“Charming.”
“Quite.”
There was an unused cup and a half-full teapot, so I poured myself some tea, though I wasn’t a fan of the stuff. I was feeling a strong need for caffeine.
“The last Unseelie Queen, creator of the Bone Harp, was a monster of legend,” Dame Belinda said. “Her name is lost to memory, as is the power she used to create the harp. All that is spoken of her today is that she had an insatiable appetite for war and the ability to silence all other spell casters.”
“By playing the harp.” The tea was still scalding hot and smelled surprisingly good.
“Its empirically demonstrable power does help to corroborate the myth,” she agreed. “According to the legend, she could stop even the Unseelie King from casting spells, though he was otherwise immune to his queen’s powers of command. Monarchs cannot command one another, you see.”
“But the harp would target arcane energy itself, not the king. He couldn’t cast anything because there’d be no free energy to use.”
“Precisely. With this power in play by the Unseelie, the Seelie were spectacularly losing the war between the Courts, and since the Unseelie King himself was concerned about the lack of checks on his mate’s power, he struck a deal with the enemy to stop her.”
I took a careful sip, steam warming my face. It wasn’t coffee, but it was the best damned tea I’d ever tasted. “How did the Seelie stop her, if she could silence them?”
“The details of their plan are lost, because they were doomed to failure. The Seelie King betrayed both sides by informing the Beast Queen of the plot against her.”
“Wait, the Seelie King? Why would he do that, if his own people were losing the war?”
“No one knows for certain. There are too many variations at this point in the story for a logical mind to trust any of them. The version I’ve heard most often suggests that the Seelie King was a monster himself, more kin to the Beast Queen than to his own mate, who was sidhe in every version of the story. At any rate, the Beast Queen escaped the trap by taking her own life. In some versions a Seelie noble tried to seize the harp and use it in revenge against the Unseelie, but the Unseelie Queen must have foreseen this possibility. She appears to have cursed the harp so that sidhe cannot touch it.”
“What happens if they try?”
“Instant death. Or on rare occasions a dangerous, terrifying madness, as in the case of Countess Feverwax.”
I set my cup down so fast a bit of tea sloshed over the rim. “Vivian touched the harp?”
“Two centuries ago,” said Dame Belinda, looking at the spilled tea with profound disapproval. “She subsequently destroyed her own estate, unleashing a lethal plague that killed her vassals to the last man.”
I sat back, seeking the support of the cushion behind me. “That’s what got her exiled,” I said. “This harp—it started everything.”
26
“Yes,” said Dame Belinda. “The moment Countess Feverwax touched that harp, she became completely unhinged from law and reason. Due to the nature of her powers there were terrible repercussions in both worlds. This provoked a unanimous amendment to the Accord—Unseelie fey are no longer allowed to touch the harp at all. Its power, combined with their abilities, is catastrophic.”
“What happens if an Unseelie touches it now?”
“They simply cannot; they are repelled. This is why the Seelie Queen employs a harpist who is loyal to her Court, but not one of the sidhe. The queen herself, being sidhe, cannot touch it.”
I considered all of this, leaning forward to retrieve my teacup and take another sip. I was starting to notice subtleties in the flavor; was it possible I only thought I disliked tea because most American tea was crap?
“Did the harp drive the Beast Queen mad too?” I asked. “I mean, suicide seems like a weird reaction to being told people are trying to kill you.”
“Her suicide was motivated by purest spite. You see, since succession passed in those days to whoever killed the queen, no new queen could be crowned after her. The entire order had to be rebuilt.”
“No more Seelie Kings either?”
“Both from a sense of balance and to punish the betrayer, there was a unanimous decision among the Seelie to depose and then execute their king. It sounds brutal, but it was the end of the great ongoing war, and the beginning of peace. The First Accord was struck between the two Courts. It held that only sidhe would be permitted to rule in the future, in large part to keep the harp out of the hands of monarchs. Another provision of the Accord was that the harp would reside at the Seelie Court.”
“Because Unseelie can’t touch it?”
“That came later; this was more . . . reparations of a sort.”
I was curious what the tea might taste like with a lump of sugar in it, but when I reached toward the bowl Belinda frowned subtly. I took this as a hint and pretended I’d just been trying to adjust the bowl to a more advantageous position on the tray.
“In this same spirit of peace,” Belinda said, “royal succession would now take place on both sides via the transferal of a charmed object, a scepter. Of course, succession by murder was not unheard of thereafter—for example, an assassin from one Court might dispose of the monarch of another—but nor was it strictly necessary. It opened the fey to more civilized possibilities, and for the most part succession is now hereditary or by consensus. When the Arcadia Project was organized along its current lines during the Renaissance, the Accord was expanded to establish peace between both Courts and our world—we call this the Second Accord—but it is essentially the same ancient document.”
“So the harp was an instrument of war that eventually became a symbol of peace.”
Dame Belinda nodded solemnly. “And even if it were not, it would still be priceless simply by virtue of its age. For fey, artifacts from other ages are keys to memories otherwise lost. Even the few fey who were alive before the Accord have no memory of those times.”
