Chapter 26
T he midday light shortens the shadows of the trees as we ride through the Emerald Forest. I hear Destan inhale deeply and sigh, and when I look over he has a little smile on his face. I raise my eyebrows at him.
“What?” he says, defensive. “It’s good to be home. Don’t you realize how damp and earthy the Unseelie Court smelled?”
He’s right. In contrast, the Seelie Kingdom is as fragrant as a flower shop.
“I seem to remember you didn’t hate everything about Unseelie,” I say suggestively, thinking of a certain Unseelie maid.
“What are you talking about?” Ruskin asks, riding up between us. Destan’s look demands my silence.
“Oh, just the friends we made in Unseelie,” I say with a grin. Ruskin seems about to say something, when General Sunshard up ahead turns her horse to signal to us.
“We’re nearing the liaison point,” she says when we catch up to her. “We should dismount and proceed on foot, or the resistance might mistake us for the Hunt.”
I shudder at the thought of those maniacs having free rein again, and clumsily slide down from my steed. Soon the banks of the river come into view. Lord Sunshard lifts his hands to his mouth and makes a noise uncannily like a crow. There’s a moment’s silence, and then the cawing is returned, and two figures appear from behind the trees to our left.
One of them is short, an imp I recognize who supplies food to the palace. The other is taller and has skin the texture of shells.
“Kaline?” I say, bewildered. My maid from the palace doesn’t look herself at all. Her seaweed-like hair is pale and bedraggled, and she has a crack across her cheek as if something struck her there.
“Your Highness, Eleanor Thorn.” She curtseys to us, though it looks reluctant, and the imp follows suit, introducing himself as Gapir.
“What happened?” I ask. “Are you okay?”
Kaline hushes me.
“We can’t talk here,” says the imp, glancing around him. “Too many eyes.”
They lead us down to the riverbank and stop. I look curiously at the rushing waters, my eyes narrowing as I spot a specific patch that’s moving strangely.
The surface breaks and a thin, greenish-gray figure emerges. Its frog-like face stares out at us. It’s a nixie—a type of low fae who guards the river. And not just any nixie. I’m sure this is one I’ve met before.
“You!” I say, remembering when this creature tried to trick me with its riddle games when I was fleeing the Hunt. I’m pretty sure if I lost it was going to eat me.
“You,” it croaks wetly back, glaring at me with bulbous eyes.
“You two know each other?” Destan asks weakly.
“Let’s just say we’ve had a run-in before,” I tell him. To be fair, I tricked the nixie back, promising it gold I then threw into the river, but that seemed reasonable when I was fleeing for my life.
“Well, whatever happened, we have bigger problems now,” Gapir says, mostly directing his words to the nixie. The creature shrugs in acceptance and opens its mouth. It’s full of sharp teeth, just like I remember. Then it starts to recite.
“A ring of gold I wear upon my head,
A fist of iron I use in honor’s stead,
As Seelie sovereign, my subjects will obey,
But I am no queen of the lowest fae.
Who am I?”
Kaline throws Ruskin a look, then sticks out her chin as she gives the answer.
“Evanthe Dawnsong.”
The nixie nods, then dips beneath the water. Moments later, a narrow bridge—little more than a plank of wood—rises to the surface, and we begin to cross.
Ruskin says nothing, but I furrow my brow, thinking that as passwords go, it’s not a particularly good one. The riddle’s so easy to work out that it’s almost not a riddle at all.
But that’s the point. It weeds out traitors not because its answer is a secret, but because it requires the answerer to denounce Evanthe. No fae loyal to her could answer her name to that description, because it requires claiming that she isn’t queen of the Low Fae at all. The resistance already knows Ruskin doesn’t consider his mother the true queen, but I assume this test is to make sure none of the Low Fae in the resistance are secretly working for her.
On the other side of the river, Kaline nods to Gapir. He eyes the tree trunks, before picking one that has amber sap leaking from the surface, the golden tracks leaving a pattern I’ve noticed on trees in the Emerald Forest before—designs that I thought looked deliberate. It seems I was right. The imp taps a few times across the surface, and the front of the trunk swings outwards to reveal that it’s hollow inside.
“My people have been making hollows for generations,” Gapir says. From the way the others nod, I assume this is normal imp behavior. “Never thought we’d be using them for something like this, though.” He shifts dried leaves from the bottom of the empty trunk to reveal the opening of a tunnel.
