“Oh,” Joy said, as if that explained everything. Which it didn’t. “Okay.” She glanced at Inq. Joy noticed that her eyes were the color of her mother’s sigils—a deep indigo-black. So were Ink’s. A family trait. “Can you elaborate?”
“It’s complicated,” Inq said.
“Really?” Joy said. “Try me.”
Inq’s mother stepped to a nearby laurel tree and folded herself gracefully into its cradle of branches, curled to form a perfect seat. “It started years ago, back when our people and yours began forgetting their obligations and grew increasingly at odds.” She tilted her head back. “Many of our people had been enslaved, tricked into servitude. Retributions were swift and the death toll was rising, birthing a mutual sentiment of distrust and fear.” Joy glanced aside—it was a familiar story throughout history. “So the King and Queen decided to strategically withdraw, taking the bulk of our people out of harm’s way.”
“Wait a minute,” Joy said. “What King and Queen? The Folk are ruled by the Council.”
The statuesque woman turned her head. Unlike Ink and Inq, her eyes looked human, but they still had that cavernous, fathomless quality that she’d given to the Scribes. Joy felt like she was falling into them. “The King and Queen rule over the Twixt, the land which they cleaved from the elemental wild.” Her answer left no room for doubt. “When they chose to leave, they left behind a skeleton crew of loyalists in order to maintain our obligations and uphold our honor, fulfilling our pledge to sustain the magic inherent in the world and look after our own. They created a Council to rule in their stead, to be their voice while they were in exile.” Her smile faded like the sun slipping behind a cloud. “They chose a courier who would visit the door and ferry messages back and forth between worlds, bringing the King and Queen’s wisdom to their Courts.” Her words grew heavy. “The courier would also serve as the gatekeeper, the one who would tell them when it was time to come home.” The woman looked wistful. Her gaze lifted to the branches waving in a tousled breeze that Joy still could not feel.
“Where did they go?” she asked.
“They fashioned a door,” the woman said. “A door between worlds, and escaped to a safe haven on the other side.”
Another world? Joy wanted to ask more, but Inq interrupted her thoughts.
“The Council was supposed to open the door when it was safe to return,” Inq said from her perch in the grass. “Or, if the humans ended up killing all of the Council members, the strongest and wisest of the Folk, then the door would open automatically and the King and Queen would return to avenge their people.” She looked at her mother, fierce with love. “But the courier stopped coming,” she said. “And then there were whispers of a coup—that those who remained here could govern themselves and no longer had need or want for a king and queen.”
“I suspect they were bitter,” Inq’s mother said softly. “They felt abandoned and afraid. It was not easy to stay behind in this world.”
Inq swiped her fingers along the fluffy tops of weeds. “Just so, their loyalty should have been absolute.” She glanced at Joy. “Graus Claude and I decided to hide her inside the Bailiwick, the entrance to the hidden doorway, until we could identify the traitors and end the coup.”
“I don’t understand,” Joy said to the regal woman lounging in her throne of branches. “What does this have to do with you?”
The woman smoothed her dress over her knees. “Of all of my family, I was the only one who chose to remain in the Twixt,” she said. “And while I was not a full member of the Council, I was a convenient figurehead—the youngest descendant of my parents’ rule.”
Joy coughed on her spit. “You’re a princess?” she said. Of course. I’m supposed to help rescue a princess of the lost King and Queen. How perfectly fairy tale.
The tall woman smiled. “In a sense,” she admitted. “I felt that, of all my sisters, I could do more good here.” She gestured with her rune-painted arms. “Ca’cleuth me teer po’ur,” she murmured. “I write to remember.” Her dark eyes—deep, brown eyes—lifted as she gazed at Joy. “When the King and Queen prepared to leave, we were already investigating the possibility of signaturae—binding the magic of our True Names to symbols which could not be said aloud and, thus, would keep us safe from those who would abuse us. I was in the process of creating both Inq and Ink for the purpose of delivering those marks in our stead and thought that it would only be a little while until we were reunited with our people once again.” She caressed the tree bough, leaving a trail of fading cursive, and slid her fingers over new leaves, each one lit up with spring-green script. “I thought that by remaining behind, I could help hasten their return.”
Joy glanced between the two in the moment of stretched-thin silence. “But something happened,” she guessed. “Something went wrong.”
“Yes,” the princess said softly.
“When we discovered that there was a plot against the royal family, I brought her here, in secret, so she could be outside the bounds of the Twixt,” Inq said. “That way, no spell could touch her, let alone find her. No one else would know.” She glanced back up the stairs. “The only ones who came here were the courier and the other members of the Council—those who could locate and open the door between worlds—the traitor had to be among them. The Bailiwick and I thought that her disappearance would lure the culprit out or, at the very least, it would keep her from harm until we identified the conspirators.” Inq’s voice grew hard. “I waited here, certain that I would see the villain for myself, but no one came.” Inq drew her fingers through the water. “When I went back to report to Graus Claude, I returned to find that the coup had ended.”
Joy frowned. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
Inq looked at Joy as if she were an idiot. “There was no coup because suddenly no one remembered the King and Queen—or that there ever was a King and Queen—or nine princesses, or the rest of their people, or a hidden door between worlds. It was as if they’d forgotten everything but the Council!” Her voice hinted at old frustrations and anger. “And, worse than having forgotten, they could not remember. They could not be convinced that the King and Queen had ever existed. I could not convince the Bailiwick of his function, I could not find anyone who remembered the royal family or that there were thousands of our people sequestered somewhere else, in secret. Worst of all, if the traitor had forgotten about it as well, the crime would be wiped as clean as their memory—the conflict was neatly ended.” She glared at Joy with her startling eyes. “I could not risk anyone finding out that I still retained my memories, in case the traitor was still out there.” She looked at her mother. “I am her only eyes and ears outside of this alcove, out in the world. We have been searching for this traitor since before the Dark Ages. The crime itself has been long forgotten, we have no allies and the trail is cold.” Inq stepped closer to Joy. “Now you understand why I cannot risk being silenced or made obsolete or killed for making mistakes.” Her voice was a whisper. “She depends on me.”
Joy thought back to how all of this started—her being labeled a lehman, Ink’s chosen mortal lover, to cover up the fact that Ink had made a mistake in failing to blind her; that they had to keep up the pretense that the Scribes were infallible, able to be relied on to deliver signaturae without flaw or question, so that neither of them would be considered defective and in need of being replaced. Everything Joy had experienced in the Twixt during the past six months was with the single purpose of keeping the three of them alive. Joy looked again at the princess of the Twixt. Not just the three of us—four. As well as thousands more lost behind a forgotten door.
Her head spun with implications.
“Okay, wait, I understand that someone wanted to overthrow the King and Queen after they left with most of the Folk, and that you worried that they might go after your—” Joy gestured at the princess