“That’s a shame,” I said.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. The older I become with my mind stubbornly intact, the more certain I become that the fey’s amnesia is all that permits them to live so long.”
“Well,” I said, setting down my cup and sitting back again. “I guess it goes without saying that I should stay twenty feet away from the harp at all times.”
I could tell from the way Dame Belinda’s face twitched that this was a disaster she had not even contemplated.
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “We shall not involve you in anything to do with its transport or use.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “In the meantime I’ll work on trying to come up with better ideas. I’m . . . sorry about breaking the rules earlier, by the way.”
“Before, you were not bound to the rules,” said Dame Belinda. “Now you are. And you understand that if you are to be removed from the Project for any reason, we will be forced to block access to related memories. This is not something we care to do, or to do often. The more memories we tamper with, the greater the chance of serious side effects such as epilepsy or dementia.”
“Forgive me for asking, but why would you do that to me, if you know it’s a risk?”
“You know where the bodies are buried, both literally and metaphorically, and you have a history of impulsive, vengeful acts. So long as we employ you and keep you secure, our security is your self-interest. If we are forced to release you, you would have nothing further to lose by exposing us.”
So much for warm fuzzies.
“Understood,” I said stiffly. “You’ll have no trouble from me.”
“Now,” said Belinda. “You have already met the king of the Unseelie Court and the head of the Arcadia Project; are you ready to meet the Seelie Queen?”
• • •
Apparently, for the time being, Arcadia was leaderless. For even one monarch to leave Arcadia was virtually unprecedented; now Los Angeles was hosting them both at once. Part of me was shaken by the realization that I wa
s living through Historic Times, but most of me was selfishly focused on my upcoming visit with Queen Dawnrowan.
I insisted on bringing Claybriar back through LA4 to smooth the introduction and potentially act as translator, but if I’d thought his presence would put me at ease, I was sorely mistaken. He and I sat in the back of Alvin’s rental car on the way to the Hollywood Hills, and the entire ride consisted of Claybriar rattling off incomprehensible rules of fey etiquette that I should not violate under any circumstances. But he said them in no particular order and so rapidly that there was no way my slippery brain was going to hold on to any of it.
“Settle down,” I said. “Why are you so nervous about this, anyway?”
“Imagine I was your boyfriend,” said Claybriar. “And you were about to meet my mother.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Not yet, you don’t. Now imagine that your boyfriend’s mother ruled the entire world, and was crazy as a bag of cats, and could compel your boyfriend, if the whim struck her, never to talk to you again.”
“Oh,” I said. “Maybe I just—shouldn’t say anything while we’re here.”
“That would offend her worst of all.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Can you boil it down to one simple rule? Or . . . three rules? I can probably remember three rules.”
“Okay,” said Claybriar. He raked a hand back through his hair. “Simplify? I can do that. Rule one: act like she’s the pinnacle of all creation and worship her with every nuance of your being.”
“Uh . . . okay, gotcha.”
“Rule two: don’t show the slightest hint of unhappiness, stress, or impatience—act like we’re all going to live forever and everything is peachy, and we’re all just here to have a good time.”
“Ho boy.”
“Rule three—probably the most important: do not be boring.”
“I . . . really don’t want to do this.”
“You just broke all three rules in one sentence.”
I considered hitting him, but then got distracted as I looked out the window at the rose-painted late-afternoon clouds and felt a sense of déjà vu about the winding street we were ascending. “Why does this look familiar?” I said uneasily.
Alvin glanced over his shoulder at me from the driver’s seat. “Did you ever go to David Berenbaum’s house, when he lived here?”
“Uh.”
“Ohhhh,” said Alvin. “Right. You—smashed up his car or something.”
“That’s what got me fired in June, yes.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, the car went with him to the emu ranch. And once you step inside the house, you won’t recognize it. Her Majesty has been here less than a day and she’s already . . . redecorated.”
“I can only imagine.”
“No, no, you really can’t.”
The house’s exterior was familiar enough to send a twist of anxiety through my gut: peach stucco and a carefully landscaped yard full of succulents and native ground-cover plants. But when Alvin found the key and opened the door, there was none of Linda Berenbaum’s country-chic decor behind it. In fact there was no house at all.
Well, of course there was a house. There had to be. But whatever Queen Dawnrowan had done to it had me thoroughly convinced that I’d stepped into a sun-dappled forest. Near enough to scent the air, a rainbow-misted waterfall splashed invitingly into a crystalline pool.
As Alvin ushered us in and eased the front door shut behind us, I watched a towering oak swallow up a rectangular slab of fading Los Angeles sunlight. For the convenience of visitors, the doorknob remained visible as a bark-covered protrusion, marking the illusion’s exit point. I clasped my hands behind my back and kept them there, trying not to touch any walls; in my experience that’s where the fey anchored these sorts of spells.
“I really hate when they do this,” Alvin said, his hand lingering on the doorknob. His voice carried as though disappearing into the forest that appeared to surround us, not bouncing back from the walls I knew were there.
