by K. M. Shea
I sucked my neck into my shoulders, but darted into his room.
Rigel still didn’t move. “I assume you two are joining us?”
Kevin rolled to his paws and wagged his tail as he followed me inside. Whiskers started to follow him, then turned around and set a paw on top of Kevin’s abandoned bed.
“What?” Rigel said.
Whiskers patted the bed with his massive paw.
I opened my mouth to say what Whiskers wanted, but Rigel beat me to it. “You’re asking me to bring the bed.”
Whiskers purred deep in his throat.
Rigel said something about “spoiled pets” under his breath, but he went into my room, got the bed, and casually tossed the giant thing down on the ground at the foot of his bed. He briefly furrowed his eyebrows when Whiskers sauntered into the bedroom—purring—and wound around Rigel’s legs.
“You’ve over domesticated these two.” Although Rigel’s words were a tad harsh, I noticed he knew just where to scratch Whiskers’ chin to elicit even louder purrs from the cat.
“Thanks for letting me come in,” I said.
Rigel shrugged. “You do better being with people when you’re upset. What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve been thinking about something. You get a wrinkle right here whenever something is bothering you.” He almost brushed my skin when he pointed to the spot in between my eyebrows. “What is it?”
He’d long ago shed that dead-eyed look he used to use all the time. Typically, whenever he looked at me it was with humor shining in his dark eyes, but today I thought I could see a shred of concern, and something in my chest warmed.
Oh, don’t you dare, I warned myself. He’s an assassin. That’s, like, the bad boy stereotype to end all stereotypes.
Of course my traitorous feelings didn’t listen to me, and as Rigel waited expectantly for an answer, the warm sensation spread all the way to the soles of my feet.
The truth was, I’d been on a slippery slope as far as Rigel was concerned for a while. Probably since he’d killed those monsters in the market. His smile the night we dropped all the monarchs off had been the beginning of the end.
And now, as I watched him close his bedroom door, peel back the covers and point to the mattress in a wordless invitation to me, and then stop to stare down Kevin—who had both of his front paws on the bed—I knew I was a goner.
“I love you,” I blurted out.
As soon as the words left my lips, panic rocked my inner world.
Why did I say that? WHY did I say that?! I regret it—edit, undo! Backspace! Escape! How do I get out of this?
My thoughts bounced around in my skull, and I stared at Rigel with growing horror.
The silver-haired fae stared at me, then nodded once. “If you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong, you don’t have to break out your bluffs. Just tell me you don’t want to talk about it.”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“Go to bed.”
I stared at him, not quite believing I’d gotten away with it, but also kind of offended he didn’t believe me. “But I love you,” I said again without thinking.
“And if you follow up that statement with a request to touch my abs, I’m going to bundle you up in a blanket and toss you outside,” he warned.
“You don’t believe me,” I said.
“Leila,” Rigel said in a no-nonsense tone. “You’ve declared your undying love to me and unwavering loyalty to my physique to a roomful of royals. I’ve seen the best of your—what do you call it? Trolling? Whatever it is, I know you are excellent at it. It’s not going to work on me.”
For a moment I was just relieved I was getting away with my little confession with no consequences. That’s when I realized I was dead wrong.
In fact, I was staring down a whole flood of consequences.
This is punishment, I realized as I stared at Rigel like an idiot. Finally, I’m getting payback for all the lies I’ve casually spouted. I should have listened to Mom when I was a kid, and not delighted in my ability to lie to the fae. Or maybe I just shouldn’t have casually lied 80% of the time whenever I was with the other monarchs.
I felt lightheaded in a twisted combination of relief and deep disappointment.
Rigel was right—had I ever really given him a reason to think I felt anything for him beyond friendship? Would he even believe me after the dramatic ways I’d carried on about him?
Wow, this feels like a really cruel ending to a children’s fable—and then they didn’t live happily ever after because he didn’t believe her since she was a lying-maccheater-pants.
Rigel picked up a pair of daggers and casually twirled them as I wandered up to his bed.
“Nice daggers,” I said.
“They’re actually Chinese butterfly swords—made for dual wielding.” Rigel held the swords up to inspect their thicker blades in the dim light. “Very effective against unarmored opponents.” He casually held them by their metal hand guard and twirled them twice with a twitch of his wrist.
“That’s…great.” I pulled on the hem of my sleeping shorts and sat down on his mattress.
Rigel watched me for a moment, then put his dagger-swords away. Wearing his black shirt and pants, he sat down on top of his covers, then smacked the area next to him. “Come on.”
I hesitated a second—I didn’t think snuggling up to my strictly off-limits hubby was going to change my feelings—but when he flipped on his side and stared at me, I gave in.
I slipped under the covers and scooted my way across the bed so I was next to him.
Rigel casually draped an arm over my side. “Whatever is worrying you, we’ll get through it. You have Indigo, Skye, Chase, and Lord Linus supporting you.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“Don’t you support me?” I risked glancing up at Rigel and was treated to the sight of the corners of his lips twitching in an infinitesimal smirk.
“I do. But my method of supporting you would simply be to wipe the problem out. Permanently. Something tells me that’s not a method you would favor,” he said.
