The Last Faerie Queen

by Chelsea Pitcher

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Copyright Information

  The Last Faerie Queen © 2015 by Chelsea Pitcher.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

  First e-book edition © 2015

  E-book ISBN: 9780738745459

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Cover photo: Marwane Pallas

  Additional image: iStockphoto.com/6524824/©ANGELGILD

  Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pitcher, Chelsea.

  The last faerie queen / Chelsea Pitcher. -- First edition.

  1 online resource. -- (sesquel to The Last Changeling ; #2)

  Sequel to: The last changeling.

  Summary: When the faerie princess Elora attempts to unite the divided Faerie realm by overthrowing her mother, the Dark Queen, she is betrayed by her allies, who kidnap two of her human friends.

  Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

  ISBN 978-0-7387-4545-9 () -- ISBN 978-0-7387-4349-3 [1. Fantasy. 2. Fairies--Fiction. 3. Friendship--Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.P6428

  [Fic]--dc23

  2015033062

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  Flux

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Woodbury, MN 55125

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  To Stephanie, Ryan, and Heather

  Thank you for the mortal magic

  1

  TayloR

  I was seventeen when I met a faerie princess. Before that, I’d only dreamed of someone magical walking into my life. But late one night, the Princess of the Dark Faeries snuck into the human world in search of a mortal offering. She crept out of the shadows and reached for my hand.

  I didn’t know who she was then. I had no idea who I was leading out of the darkness.

  I took her home.

  After that, things got really messed up. While the princess searched for an offering, I fell desperately in love with her. I helped her enroll in my high school. I pointed out the cruelest guy in my class: Brad Dickson, King of the Dirtbags.

  I didn’t know she was going to steal him.

  It happened on prom night. Right after Elora kissed me, and confessed to having all kinds of feelings, she disappeared into the darkness with Brad. I mean, what the hell? Of course, I still thought she was a mortal then, thanks to a very impressive glamour (a.k.a. magical illusion). I was convinced she was a teen runaway who’d escaped an abusive family. And I was right. That night, her abusive family came looking for her.

  They just happened to have horns and wings.

  So here’s how it went: I went sneaking after Elora, and three of my friends went sneaking after us. We ended up at the local graveyard, and that’s when all hell broke loose.

  I mean, literally. Hell on earth. The faeries of the Dark Court came down from the sky, and crawled out of the dirt like corpses. They wanted to punish their princess for fraternizing with humans. (They had no idea she was stealing a human, or why.) They captured us in a matter of minutes, because they had magic, and all we had was a buzz from the whiskey we’d drunk at the prom.

  Oh God, I sound like a cautionary tale about teen drinking.

  It’s just one drink!

  Yeah, but you almost got murdered by faeries!

  Harmless?

  But guess what? We got the upper hand. See, the dark faeries decided a long time ago that humans were drooling, destructive idiots, so they never imagined a scenario where we could outsmart them. And while they tortured Elora, we managed to slip out of their grasp, and save her.

  Well, most of her.

  My gaze traveled down, to the place where Elora slept. Here in the Bright Court, the glittering forest illuminated the paleness of her face. Her fiery hair was plastered to her forehead. She looked peaceful. She looked safe. But if I trailed my gaze farther down, to the space between her shoulder blades …

  “No, no, no,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I told myself that when I opened them, her wings would be there. I’d only seen them once. Back in the graveyard, they’d unfurled like waves rising out of the darkest sea. Higher and higher they’d risen, beating back the wind.

  Then they’d fallen.

  No, a blade had fallen on them. An iron blade, which caused Elora’s skin to bubble and hiss. And her brother, the Prince of the Dark Faeries, had towered over her, grinning maniacally. Sawing maniacally, until those wings fell away.

  Now, two jagged stumps rose out of her back like shards of obsidian.

  “It’s okay, we brought your wings with us,” I promised, unsure of how much she remembered from the previous night. “We’re safe in the Bright Court now. Your allies snuck us in.” That part had been a surprise. Massive winged horses had rescued us from the graveyard and carried us into the sky. Carried us across the worlds. “The Seelie Queen welcomed us and used her magic to heal you. I only had to give up—”

  A scream tore through the forest. I want to say I got chills, but honestly, I was too exhausted to feel that kind of thing. Instead, I just froze, listening like an animal that’s about to be ripped to pieces by a bullet.

  The scream came again. This time, it felt never-ending, and I recognized the voice.

  “Kylie.” My friend. The second-most-amazing person I’d ever met, after Elora. Definitely the sweetest. Kylie was in danger. Or pain.

  I slid my body out from under Elora’s, laying her head gently on the ground. There was grass, at least enough of it to cradle her head like a pillow. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll go.” I couldn’t help but touch her face. That red hair had a habit of falling over it. “You stay here, where you’re safe.”

