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Fidget chirps his approval, and I chuckle. Letting my head fall back carefully so I don’t disrupt the little guy, I stare at the ceiling and the way the blue wards flicker like bioluminescent veins. For the first time all day, I feel less on edge about this damn tour stuff. Maybe it’s the Witchlight kicking in, though it should be hyping me up, not relaxing me.
Oh, shit are these things made with Fae stuff? Do energy tonics not affect me the same anymore? Someone’s going to die if so.
Forty
REVELIN
They say you can’t hear a hangover in a phone call, but whoever says that never worked for a rock star’s tour.
Trust me, you can hear it when the staff has been out all night hitting it hard before it’s time to work.
I’m sitting with the phone pressed to my ear again, listening to Amethyst’s nasal, overly bright voice as she plays ‘good cop’ with the Ravenhold town official on the conference call. It’s using a magical relay that routes my number through three decoy nodes to keep fans from getting my number, but it doesn’t matter—the timbre of bureaucratic condescension always survives the medium. She says ‘Prince’ like it’s my actual first name, but the guy she’s talking to is even worse, his tone dripping with the kind of formality that says he’d poison my tea if he thought it’d help him up the ladder.
“Your Highness, I do apologize again for the late changes, but given the, ah, delicate nature of recent events, we felt it best to make the tour’s visits as controlled as possible,” the official drawls. “We’ll be meeting you first at Fanciful Row for the vendor and craft exhibition. It will be very traditional, very family-friendly. You’ll love it.”
I glance up, looking at the others scattered around the bus as he drones on. Tiernan at the kitchenette, Khol looming over the minibar, Dezi reading upside down again, and Fiadh curled into the corner seat, her face in her hands as she tries to will herself into the ether. She knows this is going to be difficult and that it’s pulling me in two directions that I have to balance very carefully in order to keep my father from becoming the next problem in our lives.
But this pompous asshole seems to think his agenda is what I’ll serve on my tour, and Amethyst is allowing it.
“Then it’s, let me check—yes, then we walk through the Ravenhold Commons and a short concert at Silvergate Academy with a Q & A and a tour afterward. The schedule is tight, but the last stop—if time allows—would be a short walk-through at Thornwright Academy. I know that’s a personal favorite of yours, Your Highness, but with the ongoing situation…”
“Wouldn’t want any ‘ongoing situations’ preventing the rich Fae from getting what they probably paid for,” I say, turning the sarcasm up a little, just to see if the guy even notices. “And we definitely shouldn’t ensure that the poorer folks get any attention by declaring it all but ‘unsafe’, I’m certain.”
He doesn’t because he just piles on the bullshit. “Obviously, we don’t want you to say that, but it’s a concern. Would you like me to send your staff an updated itinerary now?”
“Absolutely not. We will tour in the same fashion that we agreed ahead of time, including the visit to the necropolis you’ve so kindly named as such after Thornwright. Just because the people who live there aren’t wealthy enough to warrant your belief that they’re ‘alive’ doesn’t mean I share the sentiment.” I don’t bother waiting for Amethyst to smooth my anger over; I hang up and set the phone down, then let my head thud back against the velvet headrest.
Small-town jackasses are such a bunch of elitist fools; no wonder my father loves raising them up into his court.
Khol is first to break the silence, snapping a can of Fae soda open. “Are we really sticking to the schedule despite it pissing off the mayor? That will be… interesting.”
I glance at the new message on my phone, and then read it off like it’s a weather report. “First stop: Fanciful Row. It will be a vendor thing, heavy on the street theater with all the ‘acceptable’ local businesses showing off for the press. Then we’ve got two more business and wealthy areas—Silvergate and Ravenhold Commons, in that order. Thornwright Academy and the necropolis are last, and I refuse to skip them, no matter what that douchebag says.”
Dezi gives a short, knowing laugh. “They’re running the oldest trick in the book. Guarantee you spend all your time in the nice neighborhoods, then blame the schedule for trying to skip the poor ones, anyway. My guess is that the mayor is hiding some squalid things in that district he named as though it’s occupied by dead people.”
Yeah, I had that thought as well, and Fi will want to know for later.
Sassypants lifts her head, her eyes flaring just a little with the magic that never quite goes away these days. “Mother Crone, am I going to have to fix the entire goddamn court when I come back?” She slaps the book shut, hard enough to make Khol and Tiernan both jump.
“Probably,” I say. “This is how crooked leaders always do it. The rich get a double feature, and the kids with the least get skipped. But I will not be that man, and I know you will not be that kind of leader, either.”
She grinds the heels of her hands into her temples. “They’re not even subtle about it. Why do these people not rise up? Why aren’t they angry and on the streets every day protesting and fighting?”
“Resources and power,” Tiernan says, his voice low but clear. “That’s always why the oppressed stay under the heel of their oppressors. They don’t have the supplies and money to live, much less to take on a petty tyrant that will be backed by an even bigger power with all the resources in the world to wipe them off the face of the realm with the stroke of a pen or a single command. It doesn’t mean they aren’t trying—they simply haven’t found the right path to freedom yet.”
I remember doing diplomatic tours when I was younger, always being herded away from the crowd that needed help the most, always told it was a ‘security concern’ or ‘not appropriate for the heir to visit’. My father was a master of keeping the cameras from seeing the worst parts of his realm and the others—as long as that benefitted him. He would go apoplectic if he knew I was purposefully doing the opposite on this tour as part of setting the stage for a new kind of royalty in Faerie.
“I bet we could have your people rig something up to help them see the concert online if they work fast,” Khol muses.. “Maybe they can hot wire a PA system and broadcast it all over their sector if you get the right access to speakers there..” He grins, but it’s a mean, knowing thing. “There’s always a speaker system in the ‘bad’ part of town, isn’t there?”
“Long ago, in early Briarton, they used to fence off half the city during dignitary visits. It was a control thing—if you keep people hungry for a better life, they’re easier to herd.” Dezi looks perturbed as he shakes his head. “You should know that the Night District was the half they cordoned off back then, and many of our leaders didn’t care enough to help their people have a scrap of joy in their lives.”
Fuck, the entire history of both realms is coated in disgusting old, rich people stomping on the poor for their jollies.
Her breathing is audible now, each exhale a little bit sharper. “It’s not just control; it’s targeted cruelty. They want them to see what they’ll never have, and to be scenery, not an audience. I fucking hate it, and if that’s what’s going on here, I’ll come back to fix that shit once I deal with the High Mage and his bullshit. You can count on it.”
Tiernan studies his phone before he gives us a grin. “Can‘t we just change the order? Hit the necropolis first and throw everything off before they get a chance to fuck it up on purpose? If I talk to the protection staff now, they will adjust quickly.”
“We can’t stop anywhere but the city center first,” I reply. “If we show up somewhere unannounced, they’ll lock it down faster than you can say ‘public relations disaster’. These bastards will kick us to the curb if we push too hard; I know it. It’s what my father would do, and I’m sure these local yokels emulate the crown in every way.”
