She should have known her reunion with Jack would not go well. I could have stayed in the shadows, but I approached you because you’re slipping, Jack, and I’m the only one who knows why. You need someone who understands. Helping him was the only way to make up for stealing his secret in the first place.
To make matters worse, what good had her betrayal of Jack done? He hadn’t possessed the spell or formula or supernatural stardust that would restore the Light Fey to their former strength. His extraordinary power was a curse—not at all something they could or would want to duplicate for themselves. And now, with the Company in ruins and the Dark Queen on the brink of freedom, the stakes were getting steadily higher.
Lark rose and crossed to the window, fishing in her pocket for a tissue. She mopped her nose, her eyes feeling scratchy and raw. It was dark out, but there were lights enough to see the palace gardens below. They were clearly trimmed and manicured to human tastes—nothing like the half-wild gardens the Light Fey preferred.
She wondered how long those gardens—or the Light Fey—would last. What chance did her people have against the coming of the Dark Queen?
There was one last gamble, and that was why Lark was in Marcari—and why she had to get out from under lock and key.
Lark examined the windows. They were casements, opening out over a sheer drop to the rocky garden path below. Not her first choice of exit. She leaned her forehead against the glass. She was exhausted, and there was so much she had yet to do before the night was out.
She returned to the door with its keypad. Oddly, crying her heart out had seemed to clear her head, because inspiration struck. She placed her hand over the glowing panel, sensing the flow of energy from contact to wire to a central computer somewhere in a basement office. As her mind drifted along that energetic frequency, she detected magical residue thick in the air—probably fallout from the blast that had destroyed the Company’s compound. It was causing static throughout the electrical grid, and anything wireless would be down. If there was one thing magic was good at, it was screwing up tech.
Sorry, Jack, but I can’t afford to sit quietly like a good girl. Lark risked sending a pulse of power into the keypad. The buttons flashed spasmodically, and she heard the click of disconnection. She whisked through the door, pulling it shut before the system registered more than a negligible flicker of disruption like all the others. At the same time, she summoned her glamour, turning invisible in the space of a blink. She was free.
About time, too. She had to see a princess about a wedding. Lark walked swiftly and silently through the marble halls, feeling her spirits lift for the first time that night.
Once out of sight of King Renault’s rooms, Lark pulled on a new glamour that made her visible but altered her appearance to a friendly but forgettable face. She glanced over her shoulder, catching a woman looking her way. For a moment Lark froze, but the woman’s gaze skated past her. Lark frowned. Wasn’t that the same woman who’d been outside with the son of the Italian ambassador? She couldn’t be sure, but hurried on, mentally filing the incident.
Her path led past the apartment of Crown Prince Kyle, who was residing in Marcari these last few weeks before the wedding. Though the rest of his family had remained in Vidon, Kyle had chosen to be close to his bride. Beyond his apartment was a string of guest chambers and, finally, Amelie’s rooms.
With a casual flick of a spell, Lark slipped past the guards and stopped at the entrance to the princess’s sitting room.
Despite the best efforts of the staff, the princess’s chambers looked like a bridal explosion. A swathe of sparkly white tulle sat mounded on a chair, and wedding magazines were scattered across every flat surface. A pair of long white gloves looked as if they had been dragged to the floor and mauled by a dog. Several servants in black-and-white uniforms hovered at the edge of the storm, tidying up as best they could.
Lark edged past the chaos to find an army of shoes marching from the princess’s bedroom, as if Amelie had tried on every pair and abandoned them before she had made it all the way down the hall. Which, apparently, was exactly what had happened.
“They’re all uncomfortable!” Princess Amelie complained to her attendant, a harried-looking woman who clearly had no fashion sense of her own. “I will be standing for hours and hours—on international television! The world will be watching and texting as I marry the man I love. It’s all going to be hard enough without obsessing about the pain in my feet.”
Amelie’s attendant glanced around the drawing room, as if searching for answers among the litter of footwear. “Perhaps I can find something else for you to try, Your Highness.”
“I think perhaps you should aim for something under a five-inch heel, Your Highness,” Lark observed.
The attendant jumped and squeaked. “How did you get in here?”
“I’m sneaky.”
The attendant looked alarmed, but a flash of amusement crossed Amelie’s face. The princess knew Lark’s many disguises, and waved an impatient hand. “I need all five inches. Prince Kyle is tall. We look like a comedy act unless I wear the heels.”
She was right, so Lark changed the subject. “Please, may I have a word? There is something private that I must discuss.”
Amelie nodded, and the attendant left, taking the other servants with her. As soon as they were alone, the latest pair of killer shoes were abandoned on the rich burgundy carpet. Lark let her glamour dissolve, resuming her own appearance. Then Lark chanted another spell, stirring the energy in the room enough to bind a cage of static around any listening devices.
Watching with rapt curiosity, the princess waved Lark to a couch. “You are always cloaked in such secrecy and mystery! What can I do for you tonight?”
“We have a problem, Your Highness,” Lark said, feeling a wave of weariness as she sat.
