by James Riley
Living a fairy tale sounded good, until you realized you were only getting the bad parts, and all the fairy godmothers and happily ever afters weren’t coming.
As May tromped down the spiral staircase outside her attic bedroom, the monkey running in front of her and almost tripping her several times, she ran one hand down the brick walls of the house, wondering not for the first time if she could feel the magic that the fairy queens had placed there. Phillip hadn’t wanted her to stay, not without some protection, so his family had begged Merriweather for one last favor: As long as May remained in her stepmother’s house, only a fairy queen could find her.
Even Phillip had forgotten the house’s location as soon as May had forced him to leave. And she’d forced him to pretty fast. After Ja—after someone’s betrayal and the Wicked Queen’s promise that between . . . someone . . . and Phillip, one would betray her and one would die, well, May wasn’t taking chances. She’d made Phillip promise to never come anywhere near her ever again, as long as she was safe.
And with the fairy queen’s magic, he didn’t have a choice. That meant all she had to do was stay hidden, stay in her family’s home with her, uh, loving family, and Phillip wouldn’t be hurt. And neither would . . . anyone else.
The prince had fought it, of course. May secretly suspected he was more nervous about leaving with Penelope than he was about May’s safety, but that was his problem.
Hers was making sure that no one else suffered because of the Wicked Queen.
As she continued down the long spiral staircase, her hands ran over first one picture frame, then another, then a third. All hidden on the stairs leading up to the attic were portraits of her father, her grandfather, and her great-grandfather. Her father’s eyes seemed kind, though haunted, while her grandfather and great-grandfather stared disapprovingly at the painter, not the most pleasant reminder of anything. Both looked gaunt with black hair, something her father had somehow avoided with the same blond hair she had. Recessive genes or something.
The hall had become something of a memorial, given that all three men had passed on without leaving much behind. Her father, attacked on the road, out trying to sell his goods to keep up with his demanding new wife and two new stepchildren at home; her grandfather, killed by an Eye, if the stories were true. And her great-grandfather . . . well, there were dragons involved, according to her stepsisters, but while her sisters had continued in horrible detail, May had tuned them out.
There was no picture of her mother. Her stepmother had removed all traces. At least she had passed away relatively peacefully from sickness shortly after May was born.
Cinderella’s life. All the bad parts, and none of the fairy godmother coming to save her. Not after May had traded that away for being saved from a genie six months ago.
“Morning, ladies!” May said as brightly as she could, giving the monkey a push with her foot out into the room, maybe a bit too hard. The monkey shrieked, and all three women screamed, despite this same thing happening every day for three months.
“Kill it!” Esmerelda said, and May noticed that both sisters had already dressed up like they were going to some sort of fancy-dress ball. Sadly, without any money coming in, their fancy dresses were falling apart, and no one could afford to repair them. May had been given the job shortly after arriving. Having never sewn anything in her life, she’d quickly had the job taken away from her as well. That was the first time her sisters locked her in the attic.
Fortunately, the monkey had his ways in and out, and had snuck them both food. Or, more accurately, had snuck himself food, and May had fought him for it.
Constance swatted at the monkey with a broom but was far too slow, and the little monster escaped back upstairs with an armful of fruit that had been sitting on the side table.
May flashed a smile at the three glaring women. “So, what’ll it be this morning?”
“Something edible this time?” her stepmother said, her tone icy.
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, mother,” said Esmerelda, her tone even colder than icy. Like an absolute zero sort of colder.
“Just try not to poison us this time,” Constance said, not even bothering to make her tone cold, she cared so little.
“I will,” May said, starting to leave.
“Wait, you will try, or you will poison us?” Esmerelda asked.
“No, of course I will!” May said, flashing an entirely much too innocent look.
Her stepsisters glared at her, while her stepmother didn’t even look up. “By the by,” the woman said. “Some gentleman came by earlier looking for you.” She held up a familiar-looking piece of paper.
