Queen Rising (6 page)

He held his hand over the wick. His blood dropped onto it.

Nothing happened. The wick remained unlit.

Rule looked up at her, his face filled with disappointment.

“The magic needs more than a child's tale. You have to tell it the truth.”

“I did,” he said, his face going red with frustration.

She looked at him hard. Had Rule been lying so long that he did not know what the truth was anymore?

“Who are your parents? How did you become who you are? Who has hurt you?”

“Who says anyone has?” he deflected. But she knew better. She could see it behind his eyes.

“You are more than a thief. The magic needs to know who you are.”

He paused and opened his mouth as if he were ready to tell her his story. And she was ready to hear it. All these weeks of being close but never really knowing each other. She had told him bit by bit about Go and about her mother and about the witches, and he had given her nothing in return. She needed to know just as much as the magic did.

“You know who I am . . . ,” he said finally, leaning into her. He was going to kiss her.

She was surprised and she wasn't. But she didn't want him to kiss her to avoid telling the truth. If his lips ever met hers, she did not want it to be another con, another trick.

“Magic doesn't thrive on distraction,” she said firmly.

His face fell, but only for an instant. He smiled again, quickly and easily, as if nothing had happened.

“Rule . . . ,” she said gently.

“You're right. Magic doesn't thrive on distraction. And neither does robbing. We should stick to what we do best.”

He got up. And busied himself with blowing out the candles.

“We can try again tomorrow,” she said.

“I think I'll leave the magic to you.”

Before she could protest again, Rule rushed out into the night to take a walk. Margot relit the candle with her blood. He'd given her a little more pain to work with.

17

Margot spent most of the night waiting for Rule to return and wondering if he would. She finally drifted off. She awoke to sunlight blaring through their window and the smell of coffee. Rule was back.

He handed her the coffee and she opened her mouth to smooth over the events of last night. But Rule smiled at her, letting her know that her protests were unnecessary.

“If you ever want to try again . . . ,” she began.

“I'll let you know,” he assured her.

She took a deep sip of her coffee. It tasted bitter and sweet at once. The coffee was his apology. His way of putting things back in place between them. She took another sip and smiled at him to let him know she accepted it.

They shared another long, charged look. And the need to explain why she pushed him away bubbled up in her.

“Shouldn't you be on your way?” he asked suddenly.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked, alarmed.

“Never. But aren't you late, Queenie?”

She remembered her brother. It was visitation day. She pushed down all her thoughts and feelings about Rule and rushed off to the palace.

When she got there, Margot's pockets were filled with coins and she had more hidden back in her room at the boarding house. She wanted—needed—to say something important to Go. The words mattered like a spell. She had to get it just right for the result she wanted. She was going to tell Go that she had money now. How they could start anew. How they could be together. Go could be a gentleman with the money she stole. And she could be a lady, or whatever he wanted, just as long as she could be his sister again.

“I am sorry, miss,” the palace guard said. “But your brother does not want to see you.”

Margot took her usual seat in the anteroom and was only half listening to the guard.

“Tell him that I will wait here until he is ready.”

Margot sat in the anteroom until the sun went down and the North Lights came up. But her brother never came.

“Tell him that I will be back tomorrow,” she said to the smirking guard.

Margot would come back. Every day, no matter what it took. Witches, Robbers, money . . . She had lost sight of what was important for a minute. But never again.

18

Margot returned to the boarding house, feeling lower than ever. Rule was pacing around.

“I thought maybe you weren't coming back,” he said, relief washing over him.

She dropped her shawl in her chair, and Rule crossed the room and threw his arms around her. Again, that same rush of electric energy from his touch shot through Margot. And again the look of longing that was for more than magic danced in his eyes. This time, she was almost sure that the look was just for her.

“You're in a funny mood. How was Sir Go—”

Margot put a finger to his lips.

“Remember when you . . .” She paused, trying to find the right way of bringing up the time she rejected him. “What you said about me distracting you?” she asked, removing her finger from his lips.

“I apologized for that. I thought we agreed to forget it ever happened.” His cheeks reddened as he remembered.

“What if I don't want to forget?”

A look of confusion crossed Rule's face before what she was saying set in.

“Distract me,” Margot ordered.

He bent down and kissed her. It wasn't a gentle kiss of love. It was the fireworks of magic.

That night, they did not talk and they did not sleep. And in the morning she woke and he was gone.

Margot did not wait for him and his cups of coffee. She did not check for his clothes in the closet or the shoes under the bed. She was as sure he was coming back to her as she was of the North Lights in the sky. They had more robbing to do together.

She got up and put on her orange dress and went to try again to see her brother.

19

“I'm here for Go, I mean, Goddard,” Margot said impatiently when she arrived at the palace the next day. She wanted to tell Go all about their latest heist, or rather, the spoils from the heist. She was sure she had enough to buy a house.

The guard frowned.

“Dangerous work, being a friend of the Prince. I am so sorry,” the guard said almost gently.

Margot felt the world tilt.

“There was an accident. None of the Prince's companions made it. I am so very sorry.”

Margot walked away from the palace doors not believing it. She would feel it if her brother was gone. She would know. Wouldn't she?

Margot heard a rush of steps after her.

She turned around and saw that it was the maid from the visiting room. She had brought Go to her month after month, year after year. Some bit of her rose in futile hope that there had been a mistake and that Go would be a second behind her.

“Ingri?”

But Ingri shut her eyes hard as if blinking back tears. And Margot felt her hope crashing as quickly as it had risen.

