Vengeance Throne (The Callistra Chronicles #2)

FOUR

Chapter Four

"No, we stay here," Meira said. "The border guards will bring the Seelie messenger in."

"Grandma," Pasiphae hissed, waving at the window, "the border guards don't exactly have safe passage right now."

Meira had ushered Pasiphae and Seth into a meeting room on the second floor of the town hall. From higher ground, the sylphs almost appeared orderly in their systematic patrol of the streets, looking for movement as they darted in and out of shattered houses. Pasiphae paced the floorboards, restless.

"Will they be able to manage?" Seth asked, his arms crossed as he leaned on the table in the middle of the room. Though he had adopted a defensive stance, his expression only conveyed worry. "We don't know how powerful the faery is."

At that, Meira smirked, an expression that was somehow congruous with her elderly face.

"First protocol with foreign visitors is to knock them out," she said. "The guards will be fine."

Pasiphae opened her mouth again to voice more worries, but Meira interrupted her by pretending to hear something from the panicked witches downstairs. 


"Oh, what's that?" she asked. "I'll be right back, heartling."

The door closed with a click, leaving only Pasiphae and Seth in the room.

"She is quite the character," Seth remarked. "I see where you get your personality from."

Pasiphae rolled her eyes, lifting herself up until she sat atop the meeting table as well, next to Seth.

The Council would have a fit about etiquette if they could see the two. Her gown was still shredded at the knee.

"What every girl wants to hear," she said wryly. "You're exactly like your grandmother."

"That's definitely not what I said."

When Pasiphae was too busy staring into space to reply, Seth nudged her with his shoulder.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Just thinking," she answered. "Trying to guess what this Seelie messenger wants."

"It'll be my mother trying to poke holes into the alliance, no doubt," Seth said.

"I suppose that is a given." Pasiphae twisted the ring on her finger. "This was only a temporary solution."

"Have you come up with any ideas yet?"

She shook her head. "You?"


Seth sighed. He was deep in thought, but Pasiphae could feel him glancing at her every so often as if there was something on his mind. She wasn't surprised when he blurted out, "Can I ask you something?"

She turned to face him, prompting him to go ahead.

"The people here still don't know you had your magic stolen."

"That wasn't a question, Seth."

It was the first time she had heard it phrased that way. Stolen, instead of lost or gone amiss. All those years, Pasiphae had been living without a crucial piece of her memory. The knowledge of how her magic left her was not a missing void in her mind, per se, but rather covered up and swathed in shadow.

It was only when she encountered the sylphs in the Unseelie Court again that the barrier in her mind shattered. She had smelled the sylphs' strange scent and remember being abducted under Morgana's command. She remembered Morgana forcing her own daughter to take Pasiphae's power in the first experiment of the Somnus magic.