14. Miri
14
Miri
N early three hours passed while Ivy and Carter tried to wake Lex and Diana. But it was futile. Whatever conversation the queen wanted to have with Lex wouldn’t be interrupted until she finished with him.
I tried to ignore her advice to me. You will know when the time is right. Trust yourself, and trust your beloveds. She said nothing about Reginald or my crown. She said nothing about what would be the right thing to do, only that I would know. Her words clawed at my insides like razor blades.
You already know what to do, came a small voice from the back of my mind, flashing images of me throwing my engagement ring at my grandmother’s feet and riding off into the sunset with my spouses.
But what did that mean? Was she suggesting I give up everything I’d ever known?
What would my father think if he knew I tossed it away for a silly thing like love?
I had to stay true to myself, and I loved my spouses more than anything. That was what Diana meant. Trust in them. I couldn’t betray them like that. I would stay. I had to stay, no matter what my gran did to me, no matter what happened here.
“I’m telling you,” Poppy said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Nothing you do will get their attention. I was sitting here for over a day, screaming and shaking all of you. They’re really under.”
Over a day.
It was hard to believe that could be true, especially given my muscles and joints didn’t ache like I’d been sitting in one place for twenty-seven hours, but that had been the case. For us, we had blinked and returned to normal. For Poppy, she said she had stressed the entire time, especially when Siobhan and her lovers didn’t return.
Now, going on hour thirty, we were running out of options. Today was Beltane. As much as I balked at the idea, we had to get into the woods so we could slip into Faerie. We had the ring and the right time of year. We couldn’t wait any longer.
“It’s like…she’s blocking me.” Ivy shook her head and sighed, trying to grab both Diana and Lex at the same time, perhaps hoping she’d be able to get inside and pull them out. So far, she’d been sorely unsuccessful. Her focus went to the ring, and she closed her fingers around it while clenching her eyes shut, attempting to reach out to Siobhan mentally. She’d been trying since we woke up, and it still hadn’t worked. “Damn it. I’m just getting static from her, too.”
I watched the crimson spirals swirl around the queen’s head, the cloud now more dense than it had been before we reached her. It was like the poison had been pushed out of her body but hadn’t left her orbit. Ivy drifted through it, disrupting the particles, but not picking up any herself. She had an impact on them, but seemed immune.
I wonder if I could…
I reached out and waved through the dust, changing the direction of the glittering swirls like a dirt plume under water.
“Miri?” Carter asked, furrowing his brows as he looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“Do you see the dust?”
Ivy and Poppy both shot their attention to me, sharing twin stares of concern.
“Dust?” Ivy asked. “Like…ruby dust?”
“I think so.” I touched it again, my hand undulating through it, back and forth. It was almost like I could collect it, like I could syphon it into something if I wanted. “Do you have a bottle or a bag? Something I could put it in?”
Carter glanced around and brought me a plastic sandwich wrapper. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. I took it and held it out, gathering the particles as if I were holding a kite out to catch the air. I scooped it into the bag, using my hands to shove it inside, leaving not a single particle left. And once it didn’t have a fairy queen to circle, it relaxed into a soft, heavy mixture resembling sand.
It vibrated in my hand, perhaps recognizing the magic inside me. Just when I’d started to reach inside to touch it, Diana and Lex inhaled desperate, sharp breaths at the same time, drawing my attention back to them.
“Thank God,” Ivy said, pulling Lex into a hug. “We thought you were stuck.”
Lex laughed and shook his head, standing up to throw his arms around Carter next.
“My lady?” Poppy softly asked, her big eyes terrified.
“Hello, my darling,” the queen said, smiling as Poppy let out a cry and jumped in her arms.
I stood and held up the bag, showing Lex what I’d been able to collect while they were having their private conversation. He nodded, and now that I had it, Carter and Ivy narrowed their gazes on it as well. Perhaps it being in my possession had made it visible to the others.
“All right, my prince?” I murmured, kissing Lex.
“All right,” he said, but I caught the glimpse of a twist near his eyes. It was small and quick, but I still saw it. When I wrapped him in my arms, his entire body trembled and his hold tightened, almost like he was clinging to me for dear life. Whatever happened after we’d been pushed out had rattled him, which could not be good news. Just as quickly, he relented, hiding it under his bravado.
“Yes, very well,” the queen said, rising to her feet and grabbing Poppy’s hand. “Where are Siobhan and the battle maidens? Where is Finn?”
“They went into the woods to find reinforcements.” Ivy nodded in the general direction of the forest and stood straighter.
Now restored to her former self, the queen shimmered with a preternatural aura, physical energy sparkling and glowing all around her. Being in her presence nearly brought me to my knees again, the urge to bend to her will, to do whatever she wanted, overwhelmed me. Fairies were intoxicating creatures on their own, but the queen made the rest of them seem insignificant. They were individual stars, and she was the whole damn galaxy.
“And what day is today?”
“It’s Beltane,” I said. “We were with you for quite some time.”
