The Last Faerie Queen (19 page)

24

E
l
o
r
A

The door to the cell clanked open, and much to her chagrin, I dove at Alexia, pulling us both into the shadows. Drawing in a cloak of darkness, I pulled away both of our glamours. Alexia glared, and I shrugged as if to say,
Now we're even
.

Truly, it was better this way. If the dark faeries thought I hated Alexia, they wouldn't bother making an example out of her. She was the safest of them all.

Together, we went to see the fairest.

The guards led the humans along. These were the faeries I'd inspired to revolt. The creatures who'd been battered and beaten by the nobles of the Dark Court, who'd been neglected and treated as less-than for centuries.

These creatures were on my side.

Still, if they knew the truth about my affection for the humans, they might abandon the cause. How could they trust me if they learned I'd been fraternizing with
both
of the Unseelie Court's greatest enemies? In bed with a mortal
and
the Bright Lady, albeit figuratively speaking in the latter case. They wouldn't understand, not now. But after the revolution, when the Bright Queen disbanded her court as promised, they'd see that everything I'd done had been for them. For freedom.

I just had to keep them in the dark a little longer. I just had to hope no one discovered my house of straw, and blew.

As we entered the foyer, where the Queen sat rigidly in her obsidian throne, I realized the flaw in my logic. My house of straw had already been discovered, and there, on the Dark Lady's left hand side, was the wolf.

“I should've shut you up when I had the chance,” I snarled at Naeve, striding past him with nary a glance. “Surely, Lady, you've come to your senses and realized I couldn't care for vile, pathetic beings.”

Not a lie, because I didn't care for vile, pathetic beings. Beings like Naeve, perhaps like Brad. As for Taylor …

I kept my gaze from him as I spoke, pretending he didn't exist. Trying to pretend, and failing.

“My darling, you've put me in a difficult position,” my mother said.
Darling
, she said, as if there were love between us. But she only meant to taunt me. “You see, I have here an unprecedented occurrence. Two faeries, telling me two
very
different stories. Two faeries, unable to lie … and yet one of them must be.”

She reached out, as if to touch my cheek. But when her fingers met my flesh, she was so cold, I thought of dead things. I wondered if perhaps she was a dead thing, if all the things that made her alive had bled away from her years ago. Now she lived on hate.

“What am I supposed to do?” She pursed her ruby lips, as if genuinely distressed. “I cannot simply take your word for it. That would be showing favor.”

“Oh, certainly. Don't ever be one to show favor.”

She grinned, and I scowled, because she showed favor depending on her mood. Some days, she only favored the beasts of the forest. Other days, she favored Naeve, merely to toy with his emotions. Most days, she showed favor to me, but not in loving embraces or encouragement. Simply by punishing my servants for performing some tiny task wrong.

“If one of the faeries of my court has learned to twist the laws of nature, to bend the truth as mortals do”—she sneered in disgust—“I must know of it, and they must be punished.”

“Twist the laws of nature,” I repeated, circling her throne, and thus Naeve as well. “Like … using iron against their own kind?”

“Using iron is a punishable offense,” my mother said. “Punishable by death, punishable by exile. But lying in a mortal's bed is much worse, and requires a punishment that is drawn out over centuries.”

Of all the words to stick on, my mind got stuck on “worse.” I hadn't shown her my wings yet, hadn't revealed the damage Naeve had done. Still, she'd obviously heard about the sword, and she was excusing him.
If
I'd lain in bed with mortals, she was excusing him.

My confidence faltered and, for a moment, I fought to keep from sinking to the ground.

“Why so glum, proud Elora?” Naeve taunted, sniffing out my weakness and threatening to lunge. “If you're telling the truth, you will have justice for my little indiscretion.”

Oh, Naeve. I'd forgotten your proclivity for innuendo.
“
Indiscretion.” That's a good one.
That really hits home.

“What are we to do?” I asked, turning back to the Dark Lady, ignoring Naeve entirely. “And what of my celebration?”

