The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Long

  “He wants you to take his place, Jenny,” Jack said. “To be a sacrifice in his stead.”

  Tom’s voice was hard again, unrelenting. “And he wants to hand you over to the queen, little sister. You’re the price for his freedom. Is that any different?”

  Jenny stood between them. The piper on her left. Jack on her right. She looked from one to the other, feeling suddenly trapped. The distance between her and them appeared to lengthen. Jenny was alone. Then in an instant reality came hurtling back at her with the force of a collision.

  She’d seen a chink in Tom’s armor, just for a second. Even if she couldn’t trust him, she couldn’t ignore that. And Jack…What was she supposed to think? She wasn’t sure she could trust him either. But her treacherous heart felt differently. And now this, an impossible choice. Jenny tried to pull herself straight, shoulders back, chin up. But she didn’t even fool herself. Yes, she’d spent the last seven years pretending to be strong, pretending it all slid off her like soap in water. But here she was, feeling far too much. Tom was still her brother. If anything happened to him—if anything happened to either of them—

  But…

  An idea was tugging at her mind, struggling to break the surface.

  She grabbed at it, caught it, held it, turned it over in her mind so she could see all its facets.

  Decided.

  “It’s going to be okay, Jack.”

  Distantly, she heard her own voice say the words. She saw herself move, taking the sword from his hands and sliding it back into the sheath. Safe. Out of the way. He didn’t protest or fight her. He did nothing but frown, confused, afraid. She hadn’t seen him afraid before.

  “No, it won’t,” he told her in a whisper. “I can’t let you be damned for me. He’s right. I’m not worth it, Jenny Wren.”

  She smiled and shook her head. If Tom was safe, and the queen had Jenny in his place, then Jack was free too. She saw it so clearly now. How had she not seen it before? She just had to get them both out of here.

  The piper seized her arm and pulled her roughly to his side. He was stronger than she would have imagined, certainly stronger than she remembered, but that was so long ago now.

  “Of course he isn’t worth it. He’s one of Oberon’s creatures, made of lost dreams and savagery. Didn’t he tell you?” The piper started to laugh. “Oh, you fool, Jenny.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Jack said. “You have a heart like no other. You are strong. Stronger than you know.”

  Jenny let their words wash over her, even as Tom shook her, his glare malevolent. “Don’t you see, you stupid, weak-witted girl?” She refused to meet his eyes. “That’s why his king wants you for his new queen. It’s the only reason Jack o’ the Forest helped you in the first place. But then…my queen wants you too. Jack was always going to sell you out to one or the other, little sister, don’t you see?” Jenny struggled to keep her emotions under control. “And you, you fell for his charm. But he’s nothing. Nothing but old wood and rotting leaves wrapped up in lies and curses. You thought he was like you and me.”

  Jenny struggled free and swung around, her fist striking the piper hard across his perfect face. His head snapped back and blood spurted from his nose.

  “I’m nothing like you, Tom,” she spat. “And neither is he. And aren’t we blessed for that?”

  Then he hit her. The blow to her own face was three times as hard. Light exploded before her eyes and she dropped to the ground, blind with shock and pain. Her mouth filled with blood as she gasped for air. Tom stood over her, waiting. Her brother. Her own brother. The flute dangled from his belt and she grabbed at it, intent on taking the wretched thing and using it to beat him. Tom’s fist descended again. But it was knocked off course as Jack sprang at him and they went down in a tangle of hatred.

  Jack pinned Tom to the ground, trying to grip his arms, but Tom kicked out, catching Jack with a glancing blow. They rolled, tumbling across the gravel path in a scrambling of stones. Tom’s fist struck Jack’s face, snapping his head back, but Jack grabbed his arm again, slamming it down onto the ground, holding him there with his knee. His knife seemed to leap to his hand. Jenny screamed and ran at him as he brought it up to Tom’s neck.

  “Stop this at once!” The queen’s voice rang out across the grounds. She stood in the gateway to the garden, her companions behind her. Jenny’s eyes latched on to Jack. He still had his knife pressed to Tom’s throat but he seemed to freeze, hand trembling. Tendons stood out in his arms and neck. Panic entered his eyes as he stared past Jenny at the queen, somehow trapped by her glare.

