Pale Queen Rising (2 page)

Two

Snow stretches before me, a well-traveled path pressed into the eternal white. The footsteps permanently embedded in the snow aren’t just mine, though I probably use the path more than most. Behind me, a long, low wall of concrete stretches for forty paces, the surface rough and windswept. There are hundreds of ways into Winter and the world of Faerie—knotted trees, particularly inviting ivy paths, and the ever-popular faerie mound—but this wall acts as a quick medium between the two . . . provided you know the right symbols and magic, of course. I trudge down the snow-swept hill toward the sprawling expanse of Winter.

If Frank wasn’t selling to Oberon, I should at least have been able to sense where it was going. I should have had a hint of direction, or even of the person buying it. But his place was antiseptically clean, at least in terms of magical footprints. He knew he would be sought out. And, judging from his complete lack of reaction to my reveal, he knew it would be me.

I’m not about to say I feel like I’m being watched. I just don’t feel as incognito as I used to. And I really don’t like it.

There’s nothing behind me but rolling hills and jagged mountains and swaths of black forest. The real heart of Winter lies within the wall that glimmers like a sheet of midnight up ahead. The wall stretches far off into the horizon before me, disappearing in the shadows on either side. The buildings within tower high up into the everlasting night, their angles sharp and cruel. Everything in Winter is built from ice and stone, and whoever laid the first building block decided that anything less than an acute angle was passé. It’s a city of razors and frostbite, deliberately built to be as imposing as possible.

As far as I know, the walls have never been breached. I don’t think anyone ever got that far.

I near the wall and place my hand on the freezing stone. It’s smooth as glass and just as reflective; my mirrored image stares back at me. I try to rub off some of Frank’s blood from my cheek. I’m only moderately successful. My reflection smiles and mouths the words “
Rough night?
”

I nod.

“You have no idea. Nothing ever goes as planned, does it?”

My enchanted reflection just shrugs.

“What did you expect?”
she asks. Then she shifts in a blur of grey, and it’s no longer my reflection staring back, but Mab. She points a finger at me accusingly, her green eyes glaring. The reflection is eerily accurate, from her wavy black hair and curving frame to the silver bone stilettos.

“Yeah,” I mutter. “She’s not going to be too happy. And she probably shouldn’t be kept waiting.”

My reflection shifts once more into my likeness—I look like shit, all sleep deprived and bloody—then she traces a large rectangle on the surface separating us. A brilliant white line of light trails in her finger’s wake. When she’s done, she steps to the side and vanishes.

Ever wonder what would happen if you touched a mirror and your reflection didn’t press back? Mab managed to figure that one out.

I walk through the pane of obsidian glass, and it slides over me with a chill static, like a sheet of frozen gel—just a little bit of give, and then I press through to the other side.

I emerge in an alley quite unlike the one I hunted Frank down in Queens. Sure, there’s trash littered against the buildings and rats scurrying between refuse piles. But here, everything is black and glittering like an oil slick. Light filters down from iron-ensconced globes that dangle above the alleys like some steampunk Chinese lanterns. Only, the light glittering inside the globes isn’t fueled by electricity or gas, not like in the mortal world. I pass under one as I head toward Mab’s castle, the shrill buzz of the lantern almost comforting.

It was admittedly jarring when I first learned those lights were captured Summer faeries doing penance in their iron prisons, but that’s just how life is. Mab doesn’t mess around with her punishment. She would let them go. Eventually.

I don’t think too much about my surroundings as I head toward the castle; my feet navigate the twists and turns of alleys and avenues on their own. I’ve walked this way enough to know it by heart, and Mab ensured that I’m good at remembering my surroundings. Often, that’s the difference between those who live and those who die after a hit—a quick escape route is paramount.

It’s a good thing, too, that I don’t have to pay attention. All I can concentrate on is my conversation with Frank. His words were like a curse. Not a real curse, of course—I had plenty of wards and charms against those—but his words were just as effective at knocking me off my guard. I’m used to my hits begging or lying their way out of a messy death. I’m used to attempts at bribery, at lame threats. But this . . . this was new. Normally I’d just figure that Frank was hoarding the Dream for himself, but he was a mortal: mortals can’t use Dream, not in the same way the Fey can. To a mortal, a small dose of Dream is just a temporary high. In larger doses, it can be deadly. Frank didn’t have the typical signs of a mortal Dream junkie anyway: his eyes were clear, he wasn’t jittery, and he wasn’t delusional. The mere fact he could hold a job meant he was clean. But he was bringing in a
lot
of Dream. Which meant he was selling to someone else, someone outside of Winter, which meant Oberon. It always meant Oberon.

