“All right.” My Fae hearing picks up a light footfall in the hallway. I smell gun oil and leather.
The telltale scent of iron.
Georgina.
Syl doesn’t seem to notice, and her mom moves back toward the living room. Can’t blame her for checking in, even if I do feel like I dodged a bullet.
Or in this case, one of those black-iron stakes she’s been hoarding.
“What about Becca?” There’s something between her and Syl, old and full of bad history.
“She’s an old rival from grade school.” Syl shrugs a shoulder. “It sounds dumb, but being in the hospital for a week and eating through a straw was pretty darn serious.”
Just like that, my cold rage is back. “She hurt you?”
“Broke my jaw.” Her gaze falls to the glove. “Wild pitch.”
Now it makes sense—Syl’s anxiety, her fear at facing Becca again.
“It’s silly, I know.” Syl sighs, pushing back her red curls. “I mean, we’re faced with actual problems—the Great Convergence, Dark Faerie and Fair Faerie colliding, the Shroud tearing, your dad trying to infect us with Inimicals. Not to mention the Battle…” She snorts. “Next to that, a softball game seems silly.”
“It’s not silly at all.” If there’s one thing Syl’s taught me it’s that the “little” things are what matter most. I rub my thumb across the back of her hand. Her skin is soft and warm, soothing. “She hurt you. It makes sense that you have some trauma from that.”
Syl looks down at her fingers. “Yeah. I…I am afraid.” Her voice sounds so small.
“Hey.” I wrap her up in my arms, dark self be damned. “You’ll get there, Syl. You’ll defeat this.”
“I failed the team today.” She shifts, rummages in her pocket, and comes out with the Aureate Queen piece. Like me, she toys with it when she’s nervous.
This time, she holds it out. “Here.”
“What’s this?” My heart is slamming mercilessly against my ribs.
“I can’t be your second.” Syl’s chest hitches, and a tear spills down her cheek. “I can’t be trusted with something so important. I can’t even figure out softball.”
I look at the golden queen in her hand. Suddenly, the Adamant Queen around my neck is a stone weighing me down. I can’t imagine doing this without her. “Look.” I face her, lifting her chin so I can look her in the eye. “I’d never pressure you into anything, but there’s no one I’d rather have by my side and at my back.”
I fold her fingers over the golden queen. “Keep it for now. Besides…” I try for a lighter tone. “Queens get to do what they want.”
She looks hopeful. “Do they?”
“No,” I say ruefully. “Not really.” I learned that the hard way when my father imprisoned me in Dark Faerie. Being queen means doing what’s best for your people.
Another reason I’ll never be a good queen.
Syl wrings her hands in her lap.
“But,” I say, forcing my mood to lighten for her. “We could make an exception this one time.”
She gives me a tear-filled smile. “Like having pizza for dinner?”
“Whatever you want.” I kiss her cheek. “And tomorrow, we’ll go back to the park and practice until we get it right.”
It’s not much, but Syl grabs hold of it like it’s a lifeline.
I swallow down my anger. Focus up, Roue. Syl needs me, and if that means mastering the mortal game of softball, so be it.
Game on.
Sunday afternoon. We’ve been at practice for an hour. Our team is still terrible. They’re worse at softball than I am at chess.
But Syl’s not giving up hope.
She tucks her battered softball cap down over her curls. “Come on, Chuck. Keep your eye on the ball.” After a few hours of her coaching, his stance looks better, and he’s no longer fidgeting like he’s got ants in his pants.
Still, he’s got a long way to go. We all do.
Nazira winds up. Of all of the kids, she’s the only one with any real athletic ability. She lobs the softest softball at Chuck, but he moves right into its path, crying out when it hits him in the hip.
“Ow!” He falls to the ground in a puff of dust.
Some of the kids from the school paper and Ally Club chuckle, but the band kids all groan. Octavia shakes the chain link of the dugout. “Seriously?”
Marcus bites his nails, nervously flicking his fidget spinner with the other hand. “Can I just be the bat boy?”
Octavia snorts. “You guys are useless.” She pushes Marcus out of the way and steps up to the plate. She hefts the bat, and Naz lobs one over.
