by Jenna Black
“Bring her closer,” Titania ordered her Knight, who yanked Elizabeth forward, practically pulling her off her feet.
Henry was still trying to play it calm, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. His facial expression might have been bland, but every muscle in his body looked coiled and tight. I didn’t need to see the gun disappear to be sure that I was right, but Titania would need the concrete proof.
The Knight shoved Elizabeth down to her knees while still keeping hold of her arm. She gave a little cry of pain, quickly stifled.
“There is no reason to be brutal with the poor child,” Arawn said, stepping forward and getting up into the Knight’s face. “She isn’t going anywhere.”
The Knight paled and let go of Elizabeth’s arm, taking a hasty step back. Even one of the Queen’s Knights knew better than to mess with the Erlking.
My stomach twisted as I realized the Erlking was already beginning his campaign to seduce Elizabeth, coming to her rescue, showing her kindness when no one else would. She was a miserable, broken creature, and even younger than me. What were the chances she could resist Arawn’s charms? He certainly had them, when he wanted to. Somehow, I was going to have to find a way to warn her of her danger.
But I was getting ahead of myself. I still had to prove she was a Faeriewalker. And once I did, Titania might turn her over to the Erlking anyway.
“This is a trick,” Henry said. “That is not truly a mortal weapon. It is merely an illusion, and Seamus has arranged this.”
I might have blurted an outraged response, except Titania’s laugh surprised me into silence. Henry’s cheeks reddened, and his eyes flashed with anger. And a hint of fear, I was sure of it.
“Seamus is a clever and subtle man,” Titania said, “but I’m sure he could have found a simpler way than this to strike at you if he wished.” She stalked closer to him, the coldness of her gaze now directed at him rather than me. “You seem strangely reluctant to see this test carried out, my son. Almost as though you already know this child is a Faeriewalker. Perhaps I begin to understand why you were so opposed to my decision to invite Seamus’s daughter to Court.”
Henry shook his head. “You cannot possibly think that of me! I am merely concerned that this is a trick.”
Titania’s smile was almost wry. “And that I am too weak-minded to see through such a trick?”
That shut him up, at least momentarily. His hand rubbed nervously over his hip, and I wondered if he had a weapon concealed somewhere in his doublet.
Titania turned to me and nodded. I took that as my cue to leave the room, so I made my way hastily to the door. I had to go around Henry to get there, and I didn’t like that one bit. He’d stopped rubbing his hip, and I saw no sign of a weapon in his hand, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one.
The only thing that kept me moving forward was the conviction that Henry didn’t dare kill me in front of all these people, especially when that would make him look guiltier than ever. I let out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding when I made it past him without incident and walked through the door out into the hall. I made a point of walking past where I’d stood when the watch disappeared, just to make it doubly obvious that the gun was still there.
“Now the child,” Titania said.
The Knight who’d dragged Elizabeth into the room cast a brief, worried look at Arawn before reaching for her again. Arawn stopped him with a forbidding glare.
“I will escort her,” Arawn said, and when Titania didn’t object, the Knight backed off.
Elizabeth still looked terrified, but Arawn bent and said something to her I couldn’t hear. She sniffled and nodded, then allowed him to help her to her feet.
“Just look at her!” Henry said, and now he sounded downright desperate. “Does she look like a half-breed? You can plainly see mortal blood in that one.” He gestured contemptuously at me. “But Elizabeth is entirely Fae. You may check for glamour if you’d like.”
“How kind of you to allow me such a privilege,” Titania said acidly. “Looks can be deceiving, and I will not rely on them to tell me whether the child is a Faeriewalker or not. Arawn, please take her out of the room.”
Arawn bowed, then put a hand lightly on Elizabeth’s back and guided her toward the door. She looked even tinier and more vulnerable next to him. She wiped tears from her face as she walked, but her cheeks were still blotchy and her eyes red and swollen. I had to fight another surge of guilt.
I forced my eyes away from Elizabeth’s pitiful figure and watched Titania instead. The Queen was facing away from the door, watching the gun. Henry was looking back and forth between her and the gun, no doubt trying to figure out how to salvage the situation.
