The Last Faerie Queen

by Chelsea Pitcher

  Faerie-style.

  “Well?” I pressed.

  The tendrils of the Dark Lady’s gown floated forward, tickling my face, brushing against me in a way that made me feel sick. “Then the princess will be properly punished.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I said, trying to keep from shaking. “If Elora told the truth, and she was only intercepting humans the Bright Queen had targeted, then you can feel justified in stealing us for yourself.”

  The Queen raised her eyebrows, her lips twitching the tiniest bit. With one small movement, she might unhinge her jaw and swallow me whole. The way she was hovering over me reminded me of a cobra.

  I swallowed, looking away. “But if Elora’s lying, and she entered the mortal world of her own accord, for her own twisted gain—”

  “Then she must be taught a lesson—”

  “Yes, but we shouldn’t be. Do you understand?”

  She scowled, unhappy with the boy who had the audacity to cut her off, but what did I have to lose at this point?

  “You only have claim to us humans if the Bright Queen went after us first,” I said. “Our torture would be retribution for her breaking the sanctions agreed upon by both courts.”

  “He’s right,” Elora breathed. “I didn’t even think of it, because … ” She let the thought dangle, let the faeries believe she hadn’t thought of it because she’d been telling the truth. “If I interacted with humanity of my own accord, then I’m the one who broke the sanctions, and you’re complicit in the treachery by torturing them. The Bright Queen will have recourse to take humans of her own.”

  “She’ll have recourse to wage war,” I said, not wanting the faeries to focus on Elora for too long. I wanted to shift the focus from we must punish the princess! to we can’t punish the humans. “Even holding on to us is cause for the Bright Queen to retaliate, if Naeve is telling the truth and Elora broke the sanctions first.”

  “Oh. Oh dear.” The Dark Queen lifted a hand to her mouth, and I knew she was mocking me. I knew, because Elora had used that same gesture to mock Brad back home. A shudder ripped through me, and I couldn’t stop shaking.

  She really is her mother’s daughter, I thought, and shook my head. Naeve had said the exact opposite, in the graveyard.

  But which was true?

  I studied the Dark Queen’s face for answers. “Should we let you go, then?” she asked with that same mock concern. “What do you think, beasties? Should we give them a running start to the Bright Court?”

  The dark faeries laughed. Even some of the servants snickered. I guess old prejudices weren’t murdered easily, but still. These were our lives we were talking about. A little respect would’ve been nice.

  “So you’re just going to ignore the possibility that you’re the one breaking the rules and let the Bright Queen come after you?” I asked. “I have to say, it’s kind of a ballsy move.”

  “To be ballsy, one requires … ” Her eyes draped over the burlap that barely covered me, and her lips curved into the most hideous smirk. “Well, you know. What I have is much more powerful. Still, you make a valid point. I’d hate for my daughter’s wretchedness to bring trouble right to our door. So let’s make this interesting.”

  A titter laced through the crowd, and I felt like ants were crawling over my skin. When I looked down, creatures were crawling over me, creatures the size of ants, and just as hungry. I knew it was the Queen’s darkness, or some kind of illusion, but it stung, and I could see my feet disappearing inside of it. All five of us were being swallowed.

  “If my daughter is telling the truth, we are entitled to you by law.”

  “Not human law,” I said, “but go on.” I wanted her to think she didn’t scare me, even though she did. If I’d been wearing pants, I probably would’ve pissed them, but without anything to cover it up, I did my best to remain continent.

  “But if my daughter lies … if somehow my daughter has managed to lie, or twist her words enough to fool her own mother, then perhaps an adjustment is in order.” She lunged forward, those teeth just inches from my face, stretched into an impossible smile, the kind of thing you only see in dreams. In nightmares.

  “So I will be the merciful ruler I have always been, fair and just and protective of my people.”

