“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “I worked for your mother. You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you. I believe you want to help Rubalia.”
I held up a hand and shook my head. I was going to proceed as though he was real and see how it went. “No more,” I said. “If Ludwiggia gets into my head, she’ll know everything you just told me.”
He nodded. “She has enslaved or killed everyone I have ever loved, she can’t hurt me any more than that. I just wanted to bring you this.” He slipped a small razor blade from his palm into mine. “She’ll be coming for you in another day. Try not to think of the blade when she’s near you.”
I doubted that would be possible, but I thanked him for the gift and watched him leave. I had no idea how he’d gotten to me, and I didn’t want to try to figure it out. The less I knew the safer he’d be and the better off I’d be. I slipped the blade into the waistband of my pants and lay back down to try and sleep.
“Wake up, Clarinda,” my mother said. “You are a filthy child, lying on the floor like that. Get up and behave like a princess.”
I sat up to find myself on the floor of my childhood bedroom. I recognized the pink floral comforter and the wicker vanity that traveled with us wherever we went. The room was small, the walls white and non-descript. I could see oak trees outside the window, so I knew we weren’t in Florida, but there was nothing else I could see that might indicate which of the small, bland houses we’d lived in this one might be. It didn’t matter. I stood and faced my mother.
She was so young, her face unlined by time, her hair thick and shiny. She aged slower than humans, but she still aged. “Your father wants to take you to the carnival. Get ready.”
She left the room, her feet a staccato stomp on the hardwood floor. “Momma,” I called after her.
She stopped and spun to face me, her eyebrows high, her lips pursed in annoyance. I had no idea what sort of torture Ludwiggia intended this to be, but it felt so real to me, so necessary, that I allowed myself to slip into it. To remember what it felt like to be that kid, to be so affected by my mother’s displeasure that I considered saying nothing. The adult in me, however, forged ahead. “Why don’t you come with us?”
She sniffed. “I have to work, Clarinda. You know that. I have no time for silly carnival games.”
“You don’t have to work until tonight.” I remembered my mother working nights when I was a kid, so I made a guess. “I want you to come with us. I know Daddy wants you there.”
She frowned and pain pinched her features. “You and your father will have more fun without me.”
She turned and walked away, ignoring me when I called after her. She’d made her choice. I knew nothing I said would change her mind. I just wished I understood if she was staying home because she really believed she was unwanted, or if she was doing it to punish us.
I changed into a pretty dress and skipped out of my room to look for my father. I was excited to see him again, to step inside a memory and see him from my adult perspective, to create a new memory, no matter how false.
I walked into the living room, but it was full of people, all dressed in black. Many of them were fae, but an equal number were human. I looked down at myself to see I was taller and no longer had the shape of a child. I was a teenager and I was wearing a black dress. I was at the reception for my father’s funeral. He was gone and I’d never see him again. The realization dropped me to my knees and I gasped with the pain of it. I’d never see him again. that loss felt like a faint, but painful, echo of how I’d felt when he died.
“For goodness sake, Clarinda.” My mother grabbed my elbow and yanked me to my feet. “Get a hold of yourself and act like a Frangipani. Don’t dishonor your father by falling apart in front of his friends.”
Her words echoed what she’d said to me at my father’s actual funeral, but they didn’t hurt the way they had at the time. I looked at her, at the unshed tears in her eyes. “You really loved him, didn’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes and gave me a little shake. “Yes. And it was the biggest mistake of my life.”
She stalked off, leaving me alone and depriving me of the chance to ask her if it was the biggest mistake because of how much she was hurting or because she’d been forced to leave Rubalia.
I watched my mother work the crowd, talking and laughing with my father’s friends, people she’d refused to meet while my father was still alive. She could have been happy with my father, could have been friends with his friends, if she’d just been willing to let go of her own fears and insecurities.
I thought I heard a distant growl and then I was shoved into a new scene, a cabin on the side of a mountain. “You have never loved me, Clarinda,” my mother screamed at me. “You are a selfish, unfeeling girl just like your father.”
