The Last Faerie Queen

by Chelsea Pitcher

  It’s what I would’ve done.

  “Very well,” she said quietly, so that only those closest could hear. “If you perform one simple task, I will grant you an audience.”

  “Yes, Lady?”

  She looked at Brad, at what remained of him, and smiled. “Go have a tea party with your darling.”

  No …

  I inhaled shakily, remembering the stories of my mother’s “tea parties” in the Middle Ages. Less tea and cake, and more blood dripping from little cups. Chairs made out of mortal bones. “I … don’t think I can.”

  “If you are my daughter, you can.” It was as if she was reading my thoughts and wanted to test me on them. To snuff out the last of my compassion and make me give in to my wickedness. If I could sit in a puddle of my beloved’s blood and drink of his body, I would become like her, unfeeling as a stone. Or I would break, and be useless to my people. Either way, she’d win.

  “Please, Lady.”

  “This is your choice. One cup for one minute of my time. Or I can punish you now … ”

  I shook my head. The minute she bled me out, the revolution would be lost. The servants were already shaken from witnessing her true wrath and my affection for a mortal. To expect them to stand against her tomorrow, without me to stand with them, and without the Bright Queen’s binding …

  I did not want to imagine the slaughter that would ensue.

  I did not want to imagine it, and yet my feet were moving forward, toward a slaughter of a different kind. On shaky legs, I climbed the steps of the stage. My dress for the party was black, so Brad’s blood seeped into it like water. Creeping over the edges. Staining me before I’d begun.

  “There’s a good princess,” my mother said as I sat among the wreckage, and now I was the dog, the pup waiting to be rewarded.

  Punished, then rewarded.

  I struggled to keep the contents of my stomach from rising, and I hadn’t even taken a sip yet. My mother procured a cup out of nothing. “Darlings?” she said to a pair of midnight blue pixies hovering at her back. Dark horns curled out of their heads, and their wings buzzed so quickly, I could hardly see them. Within seconds, they’d delivered the cup to my hands. The porcelain was white, a strange color for my mother to choose, but then, it would help me see the blood.

  I cannot do this.

  Of all the laws of Faerie that had been broken, this was the worst.

  “Lady, there is iron in mortal blood. This will poison me.”

  Again.

  She nodded, and her lips did not twitch toward a smile. Her eyes did not soften to reveal remorse. She was as unfeeling as a stone. “Hence the little cup,” she said. “Wasn’t that nice of me?”

  I bit my lip and tasted blood. That was a mistake.

  “Besides, you’ve felt the sting of iron before and survived,” she reminded me, and it sounded like a taunt. A challenge. “What faerie can say that?”

  What was she suggesting? Already the world was spinning before my eyes as I lowered the little cup to Brad’s body. His blood was pooling in places where his wounds were the worst. My vision swam with red as I tilted the cup.

  Blood poured in, a little whirlpool churning and churning.

  My world was churning. I fought to stay conscious as I lifted the cup to my lips. My hand shook so terribly, blood was sloshing over my fingers. In the background, my mother’s voice drifted in from another galaxy. She whispered, “Only you, darling.”

  Then my world turned to black.

  31

  TayloR

  I didn’t think I was going to make it. My legs were so heavy. I kept trying to think of something that weighed more than lead, but I couldn’t think straight enough to do it. I couldn’t think at all, but all the while, images kept flashing before me.

  Here, I saw the packed-in dirt of the tunnel up ahead. A dead end, I thought. No, I didn’t think it. I saw it. My eyes transmitted messages to my brain, but before they could be analyzed, they slipped away like rain. Like blood from a lifeless corpse.

  Brad.

  And just like that, I saw him in front of me. I could barely process the fact that I was walking through the dead end—another glamour among millions, I thought, and then that, too, slipped away from me. I was slipping in Brad’s blood, drowning in the depths of it, trying to carry the both of us to safety, and sinking in the process.

