by Sarina Dorie
I had done this. I had tried to do good, and I’d made everything worse. If I had rescued Abigail Lawrence sooner, she wouldn’t have resorted to accepting Odette’s magic acorn as an escape from being tortured. She wouldn’t have needed to transform herself like this. But even if my husband and I had come to the Raven Court sooner, his fate would likely have been the same. He would still be in the queen’s service, trapped once again as her slave.
Had he bargained his soul away again? For my freedom this time? He hadn’t behaved like someone without a soul. I touched my lips where he had kissed me only moments before.
Twigs snapped in the darkness. Odette shifted where she had fallen. I’d probably drained her. I didn’t even care. Maybe I was like my biological mother, Alouette Loraline, selfish and uncaring for anyone other than myself.
The Raven Queen had stolen the two people I loved most. She had taken my fairy godmother and my husband away from me. She had won this battle. I couldn’t allow her to win the war.
I would put an end to her evil ways. I would make her suffer, even if it cost me my soul in the process.
Move over, Alouette Loraline. The world was about to meet a true wicked witch.
CHAPTER ONE
Seeing Red
The forest of spindly black trees around me were silhouettes against the haze of the night sky. Mist blotted out the illumination of stars and moonlight. Trees peeked through pockets of fog along the path. The Raven Queen’s castle loomed over the forest in the near distance, another spiky shape jutting up toward the gloom.
I vowed I would have my revenge. It didn’t matter whether I turned into a cruel and self-serving witch like my biological mother, Alouette Loraline, in the process.
It would take magic, skill, and action to fix what I’d done. To fix what the Raven Queen had done.
I could not allow Queen Morgaine to steal away everyone and everything I loved. I stood, stepping on the long hem of my gown and tearing a scalloped edge of fringe. I wiped my eyes. It wasn’t just for myself that I had to defeat the Queen of Pain and Pleasure. I had to rescue Felix Thatch. I needed to help my mom.
As exhausted as my body was from spending so much energy on the spell that had hastened my fairy godmother’s transformation, my mind was still sharp. I had learned how to harness my magic more efficiently—without a competency spell. Like pieces of a puzzle drifting in space, all the components were there in my brain. I simply had to select the correct parts and put them together so I could figure out how to trick the Raven Queen.
I knew what the Raven Queen wanted. It had never been a secret. If I was to save my husband’s heart and soul, I would need to give her the Fae Fertility Paradox. My mind sharpened, an idea forming. I could give her the answer she sought, or enough of it to satisfy her desire for an heir. It didn’t mean I had to tell her the complete truth.
I turned back toward the castle rising up out of the mist beyond the tops of the trees. The black towers resembled a phantom looming in the surreal landscape of a nightmare.
“Morgaine Le Fay,” I shouted. “Queen of Pain and Pleasure, Ruler Over Ravens of Day and Night, Ruler of All That Is Evil, I summon you.” Her full title was longer, but that much seemed sufficient. It was a wonder I could even remember that much.
The silence of the forest greeted my ears. Twigs popped to my right.
Odette panted nearby. “Felix wouldn’t want you to do this. He asked you to leave.”
“I don’t care what he wants. It’s what he needs.” Hadn’t he said as much to me when I hadn’t wanted his help in solving my problems?
“He shall never forgive you if you do this,” she said.
“I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t.”
I screamed up toward the castle, trying to project my voice with magic, but I didn’t think it went much farther than it would have by normal means. “Queen Morgaine, I summon you to make a bargain!”
Odette dropped to her knees on the ground next to me. Her midnight hair cascaded into the plumage of her wings and gown. “That isn’t the way it works. She won’t come unless you make it worth her while. She requires a sacrifice.”
“Haven’t I sacrificed enough for one night?” I asked.
The clouds parted, and moonlight spilled across Odette’s pale face. “Give her pain, or give her blood. A queen does nothing for free.”
I didn’t want to give the Raven Queen something from my body, something she could use in a spell against me later. Pain seemed the safer tool.
I scanned the ground for a stick. Most were too brittle and decayed to be of much use. Finally I found one just wider than my thumb that I suspected would do. I smacked it against my forearm. It smarted enough to make me wince.
“Harder,” Odette said. “Show her you mean it.”
I hit my arm with the stick again.
Odette’s cape of feathers rustled in the wind on her back. Only, there was no wind. The mantle trailing behind her was her wings. At any moment, I expected her to launch herself from the ground and fly into the night to fetch her mistress, but she didn’t.
I struck myself again. The rough bark tore the lace of my sleeve. My instinct was to anesthetize the pain and to cool the sting so that I could transform the magic and funnel it into my own system. I resupplied a fraction of my own strength that way. Taking from the pain to use it for myself was hardly a sacrifice. It didn’t surprise me she didn’t come.
Only if I allowed the numbness of my protective magic to slip so that I could feel the lashes I inflicted upon myself would she answer the summons. I also knew that would make me weaker. I couldn’t afford to decrease my strength or stamina further when facing the Raven Queen.
But I needed her to come. I needed her to bring my husband back. A sob bubbled up out of my throat, and I forced it back down. I would do anything to save him.
