All this “queen” stuff was a bit much but I knew better than to downplay my status. I’d learned my lesson the day I told the Hunter I wasn’t the king. He’d said I couldn’t fly anymore if I wasn’t. Until I got a better handle on things, I’d do my best to incur and keep the respect and cooperation of the Fae. “Why were you banished?”
A male fairy with copper and tan spots pushed through, knelt in a puddle before me, put one hand to his breast and bowed deeply. “O Munificent Queen, unlike the others of our race, our hearts failed to ice.”
I cocked my head, startled. Was he telling me they felt emotion? I was just about to ask when he continued, “Nor did our loins. From jealousy and spite they drove us out, stupendous, all-powerful Queen. She who rules no more decreed we were not Fae enough for Faery once we began siring young on this world.”
I gasped. “You can have children?” I’d thought it impossible for Fae to reproduce!
“Few, but yes, O Fair and Radiant Liege. It didn’t begin happening until we came to this world. The other castes were patient for a time, waiting to see if the same would occur for them. When it did not, they turned the queen’s icy heart against us. She stripped us of our place in Faery.”
He gestured to someone behind him and a young, light purple and green fairy, the perfect coloring to hide in a hydrangea bush, came forward holding a tiny bundle in her arms, cradling it beneath a shiny leaf to keep it dry. She peeled back the misted leaf to show me a naked, translucent, infant fairy the size of a fingernail.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, smiling. It was adorable. And so tiny! “She’s lovely.”
Blushing, the fairy exclaimed, “I am honored by your kindness, great Queen! Our young are void of color at birth and grow slowly into their patterns, painted by whatever element of Nature they favor. Some are drawn to waterfalls.” She waved a hand at a young female fairy, marked with vertical stripes of white and pale gray. “Others to rocks or forests or tall grassy meadows or flowers. Some part of Nature calls to each of us and she patterns us accordingly.” She blushed again. “I live among the gorse and heather, great Queen. If I am blessed, so will my child be.”
“Why would you wish to return to court? It sounds as if you like this world.”
The male fairy said, “My Queen, we but seek the freedom to come and go as we wish, as do the others of our kind. We desire our seat upon the council back. We are Fae. We have always been Fae. They had no right to cast us out. Faery is our home, too, and we would have a say in the matters of our race.”
As I stared out at the thousands of diminutive Fae gathered in the rainy street, it finally, fully sunk in.
I was the Faery queen. This wasn’t a trial run or a temporary situation.
They’d felt my power and sought me out, tracked me here. No doubt other Seelie would, too. And each would bring their problems and grievances and demands. The higher castes (thinking Dree’lia here) would no doubt come armed with hostility, resentment, and murder in their frosted hearts. I was supposed to rule this race. Hear and settle their disputes, enter into their politics.
It was too much to process. Part of me wanted to whirl back into the bookstore, slam the door, and reject it all. It was one thing to have been bequeathed the potential to save our world, entirely another to actually become the queen of a race of beings I was beginning to realize I knew nothing about. A race of beings that, a year ago, I’d actively hunted and killed. I’d wanted nothing more than to eradicate the Fae race from our planet. Was that the answer? Save our world, find them a new one and turn my power over to another, Fae-born?
At the moment, whether I liked it or not, I was their queen, and until I figured out what to do about it I would behave accordingly. These tiny beings were looking to me for justice, decisions, leadership. They could have children. They felt. My entire apprehension of the Fae race was being turned on its ear.
They were elementals, drawn to Nature. “Do you sense the disturbance in the fabric of this world?”
Thousands of heads nodded instantly.
“Is there anything you can do to help heal it?”
Thousands of heads shook no.
“We are small Fae, and do small things, beauteous Queen,” the heather and gorse fairy said. “Enriching the soil, cleansing the water, making flowers bloom more brightly. Large matters such as the sickness that eats away at this world are beyond us.”
“I’ve heard your petition and will consider it. But as your queen, my first duty is to secure the safety of this planet.”
