Copper Girl (23 page)

Unsurprisingly, the Iron Queen’s retinue was somewhat less than honorable. Granted, there were naked pixies and fauns frolicking around Micah’s home at all hours, but that was consensual frolicking. A quick glance around the camp revealed acts of debauchery one didn’t usually see committed out in the open, and certainly not in full daylight. Creatures I’d heard of, such as dwarves and centaurs, along with fantastical beings I hadn’t met in my worst nightmares, cavorted in varying stages of dress, alone and in groups. I nearly gasped aloud when I saw a female with a long, scaly tail lasso another female—with her tail, mind you—and plunge its barbed tip into her. The victim only laughed.

These foul acts weren’t limited to the flesh and blood creatures, either. An iron warrior, obviously male, had been strung between two trees and was being methodically sawed apart by two iron females. His screams grated like unoiled pistons, like that final grunt an engine gives before it seizes up. The females taunted him, claiming it was time he was taken down a size. I shuddered when I realized what they were resizing.

A pathetic whimper wafted toward me, and I turned to see a pixie bolted down by her wings to a splintery wooden plank. Her miserable face betrayed that, unlike the rest, she wasn’t a willing participant in this mess. Her captor, a burly Satyr whose furry legs were smeared in blood and gods knew what else, teased her mercilessly with the tip of his riding crop. Suddenly, he ripped off her dress and howled as he turned around and held his trophy aloft before his companions. While they were so distracted, I flicked my wrist and loosened the metal bolts that held her down. Sensing what might be her only chance at freedom, the pixie leapt into the air and didn’t look back.

It was hard to ignore the bellowing, infuriated Satyrs, but I managed. I didn’t know if Micah had sensed my part in the pixie’s freedom, but it was too late to ask. We had reached Ferra’s tent, and she emerged to greet us.

“Micah,” she drawled, “I hadn’t hoped to see you today. Come to offer your assistance?” As she spoke, Ferra gathered her cloak over one shoulder and thrust her torso forward. Yes, I wanted to scream, we can see your naked breasts! But I didn’t, though I wondered if I’d bite through my tongue. Micah, wonderful man that he is, never let his eyes leave Ferra’s face.

“The silverkin alerted me to a disturbance,” Micah said levelly. “My consort and I wondered if we could offer assistance.” Ferra’s gaze flicked over me for the barest moment.

“Mmm. She’s a bit more of a consort now, eh?”
Can she really see the difference, or is shejust taunting me?
Micah’s impassive face betrayed nothing, but I felt the hot blood spilling up my neck.

“My lady, please advise me as to how we may assist you,” Micah repeated. After another look up and down my body, Ferra turned and beckoned us to follow. We left the camp and halted when we reached the crest of the ridge, the Institute situated in the vale beneath.

“The mortals have lost a prisoner,” Ferra explained, gesturing to the stone building, “and they seem to think I have him.”

“Why would they think that?” Micah wondered. “Surely you have no use for human criminals.”

“He’s not a criminal. He’s the Inheritor of Metal,” Ferra informed us. Micah nodded slowly, squeezing my fingers so hard I thought they’d break.

“Then we shall locate him, and keep him out of the mortals’ reach,” Micah declared. “How difficult can it be to locate a lone man?”

“Oh, but I already have.” Ferra’s voice was sickly sweet, like molasses, and I followed her gaze across the ridge to where my family waited. “I feel it when the Inheritor is near; his power calls to me, yearns to be with me.” Ferra turned to me and looked me in the face for the first time. I wished she hadn’t. “Little Sara, I feel your brother.”

“Turn around and you can see him.”

The three of us turned in time to see Max drop Micah’s chameleon skin cloak, which had let Max, along with Mom and Sadie, slip into the Iron Queen’s camp with her creaky guards none the wiser.

“Max,” Ferra drawled. “Aren’t you looking terrible. And aren’t you foolish, being that you weren’t the Inheritor the mortals thought you were. And, you have, at last, led the true Inheritor to her end.” Ferra grinned like a jack-o-lantern left out long after the first frost and flicked her wrist, but nothing happened. No guards responded to their queen’s command. None moved, or called out, or did anything. They remained motionless. Panic skated across the Iron Queen’s face, but it was quickly replaced with a sneer.

“You can’t fight me for long,” Ferra purred. “You know that I’ve always been stronger.”