I stared up at him, the inner alarms of my mind going off.
All hands on deck—it’s official, I’m smitten with my husband. I regret my lies, I repent fully. It’s not fair—how can he be a murderous assassin and this thoughtful? It shouldn’t be possible!
“Your silence leads me to believe Fell is the problem, and you’re contemplating if murder would really be so bad,” Rigel said.
I laughed. “No. For once, Fell is not behind my problems. I’m just contemplating how my dear husband came to be suspicious of my advances.”
“It’s because you talk like that,” Rigel said. He stroked my mid back with his thumb. “Sleep, Leila. Whatever battle you’re thinking of, it can wait until the morning.”
Hah, the morning? It seems like this is going to be a battle of many, many, many months. Oh well. Faint heart never won the fair…er…assassin?
My eyes drifted shut as I scooted just a little bit closer to Rigel.
His fingers traced a path across my back with a gentleness I didn’t know he had, and I drifted off to sleep.
About a week later—in early November—I decided to take advantage of the unusually warm fall afternoon and study outside in the garden.
“What would you like to study next?” Skye asked as she set a rock on a stack of papers to keep the wind from carrying them off. “The nobles of the Winter Court, or learn about the festivals most celebrated by the Winter Court?”
I slipped the housing report we’d just finished—since I technically owned the apartment buildings some of the Night Court lived in, I took my responsibilities as landlord very seriously—into a manilla folder. “I don’t get why I have to memorize Rime’s nobles. The Night Court, yes. Absolutely. I need to know my own people. But why do I have to know Rime’s?”
“Eventually you’ll need to memorize all the top players
in the various Courts as you have more and more to do with them,” Skye said.
“And due to the constant shifts in power, the top players change all the time. You’re better off just memorizing most everyone,” Indigo advised.
I groaned and leaned back in my chair. “This stinks. Why can’t they wear nametags?”
Skye ignored my whining. “It is particularly important to know the most important nobles in the Winter Court since it is the strongest Court in our region, and Queen Rime serves as the fae representative on the Regional Committee of Magic.”
Deciding it was time to buck up and get to work, I sat up. “Yeah, I remember that. Is she the representative because she’s the strongest?”
“Yes and no,” Skye said. “It’s an important position because it gives that monarch the power to support and veto regional laws and bills on behalf of all fae kind. The representative has the power to greatly affect the future of the fae, so typically the spot is filled by powerful fae, but regions are known to rotate through.”
“Let me guess, the Midwest doesn’t because of Fell, Mr-stick-where-the-sun-don’t-shine?” I asked.
“Yep,” Indigo said. “He blocked Birch when he made a push to be made the new rep a while ago.”
“How very like him.”
I studied my teacup. Since Indigo knew I didn’t like tea, she’d made hot cider, and kept it warm and steaming with magic even though it’d been in my teacup for a few minutes.
I heard a distant crash, and the ground shook with enough force to make ripples appear in my cider. “What was that?” I stood up, turning around as I slipped my prism artifact out of my blue jean pocket.
“I don’t know.” Skye had her cellphone out and waved to the two guards who were watching us from a distance.
“I think it came from the maze.” Indigo pointed to the giant hedge maze stretched out next to us.
Ice crawled up my spine. “The gate to the Night Realm is at the center of that maze,” I said.
Another dull roar, and the ground shook again.
“I’m calling Chase.” Skye’s voice was tight with worry.
“I’ll call Lord Linus, then.” Indigo had her phone out and was speed dialing.
“Maybe I should call Rigel, so I don’t feel left out.” I laughed weakly at my own joke, but worry twisted my stomach when Skye nodded.
“A sound idea,” she said.
Before I could unearth my phone, a gate sprang out of the ground—a rounded archway made of stone with a familiar wrought-iron gate.
The gate was thrown open with such force it groaned and almost sagged on its hinges.
Three of my night mares—Eclipse, Solstice, and Blue Moon—burst through the gate. Solstice and Blue Moon were honking with the hoarse, bark-like sound the night mares used to warn off trouble. Eclipse, however, screamed loudly enough to shatter ear drums.
Kevin and Steve came bursting out of the mansion, and Whiskers and Muffin appeared from the maze shadows where they’d been lounging.
Blue Moon charged back through the gate, the shades and glooms behind him.
“Something’s wrong with the Night Realm,” I said. “Get Chase, Rigel, and the guards, and come through after us—Solstice, wait for them before you come after us.”
“What are you going to do?” Indigo demanded as Skye started shouting into her phone.
“I’m going to find out what’s going on.” I grimly threw myself on Eclipse’s back. The mare’s spine was bony and uncomfortable to sit on, and I didn’t have a helmet, but there wasn’t time to remedy either situation at the moment, so I’d have to deal with it.
I clung to Eclipse’s neck as the mare turned in a tight circle. “Let’s go,” I urged her.
She shot through the gate, taking me to the Night Realm before I’d even had the chance to register the gate’s magic.
The realm was in chaos.
The ground shook, and a horrible, whistling noise that sounded like the wind screaming through trees violently sliced through the air. Night mares—both mine and the ones that had chosen to remain wild—were galloping around. I even saw Bagel and Fax in the mix.
