Page 78 of When Sorrows Come

Tybalt blinked. Then he smiled back. “I was beginning to be afraid you’d never ask.”

eighteen

The High King hadmanaged not to get poisoned again after he resumed interviewing his staff, in part because Walther had swept the room for toxins before lighting several candles for Cassandra, who stared at them as the door opened and closed, saying, “Yes... no... I can’t tell, ask the questions,” and throwing the new arrivals off their guard while theactualguard stood with swords at the ready. Neither her yes nor her no was being taken as absolute proof one way or the other, but it gave them a starting point, and by the time Tybalt, Quentin and I came back, she had a one hundred percent success rate at identifying the Doppelgangers.

Of whom there were several. Absalom had been moving his people into place for a long time and had only accelerated the process when he heard about our arrival. Not all of his loyal subjects were Doppelgangers, either; a few were the descendants of people who’d sworn themselves to him when he still had a kingdom, or courtiers from Ash and Oak proper. Having centuries to live means having centuries to hold a grudge.

One of them, a Gwragen, had been part of the High Queen’s household staff for a hundred and forty years, and had been responsible for the illusions that allowed Absalom to infiltrate the kitchen, and later replace Fiac. She had started to weep when she was revealed as a traitor, insisting over and over again that she’d never done anything wrong or broken any laws; she had simply cast a few illusions when her true liege asked her to, allowing him topass his days in comfort and care. She was awaiting sentencing along with the rest of Absalom’s people, all of them stuffed into the less pleasant part of the dungeon.

Less pleasant, and already occupied when the High King’s men dragged them down there. All the people who’d been replaced after Nessa had been knocked unconscious and tucked away there like last week’s dirty laundry, intended to be forgotten—including the absent chatelaine. They’d been elf-shot first, so we didn’t have to worry about dehydration or starvation. That was the good thing. The section of the dungeons that wasn’t designed like some sort of abusive time share contained a lot of iron. That was the bad thing.

Oh, it wasn’t a lot of iron by the standards of a truly abusive monarch. The iron in the entire structure wouldn’t have been enough to replace one room in the false Queen’s old dungeon. But it was enough that all the people who’d been stowed there had signs of iron poisoning, some more severe than others, and the Court alchemists were finally going to have something to do, what with the need to treat them all before they could be woken.

Which Walther wouldnotbe doing since he needed to be at the wedding with the rest of us.

I stood perfectly still on the low platform Stacy had erected in the middle of the fitting room, my arms stretched out to either side of me, forcing myself to take slow, even breaths as my dearest friends attempted to crush the life out of me at Stacy’s instruction.

“Tighter,” said Stacy. “Toby, if you let your arms drop, I’m giving Tybalt copies of those pictures we took at the arcade when we were sixteen.”

“You’re a monster,” I managed, as May and Julie yanked the strings of my corset tight again, knocking the breath out of me for a moment. Stacy smiled.

“That should do it, ladies,” she said. “Go ahead and tie her off. Toby, you can put your arms down now.”

“I hate you,” I said, dropping my arms back to my sides. “Why do I need a corset, anyway? It’s not like the dress isn’t going to fit.”

Fae dresses tend to come in two major categories: entirely illusionary or extremely expensive and loaded down with enchantments. Either way, they always fit. Gain weight, lose weight, wear a corset, don’t wear a corset, they fit. So this was pointless.

Stacy smirked at me. “Can you breathe?”

“I can, yes.” A corset that actually fits properly isn’tuncomfortable: it’s snug, like wearing a too-tight pair of jeans, but other than making bending difficult, it doesn’t really change things all that much.

“Good,” said Stacy, and punched me in the stomach.

I blinked at her. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“Did you feel it?”

“Not really.”

“That’s why you have to wear a corset,” said May, walking around to join Stacy in front of me. “A corset means if you get stabbed on your wedding day, you won’t be the one bleeding.”

“Unless they stab you someplace the corset doesn’t cover,” chirped Julie.

“Yes, that’s very helpful,” said Stacy. “Keep being snide while we’re trying to convince her she approved the corset when she told us she didn’t care about her wedding dress.”

I sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Besides, your tits look amazing,” said May.

I grinned at her. “Yeah, they do.”

“Close your eyes,” commanded Stacy, before we could go any further down the route of discussing my breasts. “It’s time for us to get you dressed.”

“I’m still not allowed to see the dress?”

“No.”

“My own wedding dress. That I’m expected to wear for the rest of the night.”

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