We follow it down, and I wonder how long it took the Low Fae to construct the passage. It’s wide and deep and must run right along the Emerald Forest. When we emerge, it’s into one of the dwellings in the Low Fae town on the edge of the forest. I remember that Hadeus’s miners were Low Fae, of clans who were particularly good at digging. It seems there’s lots the Low Fae are capable of that the High Fae don’t value as they should. Overlooking these skills might be their downfall.
Other fae await us in the resistance’s safe house. A few I recognize vaguely from the palace, others are strangers to me. They watch us with a range of expressions: suspicion, hope, fear. They may prefer us over Evanthe, but I get the sense they’re not ready to hang out the bunting because Ruskin’s returned.
General Sunshard speaks first, and when I watch all heads turn to her, I can see that she has their faith. We’ll have to earn the same.
“His Majesty and Lady Thorn have arrived with a plan to remove the queen’s iron power from her.” A tree-like fae with a mossy beard crosses his thick arms.
“And then what?” he grunts.
“And then he will retake the Seelie Court, and rule over it again,” Lord Sunshard answers.
There’s some murmuring among the group.
“We’ve made a promise to the humans,” Gapir, the imp, says. “We said they’d get their freedom if they helped us. I won’t go back on that promise.”
“And I wouldn’t ask you to,” says Ruskin. “In the past I have turned a blind eye to the fae who punish humans by bringing them to Faerie against their will. I have been guilty of a version of it myself,” he says, looking at me. “Not anymore. I will release all the human servants once I rule again.”
We haven’t spoken about this, I’ve never asked it of him, and even as he makes his promise, I wonder why. The crueler fae’s practice of kidnapping humans was an injustice that made me furious when I first came to Faerie, but I also came to learn that when he was cursed, Ruskin was too weak to do anything more than pick his battles with those fae. And later, when he was well again, we had bigger problems on our minds. But now…the court has been ripped apart in so many ways, but maybe that destruction is giving an opportunity to rebuild in new ways. Better ways. I see Ruskin looking to me, and his gaze is questioning—he wants to know what I think about his words, even more than the resistance’s reaction. I nod my approval, and he looks relieved. When I glance around, I see some of the suspicious expressions the Low Fae were wearing are starting to melt away.
Then Kaline’s voice cuts through the chatter, clear and cold.
“Do you know my brother, Falstir, can’t walk anymore?” She pauses, staring between Ruskin, Destan, and me. “Some of the Hunt caught him eavesdropping on a conversation between them and Evanthe—he had a good reason to be there, but they wanted him punished all the same. They chased him into the woods, and Lord Vanis’s Calasian trampled his legs. When I tried to take Falstir to the healers, Vanis stopped them. I petitioned Evanthe, but she did nothing.” Her voice breaks, a shining tear rolling down her cracked cheek. “It would’ve taken them half an hour to fix, and he’s paralyzed from the waist down.”
A distinct sense of guilt blooms in my gut. We left these people behind to suffer under Evanthe’s rule. While we happily bided our time in Unseelie, they were here, on the frontline, falling victim to the cruelty she’s letting run rampant in the Court.
“I’m so sorry, Kaline,” I say, my own voice breaking a little. She sniffs and shakes her head as if to shake off her sadness too. Her expression hardens again.
“I don’t need your sympathy, Eleanor. I’m just explaining why when you go to face Evanthe, I’m coming with you.”
“I never even knew this was here,” Destan whispers as we shuffle through the dark cellar. “Ruskin,” he murmurs. “How many times did we sneak into the kitchens for food as kids, without ever realizing there’s a whole unguarded store right underneath them?”
Destan sounds almost indignant that this fact has been kept from him, and I turn to him to make a wry comment, only to be thrown for about the tenth time that hour by his appearance. Gone is the curly hair and golden-brown skin, to be replaced with a complexion like bark and locks with the texture of wheat grass. A couple of fae who were gifted in illusions created new Low Fae disguises for each of us.
Kaline scrambles up a few steps to a hatch in the low cellar ceiling and knocks three times in a deliberate rhythm. There’s a pause, and then the hatch opens, revealing one of the palace cooks. Her small, wide-set eyes examine us for a moment, and then she stands back to let us pass.
