Chapter Nine
They took her to the same room where they had broken her fingers. Her breath shook as she looked at the grim surroundings. She had to stiffen the muscles in her legs to remain standing.
Bad things happened here. This was where they tortured people and killed them.
The guard who brought the meals was present, but he remained in the background while the powerfully built male who had dragged her out of her cell swung her around to face him.
“Who did this?” he demanded, gripping her by the wrists so he could stare at her hands, which she had clenched into fists.
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, throwing every ounce of passionate conviction she could into her voice. “I was asleep when it happened. When I woke up, my hands were completely healed.”
“You were asleep when someone miraculously healed your broken hands,” the male said, his tone skeptical while his eyes narrowed. “In an underground prison.”
Her gaze darted around. This was a room where they questioned people as they tortured them. Someone had to have truthsense.
“Well, I couldn’t have healed myself,” she said flatly. “I have no magic. I can’t even telepathize. You can ask him if you want.” With a jerk of her chin, she indicated the mealtime guard. “Didn’t I say thank you? I’m a musician. It’s the one skill I’ve got that might interest her majesty. The Queen had to have ordered this, right? Who else could it have been? Like you said, it’s an underground prison.”
Questions weren’t lies. She was banking her future on it. They just helped to support her statements as she was telling them.
When her interrogator’s hard gaze lifted to the mealtime guard, he admitted, “That bit’s true enough. She kept crying and carrying on, and insisting on the chance to apologize to her majesty and make it up to her.”
Her interrogator released his bruising hold on her wrists. “Keep her here while I inform his lordship,” he ordered the guards.
As the male strode out, Sid backed against a wooden table so she could lean against it as she massaged her wrists.
After having been in the darkness for so long, her eyesight felt weak and oversensitive. Although most of the illumination in this room came from a fire in an iron grill, everything seemed overbright, and her eyes kept tearing without her having to resort to biting her cheeks. She avoided looking at the three other guards left in the room.
His lordship. Did he mean Modred?
Well, she knew it had to get worse before it could get any better.
If it got better.
She didn’t know if she would live to see another evening, and she regretted…
She regretted so many things. She was sorry she never got the chance to have breakfast with Julie in Paris. She wished she could see another sunrise. She regretted not being able to tell Vince what had happened to her, because she knew her disappearance would haunt him.
But she especially regretted not being able to look in her benefactor’s eyes as she told him good-bye and thanked him one final time. She wished she’d had that eye-to-eye contact with him, just once.
The wait felt interminable, her patience stretched tight from nerves. This time the sound of approaching footsteps was rapid. The door flew open, and Modred stalked into the room.
He looked the same as he had when she had first met him, a richly dressed, handsome Light Fae male, but now there was nothing pleasant in his hard expression. Striding over, he grabbed one of her wrists and yanked up her hand to stare at it.
She had been correct. Her body knew him, and every nerve rioted at his touch. Under his piercing gaze, she opened and closed her fingers.
He shook her hand under her nose and hissed, “Who did this?”
“I don’t know!” she exclaimed. With a quick yank, she took him by surprise and pulled out of his grasp. Before he could grab her wrist again, she hid her hands defensively in her armpits, her arms wrapped around her torso in a classic defensive gesture. “I never saw who did this or heard their voice. I certainly can’t see anything in that cell, and I wasn’t awake when it happened.” She looked at her first interrogator. “Somebody in this room has got to know I’m telling the truth.”
As Modred looked at him too, her first interrogator raised his eyebrows and gave an infinitesimal shrug.
Without taking his eyes off the other man, Modred said over his shoulder, “How many Hounds do we have on the castle grounds?”
“Not many, my lord,” the male said from behind him. “Most of them are on the search, on Earth. Perhaps three or four?”
“Get a couple of them down here to see if they can pick up a scent.” Modred turned away. He told her first interrogator, “Bring her.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Oh, yay! They were taking her someplace else. Almost anyplace else would be better than this horrible room saturated with blood and pain. Except for her cell. That wouldn’t be better. But from the sound of it, they had another destination in mind.
Don’t get your hopes up, she told herself as her first interrogator grabbed her arm and hauled her after Modred, who strode as rapidly down the hall as he had the first time she had met him.
She would have a collection of bruises on her arms from all the manhandling. “I’m cooperating, you know,” she told the Light Fae guard. “You don’t have to drag me along like this. I can keep up.”
