The Pump Room is the most fashionable parlor in all of Bath, the place to see and be seen for all the ladies of the ton. Strangely, it’s stayed mostly human. While other court activities have become a mishmash of human and fae traditions, our unwelcome guests have shown very little interest in joining us for afternoon tea in town. They’re almost always sleeping until early evening after partying until dawn.
A hush falls over the crowd as I enter, and everyone dips into a hurried curtsy. In the corner, I spot Faith, Marion, Olive, and Emmy, but it would be impolite to head straight for them like I want to.
I circle the room, greeting dozens of duchesses, baronesses, and marchionesses. Gleaming tiaras of diamonds sit in their sugar-spun white hair, glinting in the afternoon sunlight streaming in from the arched second-story windows.
A grand crystal chandelier hangs above the assortment of round tea tables, and in the corner a stone Romanesque fountain bubbles with water pumped directly from the hot springs below us.
Somewhere in the second-story balcony, someone gently plays a harp.
I listen to the duchesses’ and the baronesses’ and the marchionesses’ tales of woe. For hours, I circle the room, lay a comforting hand on their shoulders, and watch as they cry.
Some long for trivial things, like the return of their old nose, the one they got from Queen Mor that disappeared when her bargains were broken. But some tell me much worse stories. Lady Bexley weeps for her husband, Lord Bexley—owner of the mostelegant gambling club in London. A group of faeries killed him two months ago over a game of poker gone wrong. They’d been enchanting the cards, and he tried to throw them out. He paid for it with his life.
Duchess Alton’s daughter has disappeared, vanished in the night a few weeks ago, only days after complaining she kept hearing strange music in the garden.
Baroness Trilby’s tenant farmers have abandoned their land after a charismatic group of faeries promised them bargains that would leave them so wealthy, they’d never have to touch a plow again. The farmers’ whereabouts are unknown, but the market town surrounding their estate will starve once winter comes if a secondary source of food isn’t found.
I pull out the small notebook I keep in my reticule and make a note to ensure extra wheat and preserves are sent to Ripon this winter. I’ll send some letters as soon as I get home. We can pay for it out of the royal vault. I don’t even think Bram checks how much money we have.
It feels as if there’s no way I can do enough to save these people.Mypeople, now.
After the ladies’ tea, I’m carried back up the hill and begin my late afternoon meetings with the husbands.
These men—lords, dukes, and the like—used to be Queen Mor’s advisers who would carry out the day-to-day tasks like collecting taxes, tracking farming, reading through crime reports, and the rest of the minutiae required of running a country.
Bram stopped meeting with them almost immediately upon ascending to the throne. The second week of his reign, when the chaos of Mor’s broken bargains was still at its peak, he stormedout of a meeting, calling it “boring.” He knocked over a vase for good measure and hasn’t entertained their requests for an audience since.
But I saw all their letters, piled up on Bram’s desk, detailing the problems our citizens are facing without a responsible adult at the helm.
I’d never call myself a responsible adult, but I am queen, so it’s my job to pretend the very best I’m able.
Which is why twice a week, I put on my tiara and I sit with perfect posture on a remarkably hard chair and I listen to the men who were supposed to be Bram’s advisers but who are now mine.
“It’s called a steam engine,” one of the lords explains, gesturing to a complicated diagram I only half understand.
He pulls out a stack of illustrations next. “With one of these locomotives we could move people between cities in a quarter of the time it takes to get there by horse and carriage. It would open up commerce between towns. Other countries are decades ahead.”
“It requires tracks?” I say, examining one of the pencil drawings.
He nods. “Yes, ma’am. We’d have to increase mining or imports.” Lord Langley’s got a curly gray mustache and a bowler hat slightly too small for his bald head. He is the current speaker of Parliament, a distinction that didn’t mean much under Queen Mor’s autocratic rule but now carries a significant increase of duties in her absence.
“Mor would never have allowed for that, but there’s a decent chance Bram won’t notice at all. Farmers would have to be compensated. It won’t do to destroy our crops and people’s livelihoods over this,” I say.
He scribbles some notes. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And the coaching inns. If people no longer need to stay overnightto travel, we must make sure they can still make a living somehow. Send solicitors out to speak with the proprietors.”
A memory flashes through my head, a night at a shabby thatched-roof inn called the Swan. It was the first time Emmett kissed me.
“Are you quite all right, ma’am?” Lord Langley asks.
I blink hard. “Yes, of course. Please carry on.”
For the next few hours we talk through all manner of bureaucracy, and I leave the meeting feeling satisfied. I so often feel like a sparkly but unwanted accessory in Bram’s court, it’s nice to be useful. It gives me something to think about other than my maddening terror for Emmett and Lydia.
I don’t see Bram that afternoon, but I do leave a message with our footman that I’m dining out with Faith and Marion should he be looking for me.
Faith and Marion have taken up residence at an unfashionable address on Queen Street, a narrow town house made of Bath Stone with gutters that clog when it rains. They live with Marion’s maiden aunt, Gabrielle, a woman of about ninety who is nearly always confined to her room. Marion and Faith, having lost the competition for Bram’s hand, can never marry. Queen Mor’s magical bargain with us has been broken, but Bram is eager to uphold it anyway. It seems it’s the only one of his mother’s bargains he agreed to keep. The day after our wedding, Emmy, Marion, Faith, and Olive were each delivered notes in Bram’s hand that said simply,Theterms remain.
