To Catch a Queen (16 page)

“It appears to be Niall and Orla’s court,” Eamon said.

“You can see that far?” Emily asked.

He turned to her. “Of course.”

“Impressive. I don’t suppose you have X-ray vision, too?”

“Alas, I am not capable of seeing through solid objects,” he said, sounding quite serious, but she thought his eyes might be twinkling. “My distance vision, however, is excellent.”

As the procession drew closer, Emily could make out more details, and she could spot the tuxedos on the men. When they reached the edge of the encampment, guards guided them into place and widened the perimeter to surround them.

“They must be bringing in the courts to pay fealty to the fake queen,” Eamon remarked.

“The queen is not fake!” their captive insisted.

“Yes, she is,” Emily said. “I’ve been to the real palace, and this isn’t it.”

A cloud of dust rose on the outside of the camp, swirling in the air and circling the gathering. It looked like horses running down a dirt road, but the plain didn’t seem all that dusty. When the head of the dust cloud faced them, Emily caught a glimpse of red eyes and flaming hooves. “That is the Hunt,” Eamon said, tension in his voice.

“That’s what they’re going to unleash on our world?”

“Only if they’re successful,” Amelia said firmly, “and we are here to stop them.”

“We need to find a way inside that perimeter,” Athena said.

“Getting
in
doesn’t seem to be the problem,” Emily said as she watched the glint of armor and weaponry circling the crowd in the wake of the Hunt. “They seem a lot more concerned about anyone getting
out
.”

“Still, we don’t want to be conspicuous as we enter,” Athena said. “We aren’t likely to be successful if it’s obvious that we’re here to stop the impostor, and a party as small as ours that’s not being escorted by guards would stand out.”

“And if we march in with our army, that might be a little obvious,” Emily said, nodding in agreement.

“There’s another procession coming,” Eamon said.

Emily couldn’t see anything, not even the dark snake, for several minutes. Finally, she saw something that was more of a mass. The guards herding these people would probably have had more luck with cats. At the center of the group was a statuesque redheaded woman. “Isn’t that the woman who made Sophie take the throne?” Emily asked.

“Yes, it’s Tallulah,” Eamon said with a nod. “I cannot imagine that she would come willingly. If the free fae had anything resembling a queen, it would be Tallulah.”

Tallulah’s people vexed the guards by swarming around them and then melting into the gathered crowd. The guards gave up herding them and focused on Tallulah. They didn’t bring her to any of the camps, instead escorting her into the castle itself. Emily hadn’t noticed if Orla and Niall had received similar treatment, but Tallulah was so tall and her hair was so bright that she was easy to track.

“Something’s coming!” one of their free fae allies called out in a whisper, and they took cover behind trees. They were just in time as another great procession suddenly appeared out of the distance and marched right past them.

The medieval attire of this group told Emily that this was likely Fiontan and Niamh’s court. The first time she’d seen them, their procession had struck fear into the hearts of the free fae. Now, though, they were captives. Their court seemed larger than Emily remembered. She’d thought that most of the courts had been decimated in the recent war for the throne, but this court must have gained some adherents. Perhaps the fae had seen them as the best bet for standing up to this terrifying new queen. If so, they had miscalculated.

Then Emily noticed a pair of figures that didn’t fit: a tall, dark-haired human man and a small woman with strawberry blond hair. With them was a red-and-white bulldog on a leash. Emily barely stopped herself from calling out, “Beau!” Instead, she tugged on Eamon’s arm and pointed. “It’s Sophie and Michael, and they’ve got my dog. He’s okay!”

“Joining them would be a good way to get into the castle area,” Amelia suggested.

“And be taken prisoner,” Emily pointed out.

“Only if we let that happen. And we won’t. Come on.”

Amelia and her sister blended seamlessly into the procession. Emily glanced at the free fae leader, who shrugged and said, “I will wait for the army, and we will await your signal.”

“Okay, then,” Emily said. “Are you up for this?” she asked Eamon.

“Always.”

