The Wood Queen

by Karen Mahoney

  Donna scowled. “Fine.”

  Ivy nodded as if nothing was wrong. “I will leave you now.”

  “You do that.”

  “I enjoyed our conversation.”

  Was this girl for real? “I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” Donna muttered. “But I appreciate you bringing me Aliette’s message.”

  Ivy looked flustered. “She is my mistress. I do what I must.”

  Donna studied her. “She’s got you too, right? In her power, I mean. Somehow.”

  For a long moment, it seemed as though Ivy might not reply. Then, in a small voice, she said, “Somehow, yes. Not in the same way as it is for your mother, though.”

  Nodding, Donna tried to squash the rising sympathy she was beginning to feel. “Can’t you run away?”

  “It is …” Ivy shook her head, dislodging a few leaves onto the carpet. “It is not as simple as that.”

  “No,” Donna said, thinking of the alchemists. “It never is.”

  Seven

  Donna pushed open the door to Mildred’s. She thought she’d be a lot more scared than she actually was; perhaps she’d reached her breaking point, and this was the stage before a full-blown nervous breakdown.

  She thought of her mother’s bone-white face as she lay in the hospital bed, hooked up to machines and pumped full of drugs that were probably useless. What was the point of belonging to a group of powerful magic users, Donna wondered, if there was nothing they could do for one of their own? And, honestly, was the Order even trying to do anything for Rachel Underwood? Aunt Paige had attempted to reassure her that they were, but Donna felt sure that was just bullshit to stop her from leaving the house this morning.

  The story she’d told her aunt was that she was going to visit Mom during the morning session at the estate. Surprisingly, Aunt Paige hadn’t offered much resistance to this plan. All she’d had to do to gain her aunt’s blessing was agree to have the Order’s car pick her up from the hospital at lunchtime. That seemed easy enough, and it left Donna free to meet Aliette at Mildred’s before going to see her mother at Ironbridge General.

  Honestly, Donna half expected Aunt Paige to have her followed, but she couldn’t let herself worry about it. It wasn’t important, not in the face of meeting the queen of the freaking wood elves. Certainly not when compared to the potential for saving her mother’s life.

  She took a deep breath and looked around, trying to remember that just because the meeting was happening in a public place didn’t mean she was safe. In fact, she might need all the protection she could get from Aliette. Donna dug in her jeans pocket, grateful to find a scrunched-up hair band, and quickly tied her shoulder-length chestnut hair into a ponytail—just in case. She wished she had a hat with her. Although she didn’t know how elflocks were gathered, it couldn’t hurt to take extra precautions.

  It had crossed her mind to call Xan, but she’d immediately discarded that notion. She didn’t intend for anybody else she cared about to be put in danger on her behalf—not again.

  Looking around the café, Donna tried to spot an elf queen among the regular patrons. She had no idea what form Aliette would take out here, how her glamour would manifest in the Iron World.

  Then she noticed a woman watching her from a seat in the corner of the room; her table was jammed against the side of the counter, almost as an afterthought. It seemed … separate from everything else going on in the busy café. The woman’s red-painted lips curved into a wicked smile the moment she laid eyes on Donna. A cruel smile, and certainly not the sort of expression you would hope to see on the face of the person you were meeting for coffee.

  Because this was Aliette. There was no doubt in Donna’s mind about that.

  She felt her shoulders tense. But not with fear. No, this was definitely a feeling of anticipation. She had beaten the Wood Queen before—sort of. Tricked her, giving herself and her friends enough time to escape the Elflands. Although Donna had soon realized that the Skriker was waiting for them out in the Ironwood—waiting to hunt them down like nothing more than meat.

  The queen had planned that, of course.

  What she hadn’t planned on was that Donna Underwood—a seventeen-year-old girl barely at the start of her training with the alchemists—would be able to defeat the Wood Monster.

