by Jenna Black
* * *
When I awoke, it was pitch-dark out. My body yearned for more sleep, and it took a massive effort of will to force my eyes open and push myself into a sitting position. I didn’t seem to have moved a muscle the whole time I was asleep, and I was so stiff and sore I felt like my bones would break if I moved too fast.
A glance at my watch told me it was ten o’clock at night. I’d slept almost seven hours! And I desperately wanted to sleep for about seven more, but I didn’t know how much time my friends had. The sooner I reached the palace and proved my innocence, the sooner they could be set free, and the less chance they’d get hurt.
I picked my way carefully through the darkened woods. We’d been on the run for about forty-eight hours before the search party had caught us, but we’d been fighting our way through the woods, and I was sure I’d make faster progress on the road. I guesstimated that I’d make it to the Sunne Palace sometime tomorrow afternoon, if I kept pushing myself relentlessly.
I pricked myself with the brooch as soon as I caught sight of the road, then resumed my slow, plodding pace of this afternoon. I hoped it was a pace I could keep up indefinitely. I wanted to make it to the palace before I had to stop to rest again, because my gut told me I was running out of time.
I walked in a trancelike daze until my watch reminded me it was time to prick myself again. I was beginning to feel like a pincushion, and was heartily sick of poking myself with the damn pin.
I’d been staring blindly at my feet as I walked, but when I stopped to fish the brooch out of my pocket, I raised my head. And froze with the tips of my fingers just touching the edge of the brooch.
In my daze, I hadn’t even noticed when I’d left the wild forest behind and crossed into the almost-town near the palace. I must have passed by the side road leading to the standing stones without even seeing it. For all our seemingly endless wandering, and for all the help the Green Lady had given us, apparently we’d gotten less than a day’s easy travel from the palace. Probably the only reason we hadn’t been caught sooner was that the searchers thought we would be more competent and be farther away.
I shook off my chagrin and once more poked myself with the pin. Maybe it was a bit embarrassing to see how sucky a job we’d done at running away, but it certainly wasn’t a bad thing that I’d be able to reach the palace tonight instead of tomorrow. I wanted this whole hellish ordeal over with.
A little more than an hour later, I was walking through the gates of the palace, the hairs on the back of my neck lifting as I passed between a pair of grim-looking sentries. All well and good to say I wanted this over with, but I was scared to death of what would happen when I confronted the Queen. I found my argument about why I couldn’t be the mad bomber very convincing, but how could I know if she would find it convincing? Especially when it was her own son who was really responsible. I wondered if maybe I should leave that part out. What I had to do was prove I wasn’t to blame, not point the finger at the guilty party. I sure as hell didn’t want Henry to get away with it, but if that was the best way to get my friends and my father released, then that was what I’d do.
It didn’t help that the palace looked like the Bastille, the Tower of London, and Alcatraz all rolled into one from the outside. I’d thought the place looked intimidating when I was coming as a guest, but it was about three times worse now.
Ready to do whatever it took, I snuck into the palace and began searching for the Queen.
* * *
There was one problem with my grand plan. Well, more than one, really, but one that slapped me upside the head within about ten minutes of beginning my search.
I had never met Titania, and I had no idea what she looked like, except that she probably bore some resemblance to both Henry and Elaine. That wasn’t a whole lot to go on, and there were tons of people in the palace. Some of them were obviously Knights and servants, but there were plenty of others who could be guests or family or the Faerie Queen herself.
All of the women were ridiculously beautiful, because that came with being Fae. And all wore gowns that made them look like actresses in a costume drama. Some gowns were showier than others, and some women wore more jewels, but I didn’t spot anyone wearing a crown or carrying a scepter or doing anything else particularly queenly. My stomach did a flip-flop when it occurred to me that Titania might not even be in residence. Maybe she decided to leave the palace after the bombing, fearing for her safety.
But no, if the Queen weren’t around here somewhere, I doubted there would be so much activity in the palace, especially not at this time of night. Maybe that was another dose of wishful thinking, but I clung to it for all I was worth, because it was my only hope.
