The Last Faerie Queen (21 page)

My chest inflated like a balloon.

“Which one of these mortals do you
most
want me to release?”

The breath whooshed from Elora, and from me. I'd been expecting something simple, like “Which of these humans do you love?” or “Which of these mortals has shared your bed?” In the case of the first, Elora could've named any of us, except for Brad. And as for the bed question, well, we'd all lain together on beds of moss in the Seelie Court. In a manner of speaking, she'd “slept” with all of us. Kissed Keegan and Kylie on the cheek at some point. Wrapped her arms around Brad when they'd danced on prom night. If the Queen had asked about something purely physical, or even emotional, Elora could've handled it, but this?

This was a riddle, and one wrong move, and the mortal she
wanted
the Dark Lady to release would be the mortal who was flayed to death on this very stage.

But Elora, even if she was one step behind the Queen, was one step ahead of me. “Release from bondage, or from life?” she asked.

“
Ooh, clever girl. Trying to ruin my fun.” Her mother pouted, but only for a second. “Let me rephrase the question: which mortal do you most want me to release from these bonds, and hand o
ver to the waiting hands of the Seelie Queen, completely unharmed?”

“Except for the damage you've already done.”

“Except for the damage
they've
already done,” the Queen said, nodding to her servants, determined not to take responsibility for our wounds. As if she hadn't ordered the dark faeries to bind us, and worse.

“And if I refuse to answer?” Elora asked.

“Then I will sacrifice them all, and take my chances with the Seelie Queen.”

Elora was silent for a minute. All of us were silent, all mortals and all faeries. I wondered if they were thinking what I was thinking: if Elora really loved her people, she'd save them from the wrath of the Seelie Queen. She'd choose one of us, and let the Queen pick a sacrifice from the remaining four.

The Dark Lady's smile deepened, and I hated her so much in that moment. Hated the way she treated humans, yes, but hated the way she treated Elora even more. This was her
daughter
. The baby she must've held in her arms, if only for a second. They'd come from the same flesh, yet torturing Elora came so easily to her. And I thought I knew why.

But spilling the Dark Lady's secret would only get me killed faster at this particular moment. And naming Naeve as her betrayer wouldn't change the game she was playing with her daughter. Only a sacrifice would do that.

A personal sacrifice.

Confidence swelled in my chest once more. Confidence, and courage. I could do this. I could take the fall. Elora wouldn't have to choose, or reveal to her followers that she loved a mortal. She wouldn't have to risk her revolution.

I lifted my head, wanting to look at her one last time before the end. I opened my mouth to say:
Don't choose. I'm the one you should sacrifice. I'm the one who made Elora stay in my room, and sleep in my bed, until I was finished with her. I tricked her, trapped her, and forced her to strike a bargain.

I am everything you expect humans to be, and worse.

I opened my mouth to say the only thing I could to save her, and my friends. But Brad beat me to it. Brad, the boy who'd caused harm wherever he went in the mortal world, and suffered every day for it in Faerie, lifted his head and said, “I know the name.”

28

E
l
o
r
A

For a moment, I felt as if I were underwater. I watched Brad's mouth open, so slowly I could hear the hinges creak, and the words came out, but I couldn't really process them. I was too afraid of what he might say next.

Afraid and something else, something like hunger. A hunger that creeps under your skin and burrows into your bones. A hunger born of starvation, of a life of emptiness, of wanting. Deep down in the darkest part of me, I wanted Brad to offer up himself. I wanted it not because I hated him, and not because I didn't value his life. I wanted it because there was no possible answer that would leave my true love safe. For the riddle was …

“Impossible,” I breathed.

“What was that, darling?” my mother asked, the darkness surrounding her body reaching out and slipping into Brad's mouth. Stifling him. Shutting him up for the moment.

He squirmed, but could not speak.

I spoke in his place. “The riddle is impossible,” I said. “Even if you actually free the mortal I name, you will simply pursue him
after
you've handed him over to the Seelie Queen.” 

