Quentin and Tybalt looked at her blankly.
For once, I wasn’t the last one in the room to get what the Luidaeg was hinting at, and I didn’t like the feeling very much. I stared at her. She raised an eyebrow, clearly content to wait me out if that was what it took. Finally, slowly, I asked, “Luidaeg, if there’s something you want me to know, why don’t you just tell me?”
“Because I can’t.” Her smile slipped, replaced by an expression of deep frustration. “This is one of those areas where I’m bound and counter-bound until I can’t see straight. Unless you know the right questions, I can’t give you the answers you need.”
I slammed back the rest of my taqueria coffee in a long, profoundly unsatisfying gulp. Wiping my mouth, I said, “Just one question, then. Can the people who knew King Gilad help me take down the Queen?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then. So it’s time to play scavenger hunt.” I looked at Tybalt and Quentin, who were watching me hopefully, and sighed. “Okay. Just one more question.”
The Luidaeg gave me a flat, frankly disbelieving look. “Really.”
“Yes, really.”
“What is it?”
“Can I have one of your Diet Cokes? Because I’m not up for saltwater coffee right now.” And if I was going to go talk to the only people who I knew for sure had known King Gilad before he died, I was going to need more caffeine. Hell, I was going to need a caffeine IV.
The Luidaeg blinked at me. Then she laughed, indicating the fridge with one hand. “Help yourselves.”
“That’s what you’re always telling me to do,” I said, and went to get myself a soda.
FIVE
WE LEFT THE LUIDAEG’S about half an hour later, after burritos and sodas had been consumed. Give me another six cups of coffee and I might start feeling normal, if not for the whole “counting down to exile” thing. Tybalt didn’t even complain as we walked back to the car. He didn’t trust the Queen not to have guards out looking for me, and, consequently, he wasn’t willing to take the Shadow Roads if I wasn’t with him. I wanted to call him paranoid, but after the night we’d had, I couldn’t. It’s not paranoia if they are really out to get you.
“Can we listen to a good station? Please?” asked Quentin, climbing into the backseat. “Something recorded this century, maybe?”
“Says the kid who listens to country music,” I said. I shook my head, starting the car. “No radio. We’re going to talk.”
Tybalt raised an eyebrow, looking at me. “Talk?”
“Yeah, talk. Both of you: what do you know about King Gilad?”
Quentin spoke first: “Are you asking to test whether I’ve been paying attention in my history lessons, or because you don’t know?”
“Both,” I admitted. “I know who he was, but that’s about it. Now spill.”
“If you get anything wrong, I will know,” added Tybalt helpfully.
“Swell,” said Quentin. “Um, Gilad Windermere became King of the Mists—”
“King in the Mists,” corrected Tybalt. I turned to frown at him. “The proper form of the title. Your current regent does not make use of it.”
“In, of, whatever,” said Quentin. “He took over in 1800 after his parents, Denley and Nola Windermere, died in their beds. No one was ever accused in their deaths, but most people assumed they were poisoned. No fingers were pointed at the Prince, since he was extremely open about not wanting to take the throne yet.”
“I knew they were assassinated.” I grimaced. “Wasn’t Oleander already known here?”
“There had been sightings,” said Tybalt. “There was some effort made to blame the deaths on her, but nothing could be proven before she disappeared. It was fifty years before she darkened these shores again.”
“Even dead, she can ruin my day.” Oleander de Merelands had been a paid assassin and major threat right up to the day I killed her. I didn’t want to kill her, but she didn’t leave me any choice, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it would keep her from hurting the people I loved.
“Well, she ruined Gilad’s pretty good, too. He was King in the Mists from 1800 until he died in the 1906 earthquake. His knowe was lost at the same time. Um . . . he never married, and there was concern the Kingdom would have to petition the High King to have a new monarch officially recognized when the current Queen appeared, said she was Gilad’s daughter, and took the throne. She had the backing of a lot of local nobles, and I guess they just sort of decided it was easier not to involve the High Court in a matter of local succession.”
“Not all the local nobles backed her claim,” said Tybalt. “She was a haughty thing even then, and she put up the hackles of many of the landholders. Most of them are gone now, fled for kinder political climates.”
“Or buried in shallow graves,” I guessed.
Tybalt nodded grimly. “Nothing has ever been proven, of course.”
“Naturally.” I turned onto a side street, listening to the engine whine as we climbed one of San Francisco’s many hills.
“Where are we going?” asked Quentin. “Home’s the other way.”
“Yes, and Goldengreen is this way.”
“Ah,” said Tybalt. He sounded approving. “The Lordens?”
“The Lordens,” I confirmed. The San Francisco Art Museum houses the doors to Goldengreen, the knowe held once by Countess Evening Winterrose, and once by me, before I weaseled out of my promotion. I’d passed my lands and title to Dean Lorden, eldest son of the Duchess of Saltmist, our local Undersea neighbor. His parents, Patrick and Dianda, were also contemporaries of King Gilad. The old King had been an attendant at their wedding—and if there was a way to speak to them without going into the Undersea, it was by visiting their son.
“A good choice,” Tybalt said. “Your liege knew Gilad, but he was not part of the royal Court. Patrick Lorden was, before he met his lady wife, and Dianda Lorden was a contemporary who spent a great deal of time in Gilad’s halls.”
“I’m glad you approve.” I started down the winding road to the San Francisco Art Museum, a series of white stone buildings right at the edge of a cliff. Maybe some cities would have looked at the priceless treasures housed in the museum and thought, “Hey, let’s put these where a single bad storm can’t destroy everything,” but not San Francisco. We’re a coastal city, and if that means a few expressionist artists get their oeuvres ruined by tsunamis, so be it.
“I just want to see what Dean’s done with the place,” said Quentin. He sounded almost normal, which I took as a good sign. The more stable we all were, the better.
It was almost three in the morning, and while it wasn’t dawn yet, the night was rapidly fading. The museum grounds were deserted. Nothing moved save for the three of us, making our way across the parking lot to a small footpath that led down the gentle slope of the grounds toward the edge of the cliff.
“Are you sure we can’t use one of the entrances that doesn’t involve jumping into empty space?” asked Quentin.
“This is one of the public entrances, which means we don’t need a key to use it,” I said. “It also means we’re not being rude by coming in without an invitation. Come on. I was in charge of this knowe long enough to know where the doors are.”
Quentin gave me a dubious look. “You were never in charge of the knowe. You borrowed it from the pixies. How do you know they didn’t move the door?”
“Shut up.” I grabbed one his hands and one of Tybalt’s, pulling them along as I stepped off the edge of the cliff. The world did a brief twist and roll around us, as disorienting as a carnival hall of mirrors, and then we were standing in the knowe’s main hall with our knees slightly bent to absorb an impact that had never come. Quentin pulled his hand out of mine and straightened, fussily smoothing his hair. Tybalt did almost the same thing on my other side. I stifled a smile as I straightened in turn and looked around the hall.