“I suppose,” Snowblood said. “Tolliver knew him better than anyone. Better than me.”
“Ah,” Pete said. She stepped back and looked at the dead prince. She had a fair notion now, but it was only a notion. She didn’t have any facts.
“And the Queen, at last,” she asked Snowblood. “Some dodgy magic on her — what’s that about?”
Snowblood chewed one shockingly crimson lip. “The Unseelie took her, many years ago, kept her for a time before Tolliver and the Ash Guard brought her back. They placed a wasting curse. It’s held at bay with other magic, but she was with them a long time. It clings.”
It did, indeed. The winding, smoky trail of the curse was apparent to Pete even now, here, layers and layers below the Queen’s chamber. “Bit of a short stick for her,” Pete said. “Might explain that temper.”
“Rowan did the right thing bringing you here,” Snowblood said suddenly. Pete cocked an eyebrow at her as she pulled the bloody sheet over Caliban’s face once more.
“Really?”
“This is rotten,” Snowblood said. “It’s not the kind of thing we do. Not the Fae.”
“‘Course,” Pete muttered, thinking that every fairy tale in her world would disagree with the slender girl. “I’m done. Can you do me a favor and get everyone together in one room? The smaller and hotter the better?”
Snowblood looked curious, but she bit down on her question and merely nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll be in after a time,” Pete said. “Can you have Rowan show me the place where he died?”
That’d give the Queen and her entourage time to get good and pissy about being locked up.
“Just you and me,” Pete told Caliban, after Snowblood’s footsteps faded away. The prince made no reply.
Caliban’s rooms would be opulent even by Las Vegas standards. Heavy velvet in waterfalls of blue and green and midnight purple cascaded from the walls. The bed was gold, and enormous. A mirror made in the shape of an oak leaf stared back at Pete from the ceiling.
“He did like his creature comforts, eh?” she said to Rowan.
He shrugged, staying far away from the bloodstain in the center of the rich blue carpet. Pete didn’t even smell the coppery — or charred, she supposed, as this was a Fae–scent that usually accompanied a fresh stabbing scene. The prince’s chamber was heavily perfumed, and a garden of scents cloyed at Pete’s nose.
She noted that the door locked from the inside with a heavy bolt, and the windows were barred over with grates that had rusted into place.
Pete brushed off her knees reflexively and stood, coming back to Rowan. “I’ve seen enough. Go join the others, and I’ll make an entrance in a bit.”
Rowan obeyed, and Pete was alone again, with the last moments of Caliban’s life.
She could hear the Fae long before she came upon the door to what the guard told her was Crowfoot’s private library. They were complaining. Vociferously. That was good. She wanted them off balance and receptive to the truth.
The member of the Ash Guard outside the door tightened his grip on his short blade when she approached. “Lady,” he said, just the proper amount of deference in the tone.
“You can just call me Pete,” Pete told him. “What’s your name?”
“Juniper,” he said. Pete winced. The flower names, to her mind, were just cruel.
“You know how to use that pig-sticker, Juniper?” she inquired. He gave a curt nod, much less polite. He could use it well enough that the question had offended him.
“Good,” Pete said. “Stay sharp.” She shoved the door open. Tolliver exploded out of the seat he occupied next to the Queen, jabbing his finger into her face.
“How dare you herd us together like cattle? Like we’re criminals?”
Crowfoot was on his heels. “Do you have any idea my position in the Seelie Court? I am Senechal… I brought you here.”
The Queen didn’t get up, she just raised her voice. “I am the Queen of all Faerie…”
Only Rowan and Snowblood stayed silent, and they looked anxious as pigs on market day.
“Oi!” Pete made a slashing motion through the air at the trio of shouters. “Simmer down, yeah? The lot of you. You’re in here for a reason.”
Tolliver’s scarred throat worked. “And that’d be…?”
Pete shooed them back to the four corners of the room. She went to Tolliver, then Crowfoot. Rowan, Snowblood, and lastly the Queen. She asked them each a question. Then she went to the fire and warmed up her hands. It was stuffy in the library, but outside the storm was only getting worse.
“Lady Caldecott,” Crowfoot huffed. “I really must insist that you share your findings.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pete rubbed her hands together and then faced them. As a point of self-preservation, she made note of the heavy fireplace poker near her right hand. “I know who killed your Prince Caliban.”
“First,” Pete held up a finger. Her stomach was twisting and her heart was thudding, even though she kept her face blank. Hercule Poirot never had to face down a roomful of fucking Fae. “Snowblood tells me that Caliban was one hell of a fighter, and he was a big bastard besides. Nobody was taking him by force.”
“So?” Crowfoot said rudely. Pete crimped her mouth into her smuggest smile just for him.
“So he was topped by someone he trusted, someone he opened the door to.”
“And?” Crowfoot demanded. Pete reached up and patted his bony shoulder.
“And that lets you out. You’re a bit of a slimy fuckwit, according to everyone here, and you were sniffing around his woman. Sorry, mate.”
Crowfoot blinked, confusion and relief flitting on his features. “I didn’t … I mean … of course I didn’t! My loyalty is to the Court!”
“You didn’t,” Pete said. “But somebody here did.”
Tolliver’s eyes darted to the door. Pete folded her arms. “That’s Juniper outside. One of yours. You trained him, I imagine. Like you trained the prince.” She approached Tolliver. “I asked you if the Prince could beat you in a low-down brawl, and you said yes. You’re not the kind who stabs in the back, and I don’t think you did it.” Pete lowered her voice. Tolliver was a big man, and probably had some magic riding him to boot. If he didn’t like her next words, she’d be in two pieces before she could help it. “But I think you know why it happened.”
“Excuse me,” the Queen. “But where do you—”
“Not that you’re any better,” Pete interrupted her. It was the MP and his son all over again, and she was bloody sick of it. “What kind of a mother names her only son after a monstrous savage? I asked you and all you said? “That was his name.” That’s cold, miss. Ice water all through your veins, no mistake.”
“Please.” Snowblood’s word cut off the Queen’s outcry. “Just tell me. Who killed Caliban?”
Pete swiveled, her finger landing on Rowan. “He did.”
Silence, for a tick of clock-hands. Then Snowblood exploded toward Rowan, who yelped and ducked, but not quickly enough. Snowblood’s small, sharp fist landed a blow on his perfect nose and blood blossomed, trickling over Rowan’s lips.
Pete slapped the door with the flat of her hand. “Juniper, get your arse in here!”
Juniper and another of the Ash Guard held Snowblood and Rowan apart. Snowblood panted, her face crimson, while Rowan folded in on himself, trapped in the far corner of the library. Crowfoot and the Queen were talking all at once, their words tripping over each other like tangled vines.
Tolliver came to Pete’s shoulder. “How did you know?”
Pete gave Rowan a regretful smile. “Flowers.” She sighed, her head suddenly throbbing. “I smelled flowers when Rowan came into a supposedly Fae-proof pub to find me, and again when we were in Caliban’s room. I thought it was some kind of shield hex, but it’s not, is it?” She fixed Rowan with the copper stare. To his credit, he didn’t flinch or change his visage, he just stared back, his eyes like drops of mercury on glass, blood the only motion on his form.