Chapter Six
“Oh, thank goodness. We’ve gotten hopelessly lost on a women’s historical society outing. Can you help us find the way out?”
The lie springs to my tongue easily. Before I met Emmett, I wasn’t a very good liar at all.
Rhion claps his hands together in front of his heart. “No need for that! We can speak freely now! Come, come.” He waves his
hand and it feels as if we have no choice but to follow him.
We end up in another dark antechamber, this one with a bricked floor and more little piles of bricks, like tiny ovens scattered
throughout.
“The old caldarium,” Rhion explains. “The Romans used to come here and sweat and gossip and do business. That was before my
time, but my father didn’t like the Romans much at all. Said they were so serious they never agreed to any fun bargains. They
were too busy marching and building walls.”
“Whatever you think we did, we didn’t do it,” Faith says. She’s less scared of the Others than the rest of us, I think.
“That’s a rather blanket denial,” Rhion replies.
“We’re ladies-in-waiting to our benevolent queen,” she says dryly. “What business could we have with rebellion?”
I nearly snort a laugh at Faith calling me benevolent. She usually opts for annoying, tiresome, naive. She cares for me in her own way, I do believe that. But only four months out from the competition for Bram’s hand, we’re both
still nursing the wounds we suffered at Bram’s and Emmett’s hands. She’d never confess it, but I know she still blames me
for the way Emmett cast her aside. Her love for Marion has softened her but she’s stubborn in nature. We have that in common.
Rhion takes off his top hat and holds it humbly in front of his chest. “Can we stop with the posturing? Bram is a monster.
You’re all smart enough to see it.”
I pause.
This feels like a trick.
“I love my husband,” I say slowly.
“You don’t need to lie, not anymore,” Rhion replies.
“I am devoted to my husband, King Bram. I love him truly. Now if you would be so kind as to show us the way out, we’d be much
obliged.”
Rhion shakes his head sadly. “He was my friend, my closest friend. My father was his father’s closest adviser. We grew up
more like brothers than friends. But then he snatched the crown from his mother, and the parts of Bram I loved—his humor,
his kindness, his good nature—were warped into something cold and unrecognizable. His father was a cruel man and Bram learned
well at his knee. Better than I’d realized. It took me too many years to realize the Bram I once loved no longer existed.
It wasn’t until his wedding that I understood just how gone he was.”
It’s a strange thing to say. Rhion wasn’t at my wedding; he didn’t arrive until the next day.
“He was kind to me, when we first met,” I offer. I don’t even know why I say it. It’s like some primal part of me wants to comfort Rhion. The pain on his face as he explains who Bram used to be is difficult to look at.
“Bram has always been a skilled actor,” Rhion continues. “Even in our youth, he learned how to manipulate others. I don’t
think he ever did a lick of his own schoolwork, there was always some girl who mooned after him doing it for him. Or, on rare
occasions when that didn’t work, some younger student he’d threaten into doing it instead. If they refused, he had no trouble
acting upon his threats of violence.”
“Cheating on his homework seems a rather small thing compared to patricide,” Emmy says.
As Rhion paces, he leaves little indents in the felt of his hat from gripping it too hard. “I know, I know. I mean only to
paint a picture. Bram was born troubled, and time and circumstances have warped him into a monster. We were young men by faerie
standards when he led the coup against his parents. Queen Moryen and her husband, King Urien, ruled as true co-monarchs. But
on one key issue they disagreed: the humans.”
“I already know this part of the story, I think,” I reply. Queen Mor told me months ago that her protection of the humans
was what ultimately led to her exile from the Otherworld.
“Yes,” Rhion sighs sadly. “Mor was sympathetic to the plight of the humans. It’s not that she is a particularly empathetic being, but she does love law and order.
She thought the brutality with which the folk treated the humans was undignified.
She told me once she was sick of throwing away bloodstained carpets.
When she decreed that the door to England was to be closed, there was outrage.
