Master of One

by Jaida Jones

  “Oh?” Morien betrayed no interest beyond that syllable.

  It was enough.

  “Did any of the Ever-Loyals survive?” Cab tried to ignore the voice that told him he’d know the answer if he hadn’t deserted.

  “Their ancestral home burned.” Morien stirred the living coals with an iron poker. No wisps of light rose in the shimmering air. He turned, owlish, to meet Cab’s gaze with his. “But you already knew that.”

  Cab deserved that jab, but it stung, poisonous, coming from the sorcerer.

  “The survivors,” Cab said. “What I mean is, we should head to see them next. On this mission.”

  “Very well,” Morien replied. “You’ll be provided with a map to the Far Glades, and horses to ride out early tomorrow. Should your intelligence prove fruitful, I will rejoin the party. I don’t think I need to tell you the trouble there shall be if your intelligence proves less than fruitful.”

  Easier than Cab had thought it would be to convince him.

  Easier than he’d hoped. They’d leave tomorrow.

  That didn’t give Cab much time to resign himself to what he was riding toward: the survivors of the Ever-Loyal massacre, in which Cab had played a bloodstained part.

  Three days on horseback to reach the Far Glades, which on the map was even farther removed from city life than Kerry’s-End.

  The first day, Rags kept Cab from sinking into his thoughts by raising a wild, hairy stink about having to head back to the countryside.

  “What is that smell?” He had rolled his eyes, then pretended to faint off his horse. Immediately lost his balance for real. Prince Shining Talon of Vengeance Drawn in Westward Strike trotted up quickly to the skinny thief’s side and righted him in one smooth motion before Rags could be trampled by his horse’s hooves.

  The poor mount wanted to trample him badly.

  Prince Shining Talon received a thunderhead glare in thanks for his effort. Much how an alley cat feigned aloof dignity after an embarrassing fall.

  “Cow pasture up ahead,” Cab explained in answer to Rags’s question. Trying to be amenable.

  After all, they were allies until further notice.

  Later, Rags rode up alongside Cab and asked if he thought sheep were evil.

  “Not particularly,” Cab replied.

  “You’re wrong. They are. You can see it in their eyes,” Rags insisted.

  The second day, and the storms it brought, overwhelmed even Rags’s capacity for unceasing complaints. Silence fell with the water. They pulled on waxed cloaks and disappeared beneath their hoods, Cab and Rags riding between the drumbeat of rain and the drumbeat of horses, while Shining Talon strode beside them, offering comfort to Rags’s miserable mount.

  Cabhan nearly missed the stream of Rags’s curses and complaints. They’d distracted him from where he was going and why he was going there, serving as barricade between him and their destination.

  But, One said, there’s no avoiding it.

  I don’t think House Ever-Loyal is going to be inclined to work with me, he told One as they made camp the first night.

  Cab-my-heart, that’s a problem for later. You’ve seen how delightful communication can be between us. You’ll bring bliss to an Ever-Loyal. Perhaps it might be enough to atone for these sins you obsess over.

  Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll be bringing Morien and his foul arts.

  One suffers for love, One replied.

  Cab rode on with Rags in tow, Shining Talon still soothing Rags’s long-suffering horse, following the map provided by Lord Faolan’s cartographer. There was no other choice.

  Time to face the consequences of his actions.

  Riding up to the Ever-Loyal’s cottage door was no different from the past few days of riding, Cab told himself.

  Save that when the cottage door opened an inch, eyes peering out to fix on him, a girl had started to scream.

  One sighed. Oh, you’ve been recognized!

  Cab swore and dismounted, unslinging the sword belt Morien had provided him with and dropping it to the grass. He held up his hands, began to say something like “I intend no harm,” but the screaming didn’t stop.

  He wanted to scream, too.

  He froze where he stood, attempting to make himself look smaller, rooted in the front yard like stone.

  He’d prepared himself to accept Ever-Loyal hatred, their curses, as his earned punishment. He wasn’t ready for all this screaming.

