The Black Queen (Book 6) (13 page)

“Yes,” Matt said. “We’ve had dinner.”

“Too bad,” Scavenger said. He stopped in front of the wooden work table, and picked up a knife. “We have this wonderful sausage from L’Nacin. You haven’t tasted anything like it. I haven’t in years. I’ve been here so long I’d forgotten how good food is in the rest of the world.”

The kitchen was hot. The stone walls kept in the heat from the day’s cooking, and the hearth fire still had active coals. The room was large with a high ceiling and some open vents that the Fey Domestics had installed years before. Even those didn’t cool off the heat, though.

A cistern stood on the wall opposite the fireplace. The wall bisected the cistern, with half of it outside so that it could collect rain water. Scavenger set the knife down, picked a bucket from beside the table, and walked to the cistern. He fastened the bucket to the rope pulley and lowered it. After a moment, Matt heard a splash.

“Well, you’ll at least want something to drink while you wait,” Scavenger said. “It’s hot in here.”

“I don’t plan to wait,” Matt said. “Where is Coulter?”

“I’ll get him.” Scavenger brought the bucket up, then dipped a cup into the water. He handed the dripping cup to Matt, who did not refuse it. He was thirsty after the walk. Alex looked at him as if he were crazy, taking water from a Fey. Matt met his brother’s gaze, then took a long drink.

The water from the cistern was cold and tasted so fresh that, after the first time Matt had had it, he hadn’t wanted other water. It made him ask later if the water was spelled. Coulter had laughed and said no, that they were lucky to have found a building with a cistern that went so deep. The water inside, he had once said, wasn’t just rainwater. There was a ground spring beneath it as well.

Matt drank half the cup, then wiped his mouth and handed the cup to Alex. Alex frowned, but didn’t refuse. He knew better. He was as polite as their parents had taught him to be. He took the cup, sipped, gingerly, then drank greedily, as if he couldn’t get enough. He had been thirsty too, and unwilling to admit it.

Scavenger watched with a slight smile. He dipped one more cup in the water and set it on the table. “You can wait here.”

“No,” Matt said. He’d been through this game with Scavenger before. Scavenger would claim to get Coulter, leave Matt in the kitchen, and never return. Coulter would say later that he didn’t get the message. “I’ll go.”

“We’ll both go,” Alex said, water droplets on his lip. He set the cup down, wiped his mouth, and stood beside his brother.

Scavenger’s smile was broad. “Don’t trust me?”

Matt shrugged. “Trust you enough to drink your water.”

Scavenger laughed. “I like you better than your father, boy.”

“I would hope so,” Matt said. “It seems like you hate him.”

“I don’t hate him any more,” Scavenger said, picking up the second cup for himself. “I just loathe him now.”

Matt heard Alex let out a hiss of air, and knew that to be a sign that the two of them needed to get out of there before Alex lost his temper. Matt put a hand on the small of his brother’s back and pushed him to the door near the hearth fire. Alex looked over his shoulder at Scavenger, eyes narrowed, and Scavenger laughed again.

“Some day, boy,” he said, “maybe you’ll get up enough courage to ask me why I think your dad is evil incarnate.”

“My dad thinks the Fey are,” Alex said. Matt shoved harder. Alex dug his feet in.

“Some things never change,” Scavenger said.

“Come
on
,” Matt said. He moved ahead of Alex, then opened the door and tugged Alex’s arm. Alex came. The dining hall outside the kitchen was cooler, but not by much. Some of the heat from the hearth fire had carried into here.

There were still dishes on the long wooden tables and crumbs on the benches. Two Fey Domestics were talking near another door, and started when Matt and Alex came out of the kitchen. The Domestics were young—not much older than Matt—and apparently not doing the work they were supposed to do.

He didn’t care. All he wanted to do was find Coulter. He walked over to the Domestics. They were as tall as he was, both of them girls, their dark skin flushed with something like embarrassment. One was so lean that she looked almost feral. The other had a softness to her dark eyes. Matt met her gaze.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m looking for Coulter.”

