All That Burns (12 page)

My thoughts are on fire, gathering all the pieces of this day, trying to arrange them in a way which makes sense. Yellow flowers. Blood dripping from Blæc’s teeth. Masks and men.
Our orders
. That sharp taste of magic in the crowd.

No matter how hard I try, the pieces don’t fit. If it was a magical creature which wanted to take the king, then why wouldn’t it show itself in full force? Why bother with mortals in masks? And if it was humans—the M.A.F. or some other group—then how was it I felt that magic?
How did they capture and control a creature as fierce as Blæc?

Which leaves me with the same awful questions as before: Who would take Richard? And why was I left behind?

Jensen leads us through the thick steel doors. The bunker is so well pieced together I’d never even suspect it was underground. The room Anabelle, Queen Cecilia, and I end up in has some of the same fineries as the palace: settees and plush rugs. An oak table with a tea tray offering. There’s even a television screen half the size of the wall it hangs on.

Ferrin followed us here, as I knew she would. The youngling’s outline appears, as wavering as a desert mirage, as she sheds a layer of her veiling spell. Allowing only me to see her, so I know she hasn’t abandoned her post.

“Make yourself comfortable, Your Majesties.” Jensen gestures to the closest seat. “We’re going to be here for a while. I’ll have Rita bring all of you a change of clothes.”

Richard’s mother doesn’t sit down. She takes a few steps into the bunker and turns to Jensen, her movements snapping and precise. “What’s being done to find my son?”

Jensen’s mouth drops open; his eyes dart over to me. In them I see hesitance—some of Eric’s fear—as if my
presence is the only reason he’s staying silent. “Everything we can, Your Majesty. Officer Black will stay here with you. If I hear anything, I’ll send him an update.”

All three of us watch as Jensen walks out. Eric stares back from his post by the door. His arms are crossed over his chest, so both of his holsters are in easy reach: stun gun and real gun.

I feel him watching, deciding which one he would use on me. If it came to it.

The princess lets go of my hand and moves over to the settee. She falls into the cushion, her fingers pinching the bridge of her delicate nose. Holding everything together.

It’s too late for me. The numb is wearing off and I’m in fragments. Like the coronation carriage. Like the vase at Windsor. Splintered, jagged, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“Is this what you wanted?” Queen Cecilia has no place else to aim her wasteland eyes and words. “Was your little summer fling worth this?”

Anabelle leans forward, hair veiling her face. Her fingers vise her head now, as if she’s fighting back a headache. “Mum,
stop.
For the last time, Emrys didn’t do this.”

But I did. Didn’t I? Richard’s mother is right. This
is
my fault, in so many ways. If I’d never unveiled myself to
Richard in the first place, never fallen in love, never sacrificed my magic . . .

I could have stopped the men in the carriage with a flick of my palm.

I could have saved him.

“Then who did?” Queen Cecilia asks at me, point-blank.

“I don’t know.” I make a point to look at Eric as I say this and take a seat beside the princess. “None of this makes any sense. . . .”

Was it magic or mortal that stole Richard?

Or both?

Both is what the signs point to. But that’s impossible. How could there be an immortal-human alliance we knew nothing about? And why would they want to kidnap Richard, a leader who’s giving his life to champion their success?

There has to be a way this puzzle fits together. There has to be some piece I’m missing.

Anabelle’s question is tight and tamped. “Do you think Queen Titania will find something?”

“Of course,” I answer. She has to. That magic was too distinct. There’s no way I imagined it. No way it wouldn’t leave a trail for a Fae as powerful and seasoned as Titania.
“She’ll find a trail. She’ll get him back.”

She has to. Because she’s the only one who can.

Time feels like an impossibility down here in this bunker. I don’t know if hours or days have passed under these lights. I only know that the pot of tea has long stopped steaming and Anabelle is slouched asleep against my shoulder. Queen Cecilia has drifted off as well. Even Ferrin is quiet and wordless, static in her potted-palm corner.

I’m tired too, but shutting my eyes is impossible. I can’t take the dreams. Not now. Instead I stare at the television’s dead screen and try not to wonder what’s happening to Richard.

“Lady Emrys.”

