Three of Clubs (War and Suits Book 2)

by J. A. Armitage

  “Actually, I’m here fo…”

  “You want to be taller!” she exclaimed pulling me to a section that had signs on it conveying such lovely sentiments as, You are fat, and Ugly people attract ugly people, amongst other things. Beauty serums lined the wall professing everything from acne removal to breast enlargement. The whole wall of vanity made me feel sick. No wonder the Hearts were like they were when they went into shops to be told they were too fat or too thin or they were ugly. Right in the center of the wall was a small golden bottle. The price tag was ten thousand dollars, enough to pay for two members of our staff at the castle for a whole year. I squinted my eyes to read what it was for.

  “That’s our youth elixir,” trilled the girl. “Apollo invented it himself. It’s guaranteed to make you look fifteen to twenty years younger. The queen swears by it. You’re not in need of it just yet, but you might want to stock up now. It sells out really quickly. You’ll be swearing by it yourself in a couple of years.”

  In a couple of years, I’d be nineteen. Why would I want to knock twenty years of my age when I’d not even hit that milestone yet? The girl was crazy.

  “The growing potions are on the lower shelf over here,” she said indicating a row of potions. The sign on this shelf read, Don’t look like a Club! Grow inches with Apollo’s growing elixir.’

  I tried to hide my anger at the sign, but it was through gritted teeth I said, “Actually, I’m here for Feverthorne if you have it.”

  “Oh,” the girl adopted a look of pure disappointment. I guess Feverthorne was neither as exciting nor as expensive as the beauty potions. “Please take a seat here.”

  I sat where she had indicated while she disappeared into the back of the shop. Alice came to sit beside me.

  “I cannot believe the vanity,” I started, “I mean, who on earth buys this stuff? Cream to make you taller or thinner or lighter or darker. It’s ridiculous. I mean, look at that. A bottle of stuff to make your breasts bigger. Why would you even want to?”

  “I drink that stuff,” said Alice, now sitting hunched over as if to hide her body. “I get all my products from here.”

  “Oh, Alice, I‘m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just don’t understand it. You are a beautiful girl. Why would you pander to a vacuous, looks-driven society? Can’t you just be who you are without all this nonsense?”

  “I’m a makeup artist. I make my living from pandering to a vacuous, looks-driven society.”

  I’d completely put my foot in it. Why couldn’t I just keep my big mouth shut? It wasn’t even as though I was any better, not really. I was the one who painted my face every morning with flowers. Wasn’t that equally as ridiculous and full of vanity?

  “I’m sorry. I just meant that you are so stunning that you don’t need to hide behind make-up.” I was laying it on thick, but I had to make it up to her somehow. Thankfully, she brightened up at my words.

  “I’m Apollo Leopold,” a man appeared from the back of the shop with the young woman scurrying behind him. He was wearing black velvet robes with a hat to match. His eyes had been made-up with black eyeshadow and gold eyeliner. It made him look both imposing and slightly otherworldly at the same time. “May I ask who it is that enquired about Feverthorne?”

  I stood as quickly as I could, which was a feat in itself with the huge shoes on. Even with the six inches of shoe beneath me and the six inches of hair on my head, I still didn’t come up to Apollo’s chin.

  “I did.”

  He looked me up and down for a good minute or so and I had the feeling he wasn’t deciding what potion I needed to make my life oh, so much better as his assistant had.

  “You are a Club.” It was a statement, not a question. The assistant's hand went to her mouth in shock as though he’d just told everyone I’d murdered the queen herself.

  “Not just any Club either, I’d wager. Feverthorne is the main ingredient in the elixir that bears its name. Its primary use is to fight infection. It is in very short supply at the moment due to an altercation in the Club Kingdoms. If I were a betting man, I’d say that you worked up at Club Castle am I right?”

  I decided to be honest with him. Either he’d give me what I wanted or not. He already knew I was a Club.

