Kingfisher(50)

“Enough to draw the attention of the goddess,” Genevra said tightly. She stood silently a moment, arms folded, staring at the floor. “Who,” she said finally, drawing a solution out of a rumpled turquoise rug, “do we trust to follow him?”

“Me,” Perdita said promptly.

“No. I’m not sending another of my children into the wilds of Severluna. We have no idea where he goes. One of the knights, who can fight for him if need be.”

“They’re going off questing.”

“Well, somebody must be questing around Severluna. Is Daimon?”

“I don’t know. I’d guess, by the mood he’s in, he wouldn’t want to tear his heart away from what it wants. What about Sylvester Skelton? He finds lost things. He could watch Daimon in water.”

The queen mulled that over a moment, then shook her head. “The goddess has her eye on him; now so do we. Sylvester would tell the king; word would get out. I don’t want to intrude so far into Daimon’s life that I drive him away. Maybe he can work whatever this is out for himself. For now, I just want to know what it is. And I want him protected.”

A figure formed in the princess’s memory, clad in antique shining armor, wheeling a huge broadsword in the air at Daimon, pinning him down, then smiling genially at him afterward.

“Dame Scotia Malory.”

“Who?”

“I saw her fight, and I met her in Sylvester’s tower, reading a book. She’s very strong, competent, and she offered her services to the sanctum if we needed her.”

“Really? What made her do that?”

“Something I said. Something she heard that I didn’t say.”

“Indeed,” the queen murmured, her tense face regaining some of its calm. There was a faint tap at the door then, followed by a cat scratch; Perdita stood abruptly.

“That would be Aunt Morrig, wondering why I’m not at my post.”

“Go, then,” the queen said softly. “I’ll send for Dame Scotia.” She opened the door, smiling at the aged, inquisitive face behind it, peering into the chamber for the missing sanctum guardian.

Perdita took the customary station in the antechamber, seated upon a great stone among the smaller, candle-bearing river rocks taken from Calluna’s cave. There, she could watch both the tower and the inner stairwells for intruders, the stones for guttering candles, and keep an eye out for glitches in the movement of waters gliding soundlessly down the walls. She could, as well, meditate upon the ancient, powerful face of the goddess on the sanctum wall. She could also, if so inclined, pay attention to the comings and goings in and out of the changing chambers along the far wall near the stairs. She did not see her mother leave. She did see the tall, graceful young woman in knightly black who came up the inner stairs to knock on the queen’s door.

Perdita was waiting for her beyond a curve in the stairwell when Dame Scotia came down.

She put a finger to her lips; Scotia closed her mouth, bowed her head silently, and waited.

“I’m coming with you,” the princess whispered.

“The queen warned me you would say that,” Dame Scotia said softly.

“Then I’ll go alone.”

“Prince Daimon hardly knows me, Princess Perdita,” the knight answered, her brows crooked doubtfully. “If he sees you, he may take us in circles.”

“And you hardly know Daimon. How will you recognize what’s important to him? Calluna showed his face to me, in her waters.” The princess added, at the knight’s silence, “Maybe she knows I can help.”

“I may be dedicated to Severen by my status,” Scotia said finally, “but I’m not about to argue with the goddess. If Prince Daimon sees us, we can tell him we are questing together: both looking for the same thing for very different reasons.”

Perdita heard the sanctum door open and close softly above them. “Lady Seabrook,” she breathed. “She’s on the prowl this morning. I’ll see if Daimon is still in the palace. Meet me at the road nearest the sanctum tower in half an hour.”

Dame Scotia went down; the princess went up, rounding the curve just as Morrig appeared at the top.

“I’m here,” she said to the elderly, darkly clad figure staring confusedly down at her. “I thought I heard forbidden voices on the stairs.”

“That’s odd,” her great-aunt commented. “So did I.”

Instead of her well-known Greenwing, Perdita took one of the fast black sedans out of the garage that the knights donned like a second uniform when they drove. She picked up Dame Scotia and parked on the quiet, tree-lined side roads behind the palace. There they sat, arguing amicably about who should drive, and almost ignoring the sudden streak of black that curved around them, and away. Perdita started the engine hastily.

“He’s in uniform,” Dame Scotia commented. “I wonder if he’s questing.”

“He’s after something,” Perdita agreed. “And he’s liable to get stopped for speeding before he finds it. I wonder if he knows we’re behind him . . .”

He led them on a long, winding chase through the city, once they left the palace grounds, by way of the truck routes, alleyways, and side streets of Severluna, thoroughly snarling the pathways that Perdita thought she knew so well, and revealing, after she thought she had seen everything at least twice, portions of the city she did not know existed. Some had been frozen in time, streets still cobbled, buildings low, thick-walled, and unfashionably ornate; the cars and buses on them seemed to have wandered in from the future and were involved in a rambling, futile search for the way back. Perdita stubbornly tracked the helmeted figure on the electric bike ahead of her, no matter how frequently he made his turns or how abruptly he sped up and left behind only the memory of where they had seen him last.