My head snaps up to find Queen Titania standing in the middle of the room. There’s less shine than usual radiating from her hair, her skin—the fluorescent bulbs wash her out, reveal just how much London’s technology has been eating through her. She’s been away from Anabelle’s blood magic for too long: swiftly waning. If she doesn’t leave for the Highlands soon, the nausea in her stomach will become bloody lungs. And then . . .

Madness.

Hundreds of questions start to climb up my throat.
But then I see Eric watching from his chair, hands lingering close to his holsters.

“I can’t stay long, even with Anabelle here,” Titania says. “I don’t have much energy left and the veiling spell is taking its toll, but I wanted to tell you in person.”

Tell me what?
I swallow the question back. Now I know how Richard felt all those times I unveiled myself to only him.

The thought of him is agony and lightning in my heart.

“I went to Trafalgar Square. Did a thorough sweep with the rest of the Guard and questioned the Black Dog. The creature was delirious with hunger. The crowd drew it out. It’s little wonder this one braved broad daylight; it hasn’t fed in weeks.”

I frown, remembering the savageness which rolled down Blæc’s breath. How the dog turned away, let me live. It seemed like a miracle at the time, but was it something different . . . something more?

If the Black Dog was simply hungry, why break Titania’s laws in the most visible place? And why was there only one? How did it get through the parade’s intense security measures without detection? The path had been well guarded, by both Fae and mortal.

More puzzle pieces. Refusing to fit.

“I searched for traces of the magic you say you felt . . .” The queen’s phrase hangs by a thread. “There’s no trail, Lady Emrys. There’s . . . nothing. Trafalgar Square is clean.”

Nothing. No trail. Gone.

“That’s impossible.” The whisper pulls out of me before I can catch it.

“What was that?” Eric sits up, scanning the room. They gloss over Titania and Ferrin without a hitch, land on me again. His fingers are too close to both weapons.

“No need to be so jumpy.” I try to smile at him and nod down to where Anabelle leans against my shoulder. “Do you think you can get us some fresh tea? Belle will want some when she wakes up.”

The officer frowns; his eyes make another lengthy scan of the room. Finally he stands and stretches his legs. The right one seems extra stiff. He stilts on it to the door. “Anything else,
Lady
Emrys?”

I shake my head, wait for him to leave. As soon as I’m certain he’s gone I cut back to Titania. “That’s impossible. You didn’t look hard enough.”

“It’s entirely possible, if
men
took Richard.” Titania’s eyes flash and freeze. “There’s no magic to trace.”

“But I
felt
it. . . .”

“There was nothing, Lady Emrys.”

Nothing. Phantom pains
. Like the twinge I felt just before the broken vase. Is it possible my mind constructed this one too? That the madness raging in my dreams every night has slipped into my waking?

“You say it was men who took him. Then it was men. Mortals,” Titania says firmly.

“So search for mortals then. The Guard knows Richard’s aura.”

“Whoever executed this worked swiftly. Used the panic of the crowd to cover their tracks. Any trail Richard’s aura might have left is lost. . . . It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.”

Anabelle groans, tugged from her heavy sleep by our rising voices. Her face is smeared in zebra-stripe makeup and flushed as she takes in the sight of Titania. Queen Cecilia slumbers beside her, unmoved.

“What are you saying?” I bring myself eye level with the Faery queen, so she’s no longer looking down her nose at me. This close I can see the awful pale under her skin, jewels of sweat clinging to her hairline. “You’re not even going to try?”

“If this truly is the work of mortals, then there’s not much the Frithemaeg can do,” she says.

“This is your JOB. Your DUTY!”

Spit flies from my mouth, mists over Titania’s regal features. But the Faery queen doesn’t even blink. Her face is set now, so beautiful and unyielding it might as well have been chipped out of marble by Michelangelo himself. “The Guard’s
duty
is to protect the crown from supernatural harm. What the mortals decide to do to each other is their own concern.”

I’m staring, slack-jawed. Trying to make sense of her words. “You can’t be serious . . .”

“Do you not understand how stretched we are, Lady Emrys? I’m exhausting the Guard enough as it is with their regular duties.”

“So you can’t find Richard? Or you won’t?” My questions scathe the air like acid.

“I am the Queen of the Frithemaeg, Emrys Léoflic. You’d do best not to forget that.” Her eyes flash like a blade—dangerous. Something behind them wavers, reminds me of Mab.

