Chapter 33 #2
She was here. It was that face, those dull eyes and thin eyebrows, those lips painted red, the middle of them stained darker with wine.
Her hair, her red dress, the shape of her silhouette—it was her, and she’d been in my nightmares most nights since I woke up here.
It was her voice, too, though I’d only ever heard her whispering, but it was her voice.
“Do try not to keep the Hands all to yourself, Mr. Revin. Go on now—go mingle.”
Yes, yes—her voice.
Holy Hour, I was shaking, and I wasn’t the only one.
Mr. Revin mumbled his of course, of course, Your Excellency, and he hurried away, suddenly half sober, disappearing into the crowd within the second, and the crowd were all watching us, too. Through the corners of their eyes, not openly—but they all watched.
And the Red Queen took another step closer.
Every fiber in my body screamed at me to run, and maybe I would have if we weren’t trapped in the sky right now. I realized March was right—this was why they’d done this. This was how they controlled everything—who came, who went, where, when. This was how she controlled us.
“Using magic against a guest is forbidden,” she said, and her eyes, more brown than red, fell on Levana and Helen. The girls drew in deep breaths, opened their mouths, but neither said anything.
I wanted to.
So many words were at the tip of my tongue, and I wanted to demand she tell us what she’d done to us, and why they were lying to us—because Mr. Revin knew. And the others, too—these guests of theirs knew exactly what had happened in the forward trials. Why in the Everstill would they lie to us?!
“I would think someone told you this or that you’d be smart enough to know it all by yourselves, yet here you are.
” The Red Queen walked slowly, sipping her drink, those eyes falling on all our faces, and it was difficult—no, impossible to meet them.
It was impossible to force myself to speak just now because something stopped me.
Whatever it was, it was rooted deep in my bones, and it wouldn’t let me utter a single word.
Could have been magic.
The scent of roses, red and intense, filled my nostrils as she slowly stepped toward the other end of the table, toward Levana and Helen who were holding hands as they waited.
We all waited for the queen to do something when she was close enough, but she didn’t.
She simply looked at the girls, and then went to the end of the table, the soldiers never leaving her side.
We moved with her, of course, turned when she did, like she was the sun to our sunflowers. We watched her without sound as she grabbed a cherry from the table and popped it in her mouth.
In my mind, the image of her whispering crashed with reality. She was standing there with the blue sky at her back, the sunlight giving more life to her red hair—and I expected the pain to follow like it always did. I was twelve-hours certain it would come any second now…
“Well? Have you nothing to say to your queen, then?”
The pain didn’t come.
My mouth opened but no sound came out of me. What did you do to us? I was screaming on the inside, but on the outside—nothing.
And nobody else made a single sound, either, until…
“Sister, dearest, stop teasing our Hands—they’re only children!”
The White Queen popped up to the side of the Red one, and she was smiling that big, huge smile, like always.
A long breath left me, like I’d thought I was all alone with the Red Queen until this second, but I wasn’t. The crowd was still there, the other Hands still standing around the table with me—and the White Queen as well.
“Children full of mischief, they are,” I thought the Red Queen said, but my ears were buzzing so I couldn’t be too sure.
“Come—let’s go say hello to our friends, deary.” The White Queen gently turned the Red Queen to the side and toward the crowd, while she flinched.
“Friends,” she muttered, then drank all the wine in her glass in one gulp before she simply raised her hand and let it go, right there in the air.
Lightning fast, one of the soldiers who was behind her reached and grabbed it long before it hit the floor.
The Red Queen gave us one last look, as dark as can be, full of malice. Then she moved through the crowd that had parted to let her through, and whatever magic had held me prisoner until that second began to release.
“Please forgive my sister, little tickers. She doesn’t much like parties,” the White Queen said, her hands together in front of her chest, her eyes wide and sparkling.
“You all look so lovely. Enjoy the rest of the banquet!” And she basically glided away from us and toward the crowd, no soldiers following her movements, only her.
“Your—”
“No,” March and Helen said at the same time when Levana began to call after her. I’d wanted to do the same. If she was here, the Red Queen wouldn’t be, I figured. If the White Queen was with us, we would be fine, wouldn’t we?
“We can’t trust anyone,” Seth said under his breath. “Not right now.”
Shivers ran down my back, ice-cold. We looked at one another, and we were all equally confused, equally terrified.
They remember, I wanted to say. As did they, but we kept our lips sealed.
Then Elida appeared at the edge of the table as if thin air just birthed her. “Why are you all on your feet?! Either dance or sit down, everyone!”
Nobody danced.
When we sat, nobody said another word until the banquet was over, and the floor finally slid down to the ground again.