Lies in the Dark

by Robert J. Crane

  The music started again, and he picked me up, resuming our waltz, but more slowly this time. I wondered if I had left my stomach back where we had stopped. Wherever it was, it churned uncomfortably. “Why?”

  He was quiet for a few moments that felt like an eternity, his bright green eyes still scanning the room. “I know my people. I know how we act, how we flaunt and tease and carry on.” He smiled insincerely—man, there was a lot of that around here. “We have learned how to say everything and nothing at the same time. To lie without speaking a single untruth, and yet being false all the same.”

  His face had grown hard.

  “I was trained in it. It was I who trained him,” Lockwood said, seemingly forgetting that I was there. “Doesn’t he remember that I was the one who negotiated for the territory south of Elderwood? I who made Mistress Valen think that it was her choice to leave the court?”

  “You lost me,” I said. My heart was starting to beat faster. Here was another side of Lockwood that I didn’t understand. The going-crazy side.

  He paused in midair, looking me in the eye. “Cassandra, I’m afraid that we have made a terrible mistake.”

  My heart sunk right to my shiny shoes. “… What do you mean by that?”

  Lockwood looked down at me. “You saw that Roseus left during the speech?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, and regretted it almost immediately. Now we were spinning so fast that it felt like my head suddenly weighed a hundred pounds, and the blood was roaring in my ears. Nausea crept up my throat, and I closed my eyes, willing it to go away.

  “I noticed you notice it,” I said, wondering when our little dance had become a tilt-a-whirl ride. “But Lockwood, I think you’re being a little paranoid. Roseus seems to think the world of you. He was so eager to help us back at the village, and he’s gone to great lengths to keep us safe here. He promised us his protection, didn’t he?”

  Lockwood’s face was still dark. “Of a sort.”

  I blinked. “… Of a sort?”

  “He promised us safe passage here,” Lockwood said.

  I thought about that for a second. “Uh … just here?”

  “Yes,” Lockwood said, with a knowing look. “Very specifically. Which is what worries me.”

  “Why?” I asked, suspecting I already knew the answer. Half-truths … well, they used to be one of my favorite lies.

  “It’s … a subtle art that I am well acquainted with,” Lockwood said. “I understand when someone is not saying what they really mean, or leaving important things out in order to cover their tail.”

  “So, you always know when I’m lying?” I asked.

  He spared me a fleeting look. “Nearly.”

  The music suddenly cut out, and the room fell silent. All of the dancing ceased, both in the air and on the ground.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  Lockwood held my wrist. “Stay close to me.”

  “Why? What—”

  Orianna was suddenly beside us, her eyes wide and staring past us at the far end of the room. Lockwood was, too, though his were narrower.

  I turned slowly to see what they were staring at, and my mouth fell open.

  The queen was standing on her balcony, hands gripping the white railing in front of her. Standing before her on the floor were at least three dozen Seelie guards, their white armor shining bright even in the well-lit room. The queen looked anything but beautiful now. Her lips were curled into a wicked smile.

  At us.

  But that wasn’t what had stunned me.

  General Roseus stood beside the queen, the same sort of wicked grin on his face as he stared right down at Lockwood and me.

  “Lockwood, we—”

  He shooshed me, his eyes narrowing.

  The queen stared around at the hundreds of faeries gathered there, her icy gaze sweeping over us all. I stood frozen to the spot, Lockwood’s grip around my wrist cutting off my circulation, the tips of my fingers starting to go numb.

  She appeared to be enjoying the tension. Her grin grew wider.

  I tried to swallow past the lump that was forming in my throat. I couldn’t remember the last time that I blinked.

  We had no weapons.

  No defenders.

  We were trapped.

  Her voice rang out, echoing off the far walls and the vast ceiling, triumphant. “My fair subjects … this is a most auspicious night … one in which we celebrate the return …” Her smile widened, Cheshire-like, far too large for her face, “… of a traitor.”

