Once Broken Faith (26 page)

“I was also given permission to remove people from this conclave as I saw fit. I'd like to speak to whomever accompanied King Antonio out of Angels.”

“Very well.” High King Aethlin turned to the audience. “Will the delegation from Angels please rise and follow Sir Daye to wherever she leads? I promise you, there will be no final votes taken in your absence.”

Two Candela and a Glastig rose from where they'd been sitting on the shadowy side of the room. The Candela were unfamiliar. The Glastig . . .

“Hello, Bucer,” I said.

Bucer O'Malley, late of Home, currently of Angels, winced. “Toby,” he said.

I offered a quick bow toward the gathered thrones before hopping down from the stage and heading toward the back door. As I'd hoped, the emissaries from Angels followed me, the two Candela walking almost as silently as one of the Cait Sidhe, Bucer tapping along on sharply pointed hooves that couldn't be muffled by anything short of being wrapped in pillows. I knew that from experience. He and I had done our share of breaking and entering back when we'd been street rats in Devin's
service, stealing what we were told to steal, shanking who we were told to shank. Since Home had been a changeling domain, there'd been no one to stop us from hurting each other—it didn't break the Law, and so no one had particularly cared. The last I'd heard of Bucer, he'd been running for Angels, getting the hell out of town before he could be arrested for his part in the kidnapping of the Lorden boys. Looked like he'd managed to fall on his feet.

That was the thing about men like him. They almost always did.

I led my motley little gang down the hall and past the kitchens, stopping at a cold pantry that the household staff had shown me once, proud of how much ground they'd been able to recover from the cobwebs and decay. Opening the door freed a burst of cool air, and the distant, earthy smell of potatoes. “Inside,” I said.

The two Candela, who were used to dust and shadowy spaces, went willingly. Only Bucer hung back, giving me an uncertain look. “Do I have to?” he asked.

“I'm coming in with you,” I said. “It's not like I'm going to shut the door and lock you in there to die. Even if I did, you'd have two Candela with you.”

“We're not carrying him through the web,” said one of the Candela, sounding affronted. Her hair was pale gray, the color of volcanic ash, and cut in a shoulder-length bob. The other Candela, male, with darker hair, nodded his agreement.

“You wouldn't have to,” I said. “You could just pop out of the room and open the door. Now come on, unless you want me asking for your King's dirty secrets while we're all standing around in the hall.”

Bucer slowly walked past me into the room, glancing over his shoulder several times. I followed, closing the door behind me before yanking off my gloves and dropping them on the nearest shelf. The glow from the two Candela was more than bright enough to allow me to see
their faces. They looked calm. Bucer didn't. Unfortunately, because of our history, I had no way of knowing whether that was because he'd done something wrong, or because he was waiting for me to kick the crap out of him again.

“Your King is dead,” I said, without preamble. “The person who killed him attacked me earlier today, presumably because they were afraid I was going to learn something they didn't want me to know. Who would have wanted to kill King Antonio, and why?”

“Half the purebloods in Angels wanted him dead, for refusing to support their claims to this and that,” said one of the Candela. “All the changelings wanted him dead, for refusing to order the purebloods to leave them alone. Angels is where dreams come true, after all.”

A surprising number of film and television stars were changelings. Fae blood made them beautiful and sturdy enough to survive doing their own stunts; human blood made them resistant to the iron in camera rigs and muscle cars. And the nature of the industry was such that if you were careful, you could keep a career going for decades, writing off your apparent inability to age as clean living, drinking lots of water, and keeping a plastic surgeon on speed-dial. “Swell,” I said. “Who
didn't
want him dead?”

“We didn't,” said the male Candela. “He didn't make a lot of rules. He didn't interfere with people doing what they wanted to do. That's harder to find than you'd think.”

“He brought me because I knew the Mists, and because I knew you,” said Bucer. “He wanted to be able to predict what was gonna happen at this stupid thing. Said I'd be forgiven for a few little things if I came.”

“Little things?” I asked.

“He stole the crown jewels,” said the female Candela.

I had to swallow a smile. “Some things never change, I guess,” I said. “Whoever killed him snuck up on him, yes,
but they also disoriented him. I thought at first that it was a teleporter. Now, I'm not so sure.”

The male Candela frowned. “Why are you speaking so openly to us?”

“Because you didn't do it,” I said, very calmly. “When King Antonio was killed, his Merry Dancers shattered. Fragments, all over the floor.”

The four Merry Dancers that shared our space swirled madly around their respective Candela, outward manifestations of their distress. Bucer flinched, but said nothing.

