“Well, I didn’t expect that,” I said.
“I did,” Gabriel said.
“Why?” I asked. “Nathaniel’s like J.B. He’s a rule-follower. I figured that whatever Lucifer said, he would go along.”
Gabriel looked troubled. “You have insulted him on many levels. You have defied your father, who is the head of Nathaniel’s court. You have publicly broken your betrothal. You have shown no regard for his feelings. And, worst of all, you have wed a thrall, the lowest caste of the courts.”
“You’re not a thrall anymore,” I said fiercely, my hands on his cheeks.
“Not to you. Not to Lord Lucifer, perhaps. But although the members of the court must now treat me as a free man, they will always consider me a thrall. And it is that insult that Nathaniel will find hardest to swallow.”
“I don’t care,” I said, and I kissed him. “You’re mine now, and none of them will take you from me. Not Nathaniel, not Azazel, not even Lucifer.”
He smiled briefly. “My very small champion.”
“I keep telling people not to underestimate me,” I said.
“I don’t,” Gabriel replied. “Now let us go inside. Beezle is sure to be faint from hunger pangs by now.”
I laughed, and we went into the house, a house that felt a lot more like home when he was by my side.
A little after seven the five of us—J.B., Gabriel, Samiel, Beezle and me—stood in the alley where I’d found the permanent portal. I cast the magical net again to pinpoint its location.
“It’s still there,” I said triumphantly.
J.B. shook his head. “I can’t believe my mother wouldn’t have closed the portal. You told her of its presence.”
“Maybe she wasn’t able to close it. I told Gabriel there was something about this portal that seemed very permanent,” I said. “Regardless, we can get in from here a lot faster than if we drove.”
Samiel tapped my shoulder. I don’t know if this is such a good idea. Beezle said the last time you came through here there was a big, tentacled monster.
“Yeah,” I said, remembering the horrible squishy thing in the swamp. “But I killed it, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow at me. “You do not think that Amarantha will have replaced that monster with another? The portal leaves the border of her land open to attack.”
“And I suppose you all think that Amarantha will just let us drive up to the front gates like we did last time,” I retorted. “What with the price on my head and all.”
“I suppose this is the best way,” J.B. said reluctantly. “There is likely to be heightened security everywhere. My mother was paranoid even before you managed to kill two of her favorite pets.”
“Five now,” I said, remembering the spiders in the warehouse.
“I wouldn’t mention that if I were you,” J.B. said. “We want to gather information, not provoke her into trying to kill you on the spot.”
“For Maddy those two things are often intertwined,” Beezle said.
“Remind me again why you never stay home anymore?” I asked.
“Your life would be a lot more boring without me,” my gargoyle said.
We all lined up in front of the portal, Gabriel staring at me blandly when I tried to step in front of him.
“You’re not my bodyguard anymore,” I said.
“Call it the right of a husband,” he said, and disappeared inside.
And the right of a brother-in-law, Samiel added, nudging me out of the way and hopping into the portal behind Gabriel.
I looked at J.B., who appeared ready to knock me out if I tried to go before him, and sighed. “Fine, fine. Go on, be a man.”
When they had all gone through I glanced over at Beezle, who was hovering near my right shoulder.
“Do you have some deep-seated need to prove your masculinity by going into the portal ahead of me?”
“Hell, no. I might get hurt,” he said. “Put me in your pocket. I almost fell off last time we went through one of these.”
I tucked Beezle into my inside pocket. Just his horns and his eyes were visible above the lapel of my coat.
“Heigh-ho, silver!” Beezle said.
I stepped into the portal, eyes squeezed tight, and felt the familiar sensation of being squashed into a pancake while traveling at approximately eight million miles an hour. A second later I flew out at the other end, determined not to land in the swamp on my face this time.
I needn’t have worried. We weren’t in the swamp. We were in front of Amarantha’s castle.
“Well, I was right. It did take less time to get here than by car,” I said.