“Oh, there will be a celebration,” my mother said, “but with a twist of my own. Whether you're guilty or not, I am happy to have my daughter home. So we shall perform a simple test, and if Naeve proves to be the traitor, I will punish him for all to see.”

“And if the traitor is Elora?” Naeve's voice burrowed into my brain, though I refused to look at him. I was too busy looking at the Queen.

She wore the most curious smile. And her gaze turned to the mortals when she said, “There will be a different kind of sacrifice.”

25

T
ayl
o
R

Here's the thing nobody tells you about being a human sacrifice: there's a lot of preening involved. The servants of the Dark Court dragged us to the forest, forced us to undress, and pushed us into the snow. They didn't want to touch me, so they mostly used sticks with patches of moss to scrub me clean, which would've been comical if it weren't so painful. The icy water made my skin splotchy and raw, and the sticks only deepened the damage. I could feel cuts opening all across my back, and I couldn't help but think of the way Naeve had broken his iron sword into tiny pieces, and slid each shard into Elora's back.

Was this my punishment for causing her to be caught by him? Did I deserve this treatment? Did it make her and I
closer
somehow?

Okay, maybe I was trying to find some explanation for all of this horror. Maybe I was trying to turn my sacrifice into some grand romantic gesture, the way people romanticize the suicide of Romeo and Juliet. But in the end, hurting yourself for another person isn't anything but stupid. And Elora wouldn't have wanted this.

Where is she?

When the “bath” ended, we were ordered to our feet, which was hard enough for the four of us who didn't rely on a wheelchair to get around. For Kylie it was impossible. At least the dark faeries had the decency to let Alexia help her—or maybe they just didn't want to get human filth on their precious skin, and decency wasn't a factor. Either way, I could hardly look at any of my friends, or myself for that matter, because our skin was blotchy and we were all shivering, and I wondered if one of us was going to die before we even made it to the sacrifice.

But something funny happened then. As the faeries picked up thicker branches, not to cleanse us, but to “properly put us in our place,” I heard a voice at my back. It said, “My mistress has requested your safe passage.”

“I don't suppose you mean
safe passage from these lands,
” I muttered, too frozen and, all right,
terrified
to turn around.

“I'm afraid not,” the faerie replied, taking a swing with a stick. My whole body tensed, waiting for the blow, but it never came. It stopped just short of my back. Still, my skin was so raw that I felt the wind crashing against me, and I cringed.

“Just do it or don't,” I snarled, wrapping my arms around myself. Lot of good that did. “The anticipation is kind of the worst part.”

“You say that now,” the faerie said,
almost
hitting me a few more times. “But trust me when I say the impact is worse.” A single, delicate wrist made its way in front of my face, the pale skin barely visible through all the discoloration. Blue bleeding into purple bleeding into black. A multi-colored tapestry of pain. “And the bruising after.” 

“It's gotten bad, hasn't it?” I asked, meaning the treatment of the servants by the courtiers.

“It has never been anything but bad,” came the reply. “Now turn. They are watching from the windows.”

I turned, but there wasn't time to take in the sight of the sickly pale faerie in front of me. Suddenly I was surrounded, hair combed and skin smoothed by faeries who didn't have the social standing to refuse this kind of work. Still, they did their best to keep from making contact with my skin.

Old habits aren't murdered easily
, I thought.
But some things are. Me, Kylie, Keegan, and—

Damn, I was rambling. And even though it was only happening in my head, it scared me that I couldn't focus on my impending doom. I needed to be plotting our escape, but I didn't know where to start. How could I convince the Queen that I hadn't sullied her daughter's virtue? I mean, sure, we hadn't had
all-the-way
sex
,
but
sullying was sullying, in the eyes of the dark faeries, and
virtue was …

Wait, were dark faeries even concerned with virtue? Or was there something else I had done to her daughter, something worse in the eyes of the court? Elora had been raised to believe that humans were vile, disgusting creatures, and the minute she stopped believing that was the minute she threw out her mother's teachings. So maybe
that
was the insult, more than any physical indiscretion.