When Titania suddenly whirled on Henry with a snarl, I knew the gun had disappeared. And then Henry did what any trapped animal would do: he attacked.
chapter twenty-two
I’d been right all along. Henry did have a concealed weapon. He must have known the moment the Knights had come for Elizabeth that he was in deep trouble.
No one had time to react. By the time I saw the glint of metal in Henry’s hand and tried to shout a warning, the gun had already fired.
A giant fist punched me in the shoulder, the impact so brutal I fell backward onto the carpet of rose petals. Elizabeth screamed, and Arawn tried to shield her with his body, but even the Erlking wasn’t fast enough to intercept a bullet. The gun boomed again, and Elizabeth’s scream turned to a shriek as blood suddenly spotted the front of her dress. Her eyes went wide with shock, and she sank to her knees.
I touched my shaking hand to my shoulder, and it came away wet with blood.
“Nobody move!” Henry yelled.
My vision swam, and I felt like the room was bucking beneath me. Maybe that was just the footsteps of the Knights and trolls as they reacted to Henry’s surprise attack. Magic filled the air, making it hard to breathe.
“Anyone casts a spell, and she’s dead!” Henry barked. I had to blink a few times to clear my vision enough to see that he’d put the gun to Titania’s head. “And trust me, I can shoot faster than you can get the Faeriewalkers out of range.”
Oh, a dispassionate voice in my head murmured. That’s why he shot us. To keep us from running away and making the gun go poof. I wondered how many other mortal weapons he had smuggled into Faerie with Elizabeth’s help.
I forced myself up into a sitting position. I thought for a minute I was going to pass out. Blood ran hotly down my chest, and my right arm didn’t want to move. I was weak and nauseous, but it didn’t hurt much at all. I’d read enough books to figure that wasn’t a good sign, but I was thankful not to have to feel it.
Elizabeth was in worse shape than me. Henry’s shot had hit me in the shoulder, but he’d hit her in the chest. She was lying on her back, spatters of her blood making the white rose petals look red. Her chest was moving with her breaths, but she was unconscious, and far too pale. Maybe Henry had intended to kill her—he only needed one of us alive and in the vicinity to keep the gun operational—or maybe he’d been aiming for her shoulder, too, and had missed. He probably didn’t have much practice with mortal weapons. Either way, I knew she was in dire trouble.
The Knights and the trolls had frozen in place with the threat to their Queen. I’d have doubted Henry would shoot his own mother, except he’d obviously had no compunction about shooting his daughter.
Arawn spared a withering look for the Knights who had brought Elizabeth to Titania’s room. “You didn’t think to check him for mortal weapons before you brought him into the Queen’s presence with a suspected Faeriewalker at his side and a charge of treason looming over his head?” He shook his head in disgust, then turned to Henry.
“You are aware she is not my Queen,” Arawn said to Henry. He spoke in a normal tone of voice, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.
“And therefore this is none of your business,” Henry responded. “I’m sure you and my mother have some agreem
ents you’d prefer not to lose, so you would prefer not to see the throne change hands. I suggest you stay out of the way.”
Arawn shrugged. “Very well. But you’ve gone through a great deal of trouble to make sure you have a Faeriewalker at your disposal. I assure you, your daughter would make a more tractable servant than Dana, so please allow me to heal the child’s injury before she expires.”
I crawled over to Elizabeth and took her hand in mine. I didn’t know if she could feel it, but after giving her up as I had, I had to give her whatever comfort I could. Her eyelashes fluttered briefly at my touch, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“You may heal her,” Henry said, “but make no attempt to move her or the other Faeriewalker.”
Arawn nodded, then moved slowly to Elizabeth’s other side, keeping a wary eye on Henry as he did so. Not that Henry’s gun could do him any damage, but perhaps he actually cared what happened to Titania. He had been in her bed, after all.
“Now, Mother,” Henry said, “we must put this unfortunate misunderstanding behind us. To that end, you will accept a geis not to harm me nor cause any other person to harm me. We will then peacefully go our separate ways.”
