Chapter 41
Seren
The fae queen’s terrible court holds its collective breath.
On her throne, she sits with a sharp, inhuman smile twisting her lips as she waits for one of us to move, to step forward, to give her what she wants.
Beside me, Callum shifts, but I’m faster.
Let it be me.
I wanted to come here. I wanted to tempt fate and this monarch’s wrath on the off chance she actually accepts a letter and a token rather than the lover she’d send hordes of hunters to reclaim.
If she wants someone to punish, let it be me.
“We found your heart, your majesty.”
Do I call her your majesty? Do I bow? Curtsy?
Who the hell knows, and it’s a little too late to wonder about fae court etiquette.
Her eyes narrow. “I don’t see my heart.”
“You’re right. And we apologize, but we don’t have him with us.”
The vines around her writhe. Twisting, growing, spreading from the throne, down the dais, and further, like they’re just waiting for her say-so to reach out and snap me up.
“But we do have something else.”
All those dead, dessicated tendrils halt their advance. They still twitch and coil, still give me the damn creeps, but at least they’re not any closer to pulling me into their depths.
“Let’s see it, then.”
With the deepest breath I can manage, I reach into my bag and draw out the ring box. I keep my eyes on the fae queen the entire time, and though she tries to remain impassive, a flash of recognition sparks in her fathomless black eyes.
She gives a dismissive snort. “A ring is not my heart.”
“No,” I agree. “It isn’t. But I do have a letter from him.”
Another break in her mask of cruel indifference, something wanting and a little bit desperate as I pull it from my bag.
“Here,” I say, extending my hand.
Her bark-skinned courtier walks woodenly down the dais to collect both the paper and the ring.
As he returns to her, everyone in the court is entirely still.
Well, almost everyone.
A presence at my back, warm and steady and alive. Vibrant in a way nothing else in this entire cursed realm is.
Callum’s fingers brush my waist, a silent promise he’s here. A promise I’m not alone.
On her throne, the queen opens the letter.
She scans it quickly, black eyes bouncing back and forth over the words once, then again, and once more before she half-crumples it in her fist.
“A forgery,” she whispers. “He wouldn’t have… he promised me… This is a forgery!”
She finds her full voice on that last bit—echoing and terrible, like a violent storm through a skeletal forest—and I try not to flinch.
“I promise you it’s not.”
The queen sits higher on her throne. Her vines writhe and grow, stretching, uncoiling, whipping ominously out into the space around her. Even her courtiers seem disturbed as they shift minutely away to avoid being caught in the tangle.
I don’t know what else to do, what to say. How can I convince her we really did get this from—
“The ring,” Callum says softly. “You gave it to him on the first solstice you spent together. It’s made of your own heart’s blood. Elijah told us that when he gave it to us, along with the letter. You told him it meant you’d always be true.”
For a moment, something shines in the fae queen’s eyes that almost looks… human. Regret, maybe, or sorrow. A soul-deep longing, painful enough I look away.
But I look right back when I catch a flash of green out of the corner of my eye.
The fae queen is transformed.
It only lasts a few heartbeats, but within those stolen seconds the world around her blooms. Verdant vines and vibrant flowers, even the sky above clears into a breathtaking robin’s egg blue.
Her hair—a tangle of branches and leaves and dead things just a moment ago—is long and curly, a lovely, soft brown, dotted with unfurling spring buds.
Her eyes, too, have changed. From the endless black of an abyss to a deep, rich tone which shifts impossibly between freshly turned earth and rain-damp moss.
On her head sits a crown of flowers in a hundred shades of blue and purple and pink.
My breath catches in my throat and Callum tenses behind me. Through the court, a collective inhale as everyone marvels at what we’re seeing.
A flash of what her realm might have been.
A flash of the beautiful force of nature Elijah loved.
It’s gone as quickly as it came.
The queen is as she was. Caught in her bower of death, all that springtime faded to the deepest dregs of autumn.
“So you’ve brought me my heart,” she murmurs, almost too quietly to be heard. “I suppose I owe you a treasure now. To whom do I owe the honors?”
She looks back and forth between the two of us, again waiting to see where she needs to direct her deadly focus.
“It was a joint effort,” I say. “We did it together. Equally. As partners.”
A ghost of that same humanity in her expression, gone so quickly I might have only imagined it.
