The Fiend Queen by Barbara Ann Wright Page A

turned her around. “I won’t be put off, either. Freddie Ballantine will be gone from here after the dust settles, or he’ll be a guest of the city Watch.”
    Starbride sighed. “You’re talking about events that happened ten years ago.”
    “Crimes don’t just vanish, Princess Consort. Those who died don’t disappear from memory.”
    “But he wasn’t the Butcher!” Starbride was louder than she planned, and several of the Docklanders glanced her way. Freddie had faded to the background, not wanting to be recognized by anyone from his old haunting ground.
    Ursula barked a laugh, but it had no humor in it. “There were more deaths than just those killed by the Butcher. I meant what I said. If he’s still here when the fight is done, he belongs to me. Form up!” Her squad piled around her, and Ursula led them off in another direction.
    “What was that about?” Maia asked.
    “Dawn,” Starbride said, “will you keep the Docklanders occupied?”
    When Dawnmother nodded, Starbride gestured for Maia and Reinholt to join her out of earshot of the others. Several of the Dockland group catcalled to Reinholt about keeping all the women to himself. He just shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped. Scarra joined them and helped move Hugo to the side of the street.
    “Having fun?” Starbride asked Reinholt.
    “Can I help it if they love me?” He’d dressed all in black with his coat undone at the neck, the black prince in repose. His dark blond hair was untidy, but his smiling blue eyes and the shadow of stubble on his cheeks were more in line with hard partying than hard living. He’d taken to the disgraced noble persona like an old horse put to pasture.
    Starbride just kept from rolling her eyes. She had asked him to win the Docklanders over. She couldn’t mock him for doing as he was told.
    “What was the captain upset about?” Maia asked again, too accustomed to deflecting questions to have her own dismissed. Color had returned to her once pale face, and she looked much healthier than when they’d first freed her. She’d managed to put on a little weight, or maybe it was just her heavy coat that made her bulky. As a Fiend, she’d been painfully thin.
    “It’s about me,” a voice said over Starbride’s shoulder. Freddie emerged from the shadows of a ruined storefront, managing to keep his back to the Docklanders.
    Reinholt blinked at him, but Maia looked him up and down, frowning hard at his leather outfit and the knives sheathed about his person. “Pennynail?”
    “I’m glad to see you up and around.” He dipped his head. “And to finally speak to you at last.”
    “You’re different than I pictured,” she said.
    “Bit more red in my cheeks?” He held his palms to his face as if blushing, reminding Starbride so much of his pantomimes as the masked Pennynail that she grinned.
    Maia did, too. “I thought you must be horrifically ugly.”
    “Thanks.”
    She put a fist on her hip. “But you’re not , I was about to say. You do have a scratchy voice.”
    “Again, thanks.”
    “ But ,” she said with a laugh, “that’s not a good enough reason to cover your face and never speak, so why did you?”
    “I know you,” Reinholt said. He pointed to the scar around Freddie’s neck. “You’re a criminal.”
    Freddie turned his nose up. “I’m the criminal.”
    “What do you mean, what criminal?” Maia asked.
    “Dear little Maia,” Freddie said, “I’m glad you never had the stomach for horror stories.”
    Reinholt took Maia’s arm and made her retreat a step. “You’re that murderer.”
    “Which murderer?” Maia asked, looking back and forth between them.
    “I’d never hurt you,” Freddie said to her.
    Reinholt sneered. “What’s that worth, the word of a killer?”
    Freddie gave him an up and down glance. “I wasn’t speaking to you.”
    “Enough,” Starbride said. “The short of it is this: people were murdered years ago in Dockland. Freddie took the blame. They tried