A lot of Faerie’s children are beautiful, but the Queen takes it past beauty, to the point where beautiful and terrible collide. It’s hard to look at her and stay focused on anything but continuing to look at her, making her happy, making her smile for you. It’s part of the reason I don’t come near her when I can avoid it. I hate being forced into things.
She was wearing a snow-colored velvet gown that brought out the pink undertones of her skin, saving her from looking like she’d been carved from ivory. Her silver-white hair fell to the floor in an unbroken line, trailing almost a foot behind her. I’ve always assumed that her hair is at least part of the reason she never leaves the knowe—give her five minutes in the mortal world and her shampoo bills would be astronomical. A thin band of silver sat atop her head, but it was really just for show. There was no question of who the monarch here was. I stayed standing, fighting the urge to drop to one knee.
She stepped toward me, her dress rippling like water. Only a pureblood would accessorize with the ocean itself.
“What are you doing here, October? You avoid my court when you can. That seems to be most times, these days. I was beginning to think you had, perhaps, forgotten the way.”
Never lie to anyone who can have you locked up for looking at them funny. It’s just a good survival strategy. Still, I could try to skirt the issue. “I’ve been keeping to myself, my lady.”
“First your mother stops attending us, then you vanish into your own little world. One might begin to think your bloodline has lost its love for us.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied me, daring me to argue.
“I’m afraid I don’t care much for your Court, my lady.” The crowd whispered around us, expressing quiet disapproval. Candor may be wise, but excessive bluntness isn’t one of the socially accepted arts in Faerie.
“Do we bore you?” asked the Queen, still smiling.
“You scare me.”
“Is that better or worse?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I’m here on business.”
“Business?” Now she grinned, openly amused. “What sort of . . . business . . . brings you here, when you’ve been avoiding us so long? Have you brought another fish story to tell us?”
I winced. Between Tybalt and the Queen, it’s a wonder I don’t need therapy. “I wish that were the case, Your Majesty. I’m here because of the Countess Winterrose.”
“Because of the Winterrose? What, are you here to claim some offense against her?” Her grin remained, and the Court around us buzzed with speculation. Changelings rarely claim offense against purebloods. The battles when we do are invariably a lot of fun to watch, full of blood and glory, and almost always fatal for the changeling.
“No, Your Majesty.” This is the society that created Evening, and my mother, and every time I have to deal with it, I’m happier that it’s not the only thing that created me. “I’m here because she’s gone.”
“What?” Her smile faded into surprise, wiping away the smooth curl of her disdain.
For once, the overstylized formality of Faerie was a blessing, because it meant I didn’t need to figure out what to say on my own. “When the Root and Branch were young, when the Rose still grew unplucked upon the tree; when all our lands were new and green and we danced without care, then, we were immortal. Then, we lived forever.” I looked down and away, not wanting to see the look on the Queen’s face. It didn’t matter: I could hear what I didn’t see in the sudden stillness of the Court. There’s only one reason for the death chants.
It was too late to stop. It was too late when the gun went off. I pressed on. “We left those lands for the world where time dwells, dancing, that we might see the passage of the sun and the growing of the world. Here we may die, and here we can fall, and here my Lady Evening Winterrose, Countess of the fief of Goldengreen, has stopped her dancing.”
I left my head bowed until the quiet was too much to bear. The Queen had gone so still that she might as well have been a statue, somehow carved from mist and sea foam. I couldn’t blame her: I’ll live a long time, if I’m careful, but the most I can expect is a few centuries. That’s a lot in human terms. It’s nothing compared to what the purebloods get. The reminder that they can die is sometimes more than they can take.
“Your Majesty . . .” She raised her hand, pale fingers shaking as she warded my words away. I quieted, waiting for her to compose herself before I continued, saying, “Your Majesty, she charged me to find the cause of her death. May I ask . . .”
“No.”
I stopped, surprised. I’d expected a lot of things. I hadn’t expected her to refuse me. “Your Majesty?”
“No, October Daye, daughter of Amandine.” The Queen lifted her head, jaw set. “I will not help you, and we will speak of this no more. What’s done is done; when the moon is high, we will dance for her, and until that day, no one here will speak the name of the Winterrose, and after that day, no one will speak her name again. I will not help you . . . and you will not ask me to.”
“But . . .”
“No. Amandine’s daughter or no, I will not give you what you would ask me for. I would refuse you and be damned before I did such a thing.” She shook her head. “I have done enough for you down the years; there are no debts between us, and I will not help you now.”
Not even being slapped would have surprised me more. “But, my lady, Evening was murdered, with iron —”
“Don’t tell me how she died!” I rocked back on my heels, clapping my hands over my ears in a vain attempt to block out the voice of the Queen. Maybe time had diluted the blood of her Banshee and Siren ancestors enough that her scream wasn’t fatal, but I’ve never been much for roulette. “Don’t
The Court was buzzing again, but this time, their whispers were directed at the Queen. She was shaking where she stood, eyes gone moonstruck-mad with fury. Her rage might have been impressive if it was focused on something else, but it was focused on me, and that made it terrifying. Humanity has instincts that kick in around the fae, forcing them to be good and humble. Changelings don’t get the full brunt, but we get some of it, until sometimes even our own parents can scare us away. I backed up several steps, dropping a hasty curtsy. “Your Majesty, if we’re done, I . . .”
“Get out!” She snapped her head from side to side, an unearthly wail seeping into her voice.
I didn’t need another invitation. Whirling, I ran toward the far wall, and through it, back into the darkness of the cave on the other side. My shoes were made for dancing, not running over seawater-slippery rocks. After the third time I nearly fell, I pulled them off, carrying them in the hand that wasn’t being used to keep my skirt as far out of the water as possible. Bruising my feet was a small price to pay if it meant I could get away from the queen before she decided to shut me up herself, or worse, forbid me to involve myself in Evening’s murder.
The air outside the cave was so cold that running into the open was like being slapped. It didn’t matter; I didn’t stop. I ran across the beach, stopping only when I hit the pavement, and there only long enough to put my shoes back on. My original clothes hadn’t come back, and I doubted they would—the Queen is strong enough that a transformation of the inanimate was likely to be forever. I didn’t care. I kept running.
SIX
MY CAR HADN’T BEEN DISTURBED. I dug the spare key from under the bumper and fumbled with the lock until I managed to stop the shaking in my fingers and get the door open. I climbed into the driver’s seat, nearly slamming the trailing hem of my dress in the door as I closed it and started the engine. Evening’s liege wouldn’t help me. This wasn’t a mortal problem. Mortal tools wouldn’t solve it, and my camera wasn’t going to save my ass this time. The police could study Evening’s “body” forever if they wanted to, but a lot of the fae don’t leave fingerprints. They’d never find anything, and that meant there wouldn’t be anything I could steal from them.
Slamming my human disguise back into place, so that I just looked like a hard-used brunette in a party gown, I slumped in the driver’s seat and scowled. I needed to look at things from a different direction. Maybe I couldn’t do anything as an investigator, but as a knight . . . there are resources in Faerie that don’t exist in the human world, and this was a faerie crime. I could solve it, if I found the right spells and called in the right favors. But still . . . I’m just a changeling. Evening was ten times more powerful than I’ll ever be. Whatever took her down wasn’t just