Arawn looked at me across Elizabeth’s body, as he put his hand over the bloody wound.
“You have to kill him, Dana,” he murmured, his voice so soft I almost didn’t hear him over the thudding of my heart.
I blinked stupidly at him, my mind feeling all blurry as the first hints of pain worked their way into my consciousness. “Huh?”
“You’re the only one who can,” Arawn continued, not looking at me anymore. He was trying hard to make sure Henry didn’t realize he was talking to me. “The Sidhe are hard to kill, remember? The Knights would need multiple spells to destroy him, and he will kill Titania as soon as the first is released. You need only one.”
Elizabeth made a soft, whimpering sound, and I squeezed her hand harder. I’d seen the Erlking heal a bullet wound before, and it hadn’t looked like much fun for the healee.
He was joking, right?
“Do you agree to my geis?” Henry asked the queen.
Titania stood tall and proud, her expression devoid of anything resembling human emotion. Her son had betrayed her and was even now threatening her life, but she looked neither hurt nor scared nor angry. I’d seen statues that conveyed more emotion than the Faerie Queen did right now.
“If she agrees,” Arawn continued, “he’ll get away with it. With almost killing Elaine, with framing you, with abusing his child and then shooting her.”
The pain in my shoulder had become a steady throb, but I thought it wasn’t bleeding quite so much anymore. Elizabeth’s back arched, and her hand nearly crushed mine as a cry tore from her throat. With a shudder, she went limp, and the Erlking moved his hand away from the wound, holding a squashed bullet between his fingers.
I shivered, suddenly cold. I hoped that meant I was chilled by the Erlking’s suggestion, not that I was in the process of bleeding out.
“It is agreed,” Titania said. I knew that wasn’t good, but my head was foggy enough that for a moment, I forgot why.
“Dana!” Arawn said in an urgent hiss. “You haven’t much time.”
I blinked, swaying and wondering if it would be okay if I lay down. “You kill him,” I mumbled. “You’re not part of her Court, so you’re not covered by the agreement.”
“But I would need Titania’s permission to kill him, and the geis will not allow her to give it to me.”
Oh. That sucked.
“Guess he’s getting away with it,” I said, because there was no way I was going to kill someone in cold blood. Even assuming I was able to gather enough magic to cast my spell before I passed out.
There was already plenty of magic in the air, though thanks to the gun at Titania’s head, no one dared unleash it, but I felt a surge as she accepted the geis Henry forced on her.
I thought it was all over now, that Henry would lower the gun and leave the building and then I could allow myself to collapse. But he wasn’t finished. The gun was still at the Queen’s head.
“I am going to leave the palace now,” he said. “And I’m taking the Faeriewalkers with me. Both of them. Agree that you will make no attempt to stop me.”
Uh-oh. That couldn’t be good. Not for me, and not for Elizabeth.
“Do it now,” the Erlking urged me. “If you leave the palace with him, you will be in no shape to defend yourself later.”
“I’m in no shape to defend myself now,” I said. At least, I think that’s what I said. My words were slurring, my vision swimming
Arawn reached over and grabbed my shoulder, his hand coming down right over the bullet wound. And suddenly, I had no trouble whatsoever feeling the pain.
I couldn’t suppress a scream.
“Take your hands off my property!” Henry shouted, and Arawn sat back on his heels and wiped his hands on his pants.
“I was merely removing the bullet,” he said mildly.
“Don’t touch her again. She is mine.”
“Or at least will be, if Her Majesty agrees to your terms,” the Erlking corrected, and I knew his words were directed more at me than at Henry.
My wounded shoulder was still throbbing, but my head was a little clearer, and I no longer thought I would pass out any moment.
“Help me,” Elizabeth said, and I realized I was still holding her hand. She was conscious, but that was about the best I could say about her condition. Her cheeks were almost as pale as the rose petals. And there was a glassy look in her eyes, like she was on the verge of shock. “Don’t let him take me again. Please. I’d rather die.”