  Cab was still standing like a statue of guilt when something crashed into him from the right and knocked him to the earth. A cloud of dust and pollen rose at the impact. Hands gripped Cab’s collar, hauling him upright. Cab noticed with chagrin that One didn’t step in to interfere.

  “This is going great,” Cab heard Rags grumble.

  Cab went limp instead of bracing himself for a blow about to land. And it did land. A fist swung in with a whoosh, connected with his cheek, sent him sprawling onto his back. He stared up at the sky, relishing the burst of bruise stars he deserved.

  Heavy panting, his own and someone else’s. The screaming continued. At last One stepped between Cab and his attacker, but as a barrier. She wasn’t going to fight back. His attacker battered One’s flank, but it was no use.

  Stalemate.

  Don’t protect me, Cab thought. Let it happen. I deserve—

  Humans. One sighed again. Skewed sense of right and wrong, what matters and what doesn’t.

  Finally the screaming stopped, leaving Cab empty, his ears ringing. There was a crash, Rags sputtering vile curses. Then—

  Silver everywhere, an entire dining set exploding through the nearest cottage wall. It hung suspended in midair, cups and platters rippling in and out of recognizable shapes, reflecting the sunlight in blinding, scattered flashes.

  Then they melted.

  Masquerading as antique cutlery all this time, Cab heard One say, though it wasn’t directed at him. How clever of you, Two.

  Cab blinked.

  In that instant, the Ever-Loyal family silver turned into a One-sized cat.

  38

  Rags

  Everything about their search for Two had been act after act of misery. The grand finale came when a girl with streaming brown curls and a face like an arrow had dashed up the hill to whale on Cabhan.

  Worse, Cabhan had let her do it. He wilted, flopping around like a fish, instead of acting like the trained fighter he was. Clearly the girl was mad as a rabid cat, but did that mean Rags’s ears had to suffer for it? Who would stop the screaming?

  Worst of all, dishware had broken through the wall of the nearby cottage and flown through the air.

  Flashes of silver. An amorphous oozing of plates, goblets, knives, forks. They wobbled and shimmered over Cabhan’s and the girl’s heads. Rags realized what was about to happen with new instincts, ones honed to the weird and impossible since he’d arrived at the fae ruins’ first door.

  The dishware was about to turn into one of the fragments, had always been one of the fragments. Lying in wait for its master, carrying soup, meat, sodding vegetables, letting strangers dribble over it for centuries.

  Fuck if that wasn’t the craziest shit yet.

  All this time, it had been waiting for One to appear, to remind it how to re-form into its true self. Rags almost cackled, hysterically, to think that the silver lizard was getting an earful about how late she was, how long the silver cat had been forced to stir porridge.

  The forks joined to form arms, the knives legs. Three ladles became a tail, while two bowls fused into a headlike shape. More blobbing of silver, flickering in and out of recognizable forms.

  Then it was a cat, missing an ear and squaring off against One with teeth bared, its features crooked, still resolving.

  Rags couldn’t help it.

  He laughed.

  “What is humorous?” Shining Talon asked.

  “The cat’s nose is still a spoon,” Rags wheezed helplessly.

  “Many of your lifetimes of suffering,” Shining
Talon said, “weathered in the shape of an iron thing. How brave.”

  “Nose-spoon,” Rags countered. He wouldn’t be cheated out of a laugh when he needed it most.

  It hadn’t found its way to form nostrils yet, most likely because the cat, Two, was busy protecting its master, the angry girl who’d punched Cab.

  “Much of the fae silver was scattered as a safeguard,” Shining Talon explained. Missing the humor, as usual. “Save for One, none of the fragments is likely to be found in its original form.”

  “Sure,” Rags said. “Dishware. I’m thrilled,” he added. “I’m laughing because everything is definitely not fucked in the eye.”

  “I do not understand how that—” Shining Talon began.

  Rags shook his head. Better not to get into the logistics.

  The fighting, like the screaming, had ceased. One and Two watched each other, maintaining their positions, preventing Two’s master from lunging at Cab’s throat.

