Elestrine

  I open my eyes, once again finding my husband sitting by my bedside.

  “Good morning, Excellency.”

  “Oh Charles, still with the honorific?”

  His face proves uncharacteristically imperturbable.

  “I’m here on official business, Excellency,” Charles announces, proffering yet another folder full of wretched little papers to me as I sit up. Momentarily, I wonder how feasible it would be to force the humans to use memory crystals like a civilized people.

  “More petitions from your constituents?”

  “Some,” Charles replies. “But the main order of business”—he produces a document from the folder—“is cabinet appointments. For when you reopen Parliament. Which I’m sure you’ll do any day now.”

  “Oh yes, you needn’t worry about that,” I reply, glancing over the list. “It will be—”

  “‘All in good time’?” Charles chides.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe you should do it when your mother’s here.”

  My head snaps reflexively up to meet his gaze.

  “You were planning on telling me about her visit at some point.”

  “Of course, dear Charles,” I reply, annoyed to be caught so far off guard.

  “Audan told me.”

  “I see,” I reply. “Well, the information was hardly confidential. Pity really—I might have executed Audan for espionage. Oh well.”

  “He told me other things too,” says Charles. “Like that you were originally slated to marry him, that you only married me to prevent that.” His face remains calm as he talks; his voice sounds—well, angry as always, but firmly under control.

  “My dear Charles—”

  “I want you to know I don’t give a fuck.”

  I blink in surprise. “Charles—”

  “I don’t care why you did it,” he asserts. “It’s done now. No use crying over spilt milk.”

  “You…are not upset?”

  “Of course, I’m upset! But it doesn’t matter. The truth”—he sighs, sagging into his chair in resignation—“is that our marriage is for the greater good, no matter why you wanted it. And…it’s time I admitted that. To you. And to myself.”

  My lips curve into a smile. “Why…my dear Charles! If I may say so, this shows startling growth on your part!”

  “Yeah, well,” he replies. “I’m learning.”

  “And what, might I ask, brought this development about?”

  He looks at me wearily. “General Audan.”

  I laugh out loud “Audan?”

  Charles looks at the floor. “He…put some things into perspective for me.”

  “By which I assume you mean that he showed you how much worse things could be for your people.”

  “Well, that, yes,” Charles says, a slight smile appearing on his face. “But something else too. He offered me the chance to walk away: safe passage and a life of luxury in exile in exchange for annulling our vows.”

  “Did he really?” I laugh. “And I trust that you did not take it.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Charles replies. “I would never leave the people of this country at that asshole’s mercy.”

  “Nor would I leave the people of mine,” I reply, for once untroubled by his profanity.

  “Anyways,” says Charles, shifting his weight about uncomfortably, “the point is…I’m willing to make this marriage work.”

  “…Even to the point of loving me?”

  He scowls. “Maybe. Eventually. In the very long run.”

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  The admission is not much—and yet, it represents a revolution. “Oh, Charles!” I wrap him in an embrace. “You have no idea how this pleases me!”

  After a moment of hesitation, Charles returns my embrace. It is an interesting sensation—his human body is so much larger and more corpulent than my Fairy suitors.

  “There is another thing, Excel—Elestrine.”

  The sound of my name causes me to smile wider. “Oh?”

  “Audan. He inferred that you and I haven’t…consummated our vows. If he can prove that to the Winter Queen—”

  “It would be disastrous! Yes, the thought has occurred to me. But according to the laws of this country, so long as neither of us admit—”

  “I think we should consummate it,” says Charles. “We can’t afford the risk.”

  I marvel at him. “Are…you certain, dear Charles? You’ve always maintained—”

  “Look, I don’t like it!” he interjects. “But…we’ll have to do it sooner or later. And, for the good of the country—”

  “Right now?” I ask. “In this very bed?”

  I try to imagine, not for the first time, what a union with a human would feel like—so much hair and sweat and grunting. Likely not something I’d make a habit of, but…I have a tremendous appetite for novelty.

  Charles hesitates. “Yes,” he decides. “Okay. No time like the present. Just…well, I imagine that, with your magic—”

  “I shall be gentle, my love.”

  “Thank you,” he replies quietly. His eyes return to the folder that still reposes in my lap. “Wait—before we…you know…could you just quickly sign off on this thing? The other MPs will be angry if I forget, is all.”

  I laugh. “No sooner said than done.” I grab a pen and put my name to the paper without a second glance. “Now,” I say, depositing the folder onto the nightstand. “Will you disrobe for me?”

  Charles picks up the folder, examining my signature. He drums his fingers on it in consideration. Then he looks up at me.