They slipped through the trees until she spotted Sophie again, then fell into step beside her. “Why is it that every time I run into you in the Realm, you’ve managed to get yourself captured?” Emily asked.

Her sister’s surprised reaction made Emily wish she’d thought to have her camera ready. It wasn’t a reaction she got to see very often.

The Realm—Approaching the Castle

A Moment Later

Sophie nearly lost her footing when she turned to see her sister. “Emily? What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“We thought you’d been taken by those Hunt groupies, and you had my dog with you, so we came to rescue you. But then we got captured by the guards and rescued by the free fae, and then I talked them into resisting the impostor, we captured one of the queen’s guards, and got him to take us to the fake palace. While some of our people are bringing our army here, we’re infiltrating the crowd around the palace. What’ve you been up to?”

“We weren’t taken. We simply chose that as an opportune moment to head into the Realm,” Sophie said as she tried to parse the flood of information her sister had just relayed. “We’re perfectly okay and have everything under control.”

“And yet you appear to be a prisoner.”

Sophie couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow. “At this moment, so do you. We came along as a way of finding the fake palace. What have you seen here so far?”

“They seem to be gathering the whole Realm. We’ve seen a couple of courts marched in.”

“They must be planning to present the fake queen publicly. But why bring the rulers who were present when I took the throne? They’d be able to point out the impostor.”

“They seem to be taking the rulers somewhere else when they arrive.”

“That makes sense,” Sophie said with a nod. Emily caught her eye and tilted her head ever so slightly toward Michael. Sophie shook her head, and Emily sighed. Michael wasn’t looking too good, and Sophie was worried that he was regretting his decision. It had already been a long night, and she suspected he wasn’t quite as recovered as he claimed. They might have had Jen home by now if they’d stayed behind at Fiontan’s castle.

They left the tree line and followed a winding path down the slope to the plain. Michael slipped on some loose rocks, and Sophie instinctively reached out to catch him, holding his arm to steady him. “I stand out like a sore thumb around all these people with fairy grace,” he said ruefully.

“Just be careful. We won’t get far if you break an ankle.”

He wasn’t looking at her, though. He stumbled again because he was staring into the distance rather than watching his footing. “What the heck is that?” he asked, pointing.

Sophie looked where he’d indicated to see a dervish of wind, sand, flame, and glowing red eyes approaching. “That is the Hunt,” Eamon said.

“They seem to be working security for this gig,” Emily added. “And maybe this is the staging area for whatever they have planned when the queen gives them the go-ahead.”

“And I thought their groupies were bad,” Michael said with a grimace. “We
really
need to stop this.” He directed the last sentence at Sophie with a meaningful look, as if to make it clear that he knew he’d made the right decision.

The Hunt passed, and now they approached a phalanx of armored guards whose ranks parted to allow the procession to enter the grounds. Guards guided their group to one of the last empty spots. Ahead of them, Sophie noticed that Fiontan and Niamh were being escorted away, and she made a snap decision.

“Y’all stay out here and see what you can learn,” she said to Emily as she handed over Beau’s leash. “We’ll see if we can find where they’re stashing the rulers. The rulers know me, so if I can get them to say something about the impostor, that might help.”

Before Emily could protest, Sophie took Michael’s arm and said, “Come on.” As they walked, she changed their glamour so that they looked like another pair of guards in the party. That allowed them to enter the castle unchallenged.

She’d expected them to head into the dungeons, but instead they went up a long spiral staircase into what appeared to be the tallest tower. At the top, the leader of the guards put on heavy gauntlets before unlocking a cell door. Another guard shoved Fiontan and Niamh inside. They shouted protests as the guard hurriedly relocked the door and stepped away with a sigh of great relief. He peeled off the gauntlets as he and his colleagues moved toward the stairs. Sophie quickly moved to stand on one side of the cell door. She caught Michael’s eye, and he stepped into place on the other side. The guards didn’t quibble one bit about leaving them to stand watch.

“An iron cage. They’re serious,” Sophie murmured.

“No wonder they wanted out of here,” Michael replied, his voice barely audible.