  I waited for the faeries to snicker, but they didn’t. Even the few servants who had to clap their hands over their mouths to keep from screaming did so with grace. And the Queen leaned closer, so that I could smell her stale, rancid breath, the breath of a dead thing. “I will give four of you directly to the Seelie Queen, and keep only one. She cannot possibly find folly in that.”

  “And how will you choose?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer. But I didn’t, not the worst of it.

  “Oh, I’m not going to choose,” she said, spinning around to face her daughter. “She is.”

  Elora gasped. In the span of one second, that carefully crafted façade slipped away, revealing her true fear. Revealing her love. I wanted to offer myself up to the Queen, just to spare Elora the torment. Whether she ended up choosing me or not, the Queen would find a way to figure out I was the favorite. I was pretty sure she already knew.

  “Wait! I’ll … I’ll … ” The words died on my lips. God, I couldn’t do it. Here, when Elora needed me again, I faltered, unable to protect her.

  But maybe that wasn’t the entire truth, considering I was the one who was bound. Maybe I needed to get better at trusting other people to help me when I needed it. It certainly hadn’t been my parents’ way, but not everyone was like them.

  I turned to Elora. I expected her to look back at me with frightened eyes, but she’d replaced her fear with a look of pure curiosity, as if we were performing an experiment in science class.

  “How, exactly, am I supposed to differentiate between humans?” she said, tilting her head to the side. All of that red hair spilled over her shoulders and rippled down her back. Red on white. Blood in the snow.

  “I’m going to ask you a simple question,” the Dark Lady said. “And you’re going to answer honestly. If everything is as you say, you won’t be able to lie, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes,” Elora said without hesitation. “I am incapable of telling an untruth, just like any faerie.”

  “Any pureblood faerie,” her mother said, and I didn’t understand the distinction. Pureblood, like of royal descent? Wasn’t that just a made-up title here? Wasn’t that just a made-up title everywhere?

  But maybe she wasn’t talking about royalty at all. Maybe she was confirming what I’d already figured out.

  Elora stepped forward, her handlers pulled along behind her, and suddenly it was as if she was running the show. As if they were simply there to do her bidding, should she require it of them. “Ask away,” she said, all confidence, and for a second, I thought anything the Queen threw at her, she could handle.

  My chest inflated like a balloon.

  “Which one of these mortals do you most want me to release?”

  The breath whooshed from Elora, and from me. I’d been expecting something simple, like “Which of these humans do you love?” or “Which of these mortals has shared your bed?” In the case of the first, Elora could’ve named any of us, except for Brad. And as for the bed question, well, we’d all lain together on beds of moss in the Seelie Court. In a manner of speaking, she’d “slept” with all of us. Kissed Keegan and Kylie on the cheek at some point. Wrapped her arms around Brad when they’d danced on prom night. If the Queen had asked about something purely physical, or even emotional, Elora could’ve handled it, but this?

  This was a riddle, and one wrong move, and the mortal she wanted the Dark Lady to release would be the mortal who was flayed to death on this very stage.

  But Elora, even if she was one step behind the Queen, was one step ahead of me. “Release from bondage, or from life?” she asked.
>
  “Ooh, clever girl. Trying to ruin my fun.” Her mother pouted, but only for a second. “Let me rephrase the question: which mortal do you most want me to release from these bonds, and hand over to the waiting hands of the Seelie Queen, completely unharmed?”

  “Except for the damage you’ve already done.”

  “Except for the damage they’ve already done,” the Queen said, nodding to her servants, determined not to take responsibility for our wounds. As if she hadn’t ordered the dark faeries to bind us, and worse.

  “And if I refuse to answer?” Elora asked.

  “Then I will sacrifice them all, and take my chances with the Seelie Queen.”

  Elora was silent for a minute. All of us were silent, all mortals and all faeries. I wondered if they were thinking what I was thinking: if Elora really loved her people, she’d save them from the wrath of the Seelie Queen. She’d choose one of us, and let the Queen pick a sacrifice from the remaining four.