“Not stronger than me,” Sadie whispered. I saw her hand where it tightly gripped Max’s, her whitened knuckles. Ferra’s eyes widened; had she really thought that Sadie, the true Inheritor, wouldn’t try to resist her? “You’ve never been stronger than me.”

“That was always the problem,” Mom spoke up. “You wanted to be the most powerful, but you’re not. You never were more than lowly old iron. That’s why you helped the mortals hold Max.”

“I have never assisted the mortals in any way!” Ferra shrieked.

“But you have,” Micah said calmly. “Who but the Iron Queen could so thoroughly remove all traces of metal from where Max was held without disturbing the soil or rock beneath? Few have such power. The Gold Queen did, once, before you stripped and defiled her. I do, but I was not a party to this plot. That leaves two individuals: you, and the Inheritor. I don’t believe Sadie imprisoned her own brother.”

“Baudoin could have—” Ferra began.

“Say Beau’s name again, and I’ll kill you,” Mom growled. Fury blazed in Ferra’s eyes, but before I could make my own witty comment, my stomach lurched. Sweat broke out across my forehead and neck, and I knew I was about to faint.

“Your mistake, my lady, was in thinking us as foolish as you,” Micah corrected, a note of sadness in his voice. I tried to get Micah’s attention, but my voice wouldn’t obey me. “I thought the Iron Queen was wise enough not to underestimate her foes. Not that we ever should have been enemies.”

Ferra’s face was red as her cloak, then purple. Her fury radiated out in palpable waves, squeezing my heart and lungs. I felt like I was floating—no, falling. Falling over a cliff…Too late, I realized that that was what she was doing: she was sending every molecule of metal in my body straight to my lungs.

Then, I did fall, my body no longer responding to my commands to get up, to scream, to run away. Hell, if I couldn’t breathe, what was the point of all those other acts? I flailed about like a fish washed up on the shore, flopping and gasping while Micah and Mom shouted, until I spied the jewel in the center of my palm.
I didn’t know what sort of help she could offer, if any, but a favor is a favor, no?

I stared at the jewel, having lost the strength to close my hand, and visualized the Bright Lady’s face. In the next moment I sputtered, though not because Ferra was crushing my lungs. A wave had just swept across us, the cold water having scrubbed me free of Ferra’s influence.

A wave?

I spluttered and coughed as I struggled to rise, only to fall back, frustrated. But at least I was breathing. It was another moment before I noticed a similarly drenched Micah roll to a sitting position. He drew me against him, pushing the soaked hair back from my face while I choked up an entire lake’s worth of water.

“Breathe, love,” Micah rasped into my ear. I nodded, trying to ask him where all this water had come from, but my words degraded into hacking splutters. He understood me anyway and jerked his chin forward.

Impossibly, or maybe because she was of iron, and therefore much heavier than Micah or me, Ferra still stood, the water swirling in little eddies about her hips. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the water drained away, and I saw something truly amazing. Ferra had begun to rust.

It was hardly noticeable, and I probably only saw the telltale brownish marks by virtue of my closeness. But they were there, manifesting in dark smudges, slowly spreading around her ankles and knees. Right at her joints, right where she was weakest.

I twisted around to ask Micah if he’d ever seen such a thing and promptly vomited brackish water all over his chest. Furiously embarrassed, I started a babbling apology, only to be drowned out by a familiar, squeaky voice.

“I have favored this one!” I turned toward the shrill chirping and saw the Bright Lady standing in front of the rusty queen, hand on her hip, waggling a finger in Ferra’s face. I looked at my palm; the jewel was gone. Talk about cashing in your favor at the right time. “I will not abide those I favor being harmed!”

Ferra opened her mouth, whether to protest or call out a curse we’d never know. Instead of words, a horrible creak issued from Ferra’s lips, followed by the sound of metal scraping against metal. Impossibly, the Iron Queen’s chin had already rusted through, her lips now swollen and flaking. The rust quickly spread downward to her shoulders, then her weakened ankles collapsed and she fell onto her side.

The water got inside her
. I marveled at how quickly Ferra’s sleek form had been reduced to so much garbage, but then, that’s all she really was. Garbage.

“Are you unharmed?” I looked up and met the Bright Lady’s sea-colored eyes, her usually placid features now creased with concern.

“I am,” I affirmed. “Thank you. You have saved my family. I do not know how I can ever repay you.”