  A body smacked the ground. His body?

  No. Mine.

  “Get up,” a faerie said, yanking me to my feet. Another faerie among millions. I knew the creatures that led us to safety—Ha! Safety?—were not the ones who’d attacked Elora on prom night. Were these faeries on our side, eager to get us to the Seelie Court so their rebellion could begin?

  Or were they only acting on the order of their precious Queen? A woman I could go my entire life without seeing again. God, it was a wonder Elora hadn’t turned out completely wicked, with a mother like that. It was a wonder she could love anything, let alone a forbidden human. Now I could see her face in front of me, as we turned to the left and headed down. As we moved through another tunnel that looked like a dead end.

  She beckoned me forward, eyes glistening with tears of love. But her dress was torn and muddy, and blood stained her hands. Blood stained her lips. Had she been drinking it? Would she drink mine?

  My guts twisted, and I shook my head. I couldn’t stop shaking. And Elora kept beckoning to me, a vision with blood-covered hands, and I kept walking to her, no matter what it meant. No matter the danger.

  Was I so desperate to feel her one more time that I’d let those crimson hands run through my hair, staining me? Would I taste the blood on her lips, and smile?

  Was there anything I wouldn’t do for her?

  Is there anything she hasn’t done for you? a voice whispered, and I swear, it came from outside of me.

  “Just a little longer,” the vision of Elora promised. And I listened. God help me, I followed her. She led me from the darkness into the light.

  It started with a flash, like the first spark of a raging fire. It happened so quickly, I worried I’d imagined it. Then I realized there were branches up ahead, shifting and twirling and revealing the world in little patches. I thought, Here we’ll come upon the entrance to the Seelie Court, and hands will reach out to guide us over the border. Hands that are brown and strong like the earth, like nature, not like evil and darkness and death. Hands that stroke rather than choke, in a court that was created to protect us.

  Then an image of Brad tied up in the Seelie Court flashed through my mind, and I realized I’d never be safe again. Realized safety didn’t exist.

  I stopped in my tracks. Two faeries ran into my back, and Kylie mumbled, “What are you doing?”

  I turned and found her clutched in Alexia’s arms. “I have to go back.”

  “We are going back,” she said, pointing to the light. That’s when I realized what I should’ve noticed from the start: we weren’t moving toward the light. It was moving toward us, bobbing and weaving between the trees. A single orb of light, illuminating the dark forest.

  Shit.

  “I don’t want to see her,” I said, backing into the darkness. The faeries were staring at me like I’d lost my mind, and maybe I had. But I couldn’t go back to the Seelie Court just to get trapped there. Not with the Seelie Queen, who knew my full name. Not with Maya de Lyre, who was no longer a prisoner now that Brad had died.

  “Please, I can’t go back there,” I said, but the faeries weren’t looking at me anymore. Now the light was spilling through the forest, and they shrieked, covering their eyes.

  A faerie with shimmering cobalt skin stepped forward, braving the light. “You are not welcome here,” he snarled as the orb of light broke free from the shadows. It spilled over the darkness, obliterating it.

  The dark faeries screamed and raced away from u
s, seeking sanctuary in the forest behind us.

  Both Kylie and Alexia slumped to the ground, unable to move any farther. Keegan fell against a tree, and I followed suit. “I have to go back,” I told them.

  “I understand,” Keegan said. “I’ll try to hold her off.”

  I almost laughed because the idea was so ridiculous. But still, it was ridiculously nice of him to offer, to put my safety before his. I squeezed his hand. “I’ll come back for you,” I said, and it was a promise.

  “She has no claim to us,” he replied.

  I nodded, backing away into the darkness. “Don’t let them trick you,” I said. “Don’t split up.”

  “Promise.”

  I nodded again, throat tight at the thought of leaving them. But I had to help Elora, and I had to trust them to take care of themselves.

  That was the problem with loving somebody, I guess. You wanted to do everything in your power to protect them, but if you did that, you might keep them trapped in a clearing somewhere, safe from harm. Safe, and caged.