There’s a crash: china, silver, and too hot tea. I look to find Eric standing in the doorway. A fresh tea tray lies in ruins at his feet. He’s holding his stun gun instead.

“Who are you talking to?” He lurches forward, slashing the crackling blue at the air in front of me.

It’s a blind-luck hit, straight into Queen Titania’s arm. The Faery queen’s skin is so paper-thin I can almost see the electricity lancing through her, writhing like veins. Already weakened by so many hours in the city—this charge is enough to throw her to the ground. It peels back layers of her magic and strength like an onion’s skin.

Even Eric looks shocked when he finally sees his victim—stripped so completely of her veiling spell. The Queen of the Fae is undone, hair loosed on the floor like a spilled crucible of silver. Every last sign of strength sapped from her willowy limbs.

“I have a code fifteen!” He screams at the doorway. “We’ve been breached!”

“What the hell did you just do?” I yell.

“Stand back!” Eric waves the charge at me.

I inch closer to Titania anyway.

She’s not dead. It takes far more than that to unmake an immortal as old and powerful as the Faery queen. But it’s not death I’m worried about. It’s the fringes of insanity which could be creeping up, taking over the Faery queen as we speak. Direct contact with so much electricity could be enough to push her over the edge—unbind her into
a truly terrible creature of free magic. Loosed from all control or reason. A creature none of us in this bunker would survive.

The stun gun hums blue in Eric’s hand. He’s looking down at the Faery queen as if she’s a cobra, about to strike at any minute.

“Put that away,” I tell him.

“What? So you can hex me?” he growls. “You might have been able to fool King Richard, but not all of us mortals are so gullible.”

The room is full: doorway choked with security personnel. Anabelle is still frozen. Queen Cecilia is awake and staring, far too stunned to demand an explanation. Ferrin lurks unseen by the brick wall, watching the stun gun, winding her magic tight.

“This is Queen Titania. She’s an ally. If you stun her again, you could take away any semblance of humanity she has,” I say slowly. “If that happens, we’re all dead.”

Eric doesn’t back away. The stun gun is still raised high, like a peasant’s pitchfork. “If she’s such an ally, then why is she sneaking around?”

“Would you have let her in otherwise?” I keep my eye locked carefully on the electric current. I can’t let it touch
Titania again. “Put the stun gun down. We can talk about this.”

“Hold your position, Officer Black!” Jensen calls from the room’s entrance, where almost a dozen armed officers have watched the scene unfold.

“Stop fighting!” Anabelle stands next to me. “This is all stupid. The Frithemaeg aren’t our enemy. None of this is going to bring Richard back!”

She might as well be chucking a pebble into the ocean. This room—it’s like watching a lit fuse, waiting for the moment when the spark hits. Any little motion, any misplaced word could set it off.

What went wrong? Why are we standing here pointing glares and stun guns at each other when Richard is missing?

Because Richard is the thread. The bridge between two vast and unmet worlds. He was the center and without him things fall apart.

Titania’s eyes blink. The look in them is on edge, almost feral. Those silver irises slide to where Eric is arched above her. They lock onto the stun gun, glint a wildness which fills me with fear.

Fear for Eric. Fear for all of us.

The Faery queen starts to rise and Eric’s stun gun fist starts to fall. My hands are already on the silver tea tray,
the one with the pot of cold water. I swing it hard into the frantic guard’s head. The stun gun drops like a shocked fly onto the rug, next to a crumpled Eric.

Richard’s mother lets out a long, wild scream. Jensen and his team pour into the room. I’m up and over the coffee table, grabbing Queen Titania. The breadth, the magnitude of her power almost bowls me over when my fingers grip her shoulder. Her eyes are wild, confused as I shove her to where Ferrin is crouched, watching the scene unfold.

“Get Queen Titania to the Highlands
NOW
!” I shout.

The youngling doesn’t hesitate. She grabs the dazed queen’s hand and the pair vanishes. There and gone. Just like Richard.

Hands grip my own shoulders, fingers dig tight into my muscle, spin me around. There are at least three men grabbing me.

“Take her to the interrogation room!” I hear Jensen yell.

“What are you doing?!” Anabelle screams on the other side of the coffee table. “Let her go!”