by Ryan Graudin
“What was that?” Eric sits up, scanning the room. They gloss over Titania and Ferrin without a hitch, land on me again. His fingers are too close to both weapons.
“No need to be so jumpy.” I try to smile at him and nod down to where Anabelle leans against my shoulder. “Do you think you can get us some fresh tea? Belle will want some when she wakes up.”
The officer frowns; his eyes make another lengthy scan of the room. Finally he stands and stretches his legs. The right one seems extra stiff. He stilts on it to the door. “Anything else, Lady Emrys?”
I shake my head, wait for him to leave. As soon as I’m certain he’s gone I cut back to Titania. “That’s impossible. You didn’t look hard enough.”
“It’s entirely possible, if men took Richard.” Titania’s eyes flash and freeze. “There’s no magic to trace.”
“But I felt it. . . .”
“There was nothing, Lady Emrys.”
Nothing. Phantom pains. Like the twinge I felt just before the broken vase. Is it possible my mind constructed this one too? That the madness raging in my dreams every night has slipped into my waking?
“You say it was men who took him. Then it was men. Mortals,” Titania says firmly.
“So search for mortals then. The Guard knows Richard’s aura.”
“Whoever executed this worked swiftly. Used the panic of the crowd to cover their tracks. Any trail Richard’s aura might have left is lost. . . . It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Anabelle groans, tugged from her heavy sleep by our rising voices. Her face is smeared in zebra-stripe makeup and flushed as she takes in the sight of Titania. Queen Cecilia slumbers beside her, unmoved.
“What are you saying?” I bring myself eye level with the Faery queen, so she’s no longer looking down her nose at me. This close I can see the awful pale under her skin, jewels of sweat clinging to her hairline. “You’re not even going to try?”
“If this truly is the work of mortals, then there’s not much the Frithemaeg can do,” she says.
“This is your JOB. Your DUTY!”
Spit flies from my mouth, mists over Titania’s regal features. But the Faery queen doesn’t even blink. Her face is set now, so beautiful and unyielding it might as well have been chipped out of marble by Michelangelo himself. “The Guard’s duty is to protect the crown from supernatural harm. What the mortals decide to do to each other is their own concern.”
I’m staring, slack-jawed. Trying to make sense of her words. “You can’t be serious . . .”
“Do you not understand how stretched we are, Lady Emrys? I’m exhausting the Guard enough as it is with their regular duties.”
“So you can’t find Richard? Or you won’t?” My questions scathe the air like acid.
“I am the Queen of the Frithemaeg, Emrys Léoflic. You’d do best not to forget that.” Her eyes flash like a blade—dangerous. Something behind them wavers, reminds me of Mab.
There’s a crash: china, silver, and too hot tea. I look to find Eric standing in the doorway. A fresh tea tray lies in ruins at his feet. He’s holding his stun gun instead.
“Who are you talking to?” He lurches forward, slashing the crackling blue at the air in front of me.
It’s a blind-luck hit, straight into Queen Titania’s arm. The Faery queen’s skin is so paper-thin I can almost see the electricity lancing through her, writhing like veins. Already weakened by so many hours in the city—this charge is enough to throw her to the ground. It peels back layers of her magic and strength like an onion’s skin.
Even Eric looks shocked when he finally sees his victim—stripped so completely of her veiling spell. The Queen of the Fae is undone, hair loosed on the floor like a spilled crucible of silver. Every last sign of strength sapped from her willowy limbs.
“I have a code fifteen!” He screams at the doorway. “We’ve been breached!”
“What the hell did you just do?” I yell.
“Stand back!” Eric waves the charge at me.
I inch closer to Titania anyway.
She’s not dead. It takes far more than that to unmake an immortal as old and powerful as the Faery queen. But it’s not death I’m worried about. It’s the fringes of insanity which could be creeping up, taking over the Faery queen as we speak. Direct contact with so much electricity could be enough to push her over the edge—unbind her into a truly terrible creature of free magic. Loosed from all control or reason. A creature none of us in this bunker would survive.
