I half-rose from my seat, leaned toward the fire lilies, and upturned my teacup over them until the delicate bottom faced the glass ceiling.
“The first taste,” I said with reverence, “must always go to nature which bore us.”
The tea steamed, hissed. The lilies wilted and curled into ash, as if alight with invisible fire. The silence at the table was deafening. If Faun were here, she’d laugh in their pretty, coiffed faces.
Maeronyx’s twin onyx marbles. Iseris’s pink eyebrows almost to her hairline. Liora’s curled lips.
I replaced my cup on its tiny saucer. “Quite strong, that brew. I should like to know the strain of tea leaves you grow here in the summer court.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dorian
We departedthe solar after an hour. Eury walked two paces ahead of me, her silk dress trailing, her back straight, the golden clasp in her hair catching bands of light. She’d spent most of that hour in banter, laughing where appropriate and making noises of concern or disdain as a queen should.
After that fucking toast, she’d transformed. Eurydice was a survivor down to her marrow. A talker. Of course she was—in the southern district, their greatest currency was their ability to read a room. I’d sat in enough pubs, observing on my trips back to the Kingdom of Storms, to understand that poverty brought social savvy.
I had expected that. But I hadn’t expected thataftershe’d saved her own life.
I had known the tea was poisoned the moment Maeronyx poured. The Architect of the Endless Night did not pour. The BlackFrost wasn’t that brazen—except today, she was. But Eury wasn’t to know that. And I couldn’t stop myself from speaking up; the words were out of my mouth the moment they’d entered my head.
I was herveyre. If I did nothing else…
But she didn’t need me. Maybe she never had.
When she poured the tea over the fire lilies, I’d bitten back a laugh. It was the perfect undoing of a scheme—unassailable, quiet and loud at the same time.
The act made my chest rise. It lit me up with pride… and fear. For Eury’s life, yes. But also for who she needed to be to fight off the fucking wolves of this kingdom. Saving her own life with her pinkie out. And now she walked with the exacting grace of a queen, as though nothing were amiss.
She turned a corner into a quiet hallway. When I came around, I stopped hard. There she stood, hand braced against the stone wall, her face visible only in profile. Her free hand shook until she clenched her fingers tight.
The mycelial knot. The old Sylvanwild defense had rejected the tea, but when the knot untied itself, the pain was immense. I closed the distance, set my hand under hers and one on her back. Around her, I was all instinct.
She flinched—“Don’t”—and turned bodily away from me. She leaned against the wall, lifting her shaking hand up to her chest. “I don’t need a crutch, Crowmere.”
Movement caught my eye. An ornate mirror hung on the far wall, and a face reflected in it. Theia, Liora’s favorite handmaiden and our constant guard, met eyes with me from around the corner. Then she disappeared back down the hall toward the solar with tapping steps.
She’d seen, which meant Liora had seen. Which meant Maeronyx and Iseris had seen.
I stepped closer to Eury, kept my voice confidential. “You need to stand up, or they will eat you alive.”
Her shoulders hunched a degree, then settled. Her face turned an inch toward me before she straightened off the wall. She pressed outthe skirt of her dress, flicked her hair off her shoulder, and lowered her hands to her sides.
One breath in. One out.
Then she walked.
Her fingers stayed in fists the whole way back. But she walked with a firm, confident step. She didn’t falter.
When we passed into the guest chambers and I’d shut the door behind us, she dropped into the first chair she found.
Finch burst from his seat next to Haskel, nearly dropping his book. Haskel glanced up overtop his spectacles.
Mirek opened his door. “The queen’s back.” His face fell. “Eugh, she’s gone green.”
“Faun.” Eury pressed her eyes shut. “Get me Faun.”
Inside Eury’s chamber, the door to Faun’s smaller room was shut. I knocked on it hard, fast.