To Catch a Queen

by Shanna Swendson

  “How would you prove that the queen is an impostor?” Eamon asked.

  “Couldn’t you back me up? You’ve met the real queen, and you know she wouldn’t do this.”

  “They would have no reason to believe me,” he said, and there was a mournfulness in his voice that struck her. She’d noticed that he didn’t participate in any of the fairy courts and knew he was considered among the free fae, but he didn’t fit in with this crowd. Was he an outcast among his own people? She made a mental note to find a way to bring that up in some less fraught time.

  Athena sat watching the camp for a while, then said, “If they know where to find this queen, and if we could convince them to take us there, all we’d need is to find Sophie and bring her there to show who the real queen is.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” her sister asked.

  “Singing and dancing work as currency, right?” Emily said. “I can start earning their trust that way, get them all singing some stirring songs, and soon we should have our army.” In her head, she imagined the camp full of fairies marching around to “Do You Hear the People Sing?” but she knew that was likely just a fantasy. It couldn’t possibly be that easy, but it was the only plan she could think of at the moment. It didn’t seem like it would hurt to try, at any rate. Her only other option was waiting in this camp until someone else decided to do something.

  She stood and headed toward the center of the camp. When Eamon joined her, she felt a surge of optimism. The music was wildest there, and she listened for a while before easing her way into the group of dancers. She was a professional in her world, and she’d learned a thing or two on her last visit to the Realm, so she hoped she’d do well enough to catch their attention.

  She was really surprised when Eamon joined her. His stuffy professorial appearance gave the impression that he wouldn’t be into dancing, but he was fae, after all, and that seemed to put music and dance in his blood.

  Soon, the two of them were spinning madly in the center of a circle as a group of fae clapped in rhythm. As though reading each other’s minds, the two of them came gradually to a halt, and then Emily raised her voice in song, belting like she was trying to hit the upper balcony.

  Eighteen

  Elsewhere in the Realm

  Meanwhile

  Michael hadn’t seen much of the Realm on his last visit, but he didn’t think it had been this empty. Was it the particular area or was something else was going on?

  “Is it always like this?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Empty. Deserted.”

  “Not that I’ve ever seen. But the market is in progress, and there’s a big holiday for the fae coming up, so there might be some kind of revels.”

  “So they’re not all in hiding from the terrifying new queen? The fake one, I mean.”

  He thought he detected a trace of a smile before she answered. “I suppose that’s also a possibility. Let’s head for the trees over there.” She pointed toward what looked like the edge of a wooded area. “I usually find small gatherings among the trees. They don’t tend to like wide, open spaces. And we may as well let Beau off his leash. They don’t have leash laws here, and I doubt he’ll stray too far from us.”

  “You’re sure he won’t just lie down and refuse to go with us if we don’t drag him?”

  “Trust me. I have an idea.”

  “You think he’ll bloodhound some fairies for us?”

  “Something like that. Maybe.”

  They walked in silence for a few more minutes, Beau ambling just a few feet ahead of them. The silence reached a point where it became uncomfortable, so Michael said, “We haven’t talked in a while. How are things with you?”

  She turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Really, you want to catch up now?”

  “Why not? What else are we going to do while wandering aimlessly through fairyland? Or do you need to meditate?”

  “Things are great with me,” she said with obviously forced cheer. “My grandmother’s getting worse and I may be forced to kill my mother if she doesn’t get off my back and stop treating me like a teenager. My sister seems to be under a weird thrall to the Realm. And I’m going to have to make some big decisions soon about what I really owe to other people and what I can do with what may be my last chance to live my own life. And how are you? Probably just about as peachy as I am, huh?”

  He winced and felt bad about nagging her about Jen. She had a lot going on without his problems. “Yeah, I see your point. On the bright side, I’m back at work and have two good arms again.”

  “You’re better?” she asked sincerely.

  “Not really one-hundred percent yet, but I count as ‘well.’ I need to rebuild some strength and stamina, but I’m functional now. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

  “That’s good.”

  “As for you being overwhelmed, well, if we succeed today, that’ll be one less thing for you to worry about.”

  She turned on him. “No ifs. Don’t even start thinking that way. I can understand bracing yourself for failure, but I need you to believe wholeheartedly, to want to succeed with every fiber of your being.”

  Taken aback, he raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry. I mean when. When we succeed. Is that better? And I do want to.”

  “I know,” she replied softly, not quite looking directly at him.

  Beau trotted ahead when they reached the edge of the woods, like he’d caught the scent of something. “This looks promising,” Michael remarked.

  A moment later, Beau returned to them, a squirming figure in his mouth. “Beau, no!” Sophie cried out. She pointed at the dog and firmly said, “Sit!” Kneeling beside Beau, she gently cradled the figure in her hands while saying, “Let go, Beau.”

  One of the small creatures that dwelt in the undergrowth of the forest sat in her palm. It was as close to the kinds of fairies seen in storybook illustrations as anything Michael had yet seen in the Realm, with clothes made of flowers, but it was hideously ugly. “My lady, I owe you my life,” the fairy said, sketching an awkward bow. “Whatever I can do for you, I will. I will slay dragons for you.”