  The Dark Lady’s smile deepened, and I hated her so much in that moment. Hated the way she treated humans, yes, but hated the way she treated Elora even more. This was her daughter. The baby she must’ve held in her arms, if only for a second. They’d come from the same flesh, yet torturing Elora came so easily to her. And I thought I knew why.

  But spilling the Dark Lady’s secret would only get me killed faster at this particular moment. And naming Naeve as her betrayer wouldn’t change the game she was playing with her daughter. Only a sacrifice would do that.

  A personal sacrifice.

  Confidence swelled in my chest once more. Confidence, and courage. I could do this. I could take the fall. Elora wouldn’t have to choose, or reveal to her followers that she loved a mortal. She wouldn’t have to risk her revolution.

  I lifted my head, wanting to look at her one last time before the end. I opened my mouth to say: Don’t choose. I’m the one you should sacrifice. I’m the one who made Elora stay in my room, and sleep in my bed, until I was finished with her. I tricked her, trapped her, and forced her to strike a bargain.

  I am everything you expect humans to be, and worse.

  I opened my mouth to say the only thing I could to save her, and my friends. But Brad beat me to it. Brad, the boy who’d caused harm wherever he went in the mortal world, and suffered every day for it in Faerie, lifted his head and said, “I know the name.”

  28

  ElorA

  For a moment, I felt as if I were underwater. I watched Brad’s mouth open, so slowly I could hear the hinges creak, and the words came out, but I couldn’t really process them. I was too afraid of what he might say next.

  Afraid and something else, something like hunger. A hunger that creeps under your skin and burrows into your bones. A hunger born of starvation, of a life of emptiness, of wanting. Deep down in the darkest part of me, I wanted Brad to offer up himself. I wanted it not because I hated him, and not because I didn’t value his life. I wanted it because there was no possible answer that would leave my true love safe. For the riddle was …

  “Impossible,” I breathed.

  “What was that, darling?” my mother asked, the darkness surrounding her body reaching out and slipping into Brad’s mouth. Stifling him. Shutting him up for the moment.

  He squirmed, but could not speak.

  I spoke in his place. “The riddle is impossible,” I said. “Even if you actually free the mortal I name, you will simply pursue him after you’ve handed him over to the Seelie Queen.”

  “Him? ” my mother said, her lips parting into a startled O. “Who said anything about it being male?”

  I rolled my eyes, as if I were back at Unity High. “Naeve has already told you I care for a male, now hasn’t he? Between the one I allegedly stole from the mortal world, and the one I allegedly saved in the graveyard, you’re already convinced I’ve fallen for a boy. Aren’t you?”

  I grinned, as if to say, Your move, but it was a mistake. I may have been able to outsmart my mother this one time, but she would wield the final blow.

  “I have my suspicions,” she said, and two mortals jerked to the front of the stage. The other three drifted backward, their bodies jangling like skeletons. “Naeve told me who those mortals are as well.”

  Damn, damn, damn.

  Why did I have to take my little swing? Even if I knocked her off her feet, she’d never stay down for more than a few seconds. Not unless someone bigger was throwing the punches. Someone bigger, and older, and much more powerful than me.

  I closed my eyes and reminded myself that I simply had to make it until tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, the Seelie Queen would bind my mother, the battle would wage, and without the Dark Lady to protect them, the dark faeries would fall.

  Their court would.

  I just had to stall. “Thank you,” I said, staring up at the two mortals as if my mother had done me a favor. “This will make it much easier to prove my point.”

  “What point?”

  “That the riddle is impossible. Suppose I choose boy number one.” I gestured to Taylor. With a flick of the wrist, my mother pulled him forward until he dangled above the front of the stage. “You send boy number one to the Seelie Court, and kill the other. Am I correct so far?”

  The Queen smiled but did not nod. She would not show her hand until I was finished.

  Still, I said, “I thought as much,” as if to fool the faeries who couldn’t see her as clearly as I could. “So what happens then, exactly? What sordid scenario have you created in your mind? I run off to the Seelie Court to meet my chosen mortal, and together we live out our days amongst the bright ones?” I curled my lips in disgust, shaking my head. “You’d never let that happen. It would be too much of a slight to your court, and to your pride. You’d hunt us down and flay us in front of your congregation.”

