There wasn’t time for arguing after that. The heavy castle gates swung open—surprisingly smoothly, given the level of tech visible around us. The supply wagons that had made it through before we’d ruined Riordan’s plan must have included some hinges, and maybe the equipment necessary to make more. And there, standing right at the middle of the entryway, like a queen preparing to receive her due tribute, was Duchess Treasa Riordan.
Agrarian living agreed with her. Like most Daoine Sidhe, she was gorgeous, tall and flawlessly curved, with red hair so dark that it verged on black. Every time she moved, it shattered the light into prismatic shards around her, creating a glitter in the air that had nothing to do with illusions. It was pulled back to reveal the sharp points of her ears and the long, swanlike sweep of her throat.
The first time we’d met, she’d been wearing a ruby choker that she had been using to control Chelsea’s movements. It had gotten smashed in the fight to get away from her, and she had replaced it with a net of black-and-purple pearls that was something like a necklace, something like a shawl, and something like a spider’s web. It covered her shoulders and traced the line of her collarbone before plunging toward her navel, where the amethyst-and-pearl pendant at its end dangled, drawing attention to her flat belly and strong thighs. Her dress was skintight and moved like water around her, colored like an oil slick, shifting constantly between black and purple and rainbow iridescence.
“I’m guessing you don’t do much of your own farming,” I blurted.
Simon didn’t quite cover his face with his hand, but he flinched, and that motion carried the same connotations. I was embarrassing him. More importantly, I was deviating from the script.
Riordan smiled, slow and thin as a razorblade. “October,” she purred. “I never thought I was going to see you again, after you ran off and left me here, you naughty little thing. And I see you’ve brought your squire. My, my.” She looked Quentin up and down, as if she were studying a particularly choice cut of meat. “He’s growing up nicely, isn’t he? I don’t suppose he’s meant to be my housewarming present.”
Quentin took a step back, putting himself behind me. Smart kid. I would have done the same, if I’d had the option.
“You’re looking well, Treasa,” said Simon, clearly trying to get the situation back under control. The poor man. “Annwn agrees with you.”
“Doesn’t it just?” Her smile for him was more sincere, if no less poisonous. “I’m a queen here, with none to challenge me or mine. I do wish your little companion there hadn’t taken it upon herself to break my supply chain—I was intending to have a much larger staff—but I suppose I can’t complain. I finally have the position I deserve. But you, Simon. What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were persona non grata among your family and their pets.” She glanced my way, making it clear what she meant by that last crack.
“I am,” he said mildly. “My brother has used a blood geas to compel me to assist Sir Daye in her quest for something that her mother misplaced. I am required to serve her until the item has been found.” He added a sneer to his voice, making it sound like this was the last thing he could possibly want to do with his time.
Part of me was impressed. The greater part of me wondered whether this was the lie, or whether everything else had been. He could have been playing with me this whole time, telling me whatever he thought I wanted to hear, waiting for the moment when he would be able to make his escape. He couldn’t raise a hand against me. He couldn’t, say, turn me into a fish or use his magic to make me look like more of a target than I already was.
But Sylvester had done nothing to bind his brother’s tongue. Simon could betray us if he wanted to, let Riordan take us and walk away clean, knowing that all the disaster he’d rained down upon our heads was technically at someone else’s hand. That’s the trouble with purebloods. They are always, always looking for the loophole, and when they find it, they’ll ride it all the way to hell.
Riordan’s eyes widened in a theatrical manner, drawing attention to the way her eyeshadow matched the delicate frosted lilac color of her irises. Nothing but the best for Treasa Riordan, the woman so afraid of being attacked that she had turned striking first into a way of saying “hello.”
“My, my,” she said. “Amandine is speaking to you again? I’ll be honest, Simon, I never thought I’d see the day. Not after you took that little mixed-blood to your bed.”
Oleander had been the daughter of a Tuatha de Dannan and a Peri. In the eyes of some purebloods, that made her virtually a changeling. It didn’t matter that she was as immortal as they were: all that mattered was that she wasn’t clean. Maybe more importantly, by having a relationship with Oleander—however coerced—while he was still married to my mother, Simon had been committing adultery. Amandine hadn’t. Because humans, naturally, didn’t count.
Sometimes the thought of punching every pureblood I meet as a matter of principle is difficult to resist.
“We’re working through our difficulties,” he said mildly. “I claim the hospitality of your house, Treasa Riordan, for myself and for those who travel as my entourage.”
“That’s us,” I said, gesturing between myself and Quentin. “We’re the entourage.”
Riordan sneered. “Oh, I would never have guessed that for myself. Are you quite sure, Simon? You could claim it for yourself alone, and have the great satisfaction of seeing the door slammed in the face of your wife’s bastard and her hick of a squire.”
Quentin bristled, but said nothing. I didn’t even bristle. We’ve been called worse.
“I could, but I’m not,” said Simon calmly. “We have need to come inside, Treasa. The night is very dark, and this place is unfamiliar to us. We are both of the Daoine Sidhe. By the bond of blood, and by the duties of the noble, I charge you to grant us the hospitality of your house, or know that you will have betrayed all that is good about our kind, and given stronger root to that which ails us.”
Riordan huffed. Actually huffed, like a child being told that Christmas had been canceled. “If you must,” she said. “Three days. That’s the standard. At the end of that, get out or get ready to spend some quality time in my dungeons. Agreed?”
“Absolutely,” said Simon, and bowed. Quentin and I hurried to emulate him. Manners matter more with the purebloods than they really should. They are the grease that keeps the wheels of our often dysfunctional society turning.
Riordan rolled her eyes before turning to stalk into her castle, leaving us to follow her or be left in the Annwn night. Simon didn’t hesitate, and so neither did we.
The doors slammed shut behind us.
SIXTEEN