Kestrel stepped from the shadow of the pine in the middle of the clearing and winced as the sun’s rays, filtering through the branches of the trees to the east, brushed his skin. It was like a prickling of needles, as if his arms had been asleep and numbed.

He took the moment to glance around, seeing that despite the early hour, several fey had already begun work in the herb gardens. Others were carrying blankets and baskets from the House for what looked to be a picnic breakfast, and the smell of frying eggs and herbs drifted across the clearing.

Kestrel grimaced and glanced towards the House itself.

The enormous, sprawling structure wound lazily around the roots of the enormous red pines, the only remnants of the Deepwood trees in the Court boundaries. Thatched with moss and bundles of pine needles, lichen dabbling the stone and wood of the walls, the House blended into the trees it was built under. Windows and shutters had been thrown open wide to greet the cold fall morning, curtains moving gently in the breeze.

No one seemed to notice him standing under the pine. Kestrel pulled his attention from the House and scanned the dark trees around the edge of the clearing, his hand resting lightly against the hilt of his knife. Though the boundary was set a good mile or so away from the House clearing, it wasn't unknown for smaller elements or nature spirits to be able to slip closer than was comfortable. Holly trees ringed the clearing, tucked just under the shadow of the taller pines, the berries just now turning from green to red as the winter drew near.

Kestrel knelt down and sank into the shadows once more, feeling his way through the darkness until his fingers brushed the familiar wood-grain paneling of Seren’s chambers.

He stepped from the shadows into a shaded corner of the sitting room, pulling aside the large standing shade that provided the shadow for him to travel through. The sitting room was empty, with the windows thrown wide to let bright sunlight into the room, lighting the mossy carpet and gently-curved walls of the space. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought they were in a hollowed-out heart of an enormous pine tree. Ever-living fronds hung from the ceiling, though none of them were low enough to brush against his head as he made his way across the room to the bedchamber. The door was open, and Seren was sitting at her dressing table, fastening earrings in her ears as a maid brushed out her long brown hair. Even sitting in a pool of sunlight, Seren's pale skin glimmered as if touched by stardust and moonlight.

Kestrel rapped on the doorframe.

The maid, Everheart, started and spun around, giving him a glare. “You scared me!” She complained.

“Don’t I usually?” Kestrel leaned one arm against the doorframe, grinning at her.

Everheart rolled her eyes.

Desma hadn’t jumped, nor had she turned to look at him. “I take it your mission was successful?” She asked, twisting a piece of hair, tucking it behind her ear, and pinning it in place with a hairpin that looked like it was made of a piece of carved ivy.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“There was…a complication. Of the shadowy kind.”

Seren straightened, meeting Everheart’s eyes in the mirror. “Could you please give us a moment, Ever?”

Everheart sighed, like it was the worst inconvenience to her, and slipped past Kestrel, doing her best to keep any of her long, fluttering sleeves or skirts from brushing against him.

Seren turned in her seat, draping one arm over the back of her chair and raising an eyebrow. “What did my dear sister do this time?”

Kestrel resisted raising an eyebrow. Though he'd already known that the two Queens were sisters by blood as well as by pact, he'd rarely heard Seren acknowledge that connection. Was she in a good mood, he wondered, or did it mean that she was exasperated by the Shadow Court's involvement?

“It wasn’t so much Desma,” he said. “But Jasper showed up shortly after I did. He was the one who found the body.”

“One of theirs?”

“No. I didn’t recognize them either. Jasper said they were a werewolf--they certainly smelled like one.”

Seren rubbed one hand up and down her sleeve, crumpling the fabric. “Hasn't Desma banned any of the werewolves from coming into the Court lands? Is it possible Jasper was the one who killed them?”

Kestrel had considered that as he’d traveled back to the Court lands. Moving through the shadows gave him time to think, both stretching out longer than eternity and over in the time it took an eyelid to flutter in a blink. He'd focused less on the fact that Jasper had arrived after he did, and more on how Jasper had moved around the body. Reverent, careful, as if afraid by moving too quickly he could somehow startle them into flight. The care in which he'd brushed the fey's hair away from their face, the choke in his voice as he insisted they be buried at the Standing Stones. He could have been acting--or, Kestrel supposed, he could have been remorseful even as a killer. Perhaps Jasper had viewed it as somehow necessary for his Court. And yet...

"Kestrel?" Seren asked again.

Kestrel jolted back from his thoughts, feeling the woodgrain of the doorjamb digging into his shoulder once again. The room didn't provide quite enough shade--his left arm, crossed over his right, stung a little from the rectangle of sunlight that now fell through the opened curtains of the window beside the bed. Kestrel shifted back out of the doorway.

"Well, don't run away before you answer my question." The only hint that Seren was joking was the upraised eyebrow and upturned corner of her mouth.

Kestrel smiled back, sheepishly, and gestured to the window. "I don't think Jasper did it," he said finally.

He wondered if she would ask how he knew, and what details he would give her when he had nothing but a gut sense--but Seren accepted his statement and turned back to the mirror.

"Jasper...thinks we should meet," Kestrel said. "The Queens. The Courts. He says this is bigger than us. He was...insistent."

"Does Desma really give him that much authority?" Seren murmured, so quietly Kestrel almost couldn't catch the words.

"I told him I would send a messenger if you agreed to it."

Seren frowned. "And if Desma didn't agree?"

Kestrel shrugged. "He seemed to think he could convince her."

Seren looked thoughtful for a moment, a strand of hair held half-twisted, pinched between thumb and forefinger. She played with another hairpin in her free hand, tapping it gently against the table. "If he can convince Desma to meet, then I suppose we will meet. Send the message."

Kestrel bowed his head forward. "Yes, my lady."