  “And if I promise to leave him alive?” the Queen asked, her brow raised the tiniest bit. It was clear I’d piqued her interest, but she wouldn’t show the strength of her emotion. Not now, and not if I burst into flames this very minute.

  “Then someone from your court would do your dirty work for you. Isn’t that how it’s always been?” I asked.

  “Not always,” she said with a smile. “But I could easily forbid it.”

  I actually laughed. That startled the smile from her face. “What good would that do? Every faerie in your congregation knows you’ve lost control of your court. Naeve snuck away to the mortal world without your blessing. He tortured your daughter behind your back. That’s why you’re so insistent on proving that I’ve done wrong. Because if I’m innocent, that means your greatest devotee betrayed you. He went against his queen, and his people, and did whatever his wicked heart desired. And what would that say about you, then?”

  Her face was redder than I’d ever seen it. In all my years in the Unseelie Court, I’d seen her turn opalescent white on the night of the full moon, or impenetrable black on the night of the dark moon. This was something new entirely. “How dare you—”

  “You’ve lost your power, Lady. Even if Naeve acted in your best interest, he did it without your permission. Attacking the Dark Princess can only be interpreted as an act of aggression against your court. And what do you do in response? You go after me, the person who has been slighted in the first place, all to save your precious pride. How dare you—”

  “ENOUGH.” The Dark Queen’s fury shook the ground. The mountain beneath us trembled at her rage. But something more terrible happened then. That darkness stopping up Brad’s tongue crept farther into his throat, choking him. Beside him, Taylor began to shake. She was suffocating them both, punishing them for my transgressions. If I didn’t choose quickly, both mortals would fall.

  “Wait,” I said, trying to stop my voice from shaking. If she hurt him, I wouldn’t be able to keep my feelings a secret. She would know.

  They would all know.

 
; “You’ve given me a choice,” I said, but the darkness was flooding out of her. Pouring out of her, with faces and hands and little claws scritch-scratching at the dangling mortals. Opening their skin. Licking the wounds with blackened tongues.

  “Then choose!” the Dark Lady shrieked as Taylor’s face began to pale. First white, then blue. Soon purple. I had to think quickly. But I couldn’t think. My heart was racing and my mind was filling with darkness.

  There is no safe answer. The minute you choose one, you’re giving her free license to murder the other. Then she’ll go after the first.

  “Choose, now!”

  “I … I can’t—”

  “Have it your way.” The Queen ripped the darkness away from Brad, her face positively glowing. Brad sputtered, coughing blood onto the ground. “Speak, mortal, and seal your fate. Which boy does my daughter love?”

  Brad lifted his head, and there was so much clarity in his eyes. In that moment, he’d finally come awake. As his gaze shifted to Taylor, something inside of me snapped. No, something broken slid back into place. And I realized what I’d been denying for some time. I was not a bright and shining angel, come to save my people with benevolence and light. I was the Princess of the Dark Court, and I’d come to claim my birthright.

  “Don’t hurt him,” I screamed, and dove in front of the mortal. The mortal named Brad.

  29

  TayloR

  For five brief seconds, I didn’t understand. Then I understood too much. “Don’t speak,” Elora cried as she leapt in front of Brad. “You don’t have to lie to protect me.”

  The faeries shrieked. The Dark Lady gasped. And part of me died. A lot of me died.

  The Unseelie Queen let go of her hold on all of us, and together we fell to the stage. Still bound at the wrists, but no longer forced to hang in the air like some kind of demented puppet troupe. Breathing didn’t come easy, at first, and I wished I could touch my hands to my throat. I wished I could touch my hands to my wrists, to soothe the feeling of wire slicing into my skin. Then Brad began to rise, spinning in circles, and I wished I could cut out my eyes.