“You’re late, but I’ll forgive you at some point.” Everly raced over to hug me. “Noel told us something, something, something, and you have information for us, and that we should something, something, and meet you at this spot, five minutes ago. I love when I correctly interpret her gibberish.”
“First, you arrived two minutes ago. If you were supposed to be here five minutes ago, you are also late.” I released her and acknowledged Roth, the man I loved like a brother. “I haven’t spoken to the oracle today, so I don’t know what information I’m supposed to relay.”
Everly humphed. “This is going to be a head-scratcher, then.”
“Did Noel tell you why she put us in the same heat?” I asked.
Roth nodded with the usual clipped jerk of his chin. “Apparently, she has a new job for me. What, she wouldn’t say.”
Flaky oracles.
Everly patted my shoulder. “Noel did say she was absolutely, positively right about Ashleigh being a reincarnate, and that she was also absolutely, positively right about Ashleigh not being a reincarnate. After dropping that gem, she told me to tell you that you shouldn’t distrust a girl just because she has Anticollaborative Disorder and, dude, I have to agree. Come on.”
Anticollaborative Disorder? Two objects unable to collaborate? Ashleigh and Leonora fit together like a corner and center piece of a puzzle, so, it fit. And I thought I finally understood how she could be a reincarnate and also not a reincarnate.
Ashleigh and Leonora were not the same person. They couldn’t be—their pasts were different. Until recently, Ashleigh had been a blank slate. She hadn’t recalled her past lives, making her the nonreincarnate. Leonora contained all the memories of her past lives, making her the reincarnate.
One didn’t have to be the other. We just had to keep them separated permanently.
Speaking of Ashleigh. “I think she can be saved. I think her past memories can be suppressed, Leonora kept at bay.” I would send notes to Noel and Ophelia, asking for an audience to present this very thought.
Everly cocked a brow. “So...this has turned into a revenge with benefits situation, I’m guessing.”
Revenge with benefits?
Roth, who knew more about my situation than Everly, blinked at me. “That you even want to save her...”
“It’s shocking, yes.” But here we were. “I will be asking Ophelia for a spell.”
“And if there isn’t one?” Everly asked.
I...didn’t know. “Unless we find a way to suppress those memories, Ashleigh will always have the potential for great evil.”
“But don’t we all?” The Evil Queen drummed her fingers together. With metal claws anchored to the end of each finger, every motion clinked. “Can I be honest? I don’t get an evil vibe from her,” Everly admitted. “She reminds me of my Hartly. She’s all nice and crap.”
I flinched. Hartly, the girl I’d killed. Everly’s beloved cousin, the two raised as sisters.
“Just, keep hiding mirrors in the palace for me. Even though your plans have maybe, maybe not changed for the princess, we still have a kingdom to reclaim. I’ll continue growing my plants all over the campground and palace courtyard so I can spy through my army of foliage. And yes, I got to hear six days’ worth of conversations with your mother and sister, Saxon. Make them stop. I’m tempted to cut off my ears and give them to the women. Do you think they would regift?”
Roth cast me a sympathetic look. “Victory draws nigh. When the time comes, we will publicly dethrone Philipp, no matter what we decide to do about his daughter. You will take the avian throne, and your mother will be pacified. All will be well.”
“I don’t care if she’s pacified. If she goes after Ashleigh again, she will be banished.”
And what of Ashleigh, if she became Leonora before I could have her memories suppressed? I scrubbed a hand down my face, pressure rising.
No matter how I felt about her, no matter how much I wanted her, no matter how much I would agonize afterward, Leonora must be neutralized. So, if I had any chance of saving the princess—Did I? Could I?—I had to work fast.
14
He is like frost, and she is like flame.
One preserves and one burns, but both maim.
Ashleigh
Oh, how quickly my life had changed.