The folk had grown used to their human playthings and they had also grown fond of England. ”
“And Bram used this against her?” Marion asks.
Rhion nods. “He did. That’s the problem with immortality. In order for there to be a new ruler, the old one must be disposed
of. There is no natural order of succession, only blood and betrayal and the blessing of the land. But there were those of
us who agreed with our queen’s decision. I had grown fond of humans, and not just as sport. Before the door closed, I had
friends in London, and I could see they were just as complex and feeling as I was, even if their lives were shorter than my
own. Bram ranted and raved about his mother, but I never thought he’d actually take action against her. I was naive. I won’t
be again.”
“What do you mean?” Marion asks.
“We need to rid England of him. He is poison. Neither of our worlds will survive for long if he remains on the throne.”
“I’m still unsure of how that involves me,” I say.
“You’re his wife.”
“I am, and I love my husband.” I parrot my denial from earlier.
“And so, you are now a part of his family. We folk have funny rules about things like that. You can go through the door unaccompanied.
I cannot.”
My heart thrums. “The door?” I ask in a whisper, increasingly wary that this is a trap.
There’s a spark in Rhion’s eyes. “The door between our worlds. It’s nearly impossible for one of us to die on English soil.
Only in the Otherworld will you be able to kill him.”
My blood sluices in my veins. This time, Faith says something before I do.
“We won’t mention this meeting to Bram as a courtesy. We’ll be going.” She turns on her heel as Rhion shouts, “Wait.”
I search for an emotion in his fathomless eyes and find sorrow. I don’t know what to make of it.
“I love my husband,” I say flatly.
“Surely there must be some way to make you trust me,” he pleads.
“I’ve seen too much of your kind to ever trust a faerie again. It’s nothing personal,” I reply.
“I can’t give up that easily.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” I attempt to leave again, but he captures the sleeve of my day dress loosely in his hand, then
drops it just as quickly.
“If not for England, then what about for Lydia?”
“Lydia?” I gasp. “You do know her, then?”
“I—” His voice hitches and he casts his glance at the ground. “I loved her—do love her, I mean.”
There’s only one way Rhion could know Lydia.
I can picture myself so clearly on that night, last February. The air was biting cold and I was near mad with anguish over
Lydia’s disappearance. In a last-ditch attempt to reach her, I tried to open a portal to the Otherworld like we tried to when
we were children. It was the night I met Emmett. It was the night she returned.
I think again of those two weeks she went missing last February, and I know in my bones my suspicions were correct. “So she
did go to the Otherworld?” I asked Queen Mor as much, back when I believed she could not lie.
Rhion nods. “Yes, she was there for months, long enough for us to get to know each other a little, but it must have been much
shorter here.”
“Only two weeks,” I confirm. “And that’s where Bram is keeping her now?”
Again, Rhion nods. “It is.”
“Is she all right? Is Emmett?” The words come tumbling out of me; there are so many things I need to ask him. But then I remember
who I am talking to. “Wait,” I gasp. “I still don’t trust you. How do I know you’re telling the truth? This could be another
lie or game or farce meant to trick me into sedition against my husband, with whom, I’ll once again remind you, I’m madly
in love.”
The other girls and I wait, still and silent as Rhion gathers himself. He glances down to where his hands are clasped in front
of him and then back up to us.
“I saw her for the first time in the middle of the afternoon. She was on her hands and knees, helping a maid who’d dropped
a tray. Her voice was soft as she reassured her. I hadn’t seen anyone do anything that kind in four hundred years. It’s embarrassing
to admit, but Lydia wanted little to do with me and I was too much of a coward to show her my true nature. I was afraid of
Bram noticing just how much I noticed her. But I did . . . I noticed everything. She learned every servant’s name and thanked
them constantly. She played with the cook’s children, spinning them until they laughed so hard they could scarcely breathe.
