Page 69 of When Sorrows Come

“Traditionally a feminine means of murder,” said Walther, holding up a glass beaker and swirling its contents, a thoughtful look on his face. “Maybe that’s sexist—probably that’s sexist—but if a King dies alone in a room, and he dies by poison, everyone will assume the Queen did it. No matter how much proof you provide that she didn’t.”

Maida looked horrified. “I wouldnever...”

“We know that, and we know you didn’t, but if you hadn’t had my blood ready to go and the poison had killed him, would the court have agreed?” And given the timing, would it have mattered? The Luidaeg was here for our wedding: even if Oberon stayed silent and hidden in plain sight, all she had to do was declare the High Queen’s innocence and any debate would be immediately ended.

Only I knew the world didn’t really work that way. Everyone would listen to her, sure, because failure to listen to one of the Firstborn is a good way to wind up very, very dead, and then we would leave, and no one would actually believe Maida hadn’t killed her husband to claim the throne. Her reign would be destabilized, and by its very nature, brief.

Maida slumped, still on the floor, still clutching her transformed son and holding her dying husband’s hand. For a moment, I felt almost like I could see what it was like to collide with the daily chaos to which we had all become accustomed, where this sort of thing happened before lunch five times a week and we just had to figure out how we were going to deal with it before we could finish ordering our pizza. This was all new and shockingly terrible for her.

And she had thrown her only son into it. Poor woman. “Fiac, will the court believe you when you say the attack was carried out using contact poison on the High King’s desk?”

“They will,” he said gravely. “Adhene can lie, but they know thatwe find it abhorrent, and this court has no cause to doubt me. And if the High King lives, there will be no question at all of the Queen’s innocence, or of recalling the children from their distant fosterage.” He had to work not to look at Quentin, who was still hugging his mother.

Good man. “I’m sure Penthea would prefer to remain where she is until it’s safe for her to come home,” I said. Fiac had to know by now who the Banshee boy clinging to the queen was, but if I could talk around it, I would. “I know Quentin is happy with his current arrangement.”

“That’s all I had ever hoped for them,” said Fiac.

“Who benefits from throwing the High Kingdom into chaos?” I turned to Walther. “And how long before you know whether you can fix this?”

“I’m not a magician trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, I’m an alchemist trying to come up with a counteragent for a novel poison that seems to be more iron-based than it has any business being,” said Walther. “You’ll forgive me if it’s not the fastest process ever.”

Cassie gasped, eyes still fixed on what looked to me like absolutely nothing.

“Ash and Oak,” she said. “The Kingdom fell, and no one came for the people who lived there. Look for their signatories, look for mistletoe and Virginia creeper and holly. They brew their poisons on what remains of a blighted land.”

“Of course, they do,” said Walther, grabbing several more small jars and adding their contents to his mixture. For all that he spoke like there was no urgency to his task at all, he moved like it was the most urgent thing in the world, like he could never have done anything less.

The contents of his beaker changed colors, going from pale gold to a rancid slime green that glittered from within with tiny specks of captive gilded light. Walther sniffed the mixture and wrinkled his nose. Given some of the things he’d given me to drink in the past, that didn’t speak well for it.

“Toby, I need some of your blood,” he said.

“I thought we just established that my blood doesn’t counteract poison,” I said. “See, the High King’s right there, and he’s still all poisoned, despite being doped up with my blood before he could die.”

“Yes, but your blood will let him heal himself, and the poisonhas done—and is still doing—a considerable amount of damage to his body,” said Walther, producing a scalpel from inside his kit. He offered it to me. “If you don’t want the High King to need dialysis for the rest of his life, bleed for me.”

“Every time I think my life couldn’t get more like a horror movie, something like this has to go and happen,” I grumbled, taking the scalpel and using it to lay open the side of my hand. Walther moved his beaker into position, holding it there until he’d gathered what he judged to be a sufficient quantity of my blood. Which was reassuringly not all that much since I was pretty tired of bleeding.

I tossed the scalpel onto the desk and wiped my bloody palm on my jeans. Quentin wrinkled his nose.

“You know Tybalt’s going to notice that,” he said. “If you wanted to bleed without getting caught, you’d keep it off your clothes.”

“If I wanted to bleed without getting caught, I’d wash my hands and put on some perfume,” I said. “Don’t teach your grandma how to conceal forensic evidence, kid. You know it never ends well for you.”

“Both my grandmothers are dead,” he said, somewhat sourly, and glanced back at his father.

Walther had finished reheating and stirring his mixture. He held it carefully in front of him as he approached the High King, eyes on Maida. “This should counteract the poison in your husband’s system,” he said. “I believe I identified and isolated all of the compounds doing him harm. Fortunately, to be stable enough to linger on surfaces and be absorbed through the skin, the potion couldn’t be overtly magical, and had to rely on its contents to do the most damage possible. Unfortunately, that reliance involved a great deal of cold iron. I can’t promise this will be enough to save him, but I can promise you there’s not an alchemist in this Kingdom who could have done a better job.”

Fiac neither moved nor spoke, clearly accepting Walther’s words as truth. That was reassuring. That reduced the odds of his being arrested if this didn’t work.

“May I give this to the High King?” Walther paused respectfully, waiting for Maida’s answer.

When it came, it was in the form of a laugh that bordered on hysterical. “Can you save my husband?” she asked. “The man who gave me everything I have, the man without whom I don’t knowwhat to do or how to do it or even where I’d go, where I’d live, where to find my children, can yousave my husband?” Her laughter died, replaced by a look of bleak despair that chilled me to the bone. “Please. Try.”

Maida had been a changeling when she met Aethlin. I knew her father, her fae parent, had died in one of the wars. Her mortal family would be long since dead, the farm where her parents had lived sold to other hands. She knew the knowe and the throne and nothing else. Did she have friends? Did she have people like Stacy and Kerry, or even Julie, who could take care of her if the High King was gone?

Sweet Titania, was she a prisoner here even though she was supposedly in charge?

No, bad Toby. Fix the feudal system later, after you’ve prevented its current round of victims from dying. Walther pressed the edge of the beaker to the High King’s lips. Aethlin stirred, making a noise that was neither loud nor strong enough to be classified as a moan, but not shrill enough to be a squeak, either. “I know, it smells terrible,” said Walther, in a soothing tone. “You still have to swallow it, because if you don’t, I’m going to pour it in your hair.”

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