I sigh. This was supposed to be a simple hit. Knock out the bastard, sever the vein to Oberon, come home and celebrate like always.

“Long day?” someone asks. I look up from my daze to see a banshee floating toward me. Her hair is brown and wild and her dress way too sheer for the cold. But, being half-dead and half-faerie, she doesn’t seem to notice the chill. Her bare feet hover an inch or so off the ground.

“Something like that,” I reply. I have no idea who the girl is, but everyone in this city seems to know me. The joys of being royalty. And feared. Not that the first was historically ever exclusive from the last. The Winter Kingdom cultivates their stock of Dream in any way possible, and that doesn’t always mean flights of fancy or magic tricks. Fear is as good a source as any, and—unlike publishing or reality TV—it never goes out of style. “How’s haunting?”

The banshee shrugs. “Fair. Just met my third exorcist. I really love screwing with those guys.”

“I bet. Keep up the good work.” And before she can try to make any more small talk, I start walking again.

I’m not certain if I’m a loner because of my job or if I’m in my job because I’m a loner, but it doesn’t make a difference. I hate small talk. It means pretending to be interested. Right now, being social and pretending to give a shit about anyone else is beyond me.

The street I turn down is part of the club district. In many ways, it’s like a darker Bourbon Street, with bars and dance halls crammed side by side on the ground floor and balconied flats above. None of the places serve alcohol, of course, but distilled Dream is as potent to the Fey as any liquor. I walk past a hookah bar, the front patio filled with patrons blissed out on vaporized Dream. A man in a sharp burgundy suit is passed out on a cushion, his head resting in the lap of the winged nymph beside him. She gives me a salacious grin as I pass and waves the pipe invitingly, but I shake my head and keep going. Definitely not the time, though the idea of spacing out on a Dream high is tempting.

Just then, a crowd of young satyrs bursts from the club opposite, the owner—a tiny, fluttering ball of light—screaming obscenities behind them. The satyrs just laugh and stagger drunkenly down the road. Unlike their Summer cousins, these guys look more like Krampus clones, with mossy black fur and glowing eyes and wickedly hooked horns. Not creatures you’d want to meet in a back alley, though their bark is definitely worse than their bite. I bite harder.

“Wanna take care of them for me?” the owner asks. She hovers up beside me, and I have to look away. Her violet light—normally cool and serene—is blinding with rage.

“You know the deal, Celeste,” I say. “No murders within the Court.”

“I don’t want them dead,” she says, watching the half-deer, half-college-jock drunkards leave. “Just roughed up a bit.”

“I’m not so good at straddling the line between the two,” I say.

Celeste chuckles. “From what I’ve heard, you’re good at straddling other things.”

Despite everything, that manages to pull a small laugh. “I’ve had my practice.”

“Come in for a drink,” she says, her light dimming to a more bearable intensity. “On the house. You look like you need it.”

I want to. I’ve gotten triumphantly drunk at the Lewd Unicorn more times than I can count. At least her bar has high enough ceilings to allow me to table-dance. Celeste is one of the few people in this city I speak to, and one of the fewer still whom I actually consider an acquaintance.
Friend
might be an overstatement, but it’s close. I suppose her being a bartender helps, as does the fact that she keeps a stock of bourbon behind the counter, just for me. She even puts it in one of those fancy bottles she keeps her Dream in, just so the other patrons don’t stare.

“No thanks,” I reply. “Tonight’s hit went south.”

“Then you definitely need a drink.” There’s a pause as she studies me. Faeries are notoriously good at judging mortal emotions, which is why I try to keep mine under lock and key. Tonight, I’m not so good at it. “What happened?” she asks. “I haven’t seen you this upset in ages.”

I glance away.

“He knew I was coming and was ready to die. And he had a message for Mab.”

