Her blood was sweet and tart and tasted of black clove and panther lilies. I paused mid-swallow, trying to make sense of the flavor. I’d encountered this before, I knew I had, but not—

  Not in the false Queen’s halls. As if to reinforce the point, memory blossomed behind my eyes as I saw a woman screaming and running away from an unfamiliar Redcap. He swung a sword in her direction. One of her most trusted guards was on the ground, blood dripping from a wound that had blackened around the edges, as if he had been badly burned. She wanted to go back for him. She wanted to save him. She knew she couldn’t, and so she ran.

  I dropped her arm and swallowed again, this time trying to get the taste of blood out of my mouth. “This isn’t the pretender Queen,” I said. “This is Dame Eloise Altair. Where is the prisoner?”

  A panicky rumble ran through the crowd around us, causing both Nolan and Tybalt to step closer to me, like they were ready to pull me out of harm’s way if necessary. I didn’t bristle, but returned my attention to the disguised Dame Altair. If I squinted, I could see the haze of illusion around her like a web of threads spun from salt. They were thinner than cobwebs or silk, thin as cotton candy made into an enveloping cocoon. It would be so easy to start snapping them, and the taste of her blood still lingered on the back of my tongue like the memory it had given me …

  My strength is in blood, whether it’s mine or someone else’s. I was strictly forbidden to bleed myself when not strictly necessary—Jin had strong feelings about the use of blood magic during pregnancy, and if I was going to insist on doing it, she wanted me using someone else’s blood whenever possible—but even a few drops were enough to give me the power I needed to do something like reach out and snap a few thin, trailing threads.

  If the threads had been literal, breaking a few wouldn’t have been enough to tear apart the whole cocoon. If the illusion had been woven by someone stronger, or with more experience, it wouldn’t have been that easy to break them. As it was, the threads broke easily, and when they did, they began to unspool, the entire spell collapsing into a cloying mixture of cinnamon and green cardamom. I sneezed.

  The illusion shattered, revealing a furious Dame Altair wearing the false Queen’s rowan muzzle and shackles. Nolan blanched and hurried to unfasten them, removing the muzzle first. That may have been a mistake, as she immediately began to swear with a degree of creative enthusiasm that would have been impressive as hell, had we not been standing ten feet away from the queen.

  “I didn’t take enough blood to get any real answers, but I didn’t pick up on anything that implied guilt,” I said, raising my voice enough to be heard above the swearing. This came with the convenient advantage of letting the people directly around us hear me, meaning the information would spread quickly through the hall. “I think she was a victim here.”

  “Damn right I was a victim,” snapped Dame Altair, glaring at me. “I should have known better when I saw that slimy, conniving asshole on my doorstep, but oh no, everyone says he’s changed, I’m sure everything is going to be just fine.”

  Nolan finished removing the manacles from her wrists.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Who do you mean?”

  Dame Altair raised one hand and pointed directly at Simon.

  Oak and ash, not this again.

  SIX

  ONCE AGAIN, THE ROOM erupted with whispers as people realized who Dame Altair was pointing at. The false Queen was missing: they had expected to see justice done, if a nap can be called justice, and now they were denied. They wanted their metaphorical pound of flesh, and if it had to come from Simon, that was fine by them. He’d been a villain in the eyes of the Mists too long for anyone to be completely comfortable with him now that he was supposedly redeemed.

  I stumbled backward, away from Dame Altair, trying to position myself between her accusing finger and Simon. I glanced over my shoulder at him. He had gone so pale his scarce freckles stood out against his skin like ink blotches on a sheet of parchment. He was shaking. I wasn’t too happy to see Dame Altair myself, considering our last encounter had been in Titania’s Faerie, where she’d tried to kill me, but I wasn’t the target of her malice this time.

  Turning my attention back to Dame Altair, I said, “You must be mistaken. The spell I unwound from you didn’t match his magic. Cinnamon and cardamom are not the same as mulled cider, even if they’re both components.”

  “I smelled cinnamon,” she shot back. “I’ve mulled my own wine. I know the Baron Torquill’s magic.”

