There’s a phenomenon known as Stendhal Syndrome, which some people say doesn’t exist. Plenty of doctors in Florence could attest to it, though, given the number of tourists who come to them after face-planting at the Uffizi Gallery. There is only so much beauty the human soul can take before it tries to rip itself right out of your cruel joke of a body and ascend.
That’s what it felt like to me, anyway, as I found myself in a luminous vaulted paradise, surrounded by an embarrassment of angels. These were not marble statues on display in alcoves, but slender, winged sidhe going about their unfathomable business, glistening like diamond and fire opal and mother-of-pearl. The milky stone floor seemed to pitch under me like the deck of a ship. Thanks to the slight weight of the backpack, plus having set my knee at sprinting resistance, I couldn’t compensate too well for my inner ear malfunction. I’d probably have fallen if not for my attentive Echo and the strong arm he looped around my waist.
“This is my first time here without Elliott,” breathed Caryl from nearby. “I can only imagine how I would feel if I had never seen it at all.”
“You’ve been here before?” I said into Claybriar’s chest. Or at least that’s what I intended to say. I think what I actually said was “Beef bore?”
“All the national heads and regional managers come once a year to pay respects,” Caryl said. Then, after a moment: “Take your time.”
“I’m fine,” I said. Words now, at least, but my voice sounded like it was coming from across the room. “Let’s get this over with.”
“You aren’t fine,” said Claybriar. “I’m supporting your entire weight right now.”
“Are not,” I said.
Claybriar let go of me, just for a quarter of a second, to prove his point. It was as though there were nothing between my ass and the floor but two lengths of ribbon. He caught me before I could collapse, then straightened me gently.
“Give yourself a minute,” he said.
“I’m not sure a minute will help,” I said. “A blindfold, maybe.” But even as I said it, I knew it wouldn’t do much good. It wasn’t just the infinite shades of near white that exploded like a rainbow against my retinas; it was the harmonic echo of footsteps against the stone and the antique scent in the air, powdery and musky sweet. Now, too, the warmth and the woodland smell of my Echo’s body against me added a visceral source of dizziness to the spiritual elation that was already turning my limbs to Jell-O.
Claybriar and Elliott helped me to a bench at one side of the hall so that I could sit for a moment. Caryl hung back, her eyes alight with childlike wonder as they roamed the high arching expanse of the ceiling. As Elliott drew away, crossing my line of sight, I momentarily confused him for Alondra before remembering that the real one was supposedly still freezing her ass off down by the portal.
I leaned over and put my head between my knees, feeling the weight of my backpack shift uncomfortably toward my neck. “It’s a pretty close race,” I said, “but I think I functioned slightly better with a concussion.”
Claybriar patted my arm. “Deep breaths.”
I had been so overcome by my first impression that it wasn’t until I tentatively raised myself to lean my backpack against the wall that I realized everyone was staring at me.
We often say “everyone is staring” to mean “a few people have given me lingering glances,” but in this case, literally every single fey in my eyeline was gazing at me, and only me, relentlessly, even those who were walking past on their way somewhere else. It was like the reverse of the painting whose eyes follow you around the room, only several times creepier.
“Have they never seen a human before?” I whispered.
“It’s the iron,” said Claybriar.
I blinked. “I remember when I first met Winterglass, he said it ‘sang’ or something. But no one’s looking at Ell—at Alondra.”
“All of her iron is covered by her suit,” said Caryl. “It muffles it.”
My gloved fingers reflexively found the seamlike scar on the left side of my head. “Ah.”
“On Earth,” Caryl said, “you are part of the general white noise of metals and electricity. And some fey are less sensitive to it when occupying human facades. But here, you are rather disruptive, it seems. We ought to have made you a hat.”
“How bad is it for them? Is everyone going to instantly hate me?”
“It is difficult to describe to someone without arcane senses,” said Caryl. “But if we are to continue the auditory metaphor, think of it as a feedback whine from a microphone.”
“Yeah, that’s super attractive,” I said. I glanced at the nearest passing sidhe, whose forehead bore two delicate, shell-pink horns. As she breezed by, glaring, I said, “Sorry.” She started and averted her eyes.
“Your color’s better now,” said Claybriar. “Think you can stand?”
I tested my arms, lifting myself a half inch by the heels of my hands. “Yeah, things seem to be in working order,” I said. “Elliott, you still remember the word to listen for?”
“Champion,” he said in Alondra’s sweet, lilting voice.
“So,” I said. “We’re doing this?”
“We’re doing this,” said Clay.
“The queen’s audience chamber is on the top floor,” Caryl said, and helped me to my feet.
• • •
There was one main flight of stairs that cut all the way up through four floors, broad as a church at the bottom and slowly tapering. At each floor the landing branched off into hallways edged with gold and white balustrades at the near side, overlooking the grand foyer. At the apex of the staircase stood an arched set of double doors. The doors were flanked by a pair of icy-pale guards, alike enough to be brothers, with broad feathery wings the color of an overcast sky.
