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Of course, the area we’re in isn’t exactly where I used to hang out. I hadn’t exactly been working with 18th-century-palace money.
“Is it this deserted down here all the time?” I ask as we turn down a practically empty street.
Nathan looks up from his phone, which has been pinging like crazy ever since we landed. “Hmm?”
“The area… seems kinda… dead.” Which is fitting because the buildings we pass look like mausoleums.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been to the royal residence. I know it’s fairly close to the human royal residence, though,” he says. “Where did you stay, while you were here?”
“Not anywhere you’d be familiar with.” I leave it at that, because we pull up to the curb of a not super impressive-looking house. In fact, it’s a bit dingy, compared to the other facades on the street, but it’s nearly four times as wide as the townhouses around it.
So, big and crumbly? I guess it stands to reason that the Greater London pack has much older properties, but I didn’t realize before just how lucky we are to have Aconitum Hall.
I just hope it’s not damp and gross-smelling inside.
Unlike the townhouses around us, there are no steps up to the door. It’s flush with the sidewalk. A thrall answers when Nathan rings the bell, and we step into an unimpressive foyer with broken tile and wavy glass in the dull wooden door. On, through a dim hallway, we reach another door and through that…
“Holy shit,” I breathe as we step into a cavernous hall. The ceiling is a riot of frescoes divided up into squares and circles, the windows are so tall I almost get dizzy. The floor is here is decidedly not cracked; it’s a twisting pattern of ribbons in pink and black marble that convene in a medallion in the center of the floor, near the base of an arching staircase.
Nathan leans down to whisper in my ear, just as awed as I am, “Welcome home, us.”
Some of the tall windows are actually double doors that open onto a terrace. I head over to look out, only to be startled by the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Your Majesties!” A slender woman with pale skin and gray-striped, black hair in a large, poofy twist hurries down the stairs. She looks old and she’s a werewolf, so that means she’s really, really old. When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she curtsies. “My apologies. I meant to have everything ready to welcome you when you arrived.”
“That’s okay.” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “Is that a yard out there? In London?”
“It’s your private terraced garden, Your Majesty. Beyond the fence, it’s St. James’s park.”
“Oh.” I make an impressed face and pretend I know what that means.
“And you are?” Nathan asks her.
She smiles. “Harriet Gauthier. I’m the housekeeper here at Wyrding House.”
“Wyrding? Like magic?” That’s not exactly subtle.
She nods. “This house was built by a wealthy thrall in seventeen sixty-six. It’s one of the finest examples of architecture from that period.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Nathan says, surveying the ceiling. “But what about security?”
“They’re on the grounds and throughout the house,” Harriet replies. “Your uncle preferred discretion when it comes to the staff.”
“My uncle and I differ on that point,” Nathan states firmly. “I’d like to meet with the head of security first thing in the morning, after breakfast.”
Nathan’s uncle lived here? But Nathan has never been here?
“And what time would you like breakfast to be served?” Harriet asks, and it strikes me that she’s probably not been to bed yet and will be up early.
“It can be a late breakfast,” I answer before Nathan can. “Eleven, maybe?” When Nathan opens his mouth to argue, I play the pregnancy card. “I’m so tired. I’d just like to be able to sleep in. And it could do you some good.”
He exhales loudly through his nose. “Fine. We’ll sleep in. We’ve come all this way on urgent business, but we’ll sleep in.”
“Perhaps you’d like to go to your rooms?” Harriet suggests, gesturing to the stairs.
“Room,” Nathan corrects her. “Until we have proper security, the queen isn’t leaving my sight.”
“Yes, we heard about the horrible incident.” Harriet clucks her tongue and folds her hands over the stomach of her frumpy purple dress. The collar goes all the way up to her chin; she’s definitely a relic of another time. “Well. What a blessing, that you weren’t seriously harmed.”
My whole hand came off but sure, I guess I wasn’t seriously harmed. As Harriet leads us upstairs and to the king’s “apartments,” as she refers to them, the housekeeper gives us a brief rundown on the history of the place. I don’t recognize any of the names she rattles off, but if Nathan is king, then certainly they must have been related to him, somehow. And I definitely don’t know much about the various aesthetic periods of English history, so the differences between “Georgian” and “neo-classical” fly right over my head.