The stun gun hums blue in Eric’s hand. He’s looking down at the Faery queen as if she’s a cobra, about to strike at any minute.
“Put that away,” I tell him.
“What? So you can hex me?” he growls. “You might have been able to fool King Richard, but not all of us mortals are so gullible.”
The room is full: doorway choked with security personnel. Anabelle is still frozen. Queen Cecilia is awake and staring, far too stunned to demand an explanation. Ferrin lurks unseen by the brick wall, watching the stun gun, winding her magic tight.
“This is Queen Titania. She’s an ally. If you stun her again, you could take away any semblance of humanity she has,” I say slowly. “If that happens, we’re all dead.”
Eric doesn’t back away. The stun gun is still raised high, like a peasant’s pitchfork. “If she’s such an ally, then why is she sneaking around?”
“Would you have let her in otherwise?” I keep my eye locked carefully on the electric current. I can’t let it touch Titania again. “Put the stun gun down. We can talk about this.”
“Hold your position, Officer Black!” Jensen calls from the room’s entrance, where almost a dozen armed officers have watched the scene unfold.
“Stop fighting!” Anabelle stands next to me. “This is all stupid. The Frithemaeg aren’t our enemy. None of this is going to bring Richard back!”
She might as well be chucking a pebble into the ocean. This room—it’s like watching a lit fuse, waiting for the moment when the spark hits. Any little motion, any misplaced word could set it off.
What went wrong? Why are we standing here pointing glares and stun guns at each other when Richard is missing?
Because Richard is the thread. The bridge between two vast and unmet worlds. He was the center and without him things fall apart.
Titania’s eyes blink. The look in them is on edge, almost feral. Those silver irises slide to where Eric is arched above her. They lock onto the stun gun, glint a wildness which fills me with fear.
Fear for Eric. Fear for all of us.
The Faery queen starts to rise and Eric’s stun gun fist starts to fall. My hands are already on the silver tea tray, the one with the pot of cold water. I swing it hard into the frantic guard’s head. The stun gun drops like a shocked fly onto the rug, next to a crumpled Eric.
Richard’s mother lets out a long, wild scream. Jensen and his team pour into the room. I’m up and over the coffee table, grabbing Queen Titania. The breadth, the magnitude of her power almost bowls me over when my fingers grip her shoulder. Her eyes are wild, confused as I shove her to where Ferrin is crouched, watching the scene unfold.
“Get Queen Titania to the Highlands NOW!” I shout.
The youngling doesn’t hesitate. She grabs the dazed queen’s hand and the pair vanishes. There and gone. Just like Richard.
Hands grip my own shoulders, fingers dig tight into my muscle, spin me around. There are at least three men grabbing me.
“Take her to the interrogation room!” I hear Jensen yell.
“What are you doing?!” Anabelle screams on the other side of the coffee table. “Let her go!”
The men are dragging me, past Eric’s unconscious form, through the door.
How did this all go so wrong?
“STOP!”
I never knew a girl as petite as Anabelle could roar so loud. The sound bursts through the bunker with the power of a collapsing star.
And everything stops. Jensen stands in
the doorway, his face frozen mid-yell, adrenaline and anger flushing red across his cheeks. The men holding me are suspended—steps hanging just inches above the ground. Even the stun guns are still, their charges like portraits of blue lightning.
The last time I saw a room so still was at Windsor Palace, when Breena shouted “Stillaþ” and the mortals got caught up in her magic like mosquitoes in amber. There’s magic here too—only it’s not mine or Ferrin’s or Titania’s.
There’s only one other person in this room who carries magic in their veins. . . .
“Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” Annabelle’s standing on the coffee table, among the ruins of the original tray, looking over the room of mannequin men.
She looks straight at me. “It actually worked.”
The current in the air. The tingle on my skin. The princess’s white face. There’s no mistaking it this time.
The blood magic is awake.
