Once Broken Faith (October Daye #10)(8)
I swallowed my first response. Just to be safe, I also swallowed my second response, and followed her up the stairs. They terminated at a landing barely wider than one of the steps. She knocked.
“It’s open!” called Walther.
Arden took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and opened the door.
The tower room where Madden and Nolan slept couldn’t have been farther from the basement King Rhys had used to store the elf-shot victims in Silences. It was round, airy, and circular, with wide windows set in the walls between the beds, open to allow the night air to flow through. Walther had apparently been serious about his “no magic” rule; there were no witch-lights or charmed lanterns. Instead, he’d set up several halogen camping lights around the edges of the room, creating the odd impression that we’d just stepped onto a film set. That was the only reason to light the place so unforgivingly.
There were eight beds arrayed like the spokes of a wheel. Only two were occupied, one by a burly man with white hair streaked in carnal red, the other by a man whose blackberry-dark locks and olive skin betrayed him as Arden’s brother. Madden, who’d been asleep for less than two months, was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. This was still his time. Nolan had been asleep a lot longer. He was dressed like he was planning to roll out of bed and head for a Great Gatsby-themed party, down to his suspenders and polished shoes. He’d been elf-shot in the 1930s. His nap was nearly over. I still understood why Arden felt like she couldn’t wait any longer, especially now that Madden had joined him. She needed her support system. I couldn’t imagine going a hundred years without mine.
Walther was standing between the two beds, spinning a fine rosy liquid in a wine snifter like he was a sommelier and we were here to enjoy a pleasant dinner while surrounded by coma patients. He turned at the sound of the door opening, and looked relieved at the sight of me. That was a fun change. “Toby,” he said. “I was afraid you weren’t going to come.”
“Why, because this might technically be an act of treason against the High King, and hence a good way to wind up locked in gaol for the next, oh, twenty years?” I shrugged like it was no big thing as I strolled into the room and sat down on one of the empty beds. It wasn’t as soft as it had looked from a distance, more like a bier than a bower. I blinked. “Wow. Orthopedic?”
“It wouldn’t do to have your sleepers wake up in need of a chiropractor,” said Walther, with a tight smile. I smiled back, trying to look sympathetic and encouraging at the same time. He was in a tough spot. If he refused Arden—who was, after all, the Queen of the Kingdom he was currently living in—he could wind up banished. Not the end of the world, but he’d been working for a while to get tenure at UC Berkeley, and a change of address would mean starting all over again. If he didn’t refuse her, he could be pissing off the man in charge of the entire continent. No wonder he’d wanted me present. I was his security blanket.
Walther was originally from the Kingdom of Silences to the north, overlapping the human state of Oregon. His aunt and uncle were the rightful rulers of the place, and he’d been raised, along with his sister Marlis, under the expectation that he’d eventually become one of their court alchemists. Only there’d been a war, and his family had lost the throne for a hundred years. During that time, Walther had fled to avoid elf-shot or enslavement—the two fates that befell the rest of his family—and had eventually become a chemistry teacher. The work suited him. He would probably never have gone back to Silences if I hadn’t dragged him.
Good thing: going back to Silences had resulted in his family regaining their place. Better thing: we’d come away with a functional cure for elf-shot, the purebloods’ weapon of choice when it came to waging war. Little enchanted arrows that could put a person to sleep for a century. Problem: having a cure changed everything. We’d barely managed to get home before the edict had come from the High King, asking us to keep the cure secret while he decided what to do next. And now he was coming here, which was a whole new problem.
Arden cleared her throat. “The beds were designed by a Coblynau crafter who knew what would be best for our sleepers,” she said. “Now let’s wake those sleepers up.”
“Before High King Sollys gets here and says absolutely not, don’t do it,” I said.
She shot me a sharp look. I shook my head.
“I came when you asked me to. That means I’m going to be in just as much trouble as you are. More, it means I’m supporting you in this. If he asks, ‘Did Queen Windermere wake her brother after I told her not to?’ I’ll tell him the truth, but I’ll also tell him you had a good reason to do what you did. That doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend you had permission.” I turned to Walther. “You have a queen and a hero, which is another word for ‘scapegoat,’ telling you to go ahead and wake them up. So go ahead. Wake them up.”
“You’re also the only person I know who’s been elf-shot twice and can still give orders,” said Walther. He gave his rose-colored liquid one more swirl and turned to Arden. His posture shifted with his attention, becoming formal and serious. Arden hadn’t been kidding about the way people behaved when they were talking to royalty. “Who would you like me to wake first, Highness?”
“My seneschal,” she said, without hesitation. “Madden will want to know what happened, and Nolan is going to need a lot more catching up.”