Iron Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City (24 page)

Chapter Fourteen

F
EN

The
Treaty Hall was an imposing marble building located in almost the exact center of the City. I studied it cautiously, suddenly feeling unprepared for what was to come despite all the hours of lessons Saskia and I had undergone in the last few days.

The building rested on vast granite tiles that marked out a square several hundred feet long on each side. To its left and right, across the borders of the square and further separated by cobbled avenues, were the human council chambers and the elegant wooden building that housed the offices of the Speaker for the Veil.

I’d passed the hall many times, but I’d never been inside. Few had. Between negotiation seasons, the hall was generally sealed, protected by wards set by all four races, so that, in theory, none could get inside. Occasionally it had been used to receive dignitaries from outside the City, but otherwise, it sat empty and inviolate, each of its four corners flying a flag of one of the four races, supposedly to demonstrate harmony and equality.

But now, thanks to Brother Anthony’s hours of tutelage, I knew quite a bit about the hall and what happened in it during the negotiations.

The first task of any treaty season was the undoing of the wards and the inspection of the building itself, followed by the setting of lesser wards and the establishment of patrols to protect the perimeter, both aboveground and below, where tunnels provided daylight access for the Blood. Most of the negotiations were actually held in the evenings in deference to the preferences of the Blood and the Beasts, but some ceremonies were held during daylight hours. Those took place in one of the windowless rooms at the heart of the hall.

After the hall was opened and inspected, heavily supervised teams of cleaners and workmen were allowed in to make the place fit for the negotiations. They polished and swept and repaired any cracks in the wood and stone of the building. As it didn’t contain a single scrap of iron in its construction, it was somewhat susceptible to the ravages of wind and weather. No ward can completely gainsay the weather, after all. Or the rats and mice and other creatures that manage to exploit any small pieces of damage and get inside to take up residence.

That work had been going on for several weeks now and today, or this evening rather, it was finally time for the actual business of the negotiations to commence.

The building rose several stories above the square, the marble gleaming pink and gold and white in the light from the setting sun. It should have been welcoming. Instead, I couldn’t help feeling dread as I waited with the rest of the delegation in the area designated for the humans to gather.

All four races entered the building at the same time, watched by guards from all the races and, of course, by the extra forces of the Fae.

In theory we were all equal, but all of us were aware that the Fae could change the game with a blink of an eye. The Veiled Court’s delegation had gathered in the area to the right of ours and I found myself watching them, unable to look away.

I generally avoided contact with the Fae. I’ve never been to Summerdale, let alone the Veiled World. Too much risk for a half-breed like me. All it would take would be for one of my father’s family to decide to stake a claim on me for my abilities and I could find myself bound there for good. Safer to stay here in the City, free under the sun.

Still, despite the threat they represented, they drew the eye, those of the Veiled Court. Tall, slender, and fair in the twilight, more beautiful than anybody should be. All of them acting calm and collected and yet you couldn’t mistake the fact that every last one of them had half an eye and ear on the palanquin that rested atop the elaborately carved wooden platform they were gathered around. Hung with walls of silks of all possible shades that hid the interior from sight, and topped by the standard of the Veiled Court, it held a single occupant. The Veiled Queen.

Holly had met her, not all that long ago. Met her and found both loss and freedom at her hands. The queen was not a woman to be trifled with. The Fae queen had the power to flatten the whole City if she chose. It was her power that had bound the races to the treaty all those centuries ago and that same power had enforced the treaty all these years. But now she was fighting a rebellion in her own courts, if what Holly and Guy believed was true.

I couldn’t see a future swirling over the palanquin, hard as I might try. I didn’t know if the queen was protected against seers or if it meant that everything was going to go horribly wrong. I hoped it was the former. After all, I tried to tell myself, the queen had been holding the City together with her will for a long time. A petty squabble amongst her people wasn’t enough to make her abandon us now. Or was it?

As we waited, the tension in the air wound higher and higher, until you could practically smell the nerves—like acid and ashes—floating around us. Mail jingled and horses blew nervous snorts, and all around were the sounds of men and women making the kinds of small movements that soothe anxious nerves.

If one more person cleared his throat, I was going to have to punch him. Beside me, Saskia was not entirely immune from the general mood. Her hand dallied with the prentice chain around her neck, fingering the loops with twirls and taps that were no less damning for their air of long habit.

I resisted the urge to adjust my chain—wrapped as tightly as I could bear it, to ease the endless whirl of visions smoking the air—or my coat or my cravat. I would stand still if it killed me. The last thing I wanted was for the Kruegers or the Fae or anybody, hells take them, to see how sick I felt.

The DuCaine brothers stood on Saskia’s other side. They too avoided looking anywhere other than at the Treaty Hall. Which was fine with me. They had been furious with Saskia and me last night, though I hadn’t entirely worked out if that was because we hadn’t used the tunnels or because we’d killed the Beast and therefore ruined any chance of questioning him.

No one had come looking for him. Yet. Simon and Guy both seemed to think that the death might be thrown at the humans in the course of the negotiations.

But given that he had attacked us within a Haven—which we could prove, given the nice little preservation charm Bryony had worked over the charred patch of stone where his body had fallen—and that we could also demonstrate that his body had several bullet holes in nonlethal places—further demonstration that we’d tried to warn him off before killing him—I didn’t see what we could actually be blamed for.