Six days ago, I’d planned to search out books about Leonora and Craven, phantoms in general, and maybe even magic potions, just in case I could re-create the one made by Milo’s father. Time permitting, I’d hoped to read over a few different interpretations of “The Little Cinder Girl.” An extravaganza of knowledge.
I’d done none of that.
I spent the bulk of my time listening to the tournament battles that took place outside while corralling my new baby dragons.
That’s right. I was a mother now, and it was a role I adored. One glance into the dark, fathomless eyes of my twins, and I’d adopted both darlings as my own.
I wanted my other two babies, as well. Where were they?
I didn’t care that these two had destroyed the books I had managed to gather, that they didn’t understand “this is a matter of life and death, and Momma really must study.” They’d also ruined the feather-dress I’d been sewing, broken my bed, and put holes in my walls. All forgivable. I loved these dragons with every fiber of my being.
I plopped onto the edge of the wobbly bed with cracked posters, parchment, and quill in hand. This momma had bills to pay. I had to replace the furniture and have the walls patched before someone noticed the damage. I’d already ordered a spell. For the bargain price of a dagger, sword, ax, and a full set of armor, Ophelia had agreed to re-create the spell she’d cast around Saxon’s tent, ensuring no one heard the destruction taking place on a minute-by-minute basis.
Bang, bang, bang. Growl. Bang. The dragons zoomed past me, mid wrestling match. They slammed into furniture for a thousandth time, wood cracking, and I cringed. More damage, more coin needed to repair. All right. I might be giving up my design work until the dragons went to bed.
As the dragons took flight again, one chasing the other, I set the paper and quill aside, and called, “Be careful, babies. We don’t want another injured wing, do we?”
They crash-landed onto the bed and bounced off the mattress. I giggled. I couldn’t help myself, my heart swelling with love at their antics. Only six days had passed since their hatching, but they’d already doubled in size. They were now the same length and weight as midsize dogs with swordlike teeth.
Both dragons possessed scales that were exact replicas of their shells. At first, I’d thought them completely red, but every day, green specks had become more noticeable. Tiny spikes protruded in two descending rows along each creature’s spine. Both their “hands” and “feet” were tipped with razor-sharp claws, and their wings remained membranous, with bone hooks growing from every joint.
One baby had a tail with spikes at the end—I’d named her Pagan. The other baby’s tail resembled a trident, branching into three barbed prongs. I’d named her Pyre. I assumed the dragons were female, anyway. How was one supposed to tell? I adored them both, whatever they were.
To my amazement, the dragons adored me right back. They cuddled me when we slept, whined when I snuck off to the bathroom, and rushed to my side to protect me whenever someone knocked on the door.
How had Leonora ever used her dragons for evil? They were the sweetest creatures ever born, and I would die to protect mine. The connection I felt...the bond...it couldn’t be because of the phantom. She might come from dragon fire, but my scream had birthed these creatures. They were my family.
And I desperately needed to find my family somewhere else to live. The little darlings would only continue to grow. They were hungry all the time, willing to eat everything in sight. Wood? Why not? Linen? Nom-nom. Glass? Tasty! They preferred mice, though. Especially when I us
ed Leonora’s fire magic to char the remains. I winced.
Yes, I’d practiced summoning the phantom’s flames, and I could do it with more ease now. Not always, but often.
One day soon, the pair would be able to torch their own food. At the moment, they could only cough up a couple sparks.
I scowled as a familiar pain exploded in my temples. As often as it had occurred, I no longer grimaced, my temper greater than my discomfort. Leonora had just crashed through our barrier, invading my mind. Soon, the barrier would refortify on its own, building on the magical remnants of the warlock’s spell. But I knew. Soon, no more remnants would remain, just as Milo had warned me at the funeral.
—The dragons are mine. They tolerate you only because they sense my presence.—
I would give anything to silence this phantom forever. “You’re lying, trying to make me as miserable as possible, because I have what you want. Why haven’t you realized yet that I also have what you lack? A moral compass!”
—I lack nothing.—
“What about a body of your own?” I taunted. I’d developed a bit of a mean streak.
