When Sorrows Come Read online

  “My loyalty is pledged to Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills,” I said gingerly. The fact that I was here without my liege, and that he had, so far as I knew, not been involved at any stage of getting me permission to come here, could reflect badly on my honor, as well as his, if I wasn’t careful. “I was trained in my knightly duties by his seneschal, Sir Etienne. And even in a backwater Duchy run by a politically unambitious man, the seneschal knew enough not to bring strangers before his liege without verifying their names and natures. The Doppelganger pretending to be Nessa offered us the hospitality of the house immediately, without asking our names.”

  “She mistook the Luidaeg, who looks human when she so wishes it, for my lady,” added Tybalt. “October’s changeling nature is well-known, and effort has never been made to conceal it. She is proud of where she comes from.”

  “But there’s still a difference between ‘human’ and ‘part-human,’ ” I said, with a nod. “She should have verified my name, and if she couldn’t do that for some reason, she should have avoided assumptions that might cause offense.”

  “Wouldn’t want to offend the king-breaker, after all,” drawled Raj.

  I turned. He was sitting at on the edge of one of the nearby tables, which had been summarily upended and abandoned when the fight broke out. Apparently, much as this place was set up to invoke the idea of a Viking longhouse, they weren’t big on Valhalla-esque nightly brawls.

  Pity. He had snatched a pretzel roll from one of the breadbaskets and was gnawing on it idly. My stomach grumbled. It had been a long time since lunch, and what with everything that had happened, we were unlikely to get dinner.

  To my surprise, High King Aethlin laughed. “Ah, the little Prince of Cats,” he said. “I was unsure you would be able to attend, or that you would be willing to, without your shadow by your side.” He raised an eyebrow, clearly waiting for someone to answer the question he was leaving unasked.

  Raj toasted him with his pretzel roll. “My regent gave me time off for good behavior. The Court of Cats of San Francisco is well-kept in my absence, and in the absence of my uncle, which is a fine thing, since he will be unable to resume his throne when you’re done with him. Are we getting dinner or not?”

  Raj being rude to the High King is sort of a recurring theme when we put the two of them in the same room, and yet we keep doing it, thus maintaining the relationship that’s existed between Cait Sidhe and the Divided Courts for centuries. The relationship that might well be universal, if not for me and Tybalt fucking it up.

  Of course, I didn’t trust Aethlin not to push the issue of Quentin’s location if I let them keep talking, and so I broke in hurriedly.

  “Before dinner, we should find Nessa,” I said. “Do you have any good trackers among your court?”

  “We have a family of Cu Sidhe who work with the groundskeeping crew,” said Aethlin. “I can call for them.”

  “I am not a bloodhound,” said Tybalt, clearly anticipating my next question. “But I can track by scent well enough, when the need arises.”

  “And I can track by blood. We’ll need to start with seeing her quarters,” I said. “Can someone lead us there?”

  “Yes,” said Aethlin. “I’ll escort you myself.”

  “Raj, tell the others where we’re going, and then catch up with us,” I said. “You’re going to need to be one of the trackers.”

  What I didn’t mention was that if Nessa had been taken bloodlessly, my own tracking abilities would be effectively useless. I didn’t know the scent of her magic, although I might be able to pick it up from her rooms, so it wasn’t like I could trace it through the knowe, and if she’d been knocked unconscious, she wouldn’t have been casting anyway.

  But she was Gwragedd Annwn. She needed an illusion to move safely through the world. If the Doppelganger had knocked her out, that illusion would have dissipated, lacking the attention necessary to maintain it. If it had killed her, it would still have needed to dispose of her body. Either way, it needed some of her blood to mimic her beauty the way it had initially, and whatever its plans, it wouldn’t have been able to look at her for long.

