Chapter 21
Ican see it thirty yards from me, vast, ugly tendrils snaking around to block off every exit, until I can barely catch a glimpse of the dining hall beyond. The fae have learned to flee quickly by now, lords and ladies hurtling past me as I sprint in the other direction—towards the source.
“Get back!” I scream at the iron as if it can hear me. It simply plunges deeper into the palace, forcing me against a wall as a sharp tip of the metal flies past.
“Eleanor!”
I look up to spot Ruskin and Evanthe on the other side of the corridor. We’re separated now, divided by the iron and the streams of fae trying to outrun it. I see one fae lord throw himself into an alcove, out of the tendril’s direct path, but it’s like it knows he’s there, sprouting a sudden offshoot that heads right for him. He scrabbles against the stone of the alcove wall, desperately looking for a way out. I’m already calling on my magic, but I’m not fast enough, and the shoot crushes him against the wall. He screams and writhes against the pressure as it tears him apart.
Ruskin says something to Evanthe, then fixes his gaze on me. I only realize what he has planned when he leaps forward.
“Don’t!” I yell, but I’m too late.
He vaults over the twisting iron, wincing as he lands one foot on it to propel him further across the corridor. The iron splits into more shoots, hungrily twisting around the spot his leg was a second before. Ruskin lands in front of me, reaching out to grip my arm.
“What do you need to stop this?” he asks.
I swallow at his confidence in me—his conviction that I can stop this relentless, terrible thing.
“I need to get closer to the orchard,” I say. “Soon, before this whole place is overrun.”
Ruskin nods, taking my hand. “Come with me.”
He’s so much faster, so much stronger than I am. He weaves us through the crowds of people, past the undulating artery of metal, dodging its sudden offshoots, and scooping me up into his arms when we need to clear an obstacle I can’t jump. As we run, I try to prepare my magic for the huge task ahead of me, but the rumbling of the palace’s stones and the screams of the fae around me invade my mind, distracting me as I try to visualize and still the inner pool.
You’ve called on it with more distraction than this, I remind myself. Just a few days ago, up against Ruskin on the training field, I was fighting off direct physical attacks at the same time as magical ones, and still holding my own.
Ruskin sets me down a few feet from the orchard. It’s as close as we can get with all the iron, and I notice the slight shake in his arms as he lets me go.
“You don’t need to stay,” I say. I don’t want him to suffer.
“Yes I do,” he replies, his bright eyes burning with intensity.
I don’t argue. Instead, I turn and find that sharp focus I discovered in training, not asking the pool of magic to still, but willing it to.
Almost immediately I feel the iron pushing back—puncturing holes in my power. I pull away and try a different attack. Weaving a net out of my power and catching the iron up in it. It’s like wrestling a huge, angry serpent.
I let out a scream of pure exertion, my face contorting as I put every ounce of effort into the spell. I think I feel a blood vessel pop somewhere near my eye and my muscles beg for a break, as if I’m actually in a physical fight, but I don’t give in. I’ll keep pushing through until the iron stops or I pass out…or maybe both.
The iron thrashes under my magic—once, twice, but then at last it stops spreading, slowing its sprawl through the palace. The orchard exits are no longer shaking in their foundations as the iron stops pumping through them. The dark tendril right in front of us twitches and stills.
It’s not good enough, though. I have to keep going. I need to send some of it back, to free the palace so everyone left can get to safety.
Push harder.
It’s only my mind’s own limitations saying I can’t do this. I’ve seen—I’ve done—more impossible things than this. No way this is where I meet my match. I won’t let that happen.
The iron nearest us begins to groan—the grind of metal against stone as I tug on the leash of magic I’ve constructed. The iron moves some more, but every inch is a battle, and I gasp, unable to catch my breath. I keep sucking in air, but it feels like it’s doing nothing for me.
“Eleanor,” Ruskin says.
“Wait,” I choke out.
“Ella…” He places a hand at my waist, tracing a finger across my ribs. “Ella, stop. That’s enough. You’ve done enough.”
He’s giving me permission to quit, and I’m at once grateful and angry at him for it. Because this is my job, I’m the one who has to do something about this, and I know I haven’t succeeded. Not really. But at the same time, my body is screaming for relief, and I honestly don’t know how much longer I can stay standing.
I let go of my magic.
My muscles sag, and the hand at my waist becomes a support as Ruskin holds me to him. I feel the warmth of his chest through the shirt at my cheek and sigh. I want to bury my face against him, close my eyes and never again look at the evil, gray metal.
But that’s not possible. This world isn’t going to save itself.
I lift my head, pulling away from Ruskin.
“I need to look at the orchard.”
“I don’t think—” Ruskin starts to protest, but I cut him off.
“I need to see.”