One bright spot in my nerve-racking search was that I found Princess Elaine, alive and relatively well. There was an angry red scar on her face, and a haunted expression in her eyes, but I let out a breath of relief to discover the bomb hadn’t killed her.
My relief dampened a bit when I realized that though she was in a room with about ten other glittering gems of Sidhe society, she was sitting alone on the edge of a chaise, and no one was looking at her, much less talking to her. Almost like she was as invisible as I was. I bit my lip as I approached her and looked at the scar. There must have been some pure iron in the bomb, because that was the only thing I knew of that could permanently scar a Sidhe’s skin when there was a healer available. She should have been either dead or good as new, and I suspected from her obvious misery that she’d have preferred one or the other.
Seeing the princess made me hate Henry just that much more. He hadn’t cared what happened to her or any of the other innocent bystanders in the room, just as long as he could destroy the Faeriewalker who wasn’t under his thumb.
Finding the princess was a pleasant surprise, despite her condition. I had a much less pleasant surprise when I rounded a corner and almost bumped into Connor. He and another of the silent Huntsmen were walking briskly down the hall, apparently on some errand or another.
Neither my brother nor the other Huntsman saw me, and they probably wouldn’t have felt me even if I really had collided with them, but dread settled in my stomach at the sight of them. If the Huntsmen were in the palace, that meant the Erlking was, too. And he’d told me when he’d given me the brooch that, while it would work on his Huntsmen, it would not work on him. Which meant if he and I crossed paths, I was toast.
* * *
I thought my nerves were driving me crazy before I found out the Erlking was in the palace. Now, I jumped at every sound, my heart pounding in my throat as I wondered if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life coming here.
It was too late now. I was here, and I wasn’t leaving until I tracked down Titania and gave her my side of the argument. Or until the Erlking found me and I became the only female member of the Wild Hunt.
I’d been searching the palace for what felt like twelve hours, though my watch insisted it was less than one, when I found a hidden wing. I wish I could say I’d cleverly deduced that the palace wasn’t the same size on the inside as the out, but really I just got lucky. (Imagine that!)
While I was walking down a corridor I was ninety-nine percent sure I’d walked down at least twice before, I saw a Knight walk through a wall at the very end of the hall. Even my long rest this afternoon hadn’t been enough to cure my exhaustion, and I wondered if I was now seeing things. I figured I’d better go check it out. After all, I was invisible, so no one would see me make an idiot of myself trying to walk through a stone wall.
I approached the wall cautiously, trying to sense any magic that might linger around it and reveal an illusion spell, but I supposed an illusion spell that left a magical signature would be pretty useless in Faerie. I didn’t sense any magic around the wall, but when I reached out to touch it, my fingers passed through. Cool! Titania had to be back here somewhere, because I could swear I’d searched every other square inch of the palace. (This assuming she hadn’t been one of the hundreds of uni
dentified women I’d seen in my wanderings. It was always possible she wasn’t as pompous as Henry and didn’t parade around in clothing that set her apart.) But this wing was hidden for some reason, and security seemed as good a reason as any.
Taking a deep breath, hoping the hidden doorway wasn’t booby-trapped, I closed my eyes and stepped through the wall.
Despite my fingers having gone through, I couldn’t help tensing up as though I was about to walk into something solid. I held my breath, then let it out slowly when I finished my step and hadn’t smacked into anything. I opened my eyes, and my heart leapt with hope.
The hallway I’d entered was lined with Knights, all armed to the teeth and standing at grim attention. Unlike the rest of the palace, this wing hadn’t been built from stone. The walls were of some kind of dense, twisted live wood, like the tallest, most solid thicket ever, and the high ceiling was formed of an archway of branches. Climbing white rosebushes punctuated the hallway at regular intervals, their blooms so tightly packed together that if I looked at them through the corner of my eye, they looked like white marble pillars.