“Lest you forget, I owed
you
the favor,” she replied. “However, I would not complain if you sent that one to my pool.” She gestured toward Max, and between her suggestive glance, and Max’s mingled embarrassment and elation, I laughed so hard I started sputtering again. Micah rubbed my back, and by the time I was done coughing, the Bright Lady was gone.

“Back to her pool, I assume,” Micah replied when I asked. He helped me to my feet, and after I assured Mom I hadn’t drowned, we turned to regard Ferra. She’d been reduced to little more than jagged metal, twitching convulsively as her limbs succumbed to the rapid oxidation.

“Will she die?” I asked. Uncharacteristically brave, Sadie prodded Ferra’s rusty heel with her toe. The Iron Queen tried to lash out, but her leg was too corroded to do more than twitch.

“I don’t know,” Micah murmured. “Without aid, most definitely, though I cannot say what could assist her. Our queen has found herself in a rather dire circumstance.”

Mom strode forward, planted her foot on Ferra’s chest and mercilessly pushed her onto her back. “What can you tell me of Beau?” Mom demanded. Ferra responded with a malicious grin. Mom, not seeing the humor, crouched beside Ferra and spoke quietly, murmuring in her ear like a lover would. Only there was no love between my mother and Ferra.

“You know that I can save you. Of all of us, only I have the power to halt the corrosion that spreads through you. I can make you whole again. Beautiful, even.” Suddenly Mom’s hand shot out and she grabbed the Iron Queen’s chin. Mom’s thumb poked through the rusted flesh of Ferra’s jaw, dislodging a few teeth.

“But, I do hate you,” she seethed. “I’d much rather watch you rot than do anything to preserve your filthy hide. So, unless you can offer me sound information with regard to Beau, I don’t care what happens to you.”

Ferra’s grin widened, creakily stretching her mouth as rust flakes floated to the ground. Then she spat, disgorging a measure of brown liquid, like water that had lain stagnant too long in an iron pipe, onto Mom’s foot.

Mom looked pointedly from Ferra’s crumbling mouth to the stain on her shoe. Wordlessly, she released Ferra’s chin and walked away. The rest of us watched, mesmerized, as the Iron Queen disintegrated into the ground. A few heartbeats later, all that remained of the fearsome ruler was a pool of filthy water.

“She’s really gone,” Max mumbled. “I thought she’d live forever. Strong as iron, you know?”

“We all thought her stronger than death,” Micah agreed, then he launched into a cautionary tale about not underestimating one’s enemies. I hardly heard him as I kept my eyes trained on Sadie. The poor kid. Just a few hours ago she’d been studying for her degree in library sciences, a normal college girl with her life laid out before her. Now, not only was she the Inheritor of Metal, she was a fugitive in the Otherworld. No Corbeau could go back to the Mundane realm, not while magic remained outlawed.

Then again, it hadn’t been so long ago that I had been an ordinary office worker, spending happy hour at The Room, drowning my sorrows as I pretended that magic didn’t affect my life. Though I’d never admitted it, I had been miserable. From the day Dad had left us to join the war mages, my life had stopped, and I’d been holding my breath, just waiting for it to start up again.

Today, I was (almost) Lady Silverstrand. I was happy and loved, and my family was so much closer to whole. I could breathe again.

We were all going to be just fine.

I laced my fingers with Sadie’s, but she didn’t turn to look at me. When I asked what was up, she jerked her chin toward the object of her gaze. There were Peacekeepers moving around on the roof of the Institute for Elemental Research, and one in particular was staring at me.

Juliana.

Juliana was the best friend I’d ever had. She’d been there for me when I was failing Mr. Belhumer’s algebra class, terrified that Mom would ground me if I brought home an F. She’d been there for my first dance, first boyfriend, and when that boyfriend dumped me. When I’d walked into REES to find that Juliana was the office manager, I’d thought it was the best day of my life.

What an idiot I’d been.

Now, I understood that I had never been more than a pawn to her. All those years of friendship had been the worst sort of falsehood. Juliana—if that was even her name—was nothing more than an agent of the government, a two-faced Peacekeeper, whose sole purpose was to make life hell for me and my family.

“I knew it wasn’t Max,” Juliana called from her perch on the battlements. “Still, I did everything I could to keep him safe.”

An image of Max, unconscious and shivering in the plastic coffin, flashed behind my eyes. Yeah. My brother had been real safe in her care.