To Catch a Queen

by Shanna Swendson

  Fortunately, there were enough people around and there was enough noise that Michael didn’t seem to have heard her squealing. He was so fixed on whatever he was after that it apparently hadn’t occurred to him that anyone he knew might be there.

  She joined the others heading down the stairs into the market. Then, through a gap in the crowd, she saw strawberry-blond curls floating gracefully, barely moving, as though the person wearing them was gliding. “Oh crap, Sophie?” she muttered. It was going to be a challenge keeping a safe distance from four people.

  A band was playing a lively jig that made her toes tap, and she wanted more than anything to join the dancing, but she wasn’t here for fun. Maybe when all this was over, she could come to a market on her own time.

  She couldn’t resist reaching out to touch the silk floating from one booth. It slid through her fingers like cool liquid. The next booth sold a spicy drink, and she could detect the spices from where she stood—cinnamon, cloves, and something utterly alien. Her mouth watered, but she reminded herself that it was risky. She didn’t know if the usual Realm rules applied to this place, so she didn’t want to take the chance.

  A familiar silvery head on the next aisle made her smile, and she glanced around to make sure none of the people she knew were watching her before she ran to greet Eamon. “I was hoping you’d be here,” she said, hugging him.

  “I am somewhat surprised that you are,” he replied, not releasing her after belatedly returning her hug.

  “I thought I’d do some research into the impostor. But the enchantresses, my sister, and Michael are also here. It’s a party.”

  “Have you found anything useful?”

  “I just got here. You?”

  He glanced around. “This market seems small. There must be activity elsewhere.”

  “This is small?”

  “For this market at this time.”

  “What else might be happening?”

  “Whatever it was, I was not invited.” He frowned at her. “Are you sure it is wise for you to be here?”

  “Oh, you mean the bonds and potential hostage thing? All better. Check me out and see for yourself.”

  He studied her for a moment, his eyes widening. “That does seem to be the case,” he said.

  “You mean you didn’t do it? I woke up this way after you left.”

  “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Maybe they realized I was too well-guarded to take this time.”

  “Perhaps. But I am still concerned about the impostor queen.”

  She hooked her arm through his elbow. “Let’s do some investigating, then.”

  Twelve

  Bethesda Terrace

  12:15 a.m.

  Sophie’s first instinct was to flee. She even tensed her muscles, preparing to spring forward, but she felt Beau’s leash against her ankles. If she tried to run, she’d only do an ignominious face-plant, and Michael was already too close for her to make a clean escape. “Traitor,” she muttered to the bulldog before she plastered a smile onto her face and turned to Michael.

  Then she completely forgot any witty comeback she might have had prepared because he looked really, really nice. Emily was right, he did look much healthier than he had the last time she saw him. She hadn’t realized just how ill he’d been then until she saw the contrast with the way he looked now. He was fair-skinned, but there was a big difference between the gray pallor he’d had before and the light pink of tonight. He still had lean features, but he was much less gaunt than before, and his clothes fit him far better, like he’d gone back to the weight he’d been when he bought them. Under a classic khaki trench coat he wore dark jeans and a sweater that looked touchably soft in exactly the same mossy green color as his eyes. Snap out of it, Sophie, she told herself sternly.

  She noticed that he was holding a diaphanous shawl that had to be of fae manufacture. What did he want with that? She doubted he was doing some early Christmas shopping at the fairy market. Pulling her wits about her, she quirked an eyebrow and said, “That’s a lovely shawl. The color really brings out your eyes.”

  Her remark threw him off balance enough that instead of saying whatever he was confronting her about, he glanced quizzically at the shawl, as though he’d forgotten all about it. He shoved it into his messenger bag.

  While he was momentarily discomfited, she took advantage of the opportunity to put him on the defensive. “What brings you here tonight?” She mentally kicked herself for asking a stupid question. She, of all people, should know what he was doing. She was mostly surprised that he’d known to be here. She’d made sure he couldn’t follow her to the market this time by staying away from anywhere he might be. Then she made the mistake of remembering the last time, when she’d hauled him home, nearly unconscious, and held him through the night until he recovered from the shock and pain. If her thoughts showed on her face, this could get awkward.

  “You know what I’m doing here,” he said, closing the gap between them. The crowd was too dense for her to back away and maintain a comfortable distance.

  “Not really,” she shot back. “At least, I don’t know what you think you’ll accomplish. You weren’t going to do something foolish like try to get into the Realm and get to Jen, were you?”

  His expression told her she’d struck home, but he looked defiant rather than guilty. “And what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Don’t you think I should be brought into the loop on that, seeing as how it affects me directly?”

  “I’ve got it under control,” she insisted, glancing around for an escape route. He was awfully close now, close enough that the green in his dark eyes was so vivid that it drew her hypnotically, and that was dangerous.

  “Care to share some details? Like a status report so I know what you’ve been doing? And then I can tell you what I’ve found, which is pertinent, which you’d have known if you’d been willing to talk to me.”

