Faery (The Faery Chronicles Book 3)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  She was enormous, her wiry muscle more emphasized. Her feet no longer looked like plain feet—they’d grown roots that burrowed into the floor, punching their way through the floor and whatever foundation anchored the building, into the land itself. I harbored no illusions that they’d stick if she tried to lift them—just the opposite. Any step she took, the whole realm took with her. When she moved, all of Faery moved in her orbit.

  Silver was the definition of power and strength. I was might as well have been an ant. An insignificant ant under the spotlight of a magnifying glass in the sun.

  The spotlight faded as fast as it’d sparked to life, though some of its heat remained behind. My skin flushed. Sweat beaded in my scalp and traced pathways down my cheeks and the back of my neck. My hands curled into fists.

  Silver looked like a regular person again, as much as a Faery Queen could be a regular person. Whatever she’d seen in me, she kept to herself.

  She took a step back, clearing the path toward the oak door behind the dais, its silver handle gleaming by the light of the remaining candle.

  Simone slipped past her, taking the steps up to the platform two at a time, boots striking hard enough to shake the structure and rattle the ribbons. I dogged her heels as she ran past the thrones, snuffing the flame of the tea light on the King’s throne in her wake. She hit the door with her shoulder. It shuddered in its frame and snapped open. We barreled through into the pale-lit antechamber.

  There were lit torches in the sconces on the oak walls every few feet, just like in the great hall, but this room was the size of my living room at home, long and narrow and comfortable. Unlike my living room, no furniture graced the space. No art shared the walls. The brush of our steps on the floor, the same stone as in the hall, vied with the shaky sounds of our breath. The sounds seemed to take over the room.

  Silver hadn’t been wrong. The floor cradled a single, still body, facedown in a pool of blood. Black hoodie, skinny jeans, brand-new black motorcycle boots.

  Beth.

  Her snake’s nest of hair was more red than brown; her hands stretched out in front of her, as if she’d tried to break a fall. Her steel-gray glasses had tumbled off her face. They lay a couple of feet to her right, one lens cracked. Her messenger bag sat next to them, the embroidered letters of her name slashed through. Whatever blade had done that, it hadn’t penetrated the bag itself.

  I looked at Simone. She met my gaze, then glanced at the door that led to the next room, where Silver had said the remaining non-fae would be. Malek and Famine and Mr. Nance.

  All the things that remained unsaid between us—the things she wanted to tell me—flashed in her eyes. I thought I knew what they were. I hoped I did, at least. She spread her wings wide. They were a part of who and what she was. They were beautiful and strong.

  “Go,” I said. “I’m right behind you.”

  “You’d better be.” She folded her wings tight against her back, ran for the door, and barreled through. It slammed shut behind her.

  She wouldn’t have taken the time to do that. Someone else had done it.

  My heart thudded in my chest. Fear pooled in my belly, cold as ice.

  I knelt next to Beth, the blood soaking through my jeans. I reached out to touch her shoulder, realizing as my fingers got closer that her chest was rising and falling. Faintly, but that was all that mattered. She was breathing. She was alive.

  I rolled her over carefully. Purple and black bruises bloomed around her eyes. Her nose had a new crook in it. Blood ran from her nostrils over the bow of her lips and the shelf of her chin. Tears salted her cheeks. Unconscious or not, they continued to flow.

  I grabbed Beth’s shoulders with my hands and shook her gently. “Wake up.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked at me, then her eyes widened, words rushing out faster and faster. “What are you doing here Famine’s here and she’s after the Queen please God tell me you didn’t bring the Queen back with you?”

  “Slow down.”

  “No slower,” she said. She tried to push up on her elbows, but couldn’t seem to make her arms work. She clattered back down on the stone, smacking the back of her head. She hitched in two breaths and tried again, angling her chin at the door Simone had just gone through. “Malek’s in there. With Famine.”

  “And the Singer,” I said.