  I let my friends go. They let me go, and I raced into the darkness. I leapt over logs, like I had that first day in the Seelie Court. But now, with the Bright Queen’s light behind me, I couldn’t see very well, and I tripped over a root.

  I tripped and went flying.

  My head scraped a rock as I went down.

  No, no, no, I begged as light danced behind my eyes. Behind them. In front of them. God, I couldn’t get away from that damn light.

  But slowly, painfully, I opened my eyes. The fall hadn’t knocked me out. I could do this. I tried to push myself to my knees.

  But I couldn’t. My body had used up the last of its energy bolting away from the Queen. The Dark Queen. The Bright Queen. Here, now, it was rebelling. My arms shook and refused to hold me. My legs stopped working entirely. As light spilled over me, I thought of Elora’s face. I promised her that this wasn’t the end, that I’d come back for her, somehow.

  Then I didn’t promise anything anymore, because darkness came for me. It was beautiful, and it came from within. I saw wings, and an endless obsidian sky. I saw the universe, galaxy upon galaxy. Eternity unfolded.

  And then I saw nothing.

  32

  ElorA

  I awoke in a bed. My own bed. For a moment, I sprawled out, tangled up in velvet and satin, in red and black. Those colors I couldn’t escape. Those colors that were a part of me, but not the only part. Each one of us is a spectrum filled with darkness and light. Filled with violet twilights and golden dawns, crimson sunsets and emerald leaves. Emerald eyes.

  Taylor.

  I sat up in bed. My mother sat beside me, upon the actual bed, rather than in the ever-present throne that she’d built into every room of the castle as a symbol of her omnipotence.

  What did this closeness mean? Was she coming to me as an equal? The idea seemed ridiculous, but so did the thought that she’d kill me here, so far from her congregation.

  Why not make it a show?

  I licked my lips and came away with the foulest taste.

  “Here,” my mother said, holding out a goblet of silver. I lifted the liquid to my nose.

  “It’s water,” she said, and I almost laughed, it was so unexpected. “To flush out the iron.”

  “Why?” I asked, drinking all the same. She was right. It was water. It tasted amazing.

  Beside me, my mother kneaded the blankets silently. No matter, I had more pressing questions to ask.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Hours,” she said simply, studying my face. Was there something wrong with me? Was I covered in blood?

  Oh, Darkness.

  The night was coming back to me slowly. But if I closed my eyes, I could almost push it away.

  My mother caught me before I fell back onto the bed. What was happening ?

  “Is it morning?” I managed, dread creeping over my gut. I had to open my eyes to see she was shaking her head.

  “Several hours until dawn.”

  “And the congregation?”

  “Some continue to dance. Others are sleeping wherever they might fall.”

  Yes, perfect. Perfect, perfect. I can still finish what I started.

  “And you?” I asked, giving her doe eyes. Trying, but my body wanted to sleep so badly, possibly forever. I didn’t remember drinking Brad’s blood, but I could taste iron on my lips. “Have you come to grant me my minute?”

  “More fairly, your second,” she said, confirming my suspicions. “You were unable to complete my simple request for a tea party, but you did manage to fall into a puddle.”

  I swallowed thickly.

  “You ingested but a little blood,” she said. “There, where it splashed on your lips.”

  I turned to the side of the bed and retched.

  “Probably more effective than the water,” she said, ever calm and unperturbed. Then again, she wouldn’t be the one to clean up after me.

  “I’ll use my second wisely, then,” I said, wiping my lips. She handed me the water again. I didn’t even remember her taking it.

  How am I going to fight?

  “Whenever you’re ready,” my mother said, glancing at an invisible watch. Good Darkness, was she making a joke? Who was this creature? Had the Bright Lady somehow taken her place?