A window in my room overlooked the garden and I watched her there, most days. She spent hours on her knees coaxing the castle
grounds back to life, and then leaving a trail of petals on the stairs back up to her room. She was—” He takes a breath as
if the force of his own feelings has made him unsteady. “I’ve lived for a very long time, but I’d never seen anyone so full
of life.”
My eyes well with tears picturing Lydia as he describes her, happy in the Otherworld. “You could be lying about this, too,” I say.
Rhion just shrugs. “But I’m not.”
And I shouldn’t believe him, but I do. In my time among the Others, this is the most genuine show of emotion I’ve seen.
“What of Emmett?” I ask.
Rhion shakes his head sadly. “I do not know. Bram doesn’t speak of him and I haven’t returned to the Otherworld since the
day of your wedding, when he brought me here. I asked about Lydia when he was drunk enough to tell me where she was, but he
said nothing of Emmett.”
“But he has to be there, right?” I prod. “Bram wouldn’t have killed him, would he?”
The corners of Rhion’s mouth pull down. “I no longer know what he’s capable of.”
Rhion follows us up the hill to Faith and Marion’s home on Queen Street.
Their poor housekeeper jumps upon seeing us all pile through the door and hurries off to the kitchens to fetch us stacks of
cucumber sandwiches, scones, and miniature mince pies.
We send their footmen off with urgent letters and soon the five of us are joined by Ben, Eduart, Este, and Olive.
She rushes into the candlelit cellar and pushes the hood of her gray cloak off her head. “It’s spitting rain out there.” She
pauses. “Why are you all looking at me like that?” Her eyes land at the head of the table. “And why is he here?”
Rhion tips his hat to her. “You’re under an enchantment.”
“Excuse me?”
“Bram has you under an enchantment. Every morning at eleven you go to the ruins of the old Roman baths and you feed and care for Queen Moryen, who is locked up there.”
Olive’s chest flushes. “I do not!”
“We saw you today, darling,” I say gently. Between the glassy look in her eyes then and the genuine shock on her face now,
I believe that Olive is completely unaware of what she’s been up to. I know she’s not that good an actress.
Rhion extends his hand. “Kiss it and I’ll undo it.”
“What?” Olive gasps, scandalized.
Rhion rolls his eyes. “A kiss for a broken curse. There needs to be an exchange. There’s a way about these things. Quickly,
please.”
Reluctantly, Olive brushes her lips, just barely, against the smooth skin of his knuckles, below a thick emerald ring.
She blinks hard a few times and then murmurs, “Oh . . . oh. I am sorry.”
I touch her shoulder. “You didn’t know.”
“But I could have told you where she was. All this time we’ve been discussing it and it was locked somewhere in my head.”
Emmy shakes her head. “Don’t concern yourself. You showed us in the end, didn’t you? We followed you today, that’s how we
found her.”
“It’s not your fault,” Ben pipes up from the edge of the room.
Marion and Faith try not to laugh. Only Faith succeeds.
“And it’s where we found Rhion.” I explain the circumstances of his being there.
“Which brings us”—I slap my hands down on the pockmarked old table, more excited than I’ve been in months—“to the matter of
the door. Rhion, I’ll let you take the lead.”
Rhion pushes back from the table and stands. “Once upon a time, back when England was still ruled by men, there were doors all over Britain.” I’m so used to seeing Rhion take everything as a joke, it’s strange to see him so serious. I wonder if this is a glimpse of the real him.
“We know!” Eduart heckles, and throws a small piece of cheese at Rhion, which he deftly catches in his mouth. He chews, swallows,
then continues.
“Queen Mor’s last act as ruler was to seal these doors behind her.”
“She told me she enchanted it to let only Bram through. She hoped one day he would come find her,” I say.
Rhion shakes his head. “That was a half-truth. The kings and queens of the Otherworld wield such power that they themselves are the conduit between the Otherworld and Britain. Queen Mor enchanted all the thin places, the places where the borders
had been traditionally crossable, so that only one door remained—the royal family.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“Bram can’t open the door,” Rhion says. “Bram is the door.”