  “Bad.” She squinched up her face and winced at the pain. “Famine will hurt her.”

  Like she had before, through the sick fae girl. “The Singer’s ready for that.”

  “No,” Beth said. “Not like you think. You go.”

  “But you—”

  Beth interrupted. “Fine.”

  “—almost died,” I said. She might still.

  She answered my thoughts rather than my words. “Malek will bring me back.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that or the implications. Clearly, Beth felt differently.

  She pleaded with her voice and her bruised eyes. “You go, goddamnit.”

  I slip-slid to my feet, bloody jeans sticking to my skin, and went for the door, pulling the knife from my pocket. Chances were I’d never get close enough to use it, but if I could be the distraction we needed to get the jump on Famine, I’d do whatever needed to be done.

  I wrapped my fingers around the door handle and pushed. The door swung open. Darkness reached out and swallowed me whole. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t smell anything except salt and sand and diavolo spaghetti sauce. From the afternoon in the kitchen with my mom, the one I’d been thrown smack in the middle of the last time I’d seen Famine.

  The part of me that’d frozen the night of the accident that killed my mother, the part that remained fourteen, wanted nothing more than to go back there.

  The rest of me refused. That part won, hands down. Famine wouldn’t get me this time. She had nothing I wanted. Nothing I was so hungry for that it would trap me.

  The darkness dispersed like fog under the punishing scrutiny of the sun. In its place, I expected to see a room like the one where I’d left Beth. I expected to see Simone and Malek and Nance and Famine. Instead, I got the punishing scrutiny of the midday summer sun on browned grass and on live oaks whose branches stretched in long, curved arcs above the ground, shading only the earth beneath them, leaves singing in the breeze. A big, fat crow sat with its talons wrapped around the lowest branch of the closest oak, not a foot from me.

  It looked me in the eye. You shouldn’t be here.

  I’d been so sure Famine couldn’t take me. As soon as I thought that, the memory of Famine disappeared like so much smoke drifting into the clear, blue sky.

  I blinked at the crow. It looked like the same one I’d seen in the Faery wood and the same as the one I’d seen in the In-Between. Either it was stalking me, or it was like some kind of guide. The crow only seemed to show up right before something bad happened or someone terrible came into my life to warn me. Like hearing thoughts in the midst of deadly danger. The crow was an omen.

  All the hairs on my body stood straight up. My mind stuttered for a second before I could think an answer at the bird.

  Where’s here?

  As soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer. The last time I’d set foot here in body, I’d been with Amy. We’d come to gather an ingredient for a spell to fight the Demon. Our city had been transformed from the vibrant, sprawling, bustling city into a dangerously magical, apocalyptic hellhole, and Amy and I were helping to fix that. We’d come to gather water from the heart of Buffalo Bayou, the heart’s blood of Houston.

  Amy had gone into the water to get what we needed. She’d turned into some kind of mermaid. She’d handed us what we’d needed to do the magic that would save the city. But she’d refused to come out. No amount of arguing made her change her mind. I had to leave her there or risk not just the city, but the world. I’d moved on, and she’d stayed.

  The sun sat low in the west, flooding the clouds with orange and gold light, gilding the leaves of the oak and the wi
ngs of the crow. The air was thick enough to cut with a knife and tasted of Gulf brine. The humidity raised a thin film of sweat on me and made my shirt and jeans stick to my skin. My jacket hung on me like a ten-ton weight. I stripped it off and let it fall into the newly mowed, sunburned grass without a second thought. A breeze gusted, rustling the leaves of the oak and the crow’s feathers, lifting the hair from the base of my skull.

  The skyscrapers downtown loomed ahead in burnished stretches of steel and glass and concrete, the glare of the sun off them so strong I narrowed my eyes to a squint. Thirty yards to my right, the parkway wound past, short oaks hugging the esplanade, fancy apartment buildings on the other side. The road should’ve been filled with cars and trucks and motorcycles and crazy bicyclists in expensive clothes with expensive gear taking their lives into their hands to mix it up with the vehicles. The road was empty, as was the jogging path that matched its serpentine curves. No walkers, runners, or dogs on leashes, tongues lolling in the heat.

