them here.
The smaller Houses, particularly those who'd been involved in Lisette's schemes, huddled in tight and waited to see what fate might befall them. Oh, they made their own legal cases, challenging the laws and traditions by which Beatrice Luchene had seized power, but they made those cases quietly. Their House soldiers remained on the estates, guarding against attack but taking no other action; the patriarchs and matriarchs kept inside, never so much as appearing at an un-curtained window. With the Guard and the larger Houses arrayed against them—and the example of House Rittier fresh in their minds—none were willing to stick their heads up and risk being hammered back down.
Those larger Houses? They weren't precisely glorying in the tension or legal limbo, either. That their interests and Luchene's currently aligned was no guarantee they would still do so next week, next month. The aristocrats of these more potent bloodlines cemented alliances, reinforced their businesses, and otherwise worked to ensure they remained stable and powerful enough to survive whatever might come.
What they knew—what occupied the minds of every citizen of Davillon who paid attention—was that the next move belonged to the duchess. Any course of action the Houses might choose, indeed the entire future of the city, hinged on a single question.
Now that the immediate crisis was over, would she return shared power to the noble Houses of Davillon? Or did she intend to make the regional return to the proper feudalism on which Galice was founded a permanent one?
It was a good question, one that might have led to the establishment of any number of legal precedents.
Too bad it would never be answered.
In her simple nightclothes—without the added bulk of her formal gowns, the armor of her corsetry, the looming height of her fancy wigs—Beatrice Luchene was beginning to look old. Still imperious, with a spine of iron and a glare sharper than any rapier, but old. And she knew it, though she'd never admit it aloud.
She reclined on a fat sofa, lined in red velvet, its cushions so overstuffed it probably represented the end of entire dynasties of geese. On her lap lay a heavy tome, a book of laws and history, one of many she'd consulted over the course of the last few days. And like all the others, the answers it offered were muddled and inconsistent at best. Too tired to rise and restore the book to its proper resting place on one of the dozen bookshelves that made up her massive library, she instead rested her hands atop it, tapping it with one finger as she stared into nothing. Greedily sucking up the last of the oil, the lantern she'd placed on the small table beside the sofa began to gutter and fade, filling the chamber with gauzy shadow and a vaguely sour aroma.
Lower. Smaller. Dimmer. Until it was no more than a glowing ember at the end of a wick, and the duchess had dozed off on her sofa.
And then it was a conflagration, blinding in its intensity, the sun made manifest. Luchene rolled from the sofa, screaming, one arm thrown over her face—and only then did she realize that she felt no heat. That the room was not, in fact, engulfed in flame.
No, it remained lit by that lonely lantern. Indeed, squinting as she waited for her tearing eyes to adjust, the duchess realized that it was still only a tiny, lingering ember! An ember that, against all reason, now illuminated the chamber in sharp contrasts, casting razor-edged shadows over the walls and shelves.
And along with that light came the sharp tang of sugar candies and cinnamon.
Luchene forced herself upright on shaking legs. Still squinting, she felt around blindly until her fingers came across the stiletto and small flintlock that lay atop the table beside the impossibly gleaming lantern.
Every room of the estate was similarly equipped; the duchess had survived too many assassination attempts in her youth to live otherwise.
“Not the most friendly welcome I've ever received.” Twin voices, speaking in unison, a young boy and an old man. Luchene spun toward the sound; the creature she recognized from Widdershins's description as Embruchel, the Prince of Orphan's Tears, gazed back at her through mirrored eyes.
She felt as though a jagged hailstone had formed in her throat. Simply speaking was a heroic effort.
“How…how did you do that with the lamp?”
The gleam of the fae's inhuman gaze flickered as he blinked. Apparently, whatever he'd expected her to say, that wasn't it.
“I stripped away the shadows