  “I’m sorry, Excellency. But I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  I am perturbed by this sudden hesitation. “If you are afraid that I will find your physique wanting, my love, I can always change it—”

  “It’s not that,” he replies. “I’m afraid…I won’t be sleeping with you after all.”

  I am just becoming irritated when Charles holds the folder aloft. There, written in quite large hand, is a new title: An Act to End All Abuses against the People and Country of Canada by the Everglacian Gentry. Beneath it I find, much to my shock, my own signature granting royal assent, written in the very pen I’d been holding.

  My mouth hangs agape. “But…” I protest. “I certainly never signed such a thing!”

  “You did. Just now.”

  “But those were your cabinet appointments!”

  “I’m sorry,” says Charles. “I’m very sorry. But…” He waves his hand over the page and, for the briefest of seconds, it reverts to the list of appointments before changing back to that hateful Act. Charles shrugs apologetically. “I said I was learning.”

  “You cast a glamour!” I realize, tearing the folder from his hand. “But you couldn’t! I would have seen through any you’d have had time to learn—”

  “Yes,” he agrees. “Unless you weren’t expecting it, and you were too distracted to pay attention. Which…you were. Sorry.”

  I flip furiously through the pages, trying to grasp the magnitude of his deception. “Oh!” I exclaim, my eyes falling on a passage calling for the restoration of pre-Shift, pre-Industrial climate patterns. “Oh!” I gasp again, coming to a section banning involuntary magical transformation.

  More still irks me. Clauses bringing Audan’s knights under civilian command; obligating me to train a force of humans to assume the country’s military and policing duties; placing the form and curriculum of magical education at Parliamentary discretion; locking in the provision of food aid; and, grimly to my amusement, mandating that I explain my policy agenda to the Prime Minister.

  I cast the folder aside with a flutter and leap from my bed. “Do you mean to tell me,” I demand, “that you—the Right Honourable Charles Oakes, a man of no particular stature save that which I have bequeathed upon you—somehow managed to trick me—Elestrine Berit-Ardra av-Dahuyn—a woman five centuries your senior, who came of age in one of the most merciless courts in all Faerie?”

  “Yes,” he replies, looking me directly in the eye. I can feel terror in his very soul but he does not back down. “And if you’re thinking of punishing me—”

  He issues a small yelp of surprise as I hoist him bodily to his feet, dip him over, and kiss him on the mouth.

  “Oh, you stupid man!” I exclaim when he finally wrests himself free of my grasp. “You have no idea what trouble you are in!”

  Charles takes a few disoriented steps backwards, then thrusts out his chin. “You can’t hurt me, Elestrine. Not anymore.”

  I laugh in delight. “Hurt you, my love? Why should I want to do that? Oh, but I am angry with you! Or should be, but…my dear Charles, you’re just so—Ah! You are absolutely adorable.”

  He blinks in surprise. “…Sorry?”

  “Oh, but what have you to be sorry for?” Despite my better judgement, my heart near bursts with pride. I grab him by the arms and pull him into an impromptu dance, ignoring his bewilderment. “It was a brilliant stratagem, flawlessly executed! You have a capacity for cunning that I simply underestimated; I don’t think you could have done better if you were one of us! It is—well, to be quite honest, it’s something of an aphrodisiac. Speaking of which, I don’t suppose that you were actually interested in consummation, because—”

  “No!” he exclaims, tearing himself away. “Our marriage is over!”

  “Charles, we’ve been over this—”

  “The situation has changed, Excellency!” he declares. “You’re bound by our laws—by this law—and your successor will be too. I don’t need to protect you from your mother anymore.”

  “Ahh,” I nod knowingly. “Please yourself. I shan’t stop you—indeed, I cannot. Feel free to run about Ottawa, telling anyone who will listen that we haven’t consummated our vows. Take Audan up on his offer, should it please you—you have, after all, won.” I set myself down on the edge of my bed. “But…are you quite certain we’re playing the game you thought we were?”

  “You’re not fooling me, Excellency. No matter how hard you try to downplay this…”

  “Yes, yes, you’ve won. But one of your spoils is an explanation of my policy. And I can promise you—indeed, swear—that my answer will cast this affair in an entirely different light, one very much relevant to you and your people. Now, I shan’t stop you from annulling our vows, but do hear my account first.” I gesture to the chair opposite the bed. “Do you not owe your people an informed decision?”

  Charles looks at me reluctantly. Then he sighs and takes his seat. “Speak your piece.”

  “Wonderful. Now—where shall I begin?”