I turned Eclipse in a circle before I saw it: the monster.
With a pale, paper white skull that glowed in the darkness of the Night Realm, and feathers and fur the same color as blood, the monster was a sickening mash of animals. The skull of a cow was melded to the front shoulders that resembled a lion. Its legs turned into the clawed feet of a hawk, and its torso narrowed into a scaled and feathered tail that was vaguely reminiscent of a snake. Two sets of antelope horns jutted out of its skull, and a pair of prominent fangs jutted from its jaws.
It was massive—easily as big as a two-story house—and shadows danced and writhed around it, connecting the body parts together to form the entire creature.
It was dead—magic was powering it. The sticky, whispery sensation of fae magic brushed my mind, but as it had been for the snakes that attacked me in the theater, the shadow monsters that attacked me at the supernatural market, and the monster Myron set on me in the Midsummer Derby, I could feel another magic underneath it. An ancient, foreign magic that felt simultaneously wild and controlled. It was sharp like the edge of a blade, and filled the air so strongly it made my teeth ache as the thing jerked around like a puppet on strings.
But how did it get here?
I activated my prism and started filtering the wild magic in the air.
“Of course, you’d overestimate your abilities and try to fight that thing.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Leila
I whipped Eclipse around and was shocked to find Fell, holding the bridle of a glowing sun stallion, standing behind me. “Fell?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
Fell smirked at me. “I brought that,” he nodded to the creature. “It’s my gift to you. I saw it in the Autumn Realm and decided, since you’re intent on playing hero, you could deal with it. Though you won’t be able to.”
I wanted to grab the Autumn King by the collar of his shirt, but the monster exhaled on a clump of trees, instantly turning it into ash.
Clearly, I had bigger issues to deal with. “What is it?”
Fell scoffed. “That ignorant, are you? Of course you would be—”
“Fell!” I shouted. “Just tell me what it is and how to beat it!”
“It’s animated by shadow magic—the same kind from the movie theater.” Lord Linus stepped through the gate, Chase and the others right behind him.
The fae lord’s eyes locked on the monster with worry. “But it looks like it’s been combined with necromancy of some sort. Beating it is going to be next to impossible given its size.”
“How would I defeat something like that, then?” I asked.
Lord Linus rubbed his chin and shook his head. “Beheading would be the simplest matter, but unless you can get yourself a sword big enough to stab through its limbs, it won’t work on a monster that size.”
“Light, possibly,” Chase said. He looped a lead rope around Fax’s neck, and then a second around Bagel’s, securing the less fierce geldings for their safety. “The shadow snakes reacted negatively to light.”
Lord Linus shook his head. “The amount of light you’d need would be extraordinary.”
“I’m calling in my men. We’ll get multiple warriors on it,” Chase said.
“Fine. I’ll distract it in the meantime,” I said.
“You’re wasting your time,” Fell said. “You can’t beat that thing.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” I snarled.
Fell shrugged. “The only thing you can do. Dump it in the human world.”
“Are you insane?” I shouted. “I’m not doing that! It will kill people! It could smash its way through half of Magiford before the Curia Cloisters could contain it.”
I pointed to the monster, which was clacking its teeth.
We’d popped out by the massive lake in the middle of my territory—a good distance
away from the monster—but even this far away I could smell its putrid, rotting scent.
The monster whipped its tail in a wide arc, smashing into the magical barrier, which sputtered and flashed.
My stomach dropped, and fear made my ears ring.
If we don’t do something, it will take out the wards.
“You’ll have to choose, Leila. Sacrifice your realm, or set it loose on the humans for the Curia Cloisters to deal with,” Fell sneered.
I turned Eclipse toward the monster. “I hate you,” I told Fell. I then squeezed my heels into Eclipse’s sides, and she was off like a bolt of lightning.
I wanted to whistle a call to the others, but there was no way I was letting go of Eclipse’s neck, so I just screamed at the top of my lungs all the way to the monster.
I probably sounded like I was officially losing it, but I didn’t care. I had bigger problems to behead.
Eclipse was the fastest of my night mares. Effortlessly, she took the lead even as the rest of the night mares charged behind us.
We closed in on the monster—its putrid scent was thick enough to make me gag.
This close, I could hear the way its body unnaturally clicked whenever it moved and better see the shadowy magic that tied it together and made the monster jolt along.
This is either proof Fell is the one who has been trying to kill me, or proof that it’s someone else entirely.
When Eclipse braced her legs and skidded to a stop, I licked my lips, tucked my fingers in my mouth, and whistled.
Glooms and shades burst out of the shadows, their eyes glowing and their snarls ripping through the air as they joined us.
“Surround it!” I shouted. “We need to drive it away from the barrier!”
The night mares trumpeted, the shades howled, and the glooms screamed.
My prism warmed in my hand, as did my old charm bracelet artifact—which I’d taken to wearing under my long sleeves.
I can do this.
Using the prism, I forged the biggest ward I could make, stretching it far across the ground between the monster and the realm’s barriers. When I felt it had enough power I activated it, sprouting a shield, and then pulled it toward me.