  He sounded truly angry, and his eyes flashed with fury. She understood why he was angry, but she couldn’t tell him why she’d been avoiding him. That would only make matters ten times worse. She could just imagine his reaction to hearing that she hadn’t been telling him what she was doing to return his lost wife because she was afraid she was falling in love with him and even more afraid that she could make him fall in love with her, which would ruin all chances of saving his wife, and she had to avoid him for both their sakes. “I’m sorry,” she said simply, not bothering to make excuses. “What do you have to tell me?”

  He deflated a bit, as though he’d been prepared for her to fight back and didn’t know quite how to deal with a calm response. Reaching out to take her arm, he said, “Let’s talk. There’s got to be someplace quieter around here.”

  She allowed herself to close her eyes and enjoy the sensation of him holding her arm as he led her away from the center of the market. Then she gave herself a mental kick and opened her eyes to see that he was leading her around the fountain to the edge of the lake, where there was a low wall. There were still people here, and naiads in the lake itself, chatting with people leaning over the wall, but there was far less hustle and bustle. She settled herself on the seat built into the wall, arranging her skirt just for an excuse to distract herself. The setting was a little too magical and romantic to share with an unobtainable man she found irresistible. Beau flopped down, leaning heavily against both their legs.

  She was surprised to see that Michael, too, seemed to need to gather his thoughts. He glanced around and took a couple of deep breaths, as though he was trying to decide where to start. Finally, he just plunged ahead. “Okay, so like I told you in the many messages I’ve left for you, people are being cast out of the Realm, supposedly under orders of the queen, which I figure you’re not doing.”

  “Of course not. I do plan to try to return any captives who want to get home, once I figure out a way to do that. But just kicking them out is awful.”

 
; “Well, I’ve been out looking, in case Jen is one of those who gets kicked out. She’d need all the help she can get, I figure.”

  Sophie shuddered at the thought. She hadn’t even considered that possibility. “That’s a good idea,” she admitted. “I take it you didn’t find her.”

  He shook his head. “No, not yet, and I’ve had help looking.” He swallowed, like he was preparing himself to admit something that he was still struggling with. “It seems my experiences have changed me a bit. It’s not just the clover that lets me see things. They keep saying I’ve been touched.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, catching herself before asking why he hadn’t said anything. For all she knew, he’d been trying to tell her for the last couple of months. “That must be … interesting for you.” His clover would have let him see the major things when they were right around him, but once he’d been elf shot and had spent time in the Realm, a whole new world would have become visible to him.

  “That means I’ve met people,” he continued. “There’s a woman out in the park I would have said was a bag lady if I’d seen her a couple of months ago. Now, though …” He shrugged and shook his head. “She claims to be a wise woman, someone with fairy knowledge. She was helping the outcasts.”

  She couldn’t hold back her gasp of surprise, and without realizing what she was doing, she reached over and clutched his hand. “That’s what I’m here looking for. I think I’ve been looking in the wrong places for help. The fairies don’t know how to undo a connection to the Realm because it’s not something that affects them. We need to talk to the people on the outside who work with fairies. I didn’t know wise women still existed.”

  “Apparently, they do.” He seemed to be a little uncomfortable with this admission, not quite meeting her eyes, so she suspected there was more to it than he was telling her at the moment. Then she realized she was holding his hand and released her grip, but it turned out that he was holding on to her, so she couldn’t pull away without jerking her hand out of his. She resolved not to enjoy it. He squeezed even tighter and leaned toward her. “She told me how to free Jen. I know how to save her. That’s why I’m here. Sophie, it has to be me. I’ll need your help, but you can’t do it without me.”

  She wanted to smack herself on the forehead. “Of course! Redeeming someone always takes love. Why didn’t I think of that? I’m sorry. I should have realized sooner.” He’d relaxed enough that she was able to ease her hand out of his grasp. She didn’t feel comfortable discussing his love for his missing wife while holding hands with him. Her equilibrium returned the moment she was no longer touching him. Feeling a lot steadier, she said, “I don’t suppose she told you specifically how?”

  “Apparently, the task or trial arises when it’s time, but she had some ideas for how it should go.” He gestured toward the corner of shawl peeking out of his bag. “I might have to buy her freedom, and she thought that trading things of value until I had something her captor values might come up. So, I got a start on that. Though I don’t know if it will work, since it doesn’t seem like she has a captor now, with Maeve out of power.”

  “Maybe it’s not so much a ransom as it is a gift for Jen. Think of it as wooing her all over again. You did it once before.”

  “Yeah, but the last time I wasn’t competing with the fairy world. She was a struggling actress and I was a guy with a steady job.”

  Oh, he was so much more than that, but she didn’t think this was the time to give him a flattering ego boost. “I’m sure that’s not the only reason she married you.”

  He stared at her so intently that she felt her skin prickling under his glare. “So, now what do we do?”

