To Catch a Queen (17 page)

“Neither of us knew the situation at the time,” he said diplomatically. “What are you going to do?”

“I guess I have to go get my crown,” she snapped. “Getting out of here may be the hard part. Otherwise, I can get to the real palace easily, and now that I know where this palace is, I should be able to get back. Just tell the others what’s up, okay?”

He caught her wrist. “Wait a second, you aren’t going to do this alone, are you? Weren’t you just saying it’s a trap?”

“How much help do you really think you’ll be?” she asked, then instantly regretted her spiteful tone.

“I’m another pair of eyes and ears. I’m a third son. I’m now apparently some kind of wise person.” He patted his bag. “And there’s someone out there who still owes me a big favor. At the very least, I’m experienced cannon fodder.”

That made her smile in spite of herself. To tell the truth, she wanted him along, for all the wrong reasons. It would be one last chance to spend one-on-one time with him before he was reunited with his wife, and although she was fairly certain she could handle whatever came her way, she’d learned that it was nice not to have to go it alone. But those weren’t good reasons for dragging him into the kind of danger she knew she’d face. Just getting away from this castle could be deadly.

And so, reluctantly, as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs, she adjusted her glamour to make herself look like a guard once more and lost herself in the crowd.

Outside the Palace

Meanwhile

Emily glanced around, wondering how her sister had disappeared so quickly. Beau strained at his leash for a moment and grunted once, but then he came back to Emily and flopped down at her feet. “Oh well, at least she has Michael with her,” she muttered.

“I believe she gave them a glamour. That is why you don’t see them,” Eamon said.

“And that sounds like a good plan for us,” Amelia said. “What do you think would be least obtrusive here, Eamon?”

“Something not human. The impostor doesn’t seem to care for humans in the Realm.”

“In that case, perhaps it would be best if the glamour came from you. Our work might show as human magic.”

“It would,” he said with a nod. He held his arms to his side, palms facing forward. After a moment, he dropped his arms.

“I don’t see anything different,” Emily said, investigating her own hands and squinting at the others.

“I thought it best that we still be able to recognize each other,” Eamon said. “The glamour will work only on the fae. Other than myself, of course.”

“Now what’s the plan?” Emily asked.

“We need information,” Athena said. “We don’t have any idea who this queen is or if she has any agenda other than taking the throne.”

“Isn’t putting herself out there like this a risky move?” Emily asked. “I mean, when Sophie took the throne, there were practically fireworks. You could tell. Everything changed.”

“That would be easy enough to fake,” Athena said.

“Yeah, but why hasn’t anyone done it before now? The throne’s been empty for centuries.”

“I’m not sure anyone would have believed it if there had not already been reports of a new queen being crowned,” Eamon said. “We can feel the change in the Realm, so someone who steps forward to take credit for that may be credible. Before, we knew the Realm was still dying.”

“And this dog-and-pony show” —Emily gestured at the festive gathering around them — “is their way of sealing the deal.”

“We do need more information,” Amelia said. “Perhaps we should split up, move through the crowd, and see what we can learn by listening. What do the fae think of these developments? Are any of them here willingly? Do they want a queen? Do they plan to support her? Is there any real opposition?”

“So, you two and us, meet back here in an hour?” Emily checked her phone. “I have three in the morning, New York time. Wow, and I’m not even sleepy. But we’d better get back to our world before the Friday-night show. One mysterious disappearance may have helped make me famous. I’m not sure I could get away with two.”

Amelia checked the diamond-encrusted gold watch on her wrist. “My watch says the same as yours. We will meet you back here at four.”

As the enchantresses moved away, Emily knelt and gave Beau a scratch behind the ears. “Come on, buddy, wake up. Time to go.” The look he gave her when he opened his eyes almost made her feel guilty for interrupting his rest. With a deep grunt, he pushed himself to his feet, gave himself a shake, and looked back over his shoulder as though to ask her what the holdup was.