Swish! Whiff! Swoosh!
Every time, she misses.
“Now who’s useless?” Chuck taunts back.
“You’re swinging too soon,” Naz adds.
Red-faced, Octavia fires back. “Like how you always come in too soon on the bridge for ‘Crazy Train’?”
The next thing I know, everyone’s bickering, band kids, Ally kids, school paper kids. Our team is falling apart, and we haven’t even finished one practice.
“Okay, everyone!” Syl comes out of the dugout to break up the fight. “Let’s try fielding.” She punches her mitt, working it, the broken-in leather creaking.
“All I could find was my brother’s old mitt.” Octavia pulls it out of her backpack. It’s falling apart, and it’s a lefty.
“I’m a lefty. Here, switch,” Nazira tosses a beat-up Hello Kitty mitt at Octavia.
Octavia lets it fall, like Nazira just threw a used tissue at her. “Ugh, what is that?”
“It’s a mitt,” Nazira says coldly.
Octavia crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m not using any Hello Kitty mitt. I have standards.”
Syl gives me a long-suffering stare, and I just smile.
“All right.” I stand up. “Listen up. We use what we can get. Maybe we can ask for donations of old gloves or something, but right now, we have to practice.”
“But, Euphoria—”
“No buts, Marcus.” I look at each of them in turn. “Do you want to see band get defunded? No? Then suck it up, buttercups.”
They all shut up, and I turn the “floor” over to Syl.
She looks over our team. “Okay, Chuck, right field. Sygia, left field. Naz, you’ve got first base. Roue, shortstop. Octavia, third base. Lynette, second. Marcus, you’re behind the plate…” She deploys them like she’s General Leia Organa.
Swelling with pride, I take my place between Octavia and Lynette, a senior journalist who’s wears dreadlocks and cute graphic tees. Today it’s a unicorn shirt with the words, “I will stab you” on it.
“Ready?” Syl hits one out, an easy pop-up.
I catch it and field it in to Marcus…gently. He shies away, and it hits him in the chest protector. “Oof!”
Octavia snickers.
“It’s okay,” Syl tells him. “Just go after it if you drop it.”
He grabs it up and hands it to her, his face mottled red.
Syl’s a natural, lobbing the ball up and hitting it—pop-ups, grounders, sliders, everything.
And everything is exactly what we miss.
With my natural Fae instincts, I do okay on shortstop. It’s Syl I’m worried for. I look at my borrowed glove.
Her father’s.
She seems happy, smiling and trying to buoy everyone’s spirits even as the other kids trip over bases and miss easy grounders that bounce through their legs. No matter how many times we mess up, Syl is right there to encourage us.
We practice for a bit longer, until the sun’s going down, and we start to get into the groove. Everything’s actually not awful.
Until…I catch sight of a familiar figure by the tree line.
“The Xi at three o’clock,” I send to Syl.
“Right.” Syl’s spine straightens. We’re not inside the boundaries of Miss Jardin’s rose protection spell, but still… “There’s no way the Xi’ll attack. There’s too man
y people.”
As if on cue, the Xi raises both hands. The temperature drops, and tingles break out all over me as a thick, cloaking Glamoury pours from those long fingers, spreading like a wave of shadow across the field.
I race to Syl’s side as the wave explodes outward. “Hold on!”
The Xi’s gramarye hits in an icy ripple. Syl and I are unaffected, but our whole team freezes in place. Crud. That is one powerful spell.
“Princess Rouen.” Even now, I see the Xi fighting the Inimical infection, but it’s no use. Moribund can’t be fought by will alone. Both hands crackle with crimson lightning, and shadows plume at the Xi’s feet. Dark Fae don’t show emotion. It’s against our tradition, and yet I see the turmoil in the Xi’s eyes.
I sigh. “Do we have to do this again?”
“I am afraid so, princess.” The Xi charges. Black knives fill the air.
I take in a breath.
Discordant notes shatter the calm day, but it’s not me.
A keening wail splits the air with physical force. In an invisible wave, it slams into the Xi, shattering the knives hurtling toward us and sending the troll assassin reeling backward.
