“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to.” He stood, kissing my forehead before turning and walking away. I watched him go. He was a hero once, and it’s the nature of heroes to throw themselves headlong into impossible odds, believing that somehow they’ll come through them alive. The problem is that it’s also in the nature of heroes to die, and I had no way of being sure that Sylvester didn’t plan to do exactly that. I should know how heroes are. Somewhere along the way, I became one.
I was still mad at him. I still loved him. I didn’t know what to do about that. So I didn’t do anything, and every day, Karen came to me and kept me dreaming for as long as she could, guiding me through fanciful landscapes and showing me her siblings’ dreams. There’s something to be said for having an oneiromancer in the family. Her visits, intangible as they were, helped me feel like I wasn’t quite as trapped as I actually was. They probably reassured Mitch and Stacy, too. That was a nice bonus.
May came to my rooms eight days after I sat with Sylvester in the garden. She was carrying an armload of clothes I recognized from our apartment. Her selections confused me. Normally my Fetch—former Fetch, these days, even if neither of us is sure exactly what she is now—goes out of her way to dress me in bright colors and fabrics. These were simple, bordering on sedate: a knee-length black cotton skirt, the matching blazer, and a burgundy silk shirt. There were even nylons. She must have stopped at a store before coming to the knowe, because I knew I didn’t have those at home.
I looked at the clothes, then at her. “What’s all this?”
“Clothing.” She held up a pair of black dress flats with the price tag still attached.
“I got that far,” I said. “Why do I need these clothes?”
“Because it’s time to go to Court.”
It took a moment to realize she meant the Queen’s Court, not the Court at Shadowed Hills. It was time, in other words, to face the music and deal with everything that had happened. There was still a death sentence hanging over my head. I’d have to face it sometime, and “sometime” was apparently “now.”
The night was cold when we drove into San Francisco. Mist hung heavy all the way around the coast, blurring the shape of the land. The narrow beam of a lighthouse lamp swept through the distance, trying to warn any ships stupid enough to be out sailing that they were about to have a final, fatal encounter with the shore. It wasn’t the sort of night you want to be outside on, no matter what species you are.
We parked in the shadow of a crumbling tenement that miraculously had a parking lot large enough for all eleven of our cars. Magic comes in handy for a lot of things, not the least of which is finding parking on a Saturday night in San Francisco. It was a short walk from there to the beach. Sylvester and May paced on either side of me, prodding me whenever I slowed down. I was as anxious to get this over with as they were, but that didn’t make it easier to walk to my own execution.
“I think I’d welcome a sea serpent right about now.”
May glanced at me, eyes glittering in the moonlight. “What?”
“Nothing.”
The rest of the Court of Shadowed Hills walked right behind us, clad in the cold sparkle of their human disguises; Luna was still at the knowe, having pled exhaustion. I was the only one wearing formal clothes visible to mortal eyes. If the Queen stripped my illusions away, I wouldn’t be marching to the Iron Tree in jeans and a dirty sweater.
Sometimes I hate the morbid turns my mind can take. I could almost see the tree and the rope they’d use to tie me to the trunk before they lit the fire—
I shook my head, brushing the image away. “I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to like it,” said May, prodding me forward again. “You just have to keep walking.”
“That’s good, because I
“Shut up and keep walking,” May said. I glared at her and did as I was told.
Our footsteps sounded like an approaching army as we waded through the shallow water pooled at the mouth of the cave entrance to the knowe. We were almost halfway to the door before I realized that my feet weren’t getting wet. I blinked, looking down.
“Warding spell,” said Sylvester. “Tybalt uses it to stay dry. He taught it to me.”
“Right,” I said, and kept walking as I considered the improbability of Sylvester and Tybalt spending enough time together to teach each other spells. We were almost there, pushing against the intangible barrier between the fae and mortal worlds …
… and we were through. The Queen’s knowe opened in front of us like a mountain appearing through the mist, marble floors and pillars unfolding as the cave walls and the sharp smell of the sea dropped away. I expected that.
It was the size of the crowd that brought me staggering to a stop.
I thought the group that assembled for my first trial was vast. I was wrong. This one was twice that size. Mitch and Stacy were there again; Tybalt was missing, but Raj and Helen were there, holding hands. Walther, Marcia, Kerry—even April O’Leary, the cyber-Dryad Countess of Tamed Lightning, and her seneschal, Elliot. I stood there, stunned and staring until Sylvester made the matter moot, pushing me into the open space between the crowd and the dais.
The Queen’s throne was empty, waiting for her dramatic entrance. The crowd washed me up in front of it like a wave washes driftwood onto the beach; the driftwood can’t fight, and neither could I. Sylvester squeezed my shoulder as he stepped away, whispering, “It will be all right.”
Then he was gone, and the herald called for me to step forward.
“Here,” I said. My voice broke. I paused, closing my eyes, and repeated, “Here,” in a deeper, calmer tone. If I was going to die, I was going to do it with dignity.
“Finally,” said the Queen from behind me. I couldn’t help myself; I whirled to find myself looking directly into her eyes. “I wondered when you’d come see me again.”
My knees dipped in a curtsy without consulting the rest of me, letting me rip my eyes away from her halfmad, black-rimmed gaze. “Highness,” I said, still looking down. I couldn’t forget the things she’d said to me while I was her captive, and suddenly, she scared me more than ever.
“You missed our last appointment,” she said, the heels of her shoes clacking on the marble floor as she walked past me. “I came to see you to your—shall we call it a reward for services rendered, do you think?—and found that you’d left us far too early.”
Even now, she wouldn’t say “death.” Purebloods almost never will. “I’m sorry, Highness,” I said, rising and turning, eyes still downcast, to face the dais.
“No cries of innocence or pretty words geared toward your own defense? You disappoint me.” I heard, rather than saw, her settling onto the throne.
“The Duchess of Shadowed Hills was in danger.” It was true: if Tybalt and the others hadn’t broken me out of jail, Luna would have died.
“So you placed the value of one woman above the Queen’s own justice?” she asked, seemingly oblivious to the murmur that ran through the already whispering crowd. The Torquills have always been well-loved in San Francisco, and from the sound of things, I had more support in the crowd than the Queen thought.
“Yes, I did,” I said, raising my head. “I was half-dead from iron poisoning when I was pulled out of your jail, and I could barely stand, but yes, I chose not to return. I placed the lives of Luna Torquill and the subjects of Shadowed Hills above your justice. And if I had it to do over again, I
She stared. I looked back as calmly as I could, daring her to speak. For a long moment, all was silent. Then she leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, and said, “Very well. For your crimes against this Kingdom, again I sentence you, October Daye, to burn—”
“Excuse me?” Sylvester’s voice was mild and almost unobtrusive.
The Queen’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing. “It isn’t your turn to speak, Torquill. Your trial is next.”
“I believe,” he said, still, mild, “that as a subject of this kingdom, I have the right to ask why this charming young lady—a friend of my fiefdom, and a knight in my service—is going to be burned. It seems rather a waste of a