I had to be pragmatic, like Felix Thatch had taught me. I needed power, and I would do what had to be done. A moment of worry flashed across my mind that what I was about to do made me like my biological mother, but I pushed my fears aside. Another worry came that my fairy godmother, a good and just person, would see what I was about to do, and she wouldn’t approve. She had raised me to be a compassionate person.
All the compassion in the world wasn’t going to help me now. I would never get my husband back unless I embraced my dark side. I had to speak the language of cruelty and pain that the Raven Queen would understand.
I understood what needed to be done.
Even so, I had to soften the blow with words of compassion. “Odette, you’ve been unexpectedly kind. I’m sorry to do this.”
I sucked in a breath and fortified myself. I lashed the stick across her face, wincing as I did so. She turned away and fell back.
Hitting someone filled me with an icky feeling that made me hate myself. Even so, I couldn’t stop. I needed her pain and the power it brought. I needed a tithe to pay the queen.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m only doing this so I can save Felix.”
Odette laughed, the sound deep and maniacal. “Do you think that’s going to be enough to call the Queen of Pain?”
She was right. It wasn’t.
I struck Odette again, this time on the shoulder. Her laughter abruptly ended in a gasp. This wasn’t her affinity, and it brought her no pleasure as it would have her brother. That didn’t mean she couldn’t harvest the energy in the way he had taught me. I drank it in before she could, drawing the pulsing rawness into me.
“You’re a weak and sniveling little Witchkin,” Odette said. “You’re pathetic just like your mother.”
I didn’t know whether she meant my biological mother, Alouette Loraline, or Abigail Lawrence, the woman who had raised me as her own child.
It didn’t matter which mother she was insulting. The rage channeled into my hand, and I lashed out at her again, this time harder. The magic I harvested was more delicious than chocolate-covered heroin with a
side of cocaine.
I wanted more. I needed more.
I swung at her again.
I didn’t enjoy hurting someone, therefore I wasn’t like Alouette Loraline. I was only doing this because I had to. That’s what I told myself. It had nothing to do with candy-coated black magic. I needed to gain my strength to face the Raven Queen.
Odette cried out when I whipped the stick across her shoulder, drawing a line of blood.
She could have stopped me. If not through magical means, physically. She was bigger and taller than me. She could have tackled me, even from her position on the ground. But she didn’t, either attesting to her understanding of the necessity or because she was like a mistreated dog. Vicious and full of wrath to her enemies, but subservient to the master who tamed her through violence. Neither idea suited me any better than the other.
Something snapped as I struck Odette’s wing.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t like what I was doing to her. I didn’t like how much I enjoyed the flavor of this dark magic. I lapped up the magic, luxuriating in the ambrosia of pain.
“More,” Odette said through clenched teeth. “Show her you mean it.”
I hit Odette harder, thinking about how she had been the one who had given Abigail Lawrence that acorn in the first place. She had used her blood magic to make it grow. She had convinced my fairy godmother it was in her best interest to transform herself rather than be tortured and starved. Odette had told her it was the only way to save herself from becoming the Raven Queen’s servant and hurting me. But she’d been wrong. She’d even known Felix Thatch would be returning.
Having a scapegoat helped fuel my fury.
Odette endured the beating with muffled whimpers and moans, but she screamed when I hit the delicate bones in the wing again. Knowing I could employ an injury to my advantage, I used her weak spot to fuel more pain.
I collected the energy, using it to charge the generator of electricity in my core. My magic worked better now, as I spun it in a dance inside me. I could see the trees in the darkness. My senses came alive, alert to the rustles and whispers closing in around me.
I grew stronger.
My skin glowed like a lamp, and my affinity swelled with power. As my magic strengthened, my awareness spread without effort. I became more aware of the verdant life inside the oak tree that had been my adoptive mom. Sorrow and regret oozed from the being who was still in part my fairy godmother. She didn’t approve of what I was doing, no doubt. My swing momentarily faltered.
I didn’t want her to see me as a monster.
My heightened perception caught Odette’s depleted magic, not drained completely, but her reserve needed time to resupply after the way I’d stolen from her to give to my fairy godmother. She slumped to the ground, resigned to enduring the lashes without complaint.
I forced myself to remember why I was doing this. Not for power and not for revenge. I was gathering a tithe of magic as a gift. I funneled magic into my voice to reach the farthest corners of the castle. “I summon Queen Morgaine to hear my bargain.”
A voice as chilled as ice skated across the silence and shivered up my spine. “No need to shout, ma chère. I am here.”
The Raven Queen strolled out of the shadows, a black train made of feathers trailing across the leaves behind her. She reminded me of a fallen angel with her midnight wings and unearthly beauty. In her hand she held a scepter with a large crystal encased in a metal web at the top. A crest of an hourglass with wings protruding from it decorated the metal head.
A metal wing dripped with blood. I didn’t want to think about whose it could be. Not Thatch’s, I prayed.
Her gaze flickered to the stick in my hand and to Odette. A satisfied smile tugged at her lips.
I was surprised she didn’t scold me for damaging one of her favorite pets. I dropped the stick.
She inhaled deeply, as if she had caught the scent of a delectable perfume. She let out an airy breath full of satisfaction.