“That is no way to begin a conversation.” Amelie frowned, running a hand through the thick, dark mass of her hair. She sank onto the couch beside her. “What has happened?”
“I found Jack Anderson.” The words opened the door to so much and so little. I found him and...he will never forgive me for what I did to him. “He’s with your father now.”
“Jack Anderson? The leader of the Four Horsemen?” Amelie sat back, her dark eyes wide. “But he was killed!”
“No more than I was. It seems he went undercover for a time.”
Amelie brightened. “That is wonderful news! But how is this a problem?” A puff of white fur appeared over the arm of the couch. “Ah, Lancelot, isn’t this good news?” Amelie picked up the little dog and cuddled it in her lap, stroking it as it wriggled happily.
Lark hesitated. She wanted to leave the princess as she was, not exactly an innocent, but at least less deeply involved in Marcari’s Night World politics. Unfortunately, Lark had no choice. “We came here from the Company headquarters. Your Highness, there’s nothing left of the place. The compound has been destroyed.”
Silvery tears slipped down Amelie’s cheeks. “Destroyed? My loyal vampires? What of the other Horsemen? Sam and Faran and Mark?”
“No doubt there are some who escaped,” Lark said hastily as she felt her own eyes sting again. By Puck’s wings, this is hard! Lark bit her lips to keep them from trembling.
“How did it happen?” the princess asked.
“Dark Fey magic.”
“Dark Fey?” Amelie gasped. The little dog began to whine, sensing her dismay. “They are imprisoned! We stopped the ritual that would have let them out.” Amelie grasped the ring that hung by a chain about her neck. The wedding ring bore the blood rubies of Vidon—a gift from her future husband, Crown Prince Kyle of Vidon, and key to the spell that could set the Dark Queen free.
Lark cleared her throat. “It seems someone’s ready to try again.”
“I thought we caught all the traitors. It seems we were fool
s.” The princess fell silent, burying her face in the dog’s fur. When Amelie finally spoke again, the words were muffled. “I thought the worst obstacle to marrying Kyle was the hostility between our countries, but now there is this threat.”
Lark’s heart went out to the young woman. “We will deal with the threat, my princess, and Kyle’s people will come to know and love you.”
“The Vidonese who know about the Night World have called Kyle a traitor for marrying me. They hate me just because Marcari welcomes the supernatural within its borders.”
Lark reached across, cupping Amelie’s face in her palm. “Kyle is true-hearted. He won’t pay that any heed.”
But Amelie gave voice to the thing Lark feared most. “What if they knew the truth about me? About the fact my mother was half fey?”
It was true. Amelie’s mother—who had died before becoming queen—had been the daughter of a Light Court noble. “That’s exactly why I’m here. Your mother hid her fey heritage well, but we must be extremely careful.”
Lark spoke softly. Despite her wards, she had to be sure that no one could overhear. There was much she couldn’t explain even to Amelie—not yet. She didn’t want to frighten the princess by telling her the fate of an entire race was in her hands.
The fey were beings made of magic as much as they were of flesh and blood. Very little bound them to a physical form in the earthly realm, especially after isolating themselves for centuries. Now they were dying before their time. Lark had held her own mother’s hand, dry and lifeless as old paper and twigs, as she’d dwindled to nothing. Her eyes had grown dull as the magic within them had dimmed and guttered like a spent candle. Those had been the worst days and nights of Lark’s life.
Only an anchor in the mortal realm would save the Light Fey from fading away, and that anchor would come through the power of royal blood. This was why the royal wedding and the coronation that followed mattered so very much.
The treaty surrounding Amelie’s marriage to Kyle stipulated that within a year of the royal wedding, the kings of Marcari and Vidon would step down. Then Kyle and Amelie would ascend the thrones, unite the kingdoms and rule together in an equal partnership. Amelie would be a queen in her own right.
Like many coronation rituals, the oath of the Marcari monarch would symbolically tie her to the land in a wedding every bit as binding as her marriage to Kyle. Such unions worked in very concrete ways with the fey. Even though the princess had only a little of their blood, it was enough that Amelie’s coronation would bind the Light Fey to the earthly realm and save them from extinction.
The fact that the prince and princess had a love match would make the magic that much stronger.
Amelie’s face was grave. “If I marry Kyle, any children of ours will carry Light Fey blood. There are those among the Vidonese who would think nothing of harming them because of it.”
“True, and that brings me to my business here tonight.”
Lark reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a bottle containing a few ounces of clear liquid. It was small enough that Jack had missed it when he’d frisked her. “It took some time for our spell experts to find the right ingredients—some are incredibly difficult to obtain—but this was what your mother used to keep both her and you safe when you were very young. If you drink this, it hides every trace of fey characteristics in the blood.”
Amelie took the bottle. “Why do I need this? I’m not having a blood test.”
“Perhaps you should. Or perhaps you should cut your finger somewhere public enough to leave traces of your blood behind. Any enemies who suspect your bloodline will test the evidence only to find out their suspicions were unfounded.”
“I would like to say that is an unnecessary precaution, but I know there are those who hate nonhumans enough to go to any lengths.”
