Chapter 18 In Which I Am Royally Screwed #2
“I don’t think any humans have asked for that,” I said. “And we don’t have anything like that with the other—species.”
But that wasn’t true, was it? I thought about the Bureau for Vampire Relations, which had initiated a form of population control that prevented new vampires from turning without years of paperwork. Humans were wriggling themselves into everyone’s business in any way possible.
“I hear the lie in your voice, human,” Kamare said.
“And I know more of your world than you might expect. Your people have always taken more than you are owed. My people are bound by magic to act equitably, and your people have no such restraints. How can we treat together, when our limitations are so different?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And I’m sorry that my being here put you in this position. But I was trapped, too—you know I had no choice and didn’t want to stay.”
“Your death would have solved both of our problems,” Kamare said, which quashed any sympathy I might have had for her.
For the next hour, we traveled in silence. I hardly noticed when the terrain changed again, until Lene elbowed me and pointed out the shapes of the trees.
Where previously, we’d been traveling under what I might have called oaks and conifers, these trees were long and slender, almost tropical.
Their colors verged on jewel tones, red and orange trunks soaring skyward.
The air warmed, too, and the path widened, the stones lightening and smoothing out under our feet, as they had at the sacred site.
At our sides, waving blue-and-purple-fronded plants dotted the ground instead of underbrush.
Here, the leaves hadn’t fallen. I glanced up at a gorgeous blue sky, like threaded turquoise.
Thin, wispy clouds promenaded along their stately way.
I was so busy staring up, mouth open, that I didn’t see Kamare disappear.
Lene grabbed my arm, hard, and I glanced around. Kamare was gone, and the other crimson-clad Fae had come into a wide clearing with us. At our feet was a hole in the earth, dark and deeply unappealing. It was so narrow only one person could possibly enter at a time.
Lene unshouldered her pack, then helped me with mine. Sahir and Gaheris shed theirs as well, and we made an untidy pile at the side of the hole.
Sahir glanced at me. “I will enter first, and catch you at the bottom, Miriam.” He pressed his hand to my cheek, so quickly it almost hurt, and then stepped backward into the hole.
I gaped as he disappeared, then glanced at Lene. Her face was expressionless.
“In,” she ordered.
“You want me to jump into a hole in the ground? Do you know anything about human anatomy? Is the fall hundreds of feet? I could die.”
Lene rolled her eyes. “It was a short fall when I jumped last. In, coward,” she said, which stung.
In the spirit of compromise, I got down on my hands and knees, crawled to the edge of the hole, and slowly rolled myself over the side until I was dangling, staring up at her.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, fighting the strain in my fingertips.
Lene reached over, stuck her fingers under mine, and yanked.
I sucked in a breath to scream but had already landed in Sahir’s arms. He’d somehow caught me in a princess carry, despite my falling down feetfirst.
“That took longer than I expected,” he observed, carrying me away from the opening. Lene landed where we’d just stood, unfazed, and Gaheris followed her so fast I was surprised they didn’t tumble over together.
“The human required reassurance,” Lene said, examining her extended claws.
“Okay, Scar,” I muttered, but she ignored me. Sahir set me down.
“Miri is right,” Gaheris said. “We do not know about human anatomy. I still think she might grow horns if fed enough enchanted cake.”
May I live long enough for us to try, I thought.
I kept a hand on Sahir’s shoulder as I looked around the dim subterranean space. We’d landed at the end of a corridor, and clearly the entrance to the Queen’s Court. God only knew why they couldn’t just put in a set of stairs or a ladder like normal people.
The corridor was at its narrowest about thirty feet from where we stood. Defensive point, I thought, like a warrior and not like a short American woman whose father described her soccer days as “an exercise in picking dandelions.”
But it was a defensive point. The entire setup was—the narrow and inconvenient entrance with no means of egress; the corridor that would require us to walk single file. It was a far cry from the open entrance and wide hallway of the Princeling’s Court.
“Let us continue our journey,” Kamare said, interrupting my thoughts. I glanced around. Apparently none of her faerie guard were coming with us.
She took point once again, giving Lene her back in a show of bravado. Since Lene showed about as many violent tendencies as Doctor Kitten, who I’d once caught stealing a slice of cheese from my plate to share with our resident kitchen mouse, Kamare had really hedged her bets there.