  Chapter 25

  I stood in the midst of a lava flow, surrounded on all sides by hot magma. It was the Summer fae’s idea of a dungeon, and a pretty good one, at that. Like a sauna, but far, far worse, heat pressed in against me from all sides, making me cough and wheeze. Every breath made me feel like I was being slowly roasted from the inside.

  Wide, snaking rivers of flowing magma separated me from Orianna, whose glamour had been stripped from her as unceremoniously as my own, guards pressing in on us and draping charm necklaces over us with rough hands.

  The gasps when they’d found out I was human? Pretty impressive. Almost as shocked as when my parents had found out I was a giant liar.

  The rivers of lava popped and gurgled, sluggishly winding their way down to the lip of the hill and out of sight. Each time a hiss of steam emerged, more heat filled the air.

  Sweat started to form above my lip and on my back.

  Dragons the size of mastiffs crouched on rocks outside the lava rivers. Black and reptilian, their wings were folded against their sides, their teeth bared, each staring at us with one wide, yellow eye.

  I hadn’t seen Lockwood since Orianna and I had been paraded out of the ballroom, our glamours stripped.

  The last time I’d seen him …

  I drew a deep, sulphuric breath and felt it burn my throat, my eyes.

  The last time I’d seen Lockwood … he was being beaten by a circle of angry guards as the entire ball cheered.

  I let out another breath, and it burned when I drew my next. The air was so hot, my eyes were stinging. Was this real? Or just another glamour?

  And my ball gown … the beautiful, shimmering fabric …

  It was nothing more than a dirty cloth now. I was as good as Cinderella.

  “Well, this is great,” Orianna said, sinking down to the ground below her. She folded her arms and legs, staring pitifully into the lava.

  Her dress had burned too. Her shoulders were bare, and there was a large hole over her thigh. A tear in the side made it look as if she had been struck by a sharp object. No blood was in evidence, though, which made me think maybe she’d just been dragged or something. I could just make out the edge of the silvery snowflake tattoo on the underside of her wrist.

  “Are those … real?” I asked her, pointing at the dragons still snarling at us from across the lava.

  She sighed. “Most likely. They’re here so I can’t fly away.” When she caught my questioning look, she made a fist and then a noise that I took to be a fireball, smacking her own wing. “Get it?”

  My stomach lurched. A faerie without wings … that would be a hell of a punishment.

  “The lava could be real, too,” she said. “I definitely don’t want to take my chances that it isn’t.”

  “How could they …” I asked

  “You’ve been here for a while, and every time you ask, the answer is always the same. Do I really need to spell it out for you again?” she asked.

  “Magic,” I whispered.

  “Exactly,” she said, gingerly gathering the remains of her gown and bunching up underneath her before sitting on a rock. “In Faerie, it’s always magic.”

  “Got it,” I whispered.”

  “Finally, I see the grace of the Summer Court,” Orianna said, laying her head on her knees. “My only consolation right now is that … at least I’m not Lockwood.”

  My skin crawled. “What do you mean?”

  She looked up
at me, giving me a look as if she couldn’t believe the stupidity. “Did you not see what they were doing to him? Because that’s a warm up for what comes next.”

  “Torture?” I asked, blanching. “No, they wouldn’t …”

  Orianna looked up at me, hatred twisting her pretty face. “Maybe they do things differently on Earth, but here in Faerie, torture is very common. Especially for those who sit on the court.”

  “Yes, things are different on Earth,” I said, looking all around for some means of escape that didn’t end in me being burned to death in lava. “At least … it is where I come from. We try our criminals, we don’t … whatever you do here.”

  Orianna made a noise of disgust. “Unbelievable …” she muttered, looking away from me.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s unbelievable?”

  “You!” she snapped, whipping her head back around to glare at me. She crawled to her feet and pointed a thin, golden-tipped finger at me, the lava making the snowflake tattoo appear to be glowing. “You are a liar.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I’d been called a liar by a lot worse than Orianna. “And … ?”