The paper, ripped and frayed at the edges, had WANTED written in large black letters, with a drawing of May on it. BY ORDER OF THE QUEEN, it went on, FOR INCITING REBELLIOUS ACTIVITIES.
“Let me know if I should run to find him,” her stepmother said, giving her a sideways look. While she stayed in the house, the fairy queen’s magic protected anyone but her family from seeing her. But May knew that if she took one step outside, her stepmother would be first in line for any reward.
May took the paper from her, hopefully keeping any of her stepmother’s ideas in check, and went into the kitchen to give breakfast a try. She honestly had poisoned the women a few times when trying to make the meals at the beginning of her stay here. But now she’d gotten cooking down to the point that at least it didn’t make anyone sick. And some things even tasted almost not bad.
As she cooked, she glanced at the paper every so often, each time getting a chill down to her toes. The goblins could knock all they wanted. They could even search the house. But the fairy queen’s magic would ensure they’d never find her here.
But one step outside . . .
A scream outside caught May’s attention, and she looked out the window. Across the street, four goblins were dragging a girl about May’s age out of her house.
“It’s not her!” a man shouted at them. “She doesn’t even look anything like her!”
He was right. Whoever the girl was, she didn’t look anything like May. That wasn’t stopping the goblins, though.
One of the goblins held up the paper to the girl’s head. “It’s not that close, sir,” he said to a goblin sitting on a horse.
“I, for one, am not going back to Her Majesty empty-handed again,” the goblin on the horse said. “This one is close enough. Take her.”
“Hey!” May shouted, throwing open the window. “It’s the girl! The one the goblins are looking for! She’s making a run for it!”
The goblin on the horse bolted upright, looking all around him, but couldn’t find the source of the voice, as May was still inside her house and therefore invisible to him, despite being just a few feet away. “After her!” he shouted at the others, and the four goblins went running off in four directions, releasing the girl.
The man grabbed his daughter and pulled her back inside, while the goblin on the horse just laughed. “Better hope we find her, or we’ll be back,” he told the man before riding off.
May slammed the window, not able to look at her neighbor anymore. Hopefully, he’d take his daughter and run. But where? The Queen controlled these lands for hundreds of miles in every direction. Where could he go?
He was as stuck as she was.
Breakfast and some more insults done, May went to work on the laundry, hearing the girl’s terrified shouts in her head. Would the goblins come back? Would they find some other girl May’s age and just take her?
Washing the windows, she thought she saw the man and his daughter ride off, but it could have been anyone, really. And when making lunch, May heard the monsters come back. From the sounds of it, they found an empty house, but May couldn’t bear to look.
“I miss the dances,” Esmerelda said at teatime, which May hadn’t even known existed but now was a separate meal every day.
“Me too,” Constance said. “Mother, if we give May up to the goblins, do you think the Queen wil
l grant us our own kingdom?”
May froze. “You couldn’t,” she said. “They wouldn’t see me, even if you brought them here. The magic makes sure of it.”
Her stepmother nodded. “The girl has it right. Otherwise, I’d have given her up right after she arrived.” She held up the cup of tea. “All this trouble for a weak cup of tea? It’s just about unbearable!”
“Can’t we just carry her outside or something?” Esmerelda asked. “Wouldn’t that break the magic?”
Her stepmother gave May a steady look. “I enquired about that when the fairy queen cast her spell. She claimed that May can only leave under her own power. Maybe that is something to test out, though. Perhaps another day.” She stirred her tea, then sipped at it again, making a face. “Or perhaps sooner.”
Cleaning their rooms came next, followed by dusting and dinner. Finally, the sun went down, and May was allowed free time to sit in her bedroom, as long as she didn’t come out.
It was the best part of each day.
As the monkey picked at the bread she’d brought him, May sat with her arms crossed on her windowsill, the shudders open again, the night air playing through her hair. The castle on the hill was dark, just like every other night, but every so often, whether she imagined it or not, May thought she saw a light in it.