  Finally, Two reared up and butted its large head against the fighting girl’s cheek. Not an attack. A greeting.

  Saying hello.

  Two’s master found her voice. “What is the— Why did the— How did that—”

  She didn’t get any further. One nodded and Two placed its paws on her shoulders, swiping her face with a lick that left behind no moisture. Its mechanical tail switched under the control of minute gears, just visible near its hip joints. The girl’s lips parted in a soundless gasp. Her hazel eyes watered with unshed tears.

  Rags crouched by the nearest splintered plank of wood, wanting to look elsewhere. He hunched his shoulders and did his best to ignore everyone, aware that Shining Talon was smiling at him.

  Wishing he wasn’t.

  Rags nudged the root of his thumb against the lump in his pocket. It had shown no signs of transforming into anything magnificent. It remained stubbornly bloblike, the protective outer coating he’d begun to peel off still wrapped around its lower half, waiting for him to finish the job.

  If what Shining Talon had said was true, then it’d been waiting hundreds of years. Surely it could afford to wait a little longer, until they found someone worthy to bear it.

  What a joy that would be.

  39

  Inis

  Inis had told herself she would have killed him because he held himself like a Queensguard and carried a royal sword. Because Ivy’s screams told her all she needed to know about who he was. It didn’t matter that she didn’t recognize him—Ivy did.

  Inis would have torn him to pieces with her bare hands.

  Then the voice had stopped her in her tracks, made her weep despite herself, hot tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

  It wasn’t painful.

  It was pain’s opposite.

  It was wholeness, light, and hope. It soared through Inis in a single burst. Tasted like the first sweet raspberry of summer, felt like the first melting of hoarfrost when spring conquered winter, looked like the first leaf dancing in the autumn wind, red and gold.

  It came from the silver beast in front of her, a cat with four eyes and a nose the shape of a spoon.

  Hello, master, it said. A lilting voice with a masculine edge. Young, playful. A voice that sounded like one of her little brothers’, like Ainle’s, so similar that she almost thought he stood behind her in the garden.

  He didn’t. Inis forced herself: Remember.

  Ainle was dead. Inis didn’t know how to answer this voice that sounded too much like his.

  Four cat eyes, reflective as silver-tinted glass, mirrored Inis’s face, her splotchy cheeks and swimming eyes. The face of someone who had no idea whether to scream or cry.

  “You have four eyes,” Inis said.

  The better to see our enemies with, my dear. The silver cat nuzzled her face, her throat, a touch that eased her pulse where it raced. It petted her with saucer-sized paws, butted its cheek into her cheek. With each touch, peace followed.

  She still didn’t know how to answer. None of the forms of address she’d memorized over her years of etiquette lessons on the Hill seemed appropriate.

  Searching its feline face for answers, Inis found only her own refracted image in each silver facet. A wave of panic overtook her, breaking against the blanketing calm. She needed her rage, had donned it like armor every morning to survive the loss of her brothers and father. Rage, so much hotter, so much lighter, than grief.

  Anger had kept her strong when they’d lost their mother. Not in the massacre, but afterward, when she’d fled to safety in the far reaches of her mind.

  Inis couldn’t lose her armor now. Not that, too. If she tried to remove it, it would come off with skin, muscle, bone. It was fused to her. She needed it.

  Inis, the cat said, I know your name. And your favorite kind of soup.

  Inis opened her mouth, croaked a wail.

  You have good table manners, the cat added. I am Two, and I am yours.

  Inis shook her head to clear out the last of her warring emotions. That voice held trust and warmth and safety. Just because these things had been taken from her didn’t mean they had ceased to exist. Or that she’d ceased to long for them.

  The peace Two offered her settled on her shoulders like a cloak.

  She turned to face the strangers who’d brought this with them, the Queensguard she hated and the others she hadn’t bothered with at first.

  A short, scrawny boy with a tangle of black hair and an equally black, thorny gaze. A scar on his upper lip. Wiry arms and graceful hands.