He gave her a disdainful frown but released her. “See that you do,” he snapped. “Or you’ll end up in worse condition than you were in before.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she yanked her hoodie and worn T-shirt straight again. As bad as her captors were, her worst enemy was her own temper. She mustn’t let any of them get to her so badly she forgot her goals, because if she let that happen, she was done for.
Modred led them up the stairs and, just like the first time, through a maze of halls. Enchanted with the dizzying array of colors, textures, sights, and scents, Sid couldn’t stop staring around her. After days of sensory deprivation, the rich scenery was almost too much to take in.
He led the way past guards onto a verandah that opened to a walled garden filled with emerald green grass, flowering trees, and climbing roses. Travertine marble provided a cool, elegant floor, while columns of travertine punctuated the space.
Isabeau sat in the shade of an apple tree on the marble border of a large, round pool, throwing scraps of bread into the water while small ripples appeared as fish snatched at the food.
As before, the Queen looked strikingly beautiful, her long golden hair dressed in curls. She wore a light, sleeveless gown of pale blue silk with a plunging neckline. The material was so thin, it outlined the slender legs underneath it.
When the Queen glanced at them, her delicate brows drew together in a frown. She said in an edged voice, “Modred, I thought I told you I wanted the afternoon to myself.”
“Of course you did, my love,” he told her. “But trust me, you will want to hear this.” Turning, he gestured at the Light Fae guard, who reached for her arm again.
But Sid saw him coming and slipped neatly away from his grasp.
Throwing herself forward, she landed on her knees in front of the Light Fae Queen, bowing so deeply her chin almost touched the manicured grass. She focused her gaze on the delicate leather slippers in front of her.
“Your majesty, I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “When I first met you, I had no idea who you were. Nobody told me anything or taught me how to address you properly. Now that I do know, I’m embarrassed to be brought into your presence in such a state—filthy, unbathed, and in ragged clothing. This isn’t an appropriate way to have an audience with a queen. If it were in my power to choose otherwise, I would have presented myself in a way that showed much more respect for your person.”
With her head bowed, she could just see Modred’s long legs out of the corner of her eye. As she spoke, he shifted abruptly. The air around her seemed to sharpen, as if filled with invisible knives.
You threw me under the bus the first time, she said silently to Modred. Just watch. I can throw you under a bus too.
Then Isabeau said, her tone light, measured, “Well, it appears at least someone is thinking of the correct protocol. Even if it is only the ugly brown-haired girl.”
And you, Sid said to the Queen. If I could chew off your leg and beat you with it, I would. Maybe I’ll get the chance one day. Now there’s a goal to strive for.
“Trust me, my love. This is too urgent to wait for protocol.” Modred’s reply sounded edged.
“Was that true the first time you brought her to me?” Isabeau asked.
“I smelled like a barnyard,” Sid murmured, ducking her head farther. “I was afraid, and I hadn’t eaten properly in days. Not that it’s any excuse, but it caused me to lash out. A monarch should be greeted with elegance and diplomacy. Your majesty, please forgive me.”
Silence fell over the tableau, heavy with nuances and the ripe scents of summer. Danger breathed softly along the back of Sid’s neck.
Then Isabeau murmured in a guarded tone, “Perhaps I’ll consider it. Now, why are you here? Modred, why is she here? Why are you here, when I expressly told you I wanted to be alone?”
“Show her, ugly brown-haired girl,” Modred said.
Holding up her hands, Sid turned them over and opened and closed her fingers. The silence grew heavier, like the press of a knife to her jugular.
“What is this?” Isabeau asked.
She couldn’t answer with anything but questions. “Isn’t it mercy?” she asked. “Didn’t you order this, yourself? The moment when I awoke to discover my hands were healed was indescribable. Your majesty, I’m so glad to get the chance to apologize.”
As she waited, her pulse pounded in her ears. Isabeau said nothing for so long, she plummeted into certainty. They were going to kill her and be done with it. A flash of heat washed over her body, followed by a wave of nausea.
Then she jettisoned past terror to realize Isabeau’s extended silence meant she must be telepathizing with someone. Perhaps Modred. Perhaps Sid’s interrogator. Isabeau would be demanding an explanation from her people and getting their versions of the truth.
Sid knew she had convinced the interrogator she knew nothing, but she had no idea what Modred believed.
Tightening every muscle in her torso, she willed the nausea away and waited.
With a rustle of silk, Isabeau left her seat. Long, bejeweled fingers curled around one of Sid’s hands, turning it first one way then the other.
