Someone placed a hand on her arm.
She whirled to see a woman standing before her—the faerie who’d been seated with Kellington earlier. She wore a dress of emerald velvet, and around her throat was a necklace of gleaming blue stones.
“Forgive the intrusion,” she said breathlessly, as though nervous. “Are you—are you the girl who danced for us all some months ago?”
“I am,” said Cordelia warily.
“I thought I recognized you,” the faerie said. She had a pale, intent face. “I quite admired your skill. And the sword, of course. Am I correct in thinking that the blade you bear is Cortana itself?” She whispered this last part, as though just invoking the name took courage.
“Oh, no,” Cordelia said. “It’s a fake. Just a nicely made replica.”
The faerie stared at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “Oh, very good!” she said. “I forget sometimes that mortals joke—it is a sort of lie, isn’t it, yet meant to be funny? But any true faerie would know the work of Wayland the Smith.” She gazed at the sword in admiration. “If I may say so, Wayland is the greatest living metalworker of the British Isles.”
That brought Cordelia up short. “Living?” she echoed. “Are you saying that Wayland the Smith is still alive?”
“Why, of course!” said the faerie, clapping her hands, and Cordelia wondered whether she was about to reveal that Wayland the Smith was in fact the rather drunk goblin in the corner with the lampshade on his head. But she only said, “Nothing that he has made has passed into human hands in many centuries, but it is said he still operates his forge, under a barrow in the Berkshire Downs.”
“Indeed,” Cordelia said, trying to catch Anna’s eye in hope of rescue. “How very interesting.”
“If you had any thought of meeting Cortana’s maker, I could take you. Past the great white horse and under the hill. For only a coin and a promise of—”
“No,” Cordelia said firmly. She might be as naive as the Ruelle’s clientele assumed her to be, but even she knew the right response to a faerie trying to make a deal: walk away. “Enjoy the party,” she added, “but I must go.”
As she turned away, the woman said, in a low voice, “You need not marry a man who does not love you, you know.”
Cordelia froze. She glanced back over her shoulder; the faerie was looking at her with all the dreaminess gone from her expression. It was pinched, sharp and watchful now.
“There are other paths,” the woman said. “I could help.”
Cordelia schooled her face to blankness. “My friends are waiting for me,” she said, and walked away, her heart hammering. She sank into a chair opposite Anna and Lucie. They greeted her with cheers, but her mind was miles away.
A man who does not love you. How could that faerie know?
“Daisy!” Anna said. “Do pay attention. We’re fussing over you.” She was drinking from a tapered flute of pale champagne, and with a wave of her fingers a second one appeared, which she handed to Cordelia.
“Hurrah!” Lucie cried in delight, before returning to ignoring her cider and her friends completely, alternating instead between scribbling furiously in a notebook and staring into the middle distance.
“Did the light of inspiration hit you, pet?” Cordelia asked. Her heart was beginning to slow down. The faerie had been full of nonsense, she told herself firmly. She must have heard Hypatia talking to Cordelia about her wedding and decided to play upon the insecurities of any bride. Who didn’t worry that the man they were going to marry might not love them? In Cordelia’s case it might be true, but anyone would fear it, and faeries preyed upon the fears of mortals. It meant nothing—just an effort to get from Cordelia what she had asked for before: a coin and a promise.
Lucie waved an ink-stained hand to get her attention. “There is so much material here,” she said. “Did you see Malcolm Fade over there? I adore his coat. Oh, I’ve decided that rather than being a dashing naval officer, Lord Kincaid should be an artist whose work was banned in London, so he fled to Paris, where he makes the beautiful Cordelia his muse and is welcomed into all the best salons—”
“What happened to the Duke of Blankshire?” said Cordelia. “I thought fictional Cordelia was about to become a duchess.”
“He died,” said Lucie, licking some ink off her finger. Around her neck, a gilded chain gleamed. She had been wearing the same plain gold locket for several months now; when Cordelia had asked her about it, Lucie had said it was an old family heirloom meant to be good luck. Cordelia could still remember its presence, a gold flash in the darkness, the night James had nearly died from demon poison in Highgate Cemetary. She did not recall having seen Lucie wear the necklace before that time. She could have pressed Lucie on it, she supposed, but she knew she kept her own secrets from her future parabatai—she could hardly demand to know all of Lucie’s, especially about a matter as small as a locket.