“
Him?
” my mother said, her lips parting into a startled O. “Who said anything about it being male?”

I rolled my eyes, as if I were back at Unity High. “Naeve has already told you I care for a male, now hasn't he? Between the one I allegedly stole from the mortal world, and the one I allegedly saved in the graveyard, you're already convinced I've fallen for a boy. Aren't you?”

I grinned, as if to say,
Your move
, but it was a mistake. I may have been able to outsmart my mother this one time, but she would wield the final blow.

“I have my suspicions,” she said, and two mortals jerked to the front of the stage. The other three drifted backward, their bodies jangling like skeletons. “Naeve told me who those mortals are as well.”

Damn, damn, damn.

Why did I have to take my little swing? Even if I knocked her off her feet, she'd never stay down for more than a few seconds. Not unless someone bigger was throwing the punches. Someone bigger, and older, and much more powerful than me.

I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I simply had to make it until tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, the Seelie Queen would bind my mother, the battle would wage, and without the Dark Lady to protect them, the dark faeries would fall.

Their court would.

I just had to stall. “Thank you,” I said, staring up at the two mortals as if my mother had done me a favor. “This will make it much easier to prove my point.”

“What point?”

“That the riddle is impossible. Suppose I choose boy number one.” I gestured to Taylor. With a flick of the wrist, my mother pulled him forward until he dangled above the front of the stage. “You send boy number one to the Seelie Court, and kill the other. Am I correct so far?”

The Queen smiled but did not nod. She would not show her hand until I was finished.

Still, I said, “I thought as much,” as if to fool the faeries who couldn't see her as clearly as I could. “So what happens then, exactly? What sordid scenario have you created in your mind? I run off to the Seelie Court to meet my chosen mortal, and together we live out our days amongst the bright ones?” I curled my lips in disgust, shaking my head. “You'd never let that happen. It would be too much of a slight to your court, and to your pride. You'd hunt us down and flay us in front of your congregation.”

“And if I promise to leave him alive?” the Queen asked, her brow raised the tiniest bit. It was clear I'd piqued her interest, but she wouldn't show the strength of her emotion. Not now, and not if I burst into flames this very minute.

“Then someone from your court would do your dirty work for you. Isn't that how it's always been?” I asked.

“Not always,” she said with a smile. “But I could easily forbid it.”

I actually laughed. That startled the smile from her face. “What good would that do? Every faerie in your congregation knows you've lost control of your court. Naeve snuck away to the mortal world without your blessing. He
tortured your daughter
behind your back. That's why you're so insistent on proving that
I've
done wrong. Because if I'm innocent, that means your greatest devotee betrayed you. He went against his queen, and his people, and did whatever his wicked heart desired. And what would that say about you, then?”

Her face was redder than I'd ever seen it. In all my years in the Unseelie Court, I'd seen her turn opalescent white on the night of the full moon, or impenetrable black on the night of the dark moon. This was something new entirely. “How
dare
you—”

“You've lost your power, Lady. Even if Naeve acted in your best interest, he did it
without your permission.
Attacking the Dark Princess can only be interpreted as an act of aggression against your court. And what do you do in response? You go after
me
, the person who has been slighted in the first place, all to save your precious pride. How dare
you
—”

“ENOUGH.”
The Dark Queen's fury shook the ground. The mountain beneath us trembled at her rage. But something more terrible happened then. That darkness stopping up Brad's tongue crept farther into his throat, choking him. Beside him, Taylor began to shake. She was suffocating them both, punishing them for my transgressions. If I didn't choose quickly, both mortals would fall.

“Wait,” I said, trying to stop my voice from shaking. If she hurt him, I wouldn't be able to keep my feelings a secret. She would know.

They would all know.

“You've given me a choice,” I said, but the darkness was flooding out of her. Pouring out of her, with faces and hands and little claws scritch-scratching at the dangling mortals. Opening their skin. Licking the wounds with blackened tongues.

