Nemesis

by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge

  Glamma slips the vial of my blood into the pocket of her house dress and chucks my chin. “Eyes bright, dearie. Rouen will come to you. You’ll see.”

  I frown at Glamma. “How do you know?”

  Glamma’s voice changes, heavy as ink dropped into water. “Because this happened before—two queens fighting over Faerie.” She pins me with a grim gaze. “Miss Jessamine Jardin was one of those queens.”

  4

  ROUEN

  I’m a queen, baby, royal

  Worship me. Worship me

  If you want to survive

  - “Royal” Euphoria

  Moonlight streams in through the stained-glass windows, casting across me where I sit like a dark goddess on my throne. Waiting for Jardin to enter my War Room, I turn my thoughts to blood and vengeance. That thieving pocket púca better be bringing my hearthstone. An apology wouldn’t hurt, either. Then again, I’ve never been much for groveling or adoration. Maybe the rockstar life should’ve prepared me to be worshiped, but all I know is Jessamine Jardin better throw herself on my not-so-tender mercies if she wants to live.

  Short version: I’ve had enough of her crap.

  Click-clack! The sound of high heels on polished adamant and the stink of roses and habaneros—púca magic—raises my hackles. Adrenaline shoots through every inch of me, and my violet lightning answers, flickering around my fingers. My hands itch for my violin, the focus for my gramarye, my most powerful destructive magic.

  “Miss Rivoche.” The pocket púca enters the War Room, jack-o’-lantern smile practically glowing. In her smart power suit, hair in a neat red bun, chunky spectacles perched on her snub nose, Jessamine Jardin would look more at home in a fashion magazine than here in UnderHollow.

  “I came to discuss terms,” she says like she’s some kind of Satanic lawyer.

  “Terms?” All my rage boils up from where it’s been brewing these past months.

  Fwoosh! I windwarp, vanishing in once place to reappear right in front of her, wrapping my hand around her throat. One-handed, I lift her off the ground, exulting in the rush of power that feeds my dark side.

  I close my fist tighter, while a tiny part of myself, the part that is soul-bound to Syl, cries out, This isn’t you, Roue. You’re not a killer.

  I squeeze a little more, just to prove that part wrong.

  “We’re—koff!—on the same—koff!—side.” Jardin chokes out, struggling in my grasp. I’ve never seen her so rattled, and my black heart enjoys every second. Last summer, she nearly drained me to death trying to kill Syl’s Glamma. She’s done nothing but torture me. And Syl, for that matter.

  She’s had this coming for a long time.

  “You’re meat for the ravens, Jardin,” I snarl, my head filling with all kinds of delightful, gruesome ways to kill her—throw her to the deep wards, electrocute her with my lightning, let Etana eviscerate her…

  Sometimes my dark side can be a drama queen.

  She tries to pull my hand off her throat. “You…don’t want…to do that.”

  “I can’t think of one good reason why I don’t.” I smile in her face. “Sucks for you.”

  “If you kill me…” She struggles for every word. “You’ll never find the hearthstone.”

  Blast it! I let her go, and she collapses at my feet, coughing. I loom over her. “Where is it?”

  “Safe. Hidden. I’ll give it to you.” Her red eyes flash, the habanero stink of her magic ramping up. All my warning bells go off as a grin slides sharp across her face. “But you must bring me something first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The heart of the fair Fae queen.”

  My own heart cries out, but I mentally stomp on it, squelching my feelings, my fear for Syl. “Why do you want her heart?”

  Jardin gets up, brushes herself off, adjusts her glasses. “Her grand-dam, Gloriana Gentry, imprisoned me for centuries. Because of her, I was under a geis to aid her granddaughter.” Hatred flashes in her red eyes. “I want to make Syl suffer.”

  “So you want me to cut out her heart?”

  “No.” Her sharp teeth glint in the moonlight. “I want her heartstrung.”

  Fear jolts through me. Tearing out someone’s heartstrings, using them to control that person—it’s serious dark magic. My mother was powerful enough to heartstring her enemies, but not me. And I hate the idea of harming Syl just as much as I hate the idea of teaming up with a smarmy, smirking púca. “Forget it.”

  “Let me sweeten the deal.” She reaches into the shadows.