  Safe?

  The word tasted funny in my mouth. Was she ever safe? Were any of us? So far, the bright faeries had been nothing but nice to us, but that niceness had come at a cost.

  I had to find my friends.

  “Kylie?” I called, pulling on my clothes as I went. I leapt over logs, the hems of my pants
already muddy, trying to button my shirt without losing momentum. Hours earlier, I’d stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom, checking that shirt for wrinkles and pretending my life was about to change. Pretending Elora was going to kiss me at the prom and I’d finally get to tell her how I felt.

  Be careful what you wish for, right?

  Now I was stumbling through a faerie forest, wishing for invisibility. The sun was beating down on me, but it wasn’t the only source of light in this place. The trunks of the trees glowed, the leaves glittered like emeralds, and white flowers peeked out between branches, bright as lightbulbs. As I pushed through some brambles into a clearing, I tried to prepare myself for anything.

  But I wasn’t prepared for this.

  The second I entered the clearing, where fat, golden fruits hung from every gnarled branch, I was pretty much accosted by my friends. They burst out of the forest, one by one, like they’d already been inducted into some Seelie Secret Society.

  Kylie was the first.

  “Taylor!” she called, her dark hair in tangles and her brown eyes bright. She was gliding toward me in the most elaborate wheelchair I’d ever seen. The base appeared to be crystal, and the back rose up into two winged swans, heads dipping toward each other to form a heart. The wheels seemed to have no trouble moving over the grass. It was magical and extravagant—the kind of thing Kylie would love but never ask for.

  Oh, and she had wings. Glamoured, of course, but they looked so real, with shiny black feathers like she was a raven queen. Like she might transform into a bird and disappear into the trees.

  “They made me a throne,” she gushed, and opened her arms to hug me. She wore a dress that looked like the midnight sky—black fabric with a thousand tiny lights. Same old boots. “I’m practically a princess.”

  “And every princess needs a queen!” Keegan announced, jumping out of the bushes. It was a funny thing for him to say. Kylie’s twin brother never dressed up in drag or anything; even now, with faerie couture at his disposal, he’d gone the simple satyr route, with hooves and horns and a brown velvet suit that helped him blend in with the forest. But maybe that was the joke, the point he was making.

  Or maybe he was just having fun.

  “What happened?” I asked as Kylie squeezed the breath out of me. Her olive skin looked especially sun-kissed in the light. “I heard screaming—”

  “We’re fine.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Keegan agreed. They were acting weird, smiling so big but not meeting my eyes.

  A shiver went up my spine. “Where’s Alexia?”

  “Here,” said a liquid voice from above. “There. Everywhere. If you know where to look.”

  The words startled me. She sounded so much like Elora. She’d been in the faerie lands for less than a day, but already she was assimilating. Just like Elora had, back home.

  The thought didn’t soothe me.

  “Come out, my little Cheshire Cat,” Kylie called to the creature hiding in the trees. I followed her gaze. When Alexia dropped down from the branches, she did so with the grace of a cat.

  Her transformation was the boldest.

  She hadn’t done much to change her face, not that any of us would blame her. With ancestors in Africa, South America, and Japan, Alexia was what guys at school called “painfully beautiful.” But now her brown eyes were entirely black, and her lips were stained like she’d been eating blackberries.

  Or drinking from someone’s neck.

  In fact, she looked a bit like a vampire—or a vampire and a faerie mixed. Her long, slinky dress was burgundy, and her wings were red and black, in the pattern of a Monarch’s. I had the most disturbing vision of her pinned.

  “It’s nice to see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” I said, not bothering to mask my sarcasm.

  She didn’t seem to pick up on it, though. Her tone was actually warm when she said, “Isn’t it? It’s strange. I spent my life avoiding nature.” She shook out her hair, and it fell in dark waves around her. “You have no idea what rain does to my hair. But here, it doesn’t seem so important. It’s almost as if I’ve finally come home.” She inhaled, planting her light brown feet in the dirt. In all my years at Unity High, I’d never seen her without break-your-leg heels.

  “You’re not home,” I told her.

  “How can you be so sure?” She kept staring at the trees like they were filled with pixies. All of my friends did.

  I squinted my eyes but I didn’t see anything. Or anyone.

  “I never really felt at home before this,” Alexia said. “None of us did. Why shouldn’t we enjoy the show?”

  “What show?” I asked. What was wrong with all of them? It was becoming alarmingly clear what Elora had meant when she said humans were easily lured into Faerie. Now, without even meaning to, I’d brought the people who’d be the most vulnerable to that trick. The ones who’d never felt accepted in the human world.