“Ow. Back to beauty school, asshole,” I heard Keegan say, and it shattered my train of thought for the moment. Across the way, some faerie was combing his hair. Except it seemed more like “attacking,” and the comb was so white, it could've been made of ivory. Or maybe human bones. I didn't want to think about human body parts raking through my hair, so I looked away, into the trees.

That's when I saw her. She was half-hidden by the snow, her frog's body blending with the bark of the tree. Or maybe she was using glamour. Her skin looked darker than it had before.

Yes, I recognized her. She was a friend of Elora's. At least, I thought she was, because I'd seen her at the borderlands when we'd crossed into the Unseelie Court. I didn't know her name, or how close she was with Elora. All I knew was, when Elora had come home, this faerie had cheered with the others, and that was enough.

I smiled at her.

She nodded back. Her lips didn't even twitch.

Ah, so it's like that, is it?

She must've hated humans, just like the rest of the dark faeries. I didn't know what Elora was doing, keeping all these secrets from her servants. Regardless of the revolution's outcome, how did she think they were going to react when they knew she was in bed with the enemy?

In bed-
ish
.

God, if I managed to survive all this, I'd better get some time alone with her. Even if we just lay together in bed and looked into each other's eyes, not saying a
word
, it would be worth it. I could play with her hands, and she could touch my face in that way that drove me crazy, my heart racing and my body rising and my
entire being
feeling like it belonged in the universe for once.

Feeling like it was
home
.

And just like that, I got my second wind. Okay, maybe it was my fifty-second wind, but still. I would survive this, damn it, and I would get to kiss her again. We'd live an unbelievable life.

Even we wouldn't believe it, sometimes. How good it was.

“So, what do you think my chances are?” I said, not really expecting the faerie with the messed-up wrist to help me. But what could I lose, at this point?

She leaned in close, speaking so only I could hear. Her jet-black hair tickled my shoulder. “There are many among us who would like to see Naeve suffer,” she muttered. “But he cannot be appealed to by humans.”

“And, what, the Dark Lady can be?”

“Not appealed to, no,” she said, running her hand through my hair with a swiftness I couldn't follow with my eyes. Pulling her hand away, she examined it like she expected it to be covered with insects. “But taken off guard, perhaps.” Even though her hand was clean, she brushed it against the rags of her dress. She caught me looking and blushed, as if ashamed. “I … ”

“Old habits?” I offered through gritted teeth.

She nodded, barely. “Turn, now,” she said, apparently incapable of forming the word “please.” I did as she asked, and something warm fell over me. Something warm and
dry
. A cloak.

“Thank God,” I murmured, though the sentiment would probably sound weird to her. Where she came from, faeries had the powers humans attributed to gods, and they sure as hell weren't in the business of salvation.

I hugged the cloak around me. It really only covered my shoulders and back, but if I bunched it up in my hands, it covered more. A quick look around showed more of the same: my friends pulling their cloaks around themselves. Even Brad had the sense to draw his in like a blanket, which was somewhat counterproductive, considering he was squatting in the snow.

I turned away. I couldn't deal with my conflicting feelings about Brad right now. Couldn't deal with the hatred that still swam inside of me, dulled by pity. Dulled by compassion. Caring for him felt too much like forgiveness, but hating him felt too much like sealing his fate. Leaving him to die. Why had it fallen on me to protect or abandon him?

Like Kylie said, this wasn't about avenging her anymore. Maybe it had never been about avenging her, not entirely. Even back in the human world, when his actions had hurt her directly,
I'd
felt responsible. If I'd stood up to him before the end of my senior year, he might've realized that his actions had consequences.

Then maybe he wouldn't have hurt her in the first place.

Suddenly I felt warm. It wasn't due to some kind of realization or epiphany; the faerie servant was using her power to warm me. It felt so good, I almost fell to my knees. The small bit of sanity I had left kept me standing, and I managed to say: “Why are you helping me?”