The queen sniffs disdainfully. “I find that hard to believe. Your magick is stronger than his. I can sense it. A seeker, yes? And you give credit to this demon?”
I reach for Callum’s hand and find it immediately. “Not all the credit, but I couldn’t have done it without him.”
He meets my eye, and we share an unlikely smile.
Maybe not all that smart, given the fae queen’s ever-volatile temper, but fuck it.
If we go down, we go down together.
“Charming,” she says dryly, and I might just be imagining the hint of a smile that plays around her lips as she summons one of her courtiers forward with a curt wave of her hand.
“Split the bounty.”
The fae—this one who looks to be made almost entirely of dead leaves—gets to it immediately. Two more fae with rough, bark skin grab the chest and pop it open while the leaf fae fetches two cloth sacks.
The treasure shines just as brightly as it did at the hunters’ gathering, and I try not to look too eager as the courtiers get to work dividing it up.
Only… something isn’t quite right.
My stomach sinks when I see it.
The trunk has a false bottom.
The fortune the fae queen showed us a glimpse of is still there, but that glimpse is all there is. A single thin layer of coins and jewels. Still a prize, but probably not one I would have risked my damn life for over and over these past few days.
Probably not one that’s going to fix all our problems.
But offering any argument over her deception is absolutely going to end with both of us swallowed up by her vines and made permanent fixtures of this bower, so I hold my tongue.
“I thank you for your efforts, human,” the queen says, then pauses and sighs. “And demon. Fair payment for a bargain met. To my court, I declare the hunt over. Spread the word amongst the realms that I no longer seek my heart.”
Callum grunts something that might be agreement, but he doesn’t relax for a moment as the courtiers finish their work and present it to the queen for her inspection.
“Take your treasure.” She tosses the sacks and they land jangling at our feet. “And get out of my realm before I change my mind.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
And neither does Callum, it seems, as he bows low to the queen, scoops up the two bags, hands one to me, and places a hand in the center of my back in an unmistakable let’s get the hell out of here.
After my own brief bow to the queen, we turn and high-tail it out of the court, through the bower, trying not to catch the eye of any bloodthirsty fae as we go.
We come out the other side of the Veil back in the Middle.
An interesting choice, but I wasn’t the one to put my hand on the stone. Callum’s touch had the ether melting into a deep, earthen brown, and after a stomach-churning walk through, we wound up back where it all started.
My throat is tight as I inhale the scent of peat moss and loam, damp and rich like it’s recently rained.
Tight with relief. Tight with disappointment. Tight with worry as Callum drops my hand and takes a few steps away, frustration coming off him in waves.
In my other hand, the sack of treasure feels almost comically light.
Somewhere in a far corner of my mind, I’ve already started thinking about where I’ll be able to trade it for currency I can actually use.
A few names come to mind—witches and wielders back in the human realm, a few other beings I’ve crossed paths with in my limited travel through the other realms—but it’s a problem I can’t even begin to sort through right now.
Not considering my biggest problem is currently right in front of me.
“Well,” I say, and my voice comes out choked and hoarse. “That was…”
I can’t find the words.
“A mistake?”
Callum sounds just as wrung-through as I do.
“Not entirely. I mean, we probably just saved my realm a whole lot of headache from hunters wreaking havoc. And I’m sure Elijah will be glad to know the queen got his message.”
He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “A great accomplishment, indeed.”
“It’s not nothing,” I protest. “And we got something out of it for ourselves.”
I shake the bag, and try not to wince at the pitiful little jangle it gives.
“Close enough to nothing,” Callum mutters.
He looks inside the sack he’s holding, studying its contents for a few moments before cinching it shut again. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, gathering himself for something, though I have no idea what.
“It will… help,” he says finally.
It’s half-hearted optimism at best, but I’m determined to find the silver lining.
“Sure it will. So, what do we do now? What’s the move?”
“I’m needed back in the demon realm.”
“Needed for what?”
Callum looks just about as weary as I’ve seen a person look. Shoulders slumped, defeat and exhaustion written all over his face, all I want to do is wrap him up in a hug.
Or throttle him.
Maybe both.
“My mother’s been in some trouble with paying her bills,” he says. “And Myron isn’t likely to extend me much grace if I don’t show up soon for a new assignment.”
I nod. “Alright. I can come with you and—”
“This is something I should do on my own.”
For a moment, I’m not certain I heard him right.