Not Quite Human

Chapter 20

The castle had come alive again.
The dreary mood that had settled over Sailee lifted somewhat with Eyene's arrival - though in a way that Abbadon found faintly absurd. Most of the humans had no idea who Eyene was. They were simply celebrating because a celebrity had arrived and they were desperate for something to think about other than the murders. Abbadon couldn't blame them for that, exactly, but holding a festival while a group of feys ran around making sacrifices to open the gates of Ement felt deeply hypocritical.
He was also confused about Eyene himself. The man had done nothing since arriving except make himself comfortable in one of the guest rooms, emerging occasionally to collect chocolates and deliver his thoughts on them - apparently one of the few human inventions he considered genuinely worthwhile. Abbadon found this profoundly unnerving. Either Eyene didn't consider the situation serious, or he considered it so well in hand that urgency was unnecessary. Abbadon didn't know which possibility bothered him more.
He was still thinking about it when an ugly myna flew through his window, landed on his desk with no regard for the papers already on it, dropped a small rolled scroll, and left with a screech that would have done a school bell proud. Abbadon unrolled it. The message announced Lady Legasus's imminent arrival, then went blank.
He set it down and began thinking about security.
With fey arriving from both courts to pay their respects to Eyene, too many unknown people were moving through the castle. It was entirely possible that the people behind the sacrifices were among them - wandering the corridors, being politely received, waiting. He gave instructions to tighten the watch on every entrance.
Neil was standing at the gates with Loki, trying to decide whether to go in or go home.
The castle's current occupants were not exactly radiating warmth. Damien was perpetually irritated. Nerezza was frustrated. Abbadon was Abbadon. And now there was an ageless entity in a guest room eating chocolates and declining to explain himself. Neil figured a quiet day at home - some food, some rest, his dog - was probably the more sensible option.
He was still weighing this when Lady Legasus arrived.
If anyone knew how to make an entrance, it was her. She came in on dragonback - not the ugly orange specimen guarding the castle gate, but a silver-grey creature of genuine beauty, its scales so smooth and polished that Neil could see a distorted reflection of himself in them. The queen dismounted with unhurried grace, stroked the dragon twice on the head, and told it to sit.
Neil stared at the dragon, then at the busy street around them. "Won't humans notice?"
Lady Legasus laughed. "Humans, little one, are remarkably blind to anything out of the ordinary - even when it's placed directly in front of them."
Neil thought about asking whether the dragon might accidentally eat someone who stepped on its tail. He decided against it. The dragon almost certainly understood English, and he had enough problems.
"Why don't we head in?" Lady Legasus said, in a voice of suffocating sweetness, dropping one long bony arm around his shoulders and steering him forward before he'd agreed to anything. "You've been standing out here for quite a while, deary."
She didn't knock on Eyene's door. She simply opened it.
Eyene looked up from whatever he was doing and smiled. "Been quite a while. Keeping busy, I take it?"
Lady Legasus did not return the smile. She looked at him with an expression that suggested pleasantries were not on her agenda. "Will you help them?" she asked.
Eyene tilted his head, looking at her with the particular amusement of someone who had found something funny that no one else could see yet. "And is the pretty lady the one asking?"
"I was asking," Legasus said, without inflection, "whether you intend to help the ones behind the sacrifices."
Eyene laughed - a full, genuine laugh. "No, no. Absolutely not. You can set your mind at rest on that count entirely. And let's not drag the past into this, hmm? That was all just a bit of fun. No real harm done."
Legasus said nothing for a moment. She knew the question had been somewhat redundant - but she hadn't been able to help asking it. Eyene had never been reliably on anyone's side. He went where things were interesting, sometimes simply to keep a fight balanced and thus more entertaining, operating entirely on his own terms and nobody else's. She had learned this at considerable personal cost, early in her reign, when she had been far too new to her throne to know better.
She let it go.
Neil, who had been holding his breath since Lady Legasus had asked the question, let it out quietly. He had half-expected someone to lunge at someone else. The tension in the room had suggested that as a real possibility.
No severed heads. He counted that as a good day.