but the postern just to the north of them admitted or released any Seelie who required it—at least, any Summer sidhe not sickened by the damn plague. The Queen wouldn’t tread the path leading to the other side of the Gates for another short while. Sooner or later she must, and who could tell if the infection running rampant outside Summer would enter once the actual Gates were flung wide?
Nobody knew, and even the mortal-Tainted of a scientific bent—now petted and cosseted in the hopes of finding a cure, instead of ridiculed and relentlessly pranked by their more sidhe-blooded betters—couldn’t tell for certain. There was only one assurance so far, and it was that those tainted by mortal blood weren’t prey to the sickness. A quartering of mortal or more seemed to keep the infection at bay.
Here on the borders, safe in the interference, it was perhaps the only place Robin could allow herself to think that the blackboil plague could be a blessing in disguise if it cleared away the proud and malignant. Still, if the fullborn sidhe were all gone, what did that leave for the mortal-Tainted, even the most blessed of mixtures, the full Half?
Once the wellspring was gone, would the smaller freshets dry up? It was an article of unquestioned faith, how the fullborn kept both Courts sideways to the mortal world.
Which still left those with only a measure of sidhe blood in an uncertainty. Maybe a new plague would spring from the old. Or would they simply escape into the mortal world and leave Summer and Unwinter both, not to mention the Low Counties, as fading, dry-leaf memories?
She could have refused to tread outside Summer’s borders. But there was Sean, now at the Queen’s dubious, thorny mercy. The Queen would not let her Robin loose without a silken thread tied to the leg. What else did Robin have left? Her sister was dead, and well so, for it meant she could not be used against the Ragged; grief was a luxury to be shelved so she could do, and just perhaps find a way to slip the leash.
She buried that thought as soon as it rose. Even if it was fairly safe here, the reflex was too strong. Think on something safer. Something that will help you survive.
Her fingers relaxed, undyed nails tapping the silvery metal of the Gates. Clear enough, at least, and it’s likely to become no clearer for the waiting. It would be chill in the mortal realm, but she wouldn’t feel it, not with the warming breath and her own half of sidhe blood. Besides, it was easy enough to steal clothing.
For a moment she toyed with the dangerous idea of losing herself in the mortal world, abandoning the sidhe to their own problems. There was a valley or a city that would hide her somewhere in the wide, wide world. The Queen would no doubt forget her after a while.
Unless she did not.
Sean. The child’s face turned up to hers, his golden hair smoothed by Robin’s own fingers every day. Her shoulders hunched, and she suppressed a shiver. All the stars of Summer’s dusk, and his soft voice following hers as she taught him the constellations. Would it be easier to be fullblood, and able to set down a pretty mortal child and forget it? Regret was, as far as she could tell, only a mortal failing.
Half were oft presented with the choice of being like the sidhe, or like the mortals. As far as Robin could tell, neither side of the coin lacked tarnish.
I’m stalling. She cast a look over her shoulder, an impatient toss of her curls. Fields sloped away behind the Gates’ bars, a sweet green valley opening up and each copse of trees drowsing under golden afternoon sun too richly liquid to be mortal. The Queen would be in the orchard today, because the pennants were up, snapping and fluttering on a brisk hay-and-apple wind. Thomas Rinevale would be harping; he was high in favor at the moment. The ladies-in-waiting would be draped across silk and satin pillows, and the Queen would be resting in the tent, her white cheek against her pale hand, smiling just slightly and very aware of her own beauty as Sean brought her another cup of lithori or a bunch of damson grapes.
If the blackboil plague breached the Court, that white skin might be raddled in days, and that golden hair a snarl of dishwater. Her graceful slenderness would become a