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"Whether it's the wrong thing to do or not, I'm not going to invade the Summer Court in the foreseeable future." The Winter Court hadn't invaded another territory in approximately three thousand years. We weren't going to start today.
"You didn't say never," Vayne said.
"I know better than to say never," I told him.
"The voice of age and experience," Vayne said to Tavian.
Tavian grinned and nodded.
I rolled my eyes at them both. "You know, that got old long ago." I held up a finger before either of them could say that I did too. A hundred year age difference wasn't that significant.
"I prefer to think of it as the voice of wisdom," I said. "Not to mention the voice responsible for thousands of Fae lives. Lives I presume you don't want to see lost either?"
Thankfully, neither disagreed with that presumption. There was a fine line between being bloodthirsty and being an asshole. A fine, often blurry line.
"You can both begin to prepare a sneaking mission to the Summer Court. Just the three of us. We have a lot less chance of being detected if it's only us." I swished my whiskey around in the glass. For some reason, it tasted slightly bitter today. An after-effect of the conversation with Khala, no doubt. With a heavy dose of guilt and confusion over why her portal snapped shut the way it did.
Magic wasn't always predictable, but it stuck to certain rules. Portals snapping shut broke that rule. Even for her first time opening one, it should have stayed open.
"Khala will want to go," Tavian said.
"So will Zared," Vayne added.
"I'm well aware of both cases," I said. "But neither of them are ready for something like this." Khala still needed to rest after her transformation, and Zared had yet to prove himself as far as I was concerned. In spite of the days spent by Khala's bedside while she recovered, he was still an unknown quantity. And a human. His presence in the Summer Court wouldn't go unnoticed any more than it did here.
Besides which, if Khala was staying behind, doubtless he'd insist on doing the same. Convincing her not to go might be another matter. I'd order her if I had to.
"I've received word that four of the former Silent Maidens were safely delivered to the Temple in Havenmoor," I said slowly. "I'll open us a portal to the border between the Spring and Summer Courts. We'll see if we can locate the remaining two, then portal the hells out of there. If they haven't transformed, no one will need to know we were there."
"And if they have?" Vayne asked. "That might be considered provocative."
"It might, but that can't be helped. It's not an outright declaration of war." I suspected Cavan might not see it that way. If he did, we'd have time to be ready.
"I hate to say it, but wouldn't it be better if they met with a mysterious, but fatal accident?" Vayne asked. "Something that can't be attributed to us? Whatever Cavan thinks, none of the other courts will agree with him. They'll want to keep their noses out of it."
"That might be necessary, yes," I agreed. "If there's no other way." In order to keep my promise to Khala, I'd have to tell her we may need to kill her former sisters. She wasn't going to like it. Hells, I didn't like it. They were innocent women, caught up in something that was only their business because they carried Fae blood.
"If we can bring them here, and keep them out of sight until all of this is dealt with, that would be my preference. But if that's impossible, then you both have my permission to do whatever you have to." The words made my mouth taste sour. I had no trouble killing, or ordering the deaths of people who deserved it. But to kill innocent women to save many more innocent people…
I had to harden my resolve. It was the right call. I wasn't going to second guess myself. I couldn’t.
"And if we happen upon Cavan while we're there," Tavian said, looking cagey, "and a knife happens to slip between his ribs…"
"Try not to accidentally-on-purpose kill the High Lord of the Summer Court." I rubbed my forehead with my fingertips. "Unless you can administer some kind of poison that takes days, or even weeks to appear, and cannot possibly be traced back to us, then leave him alone. For now."
Tavian stroked his chin. "We have people in his court. They could poison his food. And anyone directly responsible for, as Vayne put it, fucking with the weather."
"That wouldn't go unnoticed," I said reluctantly. "Unless we have someone suspected of working for the Autumn Court."
I wasn't below pinning the blame on someone else and Harel was no friend of mine. If we went to war with the Summer Court, Autumn might well take their side. Harel was as ambitious as Cavan, but he thought he was a lot more subtle about it. If he could, he'd let Cavan go to war with us, then step in at the last minute to take all the credit.
Of course, he kept all of this behind a mask of civility and barely disguised sarcasm. That made him more suspicious than anything else. If you wanted my trust, you were proudly sarcastic, like me.
"I'll speak to the spymaster and see who she has in there," Tavian said. "Knowing Bravenna, she's anticipated this."
"More than likely," I agreed. The woman had been spymaster for the last two hundred years. I trusted her almost as much as I trusted Vayne and Tavian. If there was a secret we could discern, she'd find a way to discover it. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't know what happened to the Silent Maidens at all.
"Are you sure I can't go—" Tavian started again.
