Fiddling with the pocket that held her notebook, she led me upstairs to a tidy office, as pale as her hair. “Well?” She spun as soon as the door shut behind me.
“I have your box.” I watched her as I pulled it out.
Her eyes widened as I placed it on the desk. She slid a hand over the box’s varnished surface and breathed, “Ooh.”
Kat would’ve known what her every action meant. I could only watch and deduce that she looked relieved.
With a long exhale, she smiled.
Had I fallen into some trap? Had I delivered the very thing that would allow Dawn to destroy Dusk? The rules governing bargains meant I couldn’t snatch it away right now, but there was nothing to stop me waiting outside for her to leave.
Bending over, she opened the box.
A delicate chime rang through the room, beginning a soft melody, and as the lid opened fully, it revealed a bird emerging from a tiny trapdoor inside the box. The bird, a swallow, swooped from one side of the box to the other, its movements flowing with the music. Dimly, I recalled the words to the tune—they told about the simple pleasure and perfection of a summer swallow cutting the sky into shapes that she then threaded into garments for the gods. An old lullaby.
“A music box?”
Eyes closed, she raised a hand. The hand stayed there until the tune finished.
I could only stare at the swallow and its forked tail, my tired mind tripping over itself.
“A music box?”
“Yes. My music box. That’s why I didn’t want you breaking it open.” She held up the little key and smiled, then closed the lid and reopened it, starting the song again. “Do you like it?”
“Do I like it? You sent me into Horror territory for a fucking music box? I don’t believe it.” I pulled off its inner lid, but that only revealed the delicate clockwork of the mechanism and the soft scent of old, weak magic.
“You’re going to break it.” She snatched the box back and set it on the table, stroking the inner lid now it had slotted back into place.
Was she humming along with the tune?
Teeth gritted, I squeezed my hands into fists. I needed to pull myself together.
“I thought it was going to be a powerful artefact. Something of use for you or your court. A relic for your king. Something worth almost getting us killed.”
She huffed. “There’s more to life than power and courts and kings and queens. This was mine, given to me by my parents. When your fathers marched on Innesol, we fled. My mother wouldn’t let me take the box—I had to be practical, she said. We could only take what we could carry. So I hid it and told myself we would be back one day. That was before your father brought his monsters to my home.” Her normally calm face had turned hard, her eyes unblinking. “I know they slaughtered everyone there. It was lucky my parents chose to leave. But I still wanted this little reminder of the home I’d once had—the childhood friends who would listen to this song with me.”
I held still, every word a grain of salt in the open wound of my father’s memories and the destruction I’d seen for myself.
She hugged the box to herself. “I remember those who have been forgotten by all others. And I remember what your family did, Serpent. The queen might have forced me to heal your wounds the night of the coup, but I would never save your life by choice. That was why I left the scar—I followed her orders so you didn’t die, but I wanted you to remember.”
She didn’t shout or hiss—no, this was a quieter kind of fury that paled her lips.
“I pity you. The Serpent who can’t understand why I would want something for myself, why I might care for other people. After all, you killed your own father without batting an eyelid.” She scoffed, cold as winter. “How sad you are. A Serpent who doesn’t realise that not every fae is as obsessed with gathering power as he is.”
That was where people misunderstood me. It was never about power.
I didn’t set her right. Better that folk didn’t know my motivations, then they couldn’t use them against me.
Never—never reveal your heart.
I slept the rest of the day. Despite my exhaustion, it was a fitful sleep. Every time I woke, my hand went to the empty space beside me. One time, I woke saying her name. Another, I was reliving the moment when she’d referred to these as our rooms.
Part of me was glad we’d spoken. It had certainly created a better atmosphere, and it felt good to be able to speak to her as I had last night.
But it also made things worse.
So much worse.
Now the air between us was clearer, the temptation of her shone all the brighter.
Last night, in the hayloft, I could pretend a little longer. Just us. Just that moment. No messy past.
But pretending wasn’t real, and I had a job to do.
First order was asking Braea about the executions. She was meant to soften Lucius’s paranoid, knee-jerk reactions, not let him execute anyone. Certainly not innocents. After visiting Elthea, I’d checked there wasn’t anyone else in their dungeon. I would have no more executions.
Now, shoulders squared, I entered the small, informal dining room where the queen took breakfast.
The instant the door closed behind me, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t that the air was colder, as such, but the scent of snow filled the room, crisp and harsh.
The scent of my queen’s magic.
“Well, look who it is darkening my door.” She slammed her cutlery into the table. “The little snake who keeps secrets.”
I held my ground and kept my shadows close. Head cocking in question, I raised my eyebrows.
“Don’t play the fucking innocent with me, Bastian.” She stood, chair shrieking across the floor. “First, it’s not telling me about your little friend waking up, then it’s this.” Every movement clipped and sharp, she approached, black eyes burning into me. “I’m starting to question where your loyalties lie.”
My loyalties? I’d killed my own father for her. The man who’d fed and clothed me. The man who’d shown me how to fight, how to beat the bigger children when I’d been so small. The man who’d stood by me even when my unseelie blood had woken and I’d struggled to control my shadows.
I’d killed him.
For her.
And she questioned my loyalty?
Muscles tight, I swallowed the sting of her doubt. “They lie with you, as you well know, Braea.”
“Don’t you use my name now, boy. I may be fond of you, but even my indulgence has a limit.” Her finger thrust into my face, pointed nail half an inch from my chin. “I could understand you keeping quiet about your little indiscretion with the human girl, but this? This?”
I worked my tongue around my mouth and drew a deep breath, praying to any gods that were listening that I looked calmer than I felt. “Perhaps if you told me what this was, I could explain.” Somehow my voice came out level.