  Visibly fighting back a smile, Sophie said, “That won’t be necessary, but I could use directions to Fiontan and Niamh’s court.”

  “I have never been there myself, but it lies over the river, in the valley between the great peaks.” He pointed beyond them, where the tops of two mountains were visible over the trees.

  Sophie placed the fairy gently onto the ground. “Be well,” she said. It bowed once more, and after a wary glance at Beau it scampered off into the underbrush. Once it was gone, she gave Beau a scratch behind his ears. “Good boy,” she crooned.

  “Did you train him to do that?” Michael asked.

  She looked up at him and grinned. “You spend a lot more time with him than I do.”

  “I’ve never managed to get him to fetch anything for me. It’s usually the other way around.”

  “I think he just has a sense for these things. Supposedly, animals’ instincts are better than humans because they don’t know what they’re not supposed to be sensing. They just take it as it comes. Beau seems to be particularly good at it, though.”

  He stared off at the distant mountains. “I guess we have to walk to those mountains.”

  “Not now that we know where we’re going. We’ll need Beau’s leash again.” He held it out for her, and she pulled the hook down to clip it onto the dog’s collar. She stood, brushing off her skirt, and held her hand out to him. “I know a shortcut.”

  He took her hand and waited to see what happened. When she closed her eyes, he did so, as well. She squeezed his hand to signal him, and he strode forward with her. He had the strange feeling of moving a great distance with a single step. He took a moment to be sure he was standing firmly before opening his eyes to find that they were practically at the foot of the mountains that had been so distant a mere moment ago.

  “Wow, that’s
handy,” he said with a low whistle. “Now what?”

  “Now we need to find more detailed directions. Or else we can wander until we stumble upon their court. From what I’ve seen of these fairies, we can look for the kind of castle where you might expect to find Dracula.”

  “Appropriate for Halloween. Too bad we forgot our costumes.”

  “I can take care of the costumes. And I will, when we get there.”

  “Costumes?” he asked, alarmed, as they began walking, normally this time.

  “You have to fit in. Haven’t you ever wanted to play Lord of the Rings?”

  “When I was in junior high, maybe.”

  “Don’t worry. It’ll just be glamour.”

  “No tights, though.”

  “Don’t worry, no one you know will see you.”

  He didn’t find that reassuring, but he had a feeling she was messing with him, so he didn’t rise to the bait. When they’d walked a while longer, he thought he heard a rustling in the vegetation nearby. “Do you hear something?” he asked softly.

  She turned around to scan the surrounding trees. “Maybe.”

  “There’s no wind.”

  “No.”

  “Do we get ready for a fight?”

  “Well, we kind of want to run into someone,” she reminded him.

  “Good point.”

  “But keep your guard up.”

  Beau growled, which didn’t help his nerves. Something was out there, and he had no way of knowing how friendly it was or could be persuaded to be. If they were lucky, Fiontan and Niamh’s sentries had caught them and would take them to their court. When being captured was a best-case scenario, it was hard to know just how vigorously to defend themselves.

  Michael’s hand instinctively went to the gun on his hip as the rustling sounds in the nearby trees grew stronger. “Show yourselves,” Sophie called out.

  About a dozen fae who looked like something out of a Robin Hood movie stepped out of the shelter of the trees. Every one of them was armed, most with bows and arrows, a few with swords. Michael wasn’t sure he and Sophie could fend them off, even with Sophie’s magical abilities.

  “Humans!” one of the fairies said. “You have saved us some effort. We were going to cross into the other world, but you have come to us.” He gestured with his sword and two of his people went to Michael and Sophie, binding their wrists with ropes.

  Michael glanced at Sophie, silently asking if she was going to do anything. She gave him a reassuring nod as the fairies prodded them forward. The fact that Beau wasn’t putting up a fight made him feel better. Maybe this wasn’t a total disaster. She probably had a plan. He sure hoped so.

  Nineteen

  The Fairy Camp

  Soon Afterward

  It turned out that rousing theater songs were just as effective with fairies as they were with audiences in the real world. There was something about these songs that stirred the heart, and soon the fairies were marching around, shaking their fists or waving scarves over their heads. When Emily was sure that they were one upturned wagon away from building a barricade, she climbed onto a bench and shouted, “Why are we letting them make us live like this?”

  The singing died away as the fairies turned to look at her. She felt momentarily self-conscious, but plunged ahead, playing the character of fiery revolutionary to the hilt. “No true queen of the fae would treat her people like this,” she said. “Why should she be allowed to exile us? Has any queen before treated us this way?” She didn’t know the truth, but she figured the enchantresses would have known something, since their traditional role was maintaining a balance against the fae and their rulers.

  A few of the fae shook their fists, and that began to rally some of the others. Emily felt a surge of encouragement. “Do you want to live like this forever, herded into hidden camps? You are the free fae! You should be running unbound, you should be with the ones you love.” To emphasize this point, she reached down to pull Eamon up onto the bench with her and kissed him thoroughly. She suspected she’d have better luck if they thought she was just another human in love with a fairy than if they knew she was here for the purpose of stirring up trouble.