  Six feet to my left the ground rose to a low crest, then sloped down to the bayou. The grass had been cut to within a foot of the water’s edge, where it grew tall and unfettered and dotted with dandelions. The murky water caught the reflection of steel and glass and concrete, soaking up the hum of toads and cicadas.

  Amy.

  Her voice carried from the water’s edge, acknowledging my presence but not calling me over. “Kevin.”

  I gave the crow a last glance, then started toward Amy, wanted or not. I caught a glimpse of her as I crested the small rise and started down toward the brownish-blue water, the current moving slow and steady toward the concrete and glass canyons, always reaching for the Gulf of Mexico. The top of Amy’s head, her hair blue-tinted black, sank under the surface. For a second, I thought she’d swum away.

  I hadn’t seen her in almost a year—a long time for a girl who’d been my every-day someone. She’d changed so much physically in the transformation of her body. How had living in the water, away from other humans, made her different? Could I even say I knew her anymore?

  She broke the surface a few feet back from the edge, the water rippling around her shoulders. So, she hadn’t run away, but she’d backed up, maybe not wanting to be that close to me.

  She narrowed her eyes, meaning to fix me with a glare or just fighting the glare of the sun—hard to say. Her face was pale as the moon that would rise later tonight, her shoulders covered in soft-looking moss that shimmered with water droplets. I looked for the motion of her arms, treading water, but didn’t see it. Maybe she didn’t need to use them. Maybe she had a tail that did the work for her.

  Did she have magic? Would she use it on me?

  Her voice had a muddy quality to it that hadn’t been there before. She answered my unspoken thought. “You’re already under a spell.”

  What did that mean, under a spell? There was somewhere I was supposed to be, something I was supposed to be doing. It flitted at the edges of my mind. It frustrated like a word hanging on the tip of my tongue that I couldn’t quite spit out. I worried at it for a moment, but couldn’t hold onto the concern. It drifted away.

  All my focus homed on Amy again. She’d spoken words as if responding to something I’d said. But I hadn’t said anything out loud. “Reading my mind?”

  “I wouldn’t want to even if I could,” she said.

  A low blow, but nothing I didn’t deserve. “That’s fair.”

  She shook her head. Water droplets flew from her hair. “Nothing about this is fair.”

  I took a shaky breath. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “You couldn’t if you tried.”

  Maybe that was true, physically. I had no idea what a mermaid could do, but I’d be a fool not to think it was plenty more than I could. Emotionally, though? I’d already hurt her plenty without meaning to. I’d loved her, but I’d fallen in love with Simone, too, and I couldn’t help how I felt. I’d made my choice between them by holding on to Simone, by keeping her in my life and in my heart.

  That kind of thing happened between people all the time. I hadn’t expected it to happen with me, but expectations didn’t always match reality. Amy needed something from me I couldn’t give her. No matter how much love I showed her, she didn’t love herself. I couldn’t fill an empty well.

  She knew it. I knew it. That didn’t make it hurt any less, and I didn’t think her new form made her any less vulnerable to that hurt.

  In that moment, the fleeting thought I’d had about what to remember, what to do, returned. I was under a spell, Amy had said.

  “Why don’t you tell me why I’m here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. The tips of her shoulders jumped out of the water and dove back down just as fast. “How should I know?”

  Famine. Famine had done this.

  “You met any Biblical powers masquerading as little girls lately?” I asked.

  She raised a brow. “You want to unpack that for me, Kevin?”

  “There’s a Horsewoman of the Apocalypse running around. Her name’s Famine. She looks like a little girl—pigtails, glasses, blue-and-red polka dot dress, Mary Janes. She’s dangerous as hell, and she seems to be in the habit of talking people into hurting the ones they love.”