“If either of you had killed him, I'm reasonably sure you would have done it someplace where the Merry Dancers wouldn't have broken when they fell,” I said. “Also, the magic doesn't match up. I know what Candela teleportation looks like, and this wasn't it. As for you, Bucer, you didn't do it. I know your magic, I know your methods, and I know you're too much of a coward to have tried to stab me while Tybalt was in the room.”

There was always the chance that whoever stabbed me had been aiming for
Tybalt
—the stake had hit me in the back, but King Antonio had been stabbed in the chest. If I hadn't jumped in the way, the stake would have struck Tybalt in the same place. More than anything, that reinforced my conviction that Bucer hadn't been the one doing the stabbing. He would have been a fool to attack me in front of Tybalt. He would have been a
suicidal
fool to attack Tybalt in front of me—and if there was one thing Bucer had taken away from our time together at Home, it was a healthy respect for how much damage I could, and would, do if I was pissed off.

“So why are you talking to us if you know we didn't do it?” asked Bucer warily. “We're supposed to be in the audience, paying attention to the political bullshit.”

“Why?” I asked. “You don't have a King anymore. Does any of you have a title?”

“I'm a Viscount,” said the male Candela.

“Which means none of you have enough of a title to make a difference when the vote comes around, unless you expect the High King to go for a show of hands,” I said. “He's not going to do that. The Court of Cats would carry the day. Even with the wards locked, you can't keep the Cait Sidhe out, and since they're cats, it's not like anyone would be able to prove they hadn't been here the whole time.” The redwood paths in the high trees could be covered with sunbathing and mouse-hunting cats, and no one would know. It was a charming image. It was a terrifying image. The Divided Courts thought they were powerful, but cats could walk through anything, because Oberon had given them permission.

Bucer and the two Candela—who hadn't volunteered their names; it didn't seem important under the circumstances—looked at me, waiting to hear what I'd say next. I sighed.

“Nobody liked King Antonio. Fine. Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to
kill
him?”

“His wife,” said the male Candela.

“Frequently,” added the female, and they both laughed, small, near-silent exhalations of air. Then the female sobered, and said, “He was a poor king, but a poor king was the best thing for Angels. If you're wondering whether there had been threats against him, dangers we ignored to bring him here, the answer is no. No, there were not. He left his seneschal to run the kingdom in his absence. Not the act of a king who feared for his life. Antonio was a braggart and a bully and a foolish, foolish man. He was also a friend. Capable of great compassion. A person, like any of us, and like any of us, he was uninclined toward pointless risks.”

What she was saying matched up with what Antonio had told me himself, although of course, that would be difficult to explain. The ridiculousness of the situation was starting to get to me. I'd spoken to a dead man, to a sleeping woman . . . all that was left was for me to find a
way to have a philosophical debate with the pixies, and I would have covered all my bases. “Before he died, the world stuttered,” I said. “Before I was attacked, the world did the same thing. It wasn't teleportation—I didn't move—but the world moved
around
me. Can you think of anything that would have done that? Anything at all?”

“No,” said the male Candela. His companions shook their heads.

I swallowed the urge to sigh. This was going to be an uphill battle after all.

M
Y NEXT SEVERAL INTERVIEWS followed similar lines. No one outside of Angels had known King Antonio very well, although the kingdoms that shared borders with Angels generally thought of him as a good neighbor. He'd been so busy minding his own business and not telling people what to do that he'd never even threatened war, much less openly declared it. The kingdoms of Copper and Painted Skies both spoke fondly of him, mostly in the sense of “and nobody ever died because he was bored.” No one volunteered to let me ride their blood, even when I hinted about how much easier that would make things. No one had heard anything about a new kind of teleportation—or quasi-teleportation—magic, or time magic, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't pick up any scents that would lead me back to the sound of tearing metal. Locking people in the pantry with me, one by one, meant I was learning magical signatures almost as fast as my mind could file them away, but none of them matched.

That wasn't quite true. None of them was exactly right, but I'd barely smelled anything at all when the sound had happened. I might be looking my attacker in
the eye, and still not be able to recognize them. That was just swell. I have
one
freak talent, and suddenly even that wasn't dependable.

By the time I escorted the representatives from Evergreens back to the gallery, I was running out of both patience and ideas. High King Aethlin was on the stage talking about the importance of a unified continent, and why it mattered that we make choices that were good for everyone, and not only for the chosen few. I did my best to tune him out as I made my way down the aisle toward where Theron and Chrysanthe were seated. They turned toward the motion. Theron raised his eyebrows. I nodded, beckoning for them to follow me out.

They didn't look thrilled. They still stood, and their hooves clacked against the floor as we walked back up the aisle—not as loudly as Bucer's, but loudly enough that people turned to watch us go. I forced myself to keep walking, not making eye contact. I was going to have to talk with each of these people before the night was out, and I was running out of ideas.

