Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

TWELVE

Without lifting his head, Seth moved his arm and pointed at the space beside him.

"It's not weird unless you make it weird," he said, words muffled. Then, looking up, he announced theatrically, "We're going to be working together for a long while. Don't you trust me?"

Pasiphae rolled her eyes. She pinched out the disks in her eyeballs and set them down on the table, where she also placed her collar after snapping it off at long last, freeing her stiff neck.

She put her cloak on the bed, keeping the fabric in a heap between them so her dagger was in reach.

Simple precautions.

"Don't complain if I kick you in my sleep," Pasiphae warned, pushing aside his leg roughly to make space. She lay down, pulling over the bed covers.

Pasiphae allowed a beat of silence to fall before breaking it. "You know what I want to know?"

He made a low, displeased noise to ask without words why she was still talking, and signify No, not really.

"What determines a faery's title?" she asked, unfazed. "You can't be born a guard, can you? But you can be born a noble."

She didn't think Seth was going to reply when her questions were met with silence. But then, he heaved a sigh, and turned so he was lying on his back like she was.

"You're born in all except for guard," he said with a yawn. "You know how fae magic works: magic pulls from magic nearby. Workers become guards to be apart of the Court, to get closer to the nobles."

"And that elevates their status?"

"Status is just another word for power."

"Why are some nobles lower than other nobles?"

"What?"

Pasiphae made some vague gestures with her hands, blinking up at the high ceiling. "You know, how some nobles are surrounded by other entourage nobles?"

"Oh," Seth said. "Power again. Some family lines are especially revered. There are still high nobles and low nobles within the class."

"How do humans fit into all this?"

Seth threw an arm over his eyes. "By Callistra, I've been awake for days, let me sleep."

"Consorts are treated as pets, right? But surely, in being at Court, they hold more power than peasants who are being beaten to death on the streets."

Seth shook his head, creating bristling noises with his hair against the pillow. "We're talking literal power. Not figurative. Humans will always be at the bottom. They're powerless."

Powerless. Just as she was.

"No more questions?" Seth said drily. "Great, now—"

"Who is Nata Sangallard?"

He sat upright suddenly, staring down at her with a sharpness. "Where did you hear that name?"

"One of those screens at the club," she replied levelly. "She has the royal surname, but I've never heard of her before."

Seth tapped his fingers on his knee, and collapsed back down again. "We met once."

"Really?" Pasiphae tried to run calculations in her head.

Seth nodded, noticing her frown.

"When we get to ten years old, our ageing slows dramatically to about a year per decade. I was technically only still seventeen when she was ten. She was a nice kid."