Dorian stood behind me. I didn’t turn, but I felt him there—the pull of him, the weight of his silence. He would stand in that room and watch me drink tea with three sharp-toothed queens, and he would be able to do nothing.
I set my hand to the door—just as it opened inward. A handmaiden’s face appeared. Theia, our chamber guard—and apparently our morning-tea guard, too. She gestured me in.
In the private solar, the spring, summer, and winter queens sat under stark sunlight, their backs as straight as the high walls of my kingdom. Iseris and Maeronyx were as different as sun and moon, both of them with eyes on me as I stepped in. As Mirek had told me, I would have no trouble sussing out which was which.
The room bore only enough space for a round table with gold edges and gleaming hard chairs. A three-tiered tower of pastries and sandwiches stood as the centerpiece, flanked by golden teapots with pert spouts. Fire lilies grew at the fringes of the room, a brilliant half-circle of red under the domed glass.
Three chairs, two queens, an elaborate tea tower, and Theia, Liora’s most trusted handmaiden, standing with hands behind her back beside the entry.
Dorian stepped in behind me. He’d insisted, even if now he had to stand for an hour while four women drank tea and another watched on. A strange jitteriness had come over his step as we neared the solar, and I put it down to his protectiveness of me. But he’d been protective since the beginning; this felt different, but I couldn’t read it. For now, I had more pressing questions. Like how to hold a butter knife like a queenanda killer.
Maeronyx’s face captured the eye like a perfect marble. Hair as black as night, pale skin, her eyes two drops of oil against white sclera. Her dress seemed crafted of raven’s feathers, a low cut at the neck and long sleeves.No yellow for her.
She didn’t move. She only gazed.
Iseris rose the moment I entered. Pink, wavy hair twice as large as her head, tall and slender, with rosy cheeks and green eyes. I hadn’t known haircouldbe that color, nor a monarch so full of wide-eyed life. The skirt of her dress definitely had a hoop under it; the cream frill swayed as she stood.
She came forward with long carnation-colored nails, set herhands in mine. “Darling girl Eurydice.” She leaned forward, and I only just turned my cheek before her lips brushed it, then the other cheek. “Just lovely. More flaxen than I was told. Definitely a summer babe, aren’t you?”
She had the feel of a child in a woman’s body. Effusive, as though she had no secrets. Warm, as though we were friends already. Touchy, as though she had no fear.
In the Dip, we didn’t have first impressions. We had known each other our entire lives, all of us, and we always knew something was amiss when one of us was too friendly, smiled too often, laughed too hard.
Liora stood in a column of buttery silk, her shoulders bare, her collarbone catching the light from the domed glass above. Her hair had been braided back from her temples and left to fall otherwise loose. A soft, approachable queen, with the kind of warmth that made you forget she’d outlived everyone in this room by centuries.
"Welcome to our small circle.” Her hands spread. “This is the first occasion for the Queen’s Welcome in a hundred years.”
Since Rhiannon, who now lay in ashes.
“Come, come.” Iseris kept hold of my hand and led me toward the table. “Sit, my love. You’ve kept three queens waiting, and one of them is even patient."
I paused at the chair. Theia came forward, pulled it out for me. But I couldn’t sit yet. Mirek’s training kept me standing.
I spread the skirt of my dress as he had taught me, set the toe of one foot behind the other, and curtseyed with an inclined head. I’d never felt more like a guard in silk. “It’s my pleasure to meet you, Queen Maeronyx.”
When I lifted my gaze, she nodded a degree. Her face wasn’t any less severe; if I looked ungainly, it didn’t reflect in her midnight eyes. “And mine.” Her hand went out. “Please, be seated.”
Perfect, restrained politeness. She gave nothing away.
I sat, completed the triad of queens. On my right, Iseris. On my left, Maeronyx. All three of us knew we would face one another onthe bloody grass, but right now we would eat tiny sandwiches with two fingers and sip at too-sweet tea without slurping.
I had thought Sylvanwild customs strange. This was stranger.
“We’re pleased you accepted our invitation.” Iseris sat forward with hands in lap, as enveloping as the unbroken sun. “I’ve been trying for weeks to picture the face of the changeling who opened Rhiannon’s throat up.”
Maeronyx let out a hard breath. “Iseris?—”
“I know, Mae. Don’t scare her off before we’ve broken bread.” She touched my shoulder with light fingers. “Surely by now she knows death is spoken of like birth in this kingdom.”
Iwasbeginning to understand that, but?—
Maeronyx shifted toward me. "The Queen’s Welcome is an ancient rite. A new queen joins our circle, and we drink as one." Her lips did not smile. "So few survive long enough to attend a second."
On my other side, Iseris half-snorted and set the back of her hand to her mouth.
“Gallows humor,” Liora said lightly from opposite me. “It’s the only kind we have. You’ll find death is our favorite topic at tea—it pairs well with honey cakes.”
Maeronyx leaned forward, black-gloved hands rising. Such long, delicate fingers. “This is custom, too.” She lifted one of the teapots with two hands and began pouring first into my cup, then Liora’s, then Iseris’s, then her own.