To Catch a Queen (12 page)

“Nobody’s asleep,” she said, and then she laughed out loud. “But you are a genius. A sleeping spell may be just what we need.”

“You’re not planning to wait for a handsome prince to come rescue you, are you?”

“I’m a queen, not a princess. But I have a feeling whoever trapped us is in here with us, hoping I’ll get out the crown and make it ripe for the picking. So if I knock out everyone in the castle but us, it might break the spell holding us, or at least weaken it while the caster is unconscious.”

“You don’t need the crown for that?”

“I don’t think so. We’re at the root of the palace, so it shouldn’t take much to spread it upward. I’ll exempt us, but I’ll need contact to do that. Can you pick up Beau and put him on the table here?”

While he shifted the grunting bulldog, she mentally ran through the information that had popped into her head. She placed one hand on Beau’s back and took Michael’s hand with the other, took a deep breath to center herself, and reached out to the palace around them.

The air grew heavy. Even though she was in control of the spell, she felt weariness spread over her, and Michael’s eyes blinked. Beau yawned, but that wasn’t unusual behavior for him.

She waited several minutes before saying, “I hope that does it. Let’s try the door.” Reluctantly releasing Michael’s hand, she went to the kitchen door. Much to her relief, the handle turned. “It seems to have worked. Let’s get out of here.”

He put Beau back on the ground, and they hurried out of the kitchen, through the kitchen yard, and out of the palace enclosure. From the outside, the barrier of vines was still visible, which meant that the magic creating it didn’t require constant maintenance.

“I don’t know how long that sleeping spell will hold, so we’d probably better get going,” she said, taking off away from the palace.

“I take it we’re going to pay this Fiontan and Niamh a visit,” Michael said, matching his stride to hers.

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“No, that would be my plan. I guess you know where to find them.”

“Not at all.”

“Then where are we going?”

“To find someone who does know. Directions are tricky in the Realm. Maps are all but useless. You almost have to know where you’re going in order to get there.” She stopped and turned to him. “You do remember the rules, right? No eating or drinking anything they give you, no direct thanks. If I tell you to do something, do it without arguing because you can bet I have a good reason for it. They can’t tell an outright lie, but that doesn’t mean that what they tell you is the truth. They may not be answering the actual question you asked, or they may be leaving out something important. Try to avoid owing them any favors. It’s best to do something that forces them to owe you something.”

“Like being kind to animals and old people.”

She smiled. “Exactly. We’re lucky that you’re a third son because that means that situation is likely to come up.”

“You make it sound like this is going to be dangerous.”

“It is. There’s a reason this isn’t a popular vacation spot for humans.”

“But you’re the queen of this place.”

“One more rule: Don’t ever mention that unless I’ve brought it up. If you’re the impostor, what’s the last thing you’d want around?”

“The real queen. So you want to stay under the radar. I was wondering about that at the market. It’s like you’re using some kind of cloaking spell.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You can see that?”

“Sort of. It’s hard to explain. It’s not bad that I can see these things, is it?”

“No, I don’t think so. But it is interesting.” Very interesting, indeed, if being touched by magic had left lingering effects.

“What’s our first step?”

“Find someone to do a favor for so we can make them give us directions. Keep your eyes open.”

Elsewhere in the Realm

Meanwhile

Emily kept her cool by imagining what Sophie would do. If Sophie were ever captured, she’d give the impression that it had been part of her plan and her captors had been foolish enough to fall into her trap. So, Emily kept her head held high and looked coolly down her nose at the fairies holding them prisoner.

The captors hadn’t threatened them yet, merely forced them to march. Emily figured the worst-case scenario would be getting booted from the Realm. If they were lucky, they’d be taken straight to the false queen.

A glance to her side told her that Amelia and Athena were behaving in a similar way and showing no fear, though instead of looking cool, they were regarding their surroundings with rapt fascination. Only Eamon seemed concerned, and Emily realized that exile for him might actually be deadly. Getting booted really would be a worst-case scenario.