I touched down lightly on the ground and joined the boys, who all stared at the castle. We were not in front of the structure but rather on the opposite side of the moat that surrounded it. The drawbridge was up and everything was weirdly silent. A half-moon shone, leaving way too many shadows.
“This isn’t right,” J.B. finally said, and his voice was barely above a whisper. “This is the time of night when the court is in full swing. It’s usually like a never-ending party.”
I looked up at the catwalk on the outer wall. There were no soldiers patrolling there and no torches lit anywhere that we could see. All was dark and quiet, almost as if the castle had been abandoned.
I expelled a breath. “We’re not going to find out anything just standing here. We’ve got to go in.”
Gabriel and Samiel nodded, but J.B. just stood there, fists clenched.
“J.B.?” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.
He spoke through gritted teeth. “She is my mother. I hate her more than you can imagine, but she is still my mother.”
And you don’t want to go in there and find her dead, I thought, filling in the blanks. I squeezed his shoulder and made him look at me.
“Whatever is in there, you won’t be alone,” I said.
He nodded tightly, and we all took flight. As we soared over the outer wall and the courtyard I looked down. There were several cars in the courtyard, but they appeared abandoned. Doors were opened, and I thought I might have seen a skeletal hand hanging out of one of the windows, but I didn’t stop to investigate.
We landed a few feet before the large front door. It was ajar, and there was a dark smear on the heavy wood that could have been blood.
The whole place had the unnatural calm that followed postapocalyptic calamity. I half expected rotting zombies to come shambling out of the castle at any minute.
“Does anyone else think it’s a good idea to go home now and pretend that we never saw this?” Beezle said, his head sticking out of my jacket, and his voice seemed unnaturally loud in the extreme quiet.
I patted his horns. “Just make sure you stay in there when the inevitable freaky thing shows up.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Beezle murmured.
Gabriel conjured up a ball of nightfire. It floated above us and ahead, slipping into the crack of the open door.
He followed it silently, pushing the door open farther. The creak of the hinges sounded like an explosion, and we all paused, holding our breath, but nothing roared out of the darkness.
I fell in behind Gabriel, followed by J.B. and Samiel. We were in the receiving foyer, facing the long central hallway of the castle. The frozen knights that lined the walls stood like accusing sentries.
The ball of nightfire floated ahead of us, illuminating dust and cobwebs and the once-gleaming armor of the dead knights. There were more dark streaks on the floor, and rusty-looking splatters on the wall.
None of us spoke. I didn’t know about the others but I was too tense to talk. The air seemed full of menace, and the sensation was not unlike the feeling I had when I entered the Maze. I wondered briefly if Amarantha was dead, and if so, could the horror that lived in the Maze break free?
We passed through the hallway and all of us turned instinctively toward the throne room. No faeries bustled to and fro; no one stood at the doo
r to announce our presence. There was only a set of carved double doors, lit by nightfire and covered in blood.
J.B. pushed open the doors. I felt a little tremor of anticipation. We entered the throne room like four gunslingers looking for a fight. But again, there was no one to greet us.
Gabriel sent the nightfire dancing left and right, revealing smashed furniture and more splatters of dark red.
“Where are the bodies? What happened to everyone?” Beezle asked. He was still tucked inside my coat, his clawed hands gripping the lapel.
“A fair question, gargoyle,” rasped a harsh voice. “What has become of the court of Amarantha the Fair, she who has ruled over this place for hundreds of years?”
We all spun in the direction of the voice, and Gabriel sent the nightfire higher, made it brighter so that it illuminated the room. The ceilings were so high that even Gabriel’s light could not reach them, so we remained under an oppressive cloud of shadow.
A figure sat upon Amarantha’s throne, face covered by the hood of a dark cloak. Behind the throne, a shadow shifted, as if hiding from the light. There was a whiff of sulfur in the air.
“How dare you show your face here so boldly, spawn of Lucifer?” asked the figure.
