“I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“No.” Rhianna sighed. “You would have just frowned.” She shifted the straps of the backpack. “Are you ready for more stairs?”
The handmaiden approached, folding up the ladder. Branwyn noticed that Severin remained atop the sailing stone, crouched at the edge, looking down at them.
“What’s up with him?” she asked the handmaiden.
“He wishes to remain for now. He said he would have no trouble joining you when you required him. But you were discussing stairs. If you wish to take them, you may, of course, but the Court of Summer has several elevators for public use within the bole, you see?”
Branwyn looked closer at the translucent trunk, and saw three green-tinted elevators moving up and down, all of them containing the faeries of one variety or another.
“The denizens of the Court and its Duchies enjoy pleasure-trips here. The view of the Domain from on high is considered… very satisfying. It isn’t the grand view of my Queen’s tower, but even some of the Court of Stone have expressed appreciation for it.”
“Admit it, you love it,” said Branwyn.
Primly, the handmaiden said, “When I first viewed this incarnation of the Domain, I was pleased enough. Will you come?”
“Well, with such high praise, how could I say no?”
Branwyn and Rhianna walked with the handmaiden along the trunk until they came to an ordinary-looking green door. Without fanfare, the handmaiden opened it and led them in.
The interior of the trunk had the three green-tinted transparent elevators around the perimeter, with a tiny but bustling marketplace in the center. The handmaiden ignored the marketplace and Branwyn caught Rhianna’s arm as she swerved that direction, telling her, “You might have to choose between a bath and shopping.”
Instead they went to one of the elevators. The loose line waiting for that elevator evaporated at the handmaiden’s smile, and the three of them ended up alone in the rising room.
Thoughtfully, Rhianna said, “Is there no security here? You mentioned the Knights of Summer? Where are they?”
“Some are above, some below. But why do you speak of security?”
Rhianna frowned. “I had the impression the ruby knight functioned as a gatekeeper and guardian for your own Court. Is there nothing like that here?”
“Ah! The ruby knight is the Queen of Stone’s champion. In all ways save one, he enacts her will. His own power is no greater than my own, but as her champion he channels the Queen’s vast strength.”
“And here?” Rhianna persisted.
The handmaiden hesitated. “It is different here. The Queen of Summer’s strength is… is different.”
Rhianna’s frown deepened. “And is there any defense if Sev… if a dangerous enemy were to go on a rampage?”
“The Knights of Summer would engage him, of course, but they are sportsmen, not true warriors. As to your deeper question…” The handmaiden’s mouth tightened. “The Court of Summer would be slaughtered. They have no true protection save for being what they are. Before the Covenant was broken that was enough. No faerie would harm a Queen Regnant. Now that Heaven and Hell have turned their attention to us again…” She shook her head, but didn’t go on.
“I’m a little surprised the Queen of Stone let her son take a holiday here if it’s so dangerous,” said Branwyn.
“It is necessary while he is so young, for here is the Well of Time. And… the Queen can’t imagine anyone harming him.”
“But you can,” Branwyn said.
The handmaiden’s mouth twisted painfully. “Yes. He… he is so very easy to love. You will see. And when you have finished the Queen’s behest, I will send you on to see the Queen of Summer, and you will see her, too. Maybe you’ll even understand.”
The elevator opened at the base of the flower and the handmaiden led them through an atrium-like space to yet another flight of stairs. Now that Rhianna had pointed it out, the lack of any kind of security, even something as basic as a reception desk, stood out to Branwyn. They simply walked through a door, up a flight of stairs, and down a hall. Outside curved double doors painted with many towers, the handmaiden stopped. She reached for the door handle, then stopped, breathing deeply for a moment. Her hand trembled.
There was a clatter behind the door, and a small child’s voice said, “Down it goes!”
Sudden fear clenching her heart, Branwyn reached past the handmaiden and turned the door handle.