“Then choose!” the Dark Lady shrieked as Taylor's face began to pale. First white, then blue. Soon purple. I had to think quickly. But I couldn't think. My heart was racing and my mind was filling with darkness.

There is no safe answer. The minute you choose one, you're giving her free license to murder the other. Then she'll go after the first.

“Choose, now!”

“I … I can't—”

“Have it your way.” The Queen ripped the darkness away from Brad, her face positively glowing. Brad sputtered, coughing blood onto the ground. “Speak, mortal, and seal your fate. Which boy does my daughter love?”

Brad lifted his head, and there was so much clarity in his eyes. In that moment, he'd finally come awake. As his gaze shifted to Taylor, something inside of me snapped. No, something broken slid back into place. And I realized what I'd been denying for some time. I was not a bright and shining angel, come to save my people with benevolence and light. I was the Princess of the Dark Court, and I'd come to claim my birthright.

“Don't hurt him,” I screamed, and dove in front of the mortal. The mortal named Brad.

29

T
ayl
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For five brief seconds, I didn't understand. Then I understood too much. “Don't speak,” Elora cried as she leapt in front of Brad. “You don't have to lie to protect me.”

The faeries shrieked. The Dark Lady gasped. And part of me died. A lot of me died.

The Unseelie Queen let go of her hold on all of us, and together we fell to the stage. Still bound at the wrists, but no longer forced to hang in the air like some kind of demented puppet troupe. Breathing didn't come easy, at first, and I wished I could touch my hands to my throat. I wished I could touch my hands to my wrists, to soothe the feeling of wire slicing into my skin. Then Brad began to rise, spinning in circles, and I wished I could cut out my eyes.

“No,” Elora screamed, blocking his body with her own. “You mustn't harm him!”

“Oh, mustn't I?” her mother said. “It seems you have made your choice.”

“All the more reason.”

The Dark Queen shook her head. “But you didn't
speak
your answer, my darling. You didn't tell me which boy to free.”

“I—”

“The riddle was simple, Elora. But you refused to comply. Now I can kill whichever mortal I choose.”

“But—”

“If I were a crueler person, I'd use your shortcomings as an excuse to kill all the mortals.”

Elora went so pale then, I knew my suspicions were right. She wasn't protecting Brad because she cared about him.

She was
sacrificing
him.

Cold liquid flooded my veins. In that moment, I thought of all the stupid times I'd been jealous of Brad. Back in the human world, Elora had flirted with him, but only to gain his trust. All that time, I'd been worried about the wrong thing. I shouldn't have worried that she cared about him. I should've worried that she didn't care about him
at all.

I should've worried that she would sacrifice him to save us.

But she isn't sacrificing him
, I insisted as the Dark Lady neared the stage.
Her mother is.

Still, I couldn't shake the thought. Elora would steal one mortal to save all of Faerie. Elora would sacrifice one mortal to save four. Elora was the Dark Princess.

“But I am a merciful Queen,” the Dark Lady continued, snapping her fingers and calling on her guards to seize Elora. They dragged her off the stage, away from her pretend lover, kicking and screaming.

God, how she'd fooled them.

“And I will keep my end of the bargain, though you did not,” the Queen said to her daughter, who stood struggling before her. “Let this be a lesson to you of my true greatness, of my true
superiority
to you. I need not be spiteful, darling. If you'd ever truly been on my side, you would know that.”

“If you'd ever truly been a mother to me, I'd have
wanted
to be on your side.” Elora spat in her mother's face, and I knew she was being honest in that moment. The girl couldn't lie, but she deceived better than anyone I'd ever known. How was that possible?

“So you say,” the Dark Lady said, wiping her face with her hand, and she motioned to us, the humans who would be spared by her
mercy
. “Place them in front of the stage, so they can watch properly. After that, I'll gift them to the Bright Queen as an offering. How happy she will be that the sanctions need no longer be in place.” She grinned, and I closed my eyes. Behind my lids, all I could see was blood. “And then, thanks to my lovely daughter,” she said, forcing my eyes to open again, “we will usher in a
new age of sacrifice and bloodshed. Won't that be fun?”