  As Aliette beckoned her closer, her red-tipped nails resembling claws, Donna wondered if this meeting had all been a terrible mistake. Perhaps she’d underestimated the queen’s hatred of her, the ill will she must still harbor against the human girl who had destroyed her favorite pet. And cost her the elixir that might have saved her kin.

  Donna bit down on her fear and strode determinedly across the room, toward the wood-elf-disguised-as-a-human waiting in the shadows of the high-topped counter.

  Sitting at a table in Mildred’s, facing the Order’s greatest enemy, was one of her most surreal experiences so far. Donna shook her head. Why was she even surprised? Nothing ever seemed to be straightforward when it came to her life—maybe after this meeting, nothing would ever be the same again.

  Paranoia caused her to wonder whether this might all be some kind of trick, or maybe a test. Perhaps the Order was watching her, waiting for her to screw up and betray them. Again.

  She bit the inside of her cheek. She wouldn’t let herself think about those things—not when she was potentially holding her mother’s life in her hands.

  The Wood Queen stared at her, openly curious as she examined Donna as if studying an interesting new life form. Which to a creature such as her, Donna thought, is exactly what I am.

  No, she told herself quickly. I am her enemy, just as surely as she is mine. Don’t ever forget that.

  The queen’s glamour was both shocking and impressive. She had taken the form of a middle-aged, middle-class woman wearing a dark green suit. A full-length red woollen coat was thrown casually over the back of her chair. Her autumnal hair, glinting with russet highlights under the café’s low-hanging lamps, touched her shoulders and curled slightly outward at the ends.

  She looked like she was dressed to go to some kind of charity function.

  Donna lifted her chin and met the bright green eyes of her enemy. “What do you want, then? Why go to all this trouble just to talk to me?”

  “Ah, straight to the point, I see,” the queen replied, in a disturbingly human voice. She sounded like a middle-aged opera singer, all rounded perfect vowels. “No manners, these humans …”

  Donna almost laughed in her face. “Manners? What do you care about manners?” She lowered her voice, glancing around to make sure nobody could overhear. “You murdered my father, practically destroyed my mother, and kidnapped my best friend. I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but I don’t think very much of your idea of etiquette.”

  The queen examined her fingernails. “Interesting, holding a human form again after all these years.”

  Donna gritted her teeth. Had Aliette even heard a word she’d said?

  Sly, leafy eyes met hers. They were surrounded with bright blue eye shadow, which made for a startling and slightly nauseating combination. “Donna Underwood, you whom we have known as Iron Witch …” she began. A scarlet-tipped finger gestured at Donna’s gloves. “Since when have you cared so much about the magicians?”

  “I’ve cared about the alchemists ever since you destroyed my family,” Donna replied, careful to keep her slow fury burning beneath the surface. For now.

  Aliette shrugged, a casual gesture surely calculated to arouse anger. “I destroyed nothing. Your ability to throw wild accusations has increased, child. I’m impressed.”

  “What are you talking about? Let’s start with something you can’t possibly deny: did you, or did you not, take Navin Sharma and hold him captive until I brought you the elixir.”

  At the mention of the elixir, the queen’s expression darkened, but her voice remained level. “Oh, the human boy. Yes, I suppose that much is true.”

  Donna couldn’t hold back a snort of disgusted laughter. It
was either that or go crazy. Or maybe try to strangle Aliette right there in Mildred’s, surrounded by a dozen witnesses.

  “So if that part is true, what did I get wrong? Enlighten me.”

  Long, pale fingers pulled a silver cigarette case seemingly from thin air. The effortless show of magic made the hairs on the back of Donna’s neck stand upright. She shivered as she watched the Wood Queen open the shiny case and pull out an unfiltered cigarette.

  Just for a moment, Donna’s arms began to tingle—that newly familiar sensation that seemed to be getting worse whenever she was faced with something particularly stressful. After Ivy had left this morning, it had taken her tattoos a full half-hour to stop moving.

