Page 26 of A Divided Duty

“Then welcome, weary wanderers, to the Kingdom in the Mists,” she intoned, with more gravity than was strictly necessary, and struck the base of her spear against the floor. It made a louder sound than it should have, echoing through the hall, and the doors behind her swung open.

I shot her a sharp look. “Experimenting with special effects, are we?”

She didn’t bother to hide her amused smirk, just waved us on into the receiving room.

Raysel pressed forward as we walked, until she was so close on my heels that it was difficult to walk without stepping on her feet. I glanced back, and was pleased to see that Quentin was positioned directly behind her, walking so as to block her as much as he could against approaches from the side. Tybalt stayed next to me, shoulders locked and eyes alert. She might be scared, but she had honestly never been safer.

The receiving room, which could also have been used as a ballroom, easily, had it had just a few more doors, was packed to the gills. People stood on all sides, changelings and purebloods alike, a mixture of new and unfamiliar faces. One thing I’ll give to Titania’s false Faerie: whether she intended it or not, it shook a lot of people out of their complacency. There hasn’t been this much migration between the coastal kingdoms in my lifetime. Even Angels and Evergreen have gotten involved, and they weren’t part of the enchantment. I guess when folks start moving around, it winds up affecting everyone.

The number of new faces in the crowd was probably connected to Arden’s increased interest in propriety and doing things according to tradition. The people in the Mists were used to her somewhat-relaxed style of queenship, and after suffering under her nameless predecessor, most of us wouldn’t have cared if she’d wanted to move the royal court to the local McDonald’s. Here’s your decree of lordship; would you like fries with that? Newcomers were likely to expect something a little more formal, at least in the beginning.

It was interesting that she’d gone in this direction, since her time in Titania’s Faerie had been spent without title or throne, practically running wild through the halls of our neighbors, the Kingdom on the Golden Shore. She and her brother, Nolan, had been a sort of cross between a children’s story and Robin Hood, snatching abused changelings and getting them to freedom and safety on the Golden Shore. I couldn’t see how that experience would have made Arden more formal, but here we were.

And here she wasn’t. The hall was full, but the dais at the head of the room was empty. I moved toward it anyway, scanning the crowd for our allies, and didn’t relax until I saw Patrick and Dianda standing off to one side. Dean was next to his mother, and while he wasn’t wearing the colors of Saltmist, I’m sure it was no coincidence that he and his father were dressed in virtually identically cut suit jackets over white shirts and waistcoats.

Simon wasn’t with them—which made sense: he didn’t want to risk upsetting Raysel, and someone needed to stay home with the babies—but the coordination between Patrick and Dean had his fingerprints all over it. He had been, he’d admitted to me, “quite the dandy” in his younger days, and he understood better than most of us how to use clothing to manipulate a situation to his desires.

Dianda was wearing a knee-length dress modeled after an old-fashioned sailor’s suit, with a blue-and-white striped bodice giving way to a dark blue skirt with white buttons down one side. It was surprisingly modern, and made her look both charming and harmless. Well, charming she was, certainly. Harmless, no. But it was a good choice all the same. By not wearing her own livery, she reinforced the idea that she was a guest here, and that when she spoke, she did so at Arden’s pleasure. Despite that, by underdressing in a way that would have been offensive from many of us, she reminded the room of her importance.

Given how much thought our allies had clearly put into their attire, I was relieved that we’d all dressed well, if not flawlessly. I was wearing a long velvet gown in steel gray, with bands of braided grass stitched around the hems, over an underdress the color of cotton that had been washed several times after being drenched in blood. It was an artistic choice on May’s part—she assured me that no one had been bleeding on my formal wear—that would remind anyone who wasn’t familiar with me that I was a blood-worker, and should be respected as such. Garnets and grass were braided around the crown of my head, leaving most of my hair loose to fall down the back of my neck, and my knives were belted at my waist.

I’ve already covered what the boys were wearing; Raysel was in a very simple linen gown, heather green with literal heather embroidered at the edges, purple and pale. It made her look younger than she was, and between that and the way she walked, hunched in and closed off, also made her look incredibly fragile. She walked like she was something in need of protection, and we walked around her like we could provide exactly that.

A portal opened in the air ahead of us and Chelsea popped out, looking urgently around. She was in a black corset vest, white shirt, and dove-gray trousers that clung to her lower body like they were vying for the title of “leggings.” People murmured and a few even pointed as she hit the floor, scrambled for purchase against the slippery marble, and came racing over to our group, intercepting us before we could reach the Lordens.

“Toby!” she squeaked, as she was wrapping her arms around Raysel and holding on for dear life. Raysel responded by uncurling enough to hug her back, basically clinging. “I’m so glad I caught you!”

“Were you trying to catch me, or trying to catch Raysel?” I asked, amused.

“Right now, same difference,” said Chelsea. She slackened her grip enough to reposition herself and face me properly. “I needed to let you know that Duke Torquill called Dad back to duty so he could come to court today.”

“Etienne’s his Seneschal,” I said. “That’s normal.”

“No, not just Dad,” said Chelsea. “He called everyone.”

Meaning Sylvester was going to be coming in here with a full guard? That was a bit of an overreaction, unless he thought we weren’t going to like what he was going to attempt. And no one had called me. That stung a bit. I was still in his service: if the whole duchy was being summoned, I should have been included. “All right,” I said. “We’ll be careful. You want to walk with us?”

Raysel made a small whimpering noise and clung tighter. Chelsea nodded. “Please.”

“Come on, then.” We resumed our forward progress toward Dianda and the others. Chelsea didn’t let go of Raysel, and since both of them were walking despite her death grip on the other girl, I didn’t try to intervene.

“Bit dramatic, don’t you think?” asked Dianda, once we were close enough for casual conversation.

“Chelsea’s concerned that Duke Torquill might be planning something.”

Patrick narrowed his eyes. “He’d better not be,” he said sourly.

Dianda elbowed him. “That’s our brother-in-law.”

“And he would have been our brother-in-law a century ago if he’d been willing to stand up for his brother and protect him when he needed it.”

Dianda didn’t have an argument for that, and there wasn’t really time for one, as a portal opened on the dais—this one carrying the redwood-sap-and-blackberry scent of Nolan’s magic—and two figures stepped out. One, a tall man with red-and-white striped hair, took up a position in front of Arden’s throne. The other had blonde hair that darkened to brown along its length, the last six or so inches being a stark, inky black. Her eyes were a bright amber-gold, like an eagle owl’s, and in a room where a considerable number of people had inhuman eye colors, they were still striking, not least because they were a shade I had never seen on any other fae.

And I never would, unless she decided to get down to the Firstborn family business and have some kids of her own. Cassandra was the only one of her kind in the entire world, a direct daughter of Titania. She was also my adopted niece, and Arden’s Chatelaine.

Which was why she was on the dais with Madden, Arden’s Seneschal. Not every household is large enough to need both roles filled. Arden’s technically wasn’t, yet. But it would be someday, and as a royal household, she needed to be able to distinguish the roles of running her household and running her holdings from one another. It was a good position for Cass, who was still finishing college and helping with her younger siblings in the human world.

She and Madden both moved to the edge of the dais, standing side by side as they waited for the room to quiet. It did, slowly, silence rippling out from the edges to squash whispers and disquiet in the middle.