The next hour was a blur of red-and-blue lights. I wound up on the street outside the mansion, being asked questions I couldn't focus my mind enough to answer. At some point, an anonymous pair of arms wrapped a blanket around my shivering shoulders. I joined Lumi and Pots in watching anxiously as soldiers carried Adam and Starr out of the house on stretchers. The sight of Starr's unconscious form offered me some vague sense of justice, but it faded quickly, like breath on a cold window.
Then I found myself in a silent hover with the Rampion crew. For a moment, I found my bearings, but I only gazed sullenly out the window at the passing Artemisian nightlife. How easy they all had it—how simple, compared to the political and emotional maze I had stumbled into. Barely had the thought appeared in my head than I once again lost track of time and place. When I next burst back into reality, I was standing before Queen Selene and a handful of other official-looking people in the throne room of the palace. Thorne, Cress, Wolf, and Scarlet had vanished along with the blanket that had been on my shoulders. I wrapped trembling arms around my still-damp figure.
"Miss O'Hara?" the queen prompted, resting her chin in her mechanical hand. The officials tittered. They seemed to be waiting for me to do something.
I shook my head to clear it. "Huh?"
The queen's lips quirked to one side. "Your defense of Thaumaturge Tier?"
"Oh! Uh…" Fuzzy recollections of the past five or ten minutes trudged slowly back to my memory. We had arrived at the palace, of course, and Adam and Starr had been borne speedily to the care of the med-droids. The queen had agreed to finally let me deliver an official plea on behalf of Adam, and now here I was to give it.
But my stammering hesitation dragged on, and Queen Selene sighed. "It's late," she said. "Maybe tomorrow would be a better time for this?"
"No!" I said quickly before realizing I sounded desperate. With a deliberate, calming breath, I added, "I'm just thinking of what to say."
The queen nodded. "Take your time." Despite her impartial tone, I could tell she was impatient. It couldn't possibly be as late as she made it out to be–probably only nine o'clock or so, but to my exhausted body it felt like long past midnight. But my job couldn't wait. I was going to prove Adam was innocent, and I was going to do it tonight.
"Your Majesty," I began, "you already know what Thaumaturge Tier has been accused of, and I thank you for granting him as much mercy as you have. Allow me to go back to the very beginning." I proceeded to tell her everything Adam himself had told me only the night before, after our dance. As I told the story behind all of Adam's actions as thaumaturge, my audience's expressions followed the path my own emotions had trodden when I'd heard it for the first time: from curiosity to concern to disgust to shock. The shocked looks of people who didn't know how to feel. When I had finished, I fell silent and waited.
No one spoke for an excruciatingly long time. Then one of the older onlookers, a lady with purple lips and a haughty glance, said, "Excuse me, Miss O'Hara. That was an eye-opening tale, but you can't expect us to pardon Thaumaturge Tier merely on the basis that Queen Levana killed his sister. He made the choice to kill all those people, and he deserves to pay for it."
Other officials murmured agreement.
"He loved his sister," I retorted, balling my fists. "He'd do anythingfor her, and Levana knew that. She used his devotion to get what she wanted. From what I've heard, she did that to everyone she ever came in contact with. How is that any different from using glamour on someone? Adam never wanted to—" I winced "—to kill anyone, but what choice did he have?"
Queen Selene studied me, eyes narrowed. "I agree with Miss O'Hara. Thaumaturge Tier and so many others were only the victims of Levana's rule." She turned to the officials. "I know some of you are of the opinion that I am too merciful when judging the thaumaturges, and perhaps I am, but could any of you condemn this man to a life in prison after what we've just heard?"
"How can we know it's true, Your Majesty?" the lady queried, sneering. "How can we know she isn't lying to us? Maybe Thaumaturge Tier is still using his glamour to make her tell us all of this."
"Do you have any proof that this story isn't true?" Queen Selene countered. The lady opened her purple mouth to speak, but the queen interrupted her before any sound could come out. "Thaumaturge Tier is unconscious, so he can't be controlling her, and I can't see why she would make up something like this." The lady fell into an embarrassed silence. "All the same, Miss O'Hara, because there seems to be some disagreement on the matter, I must ask you to leave the room while we discuss our verdict. I'll have a servant take you to see Thaumaturge Tier if you want. Someone will report our decision to you when it has been made."
I curtsied uncertainly. "Thank you, Your Majesty." I turned to leave, but remembered something. "Your Majesty," I began, turning back, "I left a broken serv-droid in the room I was locked in earlier this afternoon—do you think you could spare the time to fix him?"
A moment's consideration, then the queen said, "I'll do my best."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."