Chimes at Midnight
Page 18

“Amandine never laid hands on that girl,” said Dianda. “When we came to her Court to offer our regrets and our aid, she was already holding herself apart, and your mother was nowhere to be seen. She made it clear that the Undersea was not welcome in the Courts of the land. We left after that. We had our own tides to tend.”
“So if Mom didn’t mess with the Queen’s blood, there’s honestly no way she could be Gilad’s daughter.” The Queen of the Mists, my old nemesis, the woman who once tried to have me executed for murder . . . she wasn’t even rightfully our ruler?
If I was distressed, Quentin was downright distraught. “That’s not right,” he said. “She should never have been allowed to do that. The High King—”
“They never called for the High King, and he was busy elsewhere when this happened.” Patrick shrugged. “North America is large, Quentin. It’s more than one man, even a man like High King Sollys, can oversee. Sometimes he has to take the Kingdoms at their word. When the Mists said all was well here, he spent his attention where it seemed more needed.”
For a moment, Quentin looked like he was going to protest. Then he sighed, sagging, and said, “I don’t like politics.”
“Then you are a very wise boy,” said Tybalt.
“No one likes politics,” said Dianda. “On the plus side, it gives me a lot of excuses to shout at people. I like that part.”
“Mom’s great at shouting,” said Dean.
“Hang on,” I said, raising my hand in a futile signal for quiet. I was still reeling from the idea that the Queen of the Mists wasn’t our rightful ruler. If I didn’t focus on something, I was going to scream. “How can you all be so calm about this?”
“Because we’ve had a long time to deal with the knowledge,” said Dianda. “King Gilad was a good ruler, and she has done her best to undermine his legacy at every turn. He believed in maintaining strong ties with the Undersea; she cut them as soon as she could. He believed changelings had a place in fae society, that we owed them that much, since we were their parents and originals. She did her best to banish changelings from the Courts. She even took us to war against the Kingdom of Silences because they dared to protest the way the changelings here were being treated. I’m so sorry she’s banished you. You are always welcome in the Undersea.”
There was a moment of silence as we all considered Dianda’s words. Finally, I sighed. “Great. I guess I know what we’re going to be doing this week.”
“What’s that?” asked Quentin.
I tried to smile. It came out feeling more like a grimace. Maybe that was a better reflection of my feelings. “We’re going to overthrow the Queen.”
SIX
WE EXCUSED OURSELVES AFTER THAT. Once it had fully sunk in that the woman who had banished me wasn’t the legitimate ruler of the Mists, there was really nowhere else for the conversation to go. Dean needed some time with his parents. We needed to go home and reassure May and Jazz that we hadn’t been arrested, deported, or worse.
It was another quiet drive. We were nearly back to the house before Quentin asked, “Toby? Are we really going to overthrow the Queen of the Mists?”
Tybalt looked at me out of the corner of his eye, clearly interested in my answer. I took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it out and nodding. “I don’t know. But I’m going to try.”
“Who would you put on the throne?” asked Tybalt mildly.
“See, there’s the stumper. She has no kids, and even if she did, they wouldn’t have a legitimate claim, since she doesn’t have a legitimate claim. She was able to take the throne because there was no known heir. The Windermere line died with King Gilad. I guess that means she’d be as valid a Queen as anyone, if she could get the High King to confirm her as the start of a new royal line, but she’s been on the throne so long . . .”
“If she knew she wasn’t King Gilad’s heir, and she took the throne anyway, that’s treason,” said Quentin. “We could tell the High King now.”
“If we can prove she wasn’t Gilad’s heir, sure,” I said, feeling even more daunted by the scope of this potentially treasonous notion. In the mortal world, contesting someone’s claim to a throne after a century had passed might have seemed excessive. In Faerie, it was likely to be filed under “guess it’s Tuesday.” “But we need something more concrete than the word of the changeling she’s just banished if we want the High King to take this seriously. If we make a false accusation, we won’t live to make a true one.”
“So we find proof,” said Quentin.
“I do enjoy a challenge,” said Tybalt.
We were quiet for the rest of the drive home. Cagney and Lacey—my half-Siamese cats—were sitting in the kitchen window when we pulled into the driveway. They looked at us disapprovingly as we got out of the car. “You’d think dating a King of Cats would get them to cut me a little slack,” I said.
Quentin snorted. “Are you kidding? The cats probably think you’re a social climber.”
“Something like that,” said Tybalt.
“I hate you both,” I said, walking to the back door. I unlocked it, pushing it open and calling, “It’s us. Where is everybody?”
“We’re in the dining room!” May called back.
We found them sitting at the dining room table. May was cutting pictures out of a magazine. Jazz was armed with a hot glue gun, a plaster unicorn head, and a box of artificial gems in various colors and sizes. I stopped in the doorway. “Do I want to know?”
“It helps us stay calm,” said Jazz, hot gluing a bright purple teardrop to the unicorn’s cheek.
“How did it go?” asked May.
“The Luidaeg told me to talk to people who’d known King Gilad before he died,” I said. “So we went to Goldengreen to talk to the Lordens.”
“And?” prompted May.
“Dianda and Patrick were happy to talk to us about King Gilad,” I said. “The trouble is, that just made things worse.”
May frowned. “How could they make things worse than ‘we have a goblin fruit problem and I’ve been banished from the Kingdom’? Is the Undersea being attacked by giant squid?”