The Prince of Secrets

by A J Lancaster

  Copyright © 2019 by AJ Lancaster

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-473-46764-7 (e-book)

  ISBN 978-0-473-46763-0 (Paperback)

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design © Jennifer Zemanek/Seedlings Design Studio

  Created with Vellum

  To my weird, wonderful, and numerous family members, none of whom are in this book, I promise.

  Contents

  1. The Linen Closet

  2. Midwinter Kittens

  3. The Map Room

  4. Unwanted Relatives

  5. Minor Domestic Crises

  6. Housefae

  7. Feathers and Shirts

  8. Lamorkin

  9. Cold Conversations

  10. Gridwell’s Bank

  11. Lug-imps

  12. Glamour & Illusion

  13. Mrs Thompson

  14. Unusual Communications

  15. Iron

  16. Carnelion Hall

  17. Accusations

  18. Unexpected Cats

  19. Embroidered Peacocks

  20. Heather and Snapdragons

  21. Red and Blue

  22. Snow Moon

  23. The Starcorn

  24. Lord Featherstone

  25. Princess Sunnika

  26. Guest Wrangling

  27. Rumours

  28. Secrets

  29. An Entirely Awful Plan

  30. Steward of Stariel

  31. Godparent’s Gift

  32. The Maelstrom

  33. King Aeros

  34. Oathbreaker

  35. The Standing Stones

  36. Homecoming

  Author’s Note

  Sneak Peek: The Court of Mortals

  Also by AJ Lancaster

  1

  The Linen Closet

  The cat wasn’t in the linen closet. His Royal Highness Hallowyn Tempestren, the secret fae prince and newly minted steward of Stariel Estate more usually known as Wyn, frowned down at pristine and, above all, unoccupied white sheets. Crouching, he checked the lower shelves, but the closet remained conspicuously cat-free. It seemed unfair that the cat should not be here now, given the number of times she’d managed to sneak in to sleep despite his best efforts. Where in the high winds’ eddies was she? Wyn could locate any mortal in the house in about thirty seconds, but the cat still eluded him after half an hour of searching.

  Straightening, he clicked shut the closet door and considered where else in the labyrinthine Stariel House might appeal to a sly she-cat about to give birth. The long, empty shape of the hallway held no answers. Gas lamps cast a yellowish light, combining unpleasantly with the aged pink-and-green-striped wallpaper. A gap where one of the curtains hadn’t been closed properly showed a thin rectangle of darkness. He straightened it absently, thinking.

  Perhaps the bedrooms? Plumpuff—one of the children was responsible for the name—had a typical feline talent for inserting herself wherever she was least wanted. Wyn could readily imagine her choosing to have her kittens in the middle of one of the aunts’ beds. Of course, the problem was that the house boasted an alarming number of bedrooms, in various states of habitability, spread sporadically over four floors and two wings. It would take time to search them all. Too much time.

  He shifted from foot to foot, weighing his options, then sighed and with some reluctance reached out with his leysight. He rarely invoked it to such an extent, but it came easily, almost eagerly, to his call. The world sharpened, the lines of magic that criss-crossed this land sparkling with colour and the layers of Stariel and under-Stariel swimming before him, a beautiful and yet unwelcome reminder of the difference between himself and the people he served. They were human; he was not.

  Stariel grumbled as he scanned the leylines for a hint of the cat’s location. Wyn wasn’t bound to this land and Stariel knew it. However, he had its lord’s permission to be here, so usually it would simply cast a metaphorical eye over him, shrug, and move on. Not tonight, though. Tonight, Stariel crouched over him as he sifted through the currents of power, making them as stiff and uncooperative as chilled dough. He fought the urge to hunch under the unfriendly, disconcertingly focused presence.

  It could be just the season affecting Stariel’s mood. It was only six days until Wintersol, and it was natural for the land to be slow and reluctant to wake until springtime. It could also be that Wyn’s magic was stronger at this time of year, and something about that had set Stariel bristling. Stormcrows knew faelands could be strange and arbitrary about such things. But had it been this bad in winters past? Had it felt this personal? He couldn’t remember if he’d ever pressed the land for information near midwinter before.

  Of course—there was one other thing that could explain a change in Stariel’s attitude; its new lord. Though I wasn’t expecting Hetta’s influence to increase Stariel’s hostility towards me, he thought wryly. Perhaps his kissing skills could use more practice, in the slow, teasing wind of… He tugged his thoughts back from that distracting direction. Later. Right now, he needed to focus on finding the cat.

  With an effort of will, he widened the net of his leysight, and his senses expanded through the house. Stariel resisted, frosty and intractable, only grudgingly giving up the locations of its inhabitants. The Valstars had ruled over Stariel for a millennium, and the land was far more attached to them than it was to Wyn, who’d been resident not quite a decade. Ten years was an eye blink to a faeland.

  He pressed harder but still received only a hazy impression of the many lives within Stariel House. Most of the Valstars had returned to the family home for the Wintersol celebration and were spread through the interior like so many fireflies. The servants were largely down near the kitchen at this hour, though he didn’t need Stariel to tell him that. If he strained, he could make out the no-nonsense tones of Cook giving orders.

