Chapter 9

Chapter9

Iwake not in the queen’s bed but in my own, blinking up at a canopy embroidered with black roses and bone-white antlers. The indifferent light of dawn stretches through the window, which means it should be early, but I feel as if I’ve slept an embarrassingly long amount of time. Like I’ve slept the first hard, real sleep I’ve had since jumping feetfirst into the sausage grinder of grad student life.

Even so, when I sit up and swing my feet out of bed, I still feel floaty, bright and aware and hungry.

Not for food, though. Not at all.

But my eagerness to get back to the queen is forestalled when I see the tub in the middle of my room has been replaced with a table. It’s carved and fashioned in the shape of a doe dipping her head to drink, and on her wooden back rests a plate of warm bread and fluffy butter, a bowl of mixed berries and cream, and a steaming cup of tea. A note written in dark red ink is propped against the teacup.

You may not see me until you’ve eaten. Don’t forget salt.

–M

M. It can only be her, which means that can only be her initial. Her name starts with M.

I guess a few possible names as I find the salt—Marian, Margaret, Myrtle—and sprinkle a few grains on each of the breakfast items. Maybe I could get the queen’s name today—or whatever it is she’d like to be called, in light of the fairies’ wariness around true names. I yearn to call her something more intimate than Your Majesty. Even if the whole Your Majesty thing is a little hot.

And the need to see her is like a leash tugging on my neck, and how would she know if I’d eaten anyway? Maybe I could just eat a bite or two, so that it wouldn’t be lying if I said I ate some breakfast, and then I could go find her right away…

I take a bite of bread and butter with salt sprinkled on top, and it’s the best bread I’ve ever eaten, and so I take another bite, and another, and by the time I’ve finished, I feel suddenly more solid. Less floaty. Like I’m sobering up, although I wasn’t even drunk last night.

The world is sober now too. The low fire in my fireplace is a normal fire; the dawn sky outside is beautiful, but the same beauty I’ve known my entire life. And my searing need to see the queen…

Well, it’s still there, but at least I can think other thoughts too. Think logically about things. Does salt help with thinking clearly, along with keeping me ready to go back to the mortal world?

Weird.

The wardrobe provides yet again: thick hose with suede patches inside the knees, a green dress made of a fine wool and split up the skirt for easy riding, and a warm cloak the gold-yellow of birch leaves in autumn.

After I dress, I make use of the small water closet to the side of the room and the toothbrush and toothpaste left for me near the small jug of water and basin. They are unmistakably new, unmistakably mortal, still in their packages, and I wonder if they keep a supply of such things for all their mortal guests or if this is something procured just for me.

I also wonder if fairies need toothpaste at all. If they don’t, it fits with the whole being-immortal-and-preternaturally-beautiful thing, but still. It hardly seems fair.

On a whim, I slip my phone into the pocket of my dress before I leave the room. Just in case there’s a signal out in the wilderness, although that’s literally never been the case near the dig site, and also I’m not actually in Scotland anymore. At least I think not? I put learn how Faerie fits into the fabric of known universe on my mental to-do list and then venture forth to find the queen.

* * *

“Your Majesty knows the necessity.Especially given what’s happened with the Dark Druid…we can’t afford for anything else to go wrong.”

“Not if I find another way,” comes the queen’s voice in reply. It’s colder and harder than I’ve heard it before, and that’s including the time she forced the servant from the Thistle Court to endure his own lady’s trick. “I expect your support in this, Sholto.”

I round the corner into the banquet hall—the ever-helpful castle leaves settling to the floor as I walk inside—and see the queen sitting on her throne, with Felipe, Morven, and a tall, gray-skinned man I don’t recognize in front of her. Sholto, I presume.

They don’t notice me at first, continuing to argue as I walk toward the stag throne with its menacing web of antlers arcing up behind the queen’s dark head. She’s wearing breeches and a tunic made of a sturdy red wool, with high leather boots and a knife already belted at her hip. Her hair is gathered in a thick plait draped over one shoulder, and the only nod to her royal station, aside from the throne where she sits, is a heavy gold ring on her left hand.

“Your Majesty,” Sholto attempts again, “there is no other way. If there were, don’t you think one of the courts of Elphame would have found it long before now?”

“There is another way, which you know well,” the queen says, turning the ring slowly on her finger. “It only has to be chosen.”

Morven gives a low, bitter laugh at that. “Chosen indeed.”

Felipe looks pale, but he doesn’t speak.

“But it should not be chosen,” Sholto says, sounding a little desperate now. “This is the way Samhain is done—the way the Shadow Market is closed—and the way things have been done since the first Cernunnos walked these hills. It is a law that cannot be gainsaid, no matter what we wish.”

The queen’s expression remains cold, stony. “Perhaps no one has tried hard enough to gainsay it.”

“Your Majesty,” pleads Sholto, “even the Thistle Court did their duty the last time. This is what being a fae ruler is. This is the most secret, and most sacred, act a fae ruler must do, and the Thistle Queen did her job admirably—”

“I do not wish to hear what the Thistle Queen did,” snaps the queen.

“You should,” Morven says irritably. “She has held her court with strength—”

“And sly violence,” the queen says. “I would not be like her.”

“Our own mother made a habit of sly violence, if you don’t recall,” Morven retorts. “Do you not remember the assassinations? The wars? The curses? The druid she cursed is still suffering, still bound, two years after her death. But you can’t argue that she didn’t keep our court strong and safe. That she didn’t do her duty when it was asked of her.”

The queen frowns but doesn’t answer.

Sholto cuts in. “Duty aside, I promise you I can find you a hundred mortals more pleasing—”

He breaks off and turns around, seeming to realize just now that I’m here. He glares at me.

I smile at him. “More pleasing than me? Because I have it on good authority that I’m very pleasing.”

Felipe clears his throat and looks to the floor. Morven rolls his eyes.

The queen, for her part, says nothing. But there is something like a smile on her lips.

Sholto sputters. “This is a council meeting! Which you were not invited to, nor are you privy to the matters we must discuss. I insist you leave—”

“The council meeting is adjourned,” says the queen, standing up and closing the matter. “It’s time for our hunt. And Sholto, I recommend you adjust your expectations about what Janneth is privy to. She’ll be by my side until Third Night. Yes,” she adds at Sholto’s mutinous expression, “even at the treaty negotiations tomorrow.”

This is the first I’ve heard of any treaty or its negotiations, but if it gets me one over on this Sholto asshole, then treaty negotiations are my new favorite thing. I give him a smug look, and he returns it with a fuming one of his own—which is cut short when the queen steps off the dais and he and the others sink into their obeisances. I kneel too, but the queen touches my shoulder.

“Come, Janneth. We have a hunt to ready for.”