Sophie mentally counted until she reached the number of steps she’d noted on the way up before she dropped their guard glamours and turned to look at the lock. She’d become good at unlocking doors with her enchantress powers, but this thing refused to budge.

“No luck?” Michael asked, watching her struggle.

“None. It seems to require an enchanted key. Sorry about that,” she called into the cell. It was hard to tell in the darkness how many prisoners there were, as they all crowded as far away as they could get from the iron holding them prisoner. She conjured a ball of light at the same time Michael switched on a flashlight.

She recognized Niamh and Fiontan, and she assumed the couple in 1930s attire was Niall and Orla, based on Emily’s description. There were a couple dressed in the flounces of the Georgian period and a pair right out of a Jane Austen movie. And then there was Tallulah.

“There you are, little one,” Tallulah said with a smug smile. She moved forward—not as far as the bars, but much farther than any of the others.

“I take it you were expecting me,” Sophie said. By this time, she knew better than to be at all surprised by anything her former mentor said.

“I hoped you might do your duty.”

Sophie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she addressed all the occupants of the cell. “Most of you know that any queen being crowned here is an impostor because you saw me take the throne and the crown and bring the real palace back to life. Summer returned to the Realm when I wore the crown. If you, as the leaders of your courts, refuse to bend the knee to an impostor, that may prevent any false coronation.”

“You are willing to declare yourself in front of the Realm?” Tallulah asked, and Sophie knew she was being tested.

“I’m the rightful queen, aren’t I?”

“I don’t see a crown,” Niall remarked from back in the cell. “You could be any human girl with a trace of fae blood. Look at you, standing so close to iron.”

“I’m also part enchantress,” Sophie argued. To be honest, the iron did make her a little uncomfortable, but it was so pervasive in modern life that she was used to the feeling. It just wasn’t the poison for her that it was for a full-blood fae. She turned to Tallulah. “You know who I am. You practically forced me into this.”

“I do know who you are, but I also know that the masses will require some proof before they will rise up against an impostor. You will need your crown.”

A shiver went down Sophie’s spine as she realized what was likely going on. “No, I don’t think so,” she said softly, shaking her head. “That’s what they want. This isn’t about crowning a fake queen. It’s a trap to take the crown. No other queen can be crowned while the crown is safe. But the moment I get that crown in a position where it can be taken from me, that makes it possible for someone else to be crowned legitimately.”

“If you’re the true queen, you’d be able to defend the crown,” Orla commented.

“Bringing that crown here would be the dumbest move since someone decided to go alone to check out that noise in the basement,” Sophie argued. “It’s a trap with a giant sign with neon letters blinking ‘trap, trap, trap’ at me. Oh, honey, do you really think I’m that stupid?”

Tallulah took another step closer to the iron bars. “You can’t defend a crown you refuse to wear, and if you won’t defend your crown, perhaps you don’t deserve to wear it. You can’t expect your nobles to recognize your rule and stand up against an impostor if you aren’t willing to show yourself to be the true queen. The crown will make it very clear who is the rightful queen.”

Sophie glared at Tallulah. “Seriously, you’re not going to back me unless I bring the very thing everyone wants to get their hands on right into the place where someone’s scheming to get it?”

“I trust your ingenuity, little one.” With that, Tallulah returned to the shadows at the back of the cell.

Sophie stood there for a moment, clenching and unclenching her fists. Every instinct she had said that this was a very, very bad idea, but she didn’t see any other way out. Tallulah was right; she couldn’t expect the entire Realm to bend the knee to her and turn away from an impostor just on her word.

In frustration, she adjusted the dampening glamour she’d been using to hide her true nature and let her power shine. “How about this? Does this convince you?”

A few gasps from the shadows rewarded her, but Tallulah’s voice said, “The crown will show the difference between the true queen and the impostor. An impostor will not be able to wear the true crown, and you must have the true crown to show that the fake is truly fake.”

Sophie whirled away from the cell and headed down the stairs. A soft clumping sound on the steps behind her told her that Michael was trying to catch up with her. “I don’t want to hear a single ‘I told you so,’” she warned him.