To Catch a Queen

by Shanna Swendson

  Not that it mattered, she told herself. They lived in different worlds, and while there was some appeal to the idea of remaining young and pretty forever, she had a life in her world she had no interest in giving up. The Realm was fun in small doses, but she thought it would get boring after a while, and she’d seen what became of humans who went native in the Realm. It wasn’t for her, and even if she could get Sophie to let her in for brief visits, what kind of future would she have with a man who never changed, even as she aged?

  No, best to get her mind off that particular track and focus on the task at hand: Getting the impostor off the throne so Sophie could take care of things.

  Twenty-two

  Fiontan and Niamh’s Hall

  Soon Afterward

  Michael had to admit that these surroundings were closer to what he’d expected of the fairy world than anything else he’d experienced thus far, based on the cramming on fairy tales he’d done after his last adventure. He could imagine the evil stepmother queen reigning over this assembly while Sleeping Beauty slept in one tower and Rapunzel was imprisoned in another. He hoped Sophie knew what she was doing in magically disguising them because to him they stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

  He was used to being one of the taller people in any group, so it was disconcerting to be at eye level with or shorter than most of the people in this assembly. Even without a magical disguise, Jen would fit right into this crowd. Like so many of these women, she was tall and had bright hair. Unfortunately, that made it difficult to spot her, if she even was here. The pointy, veiled hats many of the women wore didn’t help matters. As he studied the crowd, he reflected that he’d been lucky she hadn’t insisted on something like this bash for their wedding reception.

  “Can you spot the humans in a bunch like this?” he murmured to Sophie. “That would probably narrow it down.”

  “Not without drawing attention. An enchantress wouldn’t be welcome, and if I use much fairy magic, it would give away who I am.”

  She rose on her tiptoes to scan the crowd. “She’s your wife—what do you think she’d be doing in a place like this?”

  Reluctantly, he said, “She’d be dancing. But that doesn’t narrow it down much.” Almost everyone was dancing—not gyrating to the music or waltzing, but moving in intricate patterns of rows or circles, kind of like square dancing or the Virginia reel they used to do in PE class.

  “Then we dance,” Sophie said. “The benefit of this kind of dance is that you end up running into just about everyone along the way.”

  “That’s fine for you,” he protested. “You’re a professional. If you want to give away the fact that I’m a clumsy human, putting me on a dance floor is a good start.”

  “Oh, this isn’t really dancing. All you have to do is follow the pattern, and that’s easy enough to figure out.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that. Everyone was flitting about gracefully. He’d have happily stayed with Beau, who’d flopped against the wall next to the bags they’d set down and closed his eyes, but Sophie grabbed his hand and dragged him to the end of a row of couples.

  The dance consisted mostly of moving forward and backward. Then they moved diagonally, switching partners, and he found himself facing a svelte woman whose hair shimmered with a greenish tint. When he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, he thought her skin had a similar tint, with the texture of fine scales.

  They changed partners again, and now he saw what Sophie meant about getting to investigate everyone in the room. He gradually moved down the line, but none of the women he danced with were his wife. At the end of the row, he faced Sophie again. “No luck,” he mouthed to her. She nodded and guided him to the adjacent pattern.

  The music was lively enough that he was almost getting into it—not that he planned to take this up as a hobby when he got home unless Jen needed it to stay happy in the real world, and not that he’d ever admit to his colleages that he’d done anything like this. Just thinking about Mari ever hearing about it made him shudder.

  It took him a moment or two to figure out the pattern of this dance, but he caught on before he had to leave Sophie for his next partner. Toward the end of the line, he thought he spotted a willowy redhead, and he had to force himself to stay with the pattern until he reached her rather than rushing forward. He mentally practiced all the suave “Fancy meeting you here” lines he could give, but by the time he neared her, he was sweating and shaking like a kid at his first school dance. When at last she became his partner, he saw immediately that it wasn’t Jen. He wasn’t even sure why he’d thought she might be. His disappointment was so bitter that he had to force himself to carry through instead of leaving her alone on the dance floor.

  At the end of this dance, he pulled Sophie to the edge of the hall. “I’m not sure she’s here,” he said. “If she were, she’d definitely be dancing.”

  Sophie barely seemed to be listening to him. She kept her eyes focused on the crowd, and a slight crease had formed between her eyebrows. On Sophie, that was an indication of serious anxiety.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him like she’d almost forgotten he was there. “I was wondering where this court came from. Weren’t they more or less wiped out in that battle? We didn’t see this many people leaving my palace. And not everyone is garbed appropriately. Some of this is the room’s glamour. I think they’re recruiting to rebuild their court.”

  “Do you think this is the false queen?”

  “Apparently they’re not known for loving humans, so I could see them purging the Realm. But I don’t think they’d be playing supreme ruler in their own court. Everyone knows they didn’t win the throne, and it would be obvious that nothing has really changed for them.”

  “So, maybe a challenger, but not the impostor?”

  “I don’t know.” As though by conscious effort, she shed that concern. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

  She started to drag him back to the dance floor, but he resisted, shaking his head. “I need to catch my breath.” They made their way back to the sleeping Beau, where she retrieved tea and snacks from her bag. Beau woke up enough to accept a dog biscuit from Michael’s bag and a dish of water.