She let the dog lead the way. Sophie had said he had good instincts about this sort of thing. He wasn’t the only dog at this gathering, so he didn’t make them stand out. The other dogs were strangely uninterested in him, not that Emily minded. Breaking up a fairy dogfight wasn’t what she had planned for this mission.

“You know, I’m not sure that performing
Les Mis
for this crowd will make much of an impact,” she remarked to Eamon. “I’d need a megaphone.” She looked up at the palace and added, “But that balcony would be perfect for doing
Evita
. I bet that’s what they have planned. They might crown the queen and put her on the throne inside—or pretend that’s what’s going on—and then bring her out on that balcony to show off to the masses. Boom, instant credibility in a Buckingham Palace photo-op.”

“I have read the
Playbill
for
Evita,
” Eamon said with a solemn nod. “That does seem to be an appropriate scenario.”

From what Emily could tell of the crowd, she didn’t get the sense that most of these people were unhappy about being there. As with any gathering of more than two fairies, a massive party had broken out. There was music and dancing, and even if they’d been marched here at spear-point, they were having a good time now.

They approached a circle of dancers, and Emily handed Beau’s leash and her bag to Eamon. “Back in a sec,” she told him over her shoulder as she moved toward the dancers. It was easy enough to slip into the circle and join them. They treated her as one of their own. She took that to mean that her glamour was working and her dancing skills were up to fae standards.

The dancers stopped, laughing, when the music ended. “What do you think’s going on here?” Emily asked the dancer next to her.

“You don’t know, either?” the fairy woman asked, her brilliant green eyes narrowing.

“I just know we were marched here, but it seems odd to force us to attend a revel.”

The woman laughed in a way that reminded Emily of church bells. “It does seem that an invitation should have sufficed.” She gestured at the palace. “I suppose it has something to do with the lost palace being found again. The Realm has come back to life, and we should all celebrate.”

“Yes, that is worthy of celebration,” Emily said, struggling to keep a straight face. She really should have taken the time to develop a character for this escapade. That would have made it easier to be sincere and in the moment. “But doesn’t it seem strange that such an obvious palace remained lost for so long?”

“Perhaps it was hidden by enchantment until the true queen was drawn to her throne.”

“Perhaps. Let’s just hope she provides a feast appropriate to the occasion.”

Emily made her way back to Eamon. “It sounds like you were right,” she reported. “They’re just assuming that everything’s okay because the Realm came back to life. So Sophie’s really going to have to come up with something good.”

She jumped at the sound of not-too-distant thunder. Did the Realm have storms? If so, all these people out here were in big trouble. For a moment, she wondered if someone had just royally pissed Sophie off, but then she saw the approaching dust cloud that signaled the arrival of the Hunt. She unconsciously reached for Eamon as Beau growled and backed up against their legs.

This close, she could see more detail, and it was even more terrifying. The cloud wasn’t actually dust. It seemed to be made up of hellfire smoke that glowed with a reddish haze. The smoke formed shapes of horses with fiery manes and tails and eyes of glowing embers. At the horses’ feet ran doglike beasts, also with glowing eyes. The riders on the horses had stag horns on what she hoped were helmets, but which she feared might be their actual heads. Instead of glowing, their eyes looked like black holes that bored into the dark heart of the universe.

Something made a whining, keening sound, and she thought at first it might be Beau, but then realized was herself. She was utterly paralyzed, unable to run away, speak, or move.

When the smoky hell cloud passed, it was as though a great weight lifted. She almost felt that she would have floated into the sky if she hadn’t been holding on to Eamon. A glance at the nearby fae showed that they seemed to have had a similar reaction. They were all moving slowly, as though they were waking from a dream. The crowd was utterly silent for several minutes before some musician played a tentative chord and others gradually joined in the song. Another moment later, the dancing resumed, like nothing had happened.

“Wow, that was intense,” Emily said when she was sure she had the breath to talk.