“Not a good one, I take it?” she asks.

“Not at all. And she won’t want to be kept waiting. I’ll catch you after.”

Celeste knows me well enough not to push the subject. She pats me on the shoulder consolingly—which, her being a ball of light, is more of a telepathic thing—then heads back into the bar. I look around at the mess of drunk and high faeries, the revelry that will continue for eternity. I really wish I could join them. But Mab hates it when I enjoy myself on the job.

The street twists and rises, the black cobble slick and worn from centuries of boots and talons and heels. After a few blocks the place becomes more residential, with towering tenement flats and broad windows, everything looking like some masterpiece of basalt and ice. A few Fey wander the street, those interested in a more urban existence. Many, like the water-dwelling naiads or treelike dryads, live on the outskirts of the city. There are parks and icy streams and miles upon miles of frozen wilderness for the Fey that need a little nature to survive. Not that it’s necessarily verdant out there. Winter isn’t just a title—this place is frigid. Always.

Finally, the street widens into a boulevard lined with wrought-iron lamps. Great marble and obsidian statues stretch along the center, some static, some moving slowly. Years ago, Mab brought me down here and taught me the histories of each: A dragon devouring a knight. An oak dryad successfully locking Merlin within its chest. A plague doctor in his beaked mask delivering disease and feeding off the fevered nightmares of his victims. I pass them by without so much as a second glance. Until the one at the very end. It’s newer than the others by a few hundred years at the very least, though the plaque attached to the base gives no indication of its year or purpose. That’s partially why I like it—there’s an enigma, a mystery.

It’s a girl, maybe in her early twenties. Her features are hard to make out, and not from an error on the sculptor’s part but because of the live blue flames that lick up and around her like a veil. Her arms are outstretched, and only one pointed foot rests on the pedestal. The plaque reads simply “The Oracle’s Sacrifice.”
When Mab brought me to this one, she pursed her lips and said the Oracle was responsible for saving us all. No clue why she included me in that statement, since apparently the event was years before my time, but she refused to say anything else. It wasn’t the first time Mab had made a point of withholding information from me, but it was—for some odd reason—one I found maddeningly annoying.

I pause before the girl, wondering if her sacrifice involved having to deal with frustratingly lock-jawed witches, before continuing up the boulevard, up the wide steps that lead toward Mab’s castle. Two guards stand at the ready on either side of the massive door. They each wear gunmetal-grey armor and have halberds at the ready. Neither moves when I near; they know me by sight, and I’m pretty certain they’re actually just pieces of armor enchanted to look like people. I’ve never seen them move. I’ve never seen them have a
reason
to move.

The door is probably the only thing in the castle that isn’t stone. Instead, it’s a thick, dark wood studded with steel and covered in intricate filigree. It’s easily three times my height and twice as wide, but the moment I near it, the fleur-de-lis inlay before me glows silver and curls in on itself, the vines and knot work twisting away to reveal a small door hidden in the ornamentation. It opens silently. I sigh. Every single time this door opens, a part of me wishes there’d be a rush of warm air to accompany it. Nope. The air within the castle is just as cold as the air without. And sometimes, when Mab’s throwing a shindig (or pissed), it’s even colder.

No one greets me inside. No servants rush to and fro. The entrance is stoic and imposing, just as Mab intended it to be. About the only thing welcoming in here is the plush carpet that stretches from the door to the main chamber ahead. Everything else, just like the rest of the city, is black stone and sharp ice. Even the snow that occasionally piles up in the corners is gone. She must have had someone sweep.

My usually silent footsteps are somehow even quieter as I walk toward the main chamber, the carpet and the vastness swallowing up my very presence like a vacuum. It makes me feel small, insubstantial. Just how Mab likes all of her guests to feel before seeing her.

Then, the walls and ceiling of the hallway disappear as I enter Mab’s throne room. My body immediately shifts into business mode—I stand up straighter, shoulders back, chin high. Just like Mother taught me.

Mab sits on a throne raised fifty feet in the air, the structure balancing on a pinnacle of twisted ice. Her throne is ebony and planes of crystal, a dark snowflake made of daggers and despair. Mab’s black dress trails down the edge of the throne, dangling mere inches above the floor, its hem lined in white and silver fur.