  If she had a little fun along the way, well, that was a bonus. Kissing Eamon was like nothing else she’d experienced. His lips were cool and dry rather than warm and moist, but something about the cool sent tingles through her body. It was like making out with someone who’d just brushed his teeth with extra-minty toothpaste.

  Eamon didn’t seem at all shocked by her actions. Either he’d figured out what she was up to or he was enjoying himself. Possibly both. When Emily made herself surface for air, she noticed that there was also a kiss-a-thon happening in the audience. She hadn’t realized how many humans there might be in the Realm. On her last visit, the humans she’d seen had been captives or slaves. Even if the captives had gone native and adjusted to their new lives, they hadn’t given the impression that they were truly where they wanted to be.

  But these people seemed to be there voluntarily. They’d found love among the fae and didn’t appear to mind the fact that they couldn’t leave. She’d spent so much time trying to get back home that she’d never considered anyone might want to stay. She supposed it depended on what they had waiting for them at home—or, more likely, what they didn’t have.

  “We must stop this!” she shouted, raising her fist in the air. “We must be free!”

  “What foolishness is this?” a voice cried from within the crowd.

  “The only foolishness I see is the free people of the Realm hiding in the woods,” she said.

  A fae woman with her arm around the waist of a human man stepped forward. “What can we do against our queen? At least here we’re safe. If we act, we could all be exiled, and not all of us would survive that.” She wore what looked like a Victorian party dress, and Emily realized with a shudder what would likely happen the moment this woman left the Realm.

  “But it isn’t your queen who’s doing this. That’s the problem,” Emily said.

  “This is the truth,” Eamon added, speaking up for the first time. Emily turned to him in surprise and saw that he’d removed many of the human factors of his glamour. Now he shone silver, and she was reminded that he really was an alien being. “I have met the true queen. I served as a scribe to the last true queen. This is no queen, no royal order.”

  “If we can get rid of the impostor, we’ll be safe, I promise,” Emily said. “I can’t tell you why or how I know this, but I do. We’ll be okay. We just have to make a stand and stop it.”

  Hundreds of skeptical eyes faced her, and she was unsure what else she could do. She appreciated the risk they took in listening to her, but she didn’t know a way to prove that what she said was true.

  Then she got an idea. “I had a love, then she was lost,” she began singing. It was the song that had won the kingdom for Sophie, the song that contained the information needed to enter the palace and win the throne, passed down for centuries by the last queen to her human descendants.

  There must have been something in the song that they recognized as truth, even if they’d never heard it before. She finished the song and let it ring in the ensuing silence before saying, “You see, I know. I was there when the new queen was crowned.”

  “What do you propose we do?” someone in the crowd asked.

  “First, we need to find the impostor. Does anyone know where she’s holding court?” No one spoke up. “Who would know?”

  “The ones carrying out her orders might,” another fairy suggested.

  “Okay, the guards, right. They should be easy enough to find.”

  There was a titter of uncomfortable laughter in the crowd, and someone called out, “Yes, but they don’t take their prisoners there. They exile their prisoners.”

  “But maybe they’d lead us to the impostor if we took them prisoner.” Emily thought for a moment, putting together the pieces of a plan. “We’ll serve as bait, an obvious couple tainted
by outside influences. We’ll need some fighters lurking to grab the guards when they come for us, and then we can get them to take us to the queen. Once we know the situation, we can decide how to proceed and send a message to the rest of you. That way, we’re not putting the whole group at risk. Do I have any volunteers for the raiding party?”

  Emily held her breath, afraid there would be none, but several hands went up. She couldn’t help but grin in relief. “Awesome!” Turning to Eamon, she said, “What do you say we go get ourselves captured again?”

  Twenty

  The Mountains

  A Little Later

  As she and Michael were marched deeper into the mountainside forest, Sophie had to wonder if perhaps they should have put up a fight. She could tell by the worried glances Michael kept throwing at her that he was wondering the same thing. Beau was the only member of their party who was perfectly content with the status quo. He trotted happily along on his leash. If he hadn’t wanted to go with these fairies, they’d have had to drag him.

  She studied their captors and found that she had to agree with Beau. Aside from the weapons and the ropes, they didn’t seem all that menacing. They’d made no threats, had caused no harm. Their attention was more focused on their surroundings than on watching their captives for potential escape attempts. Sophie imagined that she could easily unleash her powers on them later if she needed to, but for the time being she preferred to remain incognito.

  They reached a cabin that blended so well into the landscape that it looked like it had grown rather than being built. In the Realm, that was a distinct possibility. Two of the fae entered first, then the others gestured for Sophie and Michael to enter. Michael had to duck to get through the doorway.

  It took a moment for Sophie’s eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside, and then she saw that this modest cabin was like Eamon’s hut, which had a vast library inside. They were in the great hall of a manor house. Light came from torches set into the walls and from a massive fireplace at the end of the hall.