“Why do I have to keep telling everyone I’m not the spawn of Lucifer? It’s becoming a bad running joke,” I muttered. Then, to the figure on the throne: “Who are you? Do you know what’s happened here?”
“Lucifer’s justice,” the person spat.
I looked around the room in horror. Had Lucifer punished Amarantha by slaughtering the whole court?
“He descended on this court like the god that he wishes to be, promising benevolence to those who would willingly give up the Queen.”
I glanced at Gabriel and knew that we were thinking the same thing. There had probably been a stampede for the doors when Lucifer had shown up offering mercy.
“Did…a lot of people stay?” I asked tentatively.
“They fled like rats,” the person said angrily. The voice was so strange, so harsh and low, it was difficult to tell if it was a man or a woman.
“Did anyone support the Queen?” J.B. asked.
“Prince Jonquil,” the person said. “Why were you not in court to defend the integrity of your house, to demand that Lucifer respect the sanctity of Amarantha’s kingdom?”
“The Queen sent me from her sight and bade me not return,” J.B. said tightly.
“And if she had not, would you have stood before Lucifer and defied him? You, who have allied yourself with Lucifer’s most beloved child? You, who have displayed contempt for your house and your family name?”
“What happened?” J.B. demanded.
The figure was still for a moment, and in the darkness and the quiet, I heard something shift. Something large.
“Gabriel,” I whispered, sidling closer to him. “There’s something…”
The figure stood abruptly, and again I smelled sulfur. “What happened? All those who swore loyalty to the Queen were marked for their fealty to Amarantha. They did only as they should have by staying loyal to their Queen. They should not have been punished for this. Lucifer has no dominion over these lands, whatever he may believe. He violated long-standing accords by treating another head of state as a subject of his will. The world is not his to carve up as he pleases.”
“But there were no accords between the house of Lucifer and the house of Amarantha,” I said. “The agreements between them had been broken. Amarantha invited his retribution by plotting treason against him with Focalor, and by trying to use his grandchild as a stud. And she tried to have me killed by proxy.”
“And for that, Lucifer has claimed this court of faerie, has made it an outpost of his kingdom and rendered its inhabitants…”
The person under the cloak stopped speaking. The shadow behind the throne moved a little closer to the light, and I thought I saw a glint of green and scaly skin.
“What did he do?” I asked.
There was a sudden movement, a flurry of cloth, and the figure was revealed to us.
The creature was unspeakably ugly. It was humanoid, but it was impossible to tell if it was male or female. Its skin was green and armored like an alligator’s. One large black horn protruded from the left side of its head. The right side of its face was covered in gigantic pustules that oozed slimy-looking fluid. A long, heavy, lizardlike tail dragged behind it.
And shining from that hideous face were the blazing blue eyes of Queen Amarantha the Fair.
“This is what Lucifer did to me, to those who swore loyalty to me. He stole our beauty and our magic, and made us hideous to look upon, so that anyone who dared contemplate defying Lord Lucifer would see my court as a cautionary tale, and reconsider.”
“Mother?” J.B. said. He seemed to be in a trance, approaching the thing that no longer looked like Amarantha.
“Mother,” she said, and there was a wealth of contempt in her voice. “You have never been a child of mine. You belonged to your father, always. Always duty, always Death.”
“I could not abandon the souls that needed me because you would have preferred that I played the role of a courtier,” J.B. said angrily.
“Souls!” Amarantha said with a sweep of her hand. The beautifully manicured nails had been replaced by long and ragged claws. “What are humans to faeries? Lesser beings, beings to be used when needed and then discarded.”
“Like my father,” J.B. said.
“Yes,” Amarantha replied.
“You know,” I said thoughtfully. “I think this new look suits you. It reflects what’s on the inside a whole lot better.”
“And you, Madeline Black,” Amarantha said. “Do not think that I have forgotten that this occurred because of you, Lucifer’s best beloved.”
