by Lynn Wahl
What felt like only a few minutes later, I was being hauled out of the tub by my hair. It was dark, the tiny alcove lit with torches. Lavender was darting through the air and shaking her fist. Her shrill cries carried over the sound of the water and made me wince. Whoever was holding me by my hair dropped me in an ungraceful heap on the wet cobblestones around the pool.
“Take her to the cells. If she tries to escape, break her legs. Queen Lavender, you must return to your people. You are not allowed contact with the prisoner.”
From under the curtain of my dripping hair, I saw Lavender’s shocked face as she looked at me before zooming off into the night.
A pair of hands grabbed me under my arms and yanked me to my feet. I tried to pull my arms free to cover myself, but the guards tightened their grip. Standing, I could see the Prince flipping through the pages of my tablet. He looked sickened by what he saw.
He looked up and seeing me watching, shoved the picture of Jake’s wolf in my face.
“You come pretending to be a healer, yet you create these abominations.”
The fae holding me tightened his grip as I tried to pull away from him. I shook my head. “No, those aren’t mine. They’re Jake’s. My friend who was captured.”
The Prince clenched his jaw. “Only what you’ve done for my mother keeps you alive right now. You will be detained until we can determine if you are indeed the one responsible for the metal monstrosity my men saw this evening in the forest. If you are not, you will be set free and the terms of the Queen’s original deal will still apply.”
I tried to swallow past the lump of fear in my throat. “And if you think I did it?”
“You will die.” The Prince nodded at the guards holding my arm.
Before I could argue, they were pulling me down a dark hallway of twigs and branches. When I stumbled, they didn’t wait for me to get back on my feet, and I was dragged the rest of the way. I didn’t resist when they pushed me to my hands and knees and gestured into a small hole in the bramble wall.
“In,” the guard behind me said.
I crawled forward, trying not to think of my bare behind wiggling in the guard’s face. Tears of humiliation dripped down my cheeks, and I was glad for the dark when he said a word in a language I didn’t understand and the branches grew over the opening.
I sat there, knees pulled up to my chest, until the darkness gave way to a shadowed gloom. It was morning. No one came to talk to me or see me. I could hear talking and some sort of commotion off in the distance, but the area around my small cell was empty. Finally, unable to bear not moving any longer, I crept forward and stuck a finger in the space between two vines.
When the vines contracted around my finger, nearly cutting off the circulation, I pulled my hand back with a cry of frustration.
“Hello?” I said. The word disappeared into the silence without even the trace of an echo. No one answered.
“Please,” I tried again. “I haven’t done anything. Those drawings aren’t mine! I found them in the power station. Ask William. I didn’t have them before we went there. Please. Someone? Anyone?”
My voice sounded pitiful. I gritted my teeth against the more frantic cries and pleas that wanted to spill out. There wasn’t anyone out there anyway. I slid back to the ground, curled up with my face towards the front of the cell, careful not to touch the walls, and fell asleep.
***
“Paige? Are you in there?”
The voice startled me out of sleep. It was William.
“Yes, I’m here,” I said. “Why haven’t you gotten me out?” I asked. “You know I’m innocent.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Are you?” he asked.
I sat there, stunned. “What are you talking about? I’ve been with you since the Captain captured me. You would have seen me building some sort of machine. I can’t believe this.” My voice rose as I spoke until I was nearly screaming.
“Shhh,” he said. “They don’t know I’m out here.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “They threatened to kill me. I think that’s a little more important than you getting into trouble.”
I scooted closer then flinched back when I saw his eye peering through a gap in the vine. I felt the blush rush down my cheeks and across my chest and pulled my legs back up to hide my nakedness.
“Stop looking!” I said.
“You don’t have any clothes.” He sounded confused.
“No, they took me out of the bath and threw me in here.”
His eye disappeared for a second and then came back. “Hold on. I’ll be back.”
“William, wait,” I cried, but he was already gone. The sound of his footsteps faded.
He was only gone for a few minutes before he came back with a guard. William was carrying my clothes and pushed them through the door the guard opened.
“Here,” he said. “It’s all I can do right now.”
He was gone again before I could thank him. My clothes were still dirty, but it was better than being naked. Fully dressed, I lay down again and closed my eyes. Before I could fall asleep, the door opened again and I was ordered out.
“Where are we going?” I asked. I looked at the guard. It was the same one from last night. His skin was purple with green stripes.
He pushed me along with the butt of his spear without answering me. When we stepped back into the main courtyard where the Queen and a large group of fae were waiting, my knees went weak.
“What is this?” I asked.
The guard smirked at me. “It’s your trial.” He left me standing in the center of the space, exposed and shaking.
“Do you know why you’re here, girl?” the Queen asked. Her voice drifted over the courtyard and the gathered fae.
“I’m innocent,” I said. The other words I planned to say dried up in my mouth as I faced the sea of strange faces.
“So you say. This tablet claims otherwise. Come forward.”
