“The mortal boy had a secret,” I explained. “That was all right. I had a secret too. I thought, who better to protect my privacy than someone who was trying so hard to hide his own demons? That is something I learned from you, dear mother: seek out a person with commonality, and use it to your advantage.”
She smiled, but it was short-lived.
“When he offered to take me home, I accepted,” I said, and that smile slipped from her face like a stain that had been wiped away. “He lived above his parents’ garage, which afforded us a certain level of … freedom.”
She closed her eyes, to block out the horror of my words. To block out the glowing light. I realized, then, that the Seelie Queen must’ve been holding back some of her light. If she’d come at us with the full force of her brightness, we’d never have mistaken her for the distant sun.
The element of surprise would be ruined.
Now she was rising beyond the halfway point of the hill. I had minutes—minutes!—until she reached the summit. I’d have to forgo the creative version of my story and go for the final blow. Well, three blows, in succession.
First: “I’d been there a day when I allowed him to hold my hand.”
My mother’s eyes snapped open, and rage flashed across her face. “You lie.”
“Oh, my darling mother,” I said, rising so that she would stand as well. “By the time I am finished with my story, you will wish I had the ability to lie.”
She stood, not disappointing me, as the Bright Queen’s light spilled over the base of the hill. I could see the top of her head, all those leaves and flowers, a crown befitting a nature queen. My mother wore thorns and animal bones in her hair, amongst blossoms of poppies.
“By the second week, we were lying in bed together, and when he trailed his fingers across my skin, I didn’t push him away.” I flashed a wicked smile, startling her with the strength of my conviction. “I welcomed it.”
“No,” she whispered, eyes filled with horror. “No, they’ve done something to you. It’s happened before, when faeries lingered in the wasteland … ”
“God, mother, you’re rambling. If only you could hear yourself—”
“God? God? Do you hear yourself?” She reached for me then, and whether she wanted to cradle me to her chest or snap my neck, I did not know. “Oh, love, they’ve corrupted you.”
“No.” I shook my head, pushing away the word love. She didn’t mean it. Couldn’t mean it. “I wanted him to corrupt me. Do you know what I mean? Corrupt?” I stepped forward, forcing her back to the edge of the drop-off.
That was my mistake. Any sane person would’ve turned around to see how close she was to the edge. But my mother was not sane.
She looked at me with anguished eyes. “No, she cannot do this to me. She cannot take you, as she took—”
“Mother. You’re ruining my story,” I snapped, barely able to follow her line of thinking. Who was “she”? The Seelie Queen?
Just as I thought it, I saw her face. She rose like the wicked sun—no, like the natural sun, I reminded myself, a sun that is necessary—behind my mother, the night. For a moment, darkness eclipsed the light. And my mother was buried deep in the depths of her despair, unable to witness her own undoing. Unable to witness anything but the daughter who’d betrayed her.
I wielded my final blow. “By my third week in the mortal world, we’d become entangled, body and spirit, and I was wrapping myself around him, wondering how it would feel to—”
“Stop,” she commanded, and the forest trembled at her fury. Icicles fell around her, shattering on the ground. “Please, I cannot suffer it. Not again. I’m trying to save you. But I can’t, unless … ” She reached out, clutching at my arms. Practically clawing me in her desperation. “Tell me he trapped you, please. Tell me he tied you down.”
“You see, Mother, that is the problem with people like you. You’d rather I be tortured than love him willingly. Rather I be raped than lie with him of my own free will. Do you know how sick that is? Do you know what that does to a girl who is growing up in this world, desperately trying to love her own body? And her heart? Her desires. My life could’ve been a wonderful thing … ”
She looked at me, uncomprehending.
I stepped closer, my own darkness swirling to meet my mother’s. But those strands didn’t intertwine this time. They were strangers, like we were strangers. We’d never understand each other again. “And I feel sorry for you,” I said, subtly slicing a nail across my wrist. Skin parted, and three drops of blood fell to the earth. “Everything I went through taught me to trust my warm, bleeding heart over your hateful one. Everything I cast aside made me surer of my love. So thank you, mother, for forbidding me to love a mortal boy. Don’t you know teenage girls always rebel against their mommies?”
My mother gasped and stumbled against the trunk of the pine tree. The Seelie Queen rose up behind her then, a phoenix rising from the Dark Court’s ashes. My heart was thundering, my mouth dry from all this confessing, all this fear, and I could barely breathe as she chanted the binding spell under her breath, calling on the branches to do her bidding.
“Thank you, Elora,” the Bright Queen said as the branches reached out for my mother.
The Dark Lady shrieked, turning in horror, but it was too late. Those branches gripped hold of her like hands. The tree itself opened up, the trunk parting to draw her into its darkness.
A proper binding for a Dark Queen.
“You’ve weakened her quite nicely,” the Bright Queen said as my mother screamed. It was hard to watch, this great Unseelie creature taken down by blood and branches. I had to remind myself of the spectacle she’d made of Brad. Had to remind myself it could’ve been Taylor.
My resolve strengthened.
