Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City (34 page)

The Seneschal nodded. “An agreement, then. I will let your party pass, sa’Eleniel.”

She bowed again as she produced an ornate metal key from beneath her robes and unlocked the door.

Beyond the doorway I caught a glimpse of a stormy sky and couldn’t help glancing back over my shoulder. The weather outside the Gate had been a perfect summer’s day. But we were apparently stepping into stormier climes. The queen’s connection to the Veiled Court and the Fae lands was an intimate one and what the lands showed spoke to her mood and our likely reception.

An ironmage in the Fae courts. I couldn’t help feeling as though such a thing might act somewhat like a lightning rod, drawing trouble and fire and destruction.

But it was too late to turn back now, so I took deep breaths while the Seneschal examined our luggage. It didn’t take long. She gave us permission to pick up our bags and then she walked back to the trio of doors and pressed her hand to the central one. It swung open. My curiosity surged and it was only my endless hours of protocol training that made me remember to bow politely to the Seneschal as I walked past her and stepped into another world.

F
EN

* * *

Summerdale.

I wanted nothing to do with the Fae. Yet here I was, trooping across the threshold to the Veiled World on a fool’s errand like it was just a trip to a borough across the City.

Perhaps that was the key to surviving here. I had to tell myself it wasn’t a big deal to be here—and then it wouldn’t be a big deal.

I almost snorted. If I believed that particular bit of chicanery then I might as well sell myself a bridge or two as well.

Still, whatever I thought of the matter, I was here now and we had a task to complete. Like it or not, we needed the queen to return to the negotiations. Or else the City could fall.

The door closed behind us with a quiet click. I couldn’t stop myself from looking back over my shoulder. The door had vanished.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Perfect. No way out without someone who knew how to reveal the door again. I was truly screwed.

Better to look forward than back. I turned my attention to our surroundings. That was hardly less unsettling. We stood in a large garden—or a courtyard perhaps. There were smooth stone tiles underfoot and garden beds filled with tall and spiky blooms. It may have been pretty in sunshine, but under the suddenly sullen sky that loomed above our heads, it merely looked gloomy and quietly menacing.

“Now what?” I asked Bryony. “How do we get to see the queen?”

“The Seneschal will have told her we’re here already,” Bryony replied. “So we may be summoned.”

That sounded less than pleasant. “And if we’re not?”

“Then we will attend the court.”

“How long do we wait to decide which?”

Bryony frowned at me. “Patience, Fen. Time runs differently here.”

Was that supposed to make me feel better somehow? If so, it failed.

“Guess I’ll make myself comfortable, then.” I walked toward one of the low stone benches set in front of the nearest garden beds. There was a statue of a woman beside the bench and as I passed it, its head turned to watch me. I jumped half a foot, then caught myself as Saskia giggled.

Damned Fae tricks. I was half tempted to brush my chain against the statue to see if that had any effect on it, but that wouldn’t exactly be in keeping with the promise that Bryony had made.

Instead I frowned at the stone face, only to see the lips curve slowly into a smile. Which was somehow even more disturbing. Statues shouldn’t watch you or smile while they were doing it. I couldn’t help feeling that someone was inside the stone, looking out.

Hells, in this place that could well be true. I decided I didn’t need to sit down after all and walked back to where the rest of the party stood.

Saskia gazed around the courtyard with wary fascination. Liam stood next to Bryony, body poised for action. You could take a knight’s hand, but it seemed that it didn’t change his instincts to protect those he’d been charged to protect. I needed to remember that. Liam didn’t entirely approve of me. I doubted his opinion would improve any if he found out I was bedding his brother knight’s little sister.

Bryony looked composed, but her chain was as gray and dull as the overcast skies. I didn’t think she was as sanguine about being home as she pretended.

“How long is it since you’ve been here?” I asked.

“Not that long.” She looked around the courtyard with a frown. “A half dozen years or so.”

“Six years?” I blurted, then remembered that she was Fae. To a Fae six years was a drop in the bucket of their lifetime. Six years away from the Veiled World for a Fae was probably like a two-week trip to the country for a human.

I guessed we would find out. There was a soft rumble from the sky. Thunder. Perfect. Was it going to rain? Standing around waiting for the queen of the bloody Fae to summon us was one thing. Doing so while getting soaked was another entirely.

But no drops followed the thunder and Bryony made no move to leave. I wondered exactly what form a summons to the Veiled Court might take. Saskia had wandered over to the statue, who had now tilted her head to study Saskia. Saskia looked more fascinated than appalled. Of course, she’d known what to expect.

She reached out a hand, holding it a few inches from the surface of the marble. I wondered if she was using her powers.

Perhaps. A small spark leapt from the statue to Saskia and she yelped softly and drew her hand back quickly, shaking her fingers as if they burned.

I laughed, and she turned to glare at me. Given the choice of stilted small talk with Bryony and teasing Saskia, I chose the latter. I walked back over to her, skirting the statue warily. “What did you do?” I asked.

“I was trying to see what she’s made of,” Saskia said.

“Apparently she doesn’t appreciate snooping.”

“I wasn’t snooping,” she said indignantly. “It’s not snooping to be curious.” One side of her mouth curled up. “This place is . . .”

Her voice drifted off.

“What?” I prompted.