  “You’ve been a human all this time,” she said.

  “All my life, actually.”

  “And you didn’t tell me.” She shook her head with disappointment.

  “Do you blame me?” I asked. “I’m in Faerie as a human. Why wouldn’t I hide my identity when I had no idea how anyone would react?”

  “But you didn’t tell me,” she said, sounding … actually very insulted. “You knew the truth about me. And all along, I thought that I knew the truth about you, too.” She put her head back down on her knees. “Liar.”

  There was that word again. It was my trademark, wasn’t it? It was all that anyone was ever going to know me as.

  The greatest liar there ever was.

  “I didn’t know if you could be trusted,” I said coldly. “And you know what? I still don’t.”

  I watched her jaw work as she contemplated what to say in response to me. “Lockwood knew, didn’t he?” Then she rolled her eyes. “Of course he did.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “I came here to help him.”

  “Is anything that ever came out of your mouth the truth?” Orianna asked, peering at me, her head still sideways on her knees.

  I paced calmly back to the lava on the farthest side from her, looking for … anything. A way out, really. “My name, I guess. Maybe some of my stories. I dunno.”

  “Well, your wing being broken was a lie,” she said, listing them off on her fingers. “You being a Seelie was a lie. Though I guess that explains why you knew nothing about being a faerie.”

  “I guess you’ve got me all figured out,” I said, staring at the dragon leering at me from above.

  “What about at the hospital, huh?” Her voice was climbing. “You said all of those pretty things to that woman with the baby? The one whose husband had died? You told her a sob story to get her to help you, didn’t you?”

  “That … wasn’t a lie,” I said.

  “I don’t believe you.” She folded her arms across her chest, her gaze icy.

  “I don’t care.” Fatigue was setting in. Anxiety was nibbling at me.

  I was trapped in a mystical dungeon, stuck in the middle of a lava flow with someone who hated me.

  And Lockwood …

  Lockwood was captured. About to be tortured.

  Maybe as good as dead.

  “How in the hell did it come to this?” I muttered to myself, staring up at the dragon. A week ago, if you’d told me I was going to see the magical land of Faerie, was going to be standing in a place like this, looking up at a dragon …

  I would have been excited to go. Maybe not if I’d known that it was going to be in a prison, but … overall the scenario, minus some of the finer details? Sounded kinda cool. Lava mountains and rivers, and a dragon. Nifty.

  Except now I was stuck here, imprisoned. And Lockwood was …

  Gone.

  What did that mean for me, then? How was I going to get back to Earth?

  Would I even get back?

  My skin vibrated, every nerve on fire, burning with worry and small little hints of rage, buried underneath the concern.

  Here I was, stuck beside a faerie who I thought once to be a sort-of friend, who apparently hated my guts now. The feeling was definitely getting toward mutual.

  And Lockwood … the one I came to help and protect was possibly dead … all because I had come with him to Faerie in the first place.

  “What? Truth finally starting to settle in on you?” Orianna sneered.

  “Shut up …” I said, but I had lost all of my steam.

  I was just tired now. My whole body was so heavy.

  Nothing mattered anymore. Why shouldn’t I just curl up here on this floor and sleep until it was all over?

  “Hey,” Orianna said. “Hey, don’t think you’ve won this, human. Don’t sit there all smug, thinking that you got the better of me. You didn’t.”

  “Whatever.” Pure teenager. I really didn’t care anymore. How had I cared so much in the first place?

  Lockwood …

  My heart clenched.

  Mill …

  The dragons on the other side of the river suddenly perked up, their heads turning to look at something coming up the side of the cliff.

  “What was that?” Orianna asked.

  I didn’t have a chance to answer her, because suddenly the stifling heat was gone and I was on the shore of a vast beach, with vibrant blue-green waves gently lapping up against a shore that stretched all the way to the horizon.

