Amy’s eyes narrowed as she studied me. “You do look tired,” she said. “I’d better show you to yourroom.”
“You needn’t—” I began, just as Wrexham said, “Mrs. Harwood, if youplease—”
“The servants,” she told me firmly, “are all occupied, and you couldn’t possibly find it on your own. As for you, Mr. Wrexham...” She gave my ex-fiancé a firm nod. “I’m sure we’ll both be delighted to speak with youlater.”
“Delighted,” he said wryly, and bowed deeply before turning away without any furtherargument.
My mouth dropped open in outrage as I stared afterhim.
If Wrexham actually possessed the heretofore-unseen ability to recognize an impossible battle when he saw one...then why had he never been intimidated out of arguing byme?
But there was no time to fathom the depths of that injustice as Amy tucked a firm hand into the crook of my arm and swept me, simmering, through the archway. She chatted happily all the way as she led me up a curving set of stairs, the walls beside it lined by stately portraits of the many women who’d proudly led the Cosgrave family and the nation itself through the centuries. Every one of the Ladies Cosgrave, judging by the weighty gold-and-silver torcs painted around all of their necks, had been a member of the Boudiccate in her own turn...and it was impossible, as I passed that grand and glowering procession, not to be entirely aware of my own bruised and disordered appearance and generally unwomanly lack of dignity bycomparison.
Even my own mother, by the end, had given up on my ever following in her famous path. Still, it had been rather easier to stand strong in that recollection four months earlier, before I’d failed in the vocation for which I’d given up her shining legacy andpride.
“...And of course,” Amy continued as she swept me off the staircase and down a branching corridor lit by warm, expensive fey-lights set in spellbound sconces along the wall, “there are all the latest troubles with the elves to complicate matters,and—”
“What?” I stopped abruptly, tugging her to a halt along withme.
Amy’s eyes widened as she looked at me. “My goodness, Cassandra, I didn’t imagine you were actually listening to me. I’ve never known you to be interested in politicsbefore!”
I forced myself to unclench my jaw and suck in a deep breath. “What were you saying about the elves,exactly?”
“Surely you must have heard—well. No. You haven’t been following the news lately, have you?” She looked pained at her ownmisstep.
I gave her arm a bracing squeeze. “Oh come now, Amy. You know perfectly well I was never a great reader of newspapers even before...what happened.” No, I’d been far too consumed with my own magical pursuits beforehand, and afterward...well. “You needn’t worry about any tender feelings on my part,” I said briskly. “Only explain to me what’s beenhappening.”
She sighed and tugged me with her along the corridor, leaning into my side and lowering her voice as we walked. “It’s more whathasn’thappened, actually. The elves send a representative each year at the end of Samhain, when the fairies make their great pilgrimage underground. At least one elf always stands beside an officer of the Boudiccate to jointly light the fairies’passage.”
“And?” I glanced instinctively at the closest spellbound sconce on the wall nearby. The fey-light there burned golden-bright, illuminating the leaping horse pattern of the mosaic art along the wall in a warm, caressing glow...but of course that was little rational comfort; it would continue to burn regardless of its creator’s fate. Like fey-silk (soft as butterflies’ wings, the advertisements always claimed), fey-lights cost the earth, and for good reason. They lasted for years with no need for renewal, even during the darker turnings of the year when the unpredictable fairies themselves were safely containedunderground.
“This year, no representative from the elven court arrived.” Amy’s face tightened, fine white lines of tension showing beneath her warm brown skin. “The elven king sent his regrets instead, and his bestwishes.”
“And...?” I frowned, thinking of the icy elf-lord I’d just faced. “That sounds like the best possible outcome,Ishould think. If you can keep the elves’ friendship without being afflicted with theircompany—”
“Oh, really, Cassandra!” Amy shook her head at me, unaccustomed exasperation leaking into her voice. “I know you’ve spent most of your life fighting not to be drawn into politics, but just this once, take a moment to actuallythinkabout it. They haven’t missed that ceremony for four hundred years! It was either a deliberate snub, in which case our treaty is in grave danger—or else a sign that their own court is in such disarray that he didn’t trust any one of his courtiers to meet with us in public thisyear.”
“I see.” I nibbled at my lower lip. What was it that the elf-lord had said to defend himself against the charge of kidnapping?“Our noble king would never hear of such a thing.”But histone...
“So we might have the king’s best wishes, but not hisnobles’.”
“We might,” Amy agreed grimly. “In which case, we are in very dangerous waters indeed.” My gentle sister-in-law’s face was, for once, set in forbidding lines—not the usual warm, loving expression of my affectionate sister-in-all-but-blood, but that of a woman of certain power and intellect...who should, if luck and justice prevailed, be selected as the newest member of the Boudiccate the very next time an openingarose.
Sheshouldhave been granted my mother’s seat, as I myself would have been if matters had gone as planned by the older generation—but there was no time to meditate on that old injustice now as Amycontinued:
“Without being allowed entrance to their halls, we can’t do any more than guess at what might be happening inside them. But our last ambassador returned to her family at the turning of the summer solstice, and they haven’t authorized a new onesince.”
She stopped at a white-paneled door and turned its bronze handle—shaped as a leaping stag in tribute to the male Cosgraves’ own magical contributions to the family history—as she spoke. “Oh, they don’tsaythat they’ve closed their court to us entirely—they couldn’t, without breaking the treaty—but they’ve come up with one excuse after another ever since. One ambassador is too young, another is too old; it’s simply impossible to make any decisions until a certain elven courtier returns from histravels...”
She stepped aside, ushering me before her into a warm, white-and-gold room with a canopied bed, a large window facing out onto the snowy darkness, and a giant allegorical painting of Boudicca’s victory hanging on the wall over thefireplace.
“But,” she finished, closing the door firmly behind her, “they all end with the same result. We have no ambassador in their court; we know something is amiss but don’t know what; and poor Lady Cosgrave is preparing to host the winter solstice now with no idea whether our allies will even bother to attend the very ceremony that’s meant to seal our alliance for anotheryear.”
“Ah.” My gaze slipped to the glass window and the darkness beyond, where the elf-lord and his troll both waited...somewhere. “So.” I took a breath. “It’s rather important, then, that we not do anything to offend them at thispoint.”
“Cassandra!” Amy let out a startled burst of laughter. “How can you even jest about such a thing? It’s no laughingmatter!”
“No,” I agreed glumly. “I imaginenot.”
