by AJ Lancaster
“Even if she did, how could we be sure we could persuade or subdue her? She didn’t fear all of us together last time and that was before—” He gestured at the twins, Rakken’s wings still not fully regrown, Cat covered with blood. As if to make his point for him, Cat made a startled, cut-off sound as one of her legs crumpled.
Rakken caught her weight, and Cat sighed. “I’d like to know why you’re talking of baiting Set, but I fear first I may need further medical attention.”
43
Infamous
Hetta hadn’t really expected their magical antics and the appearance of yet another greater fae would pass without comment, so she wasn’t too surprised to encounter a welcome party on the front doorstep when they arrived back at the house, even if the combination was odd: Jack, Alexandra, and Gwendelfear. However, it quickly became clear it wasn’t so much a welcome party as an interrupted confrontation between Jack and the other two. Alexandra was hugging her arms around herself, chin set defiantly, while Jack glowered down at her and Gwendelfear in turn stared silent daggers back at him.
“You can’t just go talking to—” Jack broke off at the sight of Catsmere, looking incredulously from her to Rakken. “You’re back. Wait, you’re bleeding. Why are you bleeding?”
But Hetta’s attention wasn’t on her cousin. This was the first time she’d seen Gwendelfear in Rakken’s presence, let alone both twins simultaneously. Gwendelfear recoiled at the sight, and Alexandra put a soft hand on her arm.
“This is Princess Catsmere,” Hetta said into the tension. “And, er, this is Gwendelfear.”
Cat’s eyes had narrowed. “You are treating with DuskRose, Lord Valstar?”
Treating, honestly? Hetta sighed. “No more than I am ThousandSpire. But Gwendelfear is a guest here. It’s all right, Jack, it wasn’t an attack,” she added for her cousin’s benefit, since he was searching the sky as if expecting Aroset to fall from it. We should be so lucky. She could deal with Aroset on Stariel’s grounds.
Gwendelfear shot her a venomous look, and she knew she’d said the wrong thing.
“Gwendelfear is of FallingStar’s court now. She has sworn allegiance,” Wyn added. Even Hetta, who liked to think she knew him as well as anyone, couldn’t read anything into his tone.
Cat said nothing, and Rakken helped her into the house without looking at Gwendelfear, as if the space she occupied simply didn’t exist. Maybe that was for the best. Before Hetta could follow them, Gwendelfear moved, a jerk of agitation.
“I would speak to you, Lord Valstar.” Gwendelfear’s hands clenched and unclenched restlessly.
A sudden gust of wind made a go for Hetta’s hat, but fortunately the pins held it firm. “All right. Come up to my study, then.”
Jack dogged her footsteps as she went back inside and removed her coat, demanding to know the reason for Cat’s appearance. Hetta heartlessly delegated all explanations to Wyn and left the pair of them standing in the entrance hall, Jack’s expression steadily darkening.
Alexandra followed her and Gwendelfear up to her study with a kind of determined awkwardness. Seeing Alexandra so obviously consider herself Gwendelfear’s defender made Hetta smile, even if she was still somewhat dubious of her sister’s choice of friends.
She closed the door of her study. Gwendelfear had grown even more agitated, her weight shifting as if only the small confines of the room were keeping her from pacing. She looked much healthier after that episode with Wyn’s magic, but she was still too thin.
“What do you want of me, Lord Valstar?” she demanded.
Hetta stared at her. “Nothing. Well, I suppose I want you not to harm anyone,” she amended hastily. “But you’re under no obligation to stay here if you don’t want to.”
“And what service must I do, to remain? I am bound to your court, unless you mean to abandon me.”
“There is no must here, other than not doing harm to me and mine. You’re not bound to serve me.”
“I told you so, Gwen,” Alexandra put in.
Gwendelfear shot her a look. “That is the tie between us now, Lord Valstar. You are responsible for me, and I must do as you ask. That is how it works.”
“She’s worried about losing Stariel’s protection,” Alexandra said.
Another venomous look from Gwendelfear, which Alexandra again took absolutely no notice of.