12
The Summer Court
Beyond the door was a large, airy playroom, where many children sat on a warm wooden floor, playing with blocks and dolls. Several adults loitered around the edges, as Marley did when she was supervising the twins. The adults were the tall, elegant faeries Branwyn normally saw, although most of them had brown skin instead of pale. The children were almost all members of the people called the children of Harvest, ranging from preschool-aged to early adolescence.
One of them was human.
They all looked over as the door opened, and the human boy who had been kneeling in front of a pile of wooden blocks fell back to a seated position, waving. “Handmaiden! Where have you been? I missed you.”
“Oh no,” said the eldest of the Harvest’s children. “Is it time for Griff to go already?” She pounced on him, wrapping her arms around him and rubbing her cheek against his while tickling him. “He’s too cute! I don’t want to let him go!”
“Not… not instantly. But soon. His mother and… and the whole Court of Stone misses him.” There was a catch in the handmaiden’s voice.
“I suppose,” said the tweenish Harvest’s child. “But stay a day or two. Who are these girls?”
The handmaiden said, “They have business with Griff for now. After that, I was going to send them to you, Your Majesty.”
The young Queen of Summer jumped to her feet as Branwyn blinked. “All right.” She clapped her hands. “Okay, babies, playtime’s over. Say bye to Griff until next time he visits!”
The adults in the playroom mobilized, managing the crowd of children who wanted to kiss and hug Griff and herding or carrying them out of the room. The last to leave was the child Queen, who gave Branwyn and Rhianna a speculative look as she said, “I’ll be waiting for you.” Then she slammed the door behind her, and they were alone with the human son of the Queen of Stone.
Rhianna, who had stood, frozen, just inside the entrance the entire time, suddenly sat down hard on the wooden floor.
The handmaiden waved a hand helplessly. “The Summer Queen.”
“Summer’s my friend,” said Griff proudly. “She brought the other kids to watch me make towers. And she helped me measure the Summer Court. Do you want to see how tall it is?”
Griff looked to be five or six years old, close in age to Zachariah’s twins. As far as Branwyn could tell, he hadn’t even noticed herself or Rhianna. He was wearing stretchy pants and a tunic embroidered with the Queen of Stone’s aquamarine tower, and he wore a large oval locket set with a moonstone. His dark brown eyes were bright, his black, springy curls practically glowed, and his humanity radiated from him like a physical force.
The handmaiden said, “Later, Griff. For now, I want to introduce you to these mortals—”
Rhianna interrupted her. “I do want to see how tall the Summer Court is. Can you show me, Griff?” She sent Branwyn an urgent look before crawling over to join Griff.
The little boy said, “All right! You sit there and watch!”
Branwyn caught the metaphorical ball and pulled the handmaiden to the far side of the room. The handmaiden followed her docilely, though she still had that catch in her breathing.
“Where did that kid come from? Who is he?” Branwyn whispered fiercely.
“He… he is the Queen of Stone’s son,” said the handmaiden uncertainly. “A mortal, yes. Did you not know?”
Branwyn kept remembering the Queen of Stone’s odd behavior at the mention of stolen children and wanted to shake th
e handmaiden. “We did not. We did mention we were on a mission to recover stolen children, didn’t we?”
The handmaiden’s face stiffened and her voice grated. “Griff is not one of your stolen children.”
“Then how did he get here? Where are his parents?”
“I don’t know. In Hell, I hope. They didn’t want him; they abandoned him, and he is ours now.” A rim of crimson light appeared around the handmaiden’s visor as her fists clenched.
The room itself trembled and Griff’s tower collapsed. He frowned. “Is Mama sad? That shouldn’t have happened. I had everything balanced just right.”
“Try again,” said Rhianna. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
“Listen,” said Branwyn in a low voice. “You can’t just—”
The handmaiden wrapped her hand around the shoulder strap of Branwyn’s bag, tugging her closer, her words feverish and fast. “If you take that child… if you even try to take Griff, you would unleash a nightmare across both our worlds. Do not. Please do not.”
