“You too were reminded of my Folk?” Shining Talon asked.
Something in his voice made Inis angry, until she recognized it as the steely grip of self-control. It was the way her voice sounded when she was fighting not to let memories of happier times overwhelm her.
She couldn’t hate the fae prince. He’d lost nearly everything, and thus reminded her of herself.
Servants awaited them in the perfectly manicured front yard, took their horses, and averted their eyes without comment on the silver cat riding with Inis.
No doubt the servants were accustomed to peculiar comings and goings, to the necessity of keeping their eyes down and their mouths shut. Queen Catriona Ever-Bright’s sorcerers could snap their fingers and summon stranger companions than an exile, a thief, a fae cloaked in black to hide his ears and eyes, and a pure silver cat.
They entered the front hall while another servant hurried up the main staircase to find his master. Waiting, Inis caught sight of a round mirror hung on the wall, reflecting the summer scenery. Under her gaze, the mirror showed a sky blackened, flames licking its edges. Inis’s mouth ran dry. She couldn’t pull her gaze from the reflection, instead watched in horror as dark blood flooded the greenery, soaking the grass and leaves.
Unmarked mounds swelled up from the ground. The bodies of the murdered Ever-Loyals, now nothing more than food for worms, rose one by one. Father, Tomman, little Ainle missing half his face, all of his right arm.
Inis’s reflection was wan, her cheeks sunken, her brown curls sparse. She lifted a hand to touch her face, and in the mirror saw her skin give way like soft cheese. Her reflection dragged its fingers down, peeling off her flesh like sloughing the skin from a rotten fruit.
Blood ran down Mirror-Inis’s jaw and throat, melting her limbs into puddles at her feet.
Inis screamed.
Sudden impact, and she was flat on the floor, her gaze wrenched toward the ceiling. The terrible pressure in the air lifted.
I can’t protect you from the Lying One’s stain on your heart, Two said, but I can help contain it. Don’t give in to his lies.
The silver cat was bigger and heavier than Ivy now, his silver paws planted on Inis’s chest. The sudden change in his size had sent her sprawling.
Inis blinked to clear the red-stained edges of her vision. Rags stood frozen, halfway to pocketing a small Luster period vase, staring down at her.
“I’ve seen Ever-Noble ladies faint before.” He broke his gaze and looked to Shining Talon, then back at Inis. “They’re not usually that noisy.”
Inis found her voice. “The mirror.”
Morien had never tormented one of them when he wasn’t there to see its effect. Inis had known he was watching them at all times, but she’d assumed that was all he could do. She’d never heard of a sorcerer who could exert his will from afar, without being present.
A scraping sound on the steps above. A gasp. Inis was already lifting her eyes to see Somhairle on the balcony in his arm-and-leg brace, crutch attached, leaning on the railing, golden hair and golden eyes lit up in the slowly gathering “sunset.” He had the Queen’s face, her beauty and poise. Just not her strength or constitution. He’d grown a bare inch since the last time Inis had said goodbye to him.
“Inis?” he asked.
“It’s been too long, Your Highness.” Two leaped to the floor, and Inis scrambled to her feet, took the corners of her skirt in both hands to manage a not-clumsy curtsy. The memory of how deep it should be for someone of Somhairle’s station, how to rise gracefully, was as much a part of her as breathing. She fell into the old routine as easily as if she’d never left it.
Beside her, Rags executed an overly dramatic bow. Two also bowed, with perfect poise, one paw extended in front of him, his tail whipping the air.
Again, Somhairle gasped, as though he’d only just now looked beyond Inis and noticed the strangeness of her companions. Next to a thief, an ornate mechanical cat, and Prince Shining Talon, an exiled old friend wasn’t so shocking.
She hoped.
“Please . . .” Somhairle gestured with his good arm for them to follow him up the stairs, “introduce me to your friends.”
53
Cab
Sil, One explained, though she used the phrase the Shining One to describe the fae at first, was diminished. She spoke the words with deep sorrow. Cab found himself breathless from the force of it.