Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A s a Queen's Blade, Fey had performed countless unsavory tasks. She had known her share of violence and gore while working for the Crown and had dismembered and beheaded more enemies of the throne than she cared to count. She'd buried bodies, burned bodies, and even dissolved a body in lye (though only once, and she swore to never do it again. It had taken days, and it was immensely easier to dispose of a corpse than a body's worth of goo ).

During her work for the Crown, she had bled, cried, and vomited. Some nights she'd even done all three.

But nights like tonight were perhaps her least favorite of all the unsavory tasks required of her.

" Happy birthday , Princess," the man kneeling on the dais crooned in an unctuous voice. He set a delicately wrapped present on the already massive pile beside Princess Amalia's throne, beaming a saccharine smile up at the realm's heir and her mother.

Fey fought the urge to squirm. She hated this, hated the groveling and the posturing. Hated standing in one spot, unable to move, for hours on end.

If either the Queen or Princess felt the same, seated in their matching thrones on the dais, they certainly didn't show it .

Princess Amalia smiled at the man as he fussed with placing his present. A dull, rather brainless smile, but a smile, nonetheless. Fey only vaguely recognized him. He was someone important enough to warrant an invitation to the Princess's birthday celebration, clearly. He was a duke, maybe? Or the brother of a duke? But Fey lacked Lilith's seemingly endless fount of knowledge about the comings and goings of the royal court and couldn't place him. Joy would know, of course, but Joy stood at the Queen's other shoulder, still and quiet as a statue, and the two of them were not to move, not to speak, during the celebration.

The Queen gave the duke—or possibly a duke's brother—a nod of appreciation. At her side, the little Princess mirrored the gesture, saying in her soft lilting voice, "Thank you, Lord Cameron. Your generosity is much appreciated. You have my leave to enjoy the party."

A Lord? Oh, I was way off, Fey thought with a sigh.

After their trip to the training yards this morning, she'd barely made it back in time for Princess Amalia's party. It was a meaningless show of strength to require the Blades to attend, and Fey wished she'd had an assignation like Lilith just as an excuse to miss this. But, alas, she hadn't had an assignation from Dameon all week, so she was stuck here tonight, standing with Joy behind the Queen's throne. Twin specters, silent and deadly.

Silent, deadly, and very bored specters.

The party itself filled the expansive throne room, spilling out into the hallways beyond. Tables lined the white marble walls, full of food, sweets, and games. Princess Amalia's peers were gathered in all corners, voices shrill with excitement as they enjoyed the festivities and food. Their guardians, after paying due homage to their Queen and presenting their gifts to the Princess, watched on with wry amusement, gossiping among themselves and picking at the expansive spread of food around them.

It seemed cruel that the Princess was stuck here on the dais, receiving their well wishes and their gifts but unable to join in her own party. Fey couldn't recall the last time she'd seen the Princess play with someone her age. Wasn't sure she ever had.

Another Lord approached the dais, and Fey was pleased to find she recognized this one. Lord Cyanean—or Lord Cinnamon, as Joy teasingly called the ruddy-faced, red-haired man. Joy's eyes flicked sideways to hers for the briefest moment, and Fey knew they were sharing the same memory. Beneath her mask, she grinned.

It would be another few hours of this before they would be dismissed. Joy, at least, never seemed to mind guard duty—playing the role of an object, propped up behind the Queen like a piece of art—but Fey found it mindlessly dull. And Lilith, somehow, always managed to find ways out of it.

Traitor , Fey thought.

The line of well-wishers and present bearers continued their procession to the throne, showing no signs of slowing. It had already been hours, and guests were still arriving and joining the line. Boredom gnawed on Fey's attention, and she found herself watching the Queen and her heir if only for something to occupy herself.

Princess Amalia did look a little like Dameon, Fey thought, chewing her lip. In a certain light, her brown hair was a near enough match to his, and her skin had a more golden cast than her mother's. But if she was anything like her mother, that brown hair wouldn't last much longer. Queen Edelin's hair had begun to fade and lighten in her late teens, and by her mid-twenties, her hair was a perfect snow white. Now, in her early forties, it struck a contrast with her lightly lined skin, giving her the ethereal appearance of a woman both aged, and unageing, young and old all at once. The hair was a throwback to some of the oldest and strongest Queens, Lilith had told her once. Proof that she could trace her ancestry back as a direct line to the First Witch Queen.

Queen Edelin was beautiful and intimidating, and the combination of her regal air, white hair, and dark eyes reminded Fey of an ermine in its winter coat. Princess Amalia could be an ermine, too, one day. But she was young, and she still had the brown cast of an ermine in the summer. She was a soft, fragile thing, completely lacking the hard steel of her mother. It was hard to imagine she would be Queen one day, gentle as she was.