The resistance chose to limit the number of servants who knew exactly who they were smuggling into the palace. Even the servants here who are on our side might hesitate to help in a plan this risky—a plan that could lead to their torture or execution if we fail. As far as the cook knows we’re just more members of the resistance, coming in to sabotage Evanthe and her followers. Still, she squints at us as we climb out into a side room of the kitchens, and I get the feeling Ruskin’s illusions don’t have her completely fooled.
“Even with the disguises, we should keep our heads down,” I murmur to the group as Kaline escorts us past the bubbling pots and steaming stoves.
And yet I nearly blow our cover right there and then when I freeze at the sight of six humans eating at a table in the kitchens. Instead of palace uniforms, they’re wearing the normal clothes of Styrland’s tradesmen. And I recognize one of them.
He’s small, with large eyeglasses perched on his nose, but even just looking at him, I can hear his nasal voice assessing the authenticity of my gold.
The jeweler from Albrecht’s castle. My mind whirls, wondering what on earth he would be doing here…and then my eyes fall on the book lying on the table beside his elbow. It’s one of mine. A notebook filled with my research from my alchemy experiments.
Ruskin nudges me in the ribs and I jerk into motion, tearing my gaze away from the group. When we’re out in the corridors of the Seelie palace I turn to Kaline.
“Who are those men?” I ask. “What are they doing here?”
“The humans? They showed up a few days ago. Evanthe must’ve brought them from your realm, but I don’t know why.” She shrugs. “We’re working on getting more information.”
I don’t like the vagueness of the answer, but don’t push her, knowing we have other things to think about right now. After we’ve dealt with Evanthe, maybe we can get more details.
The buildings look totally different from the last time we were here. Back then the palace and the rest of the court were all but deserted, and overrun by the thick, twisting tendrils of iron. Now those tendrils have retreated, and I can once again see the bright, blousy flowers that the dark metal hid. We pass several High Fae lounging in courtyards and gossiping in alcoves, as if the terrible iron curse had never been there, as if the kingdom wasn’t locked in a power struggle between mother and son. I suppose that’s exactly how Evanthe wants the High Fae for now: complacent and compliant.
Their self-absorption helps us, however, as we move through the palace. Most of them barely spare a glance for us. It’s as if we’re invisible. It’s easy to see how the Low Fae have learned to use this to their advantage. Forming a resistance was inevitable.
We get closer towards the private quarters of the palace. These places that are warded against intruders, but Ruskin is still High King—the palace still recognizes him. We glide easily through closed doors and charmed archways, with Ruskin leading the way—right through to Evanthe’s quarters.
“We haven’t been able to recruit her maids,” Kaline explained to us before we left the safe house. “And the guards are all High Fae, so we haven’t dared approach them, but according to the kitchen staff, she usually takes lunch in her own dining room, away from the court, at two. We should be able to catch her unawares then.”
“Of course she eats alone,” Destan commented at the time. “She can’t stand her own court. You’d think her followers would have worked that out by now.”
“She’s a good actress,” I reminded Destan. “She had us all fooled.”
“Besides, the members of the court are used to a ruler who doesn’t want to spend time with them,” Ruskin pointed out. “I certainly never did.”
Now I mentally prepare myself to face that woman again. Who knows, maybe after I remove the iron she will rediscover some of her old self. If there’s any chance of that, I’ll hold on to it for Ruskin’s sake.
The first set of guards waits for us at the entrance to Evanthe’s rooms, as we expected. I rip the weapons from their hands when we’re still several feet away, as the vines that cover the palace walls spring up, gagging the guards and binding them to the stone pillars that flank them. Ruskin’s High King magic is at full strength now he’s on Seelie ground again.
We keep moving, striding through the chambers.
“There, that’s her dining room.” Ruskin nods towards a set of double doors where two more guards wait. One of them is fast enough to cast a spell this time, the same kind of flashy light magic Vanis used on me once, but General Sunshard deflects it with the sword she hid under her long cloak. They’re bound and silenced by vines moments later.
Without breaking our stride, I use my magic to push on the handles of the two large doors, and they swing open.
Evanthe sits at the end of a long table, quite alone, a plate of food in front of her. She lifts her long, elegant neck and I can’t help but feel a chill at her icy stare.