Shadowy figures crowded behind their sovereign. They stayed back, though. No one wanted to gather too close to me after the lightning show I’d let loose earlier. Perhaps if they had realized how much magic I needed to do that, they wouldn’t have been so scared.
The Raven Queen batted her eyelashes in a deceptively cloying manner. “What is your greatest desire? That is why you’ve called me, is it not? To ask a boon from me, and in exchange, to pay me in kind.”
I lifted my chin. “I want you to change my fairy godmother back into her human form.” I made the demand, knowing she wouldn’t be able to fix the spell after what Odette had told me.
Odette had used blood magic, a spell that a Fae wouldn’t be able to break. Yet, I had to try.
The Raven Queen’s dark eyebrows shot upward in mock surprise. “Whatever do you mean? What form has she taken?”
The shadows behind the queen snickered and croaked, the noises of amusement they made less human than animal.
“She turned into a tree.”
“Pity.” Her gaze flickered to the oak behind me. “She was always so fearful of you being drained and turned into a vegetable. Who would have thought she would suffer such a fate herself, no?”
I chose my words with deliberate care. “Are you powerful enough to turn her back? To return her body and mind to the health they were before?”
She lifted her chin. “I am the most powerful queen in all the Fae courts, yet there are some magics that even I cannot undo.”
Always before I had rushed into danger to do what I thought was right without considering the consequences. I had weighed these and was aware of how badly this could go if I overestimated my ability to trick a trickster at her game.
“Then you are saying a simple Witchkin can do magic that you can’t undo?” I demanded.
Her eyes narrowed. “Those with the Red affinity possess no ordinary Witchkin magic. I cannot break through the electricity around this magic. Nor can any Fae.”
“So I can do something you can’t? Little old me can perform a spell you can’t break?” I demanded.
She took the bait. “Of course you can. You’re Alouette Loraline’s daughter. She passed on her powers to you. Unskilled and untrained as you are, anyone can see your power. You know her secrets. Only you can perform the forbidden magic of the Lost Red Court.”
“That’s right. I’m the only one,” I said. “And if you kill me, the knowledge will be lost.”
This was what I needed, for her to admit how useful I was out loud. She had to be the one hurting for a favor. She needed to be in my debt. If I played my cards right, she would offer me the world to harness my magic. It needed to be her idea to make the bargain, not mine.
I stared into her all-black eyes, using anger to fortify my courage. “If you vex me and keep me from what I want, then I’ll never share my secrets with you. I will remove the memories from my mind and stomp the truth into splinters rather than give them to you.”
She frowned. Her gaze raked over Odette breathing heavily on the ground. “You’ve made your point.”
“Have I? Do you truly understand the direness of your situation?” I waved a hand at the whispering creatures behind her who were attempting to hide in pockets of mist and the shadows of trees. “All creatures who live in the Faerie Realm will become extinct because you didn’t have the foresight to consider what would happen if you extinguished the one court able to propagate your race. Your people suffer because of your mistakes.”
The creatures murmured among themselves. There was nothing like the seeds of discontent to turn her supporters against her.
Odette dragged herself away, resting under a dead tree. She tried to haul herself to her feet but failed.
The court ignored her, their voices rising in agitation.
“Enough!” The queen’s face flushed red, and crackles of black segmented her face as though her skin were made of fractured porcelain.
She was a ter
rifying sight to behold. It took all my will not to flinch back.
Her voice boomed like thunder. “Do not lecture me, child. I am not the only Fae in this realm who exterminated your kind. Your beloved Silver Court participated in this slaughter as well.” The crackles marring her face faded. She spoke smoothly, though there was a cold edge to her words. “You wish an alliance? Very well. I will agree if that is your price to bring fertility back to my people.”
“No,” I said. “You already told me you wouldn’t ally yourself with anyone as dangerous as me. I’m too free-spirited to be trustworthy. That was what you said, was it not?”
Her lips pressed into a line. I had to be careful. Anger would fog her judgment, which I might use to my advantage, but it also put me in greater danger.
“You ask me what I want. I crave freedom from tyranny,” I said.
She waved a hand at me dismissively. “Very well. You may be free from my authority and command. Do as you will, and you will help me.”
That sounded like the kind of hypocritical Fae words I had come to expect. You’re free so long as you do as I wish. As Elric had often said, Fae were not creative. They were easy to predict, repeating the same pattern again and again. It was up to the ingenuity of Witchkin and Morties to interrupt that cycle. The realization made me optimistic.
“I want freedom for my people. I want Witchkin and Red affinities to be able to live in peace with each other. That means Fae and Witchkin will have to come together to form mutually beneficial relationships and alliances. Our families and houses will have to unite. Through marriage. Not enslavement.”
I waited for her to make the logical conclusion, to figure out what she could offer me that would fulfill this need. My confidence faltered as she stared at me with liquid-black eyes that looked as if they wanted to suck me in.
“Marriage? Now she’s gone too far!” a raspy voice said behind the queen.
She held up a hand to silence her court. “What do you mean by ‘houses?’ There is no Red Court anymore. There are no houses to unite.”