  Thankfully, this time, the moment passed and Donna breathed again. She gulped in the coffee-flavored air and gratefully allowed the lingering taste to awaken her. The pain in her chest was no less, but at least she could move her fingers without having to worry about the tattoos spiralling around her arms beneath her favorite black velvet gloves.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” she snapped at Aliette, trying to regain control of the situation. She shook her head at how bizarre it was; what the hell did an elf queen need to smoke for?

  “Oh, this little thing?” Aliette twirled the cigarette between her fingers, making it appear and disappear as it flashed in and out of view. Her nail polish shimmered like rubies.

  “Stop that,” Donna said, trying and failing to keep the irritation out of her voice.

  “Stop what?” Aliette replied, opening her eyes wide and innocent.

  Donna frowned, about to say something angry, then stopped. The queen wasn’t kidding. Her “human” hands were empty.

  “How did you..?” Her voice trailing off, Donna figured it out. God, she was slow. If Aliette was powerful enough to hold a glamour this strong in the center of Ironbridge, then of course the cigarette case, the trick with the dancing cigarette … all of it was just part of the glamour. Fey magic. She hadn’t been able to detect it because her whole body was practically vibrating with the queen’s presence anyway. How could she possibly differentiate between what was real and what was merely created by the woman-thing sitting in front of her?

  Taking a steadying breath, Donna knew what she had to do. It was going to hurt, but it’d be worth it if her plan worked. The iron in her hands and arms could affect fey magic, of that she was pretty certain. Maybe now was a good time to test that theory.

  She slammed her right hand down over Aliette’s, holding back just enough that the table didn’t collapse. But she made sure the queen felt a good deal of her enhanced strength.

  The woman’s face hardly changed, but Donna detected the tightening of her lips and strain around her eyes. In fact, the more she looked, the more she could just make out the shimmer in the air around the queen. It was like that strange effect you can see over the horizon of a straight road on a hot summer’s day.

  Aliette hissed. “You little fool. If you break my glamour, how will you explain my presence here?”

  Satisfaction seeped into Donna’s bones like a healing balm. “I can’t break your glamour, Your Majesty. I can only break your concentration—but it seems like that’s pretty easy to do.”

  Okay, so it had taken a great deal of effort to detect that slight crack in the queen’s armor, but she’d detected it nevertheless. She’d seen the shimmer of energy surrounding Aliette, seen how delicate the balance of her power truly was.

  The Wood Queen was weak. Maybe even weaker than the alchemists suspected. Holding a full human glamour must be costing Aliette a crazy amount of juice; how was she doing it?

  And that was when Donna’s gaze fell on the purse strap looped over the Wood Queen’s shoulder. The crack in Aliette’s magic had opened wide enough to reveal the true nature of the purse.

  Instead of looking at a leather strap, Donna found herself staring at a length of woven and knotted ivy and leaves forming a … belt. The Wood Queen’s belt! She was wearing it as part of her glamour, disguising it as the shoulder strap of her human purse. That’s how she was able to walk in the iron world and hold such an impressive glamour.

  Donna’s heart thumped hard enough to make her dizzy. She felt certain that the entire coffee shop could hear it, and for a moment it seemed as though the drumming of the Wood Queen’s scarlet fingers on the tabletop matched the rhythm of her mounting excitement and horror.

  Aliette met her gaze and, for a moment, Donna could see confusion clouding those wicked eyes.

  “Give it to me!” Donna no longer cared if her voice carried. She was staring at the thing that could save her mother. She was absolutely certain of it. That belt held the key to her mother’s sanity.

  Aliette sneered. “Don’t be silly. The belt is part of me—you cannot separate it from me, or me from it.”

  Donna licked her suddenly dry lips. “I could kill you,” she said slowly. “I bet that would work.”

  She was surprised—and only a little shocked—to find that she meant it. Had death and violence become so commonplace to her? She wanted to regret her words, and the thoughts and feelings that lay behind them, but she’d be lying to herself if she said she was sorry.

  Would she really try to murder another living being to save her mother? She was almost afraid to answer that question.

