Page 25 of A Divided Duty

Tybalt scowled, looking in my vague direction. “I dislike it when you turn yourself invisible,” he said, and folded inward, becoming a large tabby cat. Easier, at least for him, than constructing a whole new illusion, especially one as complex as an invisibility field that would actually move with the caster.

Quentin rolled his eyes. “Why are the adults so childish?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Raysel.

He laughed at that, grabbing his own handful of air and lightly singing a few lines of what sounded like a sea shanty in French. I don’t speak French, so it was meaningless to me until he vanished.

Raysel grabbed the air. “Invisibility, please,” she said, and disappeared. The combined scents of Quentin’s heather and steel, and her hot wax and crushed blackthorn washed over me, not entirely pleasant when mixed together that way.

Like something out of a bad joke, three invisible people and one large cat began making our way up the side of the hill, using protruding roots and deeply embedded rocks as a sort of makeshift stairway. It became less makeshift when we were about halfway up, well out of view of a casual glance from below; there, the steps became more regular, cut into the hillside and concealed by a mild repulsion spell that would keep humans from stumbling across them.

We kept climbing, and at the top of the hill, we stepped over an invisible boundary and into the Summerlands, the world performing a sickening bob and weave around us while the sky, previously bright with the light of a late summer afternoon, was suddenly overtaken by twilight and utterly choked with stars. There were so many of them shining that it was almost the same brightness, just filtered through a different sort of lens.

In front of us, two figures in royal livery stood to either side of a tall redwood with a door embedded in its trunk. We were no longer in the human world, but we were close enough to it that a faint haze surrounded the whole scene, illusions layered with don’t-look-here spells to turn mortal eyes away should any of them somehow manage to stumble into the right combination of steps to make the transition. With a door that large and open, it was necessary to take a few additional precautions.

One of the guards was unfamiliar, a Gwragen woman whose long brown hair had been twisted into dozens of tiny braids, then woven into an apparently functional basket. The reason for the basket-shaped style became more obvious when a small possum poked its head out of the cup and looked at us, beady black eyes wary. The other was a tall Hamadryad who I’d seen before, just … not here.

I blinked. “Eion,” I said. “I didn’t know you ended up serving the royal court.”

The guard turned toward us, a smile on his ash-colored face which only widened as he saw that Tybalt was with me. “Indeed, we did,” he said. “It wasn’t Duke Carrig’s fault that the Lady of Flowers used him so poorly in her fantasy world; he played his role, as we all did, and had little choice in the matter. But the memory of what he had been haunted us, and when the scales fell from our eyes, we couldn’t stomach the thought of returning to Wild Strawberries. Still, our seeds were planted in Mistlands soil, and so we returned here, seeking a court we might belong to. We met Queen Windermere when we all stood on the Golden Shore, and Her Majesty has been kind enough to accept us into her service. I stand guard when not carrying messages; Maia works in the gardens, while Nelisa helps with the children. Ashla and Gable are as yet too young to be expected to do much more than learn and grow.”

“I’m really glad to hear that your family is safe,” I said, sincerely. They had come to Amandine’s tower in Titania’s Faerie, seeking safety and sanctuary that I’d been shamefully unable to provide to them. Knowing that they were safe was a genuine relief.

“My friend,” said Tybalt, and stepped in front of me to clasp Eion’s hand in his own, the gesture rough and sincere. “The root and the branch have smiled upon us on this day.”

“Sometimes we win,” said Eion, smile turning radiant before he let Tybalt go and looked past us to the rest of our group. “The two of you require no introduction as far as I’m concerned, but who accompanies you?”

“My squire, Quentin, and my ward, Rayseline Torquill,” I said. “We’re here tonight to discuss the terms of Raysel’s custody with the Queen.”

“Ah. The matter of offense,” said Eion, and nodded toward the open door. “You may proceed.”

“It’s good to see you, old friend,” said Tybalt.

“Not so old as all of that, and you’d have seen me before now if you got out more,” said Eion.

Tybalt snorted. “A fair strike, if not a fatal one,” he said, and followed as I moved toward the door.

The hall beyond was large and striking, the ceiling high and arched and the walls covered in redwood panels depicting important scenes from the kingdom’s history, ranging from things that happened centuries ago to more-recent events. I figured more heavily in the recent panels than I would have preferred. I eyed a panel showing me holding Miranda close to my chest while I stood on the porch of a chicken-legged house, thorny vines exploding out of the ground all around us.

“Do you think it changes the panels for the people, or are we always on this much display here?” I asked.

“I have no idea, as I’m only looking at the carvings when actually present,” said Tybalt. “Still, that’s a particularly good likeness of you.”

“I don’t like it,” whispered Raysel. I looked over at her. She was staring at a panel that showed her—or her as she used to be—standing in a cavern with a bow in her hand, having clearly just released an arrow. On the other side of the panel, looking down at the arrow protruding from his chest, was Connor.

“Just keep moving and don’t look,” I said. The panels had been there when we first reopened the knowe. They’d been changing more and more often since then, seeming to grow in detail and accuracy as time passed. The knowe was glad to be in use again, in whatever way it is that buildings can feel satisfaction. Whatever enchantment caused this effect had come before Arden, and I didn’t know whether she’d be able to modify it. But I knew that none of the people who’d been there when Raysel accidentally killed Connor had provided the details for that carving, and I knew I wanted it gone.

This whole thing was verging on invasion of privacy, and it wasn’t cute.

We kept walking, passing the panels without further comment, and stopped when we reached a pair of tall, polished mahogany doors. They were closed, and only one guard waited outside them, a Glastig woman who was leaning most of her weight on her spear. We stopped a few feet away, waiting politely, and she looked up, then grinned a crooked grin.

“You here for court?” she asked.

“We are,” I said. “You good, Lowri?”

“Oh, I’m great,” she said. “I love standing guard in an empty hall. Gives me plenty of time to think about what I’m going to do when I get off duty and go home and no one gets to need anything from me for a few hours. You want me to let you in?”

“Please,” I said. Thankfully, Faerie’s taboos against saying “thank you” don’t extend to asking for things directly. If they did, we’d never get anything done.