The procession continued, and momentarily lost in her thoughts, Fey didn't notice the danger in the room until he reached the dais and spoke.

"Thirteen years old," said a cold, dignified voice. Fey tensed, instincts flaring to life. Next to her, standing at the Queen's other side, she felt Joy do the same. "What a magical year, Princess. I wish you the joy of it."

Salvatore deSanguine spoke with a lilting accent from a time long before Witches ruled the realm. Three hundred years ago, after the War of the Fallen had left him the strongest remaining patriarch of the great Vampire families, he had declared himself a king, or so the stories said. As far as Fey knew, he still called himself that, and only a man as stubborn and arrogant as the Vampire King would be foolish enough to attend a royal event while wearing a crown.

It was a simple thing—a thin band of iron resting on his silver-gray hair—but the meaning was clear. Salvatore deSanguine still considered himself the Fallen King, even now, so many generations later.

And he saw fit to rub it in the royal family's face at every opportunity.

Salvatore didn't kneel before the Queen, but he did hand Princess Amalia a box wrapped in gold paper, ignoring the pile of presents at her side. Amalia reached her hand out to take it without thinking, blind to any danger.

The air in the throne room stilled and went quiet as Fey drew her blade. It made a sharp metallic noise as she unsheathed it, and the sound cut through the din of the party, silencing the merriment. Joy hadn't drawn her blades, not yet, but she took a step forward toward the Vampire King, her hands resting on the hilts.

Salvatore glanced up at them, surprised, and seeing Fey's blade in her hand, he smiled . If the Queen were an ermine, Salvatore was a shark. His hair was silver to her white, and while he was unmistakably handsome in the hard-lined way of most Vampires, everything about him screamed danger.

The Queen's gaze drifted from the box in his hand, which he still held out for the Princess, to Fey's blade, before she casually shook her head. The blade disappeared back into its sheath without a sound, and Fey stepped back to position, returning to her statue-like state.

"Go ahead," the Queen ordered her daughter, nodding to the present Salvatore offered.

With hands shaking only slightly, the Princess took the box from him.

"It's a necklace," Salvatore said. But he wasn't addressing the Princess or even the Queen. He spoke to Fey, and she nearly raised her hand to make sure her mask was still fastened. He looked at her, as though he could see straight through the mask to her face. "You may open it if you wish to check?"

"That won't be necessary," the Queen said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. But Salvatore didn't leave. His cold silvery eyes looked slowly from Fey, taking her in as though memorizing every part of her, then to Joy, and then finally to the Queen.

"Aren't there normally four of them?" he asked, his voice casual. And hungry. He smiled as he spoke, wide enough to show his set of fangs, sharp and lethal. He was a predator circling, looking for any weakness, any avenue of attack.

"Of course," the Queen said. Nothing in her voice or demeanor gave anything away. "They are on assignment this evening. Keeping the peace of the realm."

"Naturally," Salvatore replied. His smile widened, and Fey's fingers itched to draw her blade again. "Enjoy your special day, Princess," he said, inclining his head to Amalia. And then he was gone, joining the rest of the party as though he were just another guest. The line moved forward, and the Queen's twin sister Cassandra replaced him. Fey breathed out slowly, forcing her shoulders to relax, watching the Vampire until he disappeared in the crowd, heading toward the exit.

"Niece," Cassandra crooned, placing her gift on the pile. Though twins, Queen Edelin and her sister Cassandra were near opposites, in both appearance and power. If Edelin was made of snow and ice, Cassandra was made of coal. Her hair was raven black, and she stood nearly four inches taller than her sister.

The real difference, though, and the reason Edelin sat on the throne while Cassandra knelt, lay in their gifts. Edelin could command all four pure elements—holding mastery over Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Cassandra held power over only two, and even in them, her gifts were weak. The royal line followed strength, and only those blessed with all four elements held the right to rule. If not for that one thing, that one difference between them, Cassandra would have been Queen.

When it became clear which twin would inherit the throne, Cassandra renounced her claim—choosing instead the life of a White Priestess, a life of helping young witches through their Awakening, the ritual that revealed their elemental gifts.

If Amalia hadn't shown the same powers as her mother, the same gift of all four elements, she wouldn't be seated here to receive presents either, Fey knew. It had been a relief three years ago when the Princess had gone through her Awakening. And though it was rumored that her strength for Earth was barely more than a pulse of power, it had been enough.

The Queen thanked and dismissed her sister in the same bored way she had spoken to all the others, and the next Lord or Lady or Duke or Goddess-knew-what approached to kneel.

The evening continued in this way until it bled into night. Fey stood still and silent, counting the seconds into minutes into hours. Eventually, the seemingly endless line of those paying homage to the Princess died down, and not long after, the party faded. Just as the guests grew tired and the children became decidedly bored with the games around them, the Queen stood.