She spat a litany of curses at me. —I control the body more than you realize, human. My hold tightens.—
That, I couldn’t refute. For the first three nights after the eggs had cracked, I’d gone to bed wearing a clean nightgown and awoken wearing a dirty one. Each time, I’d had a vague memory of using a secret passage to reach Milo’s chamber. He’d chosen to live in the catacombs of the palace, just as his father had done in Fleur.
Why was Leonora meeting with the warlock? As awful as she was, some part of her did care about Saxon. Well, care wasn’t the right word. You didn’t murder someone you cared about a first time, much less a second. She obsessed over him, her possessiveness boundless. What if she’d bought a spell from Milo, thinking to get rid of me?
Oh...weeds. On the fourth night, I’d refused to sleep. Same with the fifth night. I would refuse to sleep tonight, too, even though fatigue had turned my eyelids into cinder blocks. I wouldn’t risk another meeting between Leonora and Milo.
“I’m the one in charge of the body right now,” I reminded the phantom. A squatter. “Tell me how to care for the dragons. How did they respond to my scream?”
—Fool. After a baby dragon matures in her egg, she remains in stasis until she hears the scream of a mother. Any mother. Most dragons don’t care for their young. They bury their eggs for the continuation of the species, then forget about them, never returning.—
What a relief. I hadn’t taken the babies from the arms of a loving dragon mother.
—Your scream should have been mine.—Leonora prowled through my mind, clawing at my thoughts. It hurt, but I didn’t care. I thrilled at her every upset.
As much as Saxon wanted to punish her, I wanted to punish her more. For my mother’s killer, I wouldn’t settle for cleaning messy tents and retrieving soft, beautiful feathers.
Thoughts of Saxon’s chores led to thoughts of Saxon. The next major tournament battle was set to begin later today, and I wanted to attend to scope out his competition. Where would the dragons be safest?
I refused to ask Leonora. I didn’t trust her to tell the truth.
I could ask Noel and Ophelia to watch over the dragons, I supposed. Noel was the one who’d told me to scream at the eggs, after all, so she must have foreseen the result. Even better, she’d kept the secret from Saxon. Right? She must have. If she’d told him, he would stormed the palace, determined to kill the dragons straightaway.
My hands curled into tight fists. Saxon might be my prince, but I would not allow him to hurt my babies. If he tried, he would find himself entwined in our third world war.
What if he didn’t try to hurt them, though? In battle, he was beyond ruthless; with me, the girl he had every reason to hate, he was sometimes almost...tender. I—me—ordinary Ashleigh—had power over him in ways the phantom did not, and oh, what a heady thought. I’d never had any kind of power over another person before. But then, according to my uninvited guest, I was more than Cinder to his prince. I was the original Leonora and Saxon’s true fated, a notion as miraculous as it was astonishing.
Me. An actual fated one. It was somehow more baffling than being the star of a fairy tale.
Pagan whimpered. Pyre—the bigger dragon—must have gotten a bit too rough again.
“Com’ere, baby.” I reached out and waved my fingers at her.
Little Pagan darted to me, perching on my shoulder to lean over and nuzzle her cheek against mine. She must weigh around fifteen pounds, yet I didn’t struggle to hold her up.
Pyre flounced over and curled at my feet, huffing a tendril of smoke in apology.
“I love you both so much, and I’ll always do my best to protect you. You know that, right?” I could already guess where they fit in the fairy-tale prophecy. The fire that purified and burned, burned, burned.
Love for them burned in my heart—dragon fire, one could say. That love, those flames, made me stronger, inside and out.
The back of my neck prickled right before a female voice rang out. “Did someone order dragon-sitters, extra cheese?”
I lurched to my feet. Noel and Ophelia leaned on either side of a ruined bedpost, their ankles crossed. As if charged by the appearance of magical beings, the barrier reformed in my mind, blocking me from the phantom. Oh, thank goodness.
