by Curse it.
Mum’s only recently installed upon the throne of Ygranyllon, and having required some days to recover from serious injury incurred during her inauguration as the queen (sort of), I hadn’t expected she would have matters so well in hand already as to have sent envoys to neighbouring kingdoms.
Way to go, Mum!
If only it didn’t leave us in hot water.
‘Erm,’ I said, and cast a frantic glance at Jay.
No help there; he was as stymied as I.
Ah well. Talking us out of (and into) various messes was sort of my specialty.
‘You aren’t wrong,’ I said. ‘I, er, didn’t know about the other envoys.’
The queen glanced behind us. I refused to be so weak as to turn around, but if I had, I’d bet you anything you like I’d have seen the door quietly opening again, and those two guards coming in.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘We did not mean to lie our way in. Only Flow seemed inclined to evict us, and we really needed to visit.’
I waited, ready any moment to be seized and ripped to bits. But nothing happened. Hopefully she did not imagine we were here to harm her. What manner of inept infiltrators would brazenly show up at her front door, and gab their way inside?
‘You are Delia’s daughter,’ said the queen. ‘The account I received of your arrival coincides with what I have heard. Why, then, are you here, if your mother did not send you?’
‘You’ve heard of me?!’
Faint amusement twinkled in her amber eyes. ‘The events that led to your mother’s installation as queen were… noteworthy. Such tales spread.’
I wondered what part in that Jay and I were said to have played, and decided not to ask. I could not tell if Queen Llirriallon approved of my mother’s ascension to royalty and authority, or whether she shared the opinions of those of her people who despised the prospect of a human ruler. Her composure was too good, her serenity untouched. I hoped, though, that the welcoming manner she had shown indicated the former. She’d already known, then, that we were no official envoy.
I realised, too late, that I had not answered her question.
Jay pre-empted me.
‘We, er, came out of no idle curiosity,’ said Jay. ‘If you know of us, you must know that we work for The Society for the Preservation of Magickal Heritage. We’re here because we are looking for something.’
Right. Honesty is the best policy, etc. I formed my signature sign to back up Jay’s words: the Society’s three crossed wands, and my own unicorn symbol superimposed over them (how very fitting that choice now seemed). ‘We were actually hoping to consult your archivist,’ I put in. I debated throwing the word “alchemy” straight in, but dismissed the notion. For one thing, running around asking about alchemy in any serious fashion tends to get a person labelled an eccentric, and I really didn’t need any extra help in that department. For another, I wasn’t sure what to make of her majesty of Aylligranir. If her people knew something to our benefit, would she be minded to share it, or hide it? I always prefer to speak to fellow scholars, when I can. They’re intrigued by tricky questions, and often as desirous of finding answers to an interesting puzzle as I am.
‘And any alchemists you may have at the court,’ said Jay, reaching totally different conclusions to mine.
Curse it.
‘Alchemists?’ echoed the queen, her brows going up. ‘A discredited art, no?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But nonetheless we have questions for anyone who might have kept it up—’
‘There is no such person here,’ said the queen, and that keen look was back in her eye. ‘What is it that you are looking for?’
Now Jay looked to me, and well he might. What could I possibly say? How top secret was Milady’s magickal-modulator project? She had welcomed a partnership with the Court at Mandridore; did that mean she was as happy to draw other fae courts into the scheme?
This was why I hadn’t chosen to show our hand. All the awkward questions that follow.
Fine, well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And did not every fae court, and every magickal society, stand to gain if the Society could pull this off?
‘We’re after magickal silver,’ I said. ‘What you call moonsilver, or skysilver — at least, that’s what they were calling it in Ygranyllon. We need it in quantity, and as you must know there isn’t a great quantity of it to be had. So we’re following some rumours. It’s said here and there that the alchemists of the past may have sought to create it, and may have succeeded, but if they did they’ve been awfully quiet about it.’
‘Such a project, were it successful, must be very lucrative,’ said the queen, and I am sure I did not imagine the shade of disapproval in her tone.
‘Very,’ I said quickly. ‘But that isn’t why we want to make it.’
‘I think you had better tell me the rest,’ said the queen.
So we did. Not quite all of the rest, but a lot of it. I began with our first venture into lost Farringale, and ended with Torvaston’s abandoned scheme to create a solution via magickal means. ‘So if we are here as envoys,’ I concluded, ‘it is as members of the Society, not of my mother’s court. And we are seeking help. To save magick. For everyone.’
It wasn’t a bad speech, if I say so myself. Harder to say whether Queen Llirriallon was impressed by it or not; she sat very still, ruminating upon everything we had said, and I could not tell from her face what thoughts were passing through her mind.
Told all in a rush, the way Jay and I had just done, it sounded far-fetched. Crazy. Magickal parasites, lost royal houses, alternate Britains, mysteriously powerful artefacts and two ordinary magicians at the heart of it all: would she believe it? How much of everything we’d said did she already know?
At length, she spoke.
‘At court, we have a store of moonsilver.’
My heart leapt, and began to race. Giddy gods, could it be that easy? Would she give her kingdom’s store into the Society’s care?
‘It is not enough for your purpose, but perhaps some token of it may be of use to the Society. I am prepared to offer a loan, via the proper channels of course.’
Of course. She wouldn’t just let us waltz off with it, which was fair.
But if it was a loan, she did not intend for it to be used in the creation of any magickal modulator. So, then…?
She read my questions in my face, for she smiled a little, and rang the tiny, silvery bell that stood on a corner of her desk. ‘You wanted to speak to an archivist?’ she said, and a moment later the door swung open.