  “There’s no such man as the Baron Torquill, not any longer,” said the Luidaeg, strolling toward us with a liquid predator’s grace that would have seemed almost feline if not for the man I’d married. “Are you truly claiming the ducal consort of Saltmist traveled to the surface solely to enchant you?”

  I’ll give Dame Altair this: she looked the sea witch in the eyes and she didn’t flinch. “I know what I saw,” she said.

  “An illusionist came to your door and bound you in chains of image and idea, tight enough that until you were unbound, you even stood like the woman you seemed to be, and you can’t accept that the illusionist may also have worn an illusion?” The Luidaeg looked past Dame Altair to Arden. “She can’t prove she saw whatever she says she saw, and to raise hand against Consort Lorden is to risk the wrath of the Undersea. You know this.”

  Arden blanched but didn’t flinch away. “To allow the citizens of the Undersea to transgress against the citizens of the Mists without recourse is to declare ourselves a vassal state and put my people at the mercy of the waters. You know this as well.”

  The Luidaeg nodded.

  I frowned, looking between the two of them. “So what? The false Queen is missing, and we’re just going to stand here talking about what we already know instead of trying to figure out where she is? I’m not always the best detective around, but I know enough to say this seems like a really bad way to actually, you know, find her.”

  “I know what I saw, and what I smelled,” snapped Dame Altair. “I am telling you that Simon Torquill attacked me, and intended me to take the punishment intended for his mistress.”

  “She was never his mistress,” I countered. “He served the Rose of Winter, and has been duly punished for his actions in her name, but he never served her puppet queen.” Oh, I hoped I was right about that. Not because serving the false Queen would have somehow been worse than serving Evening, who was a literal nightmare wrapped in a glossy candy shell, but because I didn’t want to make things worse by lying. Especially not in front of an Adhene.

  Bahey was clutching the side of her head, brow furrowed. Arden looked to her.

  “What say you, Lie-Catcher?” Her tone was stiff, her phrasing intentionally archaic. We were trending into areas of court politics and tradition that I wasn’t entirely familiar with, and definitely didn’t deal with on a regular basis.

  Bahey lowered her hand, wincing as she straightened and focused herself on Arden. “None of the speakers have uttered anything untrue, Your Highness,” she said. “They speak the truth as they know and understand it.”

  “That is the burden of the Adhene,” said the Luidaeg, all but glaring at the smaller woman. “They know a lie when they hear it, but if the liar believes themself to be telling the truth, there is no lie to hear. An assumed truth is as valid as a true one.”

  “Okay, you’re talking in a circle,” I said. “I don’t think we need two people in this argument with headaches.” The eyes of the court were an almost physical weight against the back of my neck, pressing down on me like they were trying to bear me to the floor. I adjusted my stance, wishing I could lock my knees the way I would if I weren’t so damned pregnant. I was excited to meet the child Tybalt and I had created together, but I was also so accustomed to my body taking whatever abuse I needed it to absorb that dealing with my own limitations was becoming more and more difficult.

  Two more weeks. That was all I had to endure. Two more weeks and keeping my legal father out of prison, which just meant it would be a more normal two weeks than the last eight and a half months had managed to be.

  Bahey looked at me with pained amusement. “Truth,” she said. She had a pleasant voice, with a faint Midwestern accent that made me wonder what had brought her to the Mists in the first place. Pureblood fae, especially the useful ones, don’t tend to move unless they haven’t got a choice in the matter. They’re insufficiently fond of change.

  Not that I’m a huge fan of change either, but at least being part human has left me capable of adapting quickly when I have to. It’s a surprisingly underrated skill, even in the human world. In Faerie, it’s virtually unheard of.

  “How about this,” I said, holding up my hands like I was trying to ward off a pack of wolves. From the way Dame Altair was glaring at me, that wasn’t too far off from the situation. “I’ll ask Simon for a few drops of his blood, and I’ll read the truth in what he remembers.”