  “I am?” asked Raj, eyebrow raised. But he shivered, the scent of pepper and burnt paper rising around him, and his pretzel roll fell to the floor, rolling to a stop next to Aethlin’s foot, as he was replaced with a russet Abyssinian cat. Raj meowed loudly, stretched, and leapt down from the chair, racing back to the others in half the time it would have taken him on two legs. I smiled. It’s rare for one of the Cait Sidhe to take orders from a member of the Divided Courts, but the only reason Raj isn’t officially my squire is because of our respective Courts. If I’d been Cait Sidhe, or he’d been anything else, I would have accepted him at the same time I accepted Quentin. So he didn’t mind as much when I did it.

  Let anyone else try, though, and things could get messy.

  Aethlin started toward the exit. Tybalt and I followed. When a King in his own knowe walks, those who don’t wear the crown are bound to accompany. He made a small gesture with his hand as we went, and four guards peeled off from those remaining on the wall, falling into step around us like the corners of a compass.

  Outside in the hall, there were small knots of former diners gathered together and talking in the low, anxious voices of people whose pleasant state dinner had just been interrupted by an unexpected knife fight and a rain of arrows. Some of them stopped talking to point at us and stare as we passed with their king, and I smiled weakly in response, unable to figure out the etiquette of this admittedly unusual situation.

  “You’ve come at an interesting time, Sir Daye, and I find myself grateful that you left the item you have in keeping for me at home.” He cast a sharp sideways glance in my direction. My stomach tightened. So he was concerned for Quentin’s safety, and he was afraid someone in his own Court knew that Quentin was fostered with me. Interesting.

  It made sense, though. Quentin had told me that Eira, in her guise as Evening Winterrose, respectable Daoine Sidhe Countess, had traveled to Toronto to discuss fosterage for Quentin and his younger sister, Penthea, or, as he sometimes said mockingly, “the heir and the spare.” She had somehow managed to convince Aethlin and Maida that the safest place to send their son and Crown Prince was a backwater Duchy whose Duke was rumored to have gone mad, and Quentin had been thrown to Shadowed Hills like a steak to the hyenas, there to sink or swim on what preparation he brought with him from his time in his parents’ shadow.

  He’d gotten surprisingly lucky when he was sent to deliver a message to me and somehow became my private page when I was dealing with my liege. From there, it had been a small series of misadventures and disastrous almost-quests that led, inevitably in hindsight but unbelievably at the time, to him becoming my squire. Eira’s plans for him had fallen apart when one of her allies turned against her and forced her to fake her own death.

  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer lady, really. Couldn’t have gotten me a better kid.

  If the High King was grateful that I hadn’t brought Quentin with me, something was really wrong. “How long ago do you think Nessa was replaced, Your Highness?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I speak to her daily, but rarely alone, and usually about matters of scheduling and protocol. My wife’s chatelaine would have a better idea—we find it works better with the household staff if they each know who they answer to and divide the duties accordingly.”

  It made sense, since he and Maida were ostensibly equal rulers, rather than her serving as Queen Consort. It still made me bristle somewhat although I couldn’t put my finger on precisely why. I’d probably figure it out if I thought about it long enough.

  “And where is her chatelaine?” I asked politely.

  “Honey? I haven’t . . .” Aethlin paused, looking briefly stricken. “I haven’t seen her all day. You don’t think . . .”

  “I don’
t think we can dismiss the possibility,” I said grimly. One Doppelganger could be an isolated incident. Two would definitely be proof that something bigger was going on.

  “But she’s a Centaur. Can a Doppelganger even impersonate one of those?”

  “I don’t think so. Any Doppelganger impersonating her would need to be able to double their mass, coordinate extra limbs, lots of other fun exercises.” I wasn’t even sure that was possible for a Doppelganger. They can definitely change their size, but they have limits. They can’t impersonate pixies or Bridge Trolls. Even the largest exemplar of their type would be too small to safely twist themselves into a Centaur’s shape. “And they’d have to do it while mimicking the woman who knows the High Queen better than anyone else, save for Aethlin himself. Nope. Can’t replace the chatelaine. Can get her out of the way, though, as long as you keep the High Queen too distracted to go looking for her before you’re ready for her to. She’s probably shoved into a closet somewhere, waiting for us to find her.”

