by Amy Cissell
Florence spun around and stalked out while I stared at her. I thought I’d been doing pretty well over the past months. I’d learned to put up a shield to keep people from eavesdropping. I could start fires if necessary. My self-defense skills were top notch. I’d learned to fly in my dragon form, and I was pretty sure that once I was unbound, I’d be able to fly in my human form as well. I’d opened five gates. I thought I’d handled all the changes with poise. I didn’t realize I was still failing Florence. I felt a dull ache start in the center of my being and knew it was a combination of shame and despair. Florence was my best friend, and she was disappointed in me. Worse, she couldn’t count on me when the going got tough. I felt tears well up in the corners of my eyes and knew that I was going to cry.
I didn’t want to do that in front of Emma and Petrina, so I grabbed the plate of biscuits and a beer and fled up to my room. I stayed in my room until my eyes stopped leaking and then stayed a bit longer while I finished the plate of biscuits. I was going to have to take the mental shielding more seriously; that much was obvious. I wondered if Florence blamed me for her imprisonment. If I’d been better able to shield myself, would’ve she been able to stay here with the hot water and good food instead of having to stay in New Orleans in the damp dungeons just to keep an eye on me?
There was a knock on the door, and before I could answer, it opened, and Florence walked in.
“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. I have counted on you a lot and felt perfectly secure doing so. You’ve learned a lot in the nine months since you learned who you were, and it is not entirely your fault that your mental shielding is so weak. I didn’t push you as hard as I could’ve.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I said. “Is it because I didn’t take the shielding exercises seriously enough that you had to be imprisoned as well?”
Florence looked a little bit uncomfortable and didn’t answer.
“You weren’t, were you?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” she said. “Not in the same way you were. I was more of the ‘honored guest’ type of prisoner. I was kept in very nice quarters, given free run of the house and grounds, but not allowed to leave. I had a guard at all times.”
“I guess that’s how you knew the location of the secret passageway?”
“No, I took that from someone’s mind as I was running to get you when all hell broke loose. I knew the mansion was going to burn, and I didn’t want us to be stuck there when it did.”
I sighed then looked at her. “Hug it out?”
Florence looked shocked and then she laughed. “Really?”
I opened my arms, and we hugged.
“Do you have other questions?” she asked.
“I do, but I’d like Petrina present for them, as some involve her assbucket father.”
Florence laughed. “You still haven’t forgiven him?”
“He traded me for a sword.”
“He told you he would,” Florence reminded me.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”
I slid off the bed and grabbed the empty biscuit plate. Once we were back in the kitchen pretending that no one had stormed out, I got back to business.
“Who was attacking Marie? Why did she need an army of ghouls to protect her house? What’s the deal with the weird agreement Marie made with Medb’s emissaries regarding me? Is she going to try to decapitate me after the gates are open?”
Petrina took a deep and unnecessary breath. She looked over my head, and a significant glance passed between her and Florence. I tried to be glad that they were connecting, but it just pissed me off. Before I could get my panties twisted too much, Petrina looked back at me and said, “You’re not going to be decapitated.”
“I wasn’t worried that she was going to succeed, and I developed some suspicions while I was cooling my heels playing the most boring version of Dungeons and Dragons ever—and that’s saying a lot. But Marie did promise to deliver my head, didn’t she?”
Florence interjected, “I believe Marie’s exact promise was to deliver the ‘head of the pretender,’ was it not?”
I nodded. My suspicions were proving correct.
“And didn’t she spend some time and effort sorting out your pedigree?”
“She tried. I don’t think we know much more than we did before, though.”
Everyone sat and stared at me for a minute. I stared back, not sure what they were getting at. I wasn’t used to feeling dense, but I was positive I was missing something crucial. I grabbed another cheddar biscuit from the mysteriously refilled basket and started nibbling. The captivity and binding—not to mention the starvation—was obviously affecting my mental prowess.
Emma sighed dramatically and said, “You’re not the pretender, dumbass. You are the actual heir to the throne. Medb called you the pretender, but you aren’t. When Marie and Raj promised to deliver the head of the pretender to the queen, they were promising to deliver Medb’s head to you. God. You are so slow today.”
I looked at Florence for confirmation. She nodded.
“Oh.” I closed my mouth. “Oh. Well, that’s better, I guess.”
I was still pissed at Raj. Really, really pissed. I wasn’t sure our relationship was salvageable at this point, but at least now I knew that he never planned on having me decapitated, which definitely would’ve been a stumbling block. There was no way I could even consider rebuilding our burgeoning relationship if I thought he was going to cut off my head at some point. That is not romantic.
I sat nibbling biscuits for a while digesting this information. It was going to take a while longer to reconcile my feelings about Raj, and I felt like I should do it now while I had some private headspace, but I wanted answers to my other questions first.