I was pretty sure the floor under my feet was dirt, but it was carpeted by a plush layer of pristine white rose petals. How they remained so pristine when they weren’t on their bushes and people walked on them, I don’t know. The hall was lit by glowing chunks of translucent white rock, kind of like salt lamps, only there was no electricity and no lightbulb. I could only assume they were lit by magic, because this hall did not look like a good place to light a fire.
There was a single doorway at the end of the hall, and it was guarded by a pair of gargantuan trolls. I caught my breath at the sight of them, a shiver running down my spine. I’d seen drawings and paintings of trolls before, but the only one I’d ever seen in person was Lachlan, who wore a human glamour. I liked it better when I didn’t know what he really looked like beneath that glamour. Paintings couldn’t do their size and malevolence justice. Paintings couldn’t capture the soulless black eyes that didn’t blink. Maybe it wasn’t much of a shocker that the Sidhe didn’t socialize with trolls after all.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog of terror that tried to gather around me. The trolls might look terrifying, but they weren’t monsters. Lachlan was one of the nicest Fae I knew, warm and friendly and loyal to a fault. Looks weren’t everything. Besides, the trolls couldn’t see me, so they weren’t dangerous.
I started tiptoeing down the hall, trying not to disturb the rose petals as I walked. The Erlking’s brooch might keep all these guards from noticing the petals moving, but I didn’t want to leave a trail that they might notice after I’d passed. I had a feeling that if they sensed there might be an intruder, I would be in deep, deep trouble despite the brooch’s spell.
I was sweating and practically vibrating with tension by the time I made it to the end of the hall. My lizard brain kept telling me not to get any closer to those trolls, and every step was a fight. It was probably stupid—the Knights with their magical skills were much more dangerous than the trolls—but I couldn’t convince myself of that, and I wondered if what I was feeling was the effect of some kind of spell.
Not that it mattered. I had to get past the trolls, no matter how intimidating they were. I glanced quickly at my watch to see how much longer I was going to be invisible. I had eight minutes before I’d have to reactivate the spell again, and if I could just get myself moving, maybe I’d be in position to force the Queen to listen to me by the time it wore off, and I wouldn’t have to prick myself for the gazillionth time.
Knowing I had to hurry, I slung my backpack forward and groped for the gun. Better to have it in my hand and ready when I walked through that doorway. I told myself I wasn’t stalling, but I wasn’t entirely convinced.
I checked to make sure the gun was loaded, then double-checked to make sure it was ready to fire. I shoved a couple of extra bullets in my pocket for easier access. Then I forced myself forward again.
I let my breath out slowly as I moved into reach of the trolls, but they didn’t react to my presence. They might as well have been made of stone for all the life I saw in them.
My hand was shaking as I pushed the door open, but still none of the guards moved or showed any sign of noticing me. I closed it quietly behind me, then turned to face the room.
At first, I couldn’t see much, because the lights were very low. They were the same kind of lights I’d seen out in the hall, but their glow was much dimmer, leaving most of the room in shadow. I blinked a couple of times as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Directly in front of me was a ginormous four-poster bed, mounded with pillows. And lounging amongst all those pillows was a drop-dead gorgeous woman with curly red hair that reached to her waist. She was smiling contentedly, her eyes heavy-lidded as she held a white silk sheet to her chest in a halfhearted show of modesty. She was obviously naked underneath it, and in the shadows at the foot of the bed, I could see the silhouette of a man pulling on a pair of boots.
My first thought was: Awkward! This was not a good time to be bursting in on the Faerie Queen. (Not that there ever really was a good time.) My second thought was: Thank God I didn’t get here earlier.
And then dread coiled in my gut as my mind fully processed what I’d just seen.
The man at the foot of the bed stepped out of the shadows, his boots making a familiar metallic clinking sound with each step. He leaned casually against one of the bedposts, crossing his arms over his chest and grinning at me.
“We meet again, Faeriewalker,” the Erlking said, his eyes twinkling with laughter at my expense.
