Once Broken Faith (October Daye #10)(28)
She waited for Siwan to rise and join her before the pair turned and walked off the stage, followed by the High King and High Queen. I stayed where I was. If I could avoid being trampled by royalty, that would be swell.
I wasn’t the only one: basically everyone in my row was holding still, as if that would somehow keep them from being noticed by the outgoing kings and queens. Having the Luidaeg with us probably helped a lot, since no one wanted to poke the Firstborn if they could help it.
Sylvester cast a look in our direction as he walked up the aisle, like he wanted to come over and speak to me, but didn’t quite have the nerve. I turned my face to the side, not waving him over, and eventually, he just left.
Tybalt didn’t look at us at all.
Politics were politics, and I could worry about them later. For now, I had bigger things to focus on. Twisting in my seat, I leaned forward until I could see Karen. “Honey, are you okay?”
Her face crumpled, like she’d been holding herself together by the thinnest of lines. “Auntie Birdie!” she wailed, flinging herself across Quentin to get to me. She wound up mostly in my lap, arms around my neck, legs slung over his lap. Quentin looked nonplussed but didn’t say anything. He knew she wasn’t trying to invade his personal space, no matter how much she was succeeding.
“Oh, honey.” I put my arms around her and held her as tightly as I could, feeling the warm wetness of her tears against my neck. She was crying too hard to talk. I stroked her back with one hand, turning to look at the Luidaeg.
“Karen appeared on my doorstep at sundown,” she said. “I was already planning to come to this shit-storm circus, so she’s lucky she didn’t miss me. Said my scumbag sister had appeared in her dreams and threatened her family if she didn’t come and represent her interests.”
There was a lot of “she” and “her” in that sentence, but I followed it well enough, especially because I knew where the Luidaeg’s restrictions were. She couldn’t say Eira’s name, or any of her aliases. For her, Evening Winterrose was a pronoun and a problem, a looming disaster that had already killed her once and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
I also knew that whatever Evening had said to threaten Karen, she could follow through on those threats. We’d learned that Karen was an oneiromancer after she was taken captive by Blind Michael, who had been a Firstborn son of Oberon and Maeve, and hence the Luidaeg’s younger brother. He’d stolen Karen while she was sleeping, leaving her body behind while he prisoned her dreaming form in a glass ball. If one of the Firstborn could hurt her that way, I had no doubt that another Firstborn—especially one as powerful as Evening—could do the same.
“You know, I was worried when we started working on this cure,” I said bitterly. “I thought ‘well, hell, we just got Evening out of the way for a hundred years, and now we have to worry about somebody waking her up like the villain from a bad slasher movie.’ Only now even elf-shot can’t keep her from hurting my family. Why didn’t we kill her, again?”
“Because if you were in violation of Oberon’s Law, you’d be imprisoned or executed, and either way, you wouldn’t be able to finish my training,” said Quentin. His voice shook. He was as unhappy as I was about this; he just didn’t know what to do about it. It didn’t help that Evening was his Firstborn. Everything he was told him he should obey and honor her, not side against her. Carefully, he reached over and patted Karen’s shoulder. “Hey. It’ll be okay. Toby’s not going to let her hurt you.”
Sometimes I was so proud of that kid that it hurt. I stroked Karen’s hair with one hand, and asked, “Anybody got any bright ideas about how to keep Evening from using Karen as her catspaw forever once she gets woken up?”
“What?” Karen pulled back, letting me see her tear-streaked face. Her eyes were wide, glossy, and filled with tears. “What do you mean?”
I frowned at her, confused. “I meant that after the cure is approved, and Evening is woken up, what’s going to make her leave you alone?”
“She didn’t send me here because she wants the cure to be used, Auntie Birdie,” said Karen. “She sent me here because she wants it to be buried.”
I stared at her. So did Quentin. The Luidaeg, who had presumably heard this before, sighed and pushed herself to her feet.
“Okay, kids,” she said. “Let’s go eat.”
Karen climbed out of my lap. Walther, Quentin, and I stood, and together, the five of us walked toward the door. When we were halfway there, Karen took my hand. I didn’t pull away.
SEVEN
MOST OF THE LOCAL NOBLES had loaned Arden members of their household for the duration of the conclave, making up for the shortcomings in staffing at the kingdom level. Arden was still getting established, and had a lot of hiring to do before she’d be operating at full capacity. Besides, this guaranteed those nobles a steady source of gossip, even if they weren’t attending the conclave themselves.
It also meant that when we stepped into the ballroom, Karen and I were no longer the only changelings in the place. The fact that we were the only changelings not holding serving trays wasn’t exactly reassuring, but that’s life in Faerie. Sometimes the reminders that we’ll always be a feudal society are impossible to ignore.
Tables were set up around the room. There were no assigned seats, but people tended to stick to what they knew. One table was on a raised dais, reserved for the leaders of the conclave. It held Arden, the High King and High Queen, Queen Siwan of Silences . . . and Tybalt. I stopped dead when I saw him sitting there, talking with High King Sollys, an expression of deep solemnity on his face.