The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  “Was that really necessary? Wouldn’t glamour have hidden us as effectively?” Marius objected.

  Hetta made a vague sound of agreement. Obviously, she cared about the principle of the thing, but just now it was difficult not to care quite a lot more about finding Wyn as quickly as possible. Besides, had this specific use of compulsion done any harm? But she knew that was a dangerous way to start thinking; it felt like the same type of danger that came with having a land-sense that allowed one to know too much about people too easily, if one didn’t resist the temptation.

  Rakken ignored them both, feeling absolutely no sense of ethical quandary, and he and Catsmere prowled around the room like a pair of territorial tomcats.

  Hugging her arms close, she stepped her way carefully into the centre of the room and managed to avoid accidentally brushing up against anything. It didn’t stop the heavy feeling of contamination from the thick atmosphere, and her gaze fell on a dark, reddish stain on the wooden floor. Bleeding like a stuck pig. Her heart gave a painful lurch. “Could you tell if Wyn used magic here? In case he did manage to free himself from the dismae and there’s some other reason your tracking spell didn’t work?”

  Rakken looked down his nose at her, as if she’d asked a child’s question, and she glared back until he said icily: “Imagine the imprint of a feather falling on soft earth. And then imagine bloodletting and violent death as hammering that same earth with hailstones the size of fists.”

  “You could’ve just said ‘no’.” She hugged herself more tightly. “What about compulsion? Could you tell if it was used on the guards? Without compelling them?” She directed the question at Catsmere, who so far had seemed the slightly more sympathetic of the twins.

  Catsmere weighed the question. “No. Not for something as simple as sleep, not with so many hours passed since it was done.” She looked to her twin. “Mouse?”

  He gave Hetta a very sardonic smile. “I was under the impression Lord Valstar wished for me to leave the palace guards alone.”

  Marius made an impatient sound. “Obviously this isn’t the same thing. Do you want to play games, or do you want to find Wyn?”

  Hetta stared at her brother, both surprised by and in firm agreement with his fierceness.

  Rakken’s eyes narrowed, the green of them flaring bright. But after a moment, he subtly inclined his head to Hetta. “Very well, Lord Valstar.”

  Outside the guardhouse, Hetta held a small internal battle between ethics and pragmatism. Before she could come down on one side or the other, a man emerged from the low, rectangular building who she recognised as one of the guards who’d been present at the green yesterday.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said, stepping forward.

  Rakken gave her an irritated glance, but the man heard her, so he must’ve released the glamour.

  The man started. “Lord Valstar.” He frowned, but his frown was all reserved for her; his gaze slid off the others like water. “What are you—”

  Hetta interrupted quickly. “I’m here to interview the guards who were enchanted last night.” She said it with as much confidence as she could muster and soldiered on before he could think to ask if her visit was authorised. “Please summon the relevant men.” Maybe sheer bluffing would work.

  He blinked uncertainly at her. The space between the buildings where they stood was quiet, but the muted rumble of men’s voices could be heard through the windows. “Well, that would be me. And James—but it’s his day off today. Does the captain know you’re—”

  “Relax,” Rakken said, his tone smooth and irresistible as sunlight. “Trust us. What is your name?”

  “William Chudleigh, sir.” His expression went slack, his eyes oddly glassy. A chill went through her.

  “And what do you remember of last night, outside the doors of the Treasury?”

  William answered without hesitation. “Got assigned Treasury duty last-minute; it’s a bugger, getting roped into an extra night shift without notice. Least it wasn’t raining; nothing worse than a night shift in the rain,” he added, his conversational tone unsettlingly at odds with his vacant expression. “I told James we must’ve pissed off the powers-that-be, to both pull double-shift.”

  “What is the last thing you remember before you fell asleep?”

  He frowned in thought, his eyes still eerily unfocused. “It’s a bit fuzzy,” he said slowly. “I remember feeling pretty woolly all evening, and it getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open by the time it came midnight—and that must’ve been the prince’s spell, because I’ve never fallen asleep on the job, extra shifts or not, I swear—and then I’m waking up in the barracks with a crick in my neck and it’s bloody morning. They told me I’d kept sleeping like a babe even when they picked me up to cart me over from Treasury. James, too.”

