to love the view from the hills that twisted and tumbled themselves higher, crawling toward the mountains. She thought sometimes she could see Lost-Lands treetops from her highest climbs, could catch the shimmering hint of black trees where the fae Folk had made their final stand and burned, and burned, and burned.
Stories of the Fair Wars, of the wicked Folk and their defeat by House Ever-Bright’s clever sorcerers, had thrilled Inis as a child. They’d been a favorite escape back when the worst thing to sour her days was a six-hour dress fitting, or a piano lesson from their tutor with the garlic-laden breath.
When Inis thought of the fae now, she imagined screaming. The scent of her father’s blood as it pooled on the blue-tiled floor of their audience hall. The shrill roaring in her head that insisted none of it could be happening, though all of it was.
It had happened. To the fae first. Then, hundreds of years later, to House Ever-Loyal.
Was it better to be cut down alongside your family? Better to die with than to survive without? Inis set her furious questions into a steel box within herself and locked it tight. Her sister and her mother—what remained of her family—needed her. The answers to her questions didn’t.
She tired herself out so well each day that sleep came easily, without any of the bad dreams that haunted Ivy.
Thinking it might help to talk about those dreams, to banish them the way the last of the Ever-Loyals had been banished, Inis took Ivy to the sunniest spots she knew, built her little sister bowers of heather, and told her to share her ghosts as though they were part of someone else’s story.
Close her eyes. Feel the sun on her face.
Tell her big sister everything.
One Queensguard chasing her through the halls of—home. (Ivy always stumbled over that word, her expression losing focus with a loneliness that made Inis want to split trees in twain with her bare hands.) In her dreams, instead of letting her go, the Queensguard did to her what had been done to Papa.
“That’s enough, little egg,” Inis had whispered, pulling Ivy close. “You don’t need to say it.”
The nightmares continued.
So did life.
35
Inis
Change arrived when Inis was shouting like a haunt-cat about two broken eggs Farmer Brogan insisted hadn’t been broken before they went into her basket, which was a lie she wouldn’t swallow.
“Perhaps they were crushed by the rest of your dinner, my lady?”
“They’re the only things in there.” Inis’s black skirts formed a waterfall over her gray petticoats. She’d tucked them into her belt to create a pouch for carrying the rest of the day’s fresh produce. Green beetradish stems swayed with her anger. She smelled and looked a wildfields fright. “You might think I’m a fool, but have the good courtesy not to treat me as such.”
Bute stood at her side, embarrassed but refusing to abandon her.
Inis had learned from her mistakes of the first few months. She wouldn’t raise trouble now without irrefutable reason.
A crowd should have formed around them to watch the fuss, but hadn’t.
A squealing passel of barefoot children tore off away from them down another street, followed not far behind by the village carpenter and his wife, Fishmonger Anthea. Only a few spared a glance for wild-haired Inis Fraoch Ever-Loyal, who was probably cursed, and definitely a pain in everyone’s ass. There was a time not so long ago when she’d have died before putting her mended boots and underthings on display.
Now nothing mattered except keeping the heath from growing over and burying her family. Another unmarked gravesite.
“Have it your way, my lady.” Curiosity had succeeded with Farmer Brogan where Inis’s stubbornness hadn’t. Whatever the children were running to see—likely a cockfight—he didn’t want to miss it. “Take your eggs for replacement, save your shouting for some other luckless bastard, and have a fine day.”
Inis turned to Bute blazing triumph, seeing the helpless shrug he gave Farmer Brogan and the grin in his eyes reserved for her alone, the only praise necessary. She made the switch, stood straighter, and started back to Ivy.
Not home. She wouldn’t ever think of it as home.
It was the place where what was left of home slept at night.
The cottage granted to the Ever-Loyals in their banishment was larger than any of the village’s other houses and far removed from the main thoroughfare, sitting atop a low hill overlooking the marketplace. Some long-ago magistrate’s family had lived there, separate and above his constituents. Plenty