  I tense. I’ve seen this trick before. She peels the shadow back like a veil, revealing her personal dimension. All púca have one, a small pocket in space-time that provides safety, secrecy, and a home base from which to dimension-hop. I catch the slightest hint of it, a dark, chaotic vortex swirling in the shadows. The spicy rose stink intensifies as she reaches in, pulls something out, holding it by a black leather strap.

  My breath goes out when I see it.

  A violin.

  It’s made of black yew wood inlaid with wintersteel. Polished, exquisitely made, a gentle neck, the fingerboard perfect, the keys delicate crystal skulls. The strings are missing, but I’m instantly drawn to its cold, dark magic.

  Familiar magic.

  Shivers rush over me. It can’t be. “That’s…”

  “Wasteland.” Jessamine recites the violin’s name with relish. “Your mother’s. Once, she strung with the heartstrings of her enemies. She made them dance like puppets.” The púca’s eyes glow red-hot behind her glasses. “Before she slaughtered them.”

  “I know.” Pride mingles with old sorrow and loss. I was only ten when Mother died. Memories of Castle Knockma’s vaults collapsing, burying her. I thought Wasteland was lost with her, but somehow, Jardin has it.

  I want to snatch the violin away, but Faerie magic must be given (and taken) freely, and it has rules.

  Accepting the violin would mean agreeing to her deal. “What’s your price?”

  Wasteland gleams in the púca’s hands. “Consider it a sign of my goodwill.”

  “You don’t have any goodwill.”

  “Don’t you want it?”

  The flash of light on the black violin drags at my soul, drawing me in. It was my mother’s. It’s mine, by rights, and it seems to know it. Wasteland pulls at me, its magic pulsing over me. A burned rubber stink hits the air, and in a dark burst, a thousand warped screams explode in my brain, winding up until my teeth rattle. Dread and excitement wrap around my heart.

  These are the screams of Mother’s victims. Their souls devoured by Wasteland, they’re now a part of the instrument.

  They shriek, maddening me, feeding my dark impulses, making them stronger until they build and build inside me, a black wave looming, powerful, threatening to drown me…

  And now I see it.

  Threaded all along the body of the violin are Moribund circuits. Gleaming like scarabs, chittering with sinister life. Forbidden dark Fae magic, Moribund circuitry is terrifyingly powerful. It’d amplify my powers as queen, but it comes with a price.

  Eventually, Moribund magic will devour you, body, soul, spirit, until nothing is left but a hollow machine shell.

  I was infected with it twice, but Syl purified me.

  I jerk my hand away. Suddenly, I’m drenched in sweat.

  “It calls to you.” Jessamine laughs darkly. “Your mother defeated the Moribund. In fact, she mastered it.” She holds it out to me. “Take it. Decorate it with the fair Fae queen’s heartstrings. Prove you are your mother’s daughter.”

  Pride surges up inside me, fed by all my dark urges. With this, I could defeat the fair Fae, save my people. But my heart cries out a warning. Can I really tear out Syl’s heartstrings?

  She wouldn’t die. It’s worse than that.

  She’d become my slave, for as long as I held her heartstrings.

  And what about the Moribund? Can I really master it, or would it devour me as it has so many others? My own fa
ther fell to the Moribund. On lonely nights, I still imagine I can hear his screams from the Ebon Vault, where I locked him and the Moribund Heart.

  Jardin sees the questions in my eyes. “Aren’t your people worth it. Your Majesty?”

  They are. I steel my resolve and ignore my bleeding heart.

  I reach out and take the black yew violin.

  At its smooth touch, my gramarye rises up inside me. Cold, sweeping Winter and violet lightning leap from my hand to Wasteland’s Moribund circuitry, syncing up with it. Clicking and whirring buzz in the War Room, the stink of burning rubber and coppery circuits staining the air.

  I wait for it to infect me, but it doesn’t.

  “My mother truly did tame the Moribund.” I can’t help the sense of wonder and awe.

  My newfound power feeding my inner darkness, Dark-Rouen surges up inside me, filling me with bitterness, hatred, the delicious, surging terror of war, the thrill of slaughtering the enemy—everything it means to be truly dark Fae.

  She whispers in my ear, With Wasteland and all the power of UnderHollow behind us, we’ll be unstoppable.