  She knew he wouldn’t accept “I don’t know” for an answer, but she didn’t know, and she didn’t know what to do about it. For once in her life, she was utterly without a plan or an answer, and all her newfound power was useless. “We go with your plan. We get you into the Realm and see if you can free Jen.” Funny, it sounded like her voice, but it wasn’t the sort of thing she’d imagined she would say. In fact, it went against her every instinct.

  No, actually, it had been her instinct speaking. What it went against was the part of her that resisted instinct, that tried to be rational about everything, even the things that weren’t at all rational. She was magical in multiple ways, human and fae. Maybe she should listen to her instinct.

  As surprised as she was about her decision, he looked even more shocked. “Seriously?” he asked, an eyebrow arched skeptically. “You’re not just messing with me?”

  “It’s all I’ve got right now. Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind.”

  He was already on his feet and tugging at her hand. “Not at all. Let’s go.”

  She let him pull her to her feet. Beau grunted and shifted position as he lost his backrest.

  A shout from the other side of the market caught their attention, and they turned to see a wave of oddly dressed fairies swarming down the stairs into the market. Sophie was used to the wild fae, but these looked like cartoon images of savages, wearing necklaces of bones. “Oh no, not these guys,” Michael said with a groan. Sophie turned back to look at him. “I ran into them the other night. They’re bad news.”

  The invaders proceeded to demonstrate that by running wildly through the market, upending booths and knocking people over. As they ran, they sang something that sounded like “Again, again, the Wild Hunt rides again.”

  “This is the Hunt?” Sophie asked, speaking mostly to herself. “It’s a night early. And I thought it would be more impressive.”

  “I think these are fans of the Hunt,” Michael said, not taking his eyes off the invaders.

  Sophie hated being the fairy queen, and she normally preferred to let the Realm rule itself, but she couldn’t stand by and allow it to descend into anarchy. She started to head for the fray, but Michael caught her arm and held her back with an iron grip. “These are my people. I have to do something,” she protested.

  “They’re just schoolyard bullies. You can help more by getting your Realm under control.”

  Soon, it didn’t matter that he was holding her back because the savages were running toward them. “My impostor must be getting rid of her rival,” Sophie suggested, instinctively throwing up a magical barrier to hide and shield them.

  “It might be me they’re after,” Michael said. At their feet, Beau growled.

  “What did you do to piss them off?”

  “It involved some nastiness with iron nails.”

  “Nice.” Though she was torn about running from a fight, Sophie made a decision. “Let’s get out of here. I need earth to open a gateway.”

  She ran along the lake, dragging him with her by the grip he kept on her arm. The melee at the market was so loud, she couldn’t tell for certain if they were being pursued, but she felt it safest to act as though they were.

  She shivered at the sense of altered reality as they passed the marketplace boundaries and returned to the ordinary world. If Michael had encountered the savages in the park before, she didn’t think the boundary would hold them, so she kept running. As soon as they reached a reasonably sized patch of earth, she pulled Michael off the path.

  “Now what?” Michael asked.

  “I open a gateway.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I’m the queen. I have the keys to the Realm.”

  With a thought, she opened the gateway. She could feel it, but she could tell from his expression that he didn’t realize anything had happened. “Okay, now I’d better have some physical contact to get you through.” She held her hand out to him, and he took it.

  “What about Beau?”

  “I don’t actually know how it applies to animals, but he leash seems to work.”

  “Maybe you’d better take him, just in case.” He passed the leash handle over to her.

  “Shall we?” she asked when they were all settled.

  He gave a determined nod, then hesitated. “We’re not
stepping into something scary, are we?” His free hand went to the holster on his hip.

  “Scarier than what’s after us?”

  He nodded, swallowed, and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

  She stepped forward, with him following a split second later. They came out into the twilight world of the Realm, facing the vine-covered wall of what used to be a palace.

  “Oh no, not again,” Sophie groaned.

  Thirteen

  The Marketplace

  1:00 a.m.

  Eamon pulled Emily into a sheltered space between two booths at the first sound of angry shouts. “What’s happening?” she asked, straining against his grasp to try to see.

  “I know these fae. It’s best to keep out of their way. They are very bad news.”

  Both of them winced at the crashing sound when the intruders flipped over a nearby booth. “Don’t they have security here?” Emily asked.

  “There is a truce in effect at the market. Security should not be necessary.”

  “Yeah, well, obviously it is.”

  They had to dart from their hiding place and run with the crowd fleeing the violent gang when the chaos drew closer to them. Emily looked around for her sister. Next to Sophie was probably the safest place to be in just about any fight. But she didn’t see any sign of Sophie. She did spot Amelia nearby and grabbed Eamon’s arm to lead him in that direction. The enchantresses might be the next best thing to Sophie.

  Athena was with her sister in an odd island of calm. She reached out a hand and drew Emily and Eamon into their charmed circle. “What is this?” Amelia demanded of Eamon.

  “They come from the Borderlands. They are not welcome in the Realm itself. But I have never seen them do anything this bold. They usually only prey on the helpless who have no other recourse.”

  “And what are you doing here, Emily?” Amelia asked, sounding like a stern teacher scolding a naughty pupil.