Hetta sighed. “Well, if you want a job here, we can probably find something to suit. Which you’ll be paid for. But there’s no urgency to it.” Of course this must seem a pressing issue to Gwendelfear, but Hetta would quite happily put off thinking about it until all her own pressing issues were resolved. She thought helplessly of Wyn downstairs, knowing she was undoubtedly missing some nuances of fae culture here. When had fae employment relations become Stariel’s business? Although, in fairness, the estate had technically been employing fae for years, though that had felt far less like the two worlds becoming entangled. Wyn had always tried so hard to be human, after all.
Not anymore, she vowed silently. This will be a new world, for all of us. Together. With that came a decision, settling in her like river stones after a flood. She was going to the Conclave, even if it was hopeless, even if it was dangerous, and not only for Stariel. Bridging the divide between Mortal and Faerie wasn’t going to be easy or instant, but it also wasn’t going to happen by standing about doing nothing. They could judge her all they liked; she wouldn’t be the one who blinked first.
Gwendelfear’s narrow shoulders went up like a bristling cat. “Do you mean to punish me?” When Hetta once more looked at her blankly, she added, “For Prince Hallowyn.”
“Oh. No, of course not. Even if you hadn’t healed him, he already considers the debt between you paid. But even if he didn’t, we don’t punish people like—like in Faerie,” she said, conscious of Alexandra’s presence.
Gwendelfear looked from one to the other of them, her expression still full of suspicion. Hetta felt exhausted of both patience and inspiration.
“Look, if you really feel you must have a role here, have a think about the sort of things you might like to do and come and talk to me about it tomorrow. But I truly meant what I said about there being no urgency.”
“What I would like to do?” Gwendelfear said as if this were a strange and dangerous concept.
Hetta had never been more grateful for her sister than when Alexandra put a hand on Gwendelfear’s arm and said, “I can help you come up with ideas, if you like, Gwen. I’m sure you’re good at lots of things. Come on.”
Hetta expected Gwendelfear to argue, but she shot Hetta one last wary glance before allowing herself to be shepherded out.
Hetta sagged down in her seat and put her forehead on her desk. Right. After taking several long breaths, she sat back and pulled out the heartstone. It swung in a gentle pendulum motion, picking up reflections from the dying sun.
She looked up as the door opened. Wyn grimaced, managing to convey both his conversation with Jack and his opinion on her current thoughts in a single expression.
“I deeply dislike the thought of you as bait, Hetta, and even more so when I’m not confident we could overcome Aroset even if she took said bait.”
“I can overcome Aroset, so long as we’re on Stariel’s lands.”
“She will not come here willingly.”
“No, but that’s not the only way to get someone here, is it?” Hetta hesitated, because she was about to bring up something she knew Wyn didn’t like to remember. “What about the way you brought your father here?” she said in a rush. “Lamorkin gave you a translocation spell, and all you had to do was activate it at the right time.”
He’d gone still. “Lamorkin won’t give me another freely.”
“Yes, but what about Rakken? You’ve said before that he’s a skilled sorcerer—could he make such a spell? We made a Gate to Stariel from the deepest part of Faerie, after all, and this would be a much smaller and less permanent version of that. It only need bring me—and whoever I’m to
uching—to Stariel, from somewhere else within the Mortal Realm. Surely that ought to be possible?”
“Perhaps,” Wyn allowed, grudgingly. “But if we are using anyone as bait, which I am not at all convinced is a sensible plan, it had better be me than you. Aroset doesn’t know about the child, as far as we know.”
She was about to argue with him when Aunt Sybil stormed into the room, brandishing a newspaper.
“Henrietta Valstar, what is the meaning of this!?”
On any other day, the headline would have made Wyn flinch: FAE PRINCE SEDUCES LORD VALSTAR, it read. As it was, he stared at the ink of the Northern Chronicle with a kind of terrible resignation. His mother was alive and had compelled him. Cat was free. They were so close to freeing ThousandSpire and fulfilling the High King’s bargain.
That last made the headline seem particularly unfair. They were so close, or at least, much closer than Wyn had felt for weeks.
