But most of the hallways are still intact and Emmett and I walk in silence until we reach the main chamber.
I brace myself, then press the doors open, and at least one hundred eyes snap to me in unison. They take a collective breath upon seeing Emmett and me. Lord Langley stands in the middle, in front of the central desk, paperwork fanned out in front of him. The rest of the lords are on either side of the room, sitting on risers.
“Good!” he barks as Emmett and I enter. “Let us begin.”
Emmett and I are waved to two chairs next to where LordLangley stands. We sink down into them, passing a tense glance between us. It’s as if we’re on trial.
Like the palace, Parliament, too, bears the scars of Bram’s brief rule. Every face in the crowd looks drawn and sallow. I can name at least three different lords in my direct eyeline who lost property or business to bad bargains with Bram’s fae court. Lord Dudley even lost his wife, who ran off with one of them.
“Now that the children are here, we can commence with the day’s agenda,” Lord Langley says.
“Which is?” Emmett asks.
Lord Langley looks down his nose at us. “Determining the future of England.”
A cry goes up from the crowd, one hundred voices shouting in a collective roar.
Lord Langley bangs his walking stick on the floor three times, sending a boom echoing throughout the long, rectangular meeting space. “Silence!”
A hush falls and Lord Langley continues. “We have never been in a more precarious position as a country. Queen Mor may have had her flaws—”
Another cry of dissent goes through the crowd.
“—but she also kept this country stable and at peace for four centuries. As we look toward the future, we desperately need a monarch who can guide this ship with a steady, capable hand.”
Again, Emmett and I share a charged glance.
Lord Langley shuffles through the paperwork on his desk. “Through the line of Edward the Fourth of York, son of our last human king, the crown should pass to Wendell, the tenth Duke of York.”
In the crowd, the duke, a balding, owlish man, blinks a few times in surprise. “Oh—” he sputters, and stands from a riser on the right side of the room. “Oh, well, I suppose...” he bumbles.
Emmett springs from his chair. “This is ridiculous!” he shouts.
Lord Langley turns to him, his brows upturned. “Do you have something to say about these proceedings, Mr. De Vere? You’ve been conspicuously absent these many months we have suffered.” From somewhere in the crowd someone snickers and mutters something about the prince desperately needing a haircut.
“Of course I have something to say,” Emmett roars. “You already have a queen!”
He gestures to me. I straighten my back, unsure of how I want this to go. I have a strong sense of duty and a vision for justice and a better world, but I am so very tired, and perhaps it would be nice to leave someone much older than me in charge of fixing Bram’s great big mess.
“Ivy is not a queen, she is a queen regent.” Lord Langley adjusts his spectacles.
“Bullshit!” Emmett yells.
“Decorum, Mr. De Vere,” Lord Langley snaps. “I won’t be disrespected by an irresponsible drunkard who is barely more than a boy.”
Emmett’s face is deadly serious as he stares down Lord Langley. “Is that where you think I was? You believed Bram’s gossip that I’d slunk off to drink myself to death in a country estate?” His voice is venomous and low, barely more than a whisper. “I was in the Otherworld, which means I know exactly what true power is, and you may sit here and attempt to insult us, but Ivy has it.”
Emmett turns around and glances back at me, aching loveevident in his face. “It isQueenIvy who killed Bram, freeing us from his tyranny. We owe her a debt of national gratitude.”
A chorus of gasps echoes through the room.
“He won’t return?” Lord Langley asks.
I shake my head as guilt crawls up my throat. “He won’t return.”
“She alone was brave enough to face him and powerful enough to defeat him,” Emmett says.
“That is not evidence she should be queen,” Lord Langley retorts.