A light meaning someone lived there. Her “prince.” Some guy who looked like Phillip and couldn’t use contractions.
She uncrumpled the paper beside her, looking at the picture of herself. BY ORDER OF THE QUEEN.
They wouldn’t stop. They’d never stop looking for her, not while she hid away.
BY ORDER OF THE QUEEN.
The words terrified her.
But not as much as living out this story terrified her. Not as much as staying here, hidden away, causing other people harm terrified her. Those in the city around her. Phillip . . . other people.
A minute later, May was dressed in her jeans and T-shirt, the only objects she had from her old life all tucked into her pockets: a cell phone that hadn’t worked for six months, a piece of paper from a Story Book, and a set of pipes that had once belonged to the Piper.
At the bottom of the drawer was a glass slipper, something she’d been left by Merriweather. For a moment, she considered taking it, too, but then stuffed it back into her drawer, under her working clothes. The slipper belonged to Cinderella, and Cinderella sat around waiting for life to get better. She was done with waiting and done with this whole story.
Everything set, she sat down on her bed and played the pipes, a song she’d practiced many times but had never had the guts to actually play on the pipes themselves.
A song calling out for her fairy godmother.
Only, not Merriweather. Merriweather wouldn’t come, not after May had traded Cinderella’s life for protection against a genie six months ago.
But May had someone else in mind anyway.
Music floated in through the window, a harmony to the song she played, and May watched as a beautiful woman appeared out of nowhere, her eyes containing no pupils, her dress black as a starless sky.
“Now, this is interesting,” Malevolent said to her, a wide smile on her face.
The monkey shrieked and leapt at May, but to defend her or to hide, May had no idea. Just as his hand touched her hair, the monkey, room, and house all disappeared, and May found herself back in a throne room she hadn’t seen in six months.
“Now,” Malevolent said. “There are so many ways to kill you. However will we decide?”
CHAPTER 3
Until now, Jack had never been allowed close to the Queen’s castle. Signs posted on every corner warned ALL HUMANS TO STAY INDOORS FROM SUNSET TO SUNRISE! and DANGER—NO HUMANS OUT AFTER DARK! but who those signs were for was a mystery, since Jack didn’t see any humans on the street, beyond a few that had been turned to stone at one point or another, mostly with terrified expressions on their faces.
Now, goblins roamed the streets—goblins, and worse. Trolls weren’t allowed in the city, but you could hear them howling outside the gates throughout the day and night. And Jack wasn’t sure where the dragons or ogres were kept, but there was certainly no room for them in the city.
What there was room for, in every dark corner, were the . . . well, something. All he knew was that the shadows moved when no one was around, even in bright sunlight. Not that the sun ever shone inside the city. Much like everyone else, the Sun Giant was far too afraid to ever come out of hiding, not this close to the seat of the Wicked Queen’s power.
Along with the howls of trolls, Jack could hear voices raised in fear from every side. By order of the Queen, thousands of humans throughout the city were making wishes, wishing to the fairy queens, insuring that the fairy queens could not turn their gaze on the human world without being overwhelmed with terrified voices. A horrible yet effective way of keeping them distracted from whatever the Queen might be doing.
“Don’t you just love the BIG city, Jack?” said Captain Thomas from his spot on Jack’s shoulder. Captain Thomas laughed at his own joke, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to join in. The city was far too bleak.
His apprenticeship had taken place entirely outside the city, so while he’d been training, he hadn’t seen much of anything beyond his instructors, the one other recruit who hadn’t lasted more than a week, and a few moving shadows. Jill had dropped him three months ago, and he hadn’t seen her or his fairy since . . . not to mention the father Jill had promised back in the Fairy Homelands.
“The Queen’s been anxious to see you again, my boy,” Captain Thomas said, his tiny, glowing sword pressed almost casually against Jack’s neck, as if it could be an accident and wasn’t entirely on purpose as Jack knew it was. One step out of line, and that’d be it.
