by Emma Savant
I lost track of where we were after that. The hall branched onto a spiral staircase which led to a hanging silver walkway over a greenhouse. An enchanted ball of sunlight hovered in the center of the completely enclosed greenhouse, rotating slowly in the middle of the room. The whole palace seemed still and silent. I tried to shove back the nagging feeling that I was going the wrong way and should have waited for some clearer guidance. How awkward would it be to be caught wandering alone through the Faerie Queen’s palace? But finally, the little moth led me to another elegant arched wooden door. It spun a quick loop around my head and then fluttered off, too quickly for me to follow.
This must be it, I thought, with the humbling realization that I was not, and never would be, ready for this.
I knocked on the door. A long moment of silence passed. I counted my heartbeats. One, two—
“Come in!” a voice called.
I didn’t know if I would be able to do it. But somehow, I managed to push open the door.
A beautiful sitting room greeted me. The room was a half-circle, with a sunken seating area in the middle ringed by thriving hostas and orchids. A half-moon table stood in the middle of the sunken area, covered in food and ringed on one side by a semi-circular antique blue couch. Everything in the room centered on the flat side of the wall, and for good reason. Most of it seemed to be window, and there, crashing down on the other side of the glass, was a spectacular view of the inside of the waterfall.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“I know!” Queen Amani said. She sounded delighted. She popped up from where she’d been sitting by the food and waved me over.
I walked carefully, convinced I was about to trip on the stairs and send myself sprawling face-first into the carpet.
I realized immediately that I’d overdressed. The Faerie Queen was in jeans and a pink T-shirt covered in tiny printed butterflies, and her hair was done in hundreds of tiny gold-threaded cornrows twisted up into an elaborate looped bun.
She offered a bright smile and dropped back down onto the couch. “Come have a seat,” she said. “You can throw your coat wherever.” She waved in the general direction of a bench by the door, so I unbuttoned my coat with trembling fingers and laid it carefully across the flat surface. I wasn’t sure where to sit, so I finally settled for the other end of her couch, where she seemed to be making room.
Queen Amani rotated to face me, bringing one knee up onto the couch seat. She looked like we were about to watch a movie and eat popcorn together. I felt like I was in a movie, a surreal one where nothing made sense.
“That window is amazing,” I said.
“Isn’t it?” she said, her voice full of enthusiasm. “You can see through the water sometimes to the observation deck. It’s the best people-watching. I love the tourists.”
I nodded and swallowed.
She tilted her head to look at me more carefully. “You okay?”
My nerves were showing on my face, I realized, or coming off me in waves so strong she wouldn’t be able to miss them. Reel it in, Feye, I ordered myself, and took a deep breath, letting my diaphragm expand until it hurt.
“I’m fine,” I said. “This isn’t how I spend most Monday evenings.” I breathed out long and slow, waiting for my heart to stop hammering.
“I’ll bet,” she said. She bit her bottom lip and then said, “I guess this was kind of a surprise, huh? I always forget that. Which I know sounds weird, but after very long at this job you start realizing you can’t take yourself too seriously or everything’s going to end in disaster.” She smiled so that I couldn’t tell whether she was joking. “How’s school going?”
The abrupt question took me off guard. I opened my mouth, closed it again, then shrugged and said, “It’s okay, I guess. Just a regular Humdrum high school.”
“Are you going to college?”
The million-dollar question. “My dad wants me to go to his old university in Austria,” I said, deciding this was the most delicate way to put it.
Queen Amani, not surprisingly, wasn’t fooled. “I’ll bet,” she said. “But what are your plans?”
I realized how pointless it would be to lie to her. She was the Faerie Queen. If anyone could sniff out a lie from a hundred meters, it would be her. “I want to go to a Humdrum college and study plants,” I said.
She leaned forward and said eagerly, “Oh, how fun! A wizard friend of mine is really into that. He breeds roses and I don’t know what else. What kinds of plants?”
“All kinds,” I said.
It was weird having an adult take an actual interest in my career plans. It was much weirder to have that adult be the queen of the realm. Weird enough that I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. I finally sat on them.
“I’ve been volunteering at a community garden for a few years now. I like making green spaces in the city. But I’m really interested in conservation and restoration,” I said, aware of her eyes focused on me. “There are some groups in Africa doing some cool work. They’re basically just protecting the land and allowing it to heal itself. They’re finding that too much human intervention does more harm than good in some cases.”
“Shocking, right?” Queen Amani said. Her sardonic voice mirrored my own thoughts so precisely that I laughed. The sound coming from my own body made me jump. “That’s so great,” she said. “So do you want to go to Africa?”
“Someday,” I said.
“I love it there,” she said. “I’ve been twice. Once to South Africa and once to Kenya. Spent most of my time in meetings, but I spent a day at a wildlife reserve on the Kenya trip, and it was incredible.”
“Why were you there?” I said. I bit my tongue, realizing how forward this sounded.
