Page 165 of With Wing And Claw

So she signed three copies, and then Agenor’s, Helenka’s, and Delwin’s too, making sure her capitalisedNAXIwas just a little larger than any of the other names. Nenya regretfully suggested Bakaru might make a fuss about an additional name on his treaty, so Naxi kept her hands off that one. No one even bothered to check with Drusa what her preferences might be.

Then it wasdone: seven copies, seven signatures with a little demonic bonus, and for the first time in over a thousand long years, the archipelago was officially at peace.

None of the rulers at the table allowed themselves to show it, but in the sudden and weighty silence that fell, Naxi sensed more than a few stinging eyes and catches in throats around her.

‘There.’ Helenka broke the silence, chucking her pen onto the table with a characteristic brusqueness. ‘Time for a drink?’

The hall collectively started breathing again.

‘I must be on my way,’ Drusa said stiffly, tucking her copy of the treaty into a neat pile of parchment. ‘If any al— Ifanyonewould be so kind as to take me back to Phurys …’

‘Almost sounded like you were asking your favourite northern barbarians for help there,’ Tared said, his grin at her broad and full of heartfelt loathing. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be overjoyed to get you out of here at the earliest convenience.’

Naxi saw Emelin mouth something at her father –So much for the peace, it seemed – and Agenor choked on an unwilling laugh. Thankfully Thysandra was already intervening, thanking Drusa politely and sincerely for her presence and the pleasant cooperation during all these weeks – because that was Thysandra, determined to do things well and fairly even when the things truly deserved nothing better than a good bout of laughter, or perhaps a good punch in the face.

Some days, Naxi despaired of her. Then again, it was damnably attractive, too.

Somewhat placated, Drusa took her leave of the company and haughtily offered Tared a thin hand in order to be faded out. He returned about five seconds later, the tight-lipped elderly lady on his arm replaced by a much smaller, much brighter, much more welcome bundle of red hair and freckles. Lyn had, as usual, requested that no one try to put her in the same room as the older phoenix who … well, Naxi wasn’t sure what exactly Drusa had done, but she was quite certain it warranted biting off several fingers and perhaps a nose.

Not that she was going to speak that thought out loud, because last time she had, Lyn had somehow started crying.

‘Excellent,’ Thysandra said beside her, resuming her role of hostess with resolute ease. Her moss-green gown shimmered around her hips and legs as she rose; along the walls, the gathered court finally started moving too, as if they’d needed the departure of one of the negotiators to signal the officialities had truly ended. ‘Time for a drink, indeed.’

The celebratory dinner was hosted in the crystalline hall, where Thysandra had almost died a few months ago, and where Naxi had been stupid enough to mistake the tension and grimness in Nicanor’s heart for genuine distress.

It didn’t look nearly as ominous today. No dead hounds to be seen, no blood-red velvet drapes on the walls. The Crimson Court’s new Master of Ceremony, a young fae by the name of Calaria, had received Thysandra’s instructions and thrown every ounce of her considerable imagination into their implementation; the hall was covered in white flowers now, the light glinting off the iridescent walls unmistakably alf magic. Behind the dais, an embroidered map of the archipelago filled most of the wall, the colours matching the newly drawn borderlines to the tiniest stitch.

Most of the nymphs still sat with the other nymphs, of course, the vampires with the vampires, the alves with the alves. But some of the fae and human scribes who’d spent the last few months working on negotiations gingerly took seats between the other magical creatures, and the main table was the usual hodgepodge of all Naxi’s friends.

She ate very, very happily.

Thysandra was doing High Lady things and doing them very well as always, having serious conversations with everyone who approached her, shaking hands and remembering names and laughing at nervous jokes that really weren’t all that funny. Naxi decided not to disturb her, because she was slowly coming to grasp that Thysandraenjoyedbeingdutiful. Instead, she ate a second helping of rhubarb pudding, then bounced off her chair and went to look for someone else to talk to.

Nenya seemed a bad candidate; she was sipping a goblet of blood and chatting with a greying, red-haired clerk named Rinald, who had volunteered to oversee the vampire negotiations a few months ago and seemedoverjoyedevery time he got himself close to a pair of fangs. Naxi was a little surprised to see the vampire was humouring him and his obsessive fascination at all, until she realised that Edored had seated himself on the opposite side of the table, and that Nenya was mostly extremely busy not lookinghisway for even a second.

Edored, oblivious to the fact that he was being aggressively snubbed, threw Naxi his broadest grin as she passed and yelled, ‘Catch!’

She squeaked but caught the fork he flung her way just in time, managing by some miraculous new reflex not to get herself injured in the act.

‘Edored!’ Lyn snapped, two chairs away.

‘What?’ the alf sputtered, looking indignant. ‘She wanted me to teach her how to juggle!’

‘Yes, and does that need to happen withforks, Edored darling?’

‘Why not? Safer than’ – he interrupted himself to snatch the fork from the air as Naxi hurled it back at him – ‘than to start with knives, yes?’

‘That does sound entirely sensible to me,’ Thorir said next to him, face deadpan.

Lyn’s reply was somewhat hard to interpret due to the arms she’d buried her face in, but it did seem to contain the phrasesfucking idiotsandlucky you’re still aliveandnot my responsibility if any of you kill yourselves tomorrow. That last part was of course a lie, becauseeverythingwas Lyn’s responsibility according to Lyn’s brain – but Naxi figured there might be better moments than festive dinners to point that out.

Empathically, of course.

She was practicing empathy. And juggling. And, bit by bit, love.

She exchanged a few more forks with Edored, then bounced on to where Lyn had reemerged from her own arms and resumed her conversation with Tared – her wildly gesturing hands and the flurries ofsparks spilling from her fingers suggesting the topic was related to her research on magic. She was feeling the way she always did around Tared, happy butcautiouslyso – as if that happiness was a fragile thing she couldn’t possibly afford to drop. And below that, buried so deep it had taken Naxi years to notice it … that perpetual small, smouldering thread of brewing anger, unwanted and neglected, biding its time.

It would be very good for Lyn to finally be angry for once.

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