Pagan dropped to Pyre’s side. The two flared their wings, and squawked at the oracle.
I patted the top of their heads. This was the first time I’d seen Noel since the night of the party. Ophelia had dropped by once before to sell me the spell. “Where are my other two dragon eggs, oracle?”
“They weren’t ready to hatch, so I returned them to their underground nests.”
Fairies could not lie. Okay. All right. The eggs were safe. I nodded, satisfied with her actions.
“Oh, one more thing, and it’s so minor it hardly bears mentioning,” she added with an airy tone. “You’re late, you’re late, for a very important date. Meaning, yes, your father demands your presence in the throne room immediately, and he says he won’t tolerate any of your lollygagging.”
What! “Why?” Unless... Had he learned about the dragons? He must have. Before this, he’d all but forgotten my existence.
Every day I’d hoped he would visit me. At the very least, he could have sent a servant to inquire about my well-being. Even that would have been a delight. But each one of those days I’d gotten hit with a punch of disappointment. I had to be bleeding internally by now.
“Maybe he heard what you did and hopes to thank you?” She shrugged.
That would be amazing. Earlier in the week, when Ophelia had sold me her spell, I’d paid an additional fee to bring two of my designs to life with magic. A sword with retractable spikes and a dagger with hooks that ran up the center of the blade.
Trying to buy his affections?
Well, yes. I knew he was capable of affection, and I wanted to experience it for myself. Just once, I wanted to know what it felt like to have a father look at me with approval.
As payment for this particular task, I’d had to part with two of the golden nails I’d taken from Saxon’s tent. I’d hated doing it, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do. To my delight, the weapons I ordered had appeared atop my dresser bright and early this morning, along with a note.
All done. What’s next?
I’d planned to have a full set of armor made before presenting the entire collection to my father.
“He for sure doesn’t know about the dragons,” Ophelia said, “so you don’t have to get your panties in a twist wondering if he’ll try to turn them into war dragons or whatever.”
“A twist in my...you know what? Never mind.” I shoved a dagger inside my skirt pockets—I wore a mourning gown I’d borrowed from Dior. She’d offered other,
more colorful options, but I’d hoped this one would help me hide any specks of soot. I’d added the pockets myself.
“I’ll go, and you’ll—” what had she called it? “—dragon-sit?”
“Yes,” the two replied in unison.
A grinning Noel shook her fist toward the ceiling, crying, “Girls just wanna have fun.”
Ophelia massaged the back of her neck, as if resigned. “Dragons do put the fun in funeral.”
I shifted from foot to foot. “Before I go, I need to know the truth. Are you planning to tell—or will you tell—or will you allude to—or will you have someone else tell or allude to Saxon that the dragons have hatched?” I wanted no misunderstanding between us.
“Trust me. We won’t be telling Saxy anything about your scale-babies,” Noel vowed, lifting a hand. “Because when we have a secret, we lock it in a vault and throw away the key. I’ve never, in all my days, told a single soul about the time Saxon vomited on my shoes. He asked me not to share, so I won’t. Not ever. Now, wipe the cinder from your cheeks and go earn your slipper badge.”
Would I ever get used to her odd speech? “How can you claim you won’t tell anyone, while telling someone? Oracles are fae, and your fae magic forces you to speak only truth, yet you constantly contradict yourself.”
She smiled so sweetly. “But, Ashleigh. It’s never a lie if you believe it. Just ask Leonora.”
How did she know—silly question. But what was the oracle hinting at? That Leonora had lied to me? That I was lying to myself, and I just didn’t know it? Both? But what lie did we believe? And was Noel referencing the past or the future?
One more question, and my mind might break. “You know who I’m carting around, and yet you returned the eggs and told me how to wake the dragons anyway.”
“I have many reasons for this.” She hiked one shoulder. “Too many to list.”
“I’m not asking you to list them all. Tell me one.”
The Glass Queen Page 21