“Work,” she said. “I travel a lot. Kenya was for a meeting with some jinn leaders and South Africa was a diversity conference. Mostly trying to remind everyone that there are all different kinds of witches out there and we should be nice to all of them.” She laughed. I didn’t get the humor. It seemed to be an inside joke
“Ah,” I said faintly.
“What else?” she said. “Do you have a job?”
I frowned. That seemed like the only thing she should know about me. I couldn’t help picturing the horror on Lorinda’s face if she realized I hadn’t actually been called up for being the youngest solo godmother in the history of the firm.
“I’m a junior godmother at Wishes Fulfilled,” I said. “I’m supposed to be an intern but my supervisor’s in the hospital, and apparently they’re more desperate than I thought.”
“No kidding,” Amani said. “That’s kind of cool, though, right?” Before I could reply, she said, “Dating anyone?”
It should have felt like an interrogation, but she seemed so pleased by my answers.
“No,” I said. I briefly considered telling her about Lucas, but then stopped. That would be stupid. We weren’t dating. He was with someone else. And why would I need to tell the Faerie Queen about my love life, anyway?
“Are you hungry?” she said, turning to the table. “I wasn’t sure what you liked so there’s a little bit of everything. All vegetarian.”
I looked over the food. She hadn’t been kidding. Salad sat next to pizza, which sat next to pasta in cream sauce, which sat next to what looked like deep-fried mushrooms, which sat next to a thick lentil stew, which sat next to herbed potatoes. A giant bowl of fruit salad graced the middle of the table like a colorful centerpiece and what looked like a cheesecake was off to the side, topped with a ring of gleaming strawberries.
“I’m not that picky,” I said.
“I figured you wouldn’t be,” Queen Amani said. She put a hand to her cheek and shook her head quickly, making a loose braid around her head fly back and forth like a golden rope. “Sorry. I’m overcompensating.”
I frowned at her. That made no sense.
“For what?” I asked.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, watching me with wide eyes.
; “So much,” she finally said. “I promise I’ll explain it all, but I have no idea where to start and I kind of don’t want to freak you out. And now you’re freaked out.”
I silently took the china plate she handed me and started putting small helpings of everything on it, trying at the same time to control my breathing and calm down. Why was I so nervous? She was just the Faerie Queen.
Just the Faerie Queen. Right.
The importance of the Faerie Queen in our world couldn’t be overstated. She was everything. She made all the decisions that mattered, taking the advice of her various councils but in the end answering to no one but herself. She was wise and had abilities most of us couldn’t even comprehend. Our legends said the power of her gifts kept the grass growing. When a queen was ill, the crops failed. When she was angry, we all paid the price. And when she was glad, she could keep our entire world afloat on the power of her smile.
And she was glancing over at me like she was nervous I wouldn’t like her pasta salad.
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my plate down on my lap. My stomach churned too much to allow for the thought of food. “What am I doing here?”
A huge sigh escaped her, like she’d been holding her breath in since I’d arrived. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “Honestly, I’m trying to play it cool here and I just can’t. I need to talk to you.”
The part of me that wasn’t shaking with nerves was glad. Our attempts at small talk were almost unbearable. “About what?” I said.
“Something kind of serious,” she said. Her delicate eyebrows knit together and she looked at me. I held my breath. She looked like she was about to deliver some bad news. Besides, when did “I need to talk” lead to anything good?
“Okay,” I said. “Is it about my dad?”
Her eyebrows went up. “Your dad?”
“He’s on the Council,” I said. “He’s been having some trouble at work.”
“Oh,” she said. She glanced out toward the window, where the white water of Multnomah Falls thundered past in heavy sheets. “We’ve all been having trouble. But he’s doing great, all things considered. It’s not about your dad. This is about you.”
She put a slender-fingered hand to her lips like she wasn’t sure she wanted to let the next words out, then said, “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“That describes most of my life lately,” I said. It was the only honest thing I could think of to say. I could feel my knees quivering slightly under my skirt, so I set the plate on the table before I could knock it to the floor. It barely fit between the lentil soup and potatoes. I twisted my hands in my lap. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “No one’s going to force you into anything.”
“That doesn’t sound comforting,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “I just realized that. Okay. I’m just going to say it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. She paused, holding her breath, then blurted out quickly, “I want to select you as my heir.”
Chapter 14
The waterfall rumbled as though from a great distance. That was the only noise except for our breathing, which I could suddenly hear as clearly as I’d heard Queen Amani’s voice a moment ago.
I blinked. My eyelids came down, sluggish and heavy. The world seemed to have slowed to accommodate the vast weight of her words.
“Me,” I repeated. The word felt tinny and weird in my mouth, like it wasn’t a real word at all. “You want me to be your heir.”
I waited for someone to jump out from behind a hosta and shout “Just kidding!” or for her to laugh and tell me the real reason she’d asked me to come here. But she looked at me as intently and nervously as I’d been looking at her a moment ago. It was as if, for a moment, I wasn’t looking at the Faerie Queen at all, but into a mirror where I could see myself: an uncertain girl, too young and clueless for the gravity of what was going on around us but hopeful that it wouldn’t all come crashing down just yet.