She curled her fingers back against her chest, then stretched her arm again, gesturing around the garden. “It feels . . . Don’t you feel it, Fen? The power? The earth fairly sings with it here.”

Sings? Was that how it seemed to her? It didn’t feel like a song to me; it felt like a vast weight pressing on me, trying to hold me down. The ache in my wrist was worse than usual, the iron a solid band of burning pain against my skin.

But I couldn’t tell Saskia that. She would just worry.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I said. “Maybe the iron stops me from noticing.”

Her eyes flicked to my wrist, her expression guilt-stricken for a moment. “Maybe the Seneschal was right and the Fae healers can help.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t looking forward to being examined by any healer, let alone one of the Fae. Nor did I fancy them working magic on me, which was the only way I could think of that they would possibly be able to help me.

Saskia smiled. “That would be something good out of this.” She moved a few steps farther, bending down to look at one of the strange plants. “I wonder what these are.” She didn’t try to touch one of the blooms, though—the odd purple-gray flowers had a spiky surface that looked potentially painful. Instead she bent closer still to inspect it and then sniffed one of the black roses that grew alongside it.

“Perhaps Bryony can tell you,” I said. But as Saskia turned to look behind us there was a clatter of hooves and her expression turned guarded. I twisted too.

A large carriage drawn by two black horses had pulled up at the far end of the courtyard. Was this the queen’s summons?

The carriage door opened and Saskia and I stood watching as a Fae man descended, dressed in robes as black as the roses. He had dark hair too—as dark as Bryony’s—and pale skin, and he carried a shining black cane, though he didn’t move as if he needed assistance.

Bryony’s back went stiff as he walked across the tiles toward her and stopped a few paces away from where she and Liam stood.

“Bryony sa’Eleniel,” the man said with a shallow bow. He extended his hand and I saw the flash of a Family ring. Blue and purple. The same colors as the ring on Bryony’s hand.

Bryony took the hand and bowed over it. “Father,” she said with equal politeness. “It is good to see you.”

S
ASKIA

* * *

There was a long silence in the coach after Bryony’s father had directed us into its depths. While I was glad to leave the eerie courtyard, I would have liked to know where we were going. But if Bryony and her father weren’t going to speak, then none of us seemed willing to risk offending a Fae lord by breaching some unknown rule of etiquette.

Beside me, Fen was particularly still, as though he thought that unmoving, he would remain unseen. But he would need Lily’s powers to pass beneath the notice of the Fae, and those he didn’t have.

He was closest to the window, blocking the view so that I caught only glimpses of the country we passed through as the coach rolled smoothly along. What I could see intrigued me. The sky stayed the same uncertain gray, but the landscape itself seemed to alter at will. Whose will, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps the changes marked the boundaries of Fae territories, but it was both intriguing and disconcerting to see rolling hills give way to ancient-looking forests and those, in turn, dissolve into fields of long grasses.

It only brought home the fact that we were definitely not in the City anymore and that the rules of this land were very, very different.

And Bryony was the one who was meant to guide us through them. I turned back to her. She was watching her father with an expression that I would have called almost wary, but I had never actually seen Bryony look daunted by anything in all the years that I’d known her, so perhaps I was mistaken.

I looked across to her father, who was watching her in turn. His face was perfectly calm. A little too calm. He hadn’t seen his daughter for six years. Surely he felt something?

“So, Father,” Bryony said suddenly. “To what do we owe the honor of your regard?”

Lord sa’Eleniel cocked his head slightly, long pale fingers curling around the curved head of his cane. “The Seneschal did me the kindness of informing me that my daughter had seen fit to return to the Veiled World. It is only proper that I come to greet her.”

“You could have greeted me anytime in the last six years. You have known where I was.”

His eyes darkened a little. I had seen that look on Bryony’s face many times and almost snorted. Like father, like daughter, apparently.

“I have too many concerns here in the courts to waste time in the world
outside.”

“That world outside is somewhat disrupted right now, thanks to—”

“Be careful,” he warned. “Now is not the time to draw the attention of the queen in the wrong way.”

“That’s unfortunate when I am seeking an audience with her.”

“So I am told.” He rubbed his chin, the ring on his hand, twice as large as Bryony’s, flashing suddenly. “What confuses me is the reason for that request.”

“Don’t be coy, Father. You must know what happened at the negotiations.”

“Indeed I do. Our Speaker was murdered.” His face twisted with the first sign of genuine emotion he’d displayed. “A sign of the perfidy of the outer worlds.”

“The humans had nothing to do with the killing,” Bryony said.

“How do you know?”

“Because they have nothing to gain by the negotiations’ failing. In fact, they have the most to lose.”

“Perhaps.”

“No, not perhaps. They are the ones who risk being overrun by the Beasts and the Blood.”

“If that happens, then perhaps it is meant to be.”

“Father!”

“Don’t be naive, child. The queen has held this peace through her will and power for a very long time now. If it fails, then it is the will of something greater than all of us.”

“It is the will of Ignatius Grey,” Bryony snapped. “And he is not greater than me.”

Lord sa’Eleniel frowned. “Do you know that for sure?”

“No. Nothing is certain. But Ignatius is the one who is determined to be the next Lord of the Blood. And he seems to share Lord Lucius’ ambition. Lucius grew bolder these last few years. He was building to something. I think that Ignatius is following in his footsteps. No good will come of that.”