Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (35 page)

Thank you to Lauren Panepinto for the best covers ever, and to Jeximé for bringing Xandra to life. And thank you to the entire Orbit/Hachette crew on this side of the pond and the other. I don’t want to try listing you all for fear I’ll forget one of you, but all of you ROCK. I have been so extremely lucky to work with you. Special thanks to Joanna Kramer for a certain signed book that will be treasured for ever.

Thanks to my family for just being their crazy selves. I’m so lucky to have you all! And thanks to my friends for understanding why sometimes I’m not fit for company.

And thank you to Emilie Autumn, for releasing
Fight Like a Girl
as I was writing this book, providing much musical inspiration.

God Save the Queen

The Queen Is Dead

Long Live the Queen

aether
– slang for airwaves, usually applied to telephone, telegraph and video communications not broadcast over private channels.

aethernet
– international network of logic engines that share government, educational, personal and commercial information using the same protocols.

Albert’s fangs
– curse seen as taking the late Prince Consort’s name in vein… er, vain.

aristocrat
– collective term for vampires and werewolves, particularly those of noble birth.

box
– television.

Britme
– electronic service provided by Britannia Telephone and Telegraph where people can leave a voice recording for the person they’re trying to reach via stationary line or rotary.

bubonic betty
– human who injects aristocrat hormones to gain enhanced senses, strength and speed.

cobbleside
– above ground.

courtesan
– human woman employed by the aristocracy to breed half-bloods. These women are plague carriers, their blood rich with the Prometheus protein necessary for full-term, healthy pregnancies.

digigram
– electronic text-based message sent between wireless devices and logic engines.

fang me
– being fanged means being used for food by an aristocrat – a practice beneath most halfies.

job
– to hit or get violent with. Comes with the violence often attached to halfie occupations: “He really did a job on that human”; “She jobbed the betty hard in the kidneys.”

halfie
– a half-blood. Half vampire/were and half human.

hatters
– derived from “mad as a hatter”. Slang for crazy, insane.

horror show
– illegal spectacle at which vampires or weres consume a human or halfie victim for the audience’s titillation.

logic engine
– electronic device that stores and processes information, and allows for many kinds of digital communication over the aethernet.

meat
– goblin term for anything warm-blooded, and therefore edible.

Met, the
– Metropolitan Underground Railway.

motor carriage
– transportation. Modern carriage propelled by an engine rather than horses.

Motorrad
– what Americans refer to as a “motorcycle”.

plague, the
– responsible for the Prometheus mutation that made vamps and weres, and goblins. Also the term the goblins use to describe a group of themselves. The London plague is used to refer to all the goblins in London.

radiarange
– counter-top oven that cooks food using nonionising microwave radiation.

rotary
– portable wireless telephone. Has a rotary dial.

rutting
– vulgar, but slightly more polite than “fucking”.

tango
– halfie slang for a fight.

TrackNav
– a system of tracking people and vehicles via satellite and uniquely trackable devices.

underside
– underground.

VC
– video cylinder. A cylinder used to record and play back video, such as films.

To get news about the latest Science Fiction and Fantasy titles from Orbit, along with special offers and exclusive content, sign up for the Orbit newsletter.

Sign Up

Or visit us at
www.orbitbooks.net/booklink/

For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.

COVER

TITLE PAGE

WELCOME

DEDICATION

MAP

CHAPTER 1: AND HAIL THEIR QUEEN, FAIR REGENT OF THE NIGHT

CHAPTER 2: PATIENCE IS BITTER

CHAPTER 3: FEAR IS PAIN ARISING FROM THE ANTICIPATION OF EVIL

CHAPTER 4: HAPPINESS WAS BORN A TWIN

CHAPTER 5: LOYALTY IS THE VIRTUE OF FAITHFULNESS

CHAPTER 6: YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF TOMORROW

CHAPTER 7: THE SUDDEN DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPE LEAVES A SCAR

CHAPTER 8: YOU CANNOT BE A HERO WITHOUT BEING A COWARD

CHAPTER 9: PEACE CANNOT BE ACHIEVED THROUGH VIOLENCE

CHAPTER 10: WHEN ANGER RISES, THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES

CHAPTER 11: SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND

CHAPTER 12: THERE IS NO INSTINCT LIKE THAT OF THE HEART

CHAPTER 13: WHEN ONE HAS NOT HAD A GOOD FATHER, ONE MUST CREATE ONE

CHAPTER 14: GRIEF CAN TAKE CARE OF ITSELF

CHAPTER 15: LOVE ALL, TRUST A FEW, DO WRONG TO NONE

CHAPTER 16: ONE OUNCE OF BLOOD IS WORTH MORE THAN A POUND OF FRIENDSHIP

CHAPTER 17: NO SOUL IS EXEMPT FROM A MEASURE OF MADNESS

CHAPTER 18: IF YOU ARE NOT AFRAID OF DYING, THERE IS NOTHING YOU CANNOT ACHIEVE

CHAPTER 19: BETRAYAL CAN ONLY HAPPEN IF YOU LOVE

CHAPTER 20: HEALING IS A MATTER OF TIME

CHAPTER 21: EVERYONE THINKS OF CHANGING THE WORLD

CHAPTER 22: THE SUPREME ART OF WAR IS TO SUBDUE THE ENEMY WITHOUT FIGHTING

CHAPTER 23: LOVE WILL FIND A WAY THROUGH PATHS WHERE WOLVES FEAR TO PREY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BOOKS BY KATE LOCKE

GLOSSARY

ORBIT NEWSLETTER

COPYRIGHT

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright © 2013 by Kathryn Smith

Map by Don Higgins

Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

Cover photograph by House of Indulgence

Cover illustration by Don Sipley

Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Orbit

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

orbitbooks.net

orbitshortfiction.com

First ebook edition: November 2013

Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

ISBN 978-0-316-23548-8