I walked a few steps forward, my feet dragging on the cobblestones. I looked at the tablet the Queen was holding up and shook my head. “The only things I drew in there are Lavender and the picture of you …um…your Highness.” I had no idea how to address the Queen. I’m pretty sure they told me not to talk unless asked anyway, so it probably didn’t matter.
The Queen stared back at me, her eyes cold and without emotion. Her beauty was like a sharp knife, all hard edges and sharp lines. “How do you intend to prove it, girl?” she asked.
I scrambled around in my brain, trying to form a coherent reply. “I, um, well, I didn’t have the tablet before the power station.”
The Queen raised her hand for me to stop and looked over to the side of the courtyard. William and Jasmine stepped forward, not looking at me. “Is what she claims true, William?” The Queen asked.
He darted a look at me and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure where she would have hidden it in her clothes.”
The Queen looked at Jasmine. “And you?”
Jasmine didn’t look over at me. “I too don’t see how she could have hidden the tablet in the clothes we provided her. When she arrived, she was wearing a dress. She wasn’t carrying anything.”
The Queen nodded. “Paige. Come closer.”
I swallowed hard and took a few steps closer to the throne. The crowd of fae parted until I stood directly in front of the Queen.
“I do not believe that this tablet is yours,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. I gave a great sigh of relief, a smile blooming on my lips, but then she continued.
“That does not mean that no one must answer for the atrocities committed on my people by these creatures.” She opened the tablet to the picture of the wolf. Surrounded by the fae and their elegant beauty, the drawings looked cold and utilitarian, inhuman. The Queen threw the tablet at my feet.
“We have decided that you shall be the one to avenge us, girl. The artist of these drawings must be stopped, and yet he is a prisoner of the Captain. We cannot step foot
on his ship and he hounds us through our forests with these monsters. We need an advocate.”
I shook my head. First William, now the fae. I wasn’t going to fight anyone.
The Queen smiled. “Yes, Paige. But since this is your friend, we understand you may be reluctant to do what must be done. Therefore, we will enact a spell of justice to ensure your compliance. Come closer.”
I stepped back almost involuntarily. A spell. They wanted to put a spell on me to kill my best friend.
“No,” I said. “I won’t do it.”
The Queen cocked her head to the side. “You would rather die in his stead as punishment for his crimes?”
The fae gathered around murmured and whispered, the noise rising until it sounded like a strong wind through a forest of trees in the fall.
I looked at them and then over at William and Jasmine. They both looked bored. “I’d rather no one die at all,” I said. “He’s my best friend.”
“That is not one of your choices. Step forward or you will be forced.”
When I didn’t move, I felt the tip of a spear poke into my back. I winced and stumbled forward.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” I said as the Queen reached for my head. She touched my face and with a few muttered words, pulled back.
“It is done.”
I blinked a few times, wondering if it had worked. Angry at being forced into something and at how cold and callous they all were about it, I stepped back. “So what? When I see Jake I’ll try to kill him? And if I don’t?”
The Queen shrugged. “Your friend must be stopped. However you accomplish that will satisfy the demands of the spell.”
“So if I manage to rescue him and go home, that will work too?”
“It is not likely, but yes. That will also work, and I did promise that I would help you rescue him.” She looked out at her people as the murmurs rose to angry shouts. She raised her hand to quiet them and looked back at me. “Although I cannot vouch for his safety on the island if he stays. Your friend has fae blood on his hands.”
“He was forced,” I said. But thinking back to all the metal wolves and animals he’d drawn over the last few years, I didn’t really know if he was and the Queen could see it on my face.
“We’ll see,” she said. “You are dismissed. Nuada will take you back to William and his group.”
I looked over to where William had been standing, but he was gone. Only the hostile stares of the fae met my gaze. I cringed away from them, not wanting to follow any of the fae anywhere. Lavender’s return startled me out of my fear. She gibbered something in her high-pitched voice and patted my face.
Despite myself, I smiled. “I’m fine,” I said and followed after Nuada. But I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t sure if I ever would be again.
Twelve: Paige
The Prince took me to a different side of the palace where I found William and his ragtag warrior band waiting. The Prince gestured to the kids.
“William has agreed to help us recover Jake. He claims he had a deal with you that he must fulfill.”
I blinked in surprise at that and then shook my head. “I don’t think I want his help,” I said. I shot a nasty look at Jasmine when the other girl went for her sword. I thought of William leaving me in the power station and not stepping forward to help at the trial until he was asked. “All William’s ever done since I’ve met him is put me in danger. Knowing him, he’ll leave me stranded somewhere else that’ll get me killed.”
The Prince looked at me and then nodded and gestured William’s group off to the side. Cashraina appeared and herded the children, with William in the middle, towards another room.