“Shit,” Claybriar murmured. “These guys.”
“You know them?” I whispered back.
“Greyfall on the right has an Echo; he can speak. Silverwind won’t understand you. They’re both ornery as hell.”
Real, actual sidhe guards. This was the part where my plan stopped being a plan and became an actual performance. Underneath the latex of my surgical gloves I felt my palms start to sweat.
“Try to say as little as possible,” I murmured back to Claybriar.
“What?” he said in a tone that suggested he might be getting a little too used to being king.
“The less you say, the less the truth can fuck us up,” I said. Though even he didn’t know exactly what I planned to do in the meeting. I’d taken a page from Alvin’s book here. If you want people to seem appalled, sometimes you have to actually appall them.
I wouldn’t have thought the guards could stand any taller, but they did as the four of us approached. Like the other sidhe, they glared at me as though I stank, but they were professionals and gave Caryl and Claybriar a thorough once-over as well. Elliott was the only one they didn’t examine minutely; he wasn’t invisible to them—he just projected an aura of drab insignificance. Because he didn’t have to speak aloud to cast a spell, they had no way of knowing they were being enchanted.
“I am Baroness Millicent Roper of Los Angeles,” I said, addressing the guards. “Her Majesty is expecting me, and my companions.”
The guards exchanged a look, in the way sidhe tended to do when in silent communication. Then Greyfall said, “Come with me, then.” I’m not sure why it surprised me that his English was London-accented; it would make sense that his Echo would be local.
As he turned away to push on one of the doors, I saw that he had a long tail, like a lemur’s, ringed in gray. The huge door eased open, soundless.
“I’d prefer that you remain outside,” I said to him. “What we plan to discuss is for the queen’s ears only.”
“As you wish,” said Greyfall with a condescending smile, holding the door open for us. Let the ignorant human think herself unwatched, his expression said.
Good. I wanted him to think I was ignorant. Because it was the only thing that would explain why I thought I could get away with what I was about to do.
The audience chamber, being at the pointed apex of the rose, had a high peaked ceiling, every inch of which was covered with paintings that would have made Michelangelo gnash his teeth with jealousy. Hell, maybe his Echo had made them. On the dais at the center of the room, flanked at a distance by two sidhe ladies-in-waiting, was an antlered throne carved either from bone or pale wood. I couldn’t tell from my current distance, nor did I look long, because next to the pale throne reclined an enormous lead-gray gryphon, and sprawled upon the throne itself, one leg thrown comfortably over the arm, was the white-winged Queen of the Seelie High Court.
She was not wearing her human facade, and Claybriar had to catch me again to keep me from crashing to my knees.
Draped in sheer, snowy silks and glowing as though lit from within, the golden, voluptuous, diamond-eyed queen beckoned us forward with one of her four arms. Two of the other arms were stroking the gryphon, who watched me through fierce, slitted yellow eyes. The remaining arm was holding the scepter. Although her golden face and breasts were as smooth as a human’s, her lower half and the distal ends of her arms were covered with honey-colored, satiny fur. The soft, multi-textured hourglass of her body was the quintessence of sensual opulence; I wanted to dissolve into it and disappear.
Her attention was all for Claybriar, but he refused to speak; he only cast his eyes down to the rose-marbled floor.
Caryl leaned over to whisper to me. “You will have to make the blood sacrifice.” I didn’t even remember what she was talking about, and yet I docilely extended my arm to one of the sidhe maidservants as she approached me with a half-filled cup of what looked like white wine. She pierced my wrist with a thumb claw, which my vague mind did register as unsanitary, but no sooner had three drops of my blood bloomed like red roses in the goblet’s depths than the servant murmured a few words in the Seelie tongue. There was a sudden scent like crushed leaves, and my wound closed without a trace. I watched the servant’s dragonfly wings as she moved away to the queen’s side.
Dawnrowan took the cup and drained it avidly to the dregs, each swallow rippling along the perfect curve of her throat. I glanced at Claybriar, but his eyes were still on the floor.
“So,” the queen said, a low, coaxing sound like the cry of a mourning dove. She handed the cup back to her maidservant. “You arrive.”
“Thank you for receiving us, Queen Dawnrowan,” I said. “You know me, and you’ve met Marchioness Caryl Vallo and, of course, Claybriar.” I left off the title, to appease her. “With us is Baroness Alondra Serrano, here searching for her Echo.”
She barely glanced at “Alondra,” instead watching the servant return to her place near the dais. She dismissed both servants with a gesture, then turned her glittering gaze to me as they headed for the double doors through which we’d entered.
“You are willing to reconsider my offer,” she said to me. “Why?”
“King Winterglass refuses to negotiate with us,” I said, rattling off my prepared speech even as I stared uneasily at the gryphon. Having a giant, unpredictable monster in the room had really not figured into my plan. “Without a complete fey court on our side,” I went on, “we have no way of removing Dame Belinda from power. We are ready to do whatever it takes to earn the allegiance of your entire Court.”
