime, they see her as a mortal and weak.
Good, I suppose. The weaker she seems, the more believable her innocence.
My gaze darts away from the dais even as I move toward it. High King Cardan’s presence seems to infect the very air I breathe. For a wild moment, I consider turning and getting out of there before he spots me.
I don’t know if I can do this.
I feel a little dizzy.
I don’t know if I can look at him and not show on my face any of what I am feeling.
I take a deep breath and let it out again, reminding myself that he won’t know I’m the one standing in front of him. He didn’t recognize Taryn when she dressed in my clothes, and he won’t recognize me now.
Plus, I tell myself, if you don’t pull this off, you and Taryn are both in a lot of trouble.
I am suddenly reminded of all the reasons Vivi told me this was a bad idea. She’s right. This is ridiculous. I am supposed to be exiled until such time as I am pardoned by the crown, on pain of death.
It occurs to me that maybe he made a mistake with that phrasing. Maybe I can pardon myself. But then I remember when I insisted I was the Queen of Faerie, and the guards laughed. Cardan didn’t need to deny me. He only had to say nothing. And if I pardoned myself, he would only have to say nothing again.
No, if he recognizes me, I will have to run and hide and hope that my training with the Court of Shadows wins out over the training of the guard. But then the Court will know that Taryn is guilty—otherwise, why have me stand in her stead? And if I don’t manage to escape …
Idly, I wonder what sort of execution Cardan might order. Maybe he’d strap me to some rocks and let the sea do the work. Nicasia would like that. If he’s not in the mood, though, there’s also beheading, hanging, exsanguination, drawn and quartered, fed whole to a riding toad …
“Taryn Duarte,” says a knight, interrupting my morose thoughts. His voice is cold, his chased silver armor marking him as one of Cardan’s personal guard. “Wife of Locke. You must stand in the place of petitioners.”
I move there, disoriented at the thought of standing where I had seen so many before when I was the seneschal. Then I remember myself and make the deep curtsy of someone comfortable with submission to the High King’s will. Since I cannot do that while looking at his face, I make sure that I keep my gaze on the ground.
“Taryn?” Cardan asks, and the sound of his voice, the familiarity of it, is shocking.
With no more excuses, I raise my eyes to his.
He is even more horrifically beautiful than I was able to recall. They’re all beautiful, unless they’re hideous. That’s the nature of the Folk. Our mortal minds cannot conceive of them; our memory blunts their power.
His every finger sparks with a ring. An etched and jeweled breastplate in polished gold hangs from his shoulders, covering a frothy white shirt. Boots curl up at his toes and rise high over his knees. His tail is visible, curled to one side of his leg. I suppose he has decided it is no longer something he needs to hide. At his brow, of course, is the Blood Crown.
He regards me with gold-rimmed black eyes, a smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth. His black hair tumbles around his face, unbound and a little messy, as though he’s recently risen from someone’s bed.
I can’t stop marveling at how I once had power over him, over the High King of Faerie. How I once was arrogant enough to believe I could keep it.
I remember the slide of his mouth on mine. I remember how he tricked me.
“Your Majesty,” I say, because I have to say something and because everything I practiced began with that.
“We recognize your grief,” he says, sounding annoyingly regal. “We would not disturb your mourning were it not for questions over the cause of your husband’s death.”
“Do you really think she’s sad?” asks Nicasia. She is standing beside a woman it takes me a moment to place: Cardan’s mother, Lady Asha, done up in a silvery dress, jeweled tips covering the points of her horns. Lady Asha’s face has been highlighted in silver as well—silver along her cheekbones and shining on her lips. Nicasia, meanwhile, wears the colors of the sea. Her gown is the green of kelp, deep and rich. Her aqua hair is braided up and adorned with a cunning crown made of fish bones and jaws.
At least neither of them is on the dais beside the High King. The position of seneschal appears still to be open.
I want to snap at Nicasia, but Taryn wouldn’t, so I don’t. I say nothing, cursing myself for knowing what Taryn wouldn’t do, but being less sure what she would.
Nicasia steps closer, and I am surprised to see sorrow in her face. Locke was her friend, once, and her lover. I don’t think he was particularly good at either, but I guess that doesn’t mean she wanted him dead. “Did you kill Locke yourself?” she asks. “Or did you get your sister to do it for you?”
“Jude is in exile,” I say, my words coming out dangerously soft instead of the regular kind of soft they were intended to be. “And I’ve never hurt Locke.”
“No?” Cardan says, leaning forward on his throne. Vines shiver behind him. His tail twitches.
“I lov …” I can’t quite make my mouth say the words, but they are waiting. I force them out and try to force out a little sob, too. “I loved him.”
“Sometimes I believed that you did, yes,” Cardan says absently. “But you could well be lying. I am going to put a glamour on you. All it will do is force you to tell us the truth.” He curves his hand, and magic shimmers in the air.
I feel nothing. Such is the power of Dain’s geas, I suppose. Not even the High King’s glamour can ensorcell me.
“Now,” says Cardan. “Tell me only the truth. What is your name?”
“Taryn Duarte,” I say with a curtsy, grateful at how easy the lie comes. “Daughter of Madoc, wife of Locke, subject of the High King of Elfhame.”