  “I’m Stargazer Lilly, the Three of Clubs. It wasn’t an altercation. A troop of Heart men came onto our land to divert our river on the pretense of killing dragons. Our troops were sent to stop them. There were a lot of injuries on both sides. Our troops brought all the injured men, including the Heart soldiers, back to the castle where they have been ever since. All the men are being treated; however, infection is rife. Men are dying from it, both Clubs and Hearts. We are completely out of Feverthorne.”

  “Royalty, eh? Well, I’m sorry to tell you that royalty does not impress me. It is merely a title of birth. That being said, my job is to dispense medications where I can. Unfortunately, on this occasion, you are out of luck. The queen has already put an embargo on all my stocks of Feverthorne. This is in effect throughout the kingdom.”

  “Are all the stocks being used on the Heart troops?”

  “You misunderstand me. We have plenty of it; we are just not allowed to sell it to you.”

  “So sell it to me,” Alice stood up. “I’m a Heart. You know me. I shop here all the time. I get my makeup from you.”

  “I know you, Alice Fairweather. I cannot sell the Feverthorne to anyone, even Hearts.”

  “But that’s madness,” I cried. “People are dying. The queen’s own subjects are dying.”

  “Nevertheless, I can’t help you, I’m afraid. The law is the law.” He turned to walk away.

  “My brother is going to die if I don’t get that Feverthorne!” I shouted, which caused him to turn back to me.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t get involved in political issues. I have no ill will towards you or your kind, but there is nothing I can do.”

  “You are sorry? There are nearly a hundred men, both Hearts and Clubs laid out in our main hall. We, the Clubs, have been caring for them. Your men have been given the best care we are able to give. We’ve treated them with nothing but compassion, despite the fact they came into our land to steal from us, and now you are telling me that you can’t sell me the one thing I need to save them.” I ran to the vanity wall and picked up the little golden bottle.

  “This is worth ten thousand dollars. Either you give me the Feverthorne, or I drop it. If I were a betting woman, I’d wager that you don’t want to lose ten thousand dollars of merchandise,” I said, echoing his own words back to him.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Why won’t it be necessary? Are you going to give me the Feverthorne?”

  “No, it won’t be necessary because the queen is going to lock you up.”

  Suddenly, there was someone gripping my arm and a hand over my mouth. The golden bottle was wrestled out of my hand by my unseen assailant, and I was unceremoniously dragged out of the shop kicking and screaming. I was thrown into the back of a vehicle along with Alice, and the doors were shut behind us, throwing us into the darkness.

  “Alice, are you there? Are you ok?”

  “I’m here. What happened?”

  “The queen’s men must have seen us.”

  “I don’t think so. I think the alchemist must have pressed an alarm of some kind which brought the police down on us.”

  “You have a system for contacting the police silently?” I said in awe. “We just ring a bell loudly until someone hears us.”

  “You don’t have telephones or alarms? Wow!”

  “This is the first time I’ve traveled in a motorized vehicle.”

  “You’re kidding? How do you get around?”

  “Walking mostly. We use shire horses to pull carriages, and we often use the Urbis Express if we need to get to other kingdoms.”

  I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the shock in her voice. It made me feel very unsophisticated next to her.

  The cobble
s beneath the van made the journey very bumpy, and I was glad when we finally came to a stop. When the back of the van opened, I changed my mind. We were roughly hauled out into the strangest looking place I had ever seen. It was a huge stone-flagged room with no windows and two doors, one of which was big enough to let the van drive through. To the right, was a river with the biggest wheel I’d ever seen, turning with the force of the water. Over the sound of gushing water, I could hear some other noise. It was difficult to figure out what it was, but it sounded like some kind of machinery, hissing then groaning, hissing then groaning. The room was lit by electricity, something that we just didn’t have in the Club Kingdom. Our castle was lit by candles and torches and the occasional gas lamp. Even with the light bulbs, the room was dim. To the opposite side of the large stone room was a staircase. The steps were worn by centuries of people walking up and down them. Now that I could see the guards, they were dressed in the same ridiculous outfit as the one I’d seen by the entrance to Cerce. A little pang of guilt ran through me as I remembered I’d left Elphin there alone and it looked like I wasn’t going to be back anytime soon to feed him.

