Gossamer in the Darkness (Fantasyland)

“Thank you, and thus, we will proceed,” Noctorno decreed.

Proceed?

After Dad-not-Dad coughed up blood and was struck mute?

“What?” I whispered.

“Do you wish to speak in your client’s defense?” the king asked the man who came in with Edgar.

“I’m sorry, my king, but he didn’t allow me to know what defense he wished to use. He wouldn’t speak of it, only asked me to accompany him to advise should things look like they were not to go his way.”

Noctorno nodded and declared, “Foolhardy and pompous, which is no surprise. It matters not, as we have eye-witness statements, and a mountain of evidence, this was always a matter of being a ceremonial proceeding. As such, you’ll hear my judgment, Mr. Dawes.”

Mr. Dawes?

Edgar didn’t miss the address, I knew, because he went statue-still, attention riveted on the king.

Noctorno didn’t waste any time.

“You are found guilty of all counts, and as such, I strip you of your title,” Noctorno proclaimed.

Dad-not-Dad sputtered nonverbally.

The room went wired.

“It remains held by Lady Corliss Dawes, Countess of Derryman, until her death. It then will be held with her daughter, Satrine, to be transferred down her line,” Noctorno went on.

Edgar kept sputtering, his face getting red, not with the effort to speak, but fury.

“I strip you of all your lands, holdings and assets. By my decree, these will be transferred into the name of the Countess of Derryman and inherited down her line. I do this, save the amount it will cost to procure a cottage of no more than three rooms in a region near our northern borders.”

At that part, Aunt Mary chuckled low and whispered, “Edgar hates the north.” Pause then, “And northerners.” Pause and further, “And the cold.” Pause and last, “And Lunwynians, and the north is rife with diversity.”

“Plus, a small stipend for you to be clothed, fed and kept warm,” the king continued. “Not to mention, a two hundred and fifty thousand pound fine paid to my treasury. You will be secluded in this cottage for twenty years, or until your death, after, of course, you serve a seven-year sentence at my leisure.”

Since Edgar was Dad, I knew he was fifty-three. That meant he’d be out at sixty. Which wasn’t old, but I had a feeling the king’s “leisure” wouldn’t be leisurely for Edgar, so he probably would not come out nearly as robust as when he went in.

“If word should be heard, or actions taken, that you have connived to cause harm to any citizen of my realm or any other, for purposes of vengeance, or any purpose at all,” Noctorno carried on, “you will stand another trial. And if found guilty, your sentence will mean you shall be hung by your neck until dead.”

Holy crap!

Dad-not-Dad stopped sputtering, moving, and lost all color in his face.

“That’s all,” Noctorno said to uniform guy. “He can start seeing to that now. And clear the room.”

People started moving. The place was an excited hum.

But Noctorno finished speaking, looked right to Loren and nodded.

So I didn’t twitch even a muscle.

As constables and the king’s guard started shifting people out, Mom asked, “Should we…leave? I mean, is that it?”

“We’re to stay, Corliss,” Ansley said.

At that comment, I looked to Loren.

He was not holding my hand. He was not asking me if I was okay. He wasn’t appearing like he had any reaction to all that had just gone down. He wasn’t even looking at me.

His gaze was aimed at the redhead that was sitting with the other king and queens.

My skin felt cold.

So cold, my mind blanked at the extremes of it.

“Satrine.”

I stared at my lap and my hand covered in a cream, kid leather glove sitting in it.

That hand not held in Loren’s.

“Satrine.”

Did he know?

Did he just suspect?

Or did the king tell him I was mad and a harridan besides, and he wasn’t having his decorated soldier marry such a strange, foul woman?

Mom and Mary both squeezed my hand.

“Satrine!” Mom snapped.

I turned to her.

But I said nothing because the king spoke, his deep voice echoing in a now mostly empty room.

“Are you quite all right, madam?” he called.

Stiltedly, I turned my head to where he was looking.

And saw, sitting alone at the far back, the witch who had brought us to this world.

And it was then my heart didn’t explode.

It rent in two.

Because it was then I knew.

That Loren knew.

Everything.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Away

Satrine

“Valentine, bring her before me.”

I didn’t move or speak, and not only because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

That being, her feet drifting in the air, the rest of her immobile, the witch at the back was lifted from her seat and she floated…

Literally floated…

Until she came to a swaying halt in front of the king.

“I assume you know why we detained you,” he remarked.

“Your Majesty—” she said in a trembling voice.

“I believe I made myself clear on this subject,” Noctorno noted.