“There was a room like this upstairs when I was here before,” I said. “Viscount Rivenholt’s doing. Linda had me break the enchantment.”
“Ward,” corrected Alvin. “If the spellwork’s anchored on a place rather than a person, it’s called a ward.”
“I imagine the queen will be upstairs,” said Dame Belinda, seeming not at all fazed by the pair of blue butterflies doing a mating dance around her head. She gestured toward a rocky, tree-covered slope to the right of the waterfall that I could only assume was actually the staircase.
“I’m bad enough at steps when I can actually see where I’m going,” I said uneasily.
“Attitude,” said Claybriar softly in a warning tone. “Now might be a good time to adjust it.”
“Now would also be a really bad time for me to fall flat on my face.”
“I’m not kidding, Millie,” said Claybriar, looking almost panicky. “Don’t even think stuff like that. Happy thoughts only.”
“What, is she going to read my— Oh right. She can.”
“She won’t go into your head without permission,” said Claybriar. “Which is why we need a translator; she can’t just go rifling through your head for words the way Winterglass does.”
“I knew he was doing that!”
“But she’s also not stupid, and she can read your mood the same way a human would. So seriously, cheer up.”
“Be happy or else?”
“Pretty much.”
I was on the verge of declaring this impossible until Dr. Davis’s voice gently reminded me that I was the boss of my brain. I relaxed my shoulders, took a deep breath, plastered a huge, ear-to-ear smile on my face, and waited for my mood to catch up. Once I got closer to the slope, I could see where the steps were; a serpentine path had very carefully been designed to look like randomly placed rocks and tree roots and somehow preserve the exact shape and distance between stair treads. So long as I followed the eccentric zigzag of the path, I could see exactly where I needed to step. The surfaces only looked wet; they weren’t actually slippery. All the same, I’d have killed to know where the handrails were.
The upper floor appeared choked with dense growth; the occasional gaps in the brush must have been doorways. Dame Belinda seemed to know her way around pretty well for a half-blind old woman.
“How can you tell where you’re going?” I asked her.
“I supervised the spell casting,” she said. “It is forbidden even for a monarch to cast a ward on this world without the supervision of a high-ranking member of the Arcadia Project.”
In one spot, two enormous trees had leaned together, growing into one twisted trunk about seven feet from the ground. Dame Belinda led us through the gap between the two and into what was clearly the master bedroom, because Queen Dawnrowan hadn’t concealed the bed. It was strewn with rose petals, and its posts were wound about with flowering vines, but it was most definitely a California king with a hand-sewn quilt. Her Majesty lounged there propped on one elbow while a child around three years old ran the wrong side of a brush carefully over her sovereign’s hair.
The queen’s facade was Paltrow blond, lithe and languid with heavy-lidded eyes. My first impulse, shockingly visceral, was to crawl into bed with her. But no sooner had the feeling washed over me than it was chilled by a deep sense of how utterly out of my league she was.
“I’ll be communicating your words to her nonverbally,” Claybriar said to me. “Just say what you want to say directly to her, and I’ll tell you her replies.”
I fought the feeling of awkwardness that threatened to overwhelm me, focusing on the soothing sound of running water and wind through leaves. “I’m so honored to meet you, Queen Dawnrowan,” I said. “I’m Millicent Roper, Claybriar’s Echo.”
“The woman with iron in her bones,” said Claybriar after a slight pause. Speaking for Dawnrowan, I could only assume. His flat tone seemed to convey a slight distaste which also may have been hers, given the way she was l
ooking down the dainty bridge of her nose at me.
“That’s right,” I said as cheerfully as possible.
The little girl shrank behind the queen for a moment, looking shy. She had cherub cheeks, devil eyebrows, and tiny pigtails the color of root beer.
“What an adorable little girl,” I said, since most normal people found children adorable. “What’s her name?”
“Uh . . . that’s hard to translate,” said Claybriar. “She said, sort of—Blesskin, I guess?”
“I love her pigtails,” I said to the queen. “Is she yours?”
“Yes,” said Claybriar. Then he quickly added, “She means it’s her servant, not her daughter. Blesskin is the harpist.”
I turned to him in astonishment. “A child?”
“No. I’ll explain later,” he said between gritted teeth. “Attention on the queen, please.”
Right. I turned back to her, though my main impulse was to get out of the room as soon as possible. “I love what you’ve done to the house,” I said brightly. “You’ve really improved it.”
The queen’s gaze wandered. “Yes,” said Claybriar, followed by, “She’s getting bored.”
“What should I talk about?” I whispered.
“I don’t know!” he whispered back. “If I could predict her, my job would be a thousand times easier.”
“I saved Claybriar!” I blurted. “Do you remember when you sent him to find his sister and the other missing commoners? A very generous thing to do, by the way. I’m the one who rescued him from the well. He was very brave about the whole thing.”
Queen Dawnrowan turned her eyes back to me, studying me. “He travels this world easily,” Claybriar said for her. “He knows its secrets, speaks its language— Uh, okay, her tone here is really boastful, but I don’t feel comfortable trying to reproduce it.”
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