She couldn’t have understood exactly what the Erlking was asking me to do. There were only a handful of people who knew I could do magic at all, and only the Erlking and Ethan knew about my deadly spell. But she did understand that I somehow had the power to kill Henry, and she desperately wanted me to do it.
The terror on Elizabeth’s face was more than I could bear.
There was a roaring sound in my ears, so loud I couldn’t hear whatever Henry and Titania said next. I could, however, feel the swell of magic, and I knew that Titania had agreed to let Henry take both me and Elizabeth. Henry lowered the gun, a self-satisfied smile on his face. Then he strode through the doorway, between the two furious-looking trolls, and headed toward us.
If it had been just myself I was defending, I probably would have hesitated, maybe long enough to make self-defense impossible. But through our clasped hands, I could feel Elizabeth trembling as she cowered on the floor, curled almost into fetal position. And I knew I couldn’t let Henry take her. Not again.
The roaring in my ears drowned out the sound, but I felt the vibration in my head as I started to hum under my breath. The air was already thick with magic. It didn’t appear as if the Knights had lowered their guard one iota, despite knowing they couldn’t hurt Henry. The magic prickled over my skin and made breathing hard, and I wasn’t sure whether it was responding to my call, or if it was just a residual effect of all the Knights’ magic.
I watched Henry approach as I continued to hum. I couldn’t be sure the magic was paying attention to me, and that was probably a good thing. As long as I couldn’t tell where the magic was coming from, no one else could, either, and they couldn’t stop me.
Henry met my glare with a spark of gloating malice. He’d disliked me before he’d even met me, just because I was my father’s daughter. And now he thought he was getting to hurt me and my father by making me his helpless prisoner.
I waited until he was only a couple of steps away before I released my shrill high note, sending the magic at him in a barely controlled rush.
The magic slammed into Henry’s chest, lifting him off his feet. His eyes widened in shock and fear, and he let out a shriek as the magic propelled him away from me, back through the door into Titania’s room. He almost bowled into Titania herself, but she sidestepped neatly and avoided his flailing arms
as he tried to grab on to her. He was flying straight for the far wall, but just before he slammed into it, there was a strange popping sound, and Henry just … disappeared.
His empty clothes fell to the floor.
chapter twenty-three
The hall fell completely silent, everyone staring in shock and confusion at the pile of clothes that had once been Prince Henry. Everyone except Arawn, of course, who wasn’t surprised by what had happened and was stroking Elizabeth’s hair as she quietly cried.
Titania, still showing no emotion, walked slowly toward Henry’s clothes. When she reached them, she gave them a little nudge with her foot, as if she wasn’t sure that Henry wasn’t still there. Then she knelt beside them and ran her hand over the rich velvet fabric, the gesture almost tender, like she was brushing the hair out of a child’s face.
I sat very still on the floor, hugging myself and tucking my hands under my arms to hide their trembling.
I’d just killed a person. No, Henry’s wasn’t the first death I was at least partially responsible for. I had used my terrible spell against Aunt Grace, but it wasn’t my spell that killed her, at least not directly. And though I’d hated her, I hadn’t actually been trying to kill her. But I’d known Henry would die when I cast my spell on him. I was a murderer.
“Killing someone in self-defense is not a crime,” Arawn said, his voice seeming to echo through the hall. I didn’t know if he was talking to me, or to Titania. Maybe both.
Titania rose to her feet slowly, moving like an old lady. Her expression was still tightly controlled, but I got the feeling she was holding on to that control by a thread. I also got the feeling it would be bad news for everyone around her if she lost that control. There was a palpable tension in the air, and it wasn’t just because of the shock of Henry’s death. Her eyes locked on me, and the ancient power in her gaze held me trapped as she stepped away from Henry’s body—well, Henry’s clothes—and came toward me.
My instinct for self-preservation suggested I start humming again, but I resisted the urge. Threatening the Queen didn’t seem like such a hot idea after I’d just killed her son. I’m sure she’d been plenty mad at him after what he’d done, but I knew from experience that it was hard to stop loving family, even when they screwed up.