“It wasn't an accident, exactly. It was magic. It was the Prince. He froze the lot of them,” Ingri said in a rough whisper. “I had to tell you. I wouldn't want to go through life wondering what happened. I would want to know . . . Goddard . . . Master Goddard . . . He was a good boy . . . It's easy to get caught up in all this . . . but he never deserved this. No one does.”

Margot's insides were still protesting against the maid's words. It couldn't be true.

“What do you mean froze?” Margot demanded.

“I can't say any more. I am so sorry for your loss.” The maid turned and made quick tracks back toward the palace.

But as her footsteps retreated against the palace gravel, Ingri added, “The Prince did care for him. He gave him a gentleman's burial among the court. He's never done that for anyone.”

Margot didn't care what the Prince thought of Go. If her brother had never known the Prince, he would still be alive. Margot tried to imagine what it must have felt like—what Go's last moments were like. Did he see it coming? How did he feel? Did he suffer?

Go was dead. They would not have their happily ever after. Together or apart.

Margot wandered through the village and that was where she spotted him. She could just see the back of him. A boy whose size and shape matched Go's when he was four and she was seven and they parted ways at the palace. She believed in magic. Not ghosts. But her feet didn't care. They propelled her forward toward the boy, through the crowd. When she finally reached him, her hand made contact with his very real, very solid shoulder. The boy turned. It was not Go. It was the little beggar boy she'd seen the first day she got to the city.

“I'm sorry,” she muttered.

Go was gone.

The boy looked at her with his silvery, sorrowful eyes and said, “Mother.”

Margot fished in her pockets for coins and found one. The rest she'd left in the room. She handed it to him and ran back to the boarding house, the tears finally coming.
At
the boarding house, she opened the door without bothering to wipe her eyes. Rule was hunched over something on the bed.

“Rule?” she said. He turned around and stood in front of the bed blocking her view from something. His smile was wrong. It wasn't the one that belonged to her. It was the one she'd seen out in the street and in the opera house. The smile he gave while his hand was in someone's purse.

“Rule?” She said again.

He stepped aside. On the bed was her stash and her vials of magic.

“What are you doing? Where are you going with that?”

His smile dropped. He looked at her with a mix of confusion, surprised that she was surprised. “I told you exactly what I was. A Robber,” Rule said.

It was as if he believed that this moment was inevitable, that there was no outcome other than him betraying her.

She calculated the scene. If he had only taken the coins, she would have been able to let him leave. But he was holding her vials, too. She even spotted the handle of her dagger in his back pocket. Rule was trying to take her magic from her.

He smiled a small smile. “Last night was great, but I thought about it and I realized that you were right before. I shouldn't get distracted. We shouldn't—”

Margot felt the anger that was already there begin to boil. “You're doing this because I didn't return your feelings at first. Because I hurt your ego.”

“I'd say you more than made it up to my ego last night.”

“Poor little Robber boy. Hurt before you get hurt . . . is that it? So now you steal from me?”

“Don't flatter yourself. I have been planning to leave from the start. But then you took your treasure chest with you.”

He nodded at the shawl which she'd left behind this morning. He had been waiting for his moment to take it from her from the moment he'd seen it.

Margot felt her stomach turn. She had not had an ounce of regret when she woke that morning. But now . . . she was flooded with it.

Rule was going to leave in the night and take everything with him. The money almost didn't matter now. But the vials of magic and her dagger? She couldn't let him have them.

She stood in front of him. “I don't want to hurt you. But I will,” she said defensively.

She considered letting Rule go, but she couldn't give up magic. Those vials brought her power. Somewhere to belong. Even if it was with the witches.

Margot grabbed the vials and they began to struggle. When she realized he had no intention of letting go, she tried to scream. Rule cupped a hand over her mouth and she felt her panic rise. She bit down on his hand. When he released her, she reached for one of the vials and threw the contents in his direction. Without thinking, she murmured the words and the fireworks began. But the explosion did not go off into the air. It did not scare him like she'd intended. This time it went right through him.

Margot pushed Rule away and he landed with a thud beside her. He was still—too still. She had wanted to stop him, not to kill him.

His eyes had glassed over and were cold. She scrambled through her vials futilely looking for something to save him. But nothing could fill the gaping hole in his chest. There was nothing to still the blood that seeped out onto the floor and all around him. Margot got to her
feet.
She whispered something between an apology and a prayer over his body before slipping out of the room.

20

She walked through the night and though the woods to the Hollow. She knelt beside the River and rinsed her bloody hands until they were clean before she entered.

Ora came upstairs, rubbing her eyes from sleep. She stopped cold when she saw Margot standing in the center of the hearth room.

“Margot? What are you doing here?”

Margot didn't answer. She just let Ora wrap her arms around her.

Then, Margot spilled out the entire story, from losing her brother to defending herself against Rule.

“What must you think of me?” Margot said, trying to stop the tears that she could not seem to halt.

Ora started to cry, too. “None of this would have happened if it weren't for me.”

“What are you talking about?” Margot asked.

“Maybe everything would have been different if I hadn't done what I did. You would have left us sooner. You would never have even met that thief boy.”

“Ora, what do you mean?”

“I made the spark that first time in your palm. Not you. When the witches were testing you, I did it.”

“I don't understand,” Margot said quietly. “I did it once. You saw. You all saw. I have the gift. I felt it. I know I did.”

“The spark went through you. But it was mine.”

“I felt it.”

“I gave you just enough. That's why you felt it.”

“Why would you do that? I don't understand.”

“I wanted you to stay. I wanted a friend . . . I was sure that your magic would come eventually.”