  The guard who had hold of me had my arm held so tightly that I almost cried out in pain. Alice had her arms held behind her back by another muscled half-naked guard. Unlike me, who had tried to comply, she was fighting to get away so hard that her legs were actually off the ground. She was taller than me, but she was dwarfed by the muscled Neanderthal who was holding her.

  “This one needs to go to the queen,” barked the guy holding me to his accomplice. “You can get rid of that one, she’s worthless.”

  I didn’t have too long to wait to find out what he meant by that as the other guard carried Alice to the river and threw her straight in. I fought against the guard holding me, but I had no chance against him. I could only watch as Alice disappeared into a dark tunnel.

  “You bastard! What if she can’t swim?” I screamed and tried to squirm out of the guard’s grip.

  “Shut it, princess. The queen wants to see you so you’d better calm yourself down.”

  So he recognized me. I couldn’t understand how. He’d been holding me behind my back and hadn’t even seen my face. Even if he had seen my face, few people recognized me without my flowers on.

  He picked me up and flung me over his shoulder like a rag doll. I could only look at the other guard following us as I was carried up the stairs. The corridor we came out into was similar to my own castle in that it was built with gray stone, but that is where the similarities ended. Where our castle looked like it had been cobbled together willy-nilly, this was perfect. The stones were cut into perfect uniformity before being placed. The floors were carpeted in red with golden strips down the edges and patterned with the Heart insignia of the royal family. Gold framed pictured lined the walls, and I recognized various royal Heart family members from the New Year’s Eve Party just over a week ago. It seemed like an eternity since we all drank wine together and danced as friends. I had even danced with some of the Hearts, and they had been nothing but charming to me. How much things can change in such a short period of time! One of the Hearts, I think maybe the Three or Four had asked me to dance repeatedly, and I had given in towards the end and danced with him. I’d taken Sorrell’s advice to treat it only as a dance and nothing more. She’d dated one of the Heart Royal family a couple of years ago, and he’d nearly destroyed her. I liked the Hearts generally, but I knew well enough never to fall for one.

  I was carried along the corridor and up another flight of stairs until I was brought to another huge room. Unlike the room downstairs, this had large windows along one side that light poured through. The biggest painting I’d ever seen filled the entire opposite wall and a couple of chandeliers hung from the ceiling, bouncing light from the crystals, causing little rainbows to fill the room.

  “Wait here!” said the guard gruffly and dropped me unceremoniously into a chair. The chair was gold colored with red velvet upholstery. Like everything else I’d seen in this place, it also had the Heart emblem embroidered on it in gold thread. The guards left through the door opposite to the one we had come through, and I was left on my own to wander around this huge room. It was elegant and ornate, although way too over the top. The only other furniture in the room apart from the chair was a writing desk and another chair, both matching the first chair. It felt like a complete waste of space as the furniture only took up a tenth of the room. I tried the door I’d been brought through, but the guards had locked it behind us. The only other door was the one they’d disappeared through, and I didn’t fancy trying to get through there. The windows seemed like my best bet for escape, but when I pulled back the net curtains that covered them, I saw a sheer drop and a moat. Even though we were only two stories up, I had no way of knowing just how deep the moat was.

