Page 21 of The Faerie Handmaid

She had set off for the Council Hall intending to meet with Councillor Emerlyn in her private chamber to explain why she and Braithe had come to fae country. When she reached the hall, a helpful aide, either a very young faerie or a human girl, pointed out Emerlyn’s door, but she said, “I’m afraid she’s not there.”

“Where can I find her?” Morgana said, her voice tight and tense. Her dream weighed on her, in concert with the Blackbird’s fears. Lives depended on them accomplishing their mission as soon as possible.

The aide pointed down the corridor to a set of double doors.

“Is that the council chamber?”

The girl nodded. “You can tell by the racket.”

It was true. The volume of voices, punctuated by a sound like the slamming of a door or a thrown chair, rolled down the corridor toward them. Morgana raised her eyebrows. “Has something happened?”

The aide grinned, and Morgana thought she must be fae. None of the humans she had seen in this unfriendly city had smiled even once. The girl said, “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Just the way the council does business.”

Morgana thanked her and hurried toward the double doors. The building was elegant, with a wide corridor and graceful arches over the doors. Odd bits of art hung on the walls or rested in niches, tiny paintings and bits of pottery, the occasional miniature sculpture. The pieces gave Morgana a sense of age, as if they had been made very long ago. She had no time to stop and inspect them, but she was glad to see art in the White City. Its streets and parks appeared deliberately bland, with nothing to draw the eye or invite a passerby to pause. In fact, the perfection of everything felt forbidding.

There was no time to think about that now. Morgana reached the double doors to the council chamber, where the volume of voices within struck her like an ocean tide, sometimes high, sometimes receding, but not in the least peaceful. She put her hand on the latch of one of the doors and pulled it open a few inches to peer inside.

The chamber was large, with a high ceiling. There were no windows, but there were candle sconces on every wall. The space felt oddly empty, despite perhaps thirty or forty delegates sitting in curved rows before a raised dais. Brown-garbed servants, all human, were passing between the chairs with trays of refreshments. Councillor Emerlyn sat behind a wide desk on the dais, chin in hand, eyelids drooping, either from fatigue or disinterest or to mask her irritation. It was hard to tell. There was nothing on the surface of the desk, no quill or parchment or inkpot.

Morgana hesitated, hoping not to disturb whatever animated discussion was underway. Cautiously, she sidled between the doors into the chamber. A sudden silence greeted her. Every conversation died, and every face turned her way. The servants with their trays of refreshments startled like surprised deer and scurried out through a door at the far end of the room.

Emerlyn roused when she saw Morgana. She came to her feet, and at her gesture, Morgana crossed to the dais and stepped up to stand beside her. The gazes of the people in the chamber burned on her neck and cheeks. She tucked her hands into her sleeves and lifted her head, defiantly gazing back.

Emerlyn spoke to the delegates. “This,” she announced, “is the priestess Morgana. She has come from the Lady’s Temple seeking our help.”

A man in a charcoal-gray tunic and leggings stood up in the back row. His long hair was the same black and silver of the other fae Morgana had met. “Is this the one who claims to be the Lady’s daughter?” His question hung in the air, and a beat of silence followed.

He looked around at the others with a satisfied smirk. He sat down, and another delegate stood up. It was a woman in a robe of such a pale gray it was nearly white. It matched the color of her wispy hair, and when she spoke, her voice thin with age, Morgana saw she was even older than Emerlyn. She said, querulously, “The Lady had no daughter.”

Emerlyn responded with a touch of annoyance. “The Black Mage says otherwise, Dama. I believe you know that.”

Another woman cried out, “A lie!”

A man in the front row rose with a noisy clatter of his chair. He shouted at the second woman, “You accuse the Black Mage of lying?”

Suddenly it seemed everyone in the chamber was shouting except for Emerlyn and Morgana. The noise was deafening, but it was the angry energy in the chamber that stunned Morgana. She turned to Emerlyn, spreading her hands in confusion. Emerlyn, with a disgusted glance at the delegates, pointed to the double doors that would lead them out of the chamber.

Morgana had no choice but to follow Emerlyn out. She could hardly raise her voice above the tumult. When she closed the double doors behind the two of them, the cessation of noise came as a physical relief, though she wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. She drew a breath and palmed her sigil to steady herself.

Emerlyn started down the corridor toward her chamber. “You see what I have to deal with,” the councillor said over her shoulder. “They will argue among themselves until they tire of the topic, and then they will start on something else.”

Morgana caught up with the councillor so they were walking side by side. “Was all that aroused by the question of my parentage?”

“It’s not a new dispute,” Emerlyn said. “And it’s only slightly less pointless than some of the other things they argue about. It will be nearly impossible to get any information from them.”

She stopped outside her door to murmur a cantrip. This one was more elegant than the one for the guesthouse.

Raven’s wing and tortoise shell,

Willow grove and shadowed fell.

The door swung open to reveal an airy space, sparsely furnished with a large desk and two matching chairs at one side. This desk bore a quill in a stand, an inkpot, and a stack of parchment scrolls. An inlaid table held an enameled carafe and cups. A closed door at the back of the room had a small window in it, through which Morgana glimpsed an inner courtyard. Another door led to what appeared to be a bedchamber.

As Morgana stepped inside the room, a wave of magic met her, significantly calmer and more disciplined magic than she felt in the streets. That, she understood, was because it was Emerlyn’s own.

“Ah,” she said. “I see now why the council chamber felt empty, though it was full of noisy people.”

Emerlyn nodded. “Magic is forbidden in the council chamber. Blocked at the doors. It always has been, at least in my time. It would be too dangerous to allow magic there, when tempers run so high.” She gestured to one of the chairs. “Most of the delegates, I fear, possess no more self-control than a gang of unruly children.”