As was said, I was not yet a queen. I was quite young and completely inexperienced. He seduced me then disappeared without so much as a goodbye. I thought I was in love.
“I survived the incident, of course, learned from it, and went about my life. I didn’t seek him out with comeuppance in mind and had no plan to do so. When I realized that he didn’t remember me,” she looked at him accusingly, “it was a prick that reopened the wound.” I barely disguised my appreciation of her play on words and hoped she somehow received it telepathically. “It seemed providential that the circumstance had presented itself. As if fate had gifted me the opportunity to assuage an old hurt and bind it over with a little satisfaction.”
“And did your curse assuage the old hurt, Your Highness?”
“Objection, Your Honor!” Nightingale had jumped to his feet. Without looking his way, I held up a hand indicating that I wanted to hear the answer to my question.
She lifted her head, looking every inch a queen. “It did, Magistrate.”
“Thank you.”
To Bogdan, I said, “Your client may retake her seat.”
Nightingale was still standing, looking irritated. “As to your objection, if you’d had the humility and good sense to bring representation with you, you would’ve been advised that you can’t object to my question.” The rebuke caused his color to rise. “Now I have a few questions for you. First, were you well-nourished during your confinement?”
“Are you asking if I ate? And drank?”
“Yes.”
“There was food and drink.”
“You were well-nourished. And you did not age while you were on retreat in, what I presume is, a luxurious lodge?” He gave no answer and I didn’t press him on that. “Tell me, Count Nightingale, what would you have been doing with your time if you’d been free to go about normal activities during this fafgaelon?”
The queen let out a triumphant laugh. I saw Bogdan begin to reach for her forearm and then jerk his hand away, apparently remembering the penalty for touching a queen just in time. I let it go. Perhaps it was prejudicial, but I have a young daughter and I didn’t like this guy.
“I’m not sure I understand the question, Your Honor.”
“Would you have been justifying your place in the world? In any way? What would’ve been your unique contribution to the world?”
“Well…”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “And you’re thinking that a fair resolution would be for the queen to repeat your exact experience?”
“Yes, Your Honor. That is what I think.”
“Why, in the name of everything sacred to anyone, would you think that?”
“When I filed this suit, I wasn’t expecting a female magistrate,” he blurted, clearly without thinking, then added, “Your Honor.”
The noise of hundreds of conversations immediately rose to commercial vacuum cleaner decibels. The room was vast and virtually fabric-free, which meant no sound absorbency.
Banging my gavel until things quieted, I allowed a brief silence before asking, “Do you acknowledge any wrongdoing, sir?”
He looked dumbfounded. “No? Your Honor.”
After a glance at the ceiling, feeling a little dumbfounded myself, I said, “We’re going to break for lunch, so that I may consider the facts of this case. Prepare to reconvene at…”
I looked at Lochlan.
“One thirty,” he answered.
“Prepare to reconvene at one thirty.”
“All rise,” said Hengest in his commanding voice, but people had barely had time to get to their feet before I was beyond the partition and behind the scenes, backstage for all intents and purposes.
“What’s for lunch?” I asked eagerly. It seems, surprising enough, that judging made me hungry.
“Got something in the warmer.” Lochlan pointed at the mini Aga-style unit in the galley kitchen.
I supposed the fae would always be a mystery to me. How could Molly possibly know I’d want roast chicken with potatoes, peas and carrots? I’d sent a message to her earlier regarding lunch. “Molly’s choice.”
She’d responded with exactly what I wanted to eat, even though I didn’t know it myself, with a note that read, “Happy First Day. For she’s a jolly good fellow.”
After chuckling out loud, Keir and Lochlan insisted that I read the note out loud while we sat down at the small dining area.
“This is the real reason for breaking in the middle of the case. I need some context regarding how fae judge maturity. In other words, I need a way to convert fae years to human years for context. If a fae is fifty years old, how would that compare, developmentally, to a human?”
Lochlan and Keir looked at each other, perhaps