“He’s in the library,” she said.

“Thanks.” Matt glanced at Alex, who hung near the kitchen door, watching him. His brother had run a gamut of emotions today, and beneath them all, Matt realized, was terror. Matt remembered feeling afraid the first time he had talked to the Fey, but that had been a long time ago, and gradually, he realized they were as different from each other as they were from him, just like Islanders. You couldn’t judge one on the basis of the others.

But Alex didn’t know that. He had listened to their father more than Matt had. In some ways, Alex had believed.

“Come on,” Matt said to his brother, this time softer.

The Domestics smiled at Alex as if sensing his discomfort, but not knowing the reason for it. Alex walked around the benches, and to the door, and stopped beside Matt.

Matt thanked the Domestics and then went into the corridor. Once this building had been a house similar to the one he had grown up in, the one in which he still lived, but now it was very different. Some of the walls had been removed or had holes knocked through them. The rooms had been expanded or someone had added on to them. The feeling was not so much that of a unified building, but of a labyrinth.

Alex noticed it too. He stayed close to Matt, so close that Matt could feel the warmth of his brother’s skin, hear his uneven breathing. Matt had gotten lost in this labyrinth before, had felt like Alex felt now, only with no one to guide him. Sometimes Matt thought it one of Coulter’s tests: anyone who could find him in the maze would be worthy of his help.

The library was around several corners, past a number of wood doors, and up half a flight of stairs. The stone here was newer, and clearly part of one of the additions, but which one Matt couldn’t tell from the outside.

He liked the library. Its fireplace was small, but it had lights everywhere, most of them near chairs designed for comfort. Books lined the walls. Some were Islander books, taken from the larger kirks, a few saved from the catacombs beneath the burned Tabernacle in the city of Jahn. Many were from far away lands, hand-printed in languages that Matt could not read: Nyeian, L’Nacin, Ghitlan. Very few books were in Fey, and those that were seemed ancient. The Fey placed little value on scholarship. They were a people who believed in action, in the future, not in the past.

This room was cooler than the hallway. Just about perfect, Matt thought, feeling the sweat run down his back. The library smelled faintly musty, of books that had sat too long on shelves, but over that was the smoky incense of the fire. Coulter liked to place a stick of a foreign wood that Matt could never remember the name of on top of the fire itself, to give the room a slightly spicy odor. It somehow made things feel more homey.

Coulter was standing in the corner, near one of the ladders that had wheels on its base so that it could be moved around the room. The ceilings were high here as well, and books went all the way up. Matt had never seen what was on top.

Alex sneezed, then put a hand to his nose. “What’s that smell?”

“The fire,” Matt said.

Coulter turned, saw them, and smiled. He was a short man, with hair blonder than most in Constant, and sharp blue eyes. He was square as well, with muscles that made the sleeves of his linen shirt bulge. He closed the book he was looking at, replaced it on the shelf, and crossed the room.

Alex remained close to Matt.

“So,” Coulter said. “Leen told me you’d bring your brother.” He gave an odd, formal little bow. “It’s a pleasure, Alexander.”

“Alex.” Alex sounded young, hesitant, the fear coming out in the shakiness of his voice.

“Alex,” Coulter said. He glanced at Matt. “Things were risky when you came alone, but your family will know that both of you are coming here. It’s not something you’ll be able to hide.”

“We told my mother,” Matt said.

Coulter raised his pale eyebrows. The expression was almost comical. “What did she say?”

“She cried,” Alex said.

“I told her we needed some help, and we couldn’t get it from the Vault.” Matt had almost said his father, but he didn’t. He was more loyal than that. “So she let us come.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” Coulter said.

“No,” Matt said. “It wasn’t.”

“I’d be interested to know what swayed her.”

Matt swallowed. His brother wasn’t looking at him again. Why did Matt have to do everything? “Alex swayed her.”