"We thank you for your kind words and your gifts," she stated. She neither shouted nor whispered, simply speaking with the confidence of someone who knew every single person in the room would stop to listen. And, of course, they did, taking in each word she spoke as though it were scripture. "But the hour has grown late, and we wish to retire."

And with that, they were dismissed. Guests filed out the door, some bowing a final time to either the Queen or the Princess. Fey and Joy stayed until the last guest had left, and the servants slipped into the throne room to start their cleaning. Two of the Princess's attendants began to remove her presents, one by one, carting them away.

Finally, it was over.

The royal palace is not a small building, by any means. Still, guests and visitors were only ever given access to the center of the building, where the throne room and various ballrooms and entertaining chambers were housed. Most knew little of what lay beyond those rooms, and few had reason to suspect they saw only a quarter of the actual building. Fewer, still, were allowed access to the Western Wing, where the Queen kept her private entertaining parlors and rooms for special guests and friends. Dameon had a room reserved here, Fey knew, though he used it rarely, if ever. He preferred the bedchambers next to the Queen's suite, in the Northern Wing. He was, after all, head of her guard and spent much of his time in the company of her and the Princess.

The smallest and most secretive wing was the Eastern Wing, the entrance hidden in such a way that it would be nearly impossible for a visitor to stumble upon it by accident. Even if they tried, the hallways that led there were always teeming with members of the Queen's Guard, carefully monitoring the comings and goings of the palace.

No one entered the Eastern Wing accidentally. And no one, save for the Queen and Dameon, entered the four bedchambers tucked away there.

The Eastern Wing was home to the Queen's Blades, and it was a secret very few in the realm knew about. Built beneath ground level, there was no reason to suspect it existed at all.

The four bedchambers shared a common living space and a small kitchenette, but each room had an ensuite complete with a shower and bath. There was a training gym filled with equipment and healing elixirs, and various rooms, large and small, to do with as they wished. Fey had yet to claim one as her own, preferring to split her time between her bedchamber and the training gym.

It was late evening by the time Joy and Fey made their way from the main palace floors to the Eastern Wing and back to their rooms, and Fey was ready for a long shower and bed.

Joy didn't waste a single moment, unclasping her mask and cowl the moment the door shut behind them, shaking her blonde hair out and letting it fall over her shoulders.

"Hello, my darling, did you miss me?" She beamed at the small lump of fur curled in the armchair. Merle made no effort to move, but his ears piqued at the sound of Joy's voice, and a soft purr gradually filled the room, the only sign he had heard.

No one was sure where the cat had come from, or how he had managed to make his way into the Eastern Wing. But Alice had given him a piece of chicken when she'd found him hiding in their kitchen, cowering in a corner, and since then he'd refused to leave. Why would he, after all, when Joy kept him fat and pampered and loved?

"Took you two long enough," Lilith remarked. She leaned against the kitchen island, a bowl of instant noodles in one hand, her long dark hair wrapped in a towel and piled on her head. "How was the party?"

Fey snorted. Whatever assignation had kept Lilith from joining them hadn't taken her long if she had already finished and managed to shower and change into her loungewear.

"The Vampire King made an appearance," Joy answered. She crouched next to Merle's armchair, scratching him beneath his furry black chin. Merle stretched lazily and rolled onto his back to better appreciate her attention.

"You're kidding." Lilith's smirk widened.

"She's not." Fey unclasped her mask and began the process of removing her weapons when Lilith interrupted her.

"Uh, uh, uh, not so fast there," Lilith nodded her head toward an envelope on the counter next to her. "Dameon dropped that off for you earlier."

Fey swore when she saw the black envelope sitting there. A black envelope meant an assignation, and while Fey had been itching for one all week, tonight she was tired, and all she wanted to do was go to bed.

"He couldn't have dropped it off before the party?"

Lilith smirked. "Guess not. Sorry, sweetie, but your night isn't over yet."

"I can take it tonight if you want, sister," Joy offered, but Fey shook her head.

"It's my name on the outside, it's my assignation."

She plucked the envelope from the table. The paper was thick and heavy, sealed with the Queen's sigil in golden wax. Fey slid her long nail under the wax seal, breaking it open, and pulled the sheet of paper inside of it out to read .

It was a single name and an address, written in black, and Fey bit back a snarl of frustration. Black meant observe, don't kill, and don't engage. A fact-finding mission—usually Joy's specialty. If the name had been written in red, well… that was a different matter altogether. Names written in red were nothing but walking corpses—people who had already signed their death warrant, but just didn't know it yet.

Fey would have preferred a quick assassination to this, but when she read the name, she paused, blinking in surprise.

"Oh Lord Cinnamon," Fey said, shaking her head with a smirk. "What have you gotten yourself into?"