Page 62 of The Innocent Sleep

Arden didn’t look offended by the Candela’s terseness. Instead, she focused on me, frown taking on a more confused edge. “But there are no more Cait Sidhe.”

“Yet here we stand.” I eyed her. “Are you another of the tiresome nobles who consider shapeshifters to be little better than beasts?”

“My best friend’s a Cu Sidhe, so no,” she said. “Madden will be delighted to meet you.”

“Golden Shore shelters shapeshifters?”

“As many as we could. Theron and Chrysanthe will be thrilled to see you. They’ve always felt bad about not being able to save any of the cats when they were setting up their sanctuary.” She glanced back to Simon. “You brought Cait Sidhe.”

“Technically, they brought us.”

“You realize this means I have to get you an audience, if only so that Their Majesties can see some proof the descendant line survived.”

“The thought did cross my mind,” he said.

Arden scoffed and stepped back, finally waving for the rest of us to enter. An uneven, unwilling troupe, we pressed on through the doorway, naturally falling into our cohesive pairs. Two Torquills, two cats, two knights sworn to a man who couldn’t know what we were doing without facing treason charges of his own.

And one Queen in the Mists who resented the usurpation of her throne as the Arden I knew never had, who didn’t know that she’d been deposed this time by Titania herself, who led us through the knowe with long, easy steps, clearly and entirely at home here. The first hall was plain, with gold-tinted wooden walls accented by gold-and-cream molding, each piece carved with fruits and flowers grown within the Kingdom itself. It was a constant, subtle reminder that we were in an agrarian holding, a place where things like Moving Day still mattered due to their connection to the seasons and not because people were courting Titania’s favor.

That, at least, was true of Golden Shore in both the world I knew and this one. Titania had apparently put enough thought into designing her new reality to understand that people would still need to eat, would still crave their little luxuries to remind them of the lands we’d left behind. Goblin fruit and Avalonian apples, wine made with Elfhame grapes, those were the things that could keep the oldest purebloods anchored and calm, not protesting their isolation from the lands of their birth. Golden Shore wasn’t the only Kingdom dedicated to preserving fae plants and animals, but it was the only one within the scope of Titania’s enchantment.

Unfortunately for her, and for the way she’d apparently wound the spell up and let it go, making the large changes while it handled the smaller ones itself, the farming communities have always had a tendency to attract changelings and those who feel Faerie should be more equitable, less focused on the counting of crowns. Theron and Chrysanthe were the monarchs I knew, and they were Ceryneian Hinds, as bestial as fae can be without changing forms entirely.

I wondered how they’d been able to escape execution as a descendant line, and more, how Titania could craft a world with such aggressive prejudices and still allow them to keep their titles. But then, Ioulia was a daughter of Titania; perhaps her descendants were granted a small amount of grace for that fact.

Arden was moving quickly, which was the only reason I didn’t lose my temper with this delay. I was so tired of being patient. I was ready to rip this world down, and the fact that I couldn’t was like fleas running across my skin, biting at me and draining my blood.

We turned a corner, into another hall. This one was larger and far grander, more in line with what I expected from the Divided Courts. The walls were abstract stained-glass mosaics, filling the air with light despite the darkness outside, and the windows were surrounded by gold filigree that matched the molding from the previous hall. The floor was softened by a long rug the color of harvest-ready wheat, and chandeliers hung from the ceiling, heavy with globes of glowing light.

At the end of the hall a pair of Daoine Sidhe wearing the royal livery flanked a tall pair of double doors. Arden nodded toward them.

“They’ll let you in as soon as they get the sign,” she said, and sketched a circle in the air with one hand, stepping through and vanishing.

I scowled at the place where she had been, then at Simon.

“This is your daughter we need to rescue,” I hissed. “I hope you have a good reason to fuss and dawdle, because if you don’t—”

“You’ll what? Kill your father-in-law? Whether you’re deluded or sincere about your memories of another world, you’ll worry about upsetting October if you do that, and you’ve already shown yourself capable of restraint for her sake. We’re fussing and dawdling, as you say, because the Queen’s dungeons are full of iron, and we can’t take on the entire royal guard. We need help. We need the Windermeres.”

“Can’t open a door through iron,” said Grianne.

“Not normally, but I know how to make it possible,” said Simon.

I shot him a suspicious look, and we continued onward to the doors.

The two Daoine Sidhe looked at our ragged little group without saying a word, expressions not changing in the least. We stopped.

“We’re here to see the King and Queen,” announced Simon.

They didn’t react.

“Arden said they’d get a sign,” said August.

I was so accustomed to being let in when I approached the leadership of the Divided Courts that I wasn’t sure how to continue. Knocking seemed unwise, with two armed guards between us and the door; stepping into the Shadow Roads could be construed as an attack, if they were even open here. Warding a knowe against the Shadow Roads has always been possible, and unless they had a Candela in their guard, there would be no reason to leave them accessible. So I stood with the rest, seething and quietly panicked.

Then the door creaked open, and Arden poked her head out.

“Let ’em in,” she said, to the guards. “Their Majesties are down for company.”