  That didn’t sound like the compulsion Hetta had seen Wyn use before—he’d told Gwendelfear to sleep and she’d just, well, slept. Instantly.

  Rakken made an inquisitive sound in the back of his throat, like a cat coaxing a kitten. “Did you see the prince?”

  William frowned. “No. Was surprised to hear he’d done it, actually. Seemed a decent chap. Guess you can never tell.”

  Rakken and Catsmere exchanged one of their secret communicatory looks.

  “Thank you; you may go,” Rakken told him.

  Frowning, but still somewhat glassy-eyed, William stuttered back into motion. After taking half a dozen steps, he turned back, his frown deepening as he scanned the space outside the guardhouse without appearing to see them. He gave himself a shake, straightened his shoulders, and marched off.

  Hetta couldn’t exactly be angry with Rakken for compelling the man, since that was what she’d brought him here for—but it didn’t stop guilt pricking at her. “Well?” she prompted him.

  He shook his head, his expression grim. “That man wasn’t compelled last night. Perhaps you should look closer to your own nest, Lord Valstar, for the cause of this. I assume there are mortal means of inducing sleep?”

  Oh. Oh. “There are.” Drugs and tonics and sedatives. Aunt Maude was fond of a ‘soother’ that led to her dozing on the sofa if no one chivvied her into her bed in time. But Hetta didn’t need to know exactly what had been used to drug the guards to understand what it meant: this was a human act, not a fae one.

  Her hands curled into fists. She’d march up to the queen and tell her that not only were her accusations against Wyn baseless but that humans had tried to set him up so how dare she treat him being fae so—vengefulness came to a screeching halt as several cold realisations hit her in quick succession.

  Even if the queen accepted Rakken’s word as proof—unlikely in and of itself—the way they’d obtained the information wouldn’t please her, and she might very well try to imprison the twins once she knew what and who they were. Hetta went cold, imagining how Rakken and Catsmere would react to that.

  And what if this whole mess was the queen’s doing in the first place? Hetta had thought the queen’s reaction genuine at the time, but then what else was politics but acting, really? They were her palace guards, after all. Maybe I’ve been even more naïve than I thought.

  “Mortal politics,” Catsmere said in disgust. “We have wasted enough time on this.” She began to stalk away, and Rakken followed without comment.

  Hetta stood frozen for a long moment, until Marius came up beside her and squeezed her arm. “Why did someone want us to think Wyn had enchanted the guards?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She thought furiously. Whoever had done this had also planted feathers. Someone was trying to blacken Wyn’s name, and whoever it was knew something of his nature. The duke had sneered that they knew Wyn wasn’t human in his other shape, and the words from Lady Peregrine’s Society News came back to her: Mr T…may not be all he appears to be. Was there any connection there? It seemed a stretch, but at the same time it would be awfully unfair for there to be two persons out there with an anti-Wyn agenda.

  Sh
e brooded over that as they trailed the twins around the palace in a bubble of glamour. Neither of them could pick up any trace of Wyn’s trail, and they were all stiff with frustration by the time the pair finally gave up, spilling out onto the pavement into the darkness of the now-evening.

  “Well, although I’m just as keen as anyone else to locate Wyn, I’m also now extremely hungry,” she said prosaically. “So I vote in favour of dinner in the absence of any other good ideas.”

  Despite her anxiety, there was something inherently amusing about watching the two royals’ first encounter with a corner chippy. Neither of them said: this is not what we are accustomed to, but Hetta could almost hear them thinking it. She swapped looks with Marius, who grinned and kept placidly eating chips out of his twist of newspaper.

  She probably could’ve taken them back to the hotel and fed them there, but she’d smelled the fried fish and been swamped by a wave of hungry nostalgia. The salt-and-vinegar taste was everything she remembered. Besides, this saves us an awkward mealtime conversation with Aunt Sybil.