  The Queensguard—Inis passed over him, preserving the peace for as long as she could make it last. Stay strong.

  A third man, or was he a boy? Inis couldn’t decide. He was taller than most full-grown men and broad across the chest, observing Two and the silver lizard with a shining, opaque gaze, his black hair long with a shock of white at the front. Tattoos in the shape of bones were drawn everywhere on his golden skin. Their ink caught the sunlight with a blue-black sheen, the color of a crow’s wing unfurled at midday. The bridge of his nose, his jaw, the long, tapered points of his ears, didn’t feel human.

  He looked as though he hailed from the Lost-Lands.

  Not that Inis had ever seen a fae in the flesh. But there were tales passed down in legend, images scrawled on ancient stonework and in equally old books, and while the picture might have been distorted over the hundreds of years since the fae’s extinction, the truth remained, a grain of sand at the center of the embellishment.

  The long, tapered points of his ears were the main giveaway.

  Inis took a step back. A frightened child inside her wailed at her to run! Protect Ivy, before the Folk kidnapped her for Oberon’s Bone Court.

  She should have felt her astonishment. If disbelief was going to register as an emotion outside of anger, it should have arrived precisely now.

  It didn’t.

  The only other nod toward surprise her body gave was the faint flutter of her heart skipping a single beat. She accepted it as no more and no less strange than the talking silver cat who knew her, who’d changed her with a single touch, and no less real.

  She turned back to the Queensguard, who knelt in the dirt behind the lizard, his head bowed. Rust-black hair, the back stained with dirt from when he’d hit the ground. Inis hadn’t seen his face, didn’t know or care what it looked like. All that mattered now was the real child in all this, likely terrified out of her wits.

  “Ivy,” she said. The name cracked between her tongue and teeth. “Did you—”

  Your little egg is fine. Two’s voice hushed her the way her mother’s had, when Mother could still chase away Inis’s childhood nightmares. This soldier-smelling boy is not your enemy. My sister One, whom you recognize as a lizard, says that he is strong of heart and pleasing of face, and that he has come bearing a heavy burden on his shoulders.

  Inis snorted. A heavy burden? No heavier than what she’d carried for the past year, and his burden had been his choice.

  “Get up,”
she ground out. Louder, toward the broken pieces of the cottage, she added, “Ivy? Little egg?”

  Silence, but movement stirred on the other side of the door. Ivy’s eyes peered out from behind a splintered plank.

  Inis held up her hands. “See? All’s well. No one’s here to hurt us. No need to be afraid.” She could hear that her voice had changed, strong city vowels lilting back after a long absence. The sound of a true smile.

  “Cat,” Ivy whispered.

  “His name is Two,” Inis replied.

  40

  Rags

  Despite missing a wall from their cottage, the Ever-Loyals knew their hospitality from their assholes. After belated introductions and explanations, they’d invited Rags and the rest inside for tea. A steady-handed butler had poured it straight from the pot, asking, One cube or two?

  A cursory glance around the room told Rags what he’d already suspected: nothing in this house was worth stealing.

  Especially since all their silver was currently cat shaped and sentient.

  A closed door on one side of the kitchen, a sitting room on the other, and a perilous staircase leading up to the second floor. The furnishings were so plain as to be anonymous. Even the ladies—both the tiny one who’d screamed and the one who looked like she could break Rags over her knee—wore unadorned mourning weeds.

  What he wouldn’t give for one black veil embroidered with jet beads. . . .

  Silence since the tea was poured. Since Shining Talon had given Inis the Great Paragon speech, explaining her new silver beastie. The only person who seemed to be having any reaction to the situation was Cabhan, who kept staring at the wrecked wall: a calculating look, responsible and guilty, like he was planning how to fix it.

  “So there you have it,” Rags said. Couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Surprise! You’ve got a fae-entwined destiny. And a really big cat.”

  This was more or less exactly what Shining Talon had told Inis Ever-Loyal, but Lady Inis hadn’t warmed to the big guy. One might say she was outright ignoring him.