  There was a soft pop next to us, and the nearest guard jumped, grabbing for his sword before Aethlin shook his head and ordered, “Stand down.”

  Raj, who had just stepped out of the shadow of High King Aethlin’s body, gave the guard a curious look. “Was he going to try to stab me?” he asked. “Is he better at stabbing than the last batch was at shooting arrows? Because I barely know which end of the bow is supposed to point away from me, and I still understand the physics of the thing enough to understand that if you fire something up, it’s going to come down.” He managed to sound faintly bored while insulting the prowess of the entire royal guard.

  Oh, he was going to make an amazing King of Cats.

  “My guards have no training at fighting adversaries on the ceiling,” said Aethlin, matching Raj’s boredom with amusement. See, kitten? his tone seemed to say. You can’t get to me.

  “Maybe they should,” I said.

  We had left the main hall and were heading down a smaller, narrower one that was just as opulent as the others, maintaining the maple-and-amethyst theme but also somehow making the aesthetic look somewhat shabby and lived-in, like we were walking through a deeply strange-themed hotel. Why anyone would theme a hotel on “smell faintly like pancakes at all times” as the Canadian dream, I didn’t know, but hey, who am I to judge? My house is furnished in early thrift store, with a side order of don’t these people know that recycling is a thing, and you don’t have to keep every single scrap of paper forever.

  “The servants’ quarters are this way,” said Aethlin, leading us on as the guards pressed in closer around us, both due to the span of the hall and out of apparently increasing concern. I gave them a narrow-eyed look. We were going to have a little talk later, I and them, when we were no longer in close proximity to the king.

  When you want to know what’s really going on in a knowe, ask the servants. When you want to know who’s been trying to kill the king, ask the guards.

  The hall ended in a sort of a flat hammer shape, with doors at either end of the “head.” Aethlin indicated one door. “Maida’s chatelaine, Honey, keeps her room there. I believe it’s a nickname, although I’m not sure for what. She came highly recommended and has served without fault for fifteen years.” He indicated the other door. “Nessa’s chambers. Aron, if you would please?”

  “Yes, sire,” said one of the guards, and stepped forward.

  I realized a moment too late that if the Doppelganger had been here for any length of time, this probably wasn’t a good idea. “Wait—” I said, raising my hand to motion him to stop.

  I wasn’t fast enough. He grasped the doorknob, only to yank his hand away, shaking it vigorously as he squinted at his fingertip. “Blasted thing bit me,” he said, turning to face the High King.

  So we had a perfect view of the moment when his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, dead before he struck the floor.

  seven

  The other three guards rushed to their fallen compatriot, clustering around him but thankfully not touching him before one of them looked up with an expression of wild-eyed terror and almost shouted, “Aron’s not breathing, sire!”

  “Let me through.” I pushed my way between two guards, a stocky Satyr and a surprisingly well-groomed Redcap, to drop to my knees beside the fallen guard. The third guard who wasn’t flat on the floor was a Daoine Sidhe, who looked at me warily.

  Him being the one to move to help his companion made sense. Daoine Sidhe don’t go into the healing arts very often—something about Eira ordering them to amass as much power as they possibly could puts a damper on most altruistic urges—but their blood magic is strong enough to make some things come easily to them. Realizing that one of their compatriots has stopped their dancing is on the list.

  “Let me,” I repeated, more softly this time, specifically to the guard. He hesitated, looking past me to King Aethlin, who must have nodded or otherwise signaled his approval, because the guard sat back on his haunches, allowing me access to the unfortunate Aron.

  He was a Gwragen, with the gray-white skin his kind are heir to, which would have made him look like a walking corpse to the unfamiliar eye even before whatever had just happened to him. Now, though, there was a waxen pallor to his complexion that told me as clear as anything that he had suffered a sudden, dramatic injury.