  “So what next?” Marius said, his mouth twitching as Catsmere inspected a piece of battered fish with all the suspicion of a child encountering a broccoli floret. “You can’t find Wyn with your magic, and the queensguard clearly haven’t found him either if they’re still trying to follow us.”

  “Well, tomorrow I’m going to go and plague Lady Peregrine’s Society News until they tell me who tipped them off about Wyn,” Hetta said firmly.

  “Playing politics, Lord Valstar?” Rakken asked, one eyebrow rising.

  “If I have to.”

  “And you think this will help you find our brother?” Catsmere said doubtfully. She ate the piece of fish in small, delicate bites.

  Hetta sighed. “I think it will help me figure out who has it in for him besides your sister, which may or may not help me find him. You’re welcome to suggest any better ideas.”

  They were silent.

  Marius crumpled up his grease-stained newspaper and frowned into the middle distance. “I’m going to the Law Library tomorrow, when it opens.” He shrugged in answer to Hetta’s questioning glance. “I haven’t looked at the treaty between Stariel and the Crown in an age. If you’re dealing with Queen Matilda, you ought to know exactly what’s in it.”

  He was right, and a more conscientious lord would probably have thought to check Stariel’s copy before she’d left her estate—but she hadn’t realised it might be relevant. Swearing fealty to the Crown was supposed to be ceremonial only, after all, not an actual political decision. But nothing had gone according to plan since leaving Meridon. No—since before then, since the day at the Standing Stones when the Spires had reached for Wyn. She stared up at the sky, no stars visible against the murky darkness with all the light pollution. Where are you, Wyn?

  29

  Breakfast Flirtations

  “They’re here?” Alexandra’s voice went up in pitch, her eyes wide. “In our hotel?” She and Aunt Sybil had been waiting up in Hetta’s suite when they returned. Hetta had arranged extra rooms for Rakken, Catsmere, and Marius with the hotelier, who hadn’t blinked at the explanation of “My brother and his university friends.”

  “Well, not at this exact moment. They went out looking for Wyn again,” Hetta said. Was it poor-spirited of her not to offer to accompany them? But it seemed pointless to wander the streets vaguely with no set direction—especially since Hetta was already tired from their earlier wanderings. “Though presumably they will return to sleep at some point, so you’ll probably see them at breakfast.”

  Aunt Sybil glared. “You cannot mean for us to sit at table with them! Lor-Princ”—she stumbled over Rakken’s title—“he hasn’t even apologised for his deception last year!”

  “We won’t let them compel you, Alex,” Marius said softly, ignoring his aunt to focus on his sister. “Though I don’t think they’ll try.”

  Oh. Obviously Alexandra would be nervous the next time she encountered greater fae—especially since it had been one of Wyn’s siblings who’d compelled her last time. Rakken and Catsmere weren’t like Aroset—but they weren’t like Wyn either. And Hetta could hardly tell Alexandra she had nothing to fear from the twins when she’d spent the day witnessing their liberal use of compulsion on Meridon’s unsuspecting citizenry. I should have thought of Alexandra sooner.

  “Yes, I shall set fire to both of them if necessary, though I also don’t think you’ve anything to fear from them.” Rakken probably wouldn’t bother to compel anyone at the breakfast table, but Hetta understood why Alexandra might not find that particularly reassuring. “But you don’t have to see them if you’d rather not. You can eat breakfast in your room, or in here, if you like.” She gestured around the sitting room.

  Alexandra had wrapped her arms around herself very tightly, but she shook her head. “No. It’s all right. You’re right.” She bit her lip and then blurted: “It’s stupid, being so afraid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” Marius said firmly. He hugged Alexandra. “And you’re not stupid either.”