I became a detective not because I'm any
good
at it, but because I was willing to try. That means a lot in Faerie, where sometimes “turning everyone into a statue to show them the error of their ways” is treated as a valid, even reasonable solution. I've gotten better over the years, but still, the majority of my cases involve following cheating spouses and recovering lost items, not questioning an entire knowe full of nobles who thought they were too good to talk to someone like me, hero of the realm or no.

We walked to the pantry in silence. Theron and Chrysanthe held their peace while I opened the door, gestured for them to step inside, and closed it behind myself. Theron sat in one of the chairs I'd scavenged from the kitchen. Chrysanthe lounged against the wall behind him, draping her arms comfortably over baskets of potatoes and onions. It was a nice gambit. Unless you were a
courtier or a guard, standing while a king sat was generally considered rude. So was sitting while a queen stood. No matter what I did, I was insulting someone. In fact . . .

“You did that on purpose,” I said, sinking into my own seat and crossing my ankles in front of me. “Am I supposed to be so flustered by trying to decide what I'm supposed to do that I freeze up and let you leave without questioning you? Because I've been flustered by the best. You're going to need to try harder.” Back before Tybalt and I became allies—not even friends, just allies—he practically specialized in throwing me off-balance. After being the primary target of a bored Cait Sidhe for several years, there isn't much in this world that can genuinely shake me.

Theron and Chrysanthe exchanged a look. Finally, Chrysanthe spoke. “We could play at being offended, demand to know what gave you the right to suspect us, much less question us, but to be honest, we've been looking forward to the opportunity to speak with you,” she said. “Why in the world are you working for these people?”

Well. That wasn't what I'd been expecting. I blinked, trying to conceal my bewilderment, before asking, “What do you mean?”

“You're a changeling. You may have given up much of your human birthright for power, but you've been mortal: you know what it is to be looked down upon for reasons you didn't choose and can't control,” she said. “Why would you stay in the Mists, where you'll never be considered a full citizen of Faerie, when we're just down the coast? You would be welcome on the Golden Shore.”

I gaped at her. Then, recovering my senses, I shook my head and said, “Because I was born in San Francisco. My liege is here. My friends and family are here. I wasn't going to give any of that up for politics. I'm still not going to do it. The Mists are my home.”

“That may be so, but your choices might be broader down the coast,” said Theron. “You should consider it.”

I wanted to laugh. Here I was, trying to figure out who'd killed King Antonio and attacked me, and these people were attempting to recruit me? It was ridiculous, and that was what made it so understandable. Faerie had a lot of rules and manners, but it didn't always understand how to prioritize them for people who actually paid attention to
time
. When eternity was a given, there was really no good reason to treat anything with urgency.

Theron and Chrysanthe ran a kingdom of changelings, but they were still purebloods. No matter how much that statement might have offended them, offense wasn't enough to make it untrue. “I am sworn in service to Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills, whose Duchy has always been kind to changelings, and through him to Queen Arden Windermere in the Mists,” I said. “I'm pretty cool with both of those things. And I'm getting married soon, and the man I'm marrying isn't exactly in the position to pack up and move. So while I appreciate the offer, I'm happy where I am. I just want to do my job and find out who murdered one of your peers. Do you think you could help me with that?”

“I don't see how you can be happy in a place that's made you give up so much of your heritage,” said Theron solicitously.

I stopped. The urge to yell at him was strong. The urge not to get in trouble for insulting yet another monarch was stronger. Swallowing my rage, I said, “I wasn't forced to give up my humanity to prove I was as good as the purebloods. I did it to save myself, to save the people who cared about me, and to cure a goblin fruit addiction. Those might not be doors that are open to most changelings, but part of growing up in this world was learning that I can't refuse to do something just because it might be hard or inconvenient or impossible. Now
please
. Let me do my job.”

“Are you in favor of this cure?” asked Chrysanthe.

The urge to start screaming was getting stronger. It
was like talking to a couple of missionaries, who wanted to bring things back to Jesus no matter how much I wanted directions to the nearest gas station. “Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth. “I was there when it was developed. I would have died or turned myself completely fae without it. So I'm pretty sure this cure is a good thing, and that the purebloods aren't going to get more careless just because it exists.”

“Would Duchess Lorden agree with you?”

That stopped me.
Would
Duke Michel have been so willing to shoot her, even knowing that his kingdom was landlocked and hence safe from Undersea reprisals, if he hadn't known she could be woken up at a moment's notice? The cure might already be changing how people thought about elf-shot. I just wasn't sure that was a bad thing.

