by K. M. Shea
Rigel is my first choice of backup, but I can give Chase a call after he refuses me.
“Where are you?” Rigel asked.
“The public library’s parking lot.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
I blinked in surprise. “Wait, you’re going to help me?”
“You think I’d come just to watch the drunken antics of a bunch of useless monarchs?”
“When you phrase it like that, no.”
“Obviously I’m coming to help. Don’t touch Fell.”
“Yeah, no argument there.”
My phone beeped, alerting me that the call had ended.
I stared at my phone for a few moments, and something in my chest warmed.
He’s coming to help me. It’s not even something that could be politically required of him. He’s just doing it.
I smiled a little, and that rush of affection for Rigel that I was swiftly becoming familiar with swamped me again.
He’s different from Indigo and Skye. He doesn’t need me to fix the Courts, he’d survive without me. But he’s still willing to help.
I’d written it off as trust and friendship, but while I adored Indigo, Skye, and Chase, I wouldn’t have felt nearly as melty if they’d been the ones to pick up the phone and agree to come.
Stop it. I have never been the lovesick school-girl type. This is silly.
I shook my head and slipped my phone back in my pocket, then turned around to face my bespelled colleagues. “Okay, Verdant, let’s get you into the truck.”
“I’ve never ridden in a truck before!”
“Can’t say I’m surprised. Come on, step up!” I got Verdant to sit in the bench seat in the back of my cab, then went around to the other side. “Solis, wake up.”
Solis snored on the bench the Paragon had set him on.
“Solis, come on, please?” I nudged his shoulder.
More snoring.
I grumbled under my breath as I pulled him up by his arms to sit him upright. He popped his eyes open, and helped me a little when I yanked him to his feet and frog marched him to my truck.
He leaned heavily on me, and I thought I was going to fall flat on my face. We made it to my truck just in time, and I was able to twist Solis so he fell into the truck.
“Come on. Hop in,” I coached.
I tapped his foot, and it still took a couple minutes before Solis stepped up and collapsed into the seat, almost smacking into Verdant in the process.
Rime watched with some curiosity—she was doing the best out of everyone, but I think she had a massive headache because she was rubbing her head and winced whenever anyone talked.
I rubbed my neck as I meandered around to the back of my truck and lowered the tailgate.
“You’re going to put them in the back?” Rime asked.
“Sure, why not?” I shrugged. “It’s not illegal since they’re over 16 years old, and I’m not going to go speeding around on any highways.”
Headlights skidded across the side of the building as a sleek, black car pulled up. Rigel got out, wearing his Wraith jacket and looking all around fantastic.
He stared at Birch and Fell, who were slumped together and singing a nonsensical song. “You have to take these two, as well?”
“Yeah. Can you help me throw them in the bed of the truck?” I jerked my thumb at my open tailgate.
Rigel shook his head. Effortlessly, he picked Birch up, slinging him over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. He carried the giggling monarch over to the truck and dropped him in with a clang.
Fell shrieked a little when Rigel carried him the same way, and the assassin might have dropped Fell with even less care, so the Autumn King smacked his head on the side of my truck on the way down.
Once I knew the duo were clear of the door, I closed the tailgate. Rime wandered up and joined me in peering over the side of the bed at the pair.
“This doesn’t seem right for a pair of royals,” Rime said. “Even two as shameful as them.”
Fell managed to peel his head off the rubber mats I put in the back of the truck and peered up at us. He pointed to me, “Weasel,” then pointed to Rime. “Hag.”
“Okay, that’s enough out of you, Fell. Back to sleep.” I pushed him back in the truck bed as I could feel the anger roll off Rime. “Rime, do you have any idea when your siblings will arrive?”
A gate erupted out of the ground. It was made of fogged ice that I couldn’t see through, shed flecks of snow, and was ringed in by icicles. The doors opened with a whoosh of icy cold wind, and a giant black wolf stepped out.
