The tea came out faintly pink, steam curling upward in pale ribbons and smelling floral. And though I watched Maeronyx’s hands and her pour, I didn’t see any change between my cup and theirs. Then again, I couldn’t see her magic. Noxveil was invisible to me.
“Most kind, Mae.” Iseris picked up tongs, dropped a perfectly square cube of sugar into her cup. Then she inserted a finger into the handle of a tiny golden carafe of cream, which she poured a dollop from.
On my left, Maeronyx took two sugars and no cream.
Across the table, Liora’s gaze met mine as she reached for her cup. The contact lasted barely a breath. Then she looked away and drank.
Iseris lifted her tea with two delicate hands and took a silent sip. She brought it away with curled lips. “Liora, dear, would you be terribly mad if I poached your kitchen staff?”
Maeronyx sipped hers next. “I expect she might be piqued for the next fifty years. That’s about her limit.”
Iseris laughed. “You speak from experience?”
Liora lowered her cup. “I’ve only just forgiven you for the harpist.”
The summer queen no longer met my eyes, but that one look—it had been enough.
Maeronyx had done something to my tea.
I gazed down into my cup. The tea bore no reflection from the domed ceiling, though maybe it was the angle. Not likely.
I slid my finger through the handle of my teacup and tilted it toward me. Still no reflection, just a straight view to the imprint of an open-winged hawk at the cup’s bottom.
Still, I couldn’t be certain.
Never bring a root system to life.
I raised the rim to my lips. The other queens stayed in animated conversation, eyes off me—even though Iseris had gushed about wanting to meet me. Even though I was objectively far more interesting than Liora’s kitchen staff.
“My queen.” Dorian. It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d entered this room. In two words, he conveyed everything he needed to. Trepidation, fear, a thread of rage.
I raised a hand to stay him without turning. If I could not handle this on my own, I didn’t deserve to be a queen.
The lip of the cup touched my mouth, and my stomach lurched like someone had yanked me from the inside.
The mycelial knot. Faun’s brew. Her hard eyes flashed before me,that knowing face?—
Poison. Poison.Poison.
Never bring a root system to light. Never speak to schemes. But Liora had never advised me on what to do when you were caught inside one.
I remained with the cup at my lips. I didn’t know how long I stayed that way—until Iseris’s fingers strayed across the table toward me and appeared in my periphery. “You look a statue, dear.”
Maeronyx lifted her cup. “Oh, we’ve forgotten to toast.”
Iseris gasped. “The negligence.” She lifted her own cup, and the three of them clinked in the center of the table.
“To Queen Eurydice,” Maeronyx said. “Long may she reign.”
Iseris and Liora echoed the words. The three of them extended their cups toward me, waiting.
A whelp from the Dip knew toasts. You clinked, you drank. No two ways around it.
I thought of yelling their deceit, of jerking to my feet and upending the table with all its pretty glassware.
I thought of beckoning Dorian to intervene. He would cleave the table in two in one stroke of iron.
The best answer came last. Sudden, piercing, perfect.