  Hetta awkwardly patted Alexandra’s shoulder as her sister took deep, shuddering breaths. Aunt Sybil hovered in the background like a disgruntled hen. Hetta felt the six long years of her absence sharply—despite these last few months, she still didn’t have Marius’s ease with their younger siblings. And maybe I never will, if I keep putting fae before my own family’s interests. The thought sat uneasily on her conscience, coming as it did with the guilty addition: if only Wyn wasn’t fae.

  In any event, breakfast turned out to be awkward in an entirely unanticipated direction. Hetta had forgotten that Rakken could be charming when he tried, and that he had fewer compunctions than Wyn. Stop flirting with my aunt! she nearly snapped from her end of the table. It was distressing to see Aunt Sybil’s stone-faced demeanour melt into girlish fluster. Honestly, the single one of my relatives I thought I could rely on to maintain a proper degree of caution!

  Catsmere ignored both her brother and Aunt Sybil and seemed to feel no particular need for small talk. As Alexandra was entirely occupied in counting the stitches along the edge of the table-cloth, and Marius was busy trying to vaporise Rakken by glaring at him over his teacup, there wasn’t much conversation.

  The hotel’s dining room wasn’t private, and they drew a fair degree of attention despite their relative silence. Everyone’s seen the papers, Hetta thought glumly. The press hadn’t quite figured out all the connections yet, but even the Meridon Times—by far the most respectable of Meridon’s broadsheets—had run the headline: ‘Fairy’ Beast Attacks Palace! They’d gone with ‘eye-witness accounts describe a species of large, exotic snake’, but they’d also interviewed one of the members of Parliament who’d met Wyn, and he’d named ‘Lord Henrietta Valstar of Stariel Estate’ as having ‘some connection to a visiting ambassador’.

  Or maybe no one had recognised her and it was just Rakken and Catsmere drawing interest. Even in mortal form, they were both so very other. It gave her an idea.

  “If we haven’t found Wyn by tomorrow, will you two come with me to the Duchess of Callasham’s soirée before Bradfield’s play?” Surely they’d find him before then? But she was unhappily aware that if they didn’t, she was running out of time. It was Friday today, which meant there was only the weekend between her and the queen’s set date for her signing the oath of fealty on Monday, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to put that off any longer than she already had. She wasn’t about to march up to Queen Matilda and announce “I have allies! Ha!” to her face in case she decided to imprison them too, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t get the news to her in other ways. So this is what playing politics means. She felt horribly out of her depth. This isn’t just about me and Wyn, not anymore. She knew she had to think rationally about Stariel’s role in this new world where it wasn’t a secret that the fae were real. But it would be significantly easier to be rational if Wyn hadn’t been missing for two days now. Again, she pushed down the p
anic clawing up in her chest.

  Marius lifted his head. “The Duchess of Callasham?” He frowned. “The duke’s on the Northern Lords Conclave, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  He coloured faintly. “I, er, overheard some of the students talking. His nephew, apparently, is at the university. They treated the news of fae as a joke, but the nephew did say his uncle had said the whole North was talking about it.”

  Hetta absorbed this. The duke had certainly seemed very set against Wyn. “Maybe he’s the one who warned Her Majesty about Wyn in the first place. Well, that just gives me more reason to want to speak to him.” She turned to the twins. “Will you come?”

  Both fae approved of her plan, once she’d explained her reasoning, which made her fear it might actually be a terrible idea. But if it made Wyn safer, once they found him…her heart hardened.

  Marius reached out and gripped her hand, as if he’d heard her thought. “We’ll find him, Hetta.” He gave her the ghost of a grin. “Even if we have to question all of Meridon and outrage Queen Matilda herself to do it.”

  The sound of a teaspoon being worried against a china plate came from Alexandra’s end of the table. She was biting her lip. “Um,” she said without raising her gaze from the tablecloth.

  “Alex?” Hetta prompted gently.

  “I will not eat you, Alexandra Valstar,” Catsmere said, straight-faced. “I do not eat children.”

  “Um, what about Gwendelfear?” Alexandra said. She lifted her head, eyes very blue and determined. “If she is here to watch you, maybe she saw where Wyn went?”