I climb over the iron, knowing he can’t follow, squeezing through a gap to reach the dining hall. Even though the immediate danger is gone, my heart thuds ominously. I wriggle down past another tendril and realize from a nearby tuft of leaves that I’m fully inside the orchard now. It’s hard to tell; the place is just an explosion of contorted metal now. I search for sense in the chaos, some shape of the space I walked in a week ago. There—a pile of dirt which could’ve been an excavation point, and beside it…
I force myself to look at blue-black arm protruding from the earth, then, across from it, a mess of bloody, matted hair belonging to another miner. I step down between the iron, and my foot nudges a shovel lying in a pool of blood.
They didn’t get out in time.
Would my armor have helped if they’d had it? Would it have protected them, conserved their strength so they could’ve escaped the orchard? They must have been slowed by iron sickness. I could have prevented that.
I feel useless. Worse—I feel like I’m to blame. I crawl back out between the tendrils, hating every last inch of the cold, menacing stuff, stopping to wipe tears from my face on the way.
Ruskin waits for me outside, his face solemn.
“I’m sorry,” I say, even though it’s not him I really want to apologize to. The people who deserve to hear it are beyond me now.
“Ella,” he says softly, taking my chin in his hand. “You did everything you could.”
But I didn’t. I failed. I could have done better, should have—must do better in the future, or we’re all doomed. Who knows where the spread of iron will stop? Will it take over the whole kingdom, poisoning the Seelie population one awful attack at a time? No, I won’t let that happen. I can find a way to fix this. I will.
This section of the palace is empty now, save for the bodies, and Ruskin leads me through it. His complexion tells me he’s had enough of being around the metal too, though he relaxes a little as the shoots of iron taper off.
We pass a courtyard covered by a pergola, where a large group of High Fae has sheltered from the attack.
“The iron has struck again. It seeks to poison us all.” A familiar reedy voice carried above those gathered—Ephor Jorna. “The time has come to heed the prophecies!”
I slow down to listen to what she’s saying, but Ruskin’s hand lands at my back, trying to steer me away. “Leave it,” he says. “You need to rest now.”
I know why he doesn’t want me listening. It’s because some of the fae think I’m responsible for this. I ignore him, pulling away.
“You should go and find your mother,” I say, knowing this is one of the few things that could redirect him. “Make sure Queen Evanthe is okay.”
He immediately looks around for her, brows furrowing when it’s clear she’s not with the huddled mass of fae.
“I’ll be back,” he says, heading down a corridor towards his quarters. The moment he’s out of sight, I step towards the others.
“How long will we sit idly by?” cries Jorna. “How long will we ignore the guidance we’ve been given? The scrolls speak of a curse, and yet we’re not seeking out its root.”
There’s muttering, but no one dares speak aloud the question that Jorna’s words imply: What about the prince and queen, why aren’t they doing anything? To my relief, a voice speaks out above the crowd.
“Just because you aren’t privy to the plans of the monarch, Ephor Jorna, does not mean that no one has started an investigation,” says Halima.
Encouraged noises rise from some of the fae, and Jorna looks suitably cowed.
“My miners can remove the iron,” pipes up Lord Hadeus. “But they certainly can’t undo this curse. We need more than Low Fae to save this court.”
I feel a surge of disgust at his phrasing.
“Your miners are dead, Lord Hadeus,” I spit, drawing the attention of the High Fae. “They were all killed by the iron when they were too overworked and sick from it to escape.”
I stare at him, willing him to show some remorse. He simply looks back at me with empty eyes.
“What about her?” says a fae lord suddenly, pointing at me. “I’ve heard talk that she could be the cause of all this.”
“No,” replies the blue-haired fae lady I’ve seen always chattering at functions. I’m surprised as she comes to my defense. “She is the iron tamer, the one who stopped this cursed thing. I saw it. We all did.”
“How, though?” asks another fae I remember Ruskin addressing as Lady Naniva. “How is she the only one who can affect this magic? A human. Maybe there’s a reason it obeys her,” she adds darkly.
Jorna looks put out that she’s lost the attention of the crowd, and she tries to recapture it now.
“If we consult the scrolls?—”
“Unnatural,” someone hisses at me, though I don’t see who it is. A few of the High Fae start to close in around me.
A strong hand grabs my arm, pulling me away from the group.
“Come with me,” Halima grunts, marching me away. She hauls me silently through the corridors towards Ruskin’s rooms, and I can tell she’s more annoyed than usual.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“For what?” she snaps.
“For saving me from a bunch of High Fae.”
She grunts. “I wouldn’t have needed to if you’d had the sense to keep your distance. Jorna’s been stoking their superstitions all week. The last thing we need is for you to go putting yourself in the middle of that.”
“Are things really that bad?”
“They won’t say it in public, but behind closed doors…” She shakes her head. “I’ve not seen this place so uprooted since the High Queen was attacked.”
“But what else can we do? We had the miners excavating—” I stumble, thinking about the fates of the ones who hadn’t made it out. “—we’re training me so I can try to stop it, and today was the day we were supposed to reinstate Queen Evanthe so she could restore balance, but she didn’t pass the stone’s trial and?—”
Halima jerks her head towards me.
“You mean she tried and failed?”
I try to order the events in my head, but everything happened so suddenly. “I mean, she started, and I think that’s when the iron attack came. Around the same time that the stone sort of…rejected her, I guess.”