“Why should I get blamed for this mess you’re in? Because I’m the one that caught you at it? I called you a child once, and that’s exactly what you’re acting like—a child. When are you going to grow up and take responsibility for your own actions?”
“You dare—” Amarantha began.
I moved my hand to look like lips flapping.“To defy me, to disrespect me, blah-de-blah blah. I swear, you immortals need to get a new script. You haven’t learned a thing, have you? Lucifer took your power and your court from you, and you’re still plotting against him. You’re asking to get squashed like a bug.”
Amarantha drew herself back, gave me a crafty look. “I do not know of what you speak.”
“The spiders,” J.B. said. “We found the warehouse protected by spiders.”
“What warehouse?” Amarantha asked.
“Gods above and below,” I said, losing my temper. I pulled the sword from its sheath and stalked toward Amarantha. “Do you think I’m going to stand here all day and let you play dumb with us? You’re the only one who breeds spiders like that.”
I swung the sword toward her neck, intending to threaten her. I wouldn’t actually cut her head off, no matter how much I would like to.
Someone cried, “No!” and a creature leapt from behind the throne. It looked like a mad scientist had welded the head of a snake on the body of a human and then covered it in snakeskin. I stepped back, swung the sword up to meet the new threat, but Samiel had already flown to the rescue. He crashed into the creature and they fell to the ground behind Amarantha, rolling over as Samiel punched and the creature slashed out with its claws.
A moment later Samiel had the snake-thing pinned under him. I’d yet to meet any creature that was stronger than Samiel except for Metatrion. It occurred to me that I had accidentally gathered quite a powerful collection of beings around me, and I wondered if that had added to the general perception that I was a threat.
Samiel looked up at me, questioning. I swung the sword back so that the tip was at Amarantha’s neck. She looked terrified, but it wasn’t for herself. Her eyes were pinned on Samiel and the snake-thing.
“Do not let him hurt her,” she said, and there was a pleading
in her voice that I had never heard before.
The snake-thing snapped its fangs at Samiel and he punched it in the jaw. I heard something break, and the snake let out a hideous cry.
“Don’t let him hurt her!” Amarantha screamed. “She’s all I have left.”
“Who is it?” I asked, although I had a strong suspicion already.
“Violet,” the Queen said, and a tear burned down her misshapen cheek. “She would not leave me.”
I dropped my sword to the ground. She seemed so broken, so pathetic, but we still needed information.
“I want to know where Wade is,” I said. “And what you’re doing with the souls.”
“Why should I tell you?” Amarantha said.
“If you don’t, you can stand there and watch Samiel beat Violet to death,” I said, and held the tip of the sword near her face. “And then I’ll see if I can improve upon Lucifer’s handiwork.”
J.B. and Gabriel didn’t speak behind me. I hoped that they knew I’d never follow through on the threat. It made me feel a little sick just to say it aloud. I did not have the stomach or the will for torture, but it’s the kind of thing that Amarantha would have done. Monsters are always willing to believe in the monstrosity of others.
Amarantha narrowed her eyes at me, like she was taking my measure. I raised my eyebrow at her, and nodded at Samiel, hoping it wouldn’t be necessary to do too much to convince her.
He seemed to understand what I wanted. He grabbed one of Violet’s hands and broke two of her fingers. I winced, but Amarantha didn’t see it. She had taken a step toward Samiel and Violet, eyes wide. The snake screamed and thrashed, and Amarantha fell to her knees, held her hands up in front of her.
“Stop,” she pleaded. “Please, stop.”
It gave me no pleasure to see such a once-proud creature submit in humiliation. It didn’t matter that Amarantha had tried to destroy Lucifer’s kingdom, that she had cast a spell to have me raped by Nathaniel, that she’d sent me into the Maze with every intention of me coming out in a body bag. I was sorry to be the one who had to lay her lower than she already was, and that I’d had to act like a monster to do it.
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