  While Michael drank his tea, he watched the constantly flowing crowd. The more he saw, the more every woman seemed to morph into Jen, to the point he was afraid he might not even recognize the real one if he came face-to-face with her.

  The white-haired queen rose from her throne and moved down the dais steps. It reminded Michael of the image he’d seen in Sophie’s palace. “Could she recognize us?” he asked.

  “I think I’ve got us under a good enough glamour to fool her,” Sophie said, but he noticed that she stayed next to the wall instead of moving back among the dancers, even though they’d finished their snack. Michael realized he was holding his breath to see what the woman would do.

  He didn’t get a chance to find out.

  Every door in the hall and on the galleries above flew open suddenly with a loud bang, perfectly in sync, so that the sound of the slam surrounded them. Light flooded into the hall through the doors, so bright that it had to be enhanced. The music continued for a few bars longer before it petered out, leaving the hall in stark silence.

  The ball’s attendees shaded their eyes against the harsh glare and peered at the doors. The rulers returned quickly to their thrones, as though staking their claims. The king was the first to break the silence. “Who dares intrude on our revels?” he boomed.

  Silhouettes of armed men appeared in each of the doorways. The silhouettes solidified into soldiers who came marching in a seemingly unending stream into the room. Archers surrounded the hall on the gallery, and men with spears and swords blocked the doors. One man with a brightly colored feathered crest on his Roman-style helmet marched straight up to the dais. He stood tall and proud, not so much as bowing his head toward the two fairies seated on the thrones.

  “By order of
the queen, you are ordered to report to her palace to pledge fealty,” the soldier said.

  “I’ll do no such thing,” the ruling woman snapped. The soldier raised a hand and a rain of arrows fell from the gallery, narrowly missing the thrones, like a knife-throwing circus act.

  “You will, you and all your court. Your loyalty is to the queen now. There is no need of courts.”

  “I think this is our cue to get out of here,” Sophie whispered in Michael’s ear. He glanced down to see that she had both their bags and coats. She handed him his. “We don’t want to get caught up in this, so I think we need to be elsewhere, fast.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I think so. We saw Jen leaving with Fiontan and Niamh, so she’s very likely here, and once everyone else is gone, we’ll have a chance to search.”

  The soldiers were already rounding up the guests. The rulers put up a fight. The result was the kind of chaos that made a good diversion. Unable to believe what he was saying, Michael said, “But if we go with them, we’ll find this impostor queen.”

  “That’s not my priority. We’ve already had this argument, and as you’ll recall, I won. We’re going to find Jen, and we can’t do that while we’re captives, so we’d better get out of here while we still can.”

  She took his arm and pulled him toward what looked like a servants’ entrance, one of the few places where there were no soldiers. He didn’t resist at first because his heart was in total agreement with her. He didn’t like the idea of being anyone’s captive, and he wanted more than anything to find Jen.

  But his head fought back. Hating himself for it, he said, “We’ve got to stop that impostor. This is too big a chance for us. There’s no guarantee that we’d find or save Jen if we got away, but if we stop the impostor, that makes Jen a little safer, wherever she is, because she won’t just be cast out. We still have a little time.”

  She looked up at him, regarding him like she was reading his soul. “Are you sure?”

  “No,” he admitted, “but I don’t think I could live with myself if we didn’t do this. The whole Realm’s at stake, and possibly even our world—there’s that Hunt thing. It’s all bigger than my one problem.”

  She watched him a while longer before nodding. “Okay.” With a smile, she added, “And if it makes you feel better, this kind of sacrifice is exactly the sort of thing that might count toward winning her freedom.”

  “See, there you go,” he said with a grin of his own that he had to force. “You know I’m right.”

  Knowing he was right didn’t make it any easier to let the soldiers herd them into the group being driven out of the castle.

  Twenty-three

  The Realm—The Edge of the Great Forest

  Later

  Their captive guide slowed his pace, and the free fairy escorting him prodded him in the back. “Keep going,” he ordered.

  “We’re almost there,” the captive shot back. “Can’t you see that the trees are thinning? We’re almost out of the forest and on the plain.”

  “So?” Emily asked.

  “The plain is where the palace is.”

  “There is no palace on the Great Plain,” Eamon said.

  “You just couldn’t see it because it was hidden until the new queen won her throne,” the captive argued.

  “I was a scribe in the palace in the days of the last queen,” Eamon said, his voice mild, with no hint of argument in it. “The palace was not on the Great Plain. Are you sure you have the right palace?”

  The captive faltered momentarily, shook his head, and said, “It is where the queen is.”

  With a sly smile, Eamon asked, “Are you sure you have the right queen?”

  One of the free fae who’d gone ahead gestured to them. “It’s here! The palace!”

  “Really?” Emily said, rather surprised.

  “We were expecting to find a palace,” Athena reassured her.

