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Tir took the step forward now, hand on Oliver’s shoulder. His eyes were warm, in the way that silver silk could be warm: soft, compassionate, beautiful. His hair had stayed flawless, long and smooth as ink against pale skin. “I imagine we’re skipping the official party. Strawberry wine and impromptu musical performances at the Queen’s Cups?”
“Absolutely yes,” Oliver agreed wholeheartedly. The tavern would be quieter, with most people here; he could relax, lean against Tir, do some sketches, talk his fairy into a musical performance if someone had a guitar. Tir liked to sing, a fairy-stereotype truth about which the family teased him mercilessly; but then they all performed, song and harp and lute, a musical royal horde, so that was just one more voice in the melodious din. Ollie generally avoided any solo performances, but did not mind joining in a family concert, or getting tipsy and singing an old Scarlet Hood ballad with his brother and Tir and several enthusiastic tavern-friends: shields, of a sort. “Just let me change shoes.”
“Already arranged. There’s a spare pair just inside the east door.”
Ollie grinned. “What would I do without you?”
“You’d be a human disaster,” Tir agreed, very seriously, eyes dancing. “You’d—”
“Oliver?” His mother’s voice snagged their attention immediately. “I do need to talk to you. In my study, please.”
“Of course.” He made an apologetic face at his fairy, who shrugged. “About what?”
Tir said, “I can wait outside, if it’s private.”
“Oh, no, Tirian, darling, this involves you.” Ellie beamed up at him: shorter, rounder, and wiser than both of them, every inch a Queen: from the practical beaten-gold crown to the dust on her boots from walking through a turnip field to see about leaf-rot for herself. She’d begun her rule with her beloved King-Consort at her side; King Henry had died young and unexpectedly, a victim of the brutal summer fever when Ollie’d been sixteen, and Tir fourteen, the same year he’d healed Cedric’s arm.
Ollie hated those memories for multiple reasons. Not least because he knew what he’d said to Tir, then. He knew what he’d asked.
“Come along, both of you.” Ellie patted Tir’s arm. “I won’t keep you long. I know you’re wanting to celebrate. Being young and carefree. Which is more or less my point.”
“What—”
“Come along, Oliver.”
They went. Up graceful stairs, down a tapestried hallway, into Queen Eleuthenia’s tidy buttonhole of a study. She could’ve had a bigger space; she always said that the tiny tower room kept her organized. Ollie, capable of setting down a sketchbook and not finding it two minutes later, considered this ruthless maternal tidiness to be mildly terrifying.
His mother sat down. Put her fingers together. Gazed at them both. “You might want to take a seat.” Below, not being scolded in a tower, tipsy tatterdemalion mingling continued on the Great Lawn: a counterpoint.
Oliver took a seat, as ordered. Tir perched on the arm of Ollie’s chosen chair, long legs swinging, an elegant lynx atop violet brocade. Ellie glanced at him. Tir looked right back, without moving.
Oliver was pretty sure some sort of message was happening. He did not know what.
His mother said, “You’re nearly thirty, Oliver.”
“Um. Twenty-nine?”
“As I said. And you’re excellent at performing your duties, such as they are; you’re a good Heir, the people like you, you’ve never missed a Council meeting or an audience.” Ellie sighed. “You understand your duty. At least in theory.”
“Um…”
“He does,” Tir said, a bit more sharply than Oliver expected; he glanced up in astonishment. Tir added, “He’ll be a good king.”
Oliver, still surprised, said, “Thanks?”
“That isn’t in doubt.” His mother tapped fingers over her desk, across golden wood and smooth polish. “Thank you, Tir. Oliver…you are twenty-nine. And you know which of your responsibilities you haven’t performed yet.”
“No,” Oliver said, because he did.
“It’s time.” Ellie’s smile was warm, encouraging, bracing. Beyond the open window, the sounds and scents of the festival drifted up: roasted meat, cinnamon and spice, laughter and wild ale. “You can’t put it off forever.”
“But,” Ollie tried. “I don’t want to.” He didn’t. He didn’t want to think about that particular responsibility. He’d successfully not been thinking about that for twenty-nine years. He did like his life. He liked it the way it was.
“It’s tradition—”
“Does it have to be?”
“Every Heir, for the last thousand years, has undertaken the traditional Quest, seeking out the Seeing Pool in the Northern—”