  Luckily, she didn’t have to. The Wood Queen was tapping her fingers on the table again; it was like a nervous tick, and it made her seem even more disturbingly human. “You make empty threats, Donna Underwood. My death wouldn’t serve you.”

  “Actually, Your Majesty I think it would serve me pretty well.”

  Aliette smiled a particularly nasty smile and pulled the belt more tightly around her. “If you destroy me, then you destroy your mother.”

  Donna narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the queen’s words as easily as she’d seen through her glamour. “You’re lying.”

  “Don’t be so quick to decide between truth and lies, child. You are not so good a judge as you seem to think.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Aliette raised perfectly plucked brows. “Is it so hard to understand? I am not speaking in riddles.”

  “Says you,” Donna muttered. She bit her lip and thought for a moment. “Okay then, let’s try this. Will you answer a question for me?”

  The queen’s painted mouth quirked up at one corner. “Is that your question?”

  Donna scowled. “No, of course not. But as a show of good faith, I want to know something.”

  “You may ask.” Aliette arranged the sugar and cinnamon shakers into a neat line.

  Taking a deep breath and plunging ahead before she could lose her nerve, Donna leaned forward. “Back in the Ironwood, and again just now, you kept trying to put doubts in my mind about the people in my life. About the Order. As though you know something I don’t. I want to know what you’re talking about—whether you’re just playing with me, or whether there really is something I should know.”

  There, she’d said it. Her knees turned to liquid and she felt glad she was sitting down. Voicing her fears, especially to an enemy, was dangerous to the point of suicidal. Pandora’s Box seemed to be a recurring theme in her life, and Donna wondered if she was ready to truly take the lid off and see all the evils that lurked inside.

  But hadn’t she already done that, just by being here?

  The Wood Queen sat up straight and looked Donna in the eye. “Whether or not it is something you should know is another matter entirely, but I do not lie when I tell you that your precious magicians have kept important truths from you.”

  “But how do you even know that?”

  The woman’s painted brows rose in genuine surprise. “Because I have had dealings with the magicians for centuries. How else?”

  Donna shivered, realizing how truly old the creature sitting before her was. It was sort of humbling.

  She licked her lips, knowing that she wouldn’t have the chance to ask questions in this way again—Ali
ette obviously wanted something from her, and Donna needed to use that to her advantage.

  “You might have dealt with the Order for centuries, but their ranks changed over time. You act as though this is … personal. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Perhaps their ranks have not changed so much as you think.”

  What? This was getting too weird, and Donna couldn’t help but listen to the rising fear that urged, go back while you still can. But of course she pressed on. What else could she do?

  The comforting sounds of cups clinking and milk being steamed brought her back to the room. She took a deep breath of the freshly ground coffee scent wafting over them from the nearby counter.

  “Who exactly are you talking about? No more games. No more riddles.”

  Aliette’s fake human eyes gleamed. “You persist in pretending that you don’t know these things.”

  “But I don’t know!” Donna glanced around nervously, aware that she’d practically shouted with frustration. She blew out a breath. “I really don’t.”

  The queen shook her head, mockingly. “The Magus has you all well and truly in his thrall.”

  The Magus. Simon Gaunt. “You’re saying that Simon has been around for … longer than it appears.”

  “Of course; since when is anything about the alchemists what it appears?” Aliette’s tone was flint-hard. “The Archmaster’s power weakens daily as his life trickles away, like the sand of human life does. Each grain a moment, a year. A life. The Magus continues and continues, never changing. Never dying.”

  Immortal. Simon was immortal. No wonder he was so furious about the loss of the elixir. He’d been using it for years. For centuries!

  Donna frowned, leaning forward with interest despite her growing horror. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Aliette’s red-tipped hand gestured at nothing. “A token of my good will.”

  Donna snorted. “Right. You’re a monster who feeds on the lives—the souls—of innocent humans. You’ve been doing it for centuries. Why should I believe anything you say to me?”