  It didn’t seem possible, and I wasn’t taking any chances. I spoke quickly. “When I arrived at the Unseelie Palace, I traded places with the mortal girl in the burgundy gown, using glamour, and she is the one who lied to you about my feelings for the mortals. I remain a humble servant to Faerie, unable to tell an untruth.”

  My mother stared into me, her eyes widening to illustrate her surprise. “That was more than a second, but well used.” She inhaled slowly. “I must admit, it frightened me to learn you could lie so easily. To see Naeve spell it out in his own blood. That was the moment I knew that I’d lost you.”

  “You never had me,” I said, and tears sprang to my eyes. “Never held me. Never spoke to me of love.” How could she claim to have lost me?

  She lowered her head, but she did not cry. My mother could never, would never show such emotion. Still, the idea that she might actually feel it, and keep it hidden, did more than surprise me. It called my entire life into question.

  I lay back in the bed, promising to only close my eyes for a moment. Promising myself. Promising my people. I only had a few hours left to accomplish my task.

  My mother’s voice brought me back. “Suppose I believe you,” she said, and even in my exhaustion, I murmured, “You do believe me.”

  “I want to. But suppose it is true, what you say. What then? You’ve put me in an impossible position, Elora. Whatever your intentions, you cared for a human. And thus, the laws of Faerie have been broken.”

  “Those aren’t the laws of Faerie,” I exclaimed, and I was startled by my own outburst. “Those are your laws.”

  She shook her head. “The earth has guided everything I have done.”

  “But all of us believe that. You, me, the entire Seelie Court. How can it be the earth’s will for us to destroy each other, and all humans? What purpose would that serve?”

  My mother shrugged. “Clean slate,” she said simply. I realized, then, how deeply her hatred of humanity ran. She would destroy all of Faerie if it meant the death of humanity. “The earth will survive. That is the bottom line.”

  “There’s more to life than a bottom line. Why focus on a perfect world instead of improving this one? Certainly, an earth devoid of all beings would have the purity you crave, but we would cease to exist.”

  “As long as the earth survives, there will be faeries.”

  “But not these ones. Not us.”

  “I would sacrifice myself for that cause.”

  “Easy to say, Mother, but you haven’t. I’m
the only one making sacrifices. I’ve been making them all night. Why did you do that to me? If you truly believed I loved him, it was evil. And if you didn’t—”

  “I didn’t,” she shouted, and the ceiling shook. “How could I believe that? Good Darkness. Elora, my precious daughter, sullied by—”

  “You put on a good show.” I shook my head. “But so do I, so I’ve learned to recognize it. And you knew there was a possibility that I cared for one of them. Even a little.”

  “Must you make me say it? Yes, I knew there was a possibility. But in my heart of hearts, I never thought you would react so pathetically.”

  “Is that what I did?” I asked, thinking: That was the show. Of course, I had felt awful for Brad, but that original cry, and throwing my body in front of him, had been intentional. Answering the riddle would’ve revealed my true feelings. But showing feelings for Brad, well … that was the only way to save Taylor.

  “Yes, you made quite a scene. I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I expected you to be smart enough to control yourself, to behave like a princess. Don’t you see? If you had simply allowed me to kill one of the other mortals, and refused to react, I could’ve freed you of the charges! You would be sitting beside me on your throne, with Naeve as your footstool, instead of lying in bed half-alive with blood on your lips.”

  I am not the only one with blood on my lips, I thought, an image of Naeve flashing through my mind. But I did not say that. I was too filled with sorrow, too filled with regret. The idea that my mother had being trying to help me with her riddle seemed impossible. And yet …

  “Lady—Mother,” I amended, and pushed myself onto my elbows. “I want to tell you everything. I want you to understand that what I did was not an abomination of nature. I went to the human world to help our people. I promise you.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. Not if she believed I couldn’t tell a lie. And I couldn’t, in spite of the fact that mortal blood was now swimming in my veins. It was only a taste, and besides, I’d meant what I said: I remained a humble servant of Faerie.