Halima’s expression sours even further. “So we still don’t know if that will help us at all.”
“At least there’s still a chance,” I say. “She can try again.”
“Which is all very well, but we can’t tell the court about it. It’s no surprise they think the royals are doing nothing. The longer the attacks go on the harder it will be to explain why she’s not using her High Queen powers to help.”
I consider how angry the High Fae would be knowing they’ve been deceived about their true monarch all these years. Probably somewhere around as angry as I’ve been learning all the things Ruskin has held back from me, and I’m not even half as vicious as them.
We find Ruskin standing over a seated Evanthe in one of his drawing rooms. She doesn’t look good, her eyes circles of darkness in a pallid face, and I’m immediately glad that I suggested Ruskin come looking for her.
Halima bows to her, then rounds on Ruskin.
“You need to tell the court something. Anything. Your silence is only encouraging them to come up with their own theories—and you won’t like them,” she says, her eyes falling on me.
“Do you doubt that I can handle the court?” Ruskin says, standing straighter.
Tension hangs there in the air as they eye up each other. I shift uncomfortably, and my movement seems to break the spell. Halima just huffs out a sigh and backs out of the room, looking like every step costs her effort. I turn to see Evanthe staring after her, a curious expression on her tired face.
“I don’t understand it,” she mutters, almost to herself. “It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?”
Ruskin goes to her side. “You’ve been through a lot since you last took the trials. I shouldn’t have rushed you.”
Evanthe shakes her head, pressing a hand to her temple like she has a headache. I think of the woman who looked so determined at the stone earlier today and I’m disturbed by how much of that confidence is now missing.
“No. That isn’t it. It’s like the stone was resisting me.” She looks up at Ruskin as if a thought occurs to her. “Could this be part of Cebba’s curse? Could magic like that have turned the stone against me?”
“I don’t know why the stone is behaving like it is,” Ruskin says. “But I’m sure the iron is playing a part. The timing of the attack today was no coincidence. Perhaps the curse is trying to stop us reinstating you, or maybe the stone senses that the balance of the kingdom is upset and is trying to protect itself.”
“Why would the stone need to protect itself from me? I’m supposed to be High Queen.” Her voice is so sad, so frustrated, that my heart goes out to her. It can’t be easy, waking up to find your world turned upside down.
“We’ll find a way to fix this,” Ruskin says, striding across the room to gaze out the window. I can tell he’s thinking, turning things around to try to make sense of them. “Right now, you should rest.”
It’s clear she doesn’t like that idea, but she looks as exhausted as I feel, and to her credit, she doesn’t deny that the day’s events have taken a toll. Instead, she rises, pats Ruskin on the arm, and nods to me.
“You come to us in dark days, Miss Thorn,” she says sadly, as she heads for the door. “Our court has fallen so far.”
Once she’s gone I throw all ceremony out of the window, collapsing on the nearest chaise.
Ruskin is still staring out the window, and I find I’m quite happy to lie here, staring at his elegant profile and resting my weary body. My conversation with Halima in my workshop feels like days, not hours ago.
“Some things are more important than others,” Ruskin says, not looking at me. “We need to make finding the source of these attacks the priority. Everything else will follow.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, wondering how much of an answer he’ll give me.
He turns from the window, and I don’t think I imagine the way his expression eases as his eyes fall on me.
“I suspect the founding stone wouldn’t accept Mother because it doesn’t want a change in leadership while things are so unstable. We can argue it’s a gryphon and egg situation, but I think it will remain resistant until it’s sure the court is safe.”
I sit up, debating whether to ask the question on my mind. I risk it.
“And what if the queen still can’t pass the trials?” I think back over the way she cried out during the test, how frail she looked. “She’s been through so much. What if she’ll never be strong enough?” I bite my lip, waiting for his reaction. To my relief, he simply nods.
“Yes, I’ve been thinking of that too.” He comes and sits beside me, and I’m struck by how, for once, we’re positioned side by side, working out a problem together.
“When the time comes, I will name my mother as an heir before she undergoes the trials again.”
I raise an eyebrow. “How will that help?”
“The founding stone likes order, a neat line of succession. Part of the reason it fought Cebba so much was because I was already named as heir when she tried to put her name on it. It has a preference for the person named by the successor, so if I name my mother to it first, things might go more smoothly next time.”
I think of the pulsing power of the black stone and suppress a shiver. There’s something creepy about the way they talk about it like it has a brain.
“And until then?” Halima’s doubts and fears are still spinning round my head. It feels like we keep running up against walls, finding only dead ends where we hope for a way out. But Ruskin smiles at me, and suddenly I don’t feel so afraid. He has a plan, I can tell, and that gives me hope.
“I think we’ve taken your training as far as we can with my and Halima’s limited knowledge of your power. We need to consult with a different source—someone who can give us another perspective.”
A different source? Who could be more qualified than Halima and Ruskin? “Okay, so what next, then?”
“I think it’s time we visited the Unseelie Court.”