I was totally and completely screwed.
Chapter Twenty
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Titania sit up, the sheet sliding down and showing me more of her than I wanted to see.
“She’s here?” the Queen gasped.
I stood by the doorway, frozen like a scared rabbit caught in the Erlking’s sights. I pointed my gun at him, but I’d seen him take a bullet to the head with barely a blink. The gun wouldn’t save me.
“I told you she would come,” he said, not taking his eyes off of me. “She would do just about anything for Ethan.”
Great. Not only was he here, he was waiting for me. I was getting way too familiar with the sensation of falling into his traps.
I swung the barrel of my gun toward Titania. “Call him off!” I ordered her, though I suspected I sounded more frightened than threatening.
The Erlking laughed. “She can’t hear you, remember?”
Dammit! I still had a couple of minutes until the spell wore off, and until it did, only the Erlking could see or hear me.
Gritting my teeth, I pointed the gun at one of the bedposts and pulled the trigger. My aim was lousy, but the bullet scraped a chip of wood off the edge of the post. Titania might not be able to see or hear me, but she could see the bullet and the effect it had had.
“Even though she can’t see me,” I said, “I bet she’s smart enough to understand the message I just sent.”
“Let’s find out, shall we?” he replied, taking a step toward me.
I squeezed the trigger again. My aim was better this time, and the bullet buried itself in the bedpost.
“Arawn, stop!” Titania ordered, a hint of panic in her voice. “I rescind my permission.”
The Erlking had to be annoyed that he’d just lost his chance to capture me and bind me to the Wild Hunt, but he didn’t show it. In fact, he was still grinning like he found this all very amusing. He put his hand to his chest and bowed from the waist, though I wasn’t sure if he meant the gesture as one of respect for the Queen or mockery for me. My hands shook as I loaded two more bullets into the gun and prayed I wouldn’t need to use them.
The air prickled with magic as Titania slid out of the bed. She’d pulled a gauzy wrapper around herself, but it left little to the imagination. Who knew she and the Erlking were so … close? I would have thought the fact that he’d bound Connor to the Wi
ld Hunt for the last thousand years or so might have put a damper on any relationship. Connor was her son, and she was sleeping with the man who’d enslaved him. Nice.
I was pretty sure Titania didn’t have to see me to destroy me with her magic. And because I wasn’t supposed to be able to sense magic, she had no idea I was aware she was gathering her power.
“Tell her to quit it!” I said, and Titania jumped, startled.
“Tell her yourself,” the Erlking said. “The spell wore off.”
Yes. I could tell that by the way the Queen was staring at me in horror. So much for my deep, dark secret.
“Quit calling magic,” I ordered her. I had to stifle a laugh at the thought of me, a half-blooded teenager from the mortal world, ordering around Titania, the Queen of the Seelie Court. But however powerful she might be, my gun scared the crap out of her.
The magic faded from the air, and the Queen stood up straighter, wiping the expression of horror from her face and staring at me with the coldest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
“You dare much,” she said, and if her eyes were cold, her voice was positively icy. “You tried to kill my granddaughter, and now you threaten me. For that I vow to make you suffer.”
I hoped I didn’t look as terrified as I felt. I suspected if Titania wanted to make me suffer, she could be very, very creative about how she did it.
“I didn’t try to kill Princess Elaine,” I said. I sounded calmer than I felt, which was good because otherwise my voice might have shaken too badly for her to understand. “And I’m only threatening you because I don’t know how else to make you listen to my side of the story.”
“She was attacked with a mortal weapon,” Titania argued. “Only a Faeriewalker could have wielded such a weapon.”
I nodded. “That’s true. But I’m not the Faeriewalker who wielded it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Erlking smile. Of course, he’d known all along I wasn’t behind the bomb. We might not be bestest buds, but he knew me frighteningly well. Well enough to guess that I’d come to the palace once my friends were captured. And easily well enough to know I wouldn’t plant a bomb even against someone I hated, much less against someone I didn’t know.