A man with frosty white-blue hair that was plaited in a braid similar to Rime’s slid off the wolf’s back. “Let’s go home, Rime.”
Rime had still been peering in the back of my truck, but when the fae called her name she turned around. “Yes, brother.” She shuffled in his direction, still massaging her head. “Good luck, Leila.”
Her brother boosted her onto the wolf’s back, and then led the pair back through the portal, which shut and then shattered—disappearing entirely.
“We should get going, too. Hop in,” I told Rigel. I got in the driver’s seat and started the truck up.
“Where are we going first?” Rigel had to talk loudly to be heard over the purr of my truck.
“Verdant’s place,” I said. “The Paragon told me her home was the closest when we were dragging everyone out here.”
Rigel nodded. “She’s on the west side of town.”
“Great. Just tell me when I need to turn.” I started backing up and blinked when I heard a terrible crash that sounded suspiciously like two fae crashing into the sides of my truck.
Twisting in my seat, I owlishly peered through the back window, into the bed of the truck.
It glittered in the dim light, and it looked like the floor of the bed had been covered with a thick coat of ice.
I laughed. “I guess Rime holds grudges.”
“Do you want to bring them in here with us?” Rigel asked.
“Heck, no. I don’t mind if they get a few bruises to remember the night by!” I finished backing up, then took the corner more sharply than necessary, eliciting more thuds from the bed.
It was dark by the time we reached the Spring Queen’s home. I couldn’t see much of her house—not because of the lack of light, but because the place was covered in vines, flowers, and enough plants to outfit roughly ten city parks.
Verdant was singing at the top of her lungs when I helped her out of the truck. She landed on top of me—and let me tell you, for a petite fae she had a lot of muscle, because wowza did she hit me like a rock!
I righted myself in time and helped her up the winding sidewalk. “No, Verdant. No air guitars. You have to figure out how to get inside—AH!”
I screamed when three white deer stepped out of the thick underbrush.
“Babies!” Verdant cheered. She let go of me and flung herself at the nearest stag. She scrambled up its back, and hung over its shoulder. “Thanks, Leila!”
“Um, yeah. Goodnight?”
The stag and a doe walked off, leaving the last stag with me.
It nosed my arm, and it took me a moment to realize it was the same stag I had saved from the hunt. “Are you happy to be home?” I scratched its forehead, ducking when he swiveled his head and nearly took me out with his antlers.
The stag flicked his tail, then followed his brethren.
I shook my head and jogged back to the truck.
“Who’s next?” I asked Rigel.
“Summer is the next closest.” Rigel watched as I scrambled into my seat.
“Then summer, here we come!”
Birch’s place was less than fifteen minutes south, and was an easy drive.
Rather than pull up to his house, we got stopped at these massive gates and had to wait for a car to come pick him up.
The gate guard seemed to think I was going to steal all of Summer’s valuable artifacts if they let me in, based on the way he was
suspiciously eyeing me.
I didn’t mind—I was just happy he wasn’t having a massive heart attack because his distinctly ruffled monarch was cruising around in the bed of my truck!
When the sent for car finally arrived, I lowered my truck tailgate. “Come on out, Birch. This is your stop.”
Birch—frost in his hair from the ice—groaned and turned away from me.
“What happened to your good cheer and happy songs? Come on!” I climbed into the bed of the truck and grabbed Birch by the ankles.
Rigel got out of the truck. “Do you want help?”
“Nah. I’m just going to let him fall since none of his people seem inclined to help.” I sat on the side of my truck and shoved Birch off the back with my heels.
No judging—I’d backed up to the grass, and as King of Summer it seemed like Birch took his landscaping seriously because the ground was practically a cushion. He didn’t even thump when he hit it, he bounced and rolled.
But I felt a little guilty anyway because the car door opened and out came Consort Flora.
“Oops,” I said.
Chapter Twenty
Leila
Birch groaned into the ground.
