Page 50 of When Sorrows Come

Maybe it was because the knowe was lit entirely by its own power, glowing crystals and radiance from the walls, instead of torches or witch-lights or the less-fashionable than it used to be and extremely inhumane shoving of pixies into jars and letting them starve while they light up the room around them, but the light here was definitely less intense than it had been outside. The iron was impacting the knowe’s ability to remain stable.

It hung heavy in the air, and I flinched as the door closed behind us. Maybe it’s because I used to be human enough to handle the stuff with relative impunity, and maybe it’s because I’ve had severe iron poisoning twice, but I can’t stand to be near it in any real concentration, even if the purebloods around me are fine.

Tybalt looked almost as shaken, shifting his stride so that he was walking closed beside me, slipping one arm around my waist. Cassandra on the other hand was looking around, completely unperturbed.

The High King was equally unshaken, as were his guards. They must have been down here often enough to be comfortable with the danger, but not often enough to have side effects to deal with. That was nice for them.

The hall widened, becoming more of a long room than a hallway, and doors appeared along the walls, spaced like the rooms in a luxury hotel. They would have seemed almost pleasant, if not for the fact that every one of them was made of rowan and covered in a thin lattice of iron bars, bent and twined into something elegant that couldn’t fully conceal the poisonous reality behind it.

The High King paused at the first of the doors, waving to the guard. “Let us in,” he said.

“Sire,” began the guard.

“No,” said Aethlin. “I’m tired of people arguing about whether or not I’m allowed to do my job.” He cast a commiserating look at Tybalt. “Do your subjects argue with you like this?”

“If they try, I slam them into the nearest wall,” said Tybalt stiffly. “The Court of Cats is managed in a much more direct manner than the majority of the Divided Courts.”

“I see,” said Aethlin. “The door, please.”

The guard moved to unlock the door, casting unhappy glances back at both the High King and the rest of us. He didn’t want to be doing this.

Well, that was cool. Neither did I.

The guard unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing a dimly-lit room. Two guards were already there, standing to either side of a man about the size of an eight-year-old human child. He was clearly an adult, with the face to match, and a short brown beard a few shades darker than the hair atop his head. His eyes were the smooth yellow of a lizard’s, no white or distinct iris, and his ears were pointed.

Like almost everyone else we’d seen since arriving in Canada, he was dressed in the royal livery, tailored for his smaller than average frame. Unlike almost everyone else, he was also handcuffed. The cuffs were silver, not iron, delicate things that held his wrists about a foot apart. I blinked.

“Um, hello,” I said.

“Fiac,” said the High King, with obvious relief. “I appreciate you taking the time from your duties to assist us with this interrogation.”

“I prefer not to disrupt my schedule when I don’t have to, but for you, my liege, anything,” said the Adhene, with prim, studious precision. He reminded me oddly of Etienne. I suppressed the urge to smile.

In addition to having a near-pathological addiction to the truth above all else, Adhene are very fond of their own dignity. Embarrassing them can have fatal consequences. His nature explained the cuffs; if someone bumped him in the hall and lied casually about what they’d been doing or where they’d been going, he could have done serious harm.

Most Adhene choose to live as far away from the rest of Faerie as possible, due to not wanting to break the Law over someone saying they look nice in an ugly blouse or something equally pointless. I offered Fiac a deep nod, trying to wordlessly project how much I respected the fact that he was here at all. He responded by raising an eyebrow and snorting.

“You’re that October girl, aren’t you?” he asked. “Amandine’s daughter? You know what the Firstborn call your mama? Amandine the Liar. You a liar, girl?”

“Not on purpose,” I said. “And while she’s still biologically my mother, I’m not her daughter anymore.”

“Ah,” said Fiac. “That husband of hers finally got the sense to ask for a divorce? And you chose his line, even though he’s not really yours. I’ve known some who would take you carrying the name ‘Torquill’ as a falsehood, but I’ll take it for the slap in your mother’s face it truly is and applaud you for finding a way to split yourself from her.”

“Okay,” I said. No one who knows Mom seems to be her biggest fan. I used to think Simon was, but he gave up that title when he left her. And good for him. He deserved a chance at something better.

Not sure I’d personally call a three-way relationship with a notoriously violent mermaid “better,” but hey. Everyone has their own idea of what makes a happy ending.

“Gentlemen.” Aethlin nodded to the guards before starting deeper into the room. The rest of us followed him.

It was a reasonably spacious room. The luxury hotel comparison I’d come up with in the hall wasn’t entirely inaccurate; the main space was the largest, but from there, it opened up into a bathroom—indoor plumbing had caught on even in a knowe this old—and a small kitchenette. The lighting was dim throughout. The Doppelganger was in the kitchenette area, not tied to a chair like it should have been. I shot the High King a quick glare, which he ignored. The Doppelganger was in its natural form, all leprous gray skin mottled with unnatural green, long limbs and sharp teeth. It turned at the sound of our footsteps, perfectly round eyes widening before it shimmered, shrank down, and resolved itself into a perfect mirror image of me, even down to the dress I was wearing.

“Much better,” it said, voice as stolen as the rest of it. Hearing myself from the outside had stopped being strange within the first six months of May living with me, but that didn’t make this any more pleasant. Tybalt set his hand back on my shoulder, squeezing just tightly enough to make it clear he was going to keep track of the real me even if he had to do it by holding on the entire time we were here. Cassandra hung back, being unobtrusive, as the Doppelganger continued: “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“You stabbed me,” I said.

“You interrupted me,” it replied, with a casual shrug, as if stabbing me had been no more important than anything else that had happened today.

I scowled and kept scowling as Cassandra moved to stand next to me, eyes very wide. “Whoa,” she said. “It looksjustlike you, Aunt Birdie. How is it doing that?”

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