“So glad to know that your pedestrian concerns continue to take priority,” said the Luidaeg. “Now strip.”
Arguing with her wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I unfolded the screen, stepped behind it, and began removing my clothes, trying to pretend I wasn’t sharing the room with my regent, my squire, a sea witch from the dawn of time, and an easily amused Duchess with a penchant for rewriting the luck of others. Tybalt, Elliot, and Karen were almost irrelevant; none of them made me that nervous, at least where nudity was concerned. Finally, I stepped out of my trousers, and called, “Done!”
“Great. Hold the cloth in front of you, hold your breath, and close your eyes.”
I did as I was told. I’d come this far. What was a little more ridiculousness?
The Luidaeg said something else, more softly this time. That was the only warning I received before a wall of hot, soapy water cascaded over me, leaving me gasping. Then I realized I could feel corset stays pressing against my sides. I looked down. The copper scrap had become a strapless, corseted gown. The skirt was loose enough for me to run in, cut mid-calf in the front and extending to the floor in the back. The whole thing was covered in that delicate forked lightning embroidery, giving the impression that I’d just walked out of the heart of a storm. There were even shoes, flats, made of leather that was the same beaten-gold color as the lightning.
“Well?” said the Luidaeg. “Come out.”
I came out. “How?” I asked, gesturing to the dress.
“Bannick magic repairs what it cleans,” she said. “Normally, that means patching and mending, but if you set up the right conditions—like, say, a piece of spider-silk cut from the gown of a dignitary at a conclave similar to this one, several centuries ago—you can sometimes convince the magic it should recreate the clothing out of whole cloth. You can keep the dress, by the way, assuming you don’t manage to bleed all over it. I have no use for that sort of thing.”
“And the shoes?”
“No outfit is complete without shoes, earrings, and, if necessary, gloves.”
I looked down. The gloves were tucked into the top of my bodice. I pulled them out and pulled them on, managing not to grimace at the feeling of the silk wrapping tight around my fingers. “Happy now, Fairy Godmother?”
“Ecstatic,” she said, somehow drawing the word out until it was four syllables long and packed with bitterness. “I won’t tell you to be home before midnight. Just try not to get stabbed again.”
“I’d prefer she try not to get stabbed in the first place,” muttered Tybalt darkly.
The Luidaeg turned on him. “You, get out,” she said—not unkindly, which was a nice change. “You need to get to the conclave without the rest of us if you don’t want to damage that independence you cats prize so much. They can’t start without Arden, but they’ll start without you. Hurry along.”
Tybalt cast me one last, pained look. Then he was gone, stepping back into the shadows and pulling them around him like a curtain, becoming nothing but the memory of a man.
The Luidaeg wasn’t done. She turned to Arden, and said, “Now’s your turn to play taxi. Get us to the conclave.”
Arden blinked, raising her eyebrows. “I’m the Queen here.”
“And I am clearly coming around too often and putting up with too much of your monarchist bullshit, because you seem to have forgotten the essential fact that I. Will. Fuck. You. Up.” The Luidaeg took a step toward Arden. Her eyes were suddenly black, and while her features hadn’t shifted, there was an element of menace to them that hadn’t been there a second ago. She didn’t need to change her form to be as brutal and mercurial as the sea. “Familiarity may breed contempt, Your Highness, but I recommend you find a way to shake off that tendency, because you have no power over me, no authority to command my actions, and no reason to expect my good will. Now, are you going to be a smart girl and open a door for us, or am I going to remind you why even the rulers of the Divided Courts listen when the Firstborn decide to speak?”
Arden had gone white. She didn’t say anything, simply sketched an archway in the air with her hand. It opened, smelling of blackberry flowers, to reveal the stage in the arcade. Then she curtsied to the Luidaeg. Curtsied deeply, until her forehead was almost pressed against her knee, revealing the swan’s-wing slope of her back, graceful and vulnerable in her white gown. The Luidaeg stepped forward, resting her fingertips against Arden’s spine. Arden shivered.
“Don’t mistake me for a friend because I sometimes choose to be friendly,” said the Luidaeg. “Don’t pretend you have some sort of control over what I do. I’m Firstborn. That means something. Even here, even now, in this washed-out mockery of Faerie, that means something. If you forget again, I’ll have to leave you with something to remember me by. So please, Arden. Because I loved your father, in my own way, in my own time, don’t make me remind you.”
She stepped through the portal, onto the stage, leaving the rest of us to stare, silently, after her. For a long moment, no one could find anything to say. Then Karen, of all people, cleared her throat.
“I want to go home,” she said.
Li Qin snorted. “Don’t we all,” she said, and followed the Luidaeg’s trail.
SIXTEEN
OUR GROUP WAS THE only one in the gallery when we arrived. Arden was the last one through. A door opened at the back of the stage as the portal closed behind her. Maida and Aethlin entered, followed by their guards. Maida cheated a glance at Quentin as she walked to her throne. He offered her a thin, heavily shuttered smile that made my heart hurt. What was the value of a throne if this was what it meant for the relationship between parent and child?
Tybalt settled in the third row from the stage. Either they hadn’t offered him a throne, or he’d declined it; both options made sense. He was watching Maida intently, and I wondered whether his thoughts and mine had been following similar paths. Probably not. Children were a concern for later, when he was no longer King and I was no longer getting stabbed on a regular basis. Which probably meant children were a concern for never, no matter how much I might quietly wish otherwise.
Siwan entered from the right side of the stage, moving to settle on her throne. Maida and Aethlin took their seats, looking to Arden. In turn, she looked to the Luidaeg. The Luidaeg nodded.
Arden turned her attention to the front of the gallery. “Open the doors,” she commanded.
Two previously unseen courtiers pulled the doors open, and the gathered nobles, household staffers, and assorted onlookers poured through, looking suspiciously at one another as they settled. There were no introductions or other niceties today. The murder of King Antonio had successfully turned the conclave into a prison, and had removed any convivial atmosphere that might have otherwise arisen.
Patrick walked in alone, head held high, a loop of pearls tied around his upper arm like a lady’s favor. He nodded and met my eyes as he sat. I nodded back. He wasn’t going to be happy about the fact that Dianda was set to stay asleep for a day, much less for the duration of the conclave. He would also, probably, understand. He’d been doing this long enough to know how things worked. That didn’t make the thought of telling him any easier.
The doors closed. The High King and High Queen rose, suddenly regal, suddenly untouchable. “Before we resume the business of this conclave, a new matter has been brought to our attention,” said Aethlin. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The spells were active again, the air crackling with the faint scent of hot oil and ramps. “Will Duke Patrick Lorden of Saltmist please rise and approach?”
Patrick stood. A murmur spread through the crowd as he walked to the stairs and mounted them, slowly moving to the spot on the stage reserved for presenters.