bring her back.
Everyone tensed at that, except Tasha, who thought the idea was amusing.
Ashiol glared with suppressed fury. He loved Lysandor, but Hel was his to protect. Heliora herself, preparing for her visions, didn’t look happy. Lord Celeste blazed with anger, though she didn’t show it on her face.
Garnet reached out, quite casually, and took my hand. He was holding Livilla’s on his other side. For comfort? To know exactly where we were? I had no idea, except that he was watching the whole Court with the alert eyes of a gattopardo ready to pounce.
‘No,’ said Lysandor. He stood up.
‘I am your Power and Majesty,’ said Ortheus, who had not been defied in a long time. ‘You will do as you are told, cub.’
Tasha flinched at the use of that name.
Lysandor gave an odd sort of smile. ‘I believe the Seer would be better eased from her burdens by someone whose body she trusts. She should be honoured for the unique role she has, not passed around like a meat dish for everyone to taste.’
‘Indeed,’ said Ortheus. His head moved back and forth, small darting movements, as he weighed up Lysandor’s stance, the cadence of his voice, any weaknesses he might betray. ‘Have you any further advice to give me, courteso?’
‘I apologise for my inability to perform your request, my Power,’ said Lysandor, and even Garnet winced at that one. To say ‘request’ when all knew it had been an order … We would be lucky if Lysandor got out of this alive.
‘How charming,’ said Ortheus. He never raised his voice. That was part of what made him such a chilling master. Like the snakes he could shape himself into, he was calm right up to the moment he struck out. ‘You know I will punish you.’
‘I expected as much, my Majesty,’ said Lysandor.
Ortheus laughed. Many of the Court relaxed at that point, laughing along with him, or at least smiling. I didn’t smile, nor did Garnet or Ashiol. Livilla laid her head on Garnet’s shoulder, shivering.
‘You amuse me, courteso,’ said our Power and Majesty. ‘But I don’t believe for one moment that you are refusing the Seer’s body out of some doomed sense of honour. Tell me the truth. Why will you not frig her?’
Lysandor met the Snake King’s eyes. ‘I love another,’ he said simply.
Celeste breathed out, and for a few seconds that was the only noise we heard. That, and each other’s heartbeats.
‘There is no law, after all, that we should all mate like animals,’ commented Argentin lightly. Argentin rarely spoke except to add weight to the pronouncements of our Power and Majesty.
Ortheus didn’t laugh this time. He seemed intrigued, as if Lysandor had said something he really couldn’t understand. Then he shrugged, just once. ‘Cat. Come and sit by the Seer. She will need you shortly.’
As Ashiol crawled forward to Heliora’s side, Ortheus looked at Tasha. ‘Discipline your boy.’
Tasha could not appear weak before the Court. As she strutted towards Lysandor, my eyes were on Garnet. He looked half-sick, half-delighted with himself, his eyes unnaturally bright. He gripped my hand so hard it hurt. I wondered if he was on something, but I hadn’t seen him take a single powder or potion since the nox he’d forced Tasha to make that oath. Power was a better drug, it seemed.
Looking at him then, my eyes locked on his face as Tasha made Lysandor scream, I realised this was what he had intended all along. He had known that, sooner or later, this oath would conflict with Tasha’s service to the Power and Majesty. Garnet was responsible for what was happening right now. He had turned Tasha into an oathbreaker.
Our walk back through the tunnels was slow and uncomfortable. Lysandor had been healed enough that he could leave the Haymarket on his own two feet; he limped a little on the uneven ground. Tasha’s anger was tangible, bouncing off the walls around us.
We were a few steps from the den when we all felt the sky boiling above us, the beginning of a battle.
‘Go, all of you,’ said Tasha, eyes fastened on Garnet. ‘We will follow.’
‘What’s going on?’ Ashiol asked, but Lysandor tugged on his arm, knowing better than to question Tasha when she was in that kind of mood.
Livilla and I, knowing the truth, exchanged glances and followed the cubs up through the pipes into the city. Neither of us looked back, and I know we half-expected that we would not see Garnet again. He had gone