I remembered this argument. My mother had chosen to quit her job and hide away from the world after her campaign to reveal the existence of the fae to humans had failed. I’d never understood why she’d even bothered to try, but I’d suspected it had to do with the group of fae friends she’d been spending time with. Friends who’d treated her like royalty and convinced her she could be a celebrity in the Non.
I remembered the argument. I remembered that I’d responded with anger and hurt. I’d tried to help her, to convince her to support herself and be independent. Ephemeral was still a new club and I was putting every cent I had into running it. I couldn’t keep giving her money, but she refused to understand. I’d believed she didn’t care about me or my club. So, I’d gotten angry and we’d both said hurtful things that could never be unsaid.
I suspected Ludwiggia had put me in this memory to hurt me, to further break my will, but I found I was grateful for the opportunity to see my mother again. “I love you, Momma,” I said, my voice calm and sincere.
The rage seeped from my mother’s face and she pinched her lips and frowned. “If you loved me, Clarinda,” she said. “If you really cared for me, you wouldn’t refuse to help me. You wouldn’t leave me alone here to starve.”
“I love you,” I said again. “Maybe you could come live with me and work in my club? I could use the extra help.”
She dropped her gaze from mine and twisted her hands in her lap. “I won’t be reduced to a common pub wench, Clarinda. I am your mother, not your slave.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes at her drama. Though, she was right, I couldn’t imagine her acerbic personality would earn her many tips. “You’re great with numbers. You could help me keep the books, help me with supply orders.”
“But not work on the floor, right?” she snapped. “I’m no fun, not a people person like you and your father.”
Hurt blazed in her eyes and I wondered that I’d never seen it before. I’d always known my mother was selfish, self-centered, judgmental, and even cruel, but I’d never realized how insecure and self-hating she was. “Being fun is a choice, Momma. I’ve seen you charm the pants off people when you want to.”
She huffed. “Well, I don’t want to and I don’t appreciate your mock sympathy. I know all you want is to get back to your club and your fun life. Leave me here. I’ll manage somehow.” She didn’t say the words in a kind or a hopeful way, she spoke with sarcasm and bitterness.
“Momma—”
But I was ripped from that place and dropped back into my cell. I looked up to see Frost, chained to the far wall and naked. He was so bloody and raw, it was hard to tell if he was in his human or wolf form. A troll, the one who’d given me the razor, met my eyes and then turned and swung a massive whip. He struck Frost, again and again, while Frost screamed in pain.
I knew it was an illusion, I knew it couldn’t be real. At least that’s what I told myself. But I still leapt to my feet and ran at the troll. Something stopped me, some sort of weird force-field and I couldn’t get any closer. I could only watch my husband being beaten and scream at the troll to stop.
I screamed until my voice was raw and then I screamed until I cou
ld no longer make a sound. Then, I ran at the force field, over and over again. I couldn’t get through, couldn’t even get the troll to look at me again.
In desperation, I pulled the blade from the waistband of my pants and sliced at my arm. I sliced again and again, but I couldn’t make the vision stop. I couldn’t make the troll stop beating Frost.
***
I don’t know how long I watched Frost being tortured, how long I fought to make it stop. I woke up, shivering and shaking and shackled to the cold, stone wall, to a kick in the gut. I barely registered the pain, because my whole body already ached. There was no way I could defeat Ludwiggia, not when she could manipulate my mind, not when she could hurt me from the inside out so thoroughly.
I blinked up at Ludwiggia, my eyes grainy and sore, and she laughed. “You are weak, Chloe. So much weaker than your mother. You are a sorry excuse for a princess.”
And I agreed with her, because even in that moment, I couldn’t move. She had full control of my body and my mind. And I didn’t care. I was weak. My friends, my husband, the people who’d journeyed to Rubalia with me were probably all dead. And Rubalia couldn’t be saved, because I was helpless against the lizard queen who’d killed my mother.
