“Oh, I respect the man,” my father said. “I just don’t trust him. Especially when it comes to you. Anytime you give someone power over you, you become vulnerable. As a Guardsman’s daughter, I thought I taught you that.”
I wanted to point out that Trillian and I had power over each other. And that Father had given the Court and Crown power over him when he signed up for the Guard. But I decided to forego the debate. I’d never win, even when I was right.
“I’m hungry. Can we go home and eat?”
He smiled then. “Of course. I’m being an ungracious host.” Motioning toward the door, he added, “The carriage is waiting, but we have a stop to make first.”
“So our home survived the war?” Anxious, I followed him, with Morio and Iris right behind me.
He looked crestfallen. “You’re going to see a big change in the streets of our city. And at home, too, Camille, and I apologize for that. When Lethesanar placed a bounty on our heads, she pillaged our house. I managed to get all our souvenirs out in time but the furniture, all the tapestries, were destroyed or looted. Everything is new. Your aunt Rythwar helped me decorate, after she helped me retrieve the goods we put into hiding.”
We swept through the halls of the palace until we came to a set of silver double doors. A contingent of guards stood at attention beside the entrance. They bowed to my father. Two attendants opened the doors for us and we filed through.
The room was windowless, and an ornate desk and chair sat toward the back. Sitting in the chair was a woman who looked familiar, and yet I knew I’d never seen her before. And then it hit me. Tanaquar. The Queen. She looked a lot like Lethesanar, the Opium Eater. Only, instead of hair the color of spun gold, tresses of flaming burgundy fell to her waist. Her skin was tan and her eyes gleamed with golden light. As she stood, her dress crinkled, the long folds of it gathering at her waist. She wore a golden tiara with a sparkling diamond in the center.
Father knelt at her feet, and instinctively, I curtsied. My knees were sure getting a workout today. Morio bowed low and Iris dropped to one knee.
“Rise,” the woman said. Her voice rippled through the room, melodic and enticing. “Sephreh, introduce me. This would be your daughter, I presume?”
“By Your Majesty’s will.” My father rose, his eyes fastened on Queen Tanaquar. “May I present Camille, my eldest? And this is Lady Iris, and one of my daughter’s husbands, Morio.”
We waited for her to speak.
The Queen stepped out from behind her desk. She circled me, her gaze then locking with my own. “So you are the leader in our war against Shadow Wing,” she said lightly. “Surely a great and horrible task for such a young woman to bear. And half-human, on top of the matter.”
The leader of the war? That was news to me, but I had sense enough not to correct her.
She tapped one finger against her chin, still gazing at me. She was tall, taller than my father, almost as tall as Smoky, and she’d obviously been bred from royal stock. Her heritage was in every move she made, every gesture, every nuance of look. Tanaquar embodied everything her sister should have. The Court and Crown of Y’Elestrial would become a true monarchy, instead of a farce led by a demented dictator.
“So tell me, Camille, how goes the war?”
I flinched, wishing she’d asked any question but that one.
“Your Majesty . . . to be honest, I have no idea,” I said. “We’re doing our best to find the spirit seals and return them to Queen Asteria. That is our first priority. We’re on the track of the new demon general that Shadow Wing smuggled over Earthside. We’ve kept the director of the OIA apprised. The new general is known as Stacia Bonecrusher. She’s a lamia.”
Tanaquar’s eyes flashed and the crash of thunder echoed outside the palace. I had the uneasy feeling that there was some connection there. Just who was this Queen? We’d heard little about her when Lethesanar was on the throne, of course, but now—looking at the imposing figure who stood before me—I had the distinct feeling that our new Queen was packing more than royal blood on her side.
“You have allies in strange places, so I have heard. You mingle freely with demons and vampires and humans . . .” She paused, then her lips crinkled into a smile and I felt like the sun had come out. “You and your sisters have learned one of the most difficult lessons. Not all who appear to be our enemies are truly our enemies, and not all who claim friendship are to be trusted.”
“You haven’t heard anything about the sixth spirit seal, have you?” I asked impulsively. The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wondered if I’d overstepped my boundaries, but she laughed.