Elora turned to her mother as the servants dragged the four of us from the stage. Her face was impassive as a stone. “Perhaps that was my plan all along.”

“Let's put that theory to the test.” The Dark Lady clapped her hands, and a strange, eerie light bled down onto Brad. That light was tinged red. “Make certain they can see it,” she said to the faeries holding us captive, and suddenly there were fingers poking into my eyelids, holding them open. I struggled furiously to blink. I struggled to look away from Brad. I failed.

Brad's body was still circling, but his head was hanging limp. Could he even breathe with his arms jerked over his head like that?

“Aw, has the baby grown tired of being held upright?” the
Queen said, her gaze drifting over the crowd. It settled on the Lady Claremondes. “Won't you be a darling and wake him up?”

No, no, no. Please. I can't watch this.

But I didn't have a choice. Those fingers had slid under my eyelids, holding them against my brow bones. Eyelashes broke away and fell into my eyes. I couldn't get rid of them. It was
terrible. But it was about to get so much worse, because the Lady Claremondes was slithering across the ground, her long, ethereal tail sloughing off skin as she went. She didn't have as much of a tongue as she used to, thanks to Naeve. He'd ripped off the poisonous appendage to use against me in the graveyard.
Elora had stopped him then, sacrificing her body to save mine.

My heart ached at the thought. Ached with love, and with sorrow. She wouldn't just sacrifice Brad to save me. She'd sacrifice herself, her life, and her wings. It was sick, but I really knew she loved me in that moment. Really accepted it. And, as horrified as I was with what was about to happen, I wished she was the tiniest bit closer to me, so that I could grasp her hand. I could slide my thumb over her palm in the way that I knew soothed her nerves. I could tell her that, no matter what happened, I really did love her. My heart belonged to her.

Forever.

When Kylie's hand slid over mine, tears sprang to my eyes. This was it, even if the Queen was telling the truth. Even if we survived. This was the final moment before our humanity got swallowed by the darkness. No matter the outcome, the dark faeries would win. We would be destroyed.

“Here,” I said, so quietly that only Keegan could hear. He felt my hand reaching, and took it. Alexia followed suit. Luckily, our shackles were loose enough that we could find each other. Together we stood, the four of us, mere mortals in a Court of Dark Faeries, and watched a human lose his life.

It started with a snap. The Lady Claremondes was all set to unleash her venom on Brad's neck, when she stopped and reached out to break a single finger instead.
Snap.
So easy, just like that.

Brad shook, but didn't lift his head.

“Just checking,” she hissed. The faeries laughed.

My whole body felt cold. I squeezed Kylie's hand, but it didn't help.

“Now then,” the Lady Claremondes said, and trailed her stump of a tongue over Brad's neck. I could
hear
the poison sliding over him. I waited for the silence that lulled you into a false sense of security. The silence and then the scream. It's so much louder that way. So much worse. Brad's scream began in his gut and ripped its way through the length of him, almost shattering our eardrums. I actually forgot my hands were bound and scrabbled to cover my ears.

Then pain, so much pain, shooting through my wrists. So much fear, pouring off of Brad's skin. He was shaking, the poison spreading through his bloodstream. Now the Lady Claremondes wrapped one long, sugar-white dreadlock around his neck. Her built-in noose.

She turned to the Unseelie Queen. “Shall I give him a rest?” she asked.

Elora's mother grinned. Whatever magic she'd used to keep Brad in the air slipped away, and he careened to the ground. Just before he hit the stage, the Lady Claremondes caught him with
her noose.

Elora screamed. Brad scrambled wildly, clawing at his throat, but he couldn't free himself.

“Stop,” Elora sobbed, sinking to her knees. That golden crown went tumbling from her head.

The Lady Claremondes rose higher in the air, using Brad's agony as leverage against the girl who appeared to love him. Elora covered her face with her hands. I honestly didn't know if she was devastated by the torture of Brad, or if she was acting. The thought chilled me to my core. Even my spirit shook with the force of it.