That thought might have sparked an emotion in me a few days before, but I felt nothing now. She’d killed my mother, she’d destroyed Rubalia, and she’d killed my husband. Soon, she’d kill me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
She jerked at my waistband and pulled out the blade her troll guard had given me. She turned to someone behind her. “Find Lug and destroy him,” she said. “Make sure he understands the blade would have done her no good anyway. I control her beneath skin level.”
Inside, I let out a sob for the troll who’d helped me, but I didn’t mourn the loss of the blade. She was right. It wouldn’t have helped me. Her influence resided at my very core and a cut on my skin would do nothing. I looked down at my arm, the blood from the cuts I’d made, dry and crusty. Ludwiggia tsked.
“In an hour, I will come for you, and I will bring you out to speak to the people again,” Ludwiggia said. “Benny will join us, for the sake of the dragons in the crowd, and you will tell the people what I tell you to say. If you do not, I will bring you back down here and Knuckles will beat you until you are more pliant.”
“My name is Fiddlefern,” someone behind her grumbled.
Ludwiggia waved a hand like she didn’t care. “You are whatever name I choose to call you. Unchain her now.”
Someone unchained me. As soon as the cuffs around my wrists and ankles were opened, I dropped to the ground, so weak and breathless and in pain that I couldn’t get back up again. Didn’t really see a reason to get back up again.
Ludwiggia sighed. “You will have to carry her, Knuckles.” She grabbed my chin and glared into my eyes. “When we are on that balcony, you will stand tall and straight and you will smile like you feel no pain.”
Fiddlefern lifted me in his arms and slid something hard and cold into my left hand. I opened my hand, keeping it out of sight from Ludwiggia, and looked down to see a shard from the amulet Winifred had made for us, the amulet that had shattered on the stone floor. It was no longer than my pinky nail and it probably wouldn’t work, but it lighted some spark in me. Fiddlefern, even knowing what would become of Lug, had given me a gift. He believed in me, had hope in me or, most likely, was just intensely fucking desperate. I wouldn’t let him down. I would put everything I had into ending Ludwiggia’s reign, for Fiddlefern and Lug and the people of Rubalia. I closed my fist around the shard and smiled my gratitude at Fiddlefern.
Fiddlefern took me to my usual bedroom and three pixies twittered in. None of them were familiar and none of them met my eyes. I slid the amulet shard into the waistband of my pants, against my skin. It was either the dumbest place to put it or the smartest, considering no one would expect me to use the same hiding place twice. I had no better way to conceal it.
The pixies, two women and a man, silently worked on me. They healed my visible wounds. They washed and combed my hair, they applied creams and make-up to my face and they bathed my body and helped me dress in a sort of skin-tight body-suit that revealed an obscene amount of cleavage. I hid the amulet shard in my palm while they dress me and moved it to my cleavage when they were done. It was the sort of outfit my mother would have adored and the thought made me smile, even as I was also annoyed at having to be dressed in such a revealing outfit. Ludwiggia must be making a greater effort to appeal to the expectations of the Rubalian people.
While the pixies worked on making me look like I hadn’t spent the past three days in a dungeon, I tried to figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this mess. How the hell I was going to get close enough to Ludwiggia to end her.
It wasn’t until Fiddlefern returned to escort me to the balcony that I remembered the visions with my mother. I’d thwarted Ludwiggia’s plans to torture me by not reacting as she’d expected. I’d changed the narrative and I’d maintained my calm. I’d been unhurt by the visions, even grateful for them. Maybe that would work again.
Fiddlefern led me onto the balcony and helped me hold onto the railing so I could stand without his help. I sagged in my spot and stared at the ground. I wanted him and Ludwiggia to think I was weaker than I was. Benny was at the opposite end of the balcony and surrounded by trolls who were clearly guards but who were dressed like they were members of the royal court. Relief that he was still alive rushed through me, but I tamped it down. I had no idea how tuned into my emotions Ludwiggia might be and I didn’t want her to suspect I was feeling anything but utter despair and submission.
