in and out of the shadow court with Kordon’s body and Dugan’s dagger. And then there was the shadow spy that had been watching my ritual. We were definitely still missing someone.
Of course, we still didn’t have proof that Ryese was involved with any of it. Him being alive wasn’t exactly condemning evidence. Though it did strike me that the poison he’d chosen this time mirrored his own scars. There were differences, and I bet he would have tried iron itself if he could find a way to control it, but the dark veining of basmoarte disfigured his victims in a similar way to his own scarring. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“You fainted on the shortest day,” Ryese said, and the words held menace, not concern. The unasked question of How did you survive? hung in the air.
I smiled at him and rolled up my sleeves, leaving my untainted arms mostly bare. The fouled magic was completely concealed by my black gloves, so I looked unmarked. I could all but feel him scowl under his hood.
“Yes, planeweaver, I did hear that you collapsed during the revelry,” the queen said, drawing my attention back to her. “I sent my best healer, but she said you were dying of a wasting disease and there was nothing that could be done.” She made a face that came off as a pout, though I think it was meant to be sympathetic. “You seem much improved now.”
“I had to purge the poison in my magic,” I said, very aware of Ryese at my back. “I am much better now.”
It wasn’t a lie. I was far better. I just wasn’t cured.
“How very fortunate for you,” she said, flashing that beautiful smile with its cuttingly cruel edge. “And how unique your abilities.”
I bowed my head in acknowledgment, because what was I supposed to say to that?
“You are familiar with my son?” She asked the question pleasantly, but there was more under the current of her words, and I wasn’t sure what.
“We’ve met,” I said flatly. “He is an . . . accomplished alchemist.”
The queen frowned. “He dabbles. Now tell me why you really came to the court of light.” There was compulsion in her words, I could feel it. We had been invited to her court, so she couldn’t outright harm us without it being seen as an attack, but in the might-makes-right way of Faerie, she could use any magics against us that didn’t directly harm us.
No one answered. Dugan was old and a prince, Falin carried all the blood of the winter court and the magic from the knights who had come before him, and my own magic offered me a degree of protection. She was going to have to try a hell of a lot harder if she wanted to compel us.
She apparently realized that as well.
The compulsion flowing off her thickened, wrapping around us.
“You insisted,” Dugan said, and that was true enough; she had. But he wasn’t falling under the compulsion or he would have said more. We’d intended to visit the court of light, one way or another.
The compulsion grew stronger again, the queen clearly unsatisfied. If I squinted, I could almost see the golden threads.
What I could see, I could touch.
Reaching up, I exerted a small amount of magic and batted the tendril of compulsion away. The queen’s brows bunched for just a moment as I contacted the tendril, her small nostrils flaring in a microexpression of pain. The compulsion glamour drew back, but a small purple stain covered the place where I’d touched the tendril of magic.
I glanced at my hands where my basmoarte infection still raged under my gloves. An infection I’d just spread to the queen.
She’d asked about my health before she’d used magic on me. I’d indicated that I’d managed to cure myself. Had she known about the basmoarte? Had she been part of her son’s schemes?
Or had I just accidentally started the slow assassination of an uninvolved Faerie monarch?
Crap.
Chapter 20
If the queen realized she’d been infected, she gave no indication. She looked mildly annoyed, but that seemed to have more to do with the fact that we wouldn’t fall for her compulsions than anything else.
“Yes, I did insist,” she finally said, responding to Dugan’s earlier answer. “It was alarming to see you in my sister’s morning room. I was caught quite off guard.”
So she invited us all here?
I glanced at my companions. Both wore carefully blank faces. I tried to mimic them but knew mine