“Hmm.” The queen pursed her lips and shook her head, walking through the pub to the door, pushing it open so she could step outside. I looked wordlessly at my spouses before following her, carrying the bag of ruby dust with me. We found Diana on her knees with her fingers dug into the dirt, her eyes closed, her head tilted like she was listening.
“Help us,” the trees said. “ Help us, help us, help us.”
“I hear you,” Diana whispered back. “Be patient.”
I froze, watching the queen communicate with the forest effortlessly. For me, it cost me a bit of my spirit, and after a full day in the garden, I fell into the best exhausted slumber. But she seemed rejuvenated by the interaction, somehow urged on by the panic in their voice.
“We need to go,” the queen said, heading off toward the trail leading to the woods, and ultimately, the college.
“Wait,” Ivy said, holding up a hand. “You’re helping us now?”
The queen didn’t stop to answer her question, just barreled on with Poppy following closely behind her.
“Wait!” Ivy rushed to catch up with her, and Carter, of course, went after Ivy, leaving me alone with my prince of darkness, who at this moment fit that role entirely too well. His eyebrows furrowed together in a brooding mix of concern and hesitation, and I desperately wished I had Ivy’s gift so I could hop behind those big hazel eyes and figure out what had him so perplexed.
“What did she say?” I asked.
Lex blinked and smirked, hiding away his displeasure as he threw an arm over my shoulder, pulling me in close so he could whisper in my ear. “She wanted to have a good fuck before she went back to her husband.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked up at him, a jealous heat licking its way down my chest despite how much I didn’t believe him. He’s screwing with me.
“But I told her I’m a married man.” Lex smiled against my ear and gave me a tender kiss. “And I wouldn’t betray my princess like that.”
Of course, the queen wouldn’t want Lex, of all people, certainly not after the way he disrespected her twice. But he’d lied, and that intrigued me. What exactly was he covering for? I thought we were all on the same page now, no more hiding secrets from each other. What happened to that?
Siobhan’s warning rattled around in my mind. We’d have to make a sacrifice. We still didn’t know what that meant, but a sickening idea dripped down into my gut, souring and twisting until I didn’t want to keep going. Lex would only lie to protect me…to protect us. If he thought he was doing that, then perhaps the sacrifice was more personal than we anticipated.
“Alexei,” I murmured, turning to face him. “Please don’t keep this from us. If there’s something we need to know, something we need to plan for?—”
He cut me off with a quick kiss. “C’mon, Princess. We’ve run out of time and we need to catch up.” Lex grabbed my hand and tugged me along behind him, my mind spinning while we raced through the woods.
“Help us,” the trees hissed. “ Help, help, help.”
I shook that off, grimacing at their pain while I tried not to trip over the undergrowth. Drums roared in the distance, louder and more intimidating than I’d ever heard them before. Memories of a hot Midsummer night drifted up from the depths of my mind, when a twenty-two-year-old version of me had wandered this same path with Lex. Trepidation had lanced my heart, then, too, but for very different reasons.
We had once thought all of this was over after we graduated from college, that we would go our separate ways and never see each other again. We had been such idiots.
My father used to say history didn’t repeat itself, it rhymed, and I laughed to myself at the irony of that statement as we crested the hill and joined Ivy and Carter on top. Staring down into that valley, I went back to that first night at Midsummer. How long ago that seemed from today, despite only being four years. We had lived for ages since then, no longer the wide-eyed twenty-two-year-old versions of ourselves, so innocent and naive to the trials that lay ahead of us. If I could go back to that day and tell myself to run, would I?
For as much suffering as we’d been through, for all the terrible things I’d survived, I didn’t think I would. I’d do it again if it meant I got to have my beloveds at the end. I knew then that I wouldn’t leave them when this was over. I had to stay, Reginald and my grandparents and the royal family be damned. I wasn’t the first or even the second to abdicate my title, and I likely wouldn’t be the last.
I gripped the ruby dust harder in my pocket, making sure it was still there, and took a deep breath as my eyes adjusted to the sight in the valley. Four huge bonfires flickered in either corner, their flames licking into the night while crowds of people danced around them. A giant maypole stood in the center, bodies weaving back and forth while they screamed with laughter. Maybe a hundred people had filled the small space four years ago, but now the entire town participated in the festival. They had abandoned their lives for this. How long had they been here?
Bodies crammed the tiny area, moving like a sea of flesh, hypnotizing and horrifying at the same time. A tremble skated down my spine, matching the churning anxiety in my gut. I felt like an intruder, like we’d stumbled onto something ancient, sacred, and overpowering, something we barely understood and had no business trifling with.
When the queen nodded at the party with a giant smile, I glanced to Ivy and Lex to make sure I understood what she meant.
“What? Go down there?” I blinked back my incredulity.
“We need to find Siobhan, Finn, and the others.” She looked at Lex before shifting her gaze to Ivy. “But beware of the magic. It is very… intoxicating… this time of year.”
I sighed and tried to ignore the thrill in her piercing stare.