The male fairy with copper-tan spots bowed deeply again. “Well said, my lucent Queen. We will repair to our abodes and await an opportune moment.”
Clapping their hands to their heads, they vanished.
Frowning, I hurried back into the warmth and dryness of the bookstore. I’d assumed they were a lower caste. Could they sift?
My eyes widened. Could I sift now?
If I could sift, I had no bloody idea how.
Magic didn’t work for me the way it did for Harry Potter, by pointing a wand, muttering a spell, and getting the desired outcome, nor with the twinkle of a Bewitched nose. It was far more elusive and subtle than that. Either that or I just didn’t know the right magic words or the proper part of my body to twitch.
The two times I’d channeled the magic, I had no idea how I’d done it. When I’d returned from the planet with three moons, the bookstore was perfectly restored but I didn’t know why. I figured it was because I’d been found worthy, but that wasn’t a repeatable recipe. And thank goodness, because I’d hate to have to prove myself worthy every time I wanted to use it. Not only would that be a real time suck, but stressful to endure a new interrogation each time.
I’d envisioned the flowers from the mound, and the ice had melted. But again I had no idea why or what I’d done. I sat on the sofa for an hour this morning (after spending ten minutes braiding my insanely long mane of hair to get it out of my face), trying to do something so simple as grow a single flower, and met with repeated failure. I even tried stripping away all emotion and using sheer force of will on the world around me, employing my “belief is reality” tool with equally abysmal results.
Unable to take advantage of a queenly power I’d really like to use, I slogged like every other human in Dublin, through cobbled streets that were gushing with small gutter-bound rivers, fighting to hold my umbrella against the brisk, drenching wind, making my way to Trinity College to deliver the music box as promised.
Periodically I’d feel the acute stress of someone’s regard and glance quickly, to catch only a brief glimpse of one Fae or another as they melted hastily from my vision, behind a building or lamp or car.
The word was out. It was possible the Spyrssidhe alone—already banished and with little to lose—would dare approach me. I knew how feared the princes were among the Fae, inspiring obsequious fawning, obedience, and given wide, wary berth. No doubt their queen had been a hundred times as terrifying. How else could anyone control a race of immortals as power-hungry and brutal as V’lane/Cruce?
Damn it, I needed him on my side. He could teach me.
He’d prefer to kill me. I was the only thing standing between him and the throne for which he hungered. We’d left the princess cocooned in the boudoir.
“MacKayla.” Cruce appeared beside me as if summoned by my thoughts.
I startled, jumped back, nearly went down on the slippery pavement and caught myself on his arm.
He stared down at my hand on his forearm, a muscle working in his jaw, as if it was hard for him in some way to see me touching him. He was fully Unseelie prince, not bothering with glamour, dark, enormous, and powerfully built, with kaleidoscopic tattoos racing beneath his skin like brilliant storm clouds, flitting up his neck to flirt with the writhing torque around his neck. He’d dressed—no doubt in an attempt to disarm or make me see him as more like us—as a human, in faded jeans, boots, and a flowing linen shirt. I was inordinately irritated to see not one speck of rain fal
ling on him. He was, I observed with a distant, unwilling part of my mind, unutterably beautiful, exotic, and disturbingly, basely male.
I snatched it away and stared up into his dark face.
He’d raped me.
And he had answers I needed. I’d offered to be the sheepdog, not the wolf, if he would cooperate.
I recalled the day Barrons had told me we couldn’t kill the Unseelie princes because they were linchpins. I’d thoroughly resented it.
I understood it now. And strangely, I no longer felt white-hot fury or trembling rage when I looked at him. He was a predator. He’d preyed on me. I was aware now. Wide-awake, eyes open. I knew what existed in the world and I knew how to protect myself from it. All that was left in me about the rape was a calm acknowledgment that this man had harmed me. I knew what he was and would deal with him accordingly.