  Tybalt hissed through his teeth, unhappy about me doing blood magic twice in one day. His caution was appreciated but unnecessary. There was no way any child of mine wouldn’t be able to handle some light blood-work performed in their proximity, and I would have been able to feel it if anything had gone wrong.

  “Consort Lorden, do you consent?” asked Arden.

  “I do,” said Simon, his first words since Dame Altair’s accusation. His voice shook, but not enough for someone who didn’t know him to realize how tightly controlled it was, or how close he was to panic. I turned to face him. His eyes were huge in his whey-pale face, more golden than ever when contrasted against the white. He looked at me like a drowning man unsure whether a buoy will be enough to support him through the storm, but his shoulders were straight and his chin was high.

  Simon Lorden was a man well-accustomed to being accused of things he hadn’t done. Just as accustomed as he was to being accused of things he had done. His reputation as someone who might abduct an innocent woman and wrap her in the guise of a known criminal had been well-earned, at the hands of the woman who had controlled his life for so very long.

  Well. She didn’t control him anymore. I held out my hand, beckoning him closer. Dame Altair made a disapproving sound. I didn’t even look at her.

  “You’re not going to make the pregnant lady walk all the way over there, are you?”

  “Sir Daye, it’s ten feet of level floor,” said Arden, sounding almost amused.

  “Yeah, and I need to pee,” I said. “The longer we stand around debating this, the longer the traitor has to get away from us. You all understand that, right?”

  “I do,” said Simon, and walked over to slide his hand into mine. I folded my fingers around his, holding him in place, and started to reach for the knife at my hip, pausing when I remembered that it wasn’t there. As a hero of the realm, I’m technically allowed to enter the presence of the Queen armed. As a woman eight months into her second pregnancy, none of my waist sheaths fit, and I hadn’t wanted to cut my dress to strap something to my thigh. Not that I would have been able to draw any knife I sheathed there without stabbing myself in the stomach.

  “Didn’t make choices that could result in stabbing the baby.” Oh, yeah. I’m going to win mother of the year.

  I paused, trying to figure out how to draw blood without asking Tybalt for help again when he was already unhappy about me doing blood magic. I was still thinking when the Luidaeg walked over to me, extending one empty hand like a magician preparing to do a trick. She closed her fingers, then opened them to reveal a razor-thin piece of shell. It was curved and colored as if it had been sliced from the outside edge of an abalone, filled with misty, clouded rainbows.

  “Here,” she said. “You’re looking slightly unarmed.”

  “Er,” I said, and gingerly reached over to take the shell. “That looks sharp.”

  “It is,” she said. “It won’t scar, and any wound it makes won’t become infected. Makes it convenient for bleeding the accused.”

  “Ah.” I looked more closely at the sliver of shell. There was a strip of pebbled brownish gray along one edge, probably from the shell’s original exterior. The rest of it looked like it could be used to slice the waves and shave the wind. “It looks … really sharp?”

  “Handle with care,” said the Luidaeg. Her eyes flicked to Simon. “Don’t break the failure. He’s done the best he could, and he’s on the verge of changing his title to something less insulting. I’d rather you left him alive when you’re done with him.”

  “I will,” I promised, and turned back to Simon, holding up the shell blade. “If I may?”

  “You may,” he agreed.

  I nodded, turning his hand sideways until I could see the large vein running along his wrist. Dame Altair leaned forward, looking almost disturbingly eager. I frowned at her before delicately pressing the sharpened edge of the shell into Simon’s skin, careful not to cut too deep.

  Blood welled up, bright red and well-oxygenated, smelling of smoke and mulled cider. The notes of cinnamon and cardamom were there, sweet, but mixed with crushed apples and cloves and allspice and star anise. It seemed like a more complicated perfume than many magical scents, but really, it just wore its complexity openly, not buried under veils of detail and disguise.

  I met Simon’s eyes and waited for him to nod approval. When he did, I raised his wrist to my mouth and pressed my lips against the wound.

