Kingfisher(72)

“Sylvester himself sent the knights out questing for it. He is convinced it is real. But he isn’t certain, any longer, that it ever had anything to do with Severen.”

Perdita saw the look in her mother’s eye of a woman on the verge of kindling lightning with her hair. “And this has exactly what to do with Daimon?”

A dark flame wavering in the air near her made her whirl. A figure seemed to push its way into being, shaping and pulling itself free from the mist and vagueness clinging to it. Perdita, fascinated, expected Lord Skelton to emerge from the nebulousness. The thin, sharp angles suggested his spare figure, his pointed elbows. But the face coming clear was not his.

“Lady Seabrook,” the queen exclaimed.

“Morrig,” the king echoed, rising, and responding, in Perdita’s view, to the least significant aspect of her great-aunt’s appearance out of thin air. “In ordinary circumstances, I would come nowhere near this sanctum. I know your rules. But—”

“Don’t worry,” Morrig said sweetly. The gray eyes still carried the suggestion of shadow, like aged silver. “That’s why I came: to tell you not to worry.”

“About—” the queen said faintly.

“About Daimon, of course. Everything will go as planned. We will keep him safe.”

“We.”

“The three of us.”

“Three,” Perdita whispered. The word came alive in her head, busily making connection after connection through time, across poetry, familiar images turning unfamiliar faces toward her, linking themselves across the whole of Wyvernhold history and farther back, so far back that they became themselves, words so old they were new, and they meant only what they were: Moon. Raven. Death. Night. Life. Morrig’s eyes flicked at her, and Perdita saw in them every ancient word.

“Three,” the king echoed, sounding mystified.

“Daimon’s mother, his sweet friend Vivien Ravensley, and his great-auntie Morrig. I know you must be fretting. You have always been so kind to him.”

The king’s face flamed; the wyvern glowered back at her. “He is my son,” Arden said explosively. “What have you done to him? Are you setting him against me?”

“Of course we don’t want it to come to that. And I can’t—”

“Daimon’s mother is alive?” The queen’s voice hit a note so high that her voice cracked.

“Very much so, yes. And I can’t stay to explain. Just be patient.” Her head cocked suddenly, as at an undercurrent of sound. “I think I’ll take the stairs. The airways are congested.”

She went out the door without bothering to open it. The queen, white as spun sugar, glared incredulously at the wood, asked without sound, “Who is she? And who,” she demanded, her voice swooping up several notches again, “is Vivien?”

The king, his face still fiery, drew a breath as though to bellow himself. The air, taking on density in front of them again, checked his impulse. They watched breathlessly. This time the face sculpting itself out of airy streaks and disturbances wore two long mustaches and circular spectacles.

“Your Majesty,” he said without a mouth, then achieved himself and settled his glasses. “I heard you call.”

“Did you find Daimon?”

“I did. He is on the coast road, heading north, as are any number of questing knights.”

“How?” the queen demanded. “Did he call you and tell you that?”

“I found him in water, Queen Genevra,” Sylvester said. “It’s really the simplest way, especially since he left his cell phone in the royal garage’s garbage bin. At a projection of thought or memory onto the reflection of water, the surface will mirror the—”

“Where is he going? Will it mirror that?”

“Not yet, my lord. But as I watch his path unfold, I can see where he is, where he stops, and eventually, I hope, why.” He was silent, his eyes moving from face to fraught face. His hands rose, gripped his mustaches. “Now what?”

Later that day, as she sat in the soothing calm of the goddess’s antechamber, guarding its peace a bit belatedly, she felt, and trying to imagine the state of her half sibling’s mind, Perdita saw yet another vision emerge from the crosshatch of candlelight and shadow.

This one was no longer young but beautiful despite her years, like the queen. Gazing at her, surprised, Perdita felt her heartbeat suddenly. This apparition she recognized. This apparition had given Daimon her pale hair, her light eyes, the shape of her face. Perdita found herself on her feet, wondering if she were seeing a ghost, or a vision, or what she actually thought she might be seeing.

“Yes,” the woman said, reading her mind. “Daimon is my son.”

“Has he— Does he know—”

“Oh, yes. He and I have met.” Perdita saw another thing the woman had given Daimon: that friendly but closely guarded smile. “My name is Ana. Daimon and I have met many times through the years. So, a time or two, have you and I.”

Perdita glanced around her, wanting her father, Lord Skelton, even the queen to prove she was not dreaming. “No. I don’t remember.”

“You wouldn’t. I had to wear many faces, many disguises, to watch my son grow up. Morrig helped me on every occasion, with every changing face. It was the only way I could see him.”