“Stand close to her, dragon,” Ludwiggia said to Benny. “She may need your help to stand, but don’t make it obvious.”
Without realizing it, Ludwiggia had helped us. The trolls around Benny moved aside and he walked over, his chin high, and stood next to me. He grabbed my elbow to help support me and we looked down at the few hundred fae below us.
Ludwiggia had given me no orders about what to do with my body, she seemed most concerned with my words. As soon as she started to speak, I slipped the shard of amulet from my cleavage and passed it to Benny. He noticed the movement of my hand and grabbed the shard with his left hand, his right still supporting my left elbow. He gripped the shard hard and pushed against it. I felt the sting of my skin splitting open.
He gave me the shard and I held it flat in the palm of my hand. I had no idea if any of it would work, but I had to try.
I had no time to waste, Ludwiggia would smell the blood, but I also knew I didn’t have the strength to do this alone. I opened my mind and my healing power to the energy of all the people under my figurative fairy rule as Hieronymus had taught me. Even as my mouth formed the words Ludwiggia fed to me, I felt the power of all the fairies in the realm fill me and give me strength. I felt Benny’s power flow into me, and I hoped his ability to thwart Ludwiggia’s mind control would also reach me. I hoped that the ease with which I repeated Ludwiggia’s words would cause her to relax, to think she’d won.
Even as I continued to shout Ludwiggia’s words, I spun, inhumanly fast, and I grabbed her chin. Benny moved when I did and pinned her arms behind her back. I sunk my healing energy into her brain, finding no blocks. Either she had expected no trouble or she couldn’t block while she was controlling another’s mind. A flaw that worked in our favor. I felt her grip tighten on my internal organs but I directed my healing energy, aided by the energy of all the fairies of Rubalia, to damage Ludwiggia’s brain in a way I’d done once before, to a nightmare in the Non.
I could barely breathe and spots were forming in my vision, but my healing power worked on until I felt Ludwiggia go limp in my arms. My task finished, I pushed away the energy of my people, pushing with it even my own energy to ensure that no more lives were lost because of me. I pushed out, even as my breath stopped, my vision went black, and I fell.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Being a f
airy princess is nowhere near as fun as my six-year-old self thought it would be.—Chloe Frangipani
Saving a world is highly overrated.—Aiden Frost
I woke, my head feeling like cotton, my tongue heavy and dry, and wondered just how drunk I’d gotten the night before and who was in my bed. Wait, it wasn’t my bed, my bed didn’t smell like lilacs and it certainly didn’t have silk sheets. I reached out, but my hand was pushed back, a gentle voice hushing me like I was a child.
I opened my eyes and saw Senora, the pixie who’d tortured me with unnecessary grooming every time I visited my mother. “What happened?” I asked.
She didn’t meet my eyes, but she smiled. “You damaged the brain of the nightmare empress. She is the puppet now.”
It all came flooding back to me, so fast I was certain I was going to be sick. “And I’m still alive?”
She laughed, a merry tinkle I’d never heard from her before. “You have more healing to do, yet, but you will live. That is what the healer says.”
“And Ludwiggia’s power, is it still inside me? Are those black ribbons still wrapped around my insides?”
“They are gone,” she said. “From us all. The dragon, Benny, he told Ludwiggia to free us and she did. Benny and Chelsea have been gone three days all around Rubalia, gathering nightmares to return to their realm and freeing the people of Rubalia.”
“Three days?” I asked, sitting up. “But I don’t know how long the lobotomy, the damage I did, will last. The nightmares can heal themselves.”
She shrugged. “Chelsea says it will persist.”
She pushed me back down with a gentle touch just as the door to my room burst open and Frost walked in, his smile wide and bright, even as worry creased his brow. “You need to rest.”
Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files Book 6) Page 24
