Page 77 of Be the Serpent

“Not rearrange itself, per se,” I said. “It’s best if you don’t know too much about the layout. If I don’t know for sure what this door connects to”—I gestured to a door that looked a little less friendly, for lack of a better word, than the ones around it. That wasn’t the way—“that means it could take us just about anywhere inside the knowe, and the knowe takes advantage of that. But only if it likes you.”

It was getting hard to run and talk at the same time. Running was more important, and so I focused on that, diving for a door that didn’t have the oddly ominous cast of the one I’d indicated before.

A formal dining room waited on the other side, long teak table already set for a dinner that had never been served, judging by the layer of dust on the cutlery. The air smelled of old, dry potpourri, but not of roses. Titania hadn’t been here yet.

I slammed the door behind us, slumping against it, gasping a little, and looked up toward the overly illuminated ceiling. “You are one of my favorite pieces of architecture,” I said fervently. “If I had any way to ask your permission first, I could kiss you right now.”

I pushed away from the door and started across the dining room, Sylvester close behind me.

“This is all very confusing,” he muttered.

“You were a hero before you retired,” I shot back. “Do what a hero does. Adapt.”

Sylvester made a small scoffing noise but didn’t argue, merely continued to follow me. Considering that he was my liege and normally the one giving the orders, that was a pleasant surprise on top of a day that had been built almost entirely of unpleasantness.

“Here’s to tomorrow,” I said, and opened the door on the side of the room opposite our entrance.

It led to a small kitchen, as dusty as the dining room. This was probably where they’d prepared private meals for Gilad and his family, when they wanted to dine together outside the view of his Court. A glimpse at the pantry as we hurried by told me the stasis spells were still holding. Somehow, the idea of eating a loaf of bread that had been baked before I’d been born wasn’t as unappealing as it should have been; I was still hungry, despite the sandwiches and pastry I’d been horfing down earlier, and the brief nausea brought on by the smell of frying onions had blessedly passed.

The kitchen door let us out on a narrow stretch of muddy ground covered in shredded bark fallen from the redwood trees. The sky overhead, what could be seen between the high-arching branches, was spangled with stars and playing host to at least three moons. We were still safely inside the Summerlands, then. Good; I hadn’t relished the idea of the knowe leading us to a forgotten back exit as a response to my asking for help.

It’s hard to know what a building wants. Maybe the knowe wanted me to stop asking for favors. Or maybe, because I was one of the few people who seemed to care about its opinion, it just wanted to keep me safe. Either way, it was a relief to know that we’d be able to get back in when we needed to.

I’d been spending a lot of time in Muir Woods since Arden took back the throne. It helped that I’d been estranged from my liege to one degree or another since before her coronation, leaving me with, effectively, no place else to go. That doesn’t mean I’d spent any real measure of that time outside. The grounds were still largely a mystery to me, and now that we were out of the main building, I wasn’t sure how much help I could ask for, or receive.

Helplessly, I looked to Sylvester, and to my deep surprise, he smiled.

“Gilad hated that he couldn’t figure out ways to use all the space within his walls,” he said. “He wanted us to keep out of his precious trees as much as we could manage, you see, and so he tried to ensure the grounds would be as unappealing as possible. For a people whose roots lie in nature, we’re remarkably unfond of getting it on our shoes.”

He started walking. This time, I followed.

“But a few hundred years with Luna will teach you not to mind the mud, and I’d been with her long enough in those days to find wandering the unmanicured parts of the garden as pleasant as the cultivated ones. If we’ve come out where I think we have, the orangery should be just up a . . . ” His voice tapered off, replaced by stunned silence as the sound of a pitched battle drifted across the field toward us.

Without another word, we resumed our run.

This patch of flat ended at a shallow hill, just where the grass began. Standing atop it looking down, we could see what looked like most of Arden’s household staff making a frantic attempt to get into the glass-walled building. The door was being held by Arden herself, Lowri, and . . .

I squinted, trying to make sense of what my eyes were telling me.

But there, on the side of the defenders, was Simon. I glanced to Sylvester, trying to measure his reaction.

He looked down at the scene, thin-lipped, and said only, “He never did care for having his loyalties dictated.”

Oberon and the Luidaeg were nowhere to be seen. I suppose that made sense. The one couldn’t fight, the other wouldn’t, and both of them would only have complicated the situation at the moment. I turned my attention to the attackers. Most were shapes I knew, people who normally moved politely through the halls or stood at attention with Lowri on door duty. A few were visitors who had come for Court and not been evacuated fast enough.

And there, at the back of them all, looking as peaceful as if this were an ordinary afternoon, as if she weren’t trying to lay siege to another queen’s holdings, was Stacy, her hair bundled into a messy topknot, her hands folded demurely in front of her. I hissed between my teeth and drew my knives, weighing the virtues of charging before she knew I was there. If she didn’t see me coming, if I could reach her fast enough, I could end this. I could let Stacy rest in peace, without this stain on her memory.

But it was far too late for that, really. I shifted both knives to one hand as I pulled the bottle containing what I had left of Oberon’s blood, trying to decide whether he was here but hiding as he waited for me to arrive, or whether I’d be wasting my only shot at untangling this if I drank my last dose now. My last hit had entirely worn off, leaving me with nothing more than my ordinary magic.

For the moment, I could let that be enough.

Sylvester looked at the scene, then at me, eyes wide and horrified. “What in the world is going on down there?” he demanded.

“Titania wants the Brown kids,” I said, and gestured toward the orangery. “Except for Simon, everyone who’s trying to keep her people out is from a line claimed by Oberon. Simon, I don’t know. Maybe this is a trick, maybe he has some impossible way of holding her influence at bay, maybe I don’t fucking know, I’ve never been in this situation before!”

“No one has, not for hundreds of years,” said Sylvester. Below us, the battle continued without interruption. People were bleeding. I could smell it. But no one was on the ground yet; technically, this had become a declared war as soon as Titania, a fae Queen, asserted herself within Arden’s demesne. Anyone who killed someone today would be forgiven by the Law, since killing during a war is allowed. Loopholes. Always loopholes.

They’d still be haunted forever by what they’d done. Blind Michael had deserved to die for what he did. He’d needed to be stopped, because there’d been no way he was going to stop on his own. And I still dreamt about the moment when I’d driven my joined knives into his throat, the moment when I’d decided my sense of right and wrong and need for justice were powerful enough to justify murder. None of these people needed to go through that. Especially not when their own choices weren’t a part of the process. If they killed tonight, it would be because Titania forced them.