“Nothing we say here is going to impact the conclave,” I said slowly, feeling my way through the sentence. “I'm not running some secret poll where I find out how everyone really feels about the idea of the cure and then go and tell the High King how he should resolve the situation. You know that, right? I'm trying to solve a murder. Someone is dead. A
king
is dead. I need to find out who killed him.”

“King Antonio sent us citizens from time to time,” said Chrysanthe. “People who didn't want to stay in Angels anymore. He'd buy them bus tickets, if you can believe it.”

“I can,” I said. It wasn't even a surprise. Human cities did that all the time, bussing their homeless to San Francisco, where the milder weather was supposed to make up for the inhumanity of shipping people away from their communities.

“They were never mistreated, per se, or at least not by the Crown,” said Theron. “Most had stories about ill-treatment at the hands of other purebloods, lesser nobles who felt their household staff didn't need to be protected. He'd send us the addicts, the ones already so far
gone on goblin fruit that they could no longer manage whatever menial jobs they'd held before.”

“What did you do?”

“Do?” Chrysanthe's laugh was small and bitter. “We gave them clean beds and brooms to hold, and fed them toast and jam until they were beyond even that. We buried them in safe places, surrounded by the graves of their own kind. Don't look so stunned, Sir Daye. We might have found a cure for elf-shot, but a cure for goblin fruit? That's a thing that will never be, unless we count the cure you've made for yourself—give up humanity, give up the addiction. Not a route that's open to most people.”

The accusation in her voice was hard to miss. I fought the urge to squirm. She was right: my route out of addiction wasn't open to anyone who didn't share my bloodline or have access to something that could change theirs. Something like a hope chest, or my mother . . . or me. I had given that choice to the changelings of Silences, after we'd dethroned the puppet king who'd been tormenting them. That didn't mean I could travel the world, offering it to everyone.

“So Golden Shore was well-inclined toward King Antonio?” I asked, trying to get the conversation back under my control.

“As well-inclined as we are toward any of our neighbors,” said Theron. “Angels buys our produce, sends us their broken, and refuses to change. The same can be said of any of the Kingdoms in this half of the continent. Maybe someday things will improve for the changelings. Maybe someday we can stop being so angry all the time. But that day is a long way from now.”

“Why?” The question burst out before I could stop it. “You're purebloods. You could have whatever you wanted. Why are you so focused on the treatment of changelings?”

“I suppose this is where we're intended to say ‘I had a changeling child' or ‘I had a changeling sister,' or
something of the like,” said Chrysanthe. “That would be easy, wouldn't it? It's always easy to admit to someone's right to live when you have a personal tie to them. We don't have that. What we have is the memory that, before humans and fae met so often, before changelings were common, it was people like us—people who showed how close our King and Queens once were to the natural world—who bore the brunt of those prejudices. There was a time when ‘animals in the court' was as bad as ‘changelings.' So, yes, we're interested in knowing things are going to get better for the changelings, even if we have to fight for it. Not because we have a personal stake. Because it's the right thing to do.”

I took a breath. “That's a good thing, honestly. We need all the help we can get.” Most changelings didn't have stories like mine, where they got titles and responsibilities and respect. Most changelings had things much, much worse. And yet . . . “Now please, for right now, can we focus on the murder?”

“We didn't kill him,” said Theron, without hesitation. “If you accuse us, we'll give the High King our blood, and you'll be revealed as a fraud.”

“Would you even be suggesting that I would make false accusations if I were a pureblood, or do you have some particular reason to think that I'm too incompetent to know who to accuse? Because if not, this seems a little hypocritical of you, given the whole ‘we speak for the changelings' position you claim to take. And I'm better at reading blood than High King Aethlin. Just so you know. Look: I don't think you killed him. For one thing, you're too obvious as suspects. For another, killing him doesn't stop the conclave. If you were going to break the Law, you'd have broken it in a way that would bury the cure for a few hundred years, and give you what you both seem to want so badly.” The pair looked uncomfortable, Chrysanthe shifting her weight from hoof to hoof while Theron twisted in his chair. “What I need to know is this:
can you think of anything that would mess with time, which could be done easily, by someone who didn't necessarily have a natural gift for it?”

“A fairy ring,” said Chrysanthe.

I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“A fairy ring,” she repeated. “You've heard the stories about humans who wandered into the woods and spent a night dancing, only to go home the next morning and find a hundred years had passed? That was the work of the fairy rings. They were commonly used in wartime, before the development of elf-shot. Instead of sleeping out your sentence, you'd simply go . . . forward. The spell would keep you frozen until you reached a time when the fight was over, and you could no longer serve your liege on the field.”