  The world went away, replaced by red. It was jarring and natural at once, like slipping into sleep after a hard day. In the last instant of thinking as myself and not as the man who called himself my father, I realized this was my first true act of blood magic since escaping Titania’s enchantment. That didn’t seem right. I’d worked so long to make myself comfortable with my magic that it seemed impossible I should have voluntarily set it aside like that.

  But then the red closed around me, and the blood was all.

  I wake alone. My chest feels like an empty hallway, a passage for ghosts to wander. I have to return to the land tonight. The Queen—my queen, Arden Windermere in the Mists—has requested my presence, and even dwelling below the waves as I now prefer, her word commands me. If she desires my attendance, I haven’t a choice.

  I rise, slow and silent, and gather my clothing from the floor where I discarded it at dawn. Helmi will not approve of my wearing it to break my fast, but they have left me alone, and even after months returned to my true existence, I fear their absence. I hurry down the hall to the evening room where they go to dine.

  Both turn when I enter, smiling at my presence. Patrick, as always, smiles like I am the moon reborn, like he has never seen so beautiful a sight. Dianda is more reserved, but she smiles with honest affection that is, I believe, beginning to ripen and blossom into genuine love. We didn’t love when we were wed, but we were willing to try, and oh, we have been trying. All three of us. Her waistline is a testament to that.

  “So you’ve come to join us, sleepyhead,” said Dianda. “Anceline stands ready to see you to the surface when you’re prepared.”

  “Then she’ll never see me there, as I may never be prepared,” I said. “I’ll go, but I won’t be prepared.”

  “You can see your brother,” said Patrick. “And October. August says she’s been asking after you.”

  The scene began to thin and fray around the edges, flashes of reality showing through the red. The desire to take another mouthful and continue to watch Simon with his spouses was stronger than I would have expected. I exhaled through my nose, lips still against his skin, and let the magic go.

  The red wisped away and I was October again, entirely myself and not lost in anyone else’s memory. I straightened and the Luidaeg was there, offering a carved brown sheath that looked to have been made from the outside of the shell, perfectly sized to keep it safe and prevent me from gutting myself by mistake. I took it with a nod, wiping the shell’s edge clean on my sleeve before sliding it into the sheath.

  “No debts,” I said. “I asked for nothing.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she agreed. “Call it a gift to my favorite niece, and a courtesy to my dearest failure.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I tucked the little shell sheath into the front of my bodice, seating it firmly between my breasts, before I turned to face Arden. “Blood magic is imprecise, but blood doesn’t lie,” I said, focusing on her, rather than the silently fuming Dame Altair. “Consort Lorden has not set foot on the land since the breaking of Titania’s enchantment—which, you may remember, he was instrumental in undoing. Without him, we might still be living in her gilded fantasy. There’s no way he could have been responsible for abducting and obscuring Dame Altair.”

  Bahey nodded as I spoke, verifying my words.

  Simon had produced a handkerchief from inside his vest and was busily wrapping it around the cut on his wrist. He looked at my handiwork with a small smile, then looked at me.

  “There was a time when you would have hacked my arm open like it was a coconut and you had nothing more precise than a machete,” he said. “You’re learning subtlety. I approve.”

  “Good to know,” I said, focusing on Arden. “My father didn’t do this, Your Majesty, and you know it.”

  “I do,” she said, with a sigh.

  Dame Altair sputtered. “Your Majesty,” she said, sounding appalled. “I am titled nobility, and you would dismiss my situation with such ease?”

  “Your title’s no shinier than mine, Eloise,” I said, keeping my tone easy and almost dismissive. “A dame is equivalent to a knight. You have a knowe and servants. I have a paid-off house in San Francisco and a court comprised almost entirely of teenagers who don’t know how to operate the dishwasher. I’m not really seeing how you get to call yourself ‘titled nobility’ like it puts you above anyone else. My father’s title eclipses us both.”

  That was pushing it. He’d been an unlanded baron before he set his land-based titles aside to become Dianda’s consort, but even in Faerie’s sometimes overly confusing version of the peerage, a duchess outranked a dame. Simon didn’t need to share his wife’s title to receive many of its benefits, including the precedence that meant he was treated as higher ranking than he technically was.