  Titania’s slender figure approached with the grace of a bird. Wherever her feet fell, flowers opened to greet her passage. In her wake they withered and died. Jenny’s eyes took her in with unexpected yearning, but Titania swept by her without a glance. The queen touched Jack’s shoulder and he cringed away, his chest hitching as he fought for breath. She gave only a flick of her hand, but he was flung back to sprawl on the grass, the knife still clutched in his hand.

  “I thought we had an agreement, Jack,” Titania said, loosening her riding gloves one finger at a time. “That didn’t include destroying what is mine already.”

  “I never agreed,” he gasped, forcing out each word. His eyes sought Jenny, wild and pleading. “I swear, I never agreed.”

  “Jack,” Titania purred, holding out her hand to him like a gracious monarch. “Be reasonable.” Jack’s muscles tightened, twisting to agony.

  The words wrenched their way out of his tortured body. “I never agreed. No matter what you offer, I will never agree.”

  The queen’s eyes widened, liquid with surprise and…Jenny stared, but the emotion that had flickered over the queen’s features was too brief to capture. Her face had already hardened like the surface of a mirror, smooth and perfect, impenetrable.

  “I see. Well, if that’s the case, begone, forest thing. You have no place here. Return to your master and tell him of your failure. Take your punishment. And tell him not to meddle in my affairs again.”

  Flowers burst from the earth and roots shot out like a thousand serpents. If the roses had been powerful, these were a hundred times so. They moved like sentient creatures, with no music to cajole them. They tangled around Jack, snaring him in seconds, twisting around his body to bind his knife in his hand and with the Jester’s sword still sheathed uselessly at his back. Where Jenny had put it. The ground began to part, churning and heaving as though it struggled to breathe, and Jenny realized with sudden horror what was happening.

  “Let him go!” she screamed, and tried to grab his free hand. Her locket glistened around his neck, the gold her last guide. She ripped at the stalks and stems, pulled them back from his face, but there were too many, they were too quick, too strong. The queen’s magic was far too powerful. The earth of her garden parted and closed, sucking Jack under like quicksand.

  “Jenny.” He spat dirt from his mouth and trapped her gaze with his eyes. “Jenny Wren, listen to me. Don’t believe what they tell you. Don’t even believe your own eyes. Trust your heart. Please, Jenny. I’m…I’m sorry I lied—I didn’t tell you everything I should have, but trust me now. Trust your h—” The earth consumed him, dirt falling into his mouth, his eyes, grass closing over his face, the ground sucking his fingers out of sight, and Jenny was left kneeling on the ground, her hands clutching at spring flowers and nettles.

  In the silence that followed, she heard the Sidhe murmuring among themselves, the birds in the trees, the insects, and the distant sound of the forest folk. A keening lament echoed over the walls, and above it all, one cry rang out, so close to her ears it hurt. It wasn’t until she snapped her teeth together that she realized the sound had come from her. Jack was gone.

  From the royal court, there came no sound at all, not a movement, not a breath. They watched her tears fall to the ground. It wasn’t until Tom reached out and touched her shoulder that she became aware of how many flawless faces gazed at her.

 
Jenny dragged her arms over her eyes, scrubbing the tears away with her hands. “What have you done?”

  But he didn’t answer. He was looking at her like a cat trying to fathom how to get food. Her brother, her betrayer. She shook him off.

  Titania’s voice was sweetly precise. “I did what you asked,” said the queen, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and the girl kneeling before her a simpleton. “I let him go.”

  chapter twenty-one

  On her knees in the dirt before Titania, Jenny dragged her shirt sleeve across her bloodied face and struggled to quell the tears stinging her eyes. She wouldn’t cry, not here, not in front of them. She wouldn’t give Titania the satisfaction.

  Neither would she stay on her knees.

  A leaden resolve fell over her. Jack was gone. Swallowed up as his precious forest had swallowed Tom seven years before. The bitter irony wasn’t lost on Jenny, but it did her no good.

