Seanan McGuire - Ashes of Honor

“Really? You’re Amandine’s daughter?” Riordan’s frosty purple eyes searched my face with new intensity before she passed judgment: “I thought you’d be taller.”

“I get that a lot,” I said, even though I didn’t. Quentin moved to my other side. I gestured to him with one hand. “This is my squire, Quentin.”

“Milady,” said Quentin. His bow was deeper than mine and scrupulously formal. He was a Ducal page before I acquired him. Certain habits die hard, and no matter how hard I try to shake them out of him, I have to admit that sometimes they come in handy.

“Hmm,” said Riordan. The look she gave him was as assessing as the one she’d given me, but it was the sort of assessment most people reserve for livestock and expensive appliances.

Quentin was growing up. He was handsome enough, if I stepped back and forced myself to think of him that way, but that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was that he was a pureblood Daoine Sidhe, trained in the courtly arts, and approaching marriageable age. For a woman like Riordan, the fact that he came from a family low-ranked enough to allow him to be squired to a changeling—and one from an unknown bloodline, at that—was probably a bonus. What I knew about her told me that she wasn’t a woman who shared power well.

I wasn’t the only one who understood what that look meant. Quentin swallowed hard, looking uncomfortable, and shifted to put himself just a little bit farther behind me. Smart kid.

“Now, then. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you as soon as you pulled in, but I was just wrapping up a raid when the border alarms told me we had company.” A smile spread across Riordan’s face. I didn’t trust it one bit. “I’m glad to see Sergio and his boys didn’t damage any of you. Folletti can be so endearingly enthusiastic, don’t you think?”

“Raid?” I asked.

“You play World of Warcraft ?” Quentin asked, almost at the same time.

“Sure do, sugar. On the internet, nobody knows that you’re an all-powerful faerie monarch, now, do they?” Riordan’s smile turned briefly more believable.

“All-powerful” was stretching things a bit, but hey. We were in her domain; if she wanted to be delusional, I wasn’t going to argue. “Your Grace, Li Qin is here because I wanted to request an audience with you. We’re trying to locate a missing changeling. I was hoping one of your people might have seen her.”

Riordan’s eyes narrowed. “Are you implying something, honey?”

“No, not at all. I just figured someone as connected and well-informed as you would be aware of anything strange that happened in your Duchy, and there are signs she went this way, at least for a little while.” I was laying it on a little thick. That probably wasn’t a bad idea.

“Hmm,” said Riordan, managing to sound interested and annoyed at the same time. It was a neat trick. “All right, then, if you were willing to endure her company,” she waved a hand at Li Qin, who held her silence, and her small, polite smile, “just to see me, I suppose I should let myself be seen. Li can show you where I keep the guests I don’t feel like dealing with. The Folletti will escort you to my receiving chamber in twenty minutes.” She turned to walk away.

“But you’re here now,” I protested, before I thought better of it.

Riordan looked back over her shoulder at me, and winked. “Gotta log off, honey. Otherwise, the guild will get annoyed with me, and you’re not worth that much. Ta-ta.” That appeared to finish things, at least for her; this time when she walked away, she didn’t look back.

“That was…” I said, and stopped, unsure how I could finish that sentence without bringing the Folletti down on my head. The fact that Riordan had left us standing in a big, empty room potentially full of invisible men who were hanging out just outside the range of my ability to find them wasn’t escaping me.

“I usually go with ‘bracing,’” said Li Qin. “Jan usually had a few other things to say, but she was smart enough to save them until we were home. Still, we have permission to be here now. Come on. I’ll show you to the foyer.”

Li Qin was short enough that keeping up with her was easy. Keeping myself from walking too fast and leaving her behind, now, that was hard. It didn’t help that Quentin was practically glued to my side, looking around as though he expected Riordan to leap out and propose shacking up at any moment.

“So,” I said, as we walked. “That was different. Given the way you’re dressed, I expected something a little more, you know. Traditional.” Probably including the traditional changing room just inside the knowe, where I could have cast an illusion over my own jeans, jacket, and T-shirt.

Li Qin laughed. “Riordan is very traditional, at least when it comes to making sure her guests know who’s in charge. If I dressed like this every day, she’d expect me to wear casual clothing when I came to see her. She wants people to be uncomfortable. That way, they never forget she’s in control.”

“Cute,” I said.

“Believe me, you’ve only scratched the surface.” We had reached the wall of the cavern, which looked like smooth, unbroken stone. After our arrival from the parking garage, it wasn’t really a surprise when Li Qin just kept going, disappearing into the gray without a ripple. I looked at Quentin, shrugged, and followed her through the wall.

The cavern-slash-garage was huge the way mountains or oceans are huge—naturally, and without trying to make a point through sheer size. That was the only thing it had in common with the hallway on the other side of the wall.

The entry hall of Riordan’s knowe was decorated in what I could only describe as early Victorian bordello as reinterpreted by the creative team behind the Lord of the Rings movies. The globes of glowing light from the cavern were here, too, dancing a slow weaving pattern between chandeliers laden with candles that burned a steady green. At least they didn’t flicker. Hanging tapestries covered the walls, all depicting Riordan. Riordan sitting in a throne during formal Court, looking majestic and wise. Riordan on a white horse, leading a charge in some unidentified battle. Riordan in a meadow, gazing thoughtfully off into the distance.

“Whoa,” I said. “Medieval political propaganda.”

Quentin didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The way he was wrinkling his nose said everything for him.

Li Qin chuckled. “It takes most people like that the first time. When Jan started sending me here to negotiate for peace along our borders, I thought she was mad at me. This way.” She started down the hall. The thick, ornately patterned carpet muffled her footsteps entirely.

That carpet…the pattern was vertigo-inducing enough to make my stomach turn if I tried to look at it while I walked, leaving me with a choice between the horrible tapestries—bad—and the dancing globes of light—just as bad. I settled for staring straight ahead, trying not to look at anything but the back of Li Qin’s head.

Maybe talking would help. I cleared my throat and asked, “So she just lets you run around the knowe? Even though you’re from Tamed Lightning?”

“When January was alive, refusing me a host’s courtesies would have been an aggressive act. Riordan is never aggressive unless she’s confident of having the upper hand. We were always small, but an unprovoked move against us would have brought Shadowed Hills into the fight, on our side. She wasn’t going to risk it.” Li Qin kept walking. “Now that I’m a widow, etiquette states she can’t refuse me any privilege I had while I was still the wife of a Countess. It’s a useful, if slightly stupid, arrangement of manners.”