“Well, this is just silly,” Hetta said, rapidly skim-reading the article. “Apparently you’ve lured me into ‘degenerate ways’, which is certainly not true. And I’m a threat to the moral fabric of society—I’d no idea society was so fragile! Honestly, it’s not as if I’m the first unwedded pregnant woman to ever exist!”
She threw the paper at her aunt, but Wyn caught it in mid-air and unfolded it.
“You have brought shame on the family name!” Aunt Sybil railed. Crowding behind her were a gaggle of Hetta’s relatives. They couldn’t all fit in Hetta’s study, and they spilled out into the hallway, craning their necks. Even Marius was there, looking pale, though that could’ve been from the collective racket.
There was a cartoon. Of course there was a cartoon. It showed a woman who was clearly supposed to be Hetta—a poor likeness—with three struggling creatures in her arms. Distantly, Wyn was aware of Lady Sybil berating Hetta and of Hetta’s angry response, but mainly his attention was caught by the depictions. The creatures were grotesque imitations of babes, with black eyes, scales and horns and wide, shrieking mouths filled with pointed teeth…and wings. Fae babes do not look like that. Or at least—stormdancer ones didn’t. Wyn had not seen babes of every type of fae, of course.
Cartoon-Hetta’s expression bore into him, desolate and abandoned. A winged man—presumably himself, though they’d forgotten his horns—strolled away from the scene, hands in his pockets and whistling.
The caption read LIKE FATHER LIKE CHILD?
He began to laugh. Lady Sybil and Hetta jerked out of their rapidly escalating argument. He shouldn’t laugh; there was nothing truly funny in this, but he found he could not help it. It was so…so human.
“Well,” he said to Hetta. “Congratulations. According to this we’re having triplets.”
Hetta gave a burble of laughter. “We’re going to need a very tolerant nanny.”
Lady Sybil swelled. “This is not a subject for amusement, Mr Tempest! What do you think the queen will say when she sees this?”
“I should hope Queen Matilda will care a great deal more for securing an alliance with the fae than she will about idle gossip,” Hetta said firmly, taking the paper off Wyn. “I certainly have better things to do with my time.”
“That bloody reporter!” Jack had muscled his way into the room. “I told you not to talk to her, Alex!”
“Language!” Aunt Sybil scolded reflexively as all eyes turning to Alexandra.
Alexandra went scarlet and looked at her feet. “I was trying to help! They keep making…well, it’s not true, the way they keep making it sound in the papers, and I thought if I just explained that, then— And anyway, she said you’d agreed to an interview”—she looked at Wyn for support—“so I thought it must be all right, then.”
“You what?” Marius gaped at him.
His misjudgement. Again. “I confess I did say that she might approach me, after Penharrow. But was this earlier today that you spoke to her, Miss Alex?” Alex mumbled an affirmative. “Well, then, this particular article has nothing to do with you; there would not have been time for the paper to reach Stariel. And Marius’s reporter does not work for the Northern Chronicle.”
“She’s not my reporter!” Marius objected.
“Is Hetta having three babies?” Laurel piped up from the hallway, which fortunately put a temporary halt to both the forming mob and further discussion of the topic.
It didn’t take long for the wider effects of the article to be felt. The estate agent contacted him to inform them that interest in the Dower House had dried up. So sorry; people can be so fickle; you know how it is. The agent didn’t mention the article, and Wyn kept his own tone coolly civil right up until the moment when the call ended, at which point he bestowed a number of profanities in both Prydinian and stormtongue on his empty office. Hetta had to fend off yet another demand for explanation from the queen, having only just sent off her previous report, and Wyn suspected a summons would be arriving on the next train.
But he would have dealt with these small blows and more if it would have stopped Hetta from saying, once they were alone again, in the darkness beneath his room’s rafters, “Well, Aroset’s bound to hear about this now.”
Hetta sat on his bed, but he couldn’t keep still, agitation sending him pacing back and forth across the wooden floorboards.
“We are not using our unborn child as bait,” he said. Lightning hummed under his skin. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not thrilled about it either, as a concept, but it could work, don’t you think? Surely we can between us think of sufficient safeguards to make it as undangerous as possible?” Hetta said. “Besides, I don’t want the Conclave to think I’m too ashamed to show my face, and if I don’t show in Greymark, that’s exactly how it’ll be taken. Why not kill two birds with one stone?”