“Stop?” the Lady Claremondes asked Olorian, her partner in crime, who'd reached the base of the stage and was watching hungrily. In just three steps, he joined her up above, his footfalls shaking the earth.

“Should we?” she asked.

Olorian chuckled, his inky black body crackling with excitement. “Let us leave it up to him.”

The Lady Claremondes nodded silently, wrapping her arms around a struggling Brad. For a minute, it looked like she was cradling him. She smoothed his hair away from his face, whispering sweetly into his ear.

Then Olorian wrenched his arm from its socket.

Kylie wailed and tried to break free. She didn't, but in the commotion, her captor lost hold of her eyes. When the three of us saw her eyes close, we followed suit, jerking away from those hands. Even one second away from this horror would be better than none.

The Queen said, “
Wake him up
,” and I realized Brad must've passed out. Kylie moaned, leaning into me. “One little lick makes baby sick,” I whispered, remembering the rhyme the Lady Claremondes had chanted in the graveyard. “Two on the neck is baby's death. Remember? It could be over
soon.”

Kylie was quiet a minute, watching the faeries transform Brad into a pile of mortal ruins. One finger snapped after another, but the Lady Claremondes didn't run that tongue over him again. “I don't remember much from that night,” Kylie said.

“What about the earlier part?” I asked, as the faeries struggled to hold our eyes open. But now that we'd proven we could shake them off, they were less enthusiastic. Or maybe they actually felt bad and were giving us a break from the horror. “Remember getting ready, and the actual dance?” I said. “Remember when Alexia announced that she loved you in front of the entire school?”

Kylie inhaled, a baby sound. Twisting to the side, I could see the tiniest flash of a smile.

Keegan's voice surprised me. “I about pissed my pants at that.”

“Me too,” I admitted. Now that all of Brad's fingers were broken, he was coming awake again.

Close your eyes, stupid,
I told myself.

“Remember when stuff like that seemed important? School shit?” Keegan asked.

“It was important. That was our life, then,” I said. Even if we couldn't block out what was happening, maybe we could put something else in front of it. Something brighter. Less horrifying.

“Then you disappeared from the dance,” Keegan said, picking up on my game. For a brief second, I wasn't in the Unseelie Court. I was on the grounds outside the prom ballroom. Alone with Elora.

“I actually thought I might get some that night,” I said.

Alexia snorted, nearly drowning out Brad's strangled cries. The Lady Claremondes was tightening her noose. It was almost time.

“Really?” Kylie asked, her voice rising in pitch. We were all so desperate to escape this.

“No,” I admitted, and we laughed. We couldn't help it. It was either laugh or start screaming. “No, I knew it wasn't going to happen. I never thought it was going to happen.”

And that was it. That brought us back to the present moment. Because it still hadn't happened. Elora and I had never had our moment. Not the way I'd wanted it. Not just the two of us, tucked away in some normal place, in the mortal world, making love for the first time. Sure, I'd said “get some” to my friends, but it had always been about more than that. Being with Elora made me feel alive, loved, exhilarated.

“Please … let him go,” Elora whispered from her place on the ground. She looked weak, like she couldn't even stand up. And I knew, in that moment, she wasn't faking this agony.

“You said the magic words,
princess
.” The Lady Claremondes grinned. She had no teeth. Had she ever had teeth? 

Why am I focusing on this?

She looked down at Brad. “Should we let you go?”

He stared at her with anguished child's eyes. He tried to speak.

The Lady's smile deepened. “Release you from this cruel creation and the filth of your wicked kind?”

Brad nodded in little jerks, choking on eagerness and bile.

“No,” I breathed. Kylie was shaking her head. Elora still knelt, frozen.

The Lady Claremondes tilted her head. “Let your body give way to sweet release?” 

“Yes,” Brad croaked, crying into her chest. “
Please
.”

“As you wish.” She twisted his neck until it cracked.