Somehow Princess Anabelle managed to tap into the long-dormant magic in her blood. Her birthright passed all the way down from King Arthur’s age. Magic not even the Fae could ever fully understand. Magic she’s not even supposed to be able to use.
However she managed to cast it, her spell won’t last long. I can already feel it fading. Soon the royals’ Protection Command will be thawed and moving, ready to drag me back to the interrogation room.
“I have to go, Belle.” I start worming my way out of my captors’ grips. “I’m going to get Richard back.”
“I know. I’m coming with you.” The princess hops off the table, picks her way through immobilized men and teapot shards. She pauses by the cushion where Queen Cecilia is curled up, motionless. “Sorry, Mum. I’ll be back.”
I want to argue; I want to tell her she’s safer here. But the buzz of her magic still edges my teeth, fills my stomach with dread. If I leave her here with the mortals, without knowing what the power inside her is capable of . . .
“Besides.” Anabelle weaves her way over to a frozen, outraged Jensen. Fishes a pair of silver keys from his pocket. “Someone has to drive.”
Eleven
London’s streets lash by my window. Pubs, double-decker buses, and old gas lampstands blur into a single streak of color. The edge of my seat belt bites into my palms; I clutch its nylon for dear life. I thought I’d adjusted to cars—but it seems that’s only when Anabelle isn’t driving.
Her knuckles grip the steering wheel like iron. She hunches forward in her seat, foot pressed all the way down on the gas pedal. My heart stops with every red light we burst through. It’s nothing short of a miracle that we haven’t been noticed by all the police cars roaming the streets. Though that could be because Anabelle flipped our own blue lights on as soon as she revved the engine.
It reminds me of the day King Edward died, all of these flashing blue lights and neon yellow vests. The throngs of humanity in the streets. Only this crowd isn’t sad or shuffling. There are no tears on their faces. The glimpses I do catch are snapshots of raw, animal emotion. Anger. Fear. Rage.
Their eyes widen as the Jaguar wheels onto the sidewalk. As they scatter, Anabelle swears and jerks the car back toward the street, narrowly clipping the door of a phone booth.
“If we’re going to find Richard, then we have to be in one piece to do it!” My hands twist and strangle the seat belt.
“Sorry!” The princess says, foot still punching hard into the gas pedal. “It’s not like I actually drive these things a lot.”
“I noticed,” I mutter under my breath.
A voice crackles out of the lights and wires of the car’s dashboard. “The bunker has been compromised. Two packages are missing and believed to be in a government-issued Jaguar.”
“They’re looking for us.” Anabelle’s voice is grim as the radio rattles off our license plate number. “Where do we go?”
I hadn’t thought this far ahead. This whole day has been a blur, a horrible dream. It just now feels like I’m waking up, facing the reality of it all. In the space of a few hours my entire world has crumbled. I’d put all bets on Titania, but Julian Forsythe was right: Faery queens are cruel creatures. My lifetimes of service to the Guard, Richard’s sleepless weeks lobbying for her survival—none of these mattered to Titania. She folded when we needed her most.
And now what do I have?
An empty hand.
I lost Richard. I lost it all.
And yet, somehow, I’m not surprised. I knew it was coming. I dreamt it.
I look down at the bandage on my arm. The wound which keeps breaking open every night, no matter how tight I bind the gauze. As if the ragged nails Guinevere sinks into my arm every nightmare are real . . .
“You found it. But blind eyes still need to see,” I whisper the faagailagh’s words back to myself.
It seems Guinevere’s mind isn’t as far gone as Alistair might have me think. She knows something.
There’s only one place I’m going to find answers, and it’s not in London. It’s in the bowels of the deepest, darkest place I’d hoped never to see again.
It’s time to return to the Labyrinth.
Anabelle’s driving doesn’t improve in the countryside. Our tires shred gravel and dirt, coasting over potholes and stripping leaves off endless rows of hedges.
I felt safer on the Kelpie.
