make, I offer it to you. I require you to choose what I'm going to offer you of your own free will.'
'Why?' she said, raising her voice. 'What is this? What is it you want of me?'
Everess smiled again. 'I want you to save the world, my dear. How useful would that make you?'
Sela left the conversation with Everess feeling as though she knew less than she had going in. When she returned to her room, she discovered a pair of servants packing her things into new suitcases. Or, rather, one new suitcase, as there was nothing to put in the other. Four dresses, a hat, a book of poems, a hand mirror. Underthings. Not much else. That was all she owned in the world. Without a word, one of the servants closed and latched the one used suitcase and carried it out of the room. The other motioned her to follow him.
Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Everess stood by his carriage, an elaborate thing, fit for a nobleman of his stature. He was waving her forward.
This was Everess in a nutshell. He spoke to you of choices, of caring. But while he was offering you choices, your bags were being packed in the other room.
The carriage ride was bumpy and unpleasant. The new dress that Everess had purchased for her was stiff, and it scratched at her neck and wrists, though she had to admit she adored the glamoured pattern of poppies that gently waved across the skirt in a nonexistent breeze. The shoes were another matter. Detestable, evil things that pressed her toes together and bit at her heels. In Copperine House she'd worn slippers every day, and had forgotten that such evils as dress shoes existed. She'd once had hard calluses on her feet from wearing even more fashionable shoes than these, but that was in the past.
After nearly a full day's travel, the Mechesyl Road began to widen into a highway with several lanes of traffic on either side. Most were leaving the city. Peddlers with donkeys loaded with pots and pans, cheeses, sausages, intricately woven charms, potions, boots, belts, tiny birds, mice, wooden toys. All returning from the Grand Bazaar just outside the gates of the City Emerald. Soldiers on horseback riding in formation-the blue-gray coats of the Seelie Army, the deep red of the Royal Guard-carefully and nonchalantly keeping out of each other's way. A few pretty carriages such as the one in which she rode, off to nearby villas, mostly closed with curtains drawn, pulled by matched teams of white mares (these, explained Everess, were currently all the rage, taking care to point out his own pair). Men on horseback, groups of rough-looking men wearing swords and knives. Farmers with their carts carrying the day's leftover produce.
Then came the City Emerald. The carriage turned the corner at the crest of the hill and began to descend, and the city came into view, the sinking sun exploding from the surface of a wide lake and bathing the Great Seelie Keep in light. The keep was at the direct center of the city, built atop a hill that it was said Regina Titania raised from the ground with a wave of her wrist. Surrounding the keep were Titania's pleasure gardens, acre upon acre of real estate accessible only to the queen and her eunuch gardeners. From there the city radiated out in all directions. Spires of temples and cathedrals reaching to the sky, their windows flashing with sunlight as the carriage began to move downhill. Towers made of glass spirals that defied gravity, whose purpose was unknown to any save the queen herself. Buildings of every shape and size and age, some erected thousands of years in the past, some brand-new.
The City Emerald was ever changing, of every age, seemingly eternal. Sela had read about it many times, but had never seen it.
Surrounding the city like a projection of the Seelie Keep was the wall, a thing of deep and perplexing magic. It appeared to be no more than twenty feet tall, but by all accounts it was impossible to reach the top of it. Anyone was invited to climb it if they so wished, but no matter how much time they spent ascending it, the battlements remained forever out of reach. Or so Sela had been told. No place in all of Faerie was more steeped in legend and myth than the City Emerald, and the truth about it, whatever it was, was so deeply buried that it was impossible to sort out from the stories. Sela imagined that Regina Titania kept it that way on purpose. Who would be foolish enough to assault such a place? It was moot, because no foreign power had ever been allowed the opportunity.
The carriage continued down the hill, and over the course of an hour, the City Emerald continued to grow larger and larger in Sela's sight. Just when she thought it could not appear any grander, the carriage would pass through a stand of trees and it would emerge again in her vision, seeming twice as large as before. She had never seen a thing so enormous, but then, she had seen so little of the world. Only Lord Tanen's estate and Copperine House, and neither, apparently, was representative of the Seelie Kingdom at large.
Finally they reached the North Gate and were waved through without comment by the guards stationed there. The gate was not high, but it was very wide and allowed multiple lanes of traffic to pass side by side. For a moment there was darkness as they passed beneath the wall, and Sela felt a brief chill that was not merely a drop in temperature. Then they were through, and the City Emerald lay sprawled out before her.
The most recent buildings lined the streets nearest the gate. These streets were filled with shops and inns and stables. A sweet, almost pleasant smell drifted into the carriage-beer, sawdust, manure. A whiff of roasting pork found its way to her nose and she felt her salivary glands contract, realizing that she hadn't eaten since leaving Copperine House. Everess's nose twitched at the smell, and he adjusted the blinds on his side, lighting a scented candle