  Was he dead? No, he couldn’t be. He was part of the forest. He was…He was Jack. He’d saved her from the dragon, rescued her from the Nix, had tried to protect her even from himself. Jenny took a deep breath. It rattled through her. If Jack was dead, if Jack was gone—

  Please, no.

  For all his tortured loyalties, his ties of duty and honor pulling him in every direction, he had proved himself more trustworthy than anyone she had met in the Realm.

  You are strong. Stronger than you know.

  Jenny rose. Standing there in jeans and a shirt that had seen too many days of scrambling through forest, that had been washed in river water and dried in the sun, she felt like something half wild, especially under the eyes of the flawless Sidhe court.

  “We were just about to go on our morning hunt,” said Titania. “And look what we already caught. The so-called May Queen, here and waiting for us.”

  “Jack and I meant you no harm,” Jenny said, aware that her voice trembled, and furious with herself for showing weakness.

  Titania laughed. “What sort of a fool do you take me for?”

  “I only came for my brother.”

  Tom blanched as Titania turned her viper’s gaze on him. “I’d forgotten that,” she said in tones that said nothing was ever forgotten. “She’s your sister, Tom. How sweet. You called and she came to find you.” She laughed again, a bright and merry sound, but no one joined in. “And do you find him unchanged, May Queen?”

  “No,” Jenny said coolly. “I find him very much changed. And my name is Jenny. I want none of your ridiculous games.”

  “Games?” The amusement was gone. The queen bared her teeth and stalked toward Jenny. “You have not seen games yet, girl. Look at yourself. Is this how you appear before a queen?”

  Jenny couldn’t help it. She glanced down at her clothes, and her skin pricked with shame. Tangled hair, ragged clothes, dirty face, earth blackening her fingernails. She could imagine if she turned up at home or school looking like this. But this was worse. She stood before a queen.

  Swallowing hard, she opened her mouth to apologize and then caught herself. What for? How was any of this her fault? And why should she care what Titania thought of her? She hadn’t cared about those who didn’t believe her, who wanted to put her on meds, or who constantly told her she had imagined everything. She had taught herself—forced herself—not to care. She struggled past the queen’s enchantment and lifted her eyes to meet Titania’s.

  “I want to take Tom and go home. You can have your fantasy kingdom and everything that goes with it.” And more, so much more, she wanted this to be over.

  “Really?” The single word scraped the air.

  “She doesn’t ask much, my queen,” Tom interrupted, his voice plaintive and weak. “Just to go. Just for the two of us to go.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere. You have an appointment in two days’ time, tithe. You should never have run from me. I might have kept you forever, the way you make music, the way your music makes magic. But I can’t stand betrayal. Such treachery. You brought her here.”

  “Let her go, Majesty,” he continued, actually wringing his hands. “I didn’t mean to. Not her. Please. I swear, I’ll go willingly, give myself up for you, to protect you. I’ll be the tithe. Wipe her memories and let her go.”

  Jenny stared at him. What was this change? Minutes ago he’d wanted to send her as sacrifice in his place.

  “For me? Really?” Titania simpered, but her sugar-sweet voice devolved into cruelty. “Or to protect her?” She laughed. “Someone get the piper something to drink. He forgets himself. Or rather, he remembers.”

  Two men—tall and willowy Sidhe lords—grabbed Tom by either arm and pulled him away, laughing at his protests and easily overpowering his struggles.

  That left Jenny alone with the queen and her court, and her heart sank. In spite of all he had said and done, the changes wrought on him by his time here, Tom was her brother. Something in their food and drink changed him, made him…made him more like them. And when it wore off, for a moment he was Tom again.

  Jack had told her not to take their food or wine. That was why, she realized. It changed you forever. Made you their slave. She thought of the servants in the palace, lost in their dreams, mindless drudges, doing the will of the Sidhe for eternity. He hadn’t lied about that, then. He hadn’t actually lied about much at all. She just wished that he’d told her everything.