  But no cats.

  Wait—the merest skitter of claws kneading at an already threadbare windowseat: the library. Wyn set off along the hallway with long-legged strides, as the library was at the opposite end of the house from the linen closet. There wasn’t much time left. New life always affected the fabric of reality to some degree, and the atmosphere of the house had already begun to shift.

  He caught snatches of conversation as he went. From the red drawing room came the sound of the aunts competitively comparing children. In the adjoining room, a good portion of the adolescents were playing cards, ignoring their parents’ conversation. The crack of ivory balls distantly to the southeast told him that some of the older Valstar cousins were playing in the billiard room. He took care not to be seen, for he couldn’t afford the potential delay. He didn’t need magic for that: speed, stealth, and superior hearing worked just as well.

  It took him only a few minutes to reach the library. The room’s domed roof loomed overhead, the light-spells along the walls throwing ornate shadows into its curve. It was the only room in the house that warranted the use of the more expensive technomantic creations over gas lamps, because of the fire risk. They pinged oddly against his senses, like little blank spaces in the world, something he’d long since decided was a side effect of that specific branch of magic combining with the mechanics of mortal technology. Technomancy wasn’t a magic the fae possessed.

  He didn’t need to guess who had activated the light-spells, for he could hear Marius Valstar speaking from the windowseat at the far end of the library. His stride faltered for a beat, but he mastered the urge to avoid Hetta’s older brother and instead slunk towar
ds him between the rows of bookshelves. Marius was reading to some of his younger relatives, voice warm with affection. Reading to children always put him in a good mood; perhaps he would forget to be angry at Wyn.

  Wyn rolled his eyes at the over-optimistic thought. Of course Marius would simply forget that Wyn had lied to him for nearly ten years about who and what he was. It wasn’t so much the masquerading as a human servant that had upset Marius. It was that Wyn had been deeper in Marius’s confidences than anyone else, and the reverse had turned out not to be true.

  Even if Marius did suddenly forgive him for that betrayal, there was another good reason for him to be angry at Wyn, though he didn’t yet know it. Wyn’s thoughts turned to Hetta again, and he couldn’t stop the smile that came to his lips, even as a cold band settled around his heart. Perhaps it was better that Marius didn’t know his sister and Wyn were…entangled. After all, it might end soon enough. It should end soon enough. The band tightened, the cold spreading over his rib cage.

  Marius nestled into one of the windowseats, his dark head bent over a book and spectacles slipping down his nose. Two young girls sat together at the other end of the seat, Marius’s cousins Willow and Violet. Their teenage brother Daffodil—their mother had a penchant for botanically themed names—evidently considered himself too old for stories, which he’d made clear by leaning against the wall as if about to walk away. His expression, however, was equally as enraptured as the two girls’.

  A grey cat curled on Marius’s lap, and Wyn’s focused sharpened. It wasn’t the cat Wyn was looking for. Stariel had deliberately misled him. No time to mull over what that might mean. Instead he began to mentally shuffle through the locations of the other windowseats in the house.

  Marius was reading the tale of an ancestral Valstar and his encounter with a gaggle of mischievous waterfae who’d taken up residence in one of Stariel’s mountain lakes. The subject matter seemed a little too topical to be accidental. Marius knew Wyn was fae, but most of the Valstars still didn’t. Wyn had never asked those who knew his identity to keep it a secret, but so far they had. Was Marius reconsidering? They could all change their minds at any time, and that left Wyn vulnerable. It itched at him, the need to take control of the situation, but so far he’d managed to resist the urge to do so. He owed them that.

  How many windowseats were there in the house? Twelve? Still far too many to search in the time he had left. He tried to narrow them down. he asked Stariel.

  “Did Sydney really meet fairies in the sheepfold lakes?” Willow asked as Marius finished. Since it was a Valstar story, it had featured their ancestor easily outmanoeuvring troublesome lowfae. Wyn doubted the real tale had been quite so straightforward.

  “It’s just a story,” Daffodil said to his sister from his position against the wall. “Everybody knows fairies aren’t real.”

  The comment briefly distracted Wyn from his mental pleading. Daffodil and his siblings hadn’t been at Stariel when Hetta had matter-of-factly told her family that the fae were real and revealed the imposter Gwendelfear. Evidently the information hadn’t yet spread to those family members who’d been absent for the reveal. Surprising—usually anything with even a whiff of scandal to it whipped through the family like wildfire. But then, with Lady Sybil, Lady Phoebe, and Mr Gregory all refusing to acknowledge the matter, the information would travel more slowly. Those three were usually key nodes in the information network.

  Marius looked up and jerked in surprise as he spotted Wyn between the bookshelves. Then he bared his teeth in an edged smile.

  “I don’t know. What would you say, Mr Tempest? Are fairies real?” The two girls turned and exclaimed to see Wyn.

  Wyn gave Marius a flat look before he turned to Willow and smilingly asked, “What do you think, Miss Willow?”