“Ah,” she says, laying her cutlery down as if she’s been expecting us. “So helpful of you to come to me, Miss Thorn. I had intended to fetch your father from Albrecht’s dungeons to draw you in at last, but now I see there’s no need. And you’ve even brought Ruskin too. Good, that will speed everything up.”
“Don’t give her time to stall,” General Sunshard tells me.
I throw my magic towards Evanthe, searching out the dark shard I’ve seen buried in her heart.
But even as I do so, doubts tug at my focus. Her mentioning Dad has thrown me, and besides, it’s been too easy up to this point, hasn’t it? Why didn’t she post half an army outside her doors?
Because she’s confident we can’t hurt her.
Around me, there are shouts, and I’m vaguely aware of more fae entering the room. I try to keep my mind locked on Evanthe, following the channels of her body, leading back to one source.
But every time I think I catch a glimpse of her heart, it slips away from me, disappearing behind a dark cloud. My magic probes at it, but the cloud simply swirls thicker, blocking me off. I think this must be Cebba’s magic—maybe Interra’s too—protecting the shard from me. When I push against the darkness directly, it fights back, striking at my subconscious. It feels like an icicle being driven through my brain, and I flinch back, the connection broken.
I stare at the chaos around me. The Sunshards are locked in battle with half a dozen guards, a blur of flashing weapons telling me they’re holding their own. Destan and Kaline are fighting guards too, but Ruskin’s grappling with Evanthe, dancing between rogue shards of iron springing up around him. Branches and vines surge across the room, trying to bind the queen and block the iron from reaching our allies, but the iron is stronger, slicing through the organic matter like its paper.
And around every shoot of iron, the shadows of Interra swirl. I try to touch Evanthe with my magic again, but I can’t even get close this time, she’s too strong—whatever dark power is protecting her heart is too powerful, and all I can do is focus on redirecting the iron shards, aiming them away from Ruskin and the others as best I can.
“Ruskin!” I shout over the grinding of metal and the grunts of the fae. He locks eyes with me, and I shake my head. He knows I’ve failed, which means we have to get out of here as fast as possible. Evanthe has a palace of powerful fae following her orders. Even if some of the servants are secretly on our side, there are likely limits to how much they’d be willing to risk to help us. For the sake of Seelie, Evanthe mustn’t capture me and Ruskin. If she does, she could force us to give her access to the founding stone.
Kaline’s in the corner, surprisingly managing to keep a guard at bay with just a dagger, while Destan moves with surprising agility around a pair of Evanthe’s men. I call to them both as Ruskin signals the Sunshards. Time for our exit strategy. Lord Sunshard trips up the last of his opponents, as his wife turns and slashes at the shins of Kaline’s lead attacker. He goes down, and the maid leaps over him. I concentrate on pushing several of the iron shards back towards Evanthe, buying us time to flee the room.
We barrel along the corridor, and frustration still burns in my chest.
“What happened?” Ruskin asks, as he throws four approaching guards against the wall with a swiftly grown branch.
“I couldn’t get to it,” I snap, angry with myself. “She’s too well protected by dark magic.”
We take a right, towards Ruskin’s quarters, but a familiar grinding sound bounces off the walls behind us. I glance over my shoulder. Evanthe’s sending the iron after us.
“I’ll slow it down,” I shout to the others. “But you need to keep up.” I jog backwards to see what I’m doing, pushing on the iron to delay its advance. To still it entirely, I’d have to stop and give it my full concentration, but we’re trying to get out of here anyway, so we just need to stay ahead of it.
I follow the team back towards a warded arch that leads into a walled garden. The iron is still several yards behind us, and I’m confident I’ve given us enough distance to exit safely. But when I turn to check on our group sprinting towards the monarch gate, I realize someone’s missing.
“Where’s Kaline?” I shout, whipping back round to look back into the palace. That’s when I see them—a group of High Fae coming in the opposite direction to the iron, weapons drawn. Vanis is among them.
Kaline’s sprinting towards him, her dagger held out, her face full of pure fury. Without me slowing the iron I know she won’t be fast enough.
“Kaline, no!” I shout.
I throw my magic out towards the gray, writhing metal, only to discover I’m not fast enough either. I watch from the sidelines as it reaches the maid, skewering her through the middle. Kaline’s eyes go wide, but I don’t see any more than that, Ruskin’s strong hands pull me back through the arch, dragging me across the garden and through the monarch gate, where Evanthe cannot follow.