A Court Bright and Broken (Age of Fae #1)

20. Only One Way to Find Out

Chapter 20

Only One Way to Find Out

R aewyn

Wait a minute. Out the window!

Whirling, I ran back to the sitting room and approached the glass doors. Depressing the handle, I found they swung open easily.

There wasn’t a moment to waste.

I stepped through the doors onto the balcony that ran the length of the suite. The night air smelled like freedom.

Unfortunately, my room was on the third story. Going to the railing, I peered over the edge. Music drifted up from the open doors of the ballroom somewhere below.

Far below. Jumping to the ground was not an option.

But there might be another one.

Here at the back of the palace, the ocean-facing rooms were filled with the sweet scent of Bougainvillea. The bright pink flowers grew on copious vines that climbed the walls from the ground to nearly the roof.

Stretching out an arm, I delved my hand beneath the blooms to test the strength of the vines. They felt solid.

Whether they were solid enough to hold my weight was a different question, but I really had no other choice. If I stayed here, I was dead for sure.

Better to die trying instead of waiting for it like a sitting duck.

I found a good handhold then, dragging my heavy gown up to my knees, threw one leg awkwardly over the railing and dug my shoe into a snarl of vines.

My heart hammered as I grabbed onto the vine with my other hand and carefully drew my other leg over the ledge and away from the balcony. My legs and arms were already shaking, probably more from fear of the great height than from muscle strain.

That would be coming soon no doubt, so I needed to descend the castle wall as quickly as possible. Thankfully the pointed toes of the shoes Sorcha had given me made good climbing anchors.

Testing my footing with each move, I painstakingly made my way to the bottom of the vine.

By the time I reached the ground, the muscle fatigue I’d anticipated had definitely set in, but I would have to find some reserves of energy.

It was time to run.

Fate must have been on my side because a bank of fog had steadily moved in off the ocean, dimming the light of the moon and stars and casting a significant portion of the castle’s lawn into darkness.

It would take only a short dash to escape the circles of torchlight that bordered the base of the palace.

Then I would be free to run for home.

Of course I’d have to pass through the castle gates first, but it was late—surely I wouldn’t be the only ballgown-clad lady leaving the grounds? The castle couldn’t have possibly contained enough guest rooms to house every member of the Fae attending the ball.

I’d have to hurry if I wanted to still be wearing this gown by the time I reached the gate and still look like a “lady.” There could only be a few minutes left until midnight now.

What exactly would happen when the witching hour arrived? Would these clothes simply disappear, leaving me naked?

The thought sped my steps.

Unfortunately the beautiful shoes that seemed to have been made for climbing vines were not made for running—and definitely not on uneven ground.

One of the pointed toes caught a protruding root, and my ankle turned. The other shoe snagged on the hem of my gown, and I went down hard.

For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. The wind must have been knocked out of me.

When my breath returned, it was accompanied by a wave of pain that crashed from my foot to my knee on the left side.

Oh no . I did not have time for a sprained ankle.

Intending to run again, I pushed up to my knees, then to my feet. That’s when I realized one of my shoes had come off during my fall. No matter—barefoot was better anyway.

I was reaching down to remove the other shoe when it simply… disappeared.

My uninjured foot dropped a few inches and met the cold earth. And then the rest of me was suddenly cold as the beautiful gown dissolved before my eyes, leaving me standing in only the thin white linen shift Sorcha had laid out on the bed for me.

Thank the gods her capricious magic had left me that much.

Midnight.

The spell had expired. I looked down at myself, taking in the new picture the guards at the gate would see.

I wore only a skimpy underdress, my feet were bare. I stood lower to the ground now, restored to my previous height.

Whatever beauty Sorcha had imparted to my face and hair and skin had no doubt vanished as completely as my evening wear. I looked human again.

Maybe the guards would take me for a servant making her way home after a long day and night of work?

Looking around me, I searched for my evening bag, but that had disappeared as well.

Those poison vials, if they still existed, were now lost in the dark lawn. I had no weapon left but my own wits.

Hobbled in every sense of the word, I limped forward. Excruciating pain shot up my leg every time my left foot made contact with the ground.

How was I going to make it to the gate, not to mention all the way home? Was there any chance my carriage and team of horses were still outside the gates?

By the time I rounded the front wall of the castle and the gates came into sight, I was in a cold sweat, my ankle throbbing as if all the blood in my body resided there.