  Willow had dark, bushy hair and the Valstar eyes, solemn and grey. They held a spark of defiance as she answered.

  “Mama says that the wee folk are real, that they’re just hard to spot. We always put out milk for brownies on full moons.”

  “It’s just a tradition,” Daffodil broke in. He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched. “Mama just likes the tradition.” He glanced between Marius and Wyn, looking for support. “It’s just old wives’ tales. Harmless.”

  Wyn blinked. He hadn’t known that about the milk. Of all Grandmamma Philomena’s children, Aunt Maude was the one who followed her mother’s lead the most when it came to old superstitions, but he hadn’t realised she’d passed it on to her own offspring.

  “Old wives often know more than you’d credit,” Wyn said neutrally to Daffodil. He nodded at Willow. “And better to be safe than sorry, no? Perhaps one day you’ll be glad you curried the brownies’ favour.”

  Marius frowned, but just then Aunt Maude came into the library, clearly on the hunt.

  “Ah, there you are girls, Daffy,” she said. In short order she bustled all three children out of the room. She paid no more attention to Wyn than if he was an item of furniture, which in a way, he was. The fringe benefits of servitude.

  Wyn was about to move on with his search, but Marius spoke first:

  “So…if I leave saucers filled with milk outside your door, will I secure your favour?” His tone was light, but there was a note of accusation in it.

  Wyn let out a soft breath of amusement. “I’ve no particular fondness for milk, Marius. I’m not a brownie.”

  There was a pause. “That’s not an answer.” Marius held his gaze, chin tilting. Marius had recently worked out that Wyn couldn’t lie. Ever since then, he’d been pushing.

  Are you ever going to forgive me? Wyn wanted to ask but refrained. Marius’s anger was entirely justified, and a masochistic part of him was glad of it. Stormwinds knew more Valstars should be angry at him for the way he’d deceived them, for the fae wrath he feared was coming because of him. I will leave, he reassured himself. I will leave before it comes to that.

  “Very well,” he said, straightening. Toe-to-toe, Wyn was only an inch or two taller—the Valstars were a lanky bunch—but with Marius seated, he had the advantage. Advantage? He had to take a moment to quieten the uncharacteristically aggressive urge to intimidate. The tide of the darkest season rode him hard at this time of year, but he was neither lowfae nor lesser fae to be ruled by such instincts. “Yes. You would. The giving of a gift invokes an obligation on the part of the receiver. However”—he held up a finger—“the nature of the obligation varies according to the value of the gift. Given that I am already obligated to your family for sheltering me, that I have previously sworn an oath to protect Stariel and its inhabitants, that I am not particularly fond of milk, and that you could supply it at no cost to yourself, the additional favour I would owe you would be insignificant.” He shrugged. “Also, I’d prefer not to have to clean up saucers of milk outside my door when someone knocks them over.” An inevitability, given the number of children running around the household right now with the family home for Wintersol.

  In the thoughtful silence that followed, Wyn’s attention strayed to the fabric of the windowseat, which was beginning to fray along the edge where Marius most often rested his feet. Wyn made a mental note of it, adding it to his already long list of things there was never quite enough money or magic to remedy. But perhaps, if his and Hetta’s meeting at the bank this week went well, they would have more funds for maintenance soon. If that didn’t happen before he left…well, he’d simply have to write down the most urgent needs for the new housekeeper. The one they hadn’t employed yet. There is still time, he reassured himself, though that reminded him of the cat, for which time was definitely not in plentiful supply.

  Optimistically, he sent another mental plea to Stariel for information, or at least to let him have proper access to the leylines. The faeland ignored it as it had all the previous ones.

  “You can’t keep running,” Marius said suddenly, changing topic in his characteristically abrupt fashion.
“How do you expect us to accept you if you can’t accept yourself?”

  Wyn snapped back from thoughts of upholstery and cats. Marius’s grey eyes bored into him, curiously penetrating, as if he could see all Wyn’s intentions laid out like stars on a moonless night. This was the other reason he’d considered avoiding him; Marius was prone to flashes of uncomfortable insight.

  “I beg your pardon?” Wyn said at last. “I believe our definitions of ‘running’ may be different, if remaining in one location for nearly a decade qualifies as such.”

  Marius’s expression didn’t change. “You’re not human, Wyn.”

  Wyn laughed. “I’m aware, as you so often insist on reminding me.” He gestured at the storybook Marius had been reading from. A grossly inaccurate painting of a puckmere featured on the cover: for starters, that species of lowfae tended to view clothing as entirely optional rather than an opportunity to play dolls.

  Marius had the grace to look embarrassed, shoving the storybook to the side. He opened his mouth, about to say more, but there was no time for it, so Wyn spoke briskly before Marius could.

  “In any case, have you seen a cat? Not that one.” He indicated the grey cat on Marius’s lap. “A calico. The children call her Plumpuff.”

  A peculiar expression crossed Marius’s face. “You’re looking for a cat.”

  “Yes. Have you seen one?”

  “No. But why in Simulsen’s name—”