“Using the potion is a small price to pay for peace of mind. There are no side effects.”
“Thank you,” said Amelie. “Thank you for teaching me what my poor mother could not.”
Lark felt a pang of sadness. The death of Amelie’s mother had left her half-fey daughter without magical protection. Discreetly, without even the Company’s knowledge, the Light Court had kept a watchful eye—which was why Lark had been given the task of visiting the princess as often as she could. During those secret visits, Lark had taught Amelie about her fey heritage. Bringing the rare potion was the final step, and now that her mission was accomplished, the Light Fey had only to keep the princess safe until the wedding and coronation were completed. That should have been easy, but Lark wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“I’ll look after you, Your Highness,” she said. “I promise on my life.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than a shudder ran through the room, rattling the china and knickknacks. The abandoned shoes toppled off their high heels. A split second later, a roar pounded from outside, sending another convulsion through the palace. Startled, the little dog scrambled from Amelie’s lap and bolted for the bedroom.
“That didn’t sound like an earthquake,” said the princess, her voice small and tight.
“That was an explosion.” Lark jumped up, catching sight of the orange glow through the balcony doors. Instinct warred between terror and a reckless urge to rush to do battle. “There’s a fire.”
“What?” Instantly, Amelie was at her elbow. “Is anyone hurt? Can you tell?”
“Let me get a better look.” Lark motioned to the princess to stay where she was. Cautiously, she opened the balcony doors, all of her magical senses on high alert. The sea breeze was cool, but held none of its usual sweetness. Instead, it reeked with the thick smoke hanging in the air—and with the now-familiar stink of Dark Fey spells. She stepped outside, keeping low. There was no point in tempting snipers.
Amelie was far less cautious. In seconds, she was crouching to Lark’s left, craning her neck to see what was going on. Her stance was as urgent as a strung bow, every trace of the girlish bride abandoned like another pair of shoes.
“Your Highness, get back inside!” Lark exclaimed.
Amelie ignored her. “That’s the memorial arch that’s burning! How is that possible? It’s made of marble.”
Despite herself, Lark stared at the graceful monument that framed the entrance to the public garden. It was indeed on fire, eerie orange and blue flames streaming from its surface. The flagpoles beside it were burning, too, and the flags with the proud black hawk of Marcari were already all but consumed. “Marble doesn’t burn, princess, but magic does.”
Fear twined like an icy serpent up her back, and she barely gulped back the acid taste of panic. Whatever happened at the Company headquarters is happening here.
And after the fire that had burned her, flames were Lark’s nightmare. She’d spent months healing from her injuries. Now the urge to bolt was so strong it made her shudder, and she gripped the balcony rail to steady her knees.
But this was no time for fear. Lark summoned her best voice of command. “Your Highness, get back inside. Now.”
Amelie gave her an imperious look. She clearly didn’t like giving in, but was smart enough to retreat indoors. Lark followed, latching the doors and drawing the curtains. Her hands trembled a moment before she let the lace panels go, then she took a steadying breath. She’d promised to protect Amelie, and the daughters of the Light Court kept their word.
“I’ll be right back,” said Lark. “Someone needs a lesson in manners.”
Chapter 8
“I’m coming with you,” Amelie said at once. “And don’t tell me to stay here and twiddle my thumbs like a good little princess!”
Lark shot her a look. “I’m sorry, but that is precisely what I’m begging you to do.”
“Lark!”
She tried for humor, hoping to soften her words. “I’m prepared to conjure a troll to sit on you
if you try to follow.”
Amelie’s eyes went wide with annoyance. “I don’t care if you’re an agent of the Light Court or the Company, you have no authority over me!”
Lark had reached the door, but now she spun and regarded the princess squarely. Amelie’s expression was a fierce blaze. Lark’s heart went out to the brave young woman, and she blinked to hide the tears that blurred her vision. “My job is to keep you alive, Your Highness. I take that seriously.”
With a sigh of frustration, Amelie subsided. Lark turned to go before the princess changed her mind.
As Lark opened the door, she saw palace security was reacting to the blast. Guards poured into the corridor to join the ones already on duty. Lark didn’t like leaving Amelie, but at least there was no chance the princess would be left alone.
“Look after her,” Lark said to the guard on duty, putting a tiny push of mental compulsion into the words, “and loan me your backup gun.”
Lark didn’t have a vampire’s talent for mind control, but she had enough. The guard handed his weapon over, and it turned out to be a Smith & Wesson much like the one Jack had taken from her. It was the first stroke of luck she’d had all night.
With that, Lark sprinted down the corridor, her feet silent on the patterned runner. She had to get a closer look at the burning arch. Fey weren’t exempt from the urge to view their handiwork, and there was every chance the culprit was lurking somewhere in the crowd and gearing up for his next move.
She dodged lightly around the guardsmen hurrying toward the stairs, but speed wasn’t possible once she got to the main passageway. People were dithering in the stairwell like a herd of nervous sheep. She settled for using her elbows to force her way through the crowd. Once she reached the entrance hall, she dashed out the doors and across the lawn. Police, firefighters and throngs of onlookers were already there.
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