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Without missing a beat, I shook my head. “I’m not playing,” I said. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m loyal to my duties, and I’m loyal to my home and the Court and Crown who now rules the city.”
Camille glanced at me, worry filling her eyes. She looked back at Morgaine, and I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “You offer us a great honor, Queen of Dusk, but we regretfully must decline. Would you willingly accept someone into your court who broke old oaths and allegiances without just cause? Could you ever really trust us?”
Mordred smoldered, but I detected a hint of relief in his sweat. He didn’t want anybody in line to take over from him.
Delilah shook her head. “No. We can’t accept. But we’re here to honor you and the others and to celebrate the unfolding of a new era.”
Morgaine stared at us darkly, then turned. “Never forget what I offered you. The offer stands for a time, but if you choose to take it after tonight, the price will go up. Think it over before saying no. You have until sunrise.”
As she swept away, followed by Mordred, we looked at one another.
“Wherever that damned woman goes, trouble follows,” I said. “We’ll have to watch her carefully.”
“I think the Supe Community will find itself splitting as the Earthside Fae join the Courts of the Three Queens, leaving the Weres and vamps to themselves.” Delilah let out a long sigh. “All we can do is watch and wait and hope to hell Morgaine never gets her hands on one of the spirit seals, because you know she’d be up to no good with it.”
“I think . . . I think I finally agree with you,” Camille said sadly. “The coronation is about to begin. Shall we watch?”
Delilah shrugged. “Might as well. Let’s go join Father and Queen Asteria. I feel safer around them.”
I swung in beside her and wrapped my arm around her waist. “What’s that?” I asked, feeling a hard bottle pressing against me from the pocket of her tunic.
She shook her head, grinning. “Nothing you need to know about.” I stepped to the side and waited until she’d gone on ahead, then quietly looked at the bottle I’d fished out of her pocket. I stifled a shout. The nectar of life: the elixir that would grant a mortal extended life. One bottle of this down the hatch, and Chase would live almost as long as a full-blooded Fae.
As half-Fae, we’d be offered the nectar at some point to extend our lives, providing the Court and Crown was willing to allow us the privilege. But Delilah had to have stolen this. Nobody in their right mind would just give it to her. I stared at her, wondering whether to say anything, when Camille gave a little cry as she opened a scroll one of Father’s messengers handed her.
“What is it?” I said. “Are you okay?”
She nodded as her eyes teared up and a smile broke out across her face. “It’s a message from Trillian. He’s alive, he’s okay, and he’ll meet me in Otherworld in the autumn, to come back home with me. There’s a truth spell cast on this parchment, so I know it’s not a lie.”
In the bustle as Morio and Smoky joined us, I slid the bottle back in Delilah’s pocket. Whatever happened with Chase would happen regardless of what I said or did. We’d sort it out later.
As the trumpets sounded again, and the Queens of Morning, Dusk, and Night knelt before Queen Asteria to receive their crowns, I tried to block out worries about demon lords, Fae politics, and human hate groups.
The world overflowed with beauty in life, in death, in all stages in between. There was so much beauty around us—hideous beauty and beauty so brilliant it made my eyes water.
Titania was taking her vows, reclaiming her throne as I picked a solitary red rose from a bush and brought it to my face, inhaling deeply. Sometimes we had to put aside our worries and focus on what was right in front of us. Sometimes we had to let go of our fears for the future and live in the now. Sometimes even a vampire needed to stop and smell the roses.
ia was taking her vows, reclaiming her throne as I picked a solitary red rose from a bush and brought it to my face, inhaling deeply. Sometimes we had to put aside our worries and focus on what was right in front of us. Sometimes we had to let go of our fears for the future and live in the now. Sometimes even a vampire needed to stop and smell the roses.