  “The show !” Alexia spun in a circle and leaves fell around her head. How does she do that? “The revelation. Don’t you want to be welcomed here properly?”

  “Yeah, Taylor,” Kylie said, and that worried me more than anything. Alexia and Keegan were always messing with me. But not Kylie; she had sincerity in her bones. “Don’t be so negative. We all know we were in danger, but we’re safe now. These are the good faeries.”

  “There are no good faeries,” I snapped. Branches shook above my head. The sound could’ve been attributed to the wind, but I knew better. Someone was listening.

  The entire forest was probably listening.

  I chose my words carefully. “It’s not as simple as that. All faeries come from the same place. Some of them associate with light, and some with darkness, but they’re all immortal, and much more concerned with the planet as a whole than individual human lives.” I knelt in front of Kylie to evade the ears of spies. “We’re like animals to them. Puppies to play with. Do you understand?”

  Kylie giggled. She was giggling while I was trying to save her life.

  “Kylie, please,” I said. “The Bright Queen sent Elora to the human world to find a mortal offering. A person she could keep as a pet.” I looked around, a nervous feeling in my chest. “Wait. Where’s Brad?”

  It wasn’t that I wanted to see the puffy-chested, slur-slinging asshole of Unity High. But Elora had stolen him from the human world, and as bad as he was, I wouldn’t abandon him here.

  Kylie waved a hand. “The Queen said she was sending him home.”

  “She didn’t want him,” Keegan agreed.

  “Who would?” Alexia asked, erupting in laughter. They all followed suit.

  I dropped my head into my hands. “You don’t understand. The Seelie Queen isn’t going to just give up an offering for no reason. If Brad gets to go home, that means she’s keeping someone else. Someone like—”

  Me.

  But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t admit what had happened last night. Elora had been dying. Like, bleeding to death in my arms. And the Bright Queen had been happy to help, if I told her my full name …

  “Taylor, relax,” Kylie cooed. It was patronizing, and I’d never heard her be patronizing before. What had happened to all of them? What had the faeries done? “If we entertain ourselves a while, they’ll come through and give you a new look.”

  “A makeover,” Alexia deadpanned.

  “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?” Keegan teased, fluffing up his chestnut hair. Unlike his sister, whose dyed-black hair framed her face at an angle, Keegan was sporting his natural color.

  Kylie frowned at them. “You’re making it sound stupid. It’s not stupid. It’s to make us look like we belong, in case of spies.”

  “They can even give you wings,” Alexia added.

  “Oh, well maybe they can do the same for Elora,” I snarled. “Give her a set of imaginary wings to make up
for the ones that were cut off of her.”

  They didn’t say anything. They just looked at me with those wide, newborn baby eyes. It scared the shit out of me.

  “Wait a minute.” I looked around, like the forest would suddenly reveal what it was hiding. “Where are her wings? What did you do with them?”

  “Taylor, calm down.” Kylie reached for me. “Some ladies picked them up right before you got here. The ones with branches for hair and dragonfly wings. They handed them over to the Queen.”

  “They did? You don’t think … ” I ran my hands through my hair, afraid to hope. “Do you think they can reattach them?”

  “Sure they can,” said Kylie. “They’re faeries; they have magic. They’re probably sewing them on right now.”

  “Not sewing,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “Not if there’s iron in the needles.”

  God, what was I saying? Of course faeries could make needles without iron. They could probably make anything. And the thought of Elora flying again should’ve set me at ease.

  But it didn’t. I felt panicky, and angry enough to take someone’s head off. “I need to sit down,” I said, slumping onto the grass. I clutched my hair in my hands.

  “Taylor?” Kylie’s voice filtered in from far away, even though she was right next to me. When she touched me, I jumped.

  “He’s coming out of shock,” said Alexia, standing at Kylie’s side. I looked up at them through my hair. “He needs a little something to calm him down.” They all laughed that tinkling laugh, like a wind chime that starts out pleasant and becomes annoying fast.

  “Luckily, I have just the thing.” Alexia reached up, plucking a piece of pale, glowing fruit from a tree. When she tore off the stem, golden liquid oozed out of the top.

  “I’m not eating that,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” Kylie said. “I know what you’re thinking: Don’t eat their food. But that’s just in the stories. Humans get the rules twisted.”

  “What the hell do you know about the rules?” I demanded. “You didn’t even know faeries existed until last night!” Again, I felt disproportionately angry. If I really thought about it, it made perfect sense that Kylie would know certain things about Faerie. She’d always ironed faerie patches onto her clothes. She carried that Tinker Bell lunchbox. Girls like that collected old poems and hung faerie calendars on their walls. She was probably a great source of information.