The branches clawed at her, but my mother clawed back. I feared she’d break free. The Bright Queen draped an arm around me, a taunting gesture that my mother didn’t miss. “Why don’t you finish the job?” she asked me.
For a moment, I was confused. Was there a new part of the binding I was supposed to perform? The blood had been spilled, the spell had been chanted. Then I realized my part was what it had always been.
Weaken her, the Bright Queen had whispered when we’d first planned our coup. Make her feel the crushing weight of betrayal.
Well, I could do that. “Oh, mother dear,” I cooed, stepping close enough that she could almost grab me. “You’ll find this quite interesting. Lyndiria?”
“Yes, sweet?” the Seelie Queen said.
“How does my true love fare? The boy I fell for in the mortal world?”
“A little worse for wear, but healing quickly.”
“Good.” I smiled, and warmth rushed through my chest. “You see, Mother, the boy you killed was not my lover. That was a trick. I fooled you.”
My mother struggled against her bonds, snapping one of the branches. Roots leapt up from the earth and wrapped around her.
“I’m going to see him soon,” I said.
“No. No,” she begged as roots wove into her hair, yanking her into the darkness.
“I’ll give him a kiss for you, okay? But everything after that … ” I flashed her my wickedest smile as the trunk began to close. “That’ll be for me.”
My mother’s face caved in. It looked as if a great, ominous mountain was collapsing under its own weight. A moon crumbling to dust. She howled, and tears sprang to her eyes.
Tears! On the Unseelie Queen!
I didn’t understand it. But it didn’t matter, because the pine swallowed her whole. It cut off her howl and left us in silence. It closed around her, trapping her inside.
“Now only blood will free her,” the Seelie Queen said.
“The blood of someone who loves her,” I murmured.
“Enough to cover the ground at her feet. But after the battle is won … ”
“Let us go, then,” I said softly, tearing my eyes away from the tree. My mother’s cage. My mother’s grave? “The revolution is about to begin.”
“Yes.” The Bright Queen turned to me and smiled. “It is.” Her lips were so dark, she could’ve been suckling on blood herself. And she knelt beside the tree, scooping a handful of dirt from the ground. Dirt speckled with my mother’s blood.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Finishing what I started,” she said. And she trickled that dirt over my feet, chanting under her breath.
I turned to run, but I wasn’t fast enough. The branches of the smaller pine were already reaching for me. “You tricked me!” I cried, as sharp claws curled into my hair and wrenched my head back.
“There’s a lot of that going around.” The Seelie Queen grinned. She had a madness in her eyes, as if goblins were feasting on her mind. “Sweet dreams, princess,” she said, yanking the crown from my head.
Then the forest swallowed me alive.
35
TayloR
I expected to wake up in a cage. I expected, at least, to wake up in the Seelie Court under the Queen’s watchful gaze, but I didn’t. I woke up several yards from where I’d fallen asleep, with my friends right beside me.
Well, two of my friends. Keegan was missing.
I tried to stand. I tried to sit up and shake off the most psycho of all psycho dreams, and that’s when it hit me.
The pain, I mean. The realization came more slowly.
First, the agony. It started at my spine, and went shooting through my back like spindly webs. I pushed myself to my elbows, heaving with the weight of it, and fell back onto my stomach. It was all I could do not to throw up.
“Oh, God,” Kylie said.
My eyes fluttered open for about two seconds before they closed again. They were heavy. Everything was heavy, and I was sinking into the ground.
“Here, drink this,” said Alexia’s voice. Of course, knowing the faeries and the way they used glamour, it could’ve been anybody. Kylie might not’ve been Kylie. I might not’ve been me.
Oh, crap. This was not the time to be having an existential crisis. But still. Who could I trust, under the circumstances?
“What is it?” I managed, as Alexia held what looked like an acorn cap to my lips. I shook my head, spilling some of the liquid. “No. Did she give it to you? I don’t want it.”
“She didn’t,” Alexia said, and this time I was able to glimpse her eyes. Barely, but they looked like hers. That was the thing about glamour, the thing I’d realized too late. There was something about the look in a person’s eyes that was hard to replicate. Maybe because of that whole window-to-the-soul-thing. Or maybe because a person’s eyes showed flashes of their personality. Either way, this was Alexia.
I was sure of it. But I still wasn’t drinking the Kool-Aid. “No way,” I said, turning my head. “I’m not drinking anything the Bright Queen—”
“I told you, she didn’t give it to us. They did.”
I lifted my head, and, for the first time, I noticed the figures lingering in the darkness. The dark faeries. I started to crawl away. But I couldn’t move very fast because of the weight pressing down on me.
The wings.
Oh, God. I have wings. The Bright Queen gave me wings. She held me down, shoved a needle into my skin, and …
“Stop,” Alexia said, which was a relief. I was barely moving anyway, and every movement was agony. Better to just lie here and play possum. “They helped us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The Bright Queen wanted to take us, but they flooded the clearing, refusing to let us go. Drink.”
I eyed the acorn cap suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Your medicine.”
I gave her a look.