‘Please take Miss Vesper and Mr. Patel to see Hylldirion,’ she said to the green-clad official who entered. ‘He is our Lorekeeper,’ she said to Jay and I. ‘I believe you may find him useful to consult.’
Jay was laughing softly as we exited the queen of Aylligranir’s salon.
‘What?’ I hissed, trailing after our taciturn guide at a distance of a few feet. He’d barely acknowledged us, offering us the scantest of bows before turning his back and walking off. Apparently we were to follow or not, he neither knew nor cared.
‘Was that us being gently disposed of?’ said Jay.
‘The classic token-gesture-and-fob-off combo,’ I nodded. ‘She’s a master at it.’
On the face of it, Llirriallon the Gentle had been most obliging and helpful. But Jay and I hadn’t missed the fact that she had asked no questions about the modulator, or our quest to rebuild it. She’d made no professions of solidarity, and offered us no real assistance. Just the loan of a small piece of unworked moonsilver, however that was supposed to help, and then dispatched us to pester her Lorekeeper with our questions.
And there’d been that gleam of something in her soft eyes that looked awfully like amusement.
I consoled myself by remembering what Val had said. The shining lights of history were often considered cranks in their own time. I had no real problem with being considered a crank. In fact, Milady rather specialised in being underestimated.
Still, it would’ve been nice to meet with more real assistance, here at an unusually intact Yllanfalen enclave.
A stray thought filtered in.
‘Jay,’ I said, in a different tone. ‘Did she know you?’ I was thinking of the way she’d stared at Jay, and repeated his surname. And the way everyone seemed to know who we were the moment we showed up, though that might just be because I was notorious for causing a ruckus, and Jay was getting famous by association. That, and for his shiny Waymastery skills.
Jay cast me a glance I can only term shifty. ‘Er, no.’
‘And now for the truth?’ Our green-clad guide walked on at a measured pace, either oblivious or uninterested, and he’d led us through so many twisty corridors I had hopelessly lost what passed for my bearings. Hopefully Jay had some idea of where we were.
With a sigh that expressed the utter futility of trying to fob me off, Jay said: ‘She doesn’t know me. She may know of my family.’
‘The Nottinghamshire Patels?’ That surprised me. What possible link could there be between Jay’s family and an Yllanfalen kingdom in Yorkshire?
‘My mother tried to get me admitted for music tutelage,’ Jay said. ‘She was quite persistent, I understand.’
My thoughts flew to Jay at the piano, and the ethereal music drawn forth by his clever fingers. Music tutelage, or musical magick? ‘Did she succeed?’
‘No. I was not invited to study here, or at any other Yllanfalen kingdom.’
Some piece was missing in this little history. Jay’s musical talents were inarguable, but few parents, however devoted, would have the gumption to importune the Yllanfalen for training. Not least because of its utter futility. These fae had never been especially welcoming of human visitors, however magickal they might be. Even with my links to a fellow Yllanfalen queen, I knew our time in Aylligranir was likely to prove brief; soon enough we would be politely encouraged to take ourselves off.
Why, then, had Mrs. Patel considered it worth the effort to try?
‘Is there some reason she thought they might—’ I began, but our guide at last stopped in the middle of another interminable corridor, opened a low door set into the pale stone wall, and bowed us through it. ‘At the queen’s pleasure, Lorekeeper,’ he said to whoever was inside.
I walked past him, and stepped into a room Val might literally have killed for. A library, naturally, and not, whatever my words might have suggested, the spectacular kind. Unlike much of the rest of the palace, this room had no soaring ceilings, no pillars and statuary, no starstone or gilding. Its proportions were surprisingly modest, but every inch of the space was turned to the practical purpose of close study. The books crowding the shelves of the many plain oak bookcases were well-used and well-loved, though also well-kept; reading desks and comfortable chairs were tucked into every cranny and corner; handsome glass cases hinted at rare and precious bookly treasures just waiting to spill their secrets. The library was well-stocked, lived-in and loved, and full of the personality of whoever had built it.
Which was, possibly, the gentleman who looked up from a gigantic tome, blinking in befuddled surprise at his unexpected guests. Our guide didn’t linger; within moments, the door closed behind us, and Jay and I were left to introduce ourselves to Hylldirion the Lorekeeper.
‘Please forgive the intrusion,’ I murmured, recognising the bemused, faraway look of a man whose mind was far from the room in which he sat. ‘Her Majesty sent us to enquire with you about—’
‘Ancestry records? Yes, yes.’ Hylldirion set aside his tome — a volume I longed to leaf through, it positively radiated secrets — and stood up. The process cost him some effort, for he looked at least a hundred years old and could easily have been thrice that. He was bald as an egg, his stooped frame clad in a simple blue robe, though his grey eyes held a bright alertness I myself would’ve envied on many an early morning.
‘Later, certainly,’ I said, for we did want to pursue the question of the Werewodes and their possible Yllanfalen ancestry. ‘But we particularly wanted to ask you about…’
I trailed off, realising that Hylldirion had no way of knowing about the Werewode part of our mission. We hadn’t mentioned that to anyone yet, not even the queen. How then had he known we would be interested in his lineage papers?
‘What—-’ I began, but he was looking at Jay, and Jay had an air of acute embarrassment shaded with irritation, and he was most definitely avoiding my eye.
Something slotted into place.
‘Wha,’ I breathed.
Jay’s expression turned stony, and an irritated muscle jumped in his jaw. ‘We aren’t here for that, sir,’ he said to the Lorekeeper, with slightly strained politeness.
‘Jay,’ I choked. ‘You’re— you can’t mean that you’re—’
It was Hylldirion who answered; Jay maintained his silence. ‘Possessed of a degree of Yllanfalen heritage? It’s as plain as a pikestaff.’
