Page 57
“And I agree—but once he gave up listening and issued me an official order?” Gerard squeezed her hands tightly, but his tone was unrelenting. “I would have loathed it with every ounce of my being, but I would have followed his commands. I would have thought I had no choice.”
“And now?” Lorelei whispered.
“Now I know how it truly feels not to have any choice in following a ruler’s orders.” As the memory of their last moments in Efaelen passed between them, Lorelei shifted even closer, her throat clenching at the shadows of pain in his face. “Even under a fae true-name command,” Gerard continued evenly, “I could never have forgiven myself for what I did if you hadn’t saved me from it. To go against my conscience once again, this time in the mortal realm, without any actual constraint but my own fears?” He shook his head slowly, keeping his haunted gaze fixed on hers. “That wouldn’t be patriotism or duty. It would only be weakness, after all.”
“You are the strongest man I know,” she murmured.
“And you have the most remarkable mind for strategy,” he told her firmly. “Yes, this move had unexpected consequences—but that’s the way of war. You can never predict every outcome. You only have to be ready to shift with the results … and although this particular outcome does carry some urgency, you are still on the winning side overall.”
“She is?” Saskia’s skeptical voice came from behind his back.
Gerard didn’t turn away from Lorelei as he nodded. “After this small hiccup is resolved, the Queens of Villainy will still have the high general of the Serafin Empire firmly on their side. Isn’t that worth a bit of anxiety along the way?”
Despite everything, Lorelei let out a gurgle of laughter. “Darling, just because you never show any anxiety doesn’t mean it’s unimportant!”
“… Says the woman who’s delighted in tormenting me for seven years,” he murmured under his breath, too quietly for the others to hear.
Beaming, she leapt up on her toes, and he met her halfway in a kiss full of sweetness, passion, shared laughter, and a promise that rang like fae bells through her whole body.
Ilse’s sentimental sigh sounded as they finally drew apart, drawing another giggle from Lorelei … and giving her the strength to step around Gerard’s big figure to face her friends and allies, still holding one of his hands in hers.
Katrin was smirking silently in the corner where she now leaned, no longer stiffly alert against the wall. Even Saskia had sprawled down across a luxuriously cushioned seat with an indulgent smile that reminded Lorelei that the Queen of Kitvaria was enjoying a wild romance of her own and understood the need for such displays.
Only Ailana remained standing in the middle of the room, her slim figure tense with concern and her cool brown eyes shifting worriedly between Lorelei and Gerard …
So Lorelei aimed her next words at the Queen of Nornne. “Fine. Gerard and I will portal to Fiora now.” Every instinct rebelled against the idea of letting him step into danger, but he was her true partner, as the Tournament of Leaves had just proven to all of Efaelen. They always worked best in tandem, and this cause was too urgent to avoid the risk. “I’ll cast an illusion over myself for invisibility, and—”
“No!” Both Gerard and Ailana spoke at once. As their voices clashed, Gerard hesitated for an instant—and Ailana seized the opportunity to continue, her voice urgent. “Lorelei, there cannot be any implication of coercion if General de Moireul is to succeed. If you’re discovered hidden by his side, everyone will immediately assume he’s being forced into his stance.”
“Then I simply won’t let myself be discovered,” Lorelei snapped. “If you had any true understanding of the strength of my illusions—”
“I do understand and respect them,” Gerard said, “and I am certain that no one in that palace could break them against your will—but, my darling, there are magical guards, fail-safes, and alarms laid throughout the council meeting area specifically to protect against eavesdroppers or observers. Those alarms might not be able to break any illusion that you cast—but they would absolutely alert the Emperor and his Gilded Wizards that fae magic was present and hiding from them. They would draw their own conclusions.”
“General de Moireul is correct,” Ailana said quietly. “No magic-worker of any sort can get through to that private council chamber without setting off its warnings. Believe me.”
If even the continent’s most powerful and discreet spymistress couldn’t manage that … then, curse it, it probably was impossible after all. Argh! Lorelei wanted to turn and pace the room for inspiration, but she didn’t dare release Gerard’s hand in case he took that chance to stride merrily away to martyr himself.
“He cannot go alone,” she said to her fellow queens as calmly and reasonably as she could. “Saskia, would you let Felix walk into any of the Emperor’s palaces on his own, without you or any magical guard to protect him?”
At that mention of her own consort, the Queen of Kitvaria’s dark brows drew together in sudden shared concern, but Gerard only tugged Lorelei closer to shake his head down at her. “You do realize that I’ve spent a good deal of my life in that palace for the last several years and have never been harmed in any way?”
“That was when you were Otto’s loyal man,” she pointed out tartly, “and even loyalty didn’t save the last high priest!”
Sighing, he lifted his free hand to stroke his fingertips lightly down her face in a caress that made her suppress a shiver, his lips curving into a rueful, tender smile. “You are the only person in the world who has ever thought I needed protection.”
“Pah.” She would not be soothed into allowing this, no matter how his touch made her body want to melt against him. “A whole continent adores you.”
“No,” he said, “they adore the Golden Beacon. That’s an entirely different thing.”
“And yet … he is adored,” Ailana said softly. When Lorelei glanced at her ally, she found Ailana’s eyes narrowed in deep thought. “General, you’ve worked hard to build a reputation that stretches far beyond the Empire itself … and you’ve been careful never to misuse it yet.”
Gerard frowned. “… Yes?”
“So, I think,” Ailana said slowly, “that you should be ready to use that as your guard tonight. Ensure that everyone in that council chamber is aware of exactly what will happen if you speak out against them to the newspapers that love you so much—and remind them that no one will believe the kind of claims made about the last high priest if Otto tries that course again with you.”
“Well, then, they’ll want him dead to keep him quiet!” Lorelei snapped. “How is that an improvement?”
“My darling,” Gerard said with maddening overconfidence, “even Otto won’t order me assassinated in the council chamber. He may have traveled further down that path than I’d cared to admit until now, but the Empire hasn’t yet. The other council members won’t stand for any bloodshed directly in front of them.”