Discomfited, Branwyn said, “Look, I don’t want to take him away. He seems happy and healthy. There’s just—”
That was when the handmaiden, the glow from under her visor cherry-red, flung herself, sobbing, on Branwyn’s shoulder. “He does, doesn’t he? He does look healthy. He is healthy. He’s so beautiful.”
The handmaiden of the Queen of Stone was lighter than she looked. Branwyn was utterly flummoxed. She looked over the faerie’s shoulder at Rhianna helplessly, and Rhianna made back-patting motions. Branwyn obediently duplicated them for the faerie.
I’m so, so glad Severin stayed behind, she thought.
Mmm? came his whisper.
“No!” she mouthed, suddenly frantic. “Don’t come here. Stay where you are. You won’t make things better.”
Now I’m curious…
“No!”
I’ll just find other entertainment, shall I? Ah, here comes something now…
Branwyn gritted her teeth and didn’t rise to the bait. Instead she stroked the hair of the murmuring handmaiden and tried to figure out what she was saying. Something about a fire and how much it hurt watching a small child grow.
Griff, restacking his blocks, said, “The handmaiden is crying again, isn’t she?”
“I think so,” said Rhianna. “Does she cry often?”
“Six times since Mama adopted me,” said Griff. “That I counted, anyhow. I miss things.”
“Why does she cry?” asked Rhianna, stacking her own blocks.
Griff cast an expert eye over her little tower. “That’s going to fall over at five blocks.”
“Hmm,” said Rhianna, and adjusted the base. “Do you know why the handmaiden cries sometimes, Griff?”
He shrugged. “She loves me. They all love me. Only Mama never cries.” This, evidently, was the handmaiden’s cue to cry harder. Branwyn stepped up the back-patting duties.
Griff looked up and noticed Rhianna for the first time. “Who are you? You’re not a faerie.”
“No, I’m human like you. That’s my sister over there hugging the handmaiden.”
“Are you?” he said. He reached out to brush his fingers over the back of Rhianna’s hand. “Maybe you are. You’re both different from the other human kids I’ve met here, though.”
This cut through the handmaiden’s sobs better than any of Branwyn’s nebulous attempts at comfort. She raised her head from Branwyn’s shoulder and pulled away. The glow under her visor had dimmed, and as she sniffled, it vanished. “When did you meet other human children, Griff?”
“Oh,” said Griff. “Right. That was a secret.”
“Griff,” said the handmaiden. Branwyn followed her over to join everybody on the floor around the little boy. “Griff, if it’s your secret, you can choose to reveal it, and if it’s somebody else’s secret, you must tell us who.”
“Well…” he began. “Where I met them is Summer’s secret, and how I met them, that’s hers too. I think why is because we’re mortals, and when… three times after the first. But what I did… that’s my secret.” He looked triumphant.
“Ooh,” said Rhianna. “Are you going to tell us?”
“Maybe,” he said. He put another block on top of an already impressive structure. “I thought people might be mad. But Mama sent me here for the Well of Time, and I figured other mortal kids needed time too. So I gave them some, using my locket.” He showed it to them. The three women stared at the locket, spinning on its chain, until Griff dropped it and went to work on his tower again.
Branwyn finally said, “What does that mean, please?”
The handmaiden said quietly, “The locket carries enough time to enable a year of healthy growth. Griff came here to recharge it.”
“Has he done something dangerous to himself by sharing it with others?” was Branwyn’s next question.
“No, no. The locket has had enough exposure to recharge many times over. That isn’t an issue.”
“Griff, can you… tell us anything about the kids you met? Did you learn any of their names?”
Griff shook his head. “No. No names. They thought my towers were pretty. They wore mittens so they couldn’t build anything themselves.”
Branwyn took a deep breath. “Thank you. So… if this Well of Time is here, but the kids wore mittens and weren’t benefiting from it, they aren’t actually here.” She recalled the vulnerability of the Summer Court and was glad she’d reached that extremely logical conclusion. She’d ask the Summer Queen, as gently as she could, and hopefully the monster would never have an opportunity to interact with her, or a reason to be angry with Summer’s people.