“I will see if we can pinpoint a location on the sixth spirit seal for you. In the meantime, focus on the Bonecrusher. Find her and destroy her. She is far, far more dangerous than you suspect.” She lowered her voice. “Shadow Wing bred the Bonecrusher with one purpose: to destroy. You will find no soft spot in her heart, no compassion. If she catches you, you will die most horribly. Karvanak was the boy next door compared to her.”
And with that, she dismissed us. We made our good-byes and followed Father out into the hallway again.
On the way to the carriage, I thought about what the Queen had said. If the Bonecrusher was truly that ruthless, we’d have to develop a plan to seek and destroy. There would be no room for errors like we’d made with Karvanak. He’d meant to kill us but failed. Stacia wouldn’t make the same mistake.
As the carriage lumbered down the streets of Y’Elestrial, I leaned back against the seat, deep in thought. Though I barely noticed the destruction that had been wrought on the city, it was there, even through the veil of night. The silhouette of mangled buildings rose into the night sky. Some were fully collapsed, along with piles of rubble that had been blasted off of their fronts. Y’Elestrial was one of the most beautiful cities there was, but it had taken a beating. Tanaquar had not been gentle in her siege.
We approached the outer circle of the city, then turned onto a long dirt path. We were heading home. I shook myself out of my silence and began peering eagerly out the window.
Father patted my knee. “Most of the damage to our house has been repaired. Tanaquar paid for it to be renovated when she appointed me her advisor. I’m just grateful your mother didn’t have to see what happened to her home. She loved this house so much.” His voice was wistful, and I leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“Mother loved you. She may have loved the house, but she would have gone anywhere with you. She did, in fact—she gave up her world for you. And she never regretted it.” I noticed a strange glint in his eyes, and he whisked his gaze away from mine. “What? What is it?”
With a shake of the head, he said, “Nothing for you to worry yourself over. Look—we’re almost home.” He pointed out the window. Nope, he wasn’t going to talk, at least not until we were alone.
I gave up and gazed out at the faint outline of the sprawling home in which I’d grown up. While it was only two stories, the house was larger than my home over Earthside, and it sprawled across the lawn, surrounded by gardens. Father had commissioned it to be built for Mother when he’d brought her back to Otherworld, and every brick that had gone into the building of it, he’d hand-selected. A soft glow illuminated one of the windows.
“Is Leethe still with you?” I suddenly asked, hoping that our housekeeper had made it through the war. She’d guided me in learning how to run a household and pay bills and manage the staff. We only employed four or five people, most for taking care of the grounds, but Leethe and her assistant, Kayla, had been in charge of cleaning the house and cooking.
While she was alive, Mother had always insisted on cooking dinner. And we girls had learned to do our chores. If we were short with the help, we were punished. Father’s relatives frowned on Mother’s methods and whispered behind her back, but she didn’t care, and Father stood behind her decisions in childrearing. Our family might not have been among the nobility but there was enough of the upper-crust syndrome going on that my cousins had it easy compared to us, and now I understood why Mother had been so insistent that we learn to take care of ourselves. It was truly a gift in disguise.
Father smiled softly. “Leethe and Kayla are still with me, yes. They’ll have dinner on the table when we go in. But walk softly with your questions. Kayla lost her husband in the war. Lethesanar’s guards killed him when he insisted on trying to protect the house. I told him to leave, to hide, but he refused. And Leethe is still pining over the good china and the antiques.”
As Iris started to clamber out of the carriage, Sephreh reached up to lift her down. She blushed but thanked him, and—followed by Morio—we headed toward the house.
A cluster of eye-catchers floated up the cobblestone path that led to the entrance, and even in their dim light, I could tell that the door was new. Gone were the glorious glass panels Father had commissioned for my mother, with their intricate roses and vine work, and in their place, there was now a sturdy door of solid oak with a smaller pane of clear glass.
My heart sank. Mother had loved the stained glass. Unbidden, images of smashed windows and scarred wood flooded my thoughts. I glanced at Sephreh, but he shook his head sadly.
