Taryn stands at the entrance, waiting to escort me inside. She’s chosen an enormous parlor and stripped it of its furniture. A large, carved wooden chair sits on a rug-covered platform in the echoing space. Candles glow from the floor, and I can see how the flickering shadows will help me appear intimidating—perhaps even play down my mortality.
Two of Cardan’s old guard stand to either side of the wooden chair, and a small moth-winged page kneels on one of the rugs.
“Not bad,” I tell my sister.
Taryn grins. “Get up there. I want to see the whole picture.”
I sit in the chair, my back straight, and look out at the dancing flames. Taryn gives me a very mortal thumbs-up.
“Okay,” I say. “Then I’m ready for the Living Council.”
Fand nods and goes out to fetch them. As the door shuts, I see she and Taryn discussing something. But then I have to turn my attention to Randalin and the rest of the councilors, who are grim-faced as they enter the room.
You have only seen the least of what I can do, I think at them, trying to believe it myself.
“Your Majesty,” Randalin says, but in such a way that it sounds a little like a question. He supported me in the brugh, but I am not sure how long that will last.
“I’ve appointed Grima Mog to be the Grand General,” I tell them. “She cannot come and present herself at the moment, but we should have a report from her soon.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” says Nihuar, pressing together her thin green lips, her mantis-like body shifting with obvious distress. “Perhaps we ought to wait for the High King to be restored before we come to any decision about such important matters.”
“Yes,” says Randalin eagerly, looking at me as though expecting some answer about how we’ll do that.
“Slithery snake king,” says Fala, dressed in lavender motley. “Rules over a Court of nice mice.”
I remember the Bomb’s words and do not flinch, nor do I attempt to argue. I wait, and my silence unnerves them into silence themselves. Even Fala goes quiet.
“Lord Baphen,” I say quellingly, “does not yet have an answer to how the High King may be restored.”
The others turn to him.
Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise.
Baphen nods briefly in assent. “I do not, nor am I sure such a thing is possible.”
Nihuar appears astonished. Even Mikkel seems taken aback by that news.
Randalin glares at me with accusation. As though everything is over and we’ve lost.
There is a way, I want to insist. There is a way; I just don’t know it yet.
“I’ve come to make my report to the queen,” comes a voice from the doorway. Grima Mog stands there.
She strides past the Council members with a brief nod. They eye her speculatively.
“We would all hear what you know,” I say to murmurs of reluctant approval.
“Very well. We received intelligence that Madoc intends to attack at dawn the day after next. He hopes to catch us unprepared, especially since a few more Courts have flown to his banner. But our real problem is how many Folk plan to sit out the battle and see which way the wind blows.”
“Are you sure this information is accurate?” Randalin asks suspiciously. “How did you obtain it?”
Grima Mog nods toward me. “With the help of her spies.”
“Her spies?” Baphen repeats. I can see his putting together some of the information I had in the past and coming to new conclusions about how I got it. I feel a jolt of satisfaction at the thought that I no longer have to pretend to be entirely without my own resources.
“Do we have enough of our own army to push him back?” I ask Grima Mog.
“We are in no way assured of victory,” she says diplomatically. “But he cannot yet overwhelm us.”
That’s a long way from where we were a day ago. But it’s better than nothing.
“And there is a belief,” Grima Mog says. “A belief that has grown swiftly—that the person to rule Elfhame is the one who will slay the serpent. That spilling Greenbriar blood is as good as having it in your veins.”
“A very Unseelie belief,” Mikkel says. I wonder if he agrees with it. I wonder if that’s what he expects from me.
“The king had a pretty head,” says Fala. “But can he do without it?”
“Where is he?” I ask. “Where is the High King?”