The one thing she hadn’t counted on was rescue—at least, not until Sophie knew something had happened to her.

One moment, the forest through which they walked was eerily silent. The next, the air was full of shouts and battle cries as a wave of fairies rushed toward them, appearing seemingly out of thin air. They wore the natural-looking clothing of the wild fae, and they’d blended seamlessly with the surrounding trees.

One of them grabbed Emily’s hand. “Come with us,” he said, pulling her along with him as he ran. After noting that the others in her party were also being led, she joined him in putting on some speed. She didn’t know yet if she could trust the new people, but they didn’t seem to be holding them at sword-point yet, which she considered an improvement.

She wasn’t sure how long they ran before they reached a denser section of woods and their guides slowed. Amelia and Athena must have been in remarkably good shape for their age, since they were less out of breath than Emily was. She wondered if it was magic or if they’d been doing aerobics since the eighties. One guide shouted a phrase in a musical language Emily didn’t understand, and a voice from within the trees responded in the same language.

A gap appeared in what had appeared to be a dense stand of woods. Their guides ushered them through the gap, which closed behind them. Inside the walls was a great encampment of fae. Tents clustered around cooking fires, and a wild music skirled through the air, as always in any gathering of the fae.

The fairy who’d been guiding Emily gave her party a slight bow and said, “You are welcome to find sanctuary here among the others who would be exiled.”

“Everyone here is on the list to be kicked out?” Emily asked in dismay. There were hundreds of people, and most of them weren’t human.

“We’ve managed to catch most before they are ousted. Others come to us before the queen’s guards reach them.”

Emily opened her mouth to say that those weren’t really the queen’s guards, but Amelia caught her wrist and squeezed hard enough to make her gasp instead of speaking. “We’ll just sit over here beside this fire, if you don’t mind,” Amelia said, maintaining her grip on Emily as she led the group to sit in a cluster.

“We’ll learn more if they don’t know what we know,” Amelia hissed once they were all seated. “They already seem to trust us.”

“But they don’t know anything or they’d know the queen they’re hiding from isn’t the real one,” Emily protested. “If we could convince them that the queen is an impostor, we’ve got the makings of an uprising, right here.”

“You want to start a rebellion?” Athena asked, her eyes wide.

“The free fae live in constant opposition to rule,” Eamon said. “It would not take much to make them rebel. The difficulty would be in getting them to follow orders well enough to complete an uprising.” He glanced around at the camp. “Though I must say, they’re surprisingly well organized here.”

“I think they’ll do okay if they’re fighting for a common cause,” Emily said. “We just need to stir them up and make them eager to fight instead of hiding.”

“You believe we could do this?” Amelia asked.

“I spent six months in the chorus of a touring production of
Les Misérables
. I think I know a thing or two about stirring up a rebellion.”

“As I recall, that rebellion wasn’t too successful,” Amelia pointed out.

“That was France,” Emily said with a shrug. “The important thing is that if you do that show right, you have the audience ready to march out of the theater and take over the world. That’s what I know how to tap into.”

“How would you prove that the queen is an impostor?” Eamon asked.

“Couldn’t you back me up? You’ve met the real queen, and you know she wouldn’t do this.”

“They would have no reason to believe me,” he said, and there was a mournfulness in his voice that struck her. She’d noticed that he didn’t participate in any of the fairy courts and knew he was considered among the free fae, but he didn’t fit in with this crowd. Was he an outcast among his own people? She made a mental note to find a way to bring that up in some less fraught time.

Athena sat watching the camp for a while, then said, “If they know where to find this queen, and if we could convince them to take us there, all we’d need is to find Sophie and bring her there to show who the real queen is.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” her sister asked.

“Singing and dancing work as currency, right?” Emily said. “I can start earning their trust that way, get them all singing some stirring songs, and soon we should have our army.” In her head, she imagined the camp full of fairies marching around to “Do You Hear the People Sing?” but she knew that was likely just a fantasy. It couldn’t possibly be that easy, but it was the only plan she could think of at the moment. It didn’t seem like it would hurt to try, at any rate. Her only other option was waiting in this camp until someone else decided to do something.