When they were gone, Nuada sighed. “It is not wise to alienate William, Healer. The Queen is very fond of him and our little cousins are devoted to him. He can be of great help to us.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“It is good that you don’t trust him. He’s been with us for a very long time and doesn’t remember things very well. His lack of memory takes his compassion and fear from him. He is capricious because he doesn’t know any other way to be. To blame him for it is like blaming the spiders for their voracious appetites. It is not fair, nor honorable.”
The Prince’s voice was so full of censure I thought I’d feel guilt, but all I felt was a rising irritation. “Well, that still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t trust him. I’d rather have the spiders on our side. William will get Jake killed.”
“From what I know of your friend and what he’s done here on our island, his death would be a good thing for the fae.”
I felt the pain of that but pushed it away. “You promised me you’d help rescue him,” I said.
Nuada smiled again. “Yes. My mother promised you we’d help you rescue your friend. We did not promise that he would be rescued alive or stay that way once we’ve gotten him away from the Captain. The spell placed on you will ensure there are no mistakes.”
I bit my lip, fighting back tears at his harsh words. “Great. That’s just great. William can barely remember his own name, you’re just out to kill my friend, and now I have a spell on me that’s going to make me kill my best friend. I hate this place.”
By time I got all of it out, I was crying in rage. When I let off, Lavender began screaming at Nuada with so much energy her little purple face actually began to turn blue.
If either of our rants had any effect on the Prince, he didn’t show it. When Cashraina came back to see what all the commotion was about, she took one look at me and rushed forward.
“My Prince, what have you done? We owe our Queen’s health to Paige’s generous efforts. She is an honored guest and innocent of her friend’s crimes.”
Nuada bowed from the waist. “Healer, I am sorry to have upset you, but the deal with my mother did not include the safety of your friend. I will not pretend that it did. As William has already told you, once someone has been influenced by the Captain, the only freedom from the spell is death. I am putting my men at great risk with this task.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not what William said at all. Jake’s going to be stuck like this forever?”
“Sometimes when you separate the victim from the spell the effects will fade with time. But your friend will try everything he can to get back to his master. It is a dangerous situation, especially with your friend’s unique talents. I cannot promise anything.”
“And if I promise to heal your men if they are injured?”
Nuada looked shocked at my offer, but shrugged. “Any healing would be appreciated, but I still cannot give you my word that your friend can be rescued alive.”
“It sounds like you’re not even going to try to keep him alive. If that’s true, I don’t want your help either.”
Jasmine’s voice came from the alcove, and when I turned to look, I saw Pyro standing with her.
“Refusing their help and William’s is childish. The fae cannot board the Captain’s ship, and William can’t carry your friend to safety by himself. What do you think you can do by yourself? You don’t even know where your friend is. Not that I care, but if you go off by yourself, you’ll die.”
I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at the other girl, or better yet, flip her off, but I resisted. Jasmine was right, however much I wished she wasn’t. I’d just have to figure out a way to make sure that the rescue mission for Jake didn’t turn into a campaign to murder him instead.
“Fine. What’s the plan?”
Nuada looked at Jasmine and then called William out from the other room. I expected some sort of look of remorse or guilt, but his face carried the same expressionless mask it always did.
“I will fly to the Captain’s ship, locate your friend, and fly him back to the fae where they will be waiting. They will ensure his safe return to here.” William looked smug and confident, as if this would be an easy task, no more difficult than swatting a fly.
I shook my head. “How do I know you won’t do something stupid, like drop him
in the ocean? How do I know you just won’t kill him when you find him?”
Confusion flickered through William’s eyes and he shook his head. “That would not be the honorable thing to do. I will not harm your friend unless it is necessary. You have my word.”
I looked at Nuada and then at Cashraina where she stood with a small, sad smile on her face. Very slightly, almost imperceptibly, the turquoise and crimson fae shook her head. I wondered what Cashraina knew about William that made her so certain of William’s untrustworthiness, but then, thinking of William’s actions so far, didn’t think it was that hard to figure out.
I sucked in a deep breath and hoped that Jasmine didn’t have a projectile weapon handy. I looked at William, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but knowing I had to say something now or I probably never would.
“I don’t trust you. You say what you mean right now, at this moment, but when you find my friend, you might forget what you’ve promised, do what you want, and then feel no guilt for it because you don’t remember that you’ve done something wrong. No. I will go with you, and if you hurt Jake, I’ll kill you.” I threatened death because everyone else always said it. It seemed the thing to do in this world, and I figured I’d give it a shot.
As it turned out, Jasmine didn’t need a projectile weapon and apparently wasn’t impressed with my false courage. She was past Nuada before anyone could stop her, sword was at my throat. The steel was icy cold and sharp enough that I didn’t feel the shallow cut until the warm blood started trickling down my neck.
Lavender exploded into shrill screeching and flew towards Jasmine’s face. The girl held her hand up to ward off the fairy.
“Stop,” she cried, “or I’ll run her through!”
Lavender fell back, still shrieking. Nuada and William didn’t move. Pyro stood off to the side frowning.