  Jardin’s voice is dreamlike, hypnotic. “Make her suffer, break her heart. String your violin with the heartstrings of the fair Fae queen, and you will control her, body, heart, soul. All of Faerie will be yours.”

  To rule as Overqueen. I caress Wasteland’s glossy neck. I like the sound of that.

  The violin shrieks in my mind, its pulsing energy driving out my purer thoughts of Syl, drowning my sorrow, my heartache, every part of me that feels anything—until only cold, cruel vengeance remains.

  Vengeance, my dark self whispers as she wraps herself around my mind and soul.

  I lift the violin to my chin, the bow pulsing in my hand as Dark-Rouen takes me over, as she growls deep in her throat.

  Get ready, fair Fae Queen. I’m coming for you.

  5

  SYL

  Once, long ago, Faerie was one realm, one people

  Until a betrayal of the heart

  Shattered it in two

  -Glamma’s Grimm

  The game’s just started, and I’m batting a big fat zero. Because I just thought I heard Glamma say— “Wait, Miss Jardin was a queen of Faerie?” The idea of that evil pocket púca ruling anyone floors me. I stand up and pace. Plus, she looks about twenty-five, not nearly old enough to be around when Glamma was a spring chicken.

  I realize I’m trying to logic Faerie. And Faerie defies logic.

  For all I know, Miss J’s thousands of years old. “Wait. She’s not queen now, so…” I shake my head so hard my red curls bounce. “Explain?”

  “It was a long time ago.” Glamma’s face doesn’t betray any emotion, but a flinch of pain darkens her eyes.

  Mom glances at Glamma, and something secret passes between them. “It’s time to tell her everything.”

  “Everything?” My stomach rolls. It’s super unqueenly of me, but I think I’m going to yurk again. Relax, Syl. I take a few deep breaths, shake out my hands. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  I’m so not, but I’ve got no choice. Time to fake it till I make it.

  With gnarled fingers, Glamma picks an iron knife up off the table. “Once, long ago, Faerie was one realm and one people. Until a terrible conflict between the two queens caused the Great Cleaving” —she stabs the knife into a pomegranate on the table. Shlorck! — “splitting Faerie into two warring realms, Fair and Dark.”

  I watch as red juice stains the table like blood. A Bleed.

  “So Miss Jardin caused the Cleaving?” I’ve heard this story before, but to find out Miss Jardin, my high school librarian, was responsible for starting the war Roue and I are caught up in...it makes a twisted sort of sense, after all. “Who was the other queen? Is it someone I know? Let me guess: Miss Mack.”

  “Me.”

  That one word hits me like a ton of bricks. I sit down hard, my breath whooshing out. “You, but…” I scan Glamma with my Fae-sight. Her aura is a deep, concerned blue, but there’s not even a hint of Fae magic on her. “You’re not a Fae.”

  She looks down at her hands. “Not anymore.”

  My heart goes out to her. Losing my Fae powers would destroy me. “What happened?”

  “Jealousy.” Her eyes darken. “A rival cast a Darksider spell on Jessamine, just like the one she cast on Rouen. Only, it consumed her. And now, Jessamine is not Jessamine any longer. She’s only the púca—malicious, cunning, manipulative—and she wants nothing more than to destroy Faerie to satiate her vengeance against me.”

  “The Darksider spell,” I choke out, every word an effort. “You couldn’t break it?” Because if Glamma, an actual queen of Faerie, couldn’t break it back then, how am I supposed to break it now?

  She touches my cheek. “You can beat this, Syl. You’re stronger than me.”

  “I…” My stomach twists into knots again.

  “Syl, you need to be careful.” Mom’s aura turns the weird green-yellow of guilt. I know she blames herself for renouncing her power, for what’s happened to me and Roue.

  “I will be.” I say it every time, and I mean it this time too.

  It’s just that Faerie rarely cooperates.

  Mom knows it too. She chafes her raw, chapped hands together. Without Roue’s share of the rent, it’s been double cleaning shifts for her at the school. I make a mental note to pick up more delivery shifts at Elephant Thai.

  If I survive this.

  My mind spinning, I go to Glamma, crouch down, take her hands. “I swear to you, I won’t let Miss Jardin destroy Faerie. She’s not queen anymore. I am.” I straighten, steeling my resolve. “It’s okay,” I say to Mom, to Glamma.