The guards spotted me immediately, thanks to the white slip, no doubt.

Two of them charged across the distance, reaching me shockingly fast.

“Who are you?” one of them barked. “What are you doing sneaking across the palace grounds?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. I’m just trying to go home, and I twisted my ankle.”

“So you work here?” the other guard asked. His eyes roamed up and down my body. “Where?”

My hands suddenly went clammy, and I blinked several times.

I didn’t know much about the human servants who worked in the castle, what sorts of jobs they performed. Were they allowed in the kitchens? Did they do the laundry, change the bed linens? I just didn’t know.

What was it Sorcha had said about them?

All I could remember for sure was that she’d said the older ones didn’t work anywhere near the royal family. Since I was young, I supposed I was qualified for that kind of service.

“I’m one of Princess Mareth’s maids,” I said.

It was clear from both the guards’ faces that had been the wrong answer.

“You’re lying. The princess’s handmaidens are Elven , and they all live in the palace,” the older guard growled.

“I think what we have here is one of King Pontus’s special ‘friends,’” the younger one said with a dirty-sounding laugh.

So the Princess had no human servants, but the King did?

“What’s the matter, love?” The guard leaned down and smiled in my face. “Getting tired of entertaining the old geezer?”

He reached down and grabbed his crotch through his clothing. “Bet you’d like a young buck better.”

“Shut up, fool,” the older guard ordered. “People have been hanged for less.”

The younger guard wasn’t dissuaded. “Nobody heard me. No one but you. What, you gonna turn me in? Are you telling me you haven’t wondered why he needs a whole wing full of them?”

He gestured toward the right half of the castle.

“No.”

The older guard shook his head then grabbed my arm, yanking me toward the side entrance.

“Humans are disgusting. And useless. I don’t wonder about any of them.”

Taking my other arm, the young guard joined his partner’s progress toward the castle. He kept his eyes on my neckline as the two of them dragged me along.

“Not all of them are disgusting,” he said in a lewd tone. “And apparently the King doesn’t find them useless. If it’s good enough for old Pontus, it’s good enough for me. Tell you what, leave her with me for a little while. I’ll take her straight to the dungeon afterward.”

My muscles locked up, forcing the guards to fully carry me, holding me suspended between them.

I wasn’t sure exactly what the young guard intended to do with me once we were alone, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

Thankfully, the older guard wasn’t having it. He stopped and stared at his partner over my head.

“You’re an idiot,” he said. “If she is one of his girls, how do you think the King would feel about sharing with the likes of you—one of his lowest ranked soldiers?”

The other one’s face pulled into a pout. “I just wanted a bit of fun. We’re stuck out here all night while the others are enjoying the music and watching the noble ladies get drunk inside. You’re the idiot.”

“No, I’m the one who’s worked here for two hundred years without losing his head,” the old guard said. “Now come on, let’s get her inside. If it turns out she’s one of the King’s girls and we stopped her from escaping, maybe I’ll split the reward with you instead of reporting you.”

To my great relief, we started moving again. The feeling was short-lived though.

Once inside, the guards took me down a corridor to a twisting stairwell leading down. Apparently Pharis’ “rescue” at the ballroom entry was all for naught—I was going to the dungeon after all.

It felt like the stairs would never end, twisting deeper, deeper, deeper, descending far beneath the ground floor.

When we finally reached the bottom, my escorts spoke to another man, the jailer, I presumed.

He unlocked a heavy door, revealing a corridor lined on both sides with cells.

In the scant torchlight, I could see they were constructed of iron bars, the floors of them covered in hay like stable floors. The guards walked me past them, taking me all the way to the end of one of the halls.

Though the cages had no solid walls, the light was so dim I couldn’t tell whether they were occupied or empty or how many people might be in each one.

What if they planned to lock me away with a criminal—or several of them?

“Please don’t leave me down here,” I begged.

Then out of sheer desperation, I added, “Take me to Prince Stellon. I need to talk to him. He knows me.”

“Oh listen to this,” the younger guard said. “‘ Take me,’ she says. ‘I know the prince,’ she says. Maybe she’s royalty .”

Both guards laughed.

“Don’t worry, your grace .” The older one sneered. “You’ll be dealt with soon enough.”

