“To the sun and the moon and whatever else these people decide to worship,” Cass told me with a roll of her eyes as she slid into her black stilettos, using my shoulder to keep herself upright as she did and I wondered why she didn’t just use her magic to transport them onto her feet. “We aren’t active participants in the religion but the Queen’s guests not attending morning prayers would be a slap in the face of the Court.”
I nodded in understanding and followed Cass out of our room into the hallway beyond.
“Besides, it will be a good chance to catch up with Lark,” she told me. “If my brother has a plan, he’s been entirely too close-lipped about it. I intend to loosen them.”
I couldn’t help my smirk at the determined look on Cass’ face as we made our way down the hall, joining the others flowing in from all areas of the palace, all with long flowing hair, all dressed in wispy white.
We made our way, like a herd of cattle, to the courtyard in the center of the palace, open to the elements above and teeming with all manner of flora and fauna that I knew for a fact rarely thrived in the desert. Magic was at work here.
It was easy to see why something like this might be considered holy. Scattered amongst the fertile beds of soil and potted plants were porcelain statues of male and female Fae that must have lived millennia ago. Or still were, I reminded myself, shivering at the thought. Immortality was not a concept that I was quite comfortable with yet. But it was a wonder. What these people must have seen, what they knew.
Maybe worshipping the sun wasn’t so crazy after all.
Cass followed a line of people as it branched off and circled around the back. When the man in front of us stopped walking, turned toward the nearest statue, and knelt to his knees, we did the same. I had a brief moment of disappointment that I would get my pristine dress dirty in the mud beneath me but it faded when I remembered this wasn’t my dress. And these weren’t my people.
“It took you long enough,” Cass snapped below her breath and I turned to see that Lark had followed us down our line.
He was kneeling next to me, so close that our elbows were touching as well as our thighs. My face burned and I lowered my head, pretending to be lost in reverent prayer, to hide it.
“I need you to go to Rook after breakfast,” Lark whispered back to his sister without looking at her. From afar, it would look as though he were simply bowing his head in prayer. I readjusted myself to look the same and bumped into him with my hip.
“Why?” Cass hissed back.
“It isn’t safe for him to stay here. Sophierial has her suspicions. And I need him to go to the Court of Rivals, anyway.”
“Rivals?” Cass asked, her gaze snapping toward her brother briefly before she remembered her prayers.
“Taurus never came for me,” Lark explained. “He could have but he didn’t. If I can reason with him—”
“He’ll tear Rook apart.”
“Rook can hold his own.”
“He nearly killed Ursa.”
“Ursa’s intentions were murderous herself.”
“Lark—”
“I just need to know, Cass. If the time comes, I need to know how many of my siblings I actually have to kill.”
She fell silent at that. We all did. I shuffled back and forth on my knees, trying to ease some of the pressure on my joints, quite certain a rock was lodged somewhere in the sand beneath me. No one else was fidgeting, though, so I grit my teeth and fell still. Did these people not have knee joints either? Perhaps I should have attended more mass with my uncle. At least then I would be used to this infernal kneeling.
“I’ll go to Rook,” she promised after a moment. “But you need to tell me how long you intend to stay here.”
“As long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes, Lark?”
“The Queen is open to a partnership with the Court of Blood and Bone. I just have to… woo her.”
“So now we are fraternizing?” Cass asked with a sigh, rolling her eyes at Sophierial’s chosen term. Lark grimaced.
“We’re doing what we’ve always done, sister,” he replied, his voice low, dangerous. “We’re doing what’s best for our people.”
Neither of them spoke again through the duration of the morning prayers and, as hard as I tried to focus on the rituals taking place in front of me for academic purposes, I couldn’t help but think about what had been said amongst my companions. Fraternizing with the Queen. And Lark hadn’t denied it.
It shouldn’t have mattered. He was free to fraternize with whomever he wished. But for some reason, I couldn’t help but be miserably irritable for the rest of the day.
