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“Just as we are unable to do anything for ourselves with our own magic, zână cannot knowingly act against their wards.” Velouette shrugged, a helpless gesture that started in her shoulders but traveled down to her hands. “Though to tell you truthfully, I don’t know if I could have brought myself to turn her in either way.” She wiped at her eyes and tried to smooth her hair, becoming more aware of how much less put together she was appearing as this interview went on. “I never helped her hurt anyone, but I didn’t stand in her way either. Unless you count tricking Wilhelm Norton over for a cup of tea only to hold him in my basement. She was angry at him too—thought he could have done more to save her mother.” Her voice choked and she laughed bitterly at herself. “I didn’t want her to hurt him, so I said I would get him out of her way. Told her it would be better to try to blame him for their deaths.”

Avery did not often willingly engage in physical touch, but she’d become more attuned to it thanks to Saga. She layered a hand over Velouette’s in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. “Did you know she had designs against the council?”

Velouette shook her head. “I thought if I took the blame, that would be the end of it. She’d get out and maybe finally find peace?” She flinched at the unintentional wording. “Fate, I suppose she did anyway. Oh Roxanne…”

“And in giving yourself up, going along with our misconception, you prevented yourself from being compelled in outing your own ward.”

Velouette squeezed Avery’s hand tightly in her own. “If after all that, you still wish to speak for my character…” Her lips pursed in a sort of tragic amusement. “Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate.”

“Of one that loved not wisely but too well.” Avery brought her other hand to join with Velouette’s. “Not the worst of motives, but undoubtedly one of the oldest. Though I hope you’re not comparing yourself to Othello. His fault was jealousy.”

“Was it? If he had loved Desdemona more than he loved Iago, would there have been room for jealousy? If I had loved my duty more than that child, what space would be available for complicity?”

“That is living—we seek connection, and in doing so, our emotions compromise us. In that way, that is where the law and people inevitably will always differ. We must judge with rules that, if put in the same position, we might also have broken.”

“I’m rather grateful for how they’ve compromised you.”

Taken aback, Avery shifted in her seat. “How do you mean?”

“You’re making an effort. I appreciate that you see me as a friend. But even if we’d had the relationship we do now, I don’t think you would have come here to speak to me and hear my side even a few weeks ago,” Velouette observed. “You’ll have to thank Saga for me.”

“I don’t—”

“See it? No. I don’t imagine you do. Not yet.”

Chapter 43 Saga

Saga had never received a summons before. At twenty-seven, she had suspected she would have received a call for jury duty at least once—especially given that Peregrine had been called twice in one year, though had not served either time.

“I think they just wanted another look at me,” she’d said.

Despite not having experienced such a call, however, she knew such a summons did not arrive in a silver envelope with her name calligraphed in deep-blue ink. If, somehow, the London courts had added such frills, she was quite certain that envelope would be mailed and not simply appear on her coffee table.

Her attention had been drawn to it by Riddle, whose chittering trills had evolved from giving her a gut feeling to something closer to a clear internal monologue—except, despite that she could not yet hear his voice (that would come in time), she knew it was not her own. It came in short bursts of coherent sentences. This one had merely said:

Message for you.

The envelope was sealed with midnight-blue wax and a stamp dusted in silver that depicted the mountains beneath a night sky. And perhaps it was the sleep that had not fully brushed from her eyes, but she thought she might have seen the wax impression of those stars twinkle.

Upon opening it, she’d found a card more akin to an invitation to a fancy dress party than anything she’d ever expect to receive from any government branch.

Miss Saga Trygg,

Your presence is required by the Council of Winter in the Palace of Judication at six o’clock this evening. This appointment may not be rescheduled, and it would be in your best interest to endeavor not to miss it. A car will be waiting for you at the hour of five and thirty.

Regards,

Lord Gideon Blackthorn

“Note, Riddle, not kind regards, not warm regards, just regards.” She showed him the invitation to inspect himself. “I am…regarded. How characteristic and vaguely threatening of Lord Blackthorn.”

Riddle chittered a laugh.

Still…such cold language on what appeared to be one of the most beautiful invitations she’d ever received… What did it mean? Saga had not been certain what to make of the thing. When she’d gone upstairs to consult Avery, neither had she. The two had puzzled over it nearly half the day.

“I saved their lives like a week ago. This must be for something good then, right?” Saga asked.

“I have stopped trying to understand my brother and the inner logic of the council,” Avery admitted dryly. “For all I know, it’s a summons to formally charge you with getting blood on his office floor.”