  But mostly, to me.

  The pressure is like an elephant on my chest, but I take a breath, blow it out, and tousle my curls. I push all my questions and uncertainty aside. “This doesn’t change anything.” I stand up, nervous energy thrumming through me.

  “Right now, I need to find Rouen.”

  Roue’s looking for me. It’s time I looked back.

  How hard can it be to find a dark Fae queen in a city as small as RVA? By the day’s end, I’m beat. Windwarping around RVA doesn’t take long. Roue and I only have so many haunts, but it’s all the memories that make my search take forever. I stop everywhere to reminisce—on the skyscrapers where we had our Thai food picnic and played “city softball,” on the rooftops where we hunted Circuit fiends. At Hollywood Cemetery, I see the scorched earth from our fight with the Ouroboros. I grab a hot dog at City Dogs and head down to the Canal Walk, where Roue and I—

  Ugh, I can’t go anywhere in this city without seeing Roue’s ghost.

  But the real Rouen is nowhere to be found.

  At least the storms have calmed down, and no Bleeds ping on my radar. For now. Finally, an hour after sunset, I find myself in front of Hawk’s BBQ food truck, polishing off a ginormous pulled pork sandwich. How many nights did Roue and I stop here to grab a late-night snack? Countless.

  Hawk’s is just as much a part of our love story as the kisses and cuddles.

  I’m licking the grease from my fingers when Hawk leans out the steamy window of his truck. “Hey.” He chin-nods me over and thrusts a greasy paper bag into my hand. “For your lady.”

  Tears sting my eyes. “Th-thanks.” I reach for my money, but he only shakes his head.

  “Naw. On the house.”

  I nod, tears closing my throat. When his back’s turned, I jam a five in his tip jar.

  Then, I get the hell outta Dodge.

  Greasy paper bag in hand, I find myself atop the Nanci Raygun, our fave hangout, where Roue played so many nights as Euphoria. It’s been forever, though, and all the Euphoria fliers have been torn down, new ones in their place. I don’t even recognize the new bands. Kitten Nuggets, All-Star Hitmen, the Clamp.

  My old life’s leaving me behind.

  I leap to the back of the building overlooking the employee parking lot. The house band’s van is there.
The spot for Rouen’s bike is empty.

  Are they waiting for her too?

  Beneath my feet, the club throbs with the bassy boom of house music, and the sweetness of cloves mingles with the smell of spilled alcohol, perfumes, human sweat. I jump down and join the crush of people waiting. My name’s not on the VIP list anymore. I hate the idea of Glamourying the bouncers, but I’m running out of options.

  I need to find Roue.

  I’m just about to whammy Bouncer #1, when my phone vibrates. A text from Lennon. Where’d u go?

  Anxiety claws at me. I text back three sick emojis. It’s not exactly a lie, then I hastily type, I’m ok tho.

  A smiley face, then three dots, then, Worried abt Pru.

  Concern tightens my chest. She okay? I can come over right after this. Whatever “this” is.

  Np. She’s fine. Just acting weird. TTYT.

  Tomorrow. Lennon doesn’t know I’m not coming back. Guilt twists my insides, but I send back a thumbs-up emoji. I’ll tell them this weekend. Maybe we can all go for pizza at Bottom’s Up.

  With a heavy sigh, I step to the bouncers. “Hey there—”

  The doors slam open on a tall figure in glimmering blue. My heart leaps. “Laguna!”

  As usual, the self-proclaimed Queen of the Sirens is dressed to kill in a shimmery blue clingy sheath dress that offsets his dark skin. Glitter eyeshadow, blue lipstick, and a few seashells in his blue-black dreads round out his ensemble. “All right, people, move aside.” He makes shoo fingers, and the crowd parts. “Come on, summer girl.”

  He spins dramatically and heads into the dark, thumping of the club. I follow him past the bouncers, ignoring the muttering complaints of the VIPs. The club’s crowded, the usual suspects filling the place. A pang of wistfulness jams into my ribs at the sight of the dark stage.

  Roue. She’s touched every part of my life.

  Laguna’s usual chill demeanor is replaced by a sense of urgency as he pulls me through the busy club to the backstage area. We head down the dark hallway, memories wreaking havoc with my emotions. He opens the door to the dressing room. Roue’s dressing room.