In a gust of wintry wind, the bain sidhe emerges seemingly from nowhere, her red cloak swirling around her like a blood-soaked ocean. She sweeps in, still wailing, her mouth open so wide it’s a black vortex sucking everything toward it.
Black veins stand out like cords in her neck. Her mouth opens impossibly wider. It swallows up her face, the notes vibrating so hard they’re visible—as if the air is suddenly turned to water and sound waves.
The Xi tries to stand, but the bain sidhe’s wail strikes the ground, blasting grass and earth into a sinkhole, sucking them down. Slurrrrrpppp!
The Xi is gone. At least for the moment.
The air seems alive, a shimmering, moving thing. A weapon. It takes me several heartbeats to realize the bain sidhe has stopped wailing.
Damn. I wish I could do that.
My ears are ringing. “Syl?”
“I’m here.” Syl lets her white-flame shield down and hurtles into my arms. I hold her, relieved to feel her slight weight in my arms. We turn to meet the bain side together.
Will she attack us next?
But the bain sidhe only tucks her hood lower. I can’t see her face. “Shouldn’t you be training, Your Majesty?”
Polite deference is the last thing I expect from the creature that wails for death. My jaw drops. I’m catching flies. All that comes out is, “You shouldn’t call me Your Majesty. I’m not queen.”
The bain sidhe lifts her head and fixes me with a dark, glittering stare. “You will be.” She pushes her sleeves up. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“For…?” I exchange a dubious look with Syl.
The bain sidhe doesn’t miss a beat. “To train you in Wits and War.”
27
SYL
When OverHill calls
The Queen must answer
- Glamma’s Grimm
* * *
Sneaking out is something I’ve done on many occasions.
But sneaking a bain sidhe in? Definitely a first.
We clamber up the fire escape, my boots, Roue’s, and the bain sidhe’s bare feet making stomp, whomp, slap, stomp, whomp, slap noises. “Shhh,” I hiss, and we all freeze—even the bain sidhe—like the weirdest trio of sorority sisters on a prank.
It hits my funny bone, and I have to stifle a giggle.
Okay, the bain sidhe is super terrifying and all, but watching her stop dead in her blood-red robes like she’s playing the most solemn game of Freeze Tag is hilarious.
“Sorry,” I whisper, realizing they’re both giving me side-eye, a pair of dark Fae bookends.
Roue feels my barely held-in laughter down the bond, and snickers.
We reach my window and climb in one by one. My small bedroom gets even smaller with me, Roue, and the bain sidhe crammed in with my old vanity, my book shelf, bed, and closet. The bain sidhe’s presence seems to intensify, filling up the teeny space. My chest is suddenly tight, my heart thrashing.
“It’s all right.” Roue puts her hand on my shoulder. “She does that to me too.”
Grateful, I lean in to my stoic Winter girl. I’m overheated from racing through Fulton Hill and Jackson Ward, and the chill bite of her skin soothes me. Blowing out a breath, I keep my voice down. “Let me check to see if we’re alone.”
Roue’s gaze follows me as I crack open the bedroom door and slip through. Our apartment’s a shotgun, longer than it is wide. Only a dozen steps to the bathroom. A few more to the kitchen.
My heart’s pounding so hard I see spots. “Mom?”
No response.
I spy a sticky note on the fridge. “Gone to Richmond Public. Water main break. School flooded. Don’t wait up. -M”
Whew. I let out my held breath that yes, I knew I was holding, and speed back to my room. “Okay, Mom’s—”
But Roue and the bain sidhe are huddled over my beat-up vanity table. It looks almost ridiculous—Roue in her badass black leathers and motorcycle boots, her long legs folded up beneath the small table; the bain sidhe on the other side, hunched and bent beneath her blood-red and green cloak and gown.
But there’s a serious weight hanging around them, and the air’s gotten too thick to breathe. The bain sidhe’s produced a small crystal chess set with seven tiers cascading like a waterfall and twice the number of pieces.
This must be the battle chess game Roue’s told me so much about.