“You want me to be your heir,” I said again. The words took on shape this time, solid and thick like wood. I let them come together in my mind, forming from disjointed sounds into concepts that meant unbelievable things. “You’re going to have to back up a little.”
“I figured,” she said. “I thought I’d just get the punchline out there first.”
“Interesting tactic,” I said.
We stared at one another for a long minute. My mouth was dry as summer dust. I licked my lips. It didn’t help.
Suddenly, Amani was all movement. She reached out for a jug and poured me a glass of something sweet-smelling and orange. “Mango juice,” she said, handing it to me. I took a tiny sip. The cold sweetness was better than rain on my tongue.
“Okay,” Amani said. “We got past the worst part. That’s good, right?”
“Worst part for you, too?” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Nothing against you. You’re going to be amazing. I’m just getting really clear vibes off you that you do not want to be any part of this.”
She’d checked in with my feelings faster than I had. I took a moment to be silent and figure out what I was feeling.
She was right. I didn’t want anything to do with this. A substantial part of myself, in fact, was panicking.
“Again, nothing’s going to happen unless you want it to,” she said. “That’s the first rule. If you’re going to do this, you have to take it on yourself.”
That wasn’t how the stories went. The stories said being the Faerie Queen was a sacred calling, and that if you were chosen to be the queen’s heir, that was it. I set the juice down and folded my arms across my chest, wishing I knew how to rein in my emotions. But she’d read me already.
“I know that’s not how it sounds,” she said. “From where you’re sitting, it’s probably all pomp and circumstance and ancient legends. I remember how it was when I was chosen. I thought I was going to have to commit a human sacrifice or something.”
The laugh that followed reassured me a little. I’d heard that story too.
“What about stealing a human to be your lover and keeping him for seventy years?” I said.
She made a face. “Nasty. I want more from my relationships than Stockholm Syndrome. And I don’t capture people in faerie rings unless I really need to get in touch with them and they won’t answer my calls, and then you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. And I don’t replace people’s babies with changelings, because I’m not a jerk, and I don’t make everyone’s milk go sour. I don’t even know what the point of that is supposed to be.”
“I thought house sprites made milk go sour,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “Who knows,” she said. “Glad that rumor’s moved on. They’re all rumors. Well, maybe not everything. But most of it is rumor. Especially any part that says you don’t get a choice right now. This is completely up to you.”
She stood up and walked over to the window. Water poured down in front of her, steely blue-gray in the fading evening light. She waved me over. I stood, careful not to knock anything over, and crossed the room. She tapped a finger on the window, pointing down. “Couple’s getting engaged down there,” she said.
I tilted my head to see through a gap in the waterfall. A man on one knee held something out to a woman, who had her hands over her mouth. The few leftover tourists around them clapped as she nodded yes and flung her arms around him.
“It’s lucky to get engaged there,” Amani said. “Lots of good magic. Also I’m sentimental.”
She cupped her hands together and I peeked over my glasses to see what was going on. A single tiny sparkle between her palms grew into a glowing blue light. She brought her hands to her mouth and blew. The light flew through the window and the waterfall like they weren’t even there, then drifted like a bubble down to the couple. The spark grew and enveloped them in a pale blue glow before it faded. They posed for pictures and
Amani turned back to face me.
“You heard about the bridge being closed a while ago because a boulder crashed through it?” she said. “Totally my fault. I was practicing some heavy-duty combat spells on one of the top floors and all the magic flying around knocked a rock loose.” She raised her shoulders, looking guilty. “Oops.”
She went back to the couch and sat down. I watched the couple for a moment. They looked cold but happy. Of course they were happy. They were normal and in love. We couldn’t all be that lucky.
The panic of a few moments earlier had subsided. Now, as I sat back down on the blue couch, I was just tired. I leaned back and watched Amani carefully. She didn’t act like a Faerie Queen. She reminded me of one of Imogen’s older sisters, Nicole, the one who was busy with her master’s degree. Nicole had always been more laid back than the others, and nicer to Imogen and me when we were young and annoying.
Queen Amani tucked her legs up on the couch and leaned her elbow against the back of it. “I’ll bet you have a million questions,” she said.
“To be honest,” I said, “I don’t even know what to ask.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “Why don’t I just explain how it all works?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “First thing you need to know is that each Faerie Queen has to pick her heir before she retires. The queen before me was old and had been doing the job forever, and she was pretty eager to hand it off.”
“Wait,” I said. “Faerie Queens retire? I thought they had the job till they died.” I bit my lip. It didn’t feel right calling it a “job.” It was so much more important than that.
Amani’s serious face softened into a smile. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “We retire, usually young enough to go RV around the country or open a vineyard or whatever we’ve been daydreaming about for the past few decades. And thank Titania. This job is too intense to do forever. Past queens have tried to stay kind of anonymous, though, because going out in public as a Faerie Queen gets… You start to want your privacy pretty quickly.”