Read Deeds of Men for Free Online Page B

punctuated by columns, arches, bridges, and platforms, an aerial maze built for play. The first time he saw it, and the flying fae who gambolled there, Henry had asked if he, too, could be given wings.
    The Vault was empty now, by Lune’s design. “There are handholds,” Deven said, once his voice was steady. “And a bit of a path, that will take us much of the way without climbing.”
    It was still a heart-stopping experience, and by the time they were done he suspected Antony’s true face was pale. But the young man breathed not a word of complaint, and followed Deven silently out the triple archway on one side of the chamber, before ducking into a cramped room whose door was invisible in the black wall.
    The hidden closet was too small for furniture. One chair, with a man sitting in it, would have left scarcely enough space for the other to stand. But it stood near the chambers of Valentin Aspell, Lune’s Lord Keeper and the other likely murderer, and so Antony slid down the wall to the floor, folding his legs to leave room for Deven to sit as well. “These suspects,” he said abruptly. “The ones who may have ordered my brother’s death. Why them? Or rather, why him? ”
    As awkward as it would be to share the floor with the young man, looming over him would be worse. Deven crouched in the remaining space, ruing that even faerie-bestowed youth could not make his knees happy. “Patronage. I favoured Henry for a position, and those I suspect had their rival clients. This court was once a murderous place indeed, and not all, I fear, have fallen out of such habits.”
    The young man brooded upon this for a moment, then said, “Your position. Am I right?”
    “How did you guess?”
    “A tiredness in your manner,” Antony said. “As if you had a burden you thought to lay down, but now must carry a while longer.”
    And that was true enough. It was not so much that Deven minded his responsibilities as Prince of the Stone; they were part of what he shared with Lune. But the need to find a successor weighed heavily upon him, and more so now that Henry was lost.
    “What are you?” Antony asked. “She called you the Prince. That…Queen did.”
    “Her mortal consort,” Deven answered him. “I am her love, and she is mine, but no man can inherit that bond. What I mean to pass on is my role in her court. Lune assists mankind where and as she can—particularly as it concerns politics—but she needs one of us to advise her how best to do that. And I will not be with her forever. I was educating Henry to follow me.”
    “Henry!” It was a startled exclamation, all the more jarring because it seemed to come from the young man himself, ghost-pale in the dim light. “Since when did he care for such matters?”
    Deven’s reply was soft with sorrow. “Since he came among us.”
    Antony, it seemed, had no answer to that, for they waited in silence until a scratch came at the door.
    Opening it, Deven found a figure outside, twig-like and scarcely larger than his hand, with bat-wings of mere gossamer. “He approaches?” Deven asked, and the creature nodded, before taking off into the air.
    Antony rose with the ease of the young. Already they heard footsteps. Deven gestured for the young man to conceal himself to one side of the entrance into the Vault of Birds, then stepped back into his own hidden chamber, leaving the door cracked the merest sliver, and the light inside extinguished.
    The footsteps passed him and then paused. And then came a voice that nearly stopped Deven’s heart.
    “Well, young master! Not entirely dead after all, I see.”
    A chilling rasp, not the sibilant elegance of Valentin Aspell. A voice Deven feared, and Antony did not—because he knew almost nothing of the fae, and did not know the creature he had accosted was not their target, but a fetch.
    As Deven fought with himself, whether to stay hidden or to leap out in Antony’s defence, the fetch went on. “Did you learn—” But then