“That doesn’t make it a good idea.” His feathers vibrated. “Aroset is my sister and my responsibility, not yours.”
“Even if Aroset was playing by those rules—which she isn’t—you do know that marriage means we acquire each other’s families, for better or for worse? Which, by this logic, makes her my problem too.”
“We are not married.”
“Yes, but that’s merely a matter of timing, not intent. Or does this change your mind? I am a fallen woman now, after all.”
He uttered a mortal profanity, which had the unintended effect of making her laugh. He stopped pacing and groused down at her. “Hetta.”
She just raised her eyebrows at him. “Well, does it?”
“Of course not,” he grumbled.
She grinned, and then put out a hand and twined her fingers with his. “Not that I mind, but why are you feathery?”
“Rakken says it will help me control myself, though it feels very much the reverse.” He flexed his wings slightly, the restless feeling of lightning still a background hum, not having eased in the slightest. “And you are changing the subject.”
Her nose wrinkled. “It’s not as if I relish the idea of danger, but I’m hardly defenceless, and you can’t truly have expected me to sit at home safe while you try to solve everything on your own?”
“Last year, when Aroset took you, do you know what I was prepared to do to get you back? Anything, Hetta. Anything.” The words were a cry. “And that was before, before—” He gestured helplessly.
“I’m pregnant, not an invalid,” she said calmly, but he saw that she understood the magnitude of his admission: anything. He would have torn the Spires down to its foundations if he’d had to, regardless of what it cost.
And, in a way, hadn’t he done exactly that?
She didn’t resist when he dropped onto the bed next to her, hauling her close and wrapping them both in a cocoon of feathers. It didn’t ease the fear in him at all, the feeling that both the world and himself were spinning out of control. The wild lightning quivered. Stormcrows, Rakken better know what he was talking about.
“You will not give the same for me. To Aroset, if it comes to it. Promise me, Hetta,” he growled
against her skin. This was his line in the sand, the cost he couldn’t bear. Adding the child she carried into the equation didn’t change that fundamental position, only magnified his strength of feeling.
She met and held his gaze, oddly solemn. “All right. In the abstract at least, though I’ve no intention of either of us needing to sacrifice ourselves.”
It eased the fear slightly. “Thank you.”
“You’re probably the only person I know who finds such a statement of limitations romantic. I’d like to make it clear that I’m willing to give a great deal for you. Just not literally anything.” Her cheeks were flushed.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathed in the scent of her. “I know, Hetta. That is a sane approach and deeply reassuring to me. At least one of this child’s parents should be sane, don’t you think?”
She laughed. “You wish you didn’t love me as much as you do. What a deeply unromantic sentiment.”
“Not less. Never that. I just—” He made a frustrated noise. “I cannot control it, Hetta.”
“Oh, my love,” she said, and the endearment warmed him despite everything. “Only you would feel like you should be able to. Think of it as being good practice for our imminent parenthood. I’m fairly sure a lack of control over things is expected.”
She kissed him, and it thoroughly distracted him for some moments. When they broke apart, he sighed. “One day, I am going to win one of our arguments.”
“One day,” she agreed, her lips curving. He kissed her again and had some satisfaction in the dazed look in her eyes when he pulled back.
“If we do this, we are going to be very, very careful.” And, stormcrows, they were going to have to ask for Rakken’s help yet again.
44
Greymark
Hetta hadn’t appreciated how complicated a working a wearable translocation spell would be. Rakken, Catsmere, and Wyn between them worked through the next day and night before the Conclave to make it—a spell that would take her and anyone touching her back to Stariel in an instant. The effort left Wyn’s siblings grumpy and as wrung of magic as used dishcloths. Wyn ruefully classed his role as ‘unskilled labour’, but he too was oddly lethargic when he finally presented the fruits of their crafting to her before dawn on the morning of the Conclave. The spell took the form of a small dark stone, which she hung on her necklace beside the heartstone.