She stood and headed toward the center of the camp. When Eamon joined her, she felt a surge of optimism. The music was wildest there, and she listened for a while before easing her way into the group of dancers. She was a professional in her world, and she’d learned a thing or two on her last visit to the Realm, so she hoped she’d do well enough to catch their attention.

She was really surprised when Eamon joined her. His stuffy professorial appearance gave the impression that he wouldn’t be into dancing, but he was fae, after all, and that seemed to put music and dance in his blood.

Soon, the two of them were spinning madly in the center of a circle as a group of fae clapped in rhythm. As though reading each other’s minds, the two of them came gradually to a halt, and then Emily raised her voice in song, belting like she was trying to hit the upper balcony.

Elsewhere in the Realm

Meanwhile

Michael hadn’t seen much of the Realm on his last visit, but he didn’t think it had been this empty. Was it the particular area or was something else was going on?

“Is it always like this?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Empty. Deserted.”

“Not that I’ve ever seen. But the market is in progress, and there’s a big holiday for the fae coming up, so there might be some kind of revels.”

“So they’re not all in hiding from the terrifying new queen? The fake one, I mean.”

He thought he detected a trace of a smile before she answered. “I suppose that’s also a possibility. Let’s head for the trees over there.” She pointed toward what looked like the edge of a wooded area. “I usually find small gatherings among the trees. They don’t tend to like wide, open spaces. And we may as well let Beau off his leash. They don’t have leash laws here, and I doubt he’ll stray too far from us.”

“You’re sure he won’t just lie down and refuse to go with us if we don’t drag him?”

“Trust me. I have an idea.”

“You think he’ll bloodhound some fairies for us?”

“Something like that. Maybe.”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes, Beau ambling just a few feet ahead of them. The silence reached a point where it became uncomfortable, so Michael said, “We haven’t talked in a while. How are things with you?”

She turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Really, you want to catch up now?”

“Why not? What else are we going to do while wandering aimlessly through fairyland? Or do you need to meditate?”

“Things are great with me,” she said with obviously forced cheer. “My grandmother’s getting worse and I may be forced to kill my mother if she doesn’t get off my back and stop treating me like a teenager. My sister seems to be under a weird thrall to the Realm. And I’m going to have to make some big decisions soon about what I really owe to other people and what I can do with what may be my last chance to live my own life. And how are you? Probably just about as peachy as I am, huh?”

He winced and felt bad about nagging her about Jen. She had a lot going on without his problems. “Yeah, I see your point. On the bright side, I’m back at work and have two good arms again.”

“You’re better?” she asked sincerely.

“Not really one-hundred percent yet, but I count as ‘well.’ I need to rebuild some strength and stamina, but I’m functional now. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

“That’s good.”

“As for you being overwhelmed, well, if we succeed today, that’ll be one less thing for you to worry about.”

She turned on him. “No ifs. Don’t even start thinking that way. I can understand bracing yourself for failure, but I need you to believe wholeheartedly, to want to succeed with every fiber of your being.”

Taken aback, he raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry. I mean when.
When
we succeed. Is that better? And I do want to.”

“I know,” she replied softly, not quite looking directly at him.

Beau trotted ahead when they reached the edge of the woods, like he’d caught the scent of something. “This looks promising,” Michael remarked.

A moment later, Beau returned to them, a squirming figure in his mouth. “Beau, no!” Sophie cried out. She pointed at the dog and firmly said, “Sit!” Kneeling beside Beau, she gently cradled the figure in her hands while saying, “Let go, Beau.”

One of the small creatures that dwelt in the undergrowth of the forest sat in her palm. It was as close to the kinds of fairies seen in storybook illustrations as anything Michael had yet seen in the Realm, with clothes made of flowers, but it was hideously ugly. “My lady, I owe you my life,” the fairy said, sketching an awkward bow. “Whatever I can do for you, I will. I will slay dragons for you.”