“Okay, I’ll buy the whole trickery thing. I am angry that I had to be kept in the dark about the plan. Really angry. I think there could’ve been a way around it. Since everyone’s known it was necessary for so long, we could’ve been doing a boot camp intensive on how to block certain parts of my mind off from being read. Or, if I’d known how important it was, I could’ve worked harder on it. Since no one told me why I needed to work harder on that aspect of the many, many different things that have manifested in the last nine months, I think it’s really shitty to make that kind of decision without consulting me. Really, really shitty.” I glared at Florence since the other two women really had nothing to do with the best friend betrayal that happened there. “I’ve managed to master a lot of new skills in the last few months by sheer force of will and a lot of practice, if anyone had bothered to explain why mental shielding was more important than keeping Florence out of my sex-crazed brain, I probably could’ve managed that, too.
“I’m relieved that no one is planning on removing my head. Well, no one but Finn and Medb and whoever is supporting them. That’s the best news I’ve had all day.” I thought about that statement for a minute. “Second best news after ‘I have coffee.’” Everyone laughed a little nervously. They were probably all a little relieved that my anger was not currently manifesting in sudden infernos. I grinned. Then I had a sudden thought. “How are there hot showers? And all this food? How?”
“I hate cold showers,” Petrina shrugged.
I looked around. Apparently, that was answer enough. “You are my new favorite,” I told her. I snagged another biscuit and then asked my other questions again. “So? The ghouls? Who’s attacking Marie?”
“The ghouls are Marie’s,” Florence said.
“I’d gathered that when they didn’t bother me and Raj,” I said. “Plus, she’s the zombie Queen of New Orleans. They almost had to be hers. But who’s attacking?” It was weird. It seemed like no one wanted to answer that question.
Petrina and Florence exchanged another glance.
“Hey!” I said. “Stop it! There is no hiding information from the intrepid heroine!”
Petrina cocked her head to one side and looked at me. “You’re t
he intrepid heroine? Why not me? Or Florence?”
“Or me?” Emma broke in. “I’m much better looking and more likable.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “This is my quest, and you’re all my sidekicks. Except Emma. She’s the expendable comic relief. And the intrepid heroine cannot be completely intrepid if people are withholding information. So. What the fuck is going on?”
This time it was Florence who sighed while Petrina spoke. “It appears to be the Fae attacking.”
“What? How? Why? And why not just tell me?”
Florence took up the narrative thread, “Well, it seems the Fae who are currently on this plane have been…uh…flocking to your banner, found you were being kept against your will and attacked to free you.”
“I don’t have a banner,” I said to buy some time to think about this completely unexpected development.
“You do, actually,” Emma said. “It’s pretty lame. It’s swords crossed over an iron gate. No dragons at all. Which I guess makes sense since so few people know that you’re Dark Sidhe and can turn into a dragon, but when you’re Queen, I’d like permission to design your coat of arms.”
“You’re going to be my etiquette coach and my arms designer? You’ll be busy,” I teased.
I looked up at Florence. “So, ‘my people,’” I made finger quotes, “are fighting to release me from Marie because they believe she’s holding me prisoner, torturing me, and is intending to turn me over to Medb at some point. In other words, all the things I believed until a little bit ago?”
Florence nodded.
“In fact, Marie is at least marginally on our side—or at least not on Medb’s side? And Raj, who is on our side, is fighting with Marie?”
Florence nodded again.
“What are the chances that anyone fighting on Marie’s side is actually an emissary of Medb’s at this point?”
“Slim to none,” Petrina said. “They’ll all have fled at the first sign of trouble.”
“So, the only people who are going to get hurt are at worst neutral and more likely on my side?”
“That sums it up,” Florence said.
“What are we going to do? I need to stop this!”
Petrina glanced out the window. “It’ll be over soon. It’s almost dawn.”
I followed Petrina’s glance, but it still looked pretty dark to me. Vampires were probably better at gauging the passage of the sun than me, though, so I decided to believe her. “Why will it be over at dawn? The Fae won’t stop fighting, will they?””
“No,” Petrina said. “But Marie, her clan, my father, and the ghouls will, and that is the bulk—maybe the entirety of the defending army at this point. When they disappear, who will the Fae and their supporters fight?”
“Won’t they try to find the daytime sleeping places of Marie and Raj?” I asked. “And where do the ghouls go in the daytime?”
“They ghouls will go back to the cemeteries from which they were raised, and the Fae might try to find Marie and my father and their supporters, but unless Marie has a few particularly young and stupid vampires in her clan, they will not be found. One of the first lessons we learn is how to hide ourselves during the day. It is only the very young, the very stupid, or the very arrogant who let their secret places be known.”
“But these aren’t ordinary human enemies,” I protested. “These are Fae! They probably have wi-mages on their payroll.”
“I know you’re concerned about my father,” Petrina said. I made a noise trying to indicate disagreement since I was unable to verbalize any disagreement. Stupid truthiness. “He’ll be fine,” she soothed.
Since I actually didn’t care about Marie’s ghouls, mindless, not-so-shambling dead as they were, and I was still pretty miffed at Marie, and didn’t know any of her people except the big idiot who wouldn’t give me my food, I wasn’t that concerned about them, either. I didn’t necessarily want them to die during their day sleep, but yeah, Raj was the one I cared about. Stupid feelings.
“Good to know,” he said behind me.
I didn’t jump. Much. “I’m getting you a bell,” I muttered.
