Something in her message must have panicked the Goodemeades. But what?
She dared not go to them to ask. She had to hide herself, and then get word to the sisters. Not caring how it seemed to onlookers, Lune cupped the bird in her hands, closing her fingers around its wings, and hurried back out through Newgate, wondering where — if anywhere — would be safe.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 7, 1590
Instinct stopped him just before he would have moved.
He could feel ropes binding his ankles together, his arms behind him. The stone beneath him was cold and smooth. In the instant when he awoke, before he shut his eyes again, he saw a floor of polished black and white and gray. The air on his skin, ghosting through the rents in his clothing, was cool and dry.
He knew where he was. But he needed to know more.
Footsteps tapped a measured beat on the stone behind him. Deven kept his body limp and his eyes shut. Let them think him still unconscious.
Then he began to move, without a single hand touching him.
Deven felt his body float up into the air and pivot so that he hung upright, facing the other direction. His arms ached at the change in position, cold and cramped from the ropes and the stone. Then a voice spoke, as cool and dangerous as silk over steel. “Cease your feigning, and look at me.”
For a moment he considered disobeying. But what would it gain him?
Deven opened his eyes.
The breath rushed out of him in a sigh. Oh, Heaven save me…. They had spoken of her beauty, but words could not frame it. All the poetry devoted to Elizabeth, all the soaring, extravagant compliments, comparing her to the most glorious goddesses of paganism — every shred of it should have been directed here, to this woman. Not the slightest imperfection or mark interrupted the alabaster smoothness of her skin. Her eyes were like black diamonds, her hair like ink. High cheekbones, delicately arched brows, lips of a crimson hue both forbidding and inviting…
The words tore their way free of him, driven by some dying instinct of self-preservation. “God in Heaven…”
But she did not flinch back. Those red lips parted in an arrogant laugh. “Do you think me so weak? I do not fear your God, Master Deven.”
If she did not fear the Almighty, still His name had given Deven strength. He wrenched his gaze away, sweating. They had spoken of Invidiana’s beauty, but he had imagined her to be like Lune.
She was nothing like Lune.
“You are not surprised,” Invidiana said, musingly. “Few men would awake in a faerie palace and be unamazed. I took you for bait, but you are more than that, are you not, Master Deven? You are the accomplice of that traitor, Lune.”
How much did she know?
How much could he keep from her?
“Say rather her thrall,” Deven spat, still not looking at her. “I care nothing for your politics. Free me from her, and I will trouble you no more.”
Another laugh, this one bidding fair to draw blood by sound alone. “Oh, indeed. ’Tis a pity, Master Deven, that I did not have Achilles steal you sooner. A man who so readily resorts to lies and deception, manipulation and bluff, could well deserve a place in my court. I might have made a pet of you.
“But the time for such things has passed.” The idle amusement of her voice hardened. “I have a use for you. And if that use should fail… you will provide me with other entertainment.”
Deven shuddered uncontrollably, hearing the promise in those words.
“You are my guest, Master Deven.” Now it was mock courtesy, as disturbing as everything else. “I would give you free run of my domain, but I fear some of my courtiers do not always distinguish guests from playthings. For your own safety, I must take precautions.”
The force that held him suspended now lowered him. The toes of his boots touched the floor; then she pushed him farther, until he knelt on the stone, arms still bound behind his back.
His head was dragged forward again; he could not help but look.
Invidiana was lifting a jewel free of her bodice. He had a glimpse of a black diamond housed in silver, edged with smaller gems; then he tried to flinch back and failed as her hand came toward his face.
The metal was cool against his skin, and did not warm at the contact. An instant later Deven shuddered again, as six sharp points dug into his skin, just short of drawing blood.
“This ban I lay upon thee, Michael Deven,” Invidiana murmured, the melody of her voice lending horror to her words. “Thou wilt not depart from this chamber by any portal that exists or might be made, nor send messages out by any means; nor wilt move in violence against me, lest thou die.”
Every vein in his body ran with ice. Deven’s teeth clenched shut, his jaw aching with sudden strain, while six points of fire fixed into the skin of his brow.
Then it was gone.
Invidiana replaced the gem, smiling, and the bonds holding him fell away.
“Welcome, Master Deven, to the Onyx Hall.”
DEAD MAN’S PLACE, SOUTHWARK: May 7, 1590
There was something grimly appropriate, Lune thought, about hiding a stone’s throw from an Episcopal prison full of heretics.
But Southwark was a good place for hiding; with its stews and bear-baiting, its prisons and general licentiousness, a woman on her own, renting out a room for a short and indefinite period of time, was nothing out of the ordinary way. Lune would simply have to be gone before her faerie gold — or rather, silver — turned back to leaves.
Had the jay in truth belonged to the Goodemeades? Or had it taken her message to another? Would the Goodmeades come? What had happened, that they were so determined to keep her from the Onyx Hall?
Footsteps on the stair; she tensed, hands reaching for weapons she did not have or know how to use. Then a soft voice outside: “My lady? Let us in.”
Trying not to shake with relief, Lune unbarred the door.
The Goodemeades slipped inside and shut it behind them. “Oh, my lady,” Gertrude said, rushing forward to clasp her hands, “I am so sorry. We did not know until too late!”
“About the pact?” Lune asked. She knew even as she said the words that wasn’t it, but her mind had so fixated on it, she could not think what Gertrude meant.
Rosamund laid a gentle hand on her arm. The touch alone said too much. “Master Deven,” the brownie said. “She has taken him.”
There was no refuge in confusion, no stay of understanding while Lune asked what she meant. Fury began instantly, a slow boil in her heart. “I trusted you to warn him. He’s as much in danger as I; why did you warn only me?”
The sisters exchanged confused looks. Then Rosamund said, “My lady… the birds stopped you of their own accord. Her people ambushed him on the street yesterday. We did not even know of it until later. We sent birds some time ago, to watch you both. They had lost you, but when one saw him taken, they chose to watch the entrances and stop you if they could.”
Lost her. Because she had tried so very hard to keep anyone from following her when she went to meet Vidar. Where had she been, when they attacked him? Had Vidar distracted her on purpose?
“Tell me,” Lune said, harsh and cold.
Gertrude described it softly, as if that lessened the dreadfulness of what she said. “A will-o’-the-wisp to lead him astray. A tatterfoal, to replace his own horse and carry him into the trap.” She hesitated before supplying the last part. “And Achilles, to bring him down.”
One tiny comfort Lune could take from that: Invidiana must not mean to have Deven battle to the death, or she would have saved Achilles for later, and sent Kentigern instead.