Still, it hadn’t exactly put me in Simon’s and Guy’s good graces. They were grateful that I’d defended their sister, but they had taken both of us to task for nearly an hour over our general idiocy.

My announcement that I was going to remain part of the delegation after that had been something of an anticlimax.

As the clock struck eight and the last of the sun slipped below the horizon, the gaslights around the square whooshed into life. Then, as all of us turned to look, the final delegation came to meet us.

The Blood.

Descending from the long rows of black, windowless coaches that had been making a slow queue across the city from Sorrow’s Hill and LeSangre for the last hour like silent ghosts. I’d never liked groups of Blood together. There was something beyond inhuman in having so many of them in one place. White skin, white hair, black clothes, and the wink of too bright eyes against all that noncolor made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Made my brain sound a song of “predator, predator, run” in the way the Beast Kind never really managed.

The coach closest to the square was the last to open its door and I caught myself holding my breath, waiting to see who stepped down from it. I knew, of course. Knew without a doubt who it would be. Had known it since I had first seen the vision of him at the Krueger Pack House.

Ignatius Grey.

Stepping from the carriage with a slow precision that told me everything I needed to know. He believed he’d won already. Believed he would rule the Blood and, though the gods only knew what he might be planning, rule the City as well.

All the small noises in the square died as he descended. Everybody watched as he adjusted his long velvet coat and gazed around the square to survey those of us who waited. And I wasn’t the only one who shivered when a far-too-satisfied smile spread across his features.

Part of me wondered whether, if he’d raised his voice and commanded us to kneel, we would have obeyed. Hypnotized en masse, like rabbits under the gaze of a raptor? Could he have won with a word?

Luckily we weren’t going to find out just yet. Because just as the silence deepened beyond bearing, there was a ringing peal of trumpets and all eyes turned to the Fae.

I kept watching Ignatius. His smile didn’t falter but it did grow tighter as he too turned to look at the Fae delegation. Lights bloomed, pale glowing orbs floating above the heads of those closest to the palanquin, a myriad of miniature moons casting silvery light that made the silk banners shine. Slowly the curtain at the end of the palanquin drew back. Stairs unfolded and then the Veiled Queen stepped out and descended.

The veils that covered her face were, for now, a pure white that glowed in the light of the floating orbs. That was either diplomacy or a promising start. The veils of the Veiled Queen reflected her moods, thickening and shifting color with her will. If they turned black, someone was going to die. White was safely neutral, neither good nor bad. Or so the protocol lessons had informed me, reinforcing what I’d already heard elsewhere. The square grew even more hushed as the queen moved slowly down the stairs, then extended one hand to the Speaker of the Veil, who waited for her.

Like his queen, the Speaker was robed in white, his dark hair—black in this light—bound back with a silvery band that echoed the silver of his eyes. I assumed the band wasn’t actually silver—which could be an insult to the Beasts and the Blood—but some Fae alloy. The Speaker’s face was carefully blank. He bowed deferentially to the queen as he released her hand but his expression didn’t give away any other hint of how he might be feeling.

I wondered how it felt to be him right now. Usually the Speaker was the Veiled Court’s liaison with the outer worlds. Grievances were taken to him and he spoke the queen’s will. But at the negotiations the queen herself took the reins and he was just another of the Fae courtiers of the delegation, albeit one of the most powerful amongst them.

Looking at his face, you wouldn’t know that he was probably older than the City itself. There had only been one Speaker in all the time the Veiled Queen had ruled. The two of them held centuries of knowledge and power and secrets.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, a feeling of supreme insignificance swamping me as the queen stood and surveyed the assembled delegates. Finally she nodded and the horns sounded again and the doors of treaty hall swung inward. The air buzzed suddenly as even more layers of magic sprang to life around us.

Wards. Many of them.

It eased my nerves temporarily. Of all the places in the City, the Treaty Hall had to be one of the safest. Granted, taking part in the delegations, being a known delegate for one side or the other, exposed you to risks outside the walls of the hall, but inside, nobody would dare to commit an act of aggression. Not unless they wanted their delegation to lose a large portion of its rights, if not all of them.

The queen turned toward the doors and walked slowly to them, still grasping the arm of the Speaker. The rest of the Fae delegation followed her, and its allotted quota of guards.

After the queen had passed through the doors, the rest of the delegates moved in their predetermined order of entry to take their places.

Which had taken almost as much protocol and wrangling to decide upon as the treaty itself.

It was an accounting of the balance of power in each of the races, if you knew how to decipher it. How each race set precedence and how it assigned its delegates provided insight into its power bases and alliances.

The Blood votes had previously been held by Lord Lucius and he spoke for them all, but this year, since his death and the lack of a clear victor in the race to be the new Blood Lord, they had split their voting rights into blocs, as the Beasts and humans did. Still, we all watched with interest as the first group of Blood moved to follow the queen.

Unsurprisingly, it was Ignatius who led the way and after he had left, the numbers of Blood still assembled were substantially reduced. I wasn’t the only one swearing under my breath at this development.

It was official: Ignatius was winning. Something needed to be done about the man. Unfortunately, given it was treaty season, that something couldn’t be anything along the lines of someone making him disappear the way Lucius had, thanks to Simon and Lily.

After the Blood, the first of the human blocs, the council’s delegation, entered the hall. They were followed by the first Beast pack. Again I watched with interest to see who had won that honor.

The Roussellines, as it turned out, which did manage to surprise me.