Raj reached out and touched my shoulder, but I jerked away. “Don’t,” I said. I just wasn’t ready. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. “I am pissed.”
“But you still care,” he said.
“I don’t want you to die. That is not the same as wanting to resume our relationship. There’re a lot more people I want alive than dead. Don’t feel too smug that I equate you with Extra Grady rather than Finn.”
Florence tried unsuccessfully to smother a laugh.
“Who’s Extra Grady?” Emma asked.
Florence told a highly-exaggerated tale of the bobcat shifter we’d met outside of Asheville. Petrina and Emma were laughing uproariously by the time she was finished. Raj was not. He’d not met Extra Grady Wiggins, but he was not impressed with his new categorization.
“Is that how you think of me?” he asked as Florence tried to imitate Extra Grady’s accent. “The comic relief?”
“I’ve already designated Emma as the expendable comic relief,” I said aloud. “Petrina and Florence are my sidekicks. Finn and Medb are the nemesises. Nemeses? You are…” I thought. What stock character was Raj? “You are the…”
“Romantic lead,” he said.
“Nope. You are the chaotic neutral. The mercenary. The one that is in it to mess shit up with little regard for how the pieces fall. You’re not truly good nor truly evil, but are there to stir the pot.”
“Is that what you believe?”
I looked him straight in the eye. “I cannot lie to you.”
He blinked once and then took the conversation back to private mode again. “Will you ever forgive me?”
I started to say no, but couldn’t, so I didn’t answer.
“That’s enough for now.” He bowed slightly then turned and left as quickly as he’d appeared.
“I need to go, too,” Petrina said. “It’s nearly dawn, and the sun makes me much more uncomfortable than it does dear old dad.” She walked out of the kitchen with Florence. There was a murmur of voices from the front hall, and then Florence reappeared as the sound of Petrina’s exit echoed through the house.
“You should get some real, good sleep,” Florence said. “There’s a bed, with clean sheets and a mattress, and all sorts of luxuries waiting for you upstairs.”
No one was going to talk about me and Raj. Good.
I stretched and yawned. I was tired and sleeping in a bed sounded like my idea of heaven at this point. “Okay. That is an excellent idea. I’d like to sleep for most of the day, then strategize our exit from New Orleans with Petrina and her father early tomorrow evening, then sleep from midnight to dawn on the twentieth. The gate opens at noon, so if we leave shortly after the sun rises, we should get to the gates no later than 9:30. That’ll give us two hours to set up the weir, deal with any weirdness at the gate, and hopefully be fully prepped to open it at noon.”
“Where do you want me?” Emma asked.
“With us,” I replied. “It’s just the three of us that I can count on. Florence and I will both have our hands full, so you’ll need to be on the alert for trouble and try to alert Florence if she needs to let go of the magic weir early.”
Emma didn’t say anything, but she looked like she was standing a little straighter. I was so glad she was accepting her strength. No weak women on my watch!
“Should we try to get in touch with Arduinna?” Florence asked. “Do you think she knows about your Fae army?”
I groaned, having nearly forgotten about my loyal subjects. “Probably. There’s a backyard with trees, right? I’ll do that as soon as the sun is up before I sleep. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her in Pennsylvania since I passed out the second I saw her.”
I scrubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. I was exhausted, and the prospect of imminent sleep weighed on me. I glanced out the window and saw light beginning to streak the eastern horizon. I s
traightened my spine and stood up. I looked longingly at the carafe of coffee, but I did want to sleep after talking to Arduinna, so I skipped it and poured myself a glass of water instead. I walked out into the backyard and settled myself under an oak tree. It was old and very beautiful. I thought that Arduinna would appreciate this much more than some of the trees I’d asked her to come through. As soon as the sun was above the horizon, I formed a picture of Arduinna in my mind and pictured her here with me. I was less than five minutes before an Arduinna-shaped piece of tree detached from the oak and walked towards me.
I stood, remembering what she’d said about standing while I was sitting. She bowed, and I inclined my head gracefully.
“Your Highness,” she said. “Thank you for choosing such a lovely door for me this time.”
“You’re most welcome. Please sit.” I indicated the grass under the tree. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat, and I gratefully followed suit.
“So,” I said a little awkwardly. “How much do you know about what’s been going on down here?”
Arduinna fixed her gaze on a point about twenty feet to my left, a clear sign that she was planning on misleading me. I let her for now. I was intrigued by her crappy poker face. She was so old; you’d think she’d be able to bluff better than that.
“I’ve been very busy helping President Murphy set up the provincial governments that this is the first time I’ve been to Mississippi in months,” Arduinna said.
“And how are the governments going? Are all the governors Fae?” I asked. I was genuinely curious if the new world order was entirely supernatural, especially after finding out that the slightly older world order—or at least United States order—was mostly supernatural.
“We are not calling them governors. The states are—for now—keeping their political autonomy. Or at least as much as they had before. The six regions are being led by Premiers who are being appointed by the regional governors from among them, which of course require that the state that has lost a governor do an election. The six premiers are currently taking the place of most of Congress, although I would like to eventually reestablish some sort of legislative body.”