  Amy bit her lip. “You actually think I love you?”

  “I still love you,” I said.

  “That makes you a fool, Kevin.”

  I nodded to give her the point. “Or just honest.”

  “Fuck your honesty,” she said. “You never could be honest when we were together.”

  “True again,” I said. “I never meant to hurt you, but it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

  She sighed. “It didn’t matter then. We weren’t meant to be. The Singer was always there.”

  I’d worried about hurting Amy. I hadn’t thought she’d wound me. After all, I wasn’t the one whose boyfriend was in love with someone else. Amy had called me a fool. She was right.

  “It’s not her fault,” I said.

  “You say. I should be able to blame somebody.”

  “Blame me.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “Good. So what now?” I asked.

  She studied me. “You said a Horsewoman of the Apocalypse?”

  I nodded.

  “For crying out loud,” she said. It didn’t come across as angry. Amy sounded like what she had been—not only my girlfriend, but a valuable member of our anti-apocalypse team. The camaraderie surprised me. “What the hell are we into now, Kevin?”

  I raised my hands. “I had no idea Famine even existed, for real, until yesterday. She was news to me.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “Beth.”

  “The nosy parker who helped what’s-her-face summon that Demon? The one who almost got us all killed? Who almost destroyed the world?”

  “Yeah, her. She’s apprenticed to Malek now.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. It was a very un-mermaid-like gesture. “Figures he’s involved.”

  There was something about Malek I was supposed to remember. Something about Beth, too. An image flashed in my mind: Beth’s face, only without her glasses. Her skin was smeared with red.

  “I think you should go,” Amy said. “You can come back later if you live.”

  “If I live?”

  “You know, if you live through what Famine’s doing to you right now.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do, Kevin. It’s happening right now. You walked through that big oak door with the wooden handle. You were going after Malek and the Singer. The Horsewoman is in there, too. Remember?”

  Beth’s face had been smeared with an alarming amount of blood. Her nose was broken. She was barely breathing. She’d said if she died, Malek would bring her back. I should leave her and go help him. Help Simone.

  Silver was dying, too. The dying Queen of Faery waited on her throne for Famine to attack. She needed our help if she was going to have a chance to live at all. No, not to
live. To save her people. The land. The realm.

  I held Amy’s gaze. “Why am I here?”

  “Because Famine dropped by my rock on the bayou and offered me a chance at payback for what you did to me because you fell in love with the Singer. She said that she’d make you come back here and explain. She said I could keep you as long as I wanted, if I wanted, and if I didn’t, I could kill you.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Why are you surprised?” Amy asked.

  “You’d never do something like that.”

  “No, Kevin. The old me wouldn’t have. I’m not her anymore.”

  “Then why are you telling me this? Why are you warning me?”

  “Because you can’t explain what happened any more than I can. And as pissed at you as I am, I don’t want to kill you. You’re someone I used to—someone I love. I can’t stop feeling that or anything else, as it turns out. And I’m pissed at you for that, too. I’m made of feelings, one-hundred-percent feelings. I only manage to kill my dinner because I have to eat,” she said. “Even if I wanted to kill you, you’re not really here. Your consciousness is, but your body’s not. Your body is in Faery. Famine lied to me.”

  Every word hit me like a punch to the gut.

  “You have to get out, Kevin.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “I already have,” she said. “You have to let me go.”

  The guilt I felt, the wishful thinking that things had been different, the need to talk to her like we were doing right now in the hopes that I could somehow make things right between us. I couldn’t tie it off because you couldn’t put a tourniquet around feelings and cut off the circulation. Heartbreak wasn’t that kind of wound.

  We both had unfinished business with each other. It would never be finished. It would only be one more thing that couldn’t be fixed. We’d have to live with it. If we lived.

  Behind me, the scrape of talons on bark and the rush of wings catching air announced that the crow had taken off. It circled overhead, its shadow flowing over me like water. It circled once and called out. The caw echoed inside my head.