She inclined her head graciously. “Then please allow me to introduce you to Arrowmorn, future King of the Seelie.”
The great double doors boomed closed, and I turned toward them, but it had only been the servants leaving. Belatedly I realized what Dawnrowan had meant and turned back to her in astonishment. She helpfully gestured with her scepter toward the massive beast reclining at her side.
I stared at the gryphon. He blinked at me.
“You want to replace Claybriar with—him.” I’d stopped myself just short of saying with that.
“Regal, isn’t he?” Dawnrowan gave his head a scratch. “Unusual, perhaps, but the Third Accord hinges upon my sharing my rule with a commoner, so it may as well be one who can fly.”
“Right,” I said, trying to remember that I was supposed to be amenable to this. At least until I could figure out how the hell to get that thing out of the room. “Can he—can Arrowmorn understand us? Can he speak?”
“He does not have the use of words,” said Dawnrowan, “but I can translate for him.”
“How convenient,” broke in Claybriar bitterly. “A king who can’t give any orders except through you.”
“Claybriar, what did I say?” I hissed at him.
But Queen Dawnrowan had already turned to Claybriar, magnificent in her outrage. “On your knees, faun!” she cried, pointing her scepter at him.
Claybriar, still standing, made a great show of looking down at himself, then back up. “Whoops,” he said. “Looks like I’m still king for the moment.”
Queen Dawnrowan rose from her throne, eyes flashing, and the gryphon rose too. Oh Jesus he was big. He spread his wings menacingly; the shadow of them was like a lake of ink on the dais.
“Ob-obviously,” Caryl interrupted, stepping forward, “we will need to give the commoners time t-to shift their support to the proper candidate.”
“Proper?” said Claybriar, his face going red. “You expect me to stand here and— No. You know what? No.” He turned to me. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t listen to my own friends talk about me this way. Fuck this.”
I grabbed him by the arm. He turned to me, his gaze full of dark wrath, but his fingers were gentle as they tried to pry my hand loose.
“Calm down!” I barked at him.
He stood still, eyes startled.
I turned to Queen Dawnrowan, tried to look exasperated. “Look,” I said, “we’re never going to have a civilized discussion about the future so long as these two . . . men are in here posturing at each other. So let’s send them out and let those of us who are calmer finish working out the details.”
Of course the queen was the least calm of anyone, but she didn’t want to admit that, and probably liked that I didn’t seem to notice.
“Arrowmorn, Claybriar, wait outside with the guards,” she said. They both moved to obey, the gryphon because he had no choice, and Claybriar, I could only assume, because he trusted me. He did give me a hell of a puppy-dog look over his shoulder, though.
It was a risk. I had counted on his being there in the room to help me if things got too dangerous, but things were ten times as dangerous with a giant eagle-monster in the room, so this was as good an arrangement as I was going to get.
Once the doors had closed solidly behind the two men, I turned back to Dawnrowan, who was seated again on her throne, though without her previous air of insouciance.
“Their kind are not made for diplomacy,” she said with a weary sigh.
Apparently my kind wasn’t either, to judge by the sudden urge I had to put a fist through the back of her head. I gritted my teeth and smiled. “He was a better champion than he is a king, huh?” I said.
“Millie,” Elliott said, interrupting me on cue in Alondra’s timid voice just as Dawnrowan had begun to look affronted. “I’m so sorry to intrude, but I think . . . I think it might be her.”
“What?” I said, feigning surprise inexpertly. I didn’t worry about it too much with Dawnrowan; she’d never shown the faintest sign of reading my cues. “Might be who? You don’t mean the queen?”
Elliott nodded, giving me a doe-eyed look. Boy, he’d really been practicing Alondra’s moves, hadn’t he?
“Well—wow,” I said. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but . . . as I said before, this is Baroness Alondra Serrano, from New York. We brought her with us because we had reason to believe that her Echo was someone powerful here in Daystrike. Would you be so kind as to indulge her? Let her see if it might be you?”
“Me?” Suddenly all of Dawnrowan’s offense and irritation melted away, leaving only a childlike wonder. “You believe I might be her Echo?”
Well, I thought. Now we know what to get the girl who has everything.
“If Your Majesty will permit me,” Elliott said with becoming shyness, “I could take your hand, and I would know.” As he spoke, he shifted the spell he’d been casting to make the queen pay him no mind and made her oblivious to me, instead.
Elliott and I approached the queen at the same time. The guardian spirit must already have found this alarming and flashed it to the guards, because I saw the doors begin to swing open. Elliott quickened the facade’s pace, pulling off his glove. The queen’s eyes flew wide as the song of iron hit her from both sides, and then Elliott seized her bare wrist. Between the pain and the enchantment, she hardly even noticed as I snatched the scepter from her hand and ran.