Even nineteen years later, mention of my mother’s death sent a cold chil through my veins. The pang of loss never real y fades, but eventual y you just forget to feel it unless something happens to remind you. Tonight it washed through me with a sharper edge than it had in years. Would you have told me what you were, what I am, if you’d lived? I had no idea, and no way to ask. Her shade couldn’t be raised.
“But look at you, my dear,” Nandin continued, unaware of my dark thoughts. He circled me as if I were some unusual dol on display. In the dress the Winter Queen had made, I did feel like a dol , but I stil didn’t like the scrutiny, though I had to admit that at least some part of me was pleased that this long-lost uncle looked at me with approval. His warm smile was kind as he took my hand again. “I’d have never imagined that my grandniece’s daughter would have blooded true. And a planeweaver at that. I am truly thril ed you have returned to my court.”
you have returned to my court.”
I froze. Is that what all this is about? I looked into those kind eyes, which were so dark that the pupil was lost inside the black iris. They reflected nothing back at me. This isn’t about family. This is about adding a planeweaver to his court. I looked away.
“I haven’t—” I began, but Nandin cut me off.
“My dearest, you look ready to fal where you stand. Here I am, talking your ear off when what you real y need is some sleep. We can continue this conversation in the morning. I had a guest suite prepared for you.” He clapped his hands and two women stepped out of the shadows at our side.
Wel , not exactly women.
The two fae were definitely female—their bare breasts attested to that—but their noses and top lips merged and extended into hooked and deadly sharp beaks. Neither woman had arms, but large wings where their arms should have been, with scythelike claws at the middle joint. They also had large talons sprouting from their toes—of which they had three per foot—as wel as their heels, which at second glance might have actual y been a fourth toe. Each fae had a motley covering of feathers, one a black so deep it reminded me of the raven constructs and the other a spotted brown that reminded me of a hawk.
Harpies. They had to be. I’d never actual y seen a harpy before, but even if that wasn’t the name the fae used for them among themselves, it had to be one of the names humans had given them at some point in history. I considered myself fairly open-minded, but there was something about the conglomeration of human and bird features in the harpies that made them hard to look at.
“Fol ow us,” the hawk-feathered harpy said in a harsh, squawking voice.
I wanted to fal back a step and not fol ow them, but that was just fear, and I refused to be control ed by prejudice. In Faerie appearances meant even less than in the human world. The beautiful could be the most cruel and deadly, world. The beautiful could be the most cruel and deadly, while the hideous monster might be the one most likely to help and bless you. I glanced at Falin.
Tight lines of worry creased the edges of his eyes and dipped at the corners of his mouth. He leaned closer to whisper, “It would be rude to dismiss the king’s hospitality.”
And then I might have enemies in two Faerie rulers.
I frowned and touched Hol y’s amulet. As it had in the hal s of the winter court, the amulet told me that Hol y was in multiple directions at once. The spell really doesn’t like doors in Faerie. Of course, the doors in Faerie seemed terribly inconsistent, so it probably wasn’t the charm’s fault.
I sighed. Nandin wasn’t wrong: with the amount of magic I used in my little trick with the skimmers and the fight with the hydra, not to mention the adrenaline-fil ed escape from the winter court, and then the shock of learning I had family in Faerie— and that it was more than just my father who wasn’t what he appeared—I was ready to col apse. I hadn’t actual y expected that I’d waltz into Faerie, find Hol y and the accomplice, and saunter back out al in one night.
Though a girl can wish, right? I wasn’t up to having to fight my way out of the shadow court if I refused and Nandin took it badly.
“Okay, we’l fol ow you,” I final y said because there was no way in hel I was going to thank him for the room and open a debt between us.
The two harpies cocked their heads in a movement that was more birdlike than human. Then they glanced at Nandin as if seeking some answer to a question I hadn’t heard anyone ask. What did I say?
The king ran his pointed beard through his thumb and index finger. “I suppose a room can be arranged for the Winter Queen’s bloodied hands as wel .”
Falin stepped forward as if about to say something, and I grabbed his arm.
“He can stay with me.” Because I’d feel a hel of a lot safer if he was with me, even if he might betray me to his safer if he was with me, even if he might betray me to his queen at a word.
The king blinked in surprise and then his mouth twisted with distaste. “Your father surely does not approve of him.”