Page 4 of Queen of Ever

‘It’s already taken too much,’ Ethan replied, clearly ignoring the fact that Arun wanted him to shut his mouth.‘You can’t keep waving scrolls under my nose and expecting me to believe that means she’s happy.I want to talk to her and know for sure.’

‘I thought you just said going to the Seelie Court was a bad idea,’ I said.I watched him, reading his face, the worry carved around his eyes.This was the only thing that had stopped us from being at each other’s throats; the fact that we both cared for Imogen.A good thing too, because he’d been staying at Dreadhold since I’d fished him out of the Shadowmire, and he got on my nerves almost as much as Ves did, with his scorn and his sarcasm and his tendency to leave glitter everywhere he went.

‘I said it’s a bad ideafor you,’ he replied.‘Ihave only refrained from going to her because James Bond over here has made me promise to let him try this his way first.’

‘Who is James Bond?’Arun asked, his frown deepening.

‘Ugh, I can’t believe I’m making decisions based on your information.Who is James Bond?What kind of spy master are you?’Ethan flung himself back in his seat, closed his eyes and massaged his temples.‘If Imogen winds up in trouble because we left her there for so long, I’m going to blame you personally.’

The idea that Imogen might be in trouble and I might not know it sent me to my feet again.‘I’ve had enough.’

Arun took a subtle step backwards, effectively wedging himself in that doorway.‘I don’t—’

‘I’m not going to the Seelie Court.Ethan’s right,’ I cut in, shooting the halfling a look.‘It won’t help her if I go barging in there uninvited.But I’m not sitting around here combing through reports for another afternoon.’I’d already scoured them all, anyway.‘I’m going to see Dhrigada.’

Arun’s stance softened a little.‘Alright.What for?’

‘Because she reads the damn stars.As far as I’m concerned, she’s fate’s accomplice.Maybe she can use her sight to see a way forwards or tell me what I’m supposed to do.’Because if Imogen and I were fated, then surely fate’s plan wasn’t for me to sit around here, playing nice and obeying the rules and leaving Imogen to the mercy of the Seelie Court.

He eyed me sceptically.‘I’m not sure she’ll give you the answers you want, and you’d have to use the waypoint system to reach her anyway.You don’t want a visit to Dhrigada reported to the queen.’

‘You’d be better off going to Ruisin,’ Ethan chimed in airily, flinging his legs over the armrest of the chair.A strange comment that attracted my interest even more when Arun shot him a look that was meant to silence and sever.

‘Who?’I asked immediately.

‘Ruisin,’ Ethan continued, holding Arun’s stare.‘What?I don’t have your hang-ups.I think he should know.’

‘We had an agreement,’ Arun said, his voice low.

Ethan waved a hand through the air.‘Until now.I’m sick of waiting.’

‘One of you needs to fill me in.’My tone reflected my growing frustration as I realised they’d been having conversations about this behind my back and had kept something from me that might be important.

‘Look, you can’t cross into Seelie lands because you don’t want to violate the terms of the treaty and it’ll wind up being a disaster of pomp and bluster if you do, but what if there was a loophole in the way the treaty was written that would make it possible to go without starting a war?’Ethan said, now looking determinedly away from Arun.

‘Why are you phrasing it as a question when it seems like you already have the answer?’

Ethan rolled his eyes.‘Don’t get grouchy with me.He’s the one who didn’t want me talking about this with you, so he’s the one you can take up your temper with.Look, I’m a halfling.We have different ideas about the way the realm works that aren’t so high and mighty as you royals.The Seelie and Unseelie divide doesn’t matter the same when we’re persecuted on either side of the Sunder.’

A quiet knock interrupted us, and Arun stepped out of the doorway to reveal Sarah—one of the housemaids at Dreadhold—standing in it, knuckles still raised against the open door.Already diminutive in stature, she shrank a little at the weight of our combined attention, her dark hair hiding her face from us as she stared down at her feet.The sight of her made me uncomfortable.It always did, now.If I wanted to put a name to the feeling, I would have called itguilt.Yet another remnant of Imogen’s time here; I’d never felt guilty about the lives of human changelings before.

‘I’m just here to stoke the fire,’ she said timidly.

‘I can do it,’ I immediately replied.

She shifted her weight, pinning her stare to the ground.‘If it please you, sir.’

When she vanished from the doorway, Arun shook his head.‘You know it only confuses her when you do that.’

‘Yes, I know.I’m damned no matter what I do,’ I muttered, taking wood from the box nearby and loading it onto the fire.I was caught in a miserable loop.Guilty when Sarah did anything to serve me, guilty when I refused her service and baffled her.I wished I could send her away, send all the changelings away, but where would they go?Service was all they’d ever known.I couldn’t send them back to the human world where they’d never had a life and wouldn’t know how to make one, couldn’t just set them loose in the Unseelie Kingdom where they would be prey or sport for any number of beings who saw humans as fair game, couldn’t send them to another household where they might be treated cruelly.So instead, I confused them.Gave them extra holidays they didn’t ask for.Offended Madam Hetia when I made suggestions about how much work they were expected to do, how much time they should have to themselves, how they were cared for.It felt clumsy and inadequate.

Imogen would have teased me for it.And would probably have had some practical solution that seemed perfectly obvious to her.

When I sat back down across from Ethan, I found him looking at me with a funny half smile twisting his mouth.‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ he replied, a thread of laughter in his tone.

‘Ruisin,’ I repeated, hearing Arun’s heavy sigh from halfway across the room.

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