on your imagination. I’ve got a lot more fool left in the tank.”
He stared at me over steepled fingers. “I would not have there be war between the shadow and the wood.”
“Then give back Camilla and Antonia and the rest. Otherwise I’m going to have to side with the pack on this.”
The King of Shadows looked sincerely regretful. “You have made an ill choice,” he said. “And I shall see that you regret it sorely.”
“I keep doing shit that gets people I care about killed horribly. Regretting things sorely is not new territory for me”
He turned away and walked off into the dreams of the snowbound woods. The Queen of Winter stopped in a beam of moonlight and looked back at me. “Fear death by water, Kate Kane.”
Somewhere in the distance, a cock was crowing.
I needed to hurry up. It was time.
26
Plans & Actions
I explained to Tara about my dreams over the usual steak-and-coffee breakfast. And, as ever, I leaned more on the coffee and she leaned more on the steak.
“I’m not sure I’m happy about our enemies courting you while you’re sleeping in my bed.” Her blood-reddened lips curled into what I hoped was an ironic smile.
“Hey, I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“You may be underestimating quite how little I like it.”
“Same, with knobs on. It’s my head they’re in here.”
Apparently done with the meat at last, she nibbled delicately at some kind of pastry. “And you’re certain that the King-Queen and the Prince of Wands will turn on each other?”
“Pretty much unavoidable given what utter shits they both are. But they’re too paranoid by half to let their guards down while still fighting you lot.”
She set the tray to one side and stretched out on the bed a moment. “Still, we might be able to accelerate matters. An alliance with no trust is a fragile thing.”
“Maybe.” I wasn’t completely sure. I didn’t have the world’s deepest insight into faery psychology, or vampire psychology for that matter, but I had more experience than Tara did. “The trouble is I don’t think it’s an alliance exactly. It’s more like a deal with the devil. Except I suspect both sides think they’re the devil in the arrangement.” On reflection, that probably wasn’t a great recipe for long term cooperation either, but I didn’t want to get Tara’s hopes up about the playing-both-sides strategy.
With a resigned sigh, Tara rose and dressed. Gold today. She was going to have to sell her grandmother on an idea she’d hate, which meant she needed an air of authority. She looked unbelievable in, like, a very literal sense. There was always something about Tara that I actually couldn’t believe—that to-the-manner-born vibe which said that whatever she did was right and wherever she stood was where she was meant to be. I felt a little bit like a class traitor for being so into it.
I got myself dressed as well in the slightly cleaner outfit that once again the laundry goblins at Safernoc had got ready for me while I was out doing other things, and then we went down to the White Drawing Room, where Henry, Sofia, Flick, and the Dowager Marchioness were already waiting for us.
“I hope it has not escaped your attention,” observed the old lady as we entered, “that fully half the people in this room are outsiders.”
“Allies, grandmother,” said Henry. “Something we have perhaps overlooked for too long.”
She responded to this with a contemptuous look. “Interlopers, leeches, and malingerers.” Her gaze came to rest quite pointedly on Flick. “What was she doing while our home was under attack? Hiding in the upstairs rooms and crying? I’d thought your generation was bad enough”—with a pointed gesture she indicated Henry and Tara—“but it seems there were deeper depths left to plumb.”
“Enough.” Tara’s voice was soft but it carried. “Felicity is here because she is in danger, and she is in danger because her friend fought beside us on the borders when the Prince of Wands was about to tear down the walls of reality and make a mockery of our very duty and purpose.”
The dowager marchioness met her granddaughter’s gaze without flinching. “A battle that you chose, of course, for reasons that had nothing to do with any of our present company.”
Much as I hated her, she did have something of a point. I couldn’t very well be grateful to Tara for having my back in a crisis and also insist that her having my back in a crisis hadn’t on