“Birch, stand. We should return to the house,” Consort Flora said.
To my surprise, Birch managed to sit up, and the judgy gate guard helped him into the passenger seat of the fancy car.
Consort Flora waited until he was safely strapped in, then she bowed to me—the redneck who’d brought her husband back in the icy bed of a truck. “Thank you for bringing him home, Queen Leila. I am certain he will be grateful for your assistance when he wakes tomorrow.”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell him I assisted him,” I said. “In fact, I think I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
Consort Flora smiled serenely and got back into her car.
I scrambled into my truck and waited for Rigel before I stepped on the gas, purposely gunning it for a few spaces so Fell crashed around in the back and smacked into the side of my truck.
“Whoopsies,” I said. “Sorry about that, Fell,” I called, even though he couldn’t hear me.
Solis laughed.
“We’re dropping off Fell next?” I asked.
“Yes. Solis lives closest to the Night Court,” Rigel said.
“Great! I like having good neighbors. Oh, but won’t we need to double back to the library to pick up your car?” I asked.
Rigel shrugged. “We can use the night mares to go pick it up after we finish.”
I sighed deeply. “Good point. Okay, fine. How do I get to Fell’s place?”
Rigel gave me directions, and Solis seemed to come out of it a bit. He leaned forward between our seats and sighed.
“You know, Leila, you’re too good.” Solis braced himself on our seats. “We fae don’t deserve you.”
“Aww, that’s very sweet of you to say, Solis,” I said.
“It’s the truth!” Solis nodded emphatically.
Rigel twisted slightly to study the Day King. “All the monarchs appeared to be inebriated as you said on the phone. The Paragon fed them some of his charmed tea?”
“Yep!”
“And you didn’t drink any because you hate tea.”
“And I brought a latte with me, and I remembered Hazel complaining about the Paragon’s tea,” I said. “I’m really glad I didn’t try any. I can only imagine what sort of things I would have blurted out to everyone the way they were gushing.”
“You don’t have any secrets,” Rigel pointed out. “You’ve been very open and blunt.”
“Well, I don’t know if people know I’m having troubles with artifacts, but you have a point. Everyone already knows I can’t keep the ward up when I need to.” I sighed deeply.
The reminder of my failure made a sour taste in my mouth, so I was distracted and didn’t even mean to take the corner as fast as I did, sending Fell careening around the bed of my truck, sliding on the slick ice.
Solis had sprawled out in the backseat again. “Maybe we’ll make it. I’ve never been optimistic before, but now I might be!” He laughed at himself, then coughed abruptly.
“Can you check to make sure his seat belt is on?” I asked Rigel. “I thought I strapped him in, but he might have wiggled out of it.”
Rigel stared at me. “You’re odd.”
“What? Why?”
“None of the other fae monarchs would care if he wore a seat belt or not.”
“I care because it’s Solis—obviously, or I wouldn’t have Fell skidding around back there.” I slammed on the brakes for a four-way stop sign, and Fell smacked into the back of the cab, plastering his face on the window. “Sorry, Fell!” I called in a singsong voice as the Autumn King slid down the window.
“You care about Fell to some degree,” Rigel said. “Or you would have left him in the parking lot.”
“True,” I agreed.
“You care too much,” Solis said. “It’s a danger to you. But I’m still glad you’re the Night Queen. I’m glad the night mares picked you…” Solis trailed off and snored again.
Thinking back to the secrets the monarchs had spilled to me, I frowned and gripped the steering wheel with more strength than necessary. “Rigel, you met the monarchs for work before we got married, right?”
Rigel mutely stared at me, which meant he totally had.
“Are they scared?” I asked.
Rigel was silent for several long moments. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Do they act out and fight and have these power struggles because they’re afraid of what will happen if they mess up, or if they’re perceived as not having enough power?” I thought back to something Rime had said. “Are they afraid of magic dying out?”