  Jenny closed her eyes and forced Jack from her mind. Her mouth dried as she brought her eyes back to Titania’s face.

  The queen studied her for a moment and then made a subtle pass of her hand in front of Jenny’s face. When she looked down again, she wore the same dove-gray clothes of the servants. A fitted bodice, high neck, and long sleeves, all edged with buttons covered in the same fabric. The full skirt was heavy and awkward. Around her waist was a pristine white apron with deep pockets. She could still feel her own clothes beneath. Another illusion.

  Titania’s eyes glittered like shards of glass, hard and devoid of feeling. Her beauty was unreal, harsh in its perfection. Jenny remembered the glimpse of the dark thing lurking inside her, the thing she’d seen in the forest when she first laid eyes on her. Mab. It was Mab. The evil inside Titania. Beyond the cool beauty. Now she circled Jenny, examining her work, her every glance critical.

  “There,” she said at last. “I thought you could be improved. What do you think of her now, Thomas?”

  He stepped back through the attendant Sidhe and Jenny saw at once that whatever they had given him, he was the heartless piper once more.

  “You’ll make her a skivvy?” asked Tom.

  “I can’t think of a better occupation for a would-be queen. She needs to learn her place.”

  Jenny stiffened but remained silent. What good would it do to argue now? She couldn’t outrun them all. But later…

  “I know what you’re thinking, little Wren,” the queen mocked. She snapped her fingers and someone passed her a bottle. The glass was a brilliant green, and little dints of light glittered on the surface. Its round bottom caught the sun, but from there it tapered up to a long neck, closed with a stopper made of silver, shaped like a rose.

  “Lethe water,” said the queen. “Although I doubt you, in your modern age, know what that is. We make it ourselves with honey and valerian and…oh, a thousand special things. It has no effect on the folk of Faerie, although it tastes like nectar, but on humans…well…You’ll see.”

  Jenny clamped her lips together and shook her head. Whatever that stuff was, there was no way she was drinking it. She’d seen what it had done to Tom.

  “Stubborn, obstinate child,” the queen growled, and nodded to two more of her courtiers. They seized Jenny’s arms, forcing her to her knees so Titania towered over her. One of them pinched her arm hard and she cried out in spite of herself.

  That was all it took. Titania thrust the mouth of the bottle between Jenny’s lips and upended it. A stream of sweet, cloying liquid filled her mouth, choking her as she coughed, spluttered, and tried
to pull away. Someone held her head and they forced her to drink it, draining the whole bottle until she fell, coughing and gasping for air.

  The Sidhe pulled Jenny back to her feet and she hung limply between her captors. Titania pressed her hands on either side of Jenny’s head. The last thing she saw was the queen’s victorious smile.

  It was like falling into dark water, like being dragged down by the Nix all over again. The soft fragrance of night closed over her, a cushion of down, a cocoon. Music surged around her, beguiling. As Jenny opened her eyes, she found the world had transformed.

  Laughter pealed around a great stone hall. On a family holiday, long ago, she had visited Mont Saint Michel and stood in the banqueting hall, a vaulted room with glass windows looking out over the treacherous sands, twin fireplaces her whole family could stand in. Tom had been a pain that day, bored with the whole thing and out of sorts, but Jenny had fallen in love with the romance of the place. It had been hers alone, the palace she dreamed of where she was a princess and nothing could harm her or any of her family. She had hopped from slab to slab across the floor, pretending she was dancing, until her mother had made her stop, telling her to consider what people would think.

  Now the hall inside her dreams was filled with a fairy ball. Fires blazed in the fireplaces, candles burned in the chandeliers. It was dark outside, not the dark of night. No moon or stars were visible. The windows showed nothing. They might have been made of stone themselves. Laughter and the sounds of amused conversation entwined with the music, swirling up to the ceiling so far above her. The stone slabs covering the floor seemed to move, even as she looked at them, twisting in the unnatural way things did in dreams.

  This wasn’t real. She knew it couldn’t be. This palace was not Titania’s palace. This was cold stone, not polished marble. This was a world away from the queen’s shining palace. Yet it had its own beauty.