The faerie was quiet a minute. “Not helping,” she said, and I thought that was what she needed to believe. “But not hurting either. There comes a point when any violence, even the justifiable kind, becomes too much. And how can I long for peace if I am not its greatest proponent?”

“I don't know,” I said honestly. “But I think we're a long way from peace, even if … ”
The battle goes as planned
, I finished, not knowing how much Elora would want me to say in her servants' presence. She'd left us all in the dark about something. I hoped that didn't come back to bite her in the ass. I hoped she was as smart as she thought she was, because all of this secrecy could lead to some pretty major misunderstandings.

Case in point: we were supposed to be racing down a tunnel right now, preparing to fight. But Naeve had thwarted that, and since the servants didn't know we were good people, they wouldn't risk the wrath of their queen by helping us escape.

Still, they
were
helping us, in their way. Instead of beating the crap out of us with branches, they were covering us with a glamour that made us look beaten. I know, it was pretty messed up. But I'd take a magical shit-kicking over the literal kind any day. My skin looked practically purple, patches of white peeking through. In this weird way, I fit in with the landscape better than before.

“So how do we catch the Queen off guard?” I said, speaking to the faerie at my back. The one in the tree, too.

“The Queen will only ever see humans in one way. Maybe all of us will,” my faerie groomer said, and I wasn't sure if she was ashamed or just stating a fact. “But Elora's part in things … the princess … if you could convince the Dark Lady that her daughter was innocent of any wrongdoing, that you'd coerced her, or … ”

Acted like Brad
, I thought.
Acted like Naeve
.

“No, why should I do that? The Queen will kill me and let Elora go.”

Oh.
You know that moment when you answer your own dumb question? Reality hit me like a branch to the face. And maybe she was right—maybe the only way out of this was to sacrifice myself for the good of the group. There was honor in that.

Sure, tell that to my shaking ass.

It was true, I was shaking; the uncontrollable kind. The faerie must've realized what I was thinking, because she narrowed her eyes at me. “You
do
care for her. That much is true.” Her eyes went wide, and she touched her hand to her lips. I guess the world was turning on its head. But I didn't have time for an episode of
That Moment You Realize You're a Bigot.

I had to know if there was another way.

“Is that the only possible plan?” I asked as she placed a crown of thorns on my head. When she yelped, pulling back her hand, I realized she'd been pricked.
Poor baby,
I thought with a snarl.
It really sucks when you injure yourself in the name of torture.

I guess I was starting to feel furious, in spite of the fact that she was man-handling me nicely. This situation was
entirely wrong
, even with all of her gentleness. She was handing me over to be killed in the name of her princess.

After everything Elora had done.

“Wait a minute,” I said, trying to catch her eye. She squirmed under my gaze, like I was a spider who was sizing up a fly.
Isn't that ironic?
“Do you believe Elora? Do you believe she went to the human world to steal us for the Queen?”

I could've been a faerie myself, the way I worded that. She
had
gone to the human world to steal Brad for the Queen. Just, you know, not
her
queen.

But the faerie didn't catch my trick, and she seemed to genuinely ponder the question. “I believe the truth lies somewhere in between. The princess must've gone to the wasteland to capture you, otherwise she couldn't have said it. But while she was there, I believe … ”

“I corrupted her with my wicked human wiles?” I asked, thinking of the way Elora had talked about humans her first week in my world. Of course, at the time, I thought she was
some sort of runaway who'd escaped a cult and was skeptical of civilized society. Of people who relied on microwaves and running water. People who were wasteful and didn't realize how easy their lives were.

I guess some of that was fair.

The faerie looked at me as if sizing me up. It was uncomfortable, considering the whole
naked
thing. “I cannot speak on what happened there, only the consequence,” she said. “Clearly, the princess's … perception changed. Otherwise this process would be a lot less comfortable for you.”

“You try standing naked in the snow. You do that and tell me it's comfortable.”

“It can always get worse,” she said, and it sounded like a promise. Or maybe she was just speaking from experience.