Tossing me into a cell, he slammed the barred metal door closed and locked it with a key. They walked away, speculating about whether they might be allowed to eat some of the leftover food from the ball, forgetting me almost immediately.

Despondent and in pain, I gripped the bars and eased myself to the floor. At least it appeared I was alone in my cell.

A voice rose out of the darkness beside me.

“Tell me you at least got one of them before you were caught.”

“Sorcha?”

The old woman’s face came into view as she moved from the back of her own cell to the front. She was no longer in disguise either.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I have you to thank for that,” she said, her tone full of disdain. “If you’d done your job quickly instead of swooning like a schoolgirl and playing footsie with the Crown Prince, we’d both be home now in our beds instead of waiting our turns with the executioner.”

“You were watching?” I asked.

“I had to make sure you got the task done. You did not .”

She wore a bitter scowl that leached into her voice.

“When the midnight hour drew near, I had no choice but to leave the palace before my own transfiguration spell wore off and my true visage was exposed,” she said. “Unfortunately, I waited too late and was apprehended. I hope you got a chance to use that poison—that is if you ever intended to use it in the first place.”

“I did ,” I insisted, but even I could hear the uncertainty in my voice. “But then… well, Pharis came along and interrupted me and Stellon before I had the chance to apply it to my lips. And then things got all out of hand.”

She snorted. “Yes, I saw. So out of hand you agreed to marry the prince instead of kill him.”

“I was as surprised as you,” I told her. “Everything happened so fast. What will happen to my family now?”

“If we stay in here? Or if we’re both hanged?” she asked with a bitter laugh. “Either way, their food will run out along with your papa’s pain cure. But…”

“What?”

Was there still some chance of salvaging this disastrous situation and saving my father and sisters?

“All hope is not lost,” Sorcha said. “You did manage to get yourself betrothed to the Crown Prince.”

“Yes, but he thinks he’s in love with Lady Wyn of House Elardis. She is gone. And I’m in here.”

“True. But there is something about you,” the Earthwife said. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never seen a spell be so potent. And the prince liked you well enough to give you an invitation to the ball while you were yet human. I thought at first it must have been out of gratitude or perhaps pity. But now I wonder…”

“What? What do you wonder? How is all hope not lost?”

Reaching through the bars, she took a lock of my hair and stroked it between two of her fingers.

“I wonder if your appeal to him might outlast the spell.”

She hummed for a second and scratched her chin before going on.

“Yes, there may still be a chance. This time you must not fail. Otherwise, things will be worse for your family than they’ve ever been.”

“A chance?”

In spite of my current surroundings, fresh hope flickered to life. “What are you going to do? Can you get us out of here?”

“Not us , but you, yes. Here’s what you’re going to do. Call out to the jailer. When he comes, show him this.”

She pushed something through the bars toward me. It was a coin worth more money than I’d ever seen in my life.

“Tell him to get a message to Prince Stellon that his marketplace savior, Raewyn, has been mistakenly imprisoned and needs to speak with him, and that if the jailer arranges it, there will be much more where that came from.”

“Will it work?” I asked.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “The jailer has a greedy nature. I think he can be persuaded.”

“And if Stellon comes, what then? What should I say to him?”

“Tell him you tried to attend the ball at his invitation and were thrown into the dungeon. If your appeal to him is as strong as I suspect it is, he’ll believe you and take you out of here. You’ll have another chance to eliminate the royals… and save your family.”

“But I lost the poison,” I said.

“You’ll have to find another way.”

With no other choice remaining, I nodded my agreement.

“I can try… but I’m barely able to walk. Can you fix my ankle so that I can escape afterward and go home to take care of my family?”

“It’s better that you remain crippled,” Sorcha said. “It will arouse more sympathy from the prince—and you’ll have more time to do what needs to be done. You have until the end of the Assemblage. Fail again, and there will be no more chances.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ll find my own way out,” Sorcha said. “Don’t you worry about me.”

I nodded, gripping the coin in my hand. It wouldn’t buy my own life—that would surely be sacrificed in the course of committing the heinous acts I’d just agreed to.

But hopefully it would buy my family’s lives and well-being.

Pulling myself to standing and leaning forward so my face pushed through the cold, heavy bars at the front of my cell, I called out.

“Jailer! Jailer—I must speak with you. There has been a mistake, and you will be richly rewarded for setting it right.”