“I’m pretty anxious to meet her myself,” Jack said. “There were some nights I thought I’d never get this far.”
“Oh, your family’s always had talent for such things,” Captain Thomas told him.
His family? Did that just mean his sister, Jill, or—
“Stop here,” Captain Thomas told him, and a tiny pinprick in his neck instantly froze Jack’s forward momentum. They were at the gate out of the capital city toward the long, treacherous rock pathway that led to the Queen’s castle. The pathway’s sides were sheer cliffs, rising hundreds of feet above the water to a castle of dark, almost black stone, jutting turrets and piercing towers. Lights flickered madly from window to window, far faster than any human could move, and with a random insanity that made Jack nervous just watching it.
“Oh, don’t be scared!” Captain Thomas said, slapping him with his tiny palm. “What’s the worst that could happen? The Queen burns you to ashes? I stab you in the neck and drop you from that pathway? Creatures of darkest magic invade your soul and curse you to an eternal torment?” He laughed again. “It’s not like you’d be the first! Buck up, lad!”
“You’re a huge comfort,” Jack told the little man.
Captain Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a height joke?!”
The gate creaked open, saving Jack from a potential death by tiny man. Captain Thomas slapped his neck, and Jack made his way up the treacherous path, promising himself not to look over the sides at any point, and breaking that promise exactly thirty-four times in the first minute.
The height made him a bit woozy, but the jagged rocks at the bottom of the cliffs clarified everything a bit too much, honestly. Fortunately, the man on his shoulder distracted Jack with tales of other Eye initiates who’d died right here, or on that stone over there, who’d fallen there, NO, THERE! all the way up, so that helped. Hugely.
And yes, that one was a size joke.
The gate to the Wicked Queen’s palace wasn’t guarded any more than the gate leading from the city had been. And just like that former gate, this one opened on its own as well, then closed just behind Jack, leaving a faint odor of iron and selfishness in the air, with maybe an earthy hint of fried potato, of all things.
&
nbsp; “Excuse the smell,” Captain Thomas said, patting his chest. “Lunch isn’t sitting particularly well.”
Well. That explained the smell of selfishness. The miniscule Eye hadn’t offered anything.
Inside, flickering torches lit what little of the palace Jack could see. Corridors ran off in every direction, as if anywhere he looked, there was another hallway hiding potential creepiness. Each step Jack took, a tingling in the back of his head made him jump, like something was JUST. RIGHT. BEHIND. HIM.
Of course, there was something there. The shadow creatures, whatever they were, seemed to be everywhere.
Captain Thomas led Jack down hallway after hallway, meeting no one, backtracking at times but never lost. If the captain was trying to confuse Jack, it was working. Honestly, even if he wasn’t trying, it was still working. Overall, though, they seemed to climb more stairs than they walked down, and finally they came across a set of tarnished silver doors easily four times as tall as Jack, a beautiful stag carved into each one, facing each other and rearing back, as if ready to attack.
“The Queen’s throne room,” Captain Thomas said in a whisper. “Here’s where I offer you the only advice I have in this type of situation.”
“Yes?”
“Try not to die too much.”
“Perfect.”
Jack started for the doors, which, as always, opened by themselves. A slight pressure lifted on his shoulder, and Jack turned to find Captain Thomas leaning against the far wall as if he’d been standing there for hours. “You’re not coming in with me, sir?”
“Oh, she wants to speak to you alone. Don’t worry, you’re no danger to her. She could handle the entire Order of the Eyes all on her own, let alone you.”
Jack smiled at that, purposefully not thinking too hard about it. When a certain Queen could read any of your thoughts, after all, you learned to keep your mind away from anything that could get you killed. He’d spent the last three months training himself not to think about dangerous things, like schemes, plots, or certain blond girls with blue streaks in their hair.