Each tier has its own checkerboard floor made of crystal so delicate it looks like spun glass. The pieces are intricately carved. Glamma would’ve called them “cunnin’.” From what I can tell by watching, the pieces “fight” up the different levels to the top, where the final battle royale takes place.
Also, the rules change with each tier.
Also, also, the bain sidhe’s already beating the pants off Roue. I can see it from here.
“No, no, no.” The bain sidhe swats Roue’s hand as she tries to move a piece the wrong way. “Knights aren’t allowed to jump on the third tier.”
Roue grumbles and moves a different piece.
“You’re not bad in War, princess.” The bain sidhe moves her knight, taking out one of Roue’s bishops. “But Wits?” She shakes her head, and the leaves tangled in her gown swish back and forth sounding like, tsk, tsk, tsk.
I resist the urge to tell Roue to move her rook out of the way so she can take out her queen.
Her frustration bleeds down the bond. “If I move my rook, she’ll take it.”
Crap. I tamp down on my thoughts. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right, princess.” Roue gives me her full attention and a genuine smile that makes my heart do a lazy barrel roll.
“Here now.” The bain sidhe taps the scuffed white table with one yellowed claw and gives me some serious stink-eye. “Stop distracting her, fair Faerie.”
Roue shows her fangs, gleaming white. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
“Whoa, killer.” I take her arm and ease her back down from murder-death-kill. “It’s all right. You need to train. I’ll beeeeeee…over here, reading.”
“Are you sure?” Roue’s conflict darkens her sapphire-blue eyes.
“Positive,” I reassure her, stuffing my disappointment and jealousy down deep. As much as I hate not being a part of this, the bain sidhe’s right.
This is dark Fae business.
Roue is the rightful queen. I won’t stand in her way.
And this killing each other thing? We’ll find the solution. Roue and I always find a way. I flop down on the bed, grab my beat-up e-reader, and swipe open my book. But the words only swim before my eyes.
I’m worried about my Roue. Dark Fae are dangerous, and this bain sidhe seems to know a lot about her.
I glance at my Winter girl, bent over the board, fingers hovering over this piece, then that. I don’t even need the soul-bond to see her frustration. Uncer
tainty stains her aura, her posture as hunched as the dark Fae across from her.
They’re mirror images.
I send her all my love and support. She sends hers back, and then I leave her to her training. Roue and the bain sidhe play through the night. I clear out the old closet full of strategy games: Risk, Stratego, even Parcheesi. Then they’re back to battle chess. The bain sidhe thinks Roue’s dad will choose that as the Battle of Wits because it’s the game of kings and all.
I finger the Aureate Queen in my pocket. She might be right.
The night goes on and on. I finish one book—a cool story about lesbian princesses fighting dragons—and start the next on my To-Read list, which, by the way, I’ll never get through even though I’m technically immortal. I read until my eyes are crossing and I’m yawning so hard my jaw creaks.
But when I look over at Roue and the bain sidhe… They’re locked in an epic Fae chess war. At least Roue seems to be doing better. No more “checkmate in three tiers” for the bain sidhe.
But it’s clear that this is a dark Fae thing. No fair Fae need apply.
I pat my cheek until it stings, trying to stay awake, away from my Roue-killing nightmares. My eyes close for a second.
“Syl…” A sudden pull from Fair Faerie grabs my guts.
Uh-oh. I try to yank back, to keep myself from snickle-stepping, but my eyelids are too heavy. Mr Sandman is pulling out all the stops to get me to sleep.
OverHill and the Summer Court are calling.
“Syl…Syl…SYL!”
The realm of Fair Faerie pulls again, the gravity increases, pushing down on me like a sneaker crushing a soda can, then bam! In a flash of Summer heat, I’m sucked down the sunlight passages of the Snickleways.
This should be impossible! Aldebaran’s locked me out of OverHill.
I can’t return until Midsummer Day, so how am I—?
Whoosh! I exit the Snickleways and hurtle out over OverHill. Okay, usually when this happens, I end up lying on my back in OverHill, like waking from a dream. This time, I’m flying over the whole realm, buoyed up by the Summer winds.
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