Once Broken Faith (October Daye #10)(54)
“No, he can’t, or at least he won’t,” I admitted. “You’re sure you want to loan me Grianne?”
“I would rather loan you Etienne. Unfortunately, the doors are locked, and he’s not inside.” Sylvester shrugged. “We work with what we have.”
“You taught me that.” I took a step back, looking around the room Arden had assigned to me and Quentin as I tried to buy a little time.
It was less fancy than the guest quarters in Silences, thank Maeve, with redwood flooring and walls papered in an art deco blackberry pattern. The sliding door to our balcony was stained glass, worked in a riot of blackberry blossoms and bright California poppies in shades ranging from honey to wildfire. Blackout curtains hung to either side, ready to be drawn when we needed to block the morning sun. As in Silences, Quentin had a smaller secondary chamber, barely big enough for a single narrow bed. That was standard housing for knights with squires. We’d earned bigger beds and actual wardrobes for our clothing. They were still proving themselves, at least supposedly. As far as I was concerned, Quentin had proven himself several dozen times over—but until he had his knighthood, this was how it was going to be.
“I like Grianne,” I said finally, turning back to Sylvester. “She’s always been good to me, and she doesn’t talk much. But right now, I can’t accept personal staff from a noble who hasn’t been cleared of the murder of King Antonio Robinson. Not without opening a lot of doors that I’d like to keep closed for as long as possible.”
Sylvester looked stunned. “But I’m your liege.”
“Yeah, and that makes it all the more important that I don’t appear to be favoring you, since I’ve been ordered to investigate by the High King, and he’s going to be watching for signs that I can’t handle this,” I said. “If I question everyone but you while I’m running around with Grianne as my backup, and I don’t find the murderer, what does that look like? Because to me, it looks like I knowingly harbored a killer while I was pointing the finger at everyone else to keep them from noticing that no one was asking you anything.”
Sylvester’s expression deepened, going from simple surprise to something bleak and bone-deep. It was like he’d realized, in that instant, how broken things were between us.
Faerie has always been a feudal society. Kings and Queens, Dukes and Duchesses, all the way down to the loyal courtiers and Knights, who do as they’re told and protect the honor of the households that they serve. As long as Sylvester was my liege, he was supposed to have my absolute loyalty, unquestioning and unchanging, no matter what he did to me. I was supposed to be, quite literally, his dog, incapable of biting the hand that fed me. And maybe once I had been. Once, I’d been so happy to serve him that it had been physically painful. But times had changed, and no matter how much either of us wished it, they weren’t going to change back.
“You must question me, then,” he said finally. “I won’t ask if you believe I could do this, because I don’t want to hear your answer, but you must question me, and I will answer you honestly. I’d offer you my blood, if I thought that would help you to judge the honesty of my words.” He paused then, looking at me expectantly.
I shook my head. “No. No blood, not yet. High King Sollys can’t order every monarch in the Westlands to bleed for me, and that means I can’t use blood evidence as the thing that proves my case. I already know you didn’t do it.” I was almost relieved that Aethlin had given me such an easy out. If I rode Sylvester’s blood, if I saw things from his side, it would be almost impossible for me to keep being angry at him the way part of me still wanted to be—the way I needed to be, unless I was ready to forgive. And I wasn’t. Not yet. Maybe that was small and petty and mortal of me, or maybe it was the most fae thing I’d ever done. For a society of immortals, they sure did enjoy holding a grudge.
Sylvester nodded, looking disappointed but not surprised. “Then how will you determine my innocence?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking I’d, you know, ask you some questions and see how you answered them. Like who were you sitting with after I left the dining hall?”
“Luna, Li Qin, Elliot, Grianne, and a Baroness from Helen’s Hand.” I must have looked blank, because he added, “Small, independent Barony from the territory between Silences and Evergreen. They have no neighbors for miles. Pleasant woman. Hamadryad. You don’t meet many of them with titles to their names. So to speak.”
Hamadryads were similar to Dryads, as the names implied, but they weren’t bound to their trees in the same way. They also had a tendency to use whistles, sighs, and hand gestures as names, which worked well for them, and meant the rest of us referred to them as “hey, you.” I nodded. “I’ll confirm that with them. Why did the Baroness come down? Hamadryads tend to take multi-decade naps without elf-shot.”
“True, but they can’t bond with their home trees while sleeping, and elf-shot rarely waits for them to gown themselves in green,” said Sylvester. “They’d prefer to sleep when they choose, and not be enchanted into it.”
“Fair,” I said. “What did you talk about at dinner?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Humor me.”
“Ah.” He sighed. “Li Qin’s adjustment to being Duchess, however temporarily, of Dreamer’s Glass. April’s progress as Countess of Tamed Lightning. The two have been discussing bringing Tamed Lightning back into Dreamer’s Glass, once Li Qin’s appointment becomes permanent. April cannot produce heirs, and having a second layer of protection would do them some good. Elliot and the Hamadryad discussed the best techniques for cleaning untreated wood floors without damaging them. Luna said little, and complained about the food.”