He said icily, “Recall, when you regard me with condemnation in your eyes that I also gave you the elixir. I did not use the Sidhba-jai on you that day nor contribute to your madness. If I had not attended you then, you would have died in the street, maimed and broken as your sister. You have finally become the creature I knew you might one day be. If the price of your survival was permitting my carnal use of your body for that brief time, would you have accepted it, had the choice been presented to you?”
I said nothing, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of my spear.
“Answer me,” he said imperiously.
“I didn’t hear a ‘O Great and Glorious Liege’ in there anywhere.”
Abruptly, rain stopped splattering into my umbrella. He’d extended whatever power he was using to hold it at bay to encompass me as well. I closed my umbrella and rested the tip on the ground.
“I see the answer in your eyes. You, like me, would pay any price to survive to fight for your desires for even one more day.”
“That doesn’t excuse your actions. You could have simply given me the elixir. You didn’t have to rape me.”
“I caused you no harm. You experienced only pleasure at my hands. And I experienced enormous pleasure in yours. It was not the way I would have chosen it to be.”
“You think if a person is forced to orgasm during rape it’s not rape.” How wrong he was. Above me, thunder cracked and boomed, and I wondered if the weather was causing it, or me. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I am incapable of seeing it any other way. I am Fae, MacKayla. You know what I am. Do you seek my counsel? Shall I attend you?”
“You vanished last night, refusing us aid.”
“You do not see me. You have never seen me. To you, alone, will I give my aid. I have always offered it to you. I offer it now.”
“So you can get close to me, awaiting the opportunity to kill me.”
His eyes narrowed, locked with mine. “I would be your consort, your instructor, your lover. I would prove to you that I did not and never would harm you with my lust. Teach you as I once taught Aoibheal.”
“Who you also tried to kill.”
He smiled faintly. “She was not like you. You are the best of both worlds: the ice and power of a Fae queen, the passion and fire of a human. By the time she was queen, she’d been fully Fae for a long time.”
“Barrons is my consort.”
“Discard him. Choose me. I have always hungered for you. That was never a lie.”
“I will never choose you. I command you to aid me. I am your queen.”
“You are not my queen, nor was she. I am not of that puny race. I am Unseelie. Try again.” He smiled again, white teeth flashing in his dark chiseled face. “Unlike the Seelie, you do not know my True Name. You can never compel me. Merely request. I will be your ally. I will teach you all that I can about your newfound powers. But you must reward me.”
“What do you want?” Here it was: we were getting to the miracle it would take to wed him to my aim.
“First, you will restore my wings. Then once we have saved this world, you will willingly transfer the True Magic to me.”
“I could do that—restore your wings and transfer the queen’s power?” What else could I do? Fix a human heart?
He inclined his head imperiously.
“Wings only. After.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Then no.” Cruce in charge of the Fae? Cruce with at least part of the Sinsar Dubh, all the queen’s power, plus the song, assuming we managed to re-create it? What would keep him from wiping us all off the face of the Earth and taking it for himself?
He intuited my thoughts. “We will agree to a Compact, MacKayla. Fae rulers are bound irrevocably by such magic. You will find confirmation of the truth I speak within you. As queen, you possess, undiluted, all the knowledge, myths, and magic of our race.”
“Do I have her memories, too?”
“Memories are not transferred. The Fae already suffer an abundance of them.”
I exhaled a sigh of relief. Though part of me had hoped I had them, another part of me had dreaded feeling split again, divided by memories that were not my own.
“I will agree to remove my race from your world, MacKayla, without harming it, or anything on it, before we go.” He correctly interpreted the look on my face and added a haughty, “Or after, O Suspicious One. Or ever. I will agree to never return and your planet will be forbidden to all Fae for all time. You may have your brehon father draft the details of our Compact and your druids oversee the enforcing of it. MacKayla, by these pledges will I abide,” he intoned with the somber gravity of a vow.