Even Eamon looked a little pale and shaken. “Yes,” he agreed in a weak whisper.

“I’m guessing that would be reason number one that we have to stop this impostor. This kind of thing isn’t good for the people of the Realm, and we definitely don’t want to unleash them on my world.”

They went back to walking through the crowd. Emily kept her grip on Eamon’s arm. She wasn’t sure what protection he might be against the likes of the Hunt, but his presence was reassuring. She was looking around for the next group they might be able to infiltrate and question when a guard appeared in their path.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

At the Foot of the Tower

A Moment Later

It only took Michael a second to realize that Sophie was gone and one more second to grab his clover keychain so that he could see past glamour and spot that she’d disguised herself as a guard. She was moving quickly, but he had longer legs, so he caught up to her easily and grabbed her elbow. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

He got the impression from the look in her eyes that she’d forgotten for a moment his ability to see through magical disguises, but she recovered quickly. “You know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I’m not letting you do it alone.”

“I can move more quickly without you.”

He tilted his head to the side, regarding her skeptically. “Really? I don’t recall slowing you down much. I’ve been pretty useful so far, and can you afford to leave a third son behind when going on a quest in fairyland?”

“I never should have told you about that,” she said with a sigh. She resumed walking, but since she didn’t try to ditch him again, he figured that meant she was okay with him joining her.

They made it out of the castle and through the crowd. As they neared the perimeter of the encampment, everything went silent. The silence was followed by the sound of thunder that soon sounded more like hoofbeats from hell. “The Hunt must be making their rounds,” he said, forcing his voice to sound more calm than he felt.

“Turn around, quickly. Don’t look at them,” she said, her voice so taut with urgency that he didn’t even think about questioning her. Once they’d both turned their backs, she explained, “I’m not sure our glamour would work on them, and the last thing I need right now is to be outed.”

When the thunderous sound had passed, along with the ensuing total silence, they turned back around. Sophie and Michael hurried forward while everyone else was still regathering their wits.

The guards must have assumed that the passage of the Hunt had served to maintain the perimeter for the moment, for there was a big enough gap to slip through, and soon they were on the path leading up to the forest.

Both of them paused to catch their breath. “This queen is obviously bad news, if those are her henchmen,” he said.

“Oh, I think they may come in handy. I’ll have to bend them to my will.” He wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if she’d been serious, but he caught the faint twitch of her lips that told him she was joking.

“It would take you about half an hour before they were wearing flowers and running around doing good deeds.”

“I don’t know. They’re pretty nasty. It might take a whole hour.” She held her hand out to him. “Ready?”

He took her hand and braced himself for a journey. “Ready.”

They stepped forward together, arriving outside Sophie’s palace. It was still veiled with the illusion of vines. To him, nothing looked different, but he glanced at Sophie to see her staring quizzically at it. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t know if ‘wrong’ is quite the right word. That barrier spell seems to be gone, which should make things easier because we can get to the crown without climbing all those stairs.”

“Maybe your sleeping spell was stronger than you realized and whoever cast the spell is still out,” he suggested.

“Or they want to make sure I get the crown out of here, which just proves that I’m right about this whole thing being a trap.” She moved forward, pulling him with her by the hand he’d forgotten she still held. He caught up to her quickly. After about three strides, she dropped his hand. “Oh, sorry about that,” she said. “I didn’t mean to drag you around.”

“Don’t tell me you got me confused with Beau.”

“Of course not. You’re much taller.”

“And I don’t snore nearly as much.”

She quickened her pace enough that he had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her. He’d never figured out how a woman nearly a foot shorter than he was could outwalk him so easily, even when he was more or less in good health. His partner Mari was a tall woman and a fast walker, yet he never found himself lagging behind her.

While he was contemplating this, they reached the main doors to the throne room, and Sophie threw them open with a casual gesture without breaking stride. The throne room was as deserted as it had been on their last visit, and Sophie blew through it on her way to the dais.