  I turned my attention to the picture behind me. It was a portrait of the Heart Royal Family, but it was nothing like the portraits hanging in my own castle. Any portraits in the Club Castle were painted as a group, all of us looking towards the artist, smiling. This had the family spread out. The background of the painting was actually this very room. The windows had been copied across from the other side to make it look like windows ran along both sides of the room, and the red carpeting followed along in the painting. The queen dominated the painting, standing at the front with her arms open in welcome. Either the painting had been painted a long time ago, or she’d drunk a whole truckload of Apollo’s Amazing Youth Elixir because she didn’t look like that at the party last week. Looking at the others in the painting behind her, I saw that it was pretty recently painted, at least within the last couple of years. The artist had obviously been very generous to the queen when painting it. Probably for fear of being thrown into the water. The king stood just behind her and to the side. He had the same quiet look about him as he had at the party. He’d not said a word all night, preferring to let his wife speak for him. Either that or he couldn’t get a word in edgeways. The Heart that had asked me to dance stood off to the rear, looking out at me smolderingly as they all did. I recognized the woman that Tarragon had slept with closer to the foreground to the right. She sat upon a white tiger. The others stood apart from each other; some had their hands on their hips. One was laid out on a chaise. Most of them were only half-dressed. The whole thing oozed sex and was completely inappropriate for a royal portrait, well for any family portrait. It made me feel uncomfortable just looking at it.

  “Fabulous, isn’t it?”

  I turned to face the Queen of Hearts. She was wearing a long dress in her signature red and had a Heart-shaped fascinator in her hair.

  “Where does the river under the castle go?” I screeched at her. “Your guards threw my friend in it.”

  “Your friend? I think not. My sources tell me you only met her for the first time this morning.”

  “I don’t put a time limit on forming friendships. Where is she?”

  “It is no matter,” she waved my question away as if it was a triviality that was beneath her. “What is important is what you are doing here.”

  “Your men brought me here. Believe me, I’d rather be anywhere else.”

  “Not the palace, darling, here, in The Heartlands.”

  “I’m not in Urbis anymore?”

  She laughed at me.

  “No, no, no. You have been brought to the Heartlands at my request.”

  “Why? I’m still free to walk around Urbis. Even the Heart District. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “And yet you disguise yourself. Sick of looking like a Club, I see. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to look like a Club either.”

  “I’m only dressed like a Club because of the lack of goodwill by your subjects. Your media is publishing so much dirt about The Clubs that your subjects are angry.”

  “The Echo only publishes the truth.”

  “The truth?” I spat. “Your men were ordered to divert our water. What do you even need it for? You have no u
se for our magic. You have electricity and technology. Everything you have is magic. Ours doesn’t compare.”

  “Actually, technology isn’t magic. We have engineers and scientists. Your magic is pure.”

  “Why not go for the Diamonds if you want magic? They live on magic. It’s everywhere in the Diamond Kingdom.”

  “Who’s to say I’m not?” she smiled knowingly. “Anyway, our men were hunting for dragons. They kidnapped my youngest daughter because your security staff are incompetent. Then your sister decided to go to Urbis and destroy the main shopping area of The Heart District.”

  I wanted to smack her in the face. I almost wished Rose was with me. She wouldn’t have held back.

  “Our staff? It was your nanny that opened the window. And you and I both know that the dragon was a Spade Shifter. It was him and the Diamonds that destroyed the shops. My sister stopped any more damage from being caused.”

  “All the more reason to go for the Diamonds and Spades. Honestly, you people have set this up brilliantly for me. I couldn’t have hoped for better. Now I can go into your lands and take your magic, and I have a great excuse.”

  “You are insane!”

  “On the contrary, who doesn’t want power?”

  “What do you want me for? I might be a princess, but I’m only The Three. As far as power goes, keeping me here will not be to your advantage.”

  “Ah ha, that’s where you are wrong, princess. My people already hate your sister for what she did. Imagine the outrage when they find out her sister came to The Heart District, just a week later, disguised herself as one of us, and proceeded to try to steal some, what was it? Feverthorne? Now I know for a fact that Feverthorne is used in the treatment of infection. You were taking it so we’d have none for our injured troops.”

  I looked at her incredulously. Could she really be so warped?