“Of course,” Rigel said. “Everyone dreads the death of magic. As for their struggles, it’s a part of it, yes. They had the desire for power, or they wouldn’t have been made a royal. But they do have fear. A lot of it.”
“How can you tell?” I asked. “They can’t lie, but most fae are good at carefully hiding their expressions.”
Rigel shrugged. “Perhaps. But they give themselves away in the small things. How fast their heart beats, how shallowly they’re breathing, any nervous ticks they might have, things like that.”
“You can hear their heartbeats?” I asked, shocked. “I thought that was just a vampire and werewolf thing.”
Rigel shrugged. “I can typically get close enough to a target that I can hear what a werewolf would be able to hear halfway across a room.”
“Ahh. Right.”
We were silent for a while—except for Rigel giving me the occasional direction.
“Does it matter?” he abruptly asked when we reached Fell’s mansion—of course the Autumn King had the biggest, gaudiest place ever. He also had a gate that barred the way, but I didn’t even try to pull up to it. I wanted as little to do with the Autumn Court as possible, and I didn’t want anyone tattling to the Autumn King that I was responsible for his bruises.
“Does what matter?” I asked.
“Does it matter if the other monarchs are scared?”
I hopped out of the truck, waved to the guards who were watching me suspiciously, lowered the tailgate, then hopped back in the truck. “Yeah, it matters,” I said. “It doesn’t excuse their behavior—Fell deserves to rot for what he made Verdant do. But then I’ll know how to help them, since they’re too stubborn to ask for it themselves.”
“You’d help them?” Rigel asked. “Why?”
I tapped my finger on the steering wheel. “Just because I don’t like them, doesn’t mean I want to see them and their people suffer. And that’s how humans roll.” I slammed my foot on the gas, gunning my truck, and abruptly swerved.
The sudden burst of speed—combined with the slick ice layer—made Fell go hurtling out of the bed of my truck.
He squawked like a bird and flapped his arms before crashing into the massive hedge I’d been aiming for.
&nb
sp; I waited long enough to make sure his feet were kicking in the air before I drove off at a normal pace.
“You don’t want to see him suffer, is it?” Rigel said.
“Suffering is not the same as facing the consequences for being despicable,” I said.
“Right.”
I grinned at Rigel, and almost got us into an accident when he smiled back.
It wasn’t a huge grin. It was barely a sliver of his white teeth flashing against his bronze skin. But the light in his eyes was…warm? Affectionate?
Those were the words I was looking for, but everything fell pathetically short of whatever it was that I saw in his eyes.
I stared at him even after his smile was long gone. Even after I clipped something with my truck and was driving dangerously.
“I believe you just knocked Fell’s mailbox over,” Rigel said.
I coughed and shook my head, trying to regain my inner zen—or just trying to stop ogling my consort. “Right. Something for him to discover tomorrow.” I cleared my throat. “Okay, Solis. Your turn!”
“Hurray!” Solis called from the backseat.
“Yep, yeah,” I babbled. “All kinds of hurray!”
Three days later, I stood in front of the door that connected my room to Rigel’s.
Should I knock? Should I even go in? I don’t really need comfort tonight. I’m just lonely.
I looked back over my shoulder. Kevin was splayed across a giant dog bed, lying on his back with his legs poking up in the air. Whiskers was sitting down on a rug, vigorously cleaning himself. When he caught sight of me watching, he stared at me with his rough tongue hanging out of his mouth.
Nah. I shouldn’t bother him for something like this. I mean, we’re friends, but that doesn’t give me the right to invade his room whenever I feel like it. That’d be something a lot more understandable if we were in love—
The door swung open, and Rigel, nonplussed, cocked his head at me. “Are you coming in or not?”
“W-what?” I stammered.
“You’ve been standing in front of the door for the past fifteen minutes. Decide: are you coming in or staying out?” Rigel swiveled slightly, opening up a space for me to squeak past if I wanted to.