I didn’t really want to waste the time leaving and coming back to the cells, but I needed Bryna to at least inhale a portion of the steam from the food or, better yet, eat a bite. Then it would take a few minutes for the spellblade blood magic to take effect. My shadowsteel broadsword contained some of my own blood, which tied us together and made certain unique magic possible. The magic I was casting on Bryna was a clever one. If she tried to resist or defy me, she’d feel the cold edge of Mort’s blade pressing against her throat. The feeling was real and the threat of harm was real, but no one would see what was happening because the sword didn’t have to be touching her.
Normally, most Fae had permanent protection charms against such magic, but in jail no one was allowed to keep their charms. My own anti-potion charm was a small chain I always wore around my ankle. If Bryna had been allowed to keep her charms, Mort’s shadowsteel magic wouldn’t have worked on her. It was shadow magic, outlawed in many kingdoms. I was willing to risk trouble to use it, though, because I had the leverage of Bryna’s attack on me in the netherwhere, which was a worse offense.
I figured I’d use the few minutes I had to kill to go back and check on Nicole. But when I got near the door to my apartment, I saw that someone had beat me to it. Maxen was just raising a hand to knock. Curiosity spiked through me. Had Marisol sent her son to welcome Nicole to the Stone Order, or was he visiting of his own choice? I stopped where I was, watching as he waited. The door swung inward, and he spoke briefly before stepping inside.
“Lady Mag—I mean, Petra,” someone called behind me.
I turned to find Emmaline hurrying toward me, slightly out of breath.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said.
I found I was genuinely pleased to see her. “Glad you made it back from the Duergar realm in one piece.”
“Suffice to say, we won’t be invited back any time soon,” she said wryly. Then she turned all-business, holding her tablet a little tighter under her arm. “I’ve been assigned to accompany you when you take the Duergar woman out of the fortress.”
“Wait, what? How do you even know about that?”
She held up her tablet. “It’s in the system. And a prisoner may not be removed from the jail of any Faerie kingdom or Order solely in the company of his or her accuser. A sworn representative of the High Court must go, too, as a witness. I was sworn in just last month.”
I pulled one had down my cheek. “Oh, for the love of . . .” I let out a noisy, long sigh. “Okay, if that’s how it has to be.”
Seeing her not-quite-hidden look of disappointment, I held up a palm.
“I didn’t mean you,” I said. “If someone has to come with me, you’re my top choice. It’s just the bureaucracy of it all. I’m used to more independence. Life working for the Guild is a hell of a lot more straightforward.”
That seemed to please her.
I cast another long look at the closed door to my quarters. Maxen was still in there.
“Okay, I guess we should head back to get Bryna,” I said, oddly reluctant to leave without finding out what Maxen was saying to Nicole.
“So, uh, any idea of the changeling’s agenda?” I asked Emmaline. “You know about her, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, a fortress bulletin went out early this morning. Her agenda wasn’t published.” She peered at me for a second. “But I heard she was staying in your quarters. Wasn’t that Lord Lothlorien going in there a minute ago?”
“Um, might have been.” I cleared my throat.
“What was it like? Busting a changeling out of the Duergar palace?”
I cocked a grin at her, relishing the memory of the adrenaline coursing through me as Nicole and I made our escape.
“Damn fun, actually. And your info was spot on. She was being held in the bunkhouse by the stables. If not for you, I doubt I would have found her.”
Emmaline returned my grin, her lavender eyes sparkling. The memory of Jasper’s face just before I’d dropped into the secret passage in the tree surfaced in my mind. If not for Emmaline, I wouldn’t have found Nicole. But if not for Jasper, I might not have made it out with her.
“What happened during the rest of the trip, anyway?” I asked. “You gotta tell me about dinner. Please, torture me with the details of what I missed.”
“After you were . . . dismissed,” she said carefully. “Things mostly returned to normal in the reception hall.”
She recounted Lochlyn’s singing during the pre-dinner festivities and then described every course of the meal, right up to the after-dinner aperitif selection. My stomach felt hollow all of sudden. I made a note to go all out for lunch. I planned to have Van Zant in Guild custody by then, so it would be a celebration meal.
“It wasn’t until the dancing started that King Periclase got pissed and called things off,” she said. “There had been people coming in to whisper in his ear like every ten minutes for a couple of hours up until then. He stopped the music and sent everyone to their quarters, and we spent the rest of the night on lockdown. We left at dawn.”
“I’m surprised he stayed so cool for that long,” I said. “He had to have suspected it was one of us who busted Nicole out, and at some point, I’m sure someone identified me.”
“Yeah, he knows it was you,” she said.
My brows lifted.
“Rumors circulate fast in the Unseelie courts, and I was seated at the back with the Duergar court underlings. They’re the worst of the bunch when it comes to gossip.” She slid a look at me. “Apparently King Periclase was extremely puzzled by how you managed to disappear. And very put out that you’d found a way to sneak back in in the first place.”
I chuckled under my breath. Thank you, Maxen.
“Not going to spill your secrets?” she asked. “Or a hint about who might have helped you?”
“What?” I put on a look of mock outrage. “You think I needed help? That I couldn’t have accomplished such badass feats on my own?”
She gave me a wry smile and a little shrug.
“Ah. Now I see how it is.” I pulled a mock-sullen look, and she snorted.
My mood sobered as we arrived at the fortress jail.
Patrick was gone, replaced by a woman whose name was Nanette, according to the plaque on the desk. She had a grandmotherly appearance—soft rounded shoulders, her gray hair pulled back into a low ponytail, and readers perched on the middle of her nose. She had the crazy-long lashes of a Sylph, but otherwise looked like she had three-quarters New Garg blood, if I had to guess. I gave her a little salute.
“I’m here with my official representative of the High Court, who will accompany me with the prisoner and ensure I don’t talk mean to tape kick-me signs on the back of the woman who tried to murder me in the void,” I said.
Nanette raised one brow at me, apparently not amused, and peered at Emmaline over her glasses. “Your credentials, honey?”
Emmaline poked and swiped at her tablet and then turned it around so Nanette could see.
“All right, then,” the jail attendant said. She moved her glasses farther up her nose, picked up a tablet, and started reading from it in a monotone.
“The prisoner Bryna no last name given is hereby released into the custody of her accuser and an official representative of the High Court for the purpose of fulfilling the oath-bound agreement between the accuser and the accused. The prisoner Bryna no last name given will be released bodily and all charges dropped upon the fulfillment of said agreement, the terms of which are known only to the accused and the accuser. Do you, the accuser, understand?”
She looked up at me. I nodded.