“I told you, there was much damage” was all he said as he opened the door and waved us through.
I walked into the foyer, breathing deeply. I was home. I had come home again, after over two years of being away.
As I looked around, everything seemed alien. Even the walls, which had been freshly repaired and whitewashed. The furniture was all new, although a number of the knickknacks had survived the siege. There was Mother’s anniversary clock, and over there, the carefully crocheted afghan she’d made for the living room. Delilah had peed on it when she was a kitten and Mother had laughingly washed it by hand, taking the entire morning to spread it out just so, so it would keep its shape when it dried. Delilah was too little to do anything but cry when she realized how much work she’d caused.
Beneath the new furniture and fresh paint were memories of my childhood. The silver dragon box Father had given Mother for her birthday. The clay candy dish I’d made for her when I was barely three. The framed poem Menolly had written for both our parents when she first learned how to use a pencil. A wave of nostalgia swept over me and I longed for a simpler time when the worst hurts were the taunts of our classmates, when Menolly still ran under the sun, and Mother’s smile radiated over all of us.
I leaned on the back of the rocking chair to steady myself, and sucked in a long, deep breath.
“Are you okay?” Morio said, slipping up to lightly rest his hand against the small of my back.
Nodding, I forced a smile. “It’s just been a while. So much is the same, and so very much . . . is different.”
Different not just with the house and furnishings, but with me, and with my sisters. And most of all—with the world. I tried to shake off the mood as we went into the dining room for dinner. The fire was crackling in the hearth as Leethe and I hugged and kissed, and Kayla, too. They both looked a little worn: Kayla’s eyes had lost some of the sparkle they’d had before the civil war.
After dinner, which had been a thick venison stew and fresh bread, Iris and Morio gracefully withdrew to sleep, leaving my father and me alone to talk. I curled up in the overstuffed loveseat, resting my head on his shoulder as he gently patted my hand.
“Every day, I wonder if we’ll come out of this alive,” I said. “Every night, I go to bed, tired and worried and dreaming about demons.”
“You are my daughter,” he said. “You share my inability to let go of your duties, but Camille, I never, ever envisioned this life for you. Fighting demons, living among your mother’s people. I hoped you would all marry and have families of your own. Of course, Menolly’s . . . accident . . . changed all that.”
“It wasn’t an accident, Father. She was raped, and tortured, and killed, and then Dredge turned her into a vampire. Can’t you bring yourself to admit what happened, even now?”
He sighed. “I know what happened, my girl. All too well. I don’t like to dwell on it. But Camille, I fear for you. Death magic is a heavy yoke to wear. What says the Moon Mother about your studies?”
“I think she likes it,” I said softly.
He shook his head. “So much death. Delilah a Death Maiden, my Menolly a vampire . . . I was proud of all of you when you chose to join the bureau of Intelligence, but I never wanted you to face the dangers you now fight. I truly do wish you’d all just married young and moved into peaceful lives.”
I gave him a sad smile. “And how long would that have lasted? Until Shadow Wing found the spirit seals and ripped open the worlds? Then we’d all be dead. Or worse. Instead, because we happened to be in the right place at the right time, both Earthside and Y’Eírialiastar have a fighting chance. If we have to sacrifice our lives to grab that chance, then so be it. We are all willing.”
As I stood, so tired I ached to the core, Father took hold of my shoulders. “Do you know how proud I am of you? Of all three of you?”
And then, I saw it. There in his eyes—love and pride and honor behind a wash of tears. “And we, of you. Father, please, look for love again. You deserve to be happy. We wouldn’t feel badly if you found someone new to share your life with, as long as she accepted us.”
He stared at me like there was something he wanted to tell me, but then softly said, “I don’t forsake women. But your mother . . . there was something about her, something I cannot forget. You and your sisters inherited that quality. A radiance that comes not from your Fae charm, but from the core of your hearts. Your mother knew who she was, and knew what she was worth. As you would say, she’s a tough act to follow. But thank you for caring.”