A faerie ducked out of the shadows, his body as black as the darkness itself. All I could see were his horns and his red, glowing eyes. “It isn’t as potent as the Bright Lady’s light, but it will dull the pain for a few hours.”
That’s all I need, I thought, taking the cup. The cap. The cap-cup.
Get a grip.
“Will it make me sluggish?” I asked.
The faerie shook his head. “The effects are purely physical. Your mind will be fully intact.”
“Good.” I tipped back my head, swallowing the juice. It was sweet, and it burned my esophagus. It was a miracle it didn’t come right back up.
“Let’s go then.” I tried to push myself to my feet. I tried, and failed, just like before. “Third time’s a charm, right?”
This time, when I pushed, I felt like parasites were crawling out of my back. Like alien creatures had laid eggs in my body, and now they were hatching and breaking free. Really, it was just the wings hanging down on each side.
Still, I made it to my knees.
“Success,” I joked, and almost threw up.
“It takes a few minutes to kick in,” the faerie said, eying me with suspicion.
Whatever, I thought. They all look at me like that. And I’ve got places to be.
One. Two. Three. I pushed into a crouch and just sat there, shuddering. “You know, just for the record, this is really uncool,” I said, speaking to no one in particular. Maybe to the universe. “And really unfair.”
“Why did she do that to you?” Kylie asked. At any other time, the thought of a human gaining wings might’ve made her smile, but here, she looked horrified. That’s the thing about reality. It’s so much uglier than fantasy.
Most of the time.
I reached for a branch above my head, and pulled myself to my feet. “Mother f—”
“Taylor?” Kylie pressed. She was looking at my back like she might be sick. Well, that made two of us.
“She didn’t want me to fight in the revolution,” I said. “But she wouldn’t flat-out forbid it, because then she’d be like the dark faeries. No offense,” I added, glancing up at the faeries who lingered in the shadows. Unlike their royal masters, they seemed uninterested in controlling us.
Of course, that’s what I’d thought about Maya de Lyre, and look where that had gotten me. Look where it had gotten Brad.
I swallowed, leaning against a tree for support. “She sewed the wings into my back because she thought it would keep me from fighting. Like it would’ve kept Elora from fighting if she’d tried to get her wings back.”
“Was that actually a possibility?” Kylie asked.
I nodded, breathing heavily. I felt like a dog on a hot summer day, except, you know, a dog that’s been kicked around a lot. Maybe run over by a car. “Elora wanted to fight. But if she had her wings sewn into her, she would’ve had to rest.”
“Like you need to rest,” Alexia said. Kylie was just staring at me with those big brown eyes.
“Where’s Keegan?” I asked.
“He went with the Queen. To safety,” Kylie added. “She promised not to trap him.”
“And you didn’t go?”
“We wanted to stay with you.”
“We wanted to fight,” Alexia said. “I mean, we told you we would. That’s what the past few weeks have been building toward.”
“And Keegan didn’t want to?”
“I guess he got scared,” Kylie said. But she didn’t look convinced, and a chill went through me.
“We’ve got to get up there.” I gestured toward the mountain and looked to the faerie with horns. “Will you help us?”
The faerie stepped closer, making tiny steps. He was a great beast of a thing, but he was scared of me. “Yesterday, I would have laughed at such a request. But in the past few hours, I have seen things I never thought I would see.”
“Yeah?”
He nodde
d, dipping his horned head. “I saw mortals offer themselves up to the Dark Lady so that the princess could return home. A false offering, yes, but clever, very clever.” He chuckled. “And watching you outsmart the Dark Lady as she sought to humiliate you … such a sight.”
“I didn’t outsmart her, though. She forced Elora to choose one of us, and Brad got killed because of it.”
“Yes, him and not you. Him and not the princess. You protected her. You all did.” He paused, looking conflicted. “I did not believe the stories about what happened in the graveyard. Did not believe you defended her out of goodness—”
“You thought we wanted something from her?” I said, and I was sick with anger. Sick with pain. Just sick. “A prize? A pot of gold? Is that what you thought?”
“That is what we know of humans. Not only from the Dark Lady’s stories, but from what we have seen. Many of us have lived very long … ” He trailed off, looking into the darkness. “We have seen the worst of this world.”
“And last night? When you watched the Dark Lady string us up and tear one of us to pieces? Does that rank in the top ten?”
He frowned, and I thought he was going to shake his head. “I have seen mortals do that a thousand times over,” he said. “Seen it done to children. Seen women torn apart in ways … ” Again, he trailed off, and this time, I didn’t push him. Instead, I pushed myself. I took one step, then two. I could walk.
It was a start.
“Will you help us?” I asked.
“You watched your friend get torn apart, and still, you would face them?”
“Yes.”
“For love of the princess?”
“Yes. And because I want to do what’s right. I know you don’t understand that, coming from a human, but I don’t care. We don’t have to understand each other. We both want the same thing, and that’s enough.”
“Then we will help you,” he said. “But you’re in no condition—”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Fine. We can provide you with the proper attire. But it would be best if you were stationed in the trees surrounding the battle. Acting as—”
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