Branwyn started to rise, then remembered her obligation to the Queen of Stone. “Have we now repaid the Queen of Stone, handmaiden?”
The handmaiden’s voice trembled again. “I don’t know. Are you going to take—”
Rhianna interrupted her in a cheery voice. “We don’t have to decide that now. In fact, we don’t have to decide that at all. That is what is technically known as ‘above our pay grade.’ I’ll write a report. Somebody a lot wiser—and incidentally a lot nicer—than me will decide.” She patted the handmaiden’s arm. “It’ll be okay.”
The handmaiden sighed as if she couldn’t believe that but had no other recourse. “Very well. And now you must attend upon the Summer Queen.”
“Oh, no, not quite yet,” said Rhianna. “First, selfies!” Then she pulled Griff and Branwyn and the handmaiden into a set of cellphone selfies and Branwyn tried to suppress her irritation. She’d wanted to ask the handmaiden about the mysteriously childlike Summer Queen instead of taking goofy pictures.
It could just be her choice of vessel. Branwyn had met a monster called Candy, who also appeared as a preteen girl. But Candy was… terrifying, a predator perfectly designed to resemble prey. The Queen had behaved like a particularly authoritative classmate of Branwyn’s youngest sister Meredith. Like a student council president, not a faerie queen. Given the surprise Griff had been, Branwyn really didn’t want to walk into an audience with the childlike Queen while ignorant of important details.
“All right! These are great. I will do my best to get prints to you, handmaiden. Branwyn can probably handle it. It was great to meet you, Griff. Your tower-building skills are fantastic.”
“Wait—” Branwyn began. “Can we find out more about—”
But the handmaiden only put her finger to her lips before turned to watch Griff start a new tower. Griff didn’t even seem to notice them leaving. He reminded Branwyn very much of her brother Howl as a kid.
“One thing we’ve learned, Branwyn,” said Rhianna in a low voice as she wrestled Branwyn to the door, “is that the Queens have way more information than their subjects. Or at least the Queen of Stone does. Let’s not risk offending the Summer Queen by gossiping about her in her own castle. And—oh, these pictures of Griff will be useful for identifying him.”
And in fact, when they opened the playroom door, the Summ
er Queen was sitting against the far wall, reading a book, all alone. She slammed the book shut and sprang to her feet. “Here I am! Would you like to come to my room?”
Branwyn wrinkled her brow. “Are you really the Summer Queen?”
The elfin girl gave them a mischievous smile. “Yes, I am.”
“Don’t you have… attendants or something? A throne room? Why were you waiting out here?”
The Summer Queen looked offended. “I said I’d be waiting for you. I told my attendants to go away. They’re always trying to do things for me. It was boring. Come on, let’s go to my room. Standing here is boring, too.”
She tucked the book under her arm, took both their hands and started pulling them after her, walking backwards. “I’m so excited that you’ve come. I want so much to go visit the mortal world, and I can’t. But you’re here now, and we can have some fun.”
“What kind of fun?” said Branwyn warily.
“Oh, this and that,” said the Summer Queen airily. “We have to deal with a few things first. You didn’t come just to entertain me, of course. I need to know what I’m selling before I tell you what I’m buying.” That impish smile passed over her face again. “But we can talk about that in my room. For now, tell me your names? And how grown up you are? And where you come from? And what you do?”
“Will you tell us the same?” Rhianna asked sweetly.
The Summer Queen giggled. “Sure. I’m the Summer Queen. Griff and the other Queens call me Summer, and you can too, if you want.” She continued walking backwards the whole time, leading them along the corridor, turning here, going up a ramp there. They occasionally passed other faeries and children of Harvest. The children of Harvest smiled at the Queen, but the faeries all appeared exasperated to some degree.
“I’m Rhianna Lennox,” said Rhianna, and nudged Branwyn.
“Oh. I’m Branwyn. I’m… too damn grown up. I’m from Pasadena in California. And I’m… I’m an Artificer.” It sounded weird to introduce herself by title.. She was used to people in the magic world knowing who she was.
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