  I still leaned close enough to press my fingers to his throat and my ear to his chest, checking for pulse and heartbeat. It only took a few seconds to verify what wasn’t there. I sat up, turning to face the High King, and shook my head.

  That was all it took. The Daoine Sidhe guard wailed disbelievingly, an unprofessional sound for someone wearing the formal livery of a noble house, but hopefully forgivable under the circumstances. I pushed myself to my feet, turning to Raj. “The night-haunts will be here soon, and we should be gone when they arrive,” I said. “I’ll need your lockpicks.”

  “Why, Sir Daye, I am offended and affronted that you would suspect me, a Prince of Cats, of carrying thieves’ tools on my person! How could you presume—”

  “Raj. I know you have them because I gave them to you for your birthday. Stacy took mine while she was dressing me, or I’d use my own. Lockpicks, please. This isn’t the time.” I paused, taking a breath. Some things are rarely said bluntly among the fae. But blunt force trauma is my specialty. “A man is dead.”

  Raj stopped talking immediately and reached inside his tunic, pulling out a small, leather-wrapped bundle. I held out my hand, and he dropped the bundle into my palm.

  “Sorry, Toby,” he said, sounding chagrined.

  “I know, kiddo.” Raj can never formally be my squire, but he’s learned when it’s time to stop screwing around and listen to me.

  The other guards helped the Daoine Sidhe guard back to his feet and fell back, all three of them moving into position around King Aethlin, like they thought whatever had killed Aron was going to leap away from the door and kill them, too.

  It wasn’t a completely unreasonable fear. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood and squinted at the door, looking for the tangle and weave of a spell lain across it. There was nothing on the door itself, the frame or the knob, although the spells worked into the knowe gleamed from the walls, so bright I could barely keep my eyes open. It wouldn’t matter if I closed them; I’d see the weave anyway, burning bright against the dark absence of magic that was the world between the strands.

  Hastily, I swallowed the last of the blood clinging to my tongue and released the spell, blinking away the afterimages. Being able to see and manipulate other people’s spells is still something I’m getting used to—as much as I ever have time to “get used to” anything, rather than lurching from crisis to crisis like some sort of wind-up disaster mannequin—but the Luidaeg assures me it’s part of the same function that allows practitioners of blood magic to borrow the abilities of other fae. Magic is in the blood, and the bl
ood is in the magic, and because of what I am, both will yield to me when I need them to.

  No pressure.

  “It wasn’t a spell,” I said, satisfied, and waved away the faint cut grass and copper scent of my own magic as I approached the door, moving slowly, scanning my surroundings the whole way.

  Aron had moved too fast. That had been his first, and probably fatal, mistake. He was a pureblood, and the sickening feeling of cold iron that radiated from the doorknob should have hit him much sooner than it did me. Only he hadn’t had the time to realize the feeling was there, because he’d been going too fast, and his hand had been on the doorknob before the nausea could register.

  I moved closer, swallowing my discomfort. Iron isn’t fun to be exposed to. It can be deadly if someone with strong fae blood spends too much time around it. Some types of fae are more resistant than others—we’re still figuring out where the Dóchas Sidhe fall on that ladder, but given that I’ve had iron poisoning bad enough to almost kill me twice, and I already felt like I was about to lose the dinner I hadn’t had down the front of my dress, I was willing to bet that “pretty susceptible” was going to be the final answer.

  Ironic, for a woman who used to carry an iron knife everywhere I went—who still had that iron knife sealed into a rowan box in the back of my closet, just in case, and who held onto my last ounces of humanity in part because I might need to shift my own blood back toward humanity in order to use that knife again.

  Tybalt stopped asking why I was so determined to stay mortal right around the time we figured out that I was virtually indestructible. He didn’t like the “virtually” part, but I didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t, so we both got to be a little bit unhappy, and I got to be a little bit human, just in case it was ever necessary to kill another Firstborn. You know. The usual plans a girl makes for her future.