Of course Liora had placed a handmaiden at the end of each of the passages out of our guest chambers. Four of them, besides Theia at the main door; one was even hidden behind a painting in Haskel’s bedchamber. She alone granted the honor of reporting back on Haskel’s prodigious snoring.
If Liora hadn’t known about the mirror wraith before it attacked, she had absolutely known the moment I stabbed through Eury’s bedding and the whole of Sylvanwild’s inner court went into a nighttime frenzy.
Long after the commotion had ended, in the deepest part of night, I tried the passage behind the tapestry in the common room. A good choice—the handmaiden had fallen asleep standingup, her head against the stone wall, her mouth open. She didn’t twitch when I eased past her, not even when the hem of my cloak brushed her slipper.
Six hundred years under a single queen had made these Highmark fae comfortable. Most of them had not known bloody strife within their court, which made them happy, sound sleepers. They favored the dawn, after all.
Sylvanwild fae trended, on the whole, toward restlessness. Toward nightmares. Or, in my case, insomnia.
I walked lightly through the empty halls, my chest burning. They’d nearly killed Eury. Nearly killed her on my watch. And this had all the marks of a specific mind. A discriminating, cruel one.
I felt his fingerprints like Sylvanwild magic, like wind through the canopy: Gawain was here somewhere in this citadel. If the other queens hadn’t yet arrived, then Maeronyx must have sent him ahead, or she’d traded him to Liora. Courts loaned spymasters all the time. Cheaper than training your own, and if they were caught, you disavowed them. A good spymaster was worth the exposure—especially now, with a changeling queen neither of them understood.
And Gawain was the most brutal, the most effective in Feyreign. He knew when to press a bruise and when to drive the knife in.
Last night’s wraith might not have been an attempt on Eury’s life at all. It might have been a test, and we’d just shown him exactly how we responded.
I didn’t know the innards of this castle—Liora’s tour had been intentionally confusing—but I understood fae thinking. I had studied the four citadels enough to know that guest chambers were often placed at the fringes of the castle, closest to the courtyard. Those chambers would remain empty half the year, and in times of siege, the guests were the least treasured inhabitants. Let them be the first to go.
A queen’s chambers were closer to the castle’s center, akin to the heart. And spymasters often slept in lower chambers, closest to the dungeons. Where they had easy access to their captives.
When I came upon a staircase down, I took it. The castle wound on and on, deeper and deeper, the halls quiet, until I encountered a metal door. Beyond it, the scent of earth lay heavy and loamy.
The door wasn’t even magicked. Highmark fae had truly gone to pudding.
I slipped my lockpick from my belt. It had been months since I’d used it, but muscle memory took over. Insert, toggle, toggle some more, wait for the click.
The door swung open with a creak. I stepped through into a roughshod stone hall, what had once been careful and elegant now grew through with roots and incipient earth.
Twenty paces in, I came to the first cell. A metal door and no one inside.
Deeper in, more cells. No inhabitants. I’d begun to wonder if Liora had had a change of heart about keeping prisoners until I turned a corner and a hoarse voice called out.
“If I’ve said it twice, I’ve said it a thousand times?—”
When I appeared in front of the cell’s bars, the voice went silent. The fae it belonged to was red-haired, pale, a man divorced of all fat and muscle and left with only sinew. Seelie, probably from Aurelia.
“What is it,” I said, “that you’ve said a thousand times?”
His nose wrinkled. He shifted on his cot, unfolding his legs to stand. “You the new pig-sticker? At least the last one looked like he could lift iron.”
My stomach turned. I stepped forward. “Tell me about the last pig-sticker.”
He eyed me, gaze traveling up and down. “I don’t think I will. Fuck you and fuck your court all the way back to Carys the rot.”
I raised my pick. “How long have you been down here?”
His gaze locked on the pick. He let out a soft laugh, then dropped back to the cot. “Same tricks, too. If you’re not going to give me a proper stretch on the rack, then you can jerk your prick elsewhere. I’d rather sleep.”
“I’ll let you go,” I said. “If you answer one question.”
He didn’t acknowledge me. He only lay down on the cot.
I set the pick to the lock. “A scar. Did he have a scar on his face?”
He set his arms behind his head and stared up at the ceiling.
I pushed the pick into the lock and began toggling. Now his eyes shifted toward me, real interest appearing there. Five seconds later, the lock engaged. The door came free?—