When Kamare reached the narrowest part of the corridor, she turned sideways to get through. Lene and Gaheris followed, and then I sucked in my stomach and copied them. The rough stone protrusions scraped me on both sides, and my left boob got caught for a second, but I made it.
On the other side, the corridor widened enough to fit five people. I glanced back to see Sahir wiggle through as well, the gray stone catching at his green tunic. The tug of stone pulled the fabric tight against his shoulders, his sculpted chest.
He stuck for a moment, his mouth a priceless O of absolute shock, and then propelled himself through the gap on the strength of mortification alone.
Unlike the Princeling’s Court, the Queen’s Court didn’t open into a residential wing.
There were no doors on either side, just long walls of rough striated gray and black stone.
I looked around for the will-o’-the-wisps I’d become accustomed to, but the corridor was lit by long glowing strings pressed into the crevices in the stone and ceiling.
They suffused the hallway with a comforting golden light.
Stay vigilant, I reminded myself. Anything could happen, and probably would.
Sahir strode along at my side, his face solemn. The fact that he could turn into a mass of angry vines at will did soothe me a bit. Though, if pressed, I wouldn’t have been able to describe a single useful thing that a mass of angry vines could do in a fight.
The corridor ended in a large stone archway, which opened into the throne room.
Kamare stopped at the threshold, and I looked over her shoulder, unsure of what to expect.
Not much, was the answer.
The throne room was small, and darker than the corridor, lit by a central fire that crackled and guttered and smoked.
The Queen sat on the far side of the fire, staring into the flames with glowing, slit-pupiled eyes.
Her left hand moved in impossible contortions, and shapes appeared and dissolved in the smoke above her head.
The shadows played on her dark skin, and a glowing golden diadem lay on the thin braids in her black hair. She rested her head in her right hand, elbow on the arm of a similarly golden throne.
She looked… bored.
On either side of her, two faeries stood, all four holding giant-ass spears. Like, really big. Like, two faerie-sized hands couldn’t wrap around the hafts. This seemed excessive, given the number of magic users about.
“My Queen,” Kamare said, sweeping a bow.
I couldn’t stop looking at the faeries on either side. This must be the Queen’s entourage: her equivalent of the Gray, Red, and Blue Knights, and the Crone.
Why did they need the spears?
They were, honestly, comically large.
I tried to imagine one of the faeries sweeping the spear down and impaling someone with it. I couldn’t. There was no way they’d have the requisite control.
Sahir stepped on my foot.
I jumped back, glaring at him, but he was right. I needed to be looking at the Queen, not imagining her knights swinging their giant poles around like the spinning-plates act at a circus.
So I looked back at her.
She straightened and stared across the flames at the five of us. The room was so small I could feel the heat of the fire from where I stood.
“You come to relinquish your prisoners as tribute, Kamare,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “And you, Miriam Geld, come to beg for your life.” I found myself watching her mouth for a flash of shark teeth. She tapped a finger on her full lower lip. She had ruby red nails.
“I know enough, you see,” she said, her eyes glazing past me with studied disinterest. “And so long as I am ruler of this Court, any faerie may bring me petition, and I will hear them fairly.”
Something passed across the leftmost guard’s face when she said that.
I debated being interested and then decided I had enough of my own problems.
“The humans must not be allowed into our realm,” Kamare said. “I submit these prisoners to you as fair barter for the closing of the borders to Faerie.”
At this, the Queen stood.
And I panicked. Prisoners, Kamare had said.
And Plead for your life, the Queen had said, as though living was an option.
Was I about to be traded to a different royal faerie?
Would she have different quirks than the Princeling, which I’d have to learn, and work around?
Oh god, work. I didn’t even have my work laptop with me.
My mind jerked to a halt. I was trapped in Faerie, a political prisoner to a proven poisoner, being traded to a Queen. I’d been embroiled in a battle I didn’t understand and that would probably kill me, and I was worrying about my emails.
More than that—I looked right, at Sahir, Gaheris, and Lene, lined up in a row facing the Queen. I’d brought my friends into this, intentionally or otherwise. If they were harmed, it was my fault. And I was worrying about my emails.