“I did not!” Alex said. “I don’t want to be here. There are Fey here.”

Coulter’s look at Alex was measuring. “You are your father’s son, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Alex said fiercely. “I believe what he does.”

“Then I can’t help you,” Coulter said. “And anyone who feels that way about the Fey isn’t welcome here.”

“No,” Matt said. “Please. You don’t know it all.”

Coulter turned to Matt. Those startling blue eyes had a flatness to them that Matt had never seen. “I know that your father killed hundreds of Fey with his hatred, and then he killed the one hope the world had for peace. We’ve managed to struggle through since, but not because of your father.”

“He saved us,” Alex said. “He saved everyone.”

“From the Black King?” Coulter actually sounded bitter. “Maybe. But the actions your father and King Nicholas took wouldn’t have been necessary if your father hadn’t murdered Nicholas’s wife, Jewel.”

Matt’s heart twisted. He hadn’t known that.

“My father does not kill people,” Alex said.

“No,” Coulter said. “Your father kills Fey. Knowing that, and knowing how you feel about the Fey, many of whom are my friends, I do not want you here.”

“Please,” Matt said, taking Coulter’s arm. “You’re the only one who can help us.”

Coulter did not shake free of Matt’s grasp, but he stared at Alex. Alex’s eyes filled with tears. Matt saw them glinting in the light.

“Please,” Matt said again. “My brother won’t kill anyone. We were raised to respect life. My mother is a healer. Coulter, you know that.”

The muscles in Coulter’s arm shifted. For a moment, Matt thought Coulter would break his grip, but he did not.

“I know your mother,” he said. “It’s amazing to me that such a good woman would love a man like your father. But then, the heart is sometimes a mystery to me.”

Alex bit his lower lip. Matt waited, thinking maybe he heard conciliation in Coulter’s voice.

“She cried when you spoke to her about coming here?” Coulter asked. “I’m curious as to why.”

“Because Alex is having hallucinations,” Matt said. “And she doesn’t think Father can help.”

A tear ran down Alex’s cheek. Alex started to wipe it away, then stopped when he seemed to realize that would draw attention to it.

“She’s upset about this because she thinks you’re losing your mind like your father has?” Coulter was looking at Alex as he spoke.

Alex’s lower lip trembled. “No,” he said. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“Hmm,” Coulter said.

“It’s got to do with history,” Matt said. “Something about the Roca.”

“You’ll have to explain it to me,” Coulter said. “I’m not a Rocaanist. I never have been. I was raised among the Fey.”

Interesting choice of words—“among” rather than “by.” Matt had been around Coulter long enough to know that Coulter usually spoke quite deliberately.

“No,” Alex said. He pulled Matt’s hand off Coulter’s arm. “Let’s go. I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“If you’re having Visions, you need someone’s help,” Coulter said. “Visions are meant to be shared. And there are other powers that some Visionaries have, powers that can be either fruitful or harmful depending on how you use them.”

“Visions?” Matt asked. “You mean what’s happening to Alex is normal?”

“For some people,” Coulter said. “You boys have the same bloodline as the royal family, only your families split fifty generations ago. In that bloodline is a wild magick, an old magick, that some believe gave the powers to Queen Arianna and her brother Gift.”

“Not the Fey?” Alex asked.

“The powers combined,” Coulter said. “I suspect if you married a Fey, your children would have great powers as well.”

Alex shuddered. Matt was intrigued. He had never heard that before. But then, why would he? The Fey were rarely discussed in his household except as evil things.

“Do you have this blood?” Matt asked, knowing that Coulter had great powers as well.

“No,” Coulter said. “My powers come from a different source. Still Islander, but not the royal bloodline.” He peered at Alex. “If I agree to help you, you do things my way.”

“My father—”

“I don’t care about your father. I’ve coddled your father far too long.” There was a fierceness in Coulter that Matt had never seen before. “Tell me, when did you last have one of these hallucinations?”