I stared into his eyes, those madness-inducing Unseelie prince eyes, and was startled by the transparency therein. He wasn’t lying. If I agreed to his terms he would do everything he could to save our world, then once I transferred the queen’s power to him, he would take his race away and leave us in peace. Forever.
It wasn’t a bad deal.
In all honesty, after my encounter with the Spyrssidhe that morning, I didn’t want to be queen of the Tuatha De Danann. I still harbored hope that one day I might be “just Mac” again; undoubtedly a new and vastly improved Mac—but one without four feet of hair and the crushing responsibility for an entire race. When would I ever have time to see Barrons or my family and friends? Where would I live? In Faery half the time, a reluctant Persephone dividing her days between Heaven and Hell?
“Who better to rule them than me, MacKayla? There is no stronger, more powerful, ancient, and wise Fae than I. You heard the queen. She, herself, was considering me. We both know you do not wish to be one of us. You bear no favor for my people. I will aid you unstintingly, withholding nothing that is necessary to achieve the health and well-being of your world. Grant me the right to lead my race. It is all I have ever sought, indeed, all I have ever desired. I spoke the truth when I told you, as V’lane, that Cruce’s sole aim was to free my brethren and ensure the future of the Fae. At this moment both our races are in danger of extinction.”
“Actually, that’s not true. The queen may have irrevocably bound the power of the Fae to this planet, and your race will definitely die if the planet does, but humans can go live anywhere. Our existence isn’t dependent on magic buried inside a world. My race can be moved to another one,” I pointed out.
His nostrils flared and he hissed, “If you would leave my people to die after having been entrusted with the True Magic of my race, after having been accepted by it, you are no better than you accuse me of being. Although I have never felt it, I have heard it is a power of great benevolence. I am willing to subject my desires and goals for my people to its scrutiny, and believe it will deem me worthy to lead them. Prove yourself the queen I believe you to be. The queen the True Magic thinks you are.”
He vanished.
I was instantly drenched.
Rolling my eyes, I popped open my umbrella and resumed sloshing through puddles toward Trinity College.
Fade was standing outside the door to the physics lab when I puddled in. Ryodan had dispatched him late last night, he told me, w
ith orders to protect Dancer so long as the music box was in his possession.
Stepping into the lab, I propped my umbrella against the wall, grabbed paper towels off a counter, and dried my face, then hurried to join Dancer where he sat with headphones on, staring at a computer in the rear of the lab.
After exchanging greetings, I removed the music box from my backpack and handed it to him.
Fiddling with the unopened box, turning it this way and that, Dancer told me, “Gottfried Leibniz said that music is the secret exercise of the arithmetic of the soul, unaware of its act of counting.” He looked up at me and beamed. “Don’t you just love that? The relationship between math and music is sublime. I was picking up a lot of distortion from the box last night, so I set up equipment to cancel it out. I want to focus on the notes and chords, which I’ll convert to numbers and play with.”
“How?” I asked curiously. I loved music and had given a lot of thought to what made certain songs appeal to me more than others. I thought of songs as minibooks, with their own beginning, middle, and end and sometimes prefaces that established expectations. All had a story to tell. I responded to pattern repetition, motif that was recurrent, recombinant, and easily subjected to intriguing transformation. Although I adored happy one hit wonders, I could achieve the same buoyancy of mood from a number of classical pieces.
“There are eight notes in any given major scale that can be assigned numbers,” he said. “If you start with middle C as one, D becomes two and E becomes three and so on. You can also assign numbers to chords in the same fashion. As an example, you can do a musical interpretation of pi. A guy named Michael Blake did a fantastic interpretation of pi to thirty-one decimal places at a tempo of one hundred fifty-seven beats per minute, which, interestingly, is 314/2. When it was up on YouTube, I downloaded it because I liked it. Have a listen.” He pulled up the video on his laptop and hit PLAY.
After a few moments I said, “It’s beautiful. It makes me feel happy.”
“Yeah,” he grinned, “the nuts and bolts of the universe tend to be that way.”