It’s dark by the time we reach the coast. The sleepy town we pull into is lit up like a Christmas village: warm-glow windows and sealed doors. It’s still long before midnight, but the streets are empty. Long stretches of power lines and lonely storefronts. The feel of the sea rides on the air: life and death and salt and gray.
With a twist of Anabelle’s wrist the Jaguar’s engine dies. We both sit for a moment, soaking in the heat of the car. For the first time in a day I feel like I can breathe.
I look over at the princess. Lion-mane hair, eyes crusted with day-old makeup. Her fingers are still wrapped tight around the steering wheel. “Belle. What you did back there . . . in the bunker. To those men . . . You did it before. Didn’t you? At Windsor. With the flower vase.”
“I—” Some color bleeds back into her face. “Yes. But it was an accident. I didn’t mean to break it.”
“But why did you hide it?” I ask.
Anabelle takes a deep breath. She’s staring out the windshield at a pair of seagulls feasting on a pile of fried fish wrapped in newspaper. “Richard made me promise not to tell.”
When she says his name my stomach feels gutted.
“It’s been happening to him too.” She keeps talking. Still staring at the bedraggled, huddled birds. “Ever since the first Lights-down. It’s just been little accidents. I had an argument with Mum while we were addressing coronation invitations and the calligraphy ink exploded everywhere. And then the vase . . .”
My throat squeezes tight. I think of all the times we were together. All the times he stayed quiet . . . “Why? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He didn’t want to worry you. And he was afraid . . .” Her voice wilts. “He was afraid you would get hurt.”
I am hurt. Hurt that something so big, so important was happening to Richard. That the rift of secrets between us was so much larger than I realized.
What else didn’t he tell me?
Will I ever have the chance to find out?
“At first I thought it was hiccups: random spurts. But then I realized it happened whenever I got upset. I felt it rising in Westminster Abbey and the bunker. I was holding it back, until Protection Command started taking you away,” Anabelle says. “That was the first time I actually tried to use it.”
“Don’t.” My eyes bore straight into the princess’s. “Don’t try it again.”
“But—”
“Magic isn’t something you play with.” I cut her off. “It’s wild. Dangerous. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it can go very, very wrong.”
I know what I’m saying is harsh, but I’m not thinking straight. My thoughts are tangled, looping me back through the past
. Reminding me how—ages and ages ago—the mortals gleaned the Fae’s magic and made it their own. They twisted it into dozens of variations, both brilliant and brutal. Many, many lives were destroyed by such infinite power in such finite hands.
There were very few humans strong enough to bear the burden of magic. In the end, it even ruined King Arthur.
A lone streetlight slants through the tinted windshield, wraps around the princess like a halo. Something about how harsh it is against her face shows me just how young she is.
Just seventeen. How easy it is for me to forget. Despite her brave, steel-hide moments and her almost supernatural ability to have everything perfect, Anabelle is still a fragile thing. A glass ballerina, one fall from cracking.
She doesn’t—can’t—know the power she wields. Not yet.
“I’m sorry,” I say slowly. “I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just . . . it’s very important that you keep things under control. If you don’t, a lot of people could get hurt.
“I want you to promise me you won’t use it. Even if we find ourselves in a bad situation,” I add, “try to hold it back, like you did in the bunker. We’ll find another way.”
Anabelle tears her eyes from mine.
“Promise,” I say again, my voice stretched.
The princess’s words come out quiet. “I promise.”
“We’ll get this sorted. We’ll find Richard,” I tell her.
“What are we doing here?” Anabelle nods out into the ghost village, where the sign for the White Dragon Pub swings back and forth in the breeze.
“We’re going to the Isle of Man. There’s a sailboat docked on the edge of town. Ferrin and Lydia used it to take me there last time.”
“How is this going to help us find Richard?”
“It’s—complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it.” Anabelle brings her forehead down onto the steering wheel. “I’m going a little bit insane here. My brother has just been kidnapped and I’ve been spewing magic like a busted fire hydrant. Plus I’ve just driven a stolen car all the way across the bloody country. I just need something. Anything.”