  They reached the end of the tree line and found themselves on a rise overlooking a vast plain. On the plain sat a fairy-tale castle straight out of Disneyworld, all gleaming spires and parapets. Surrounding the castle appeared to be most of the population of the Realm, gathered in an epic campout. Brightly colored pavilions with pennants streaming from their peaks were scattered around the field, with thousands of people among them.

  From a distance, it looked festive. The sound of sprightly music carried up to their vantage point, and there were people dancing, as usually happened when the fae gathered. But Emily noticed the glint of armor on men who rode the perimeter of the gathering, and she doubted they were there to protect the attendees.

  “We will send back for our forces,” the free fae leader said. He took three long strides, and then he suddenly seemed to be a hundred yards away. Another step, and he vanished into the distance.

  “What’s that?” Amelia called out, and Emily turned back to look where Amelia was pointing on the plain. It looked like a dark snake was winding its way down a distant hill and heading toward the castle. A moment later, it was much closer and it became clear that it was a procession of people.

  “It appears to be Niall and Orla’s court,” Eamon said.

  “You can see that far?” Emily asked.

  He turned to her. “Of course.”

  “Impressive. I don’t suppose you have X-ray vision, too?”

  “Alas, I am not capable of seeing through solid objects,” he said, sounding quite serious, but she thought his eyes might be twinkling. “My distance vision, however, is excellent.”

  As the procession drew closer, Emily could make out more details, and she could spot the tuxedos on the men. When they reached the edge of the encampment, guards guided them into place and widened the perimeter to surround them.

  “They must be bringing in the courts to pay fealty to the fake queen,” Eamon remarked.

  “The queen is not fake!” their captive insisted.

  “Yes, she is,” Emily said. “I’ve been to the real palace, and this isn’t it.”

  A cloud of dust rose on the outside of the camp, swirling in the air and circling the gathering. It looked like horses running down a dirt road, but the plain didn’t seem all that dusty. When the head of the dust cloud faced them, Emily caught a glimpse of red eyes and flaming hooves. “That is the Hunt,” Eamon said, tension in his voice.

  “That’s what they’re going to unleash on our world?”

  “Only if they’re successful,” Amelia said firmly, “and we are here to stop them.”

  “We need to find a way inside that perimeter,” Athena said.

  “Getting in doesn’t seem to be the problem,” Emily said as she watched the glint of armor and weaponry circling the crowd in the wake of the Hunt. “They seem a lot more concerned about anyone getting out.”

  “Still, we don’t want to be conspicuous as we enter,” Athena said. “We aren’t likely to be successful if it’s obvious that we’re here to stop the impostor, and a party as small as ours that’s not being escorted by guards would stand out.”

  “And if we march in with our army, that might be a little obvious,” Emily said, nodding in agreement.

  “There’s another procession coming,” Eamon said.

  Emily couldn’t see anything, not even the dark snake, for several minutes. Finally, she saw something that was more of a mass. The guards herding these people would probably have had more luck with cats. At the center of the group was a statuesque redheaded woman. “Isn’t that the woman who made Sophie take the throne?” Emily asked.

  “Yes, it’s Tallulah,” Eamon said with a nod. “I cannot imagine that she would come willingly. If the free fae had anything resembling a queen, it would be Tallulah.”

  Tallulah’s people vexed the guards by swarming around them and then melting into the gathered crowd. The guards gave up herding them and focused on Tallulah. They didn’t bring her to any of the camps, instead escorting her into the castle itself. Emily hadn’t noticed if Orla and Niall had received simi
lar treatment, but Tallulah was so tall and her hair was so bright that she was easy to track.

  “Something’s coming!” one of their free fae allies called out in a whisper, and they took cover behind trees. They were just in time as another great procession suddenly appeared out of the distance and marched right past them.

  The medieval attire of this group told Emily that this was likely Fiontan and Niamh’s court. The first time she’d seen them, their procession had struck fear into the hearts of the free fae. Now, though, they were captives. Their court seemed larger than Emily remembered. She’d thought that most of the courts had been decimated in the recent war for the throne, but this court must have gained some adherents. Perhaps the fae had seen them as the best bet for standing up to this terrifying new queen. If so, they had miscalculated.

  Then Emily noticed a pair of figures that didn’t fit: a tall, dark-haired human man and a small woman with strawberry blond hair. With them was a red-and-white bulldog on a leash. Emily barely stopped herself from calling out, “Beau!” Instead, she tugged on Eamon’s arm and pointed. “It’s Sophie and Michael, and they’ve got my dog. He’s okay!”

  “Joining them would be a good way to get into the castle area,” Amelia suggested.

  “And be taken prisoner,” Emily pointed out.

  “Only if we let that happen. And we won’t. Come on.”

  Amelia and her sister blended seamlessly into the procession. Emily glanced at the free fae leader, who shrugged and said, “I will wait for the army, and we will await your signal.”

  “Okay, then,” Emily said. “Are you up for this?” she asked Eamon.

  “Always.”

  They slipped through the trees until she spotted Sophie again, then fell into step beside her. “Why is it that every time I run into you in the Realm, you’ve managed to get yourself captured?” Emily asked.

  Her sister’s surprised reaction made Emily wish she’d thought to have her camera ready. It wasn’t a reaction she got to see very often.