  Chapter 26

  The beach seemed to go on forever, the sand soft and warm beneath my fingers. A pleasant breeze blew the sweaty curls from my face. There was a scent of salt water in the air, though I was definitely alone. Orianna was nowhere to be seen.

  A large island lay in the distance, the sun was setting just behind it, painting the sky in bright oranges, deep pinks. Behind me, the first stars were starting to wink into existence.

  I swallowed, a big ol’ nervous gulp.

  How did I get here?

  For a second, I wondered if I had somehow been transported back to Earth. It felt like Earth. There was only one sun. The water was the same color of our oceans on Earth, the color that never shows up quite right in a photo.

  I looked over my shoulder and scrambled to my feet as I saw Roseus standing there.

  He was wearing a pair of trousers rolled up to the knees, and a pastel blue button-down shirt, short sleeve. The sort of thing my dad would wear on vacation. He had sunglasses resting in his windswept straw-colored hair.

  If I hadn’t hated his guts, I might have thought he was rather good looking.

  “Well, Cassandra … what do you think?” he asked, sweeping his hands out around him.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I know Lockwood was hiding where there were beaches like this. You must have been from around there. Does it feel like home?”

  I noticed a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye and looked down. I was wearing a pink summer dress with tiny white flowers that was flowing in the breeze with a white cardigan over it.

  Not exactly the exact outfit I would have chosen for myself for the beach, but hey, props for trying, Roseus. “Next time, I’d rather wear blue,” I said with a smirk I didn’t entirely feel, given the circumstances. I gritted my teeth as the fabric changed to a lovely powder blue with the blink of an eye.

  I turned around and started walking away up the beach.

  “Now, hold on a second,” Roseus said, hurrying to catch up. “I just want to talk, okay?”

  I rounded on him. “You tricked us,” I said. “You played Lockwood’s friend and then you sold us out.” A little spittle flew from my lips as I pointed my finger at him.

  Roseus didn’t even try to deny it. He sunk his hands into the pockets of his khakis and stared at me like we were some couple having a squabble on
a date.

  “I thought you were his friend …” I said, as the water washed over my bare feet. I noticed my toenails were adorned with little Seelie stars.

  “Lockwood and I have a long history,” Roseus said gently, walking up beside me. “Sometimes friends go through rough patches, right? Unfortunately for us, this … is a rough patch.”

  “Getting him thrown in jail for torture and execution? Yeah, that’s pretty rough,” I said, turning to walk further along the shore. My feet were leaving footprints along the wet sand, which were quickly washed away as the tide rolled in.

  He fell easily into step beside me.

  “Are you all right?” Roseus asked in a very convincing tone. “The guards didn’t hurt you at all, did they?”

  I didn’t answer him. No, they didn’t hurt me at all. But why did he care? Really?

  “Cassandra … it’s Cassandra, right?” he asked.

  “It’s Cassie,” I snapped.

  “Ah, yes, my apologies,” Roseus said. “Cassie, I want you to know that I know you were caught up in all of this by mistake. Lockwood dragged you into it without telling you the whole truth, didn’t he?”

  The water sloshed against my ankles. It was warm and pleasant, warmer than the beaches around Tampa right now.

  Yeah … he hadn’t told me the whole truth. In fact, he’d told me less than ten percent of it before we actually got to Faerie. And it had redlined me into some frustrating territory, being kept in the dark.

  “I trust Lockwood implicitly,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to justify myself in front of him. “See, that’s what friends do for each other.”

  “After all that you still trust him,” Roseus said, staring at me. “That’s interesting. I just want you to know that I am going to do whatever I can to help you, all right?”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, glaring up at him. “Why would you do that for me?”

  “Because you are innocent in all of this,” he said. “I know that it was Lockwood who told you that you had to wear a glamour and pretend to be something you aren’t. You didn’t choose to get caught up in all of this nonsense happening between Seelie and Unseelie. He brought you here during a very dangerous time. He should have been more concerned about your safety.”