“Look at that,” Isabeau murmured. “They are perfectly restored, aren’t they?”
Did the Queen believe she knew nothing? Was she going to claim credit for the healing? Sid didn’t dare look up. She hadn’t been given permission to do so.
“I’m grateful from the bottom of my heart,” she said, again pouring all the conviction of that truth into her voice.
Isabeau ordered, “Look at me.”
Lifting her head, Sid looked into the Queen’s intent, narrowed gaze.
Watching her closely, Isabeau asked, “Now will you play music for me, ugly brown-haired girl?”
And there it was, the chance to take her money shot. Her opportunity to deliver the closing statement, to seal the deal.
Filling her mind with the memory of the unending bleakness in her underground cell, Sid said with perfect, heartfelt honesty, “Your majesty, there is nothing I want more in this world than to play the very best music I can for you.”
A smile broke over Isabeau’s lovely face, like the deadly blooming of a poisonous flower.
“Excellent,” the Queen said, releasing her hand and standing. “Luckily for you, my music master Olwen is away for a fortnight, so I suppose I might as well give you one more chance. But you will not play anything while you’re like that. Your smell is too offensive. The next time I see you, I want you bathed and in proper attire. You may come to me this evening.”
The wave of relief that hit was so strong, Sid saw black spots dance in front of her eyes. Swaying, she murmured, “I apologize, your majesty, but—”
An edge entered Isabeau’s voice. “But—what—now?”
She simply didn’t have it in her to act servile any longer. Sitting back on her heels, Sid looked up at the Queen and said bluntly, “If you want me to play something for you tonight, I will do my very best, and all the passion of my heart will be in it. But if you give me at least until tomorrow, the music will be much, much better. My hands might be healed, but I’ve lost the conditioning in my fingers, and I haven’t played anything since before the injury.” Thinking back over everything her benefactor had said about Isabeau, she added, “You wouldn’t race a horse directly after it was hurt, would you? The horse couldn’t possibly win, and you would just injure it again.”
Comparing herself to an animal must have hit the right chord, because the irritation in Isabeau’s expression faded somewhat. “I suppose you have a point.”
Watching her carefully, Sid added, “Trust me, it will be worth the wait.”
“Oh, very well.” Isabeau raised one perfect blond eyebrow. “You have three days. I will expect something spectacular from you then, and if it isn’t, what was healed can be rebroken, and there’s always your cell waiting for you down below. Now, I’m done with this.” She snapped her fingers, and a plain-featured, elegantly dressed woman appeared. “Kallah, see this creature gets everything she needs and bring her to me on the evening of the third day.”
“Of course, your majesty,” Kallah murmured.
As Isabeau paused to glance at Sid one last time, a gleam entered her eyes. She added, “And cut off that dark hair. It offends me.”
Just when Sid thought she couldn’t be outraged or shocked any further, something else happened. Rage raced through her like a flash fire. As it passed, it left her shaking.
There was no reason whatsoever for Isabeau to have ordered her hair cut. It was a mean, petty cruelty, and a display of absolute power.
Gazing unblinkingly into the Queen’s eyes, she said mentally, After I play my heart out for you, I will find a way to destroy you. I don’t know when, and I certainly don’t know how. But I buried my mom and dad when they died in a plane crash. I graduated top of my class with a master’s in music from one of the most demanding and competitive schools in the world. I’m a successful musician, business woman, and multimillionaire, and if I could find a way to do all that, I can find a way to do this too.
The thought made her happy. She gave Isabeau a small, wry smile of acquiescence and bowed her head, while Kallah said, “As you wish. Come along, human.”
With every appearance of meekness, Sid did as she was told, and as she followed the Light Fae woman back indoors, she got the unsettling impression of the castle swallowing her whole.
Kallah led her through the immense maze, past the kitchens to an area where both the halls and rooms were rough, plain stone. She stopped at a small room at the end of a hallway. The Light Fae woman said, “These are the servants’ quarters, and this will be your room for the time being. Did you memorize the way we took to get here?”
“I think so,” Sid replied as she took in the details of the room.
There weren’t many. It was furnished with a narrow bed, a simple table with some kind of lamp, and what looked like a plain wardrobe. There was a small window as well, with a wooden shutter.
But the bed had a real mattress, the lamp itself was a miracle, and the window.
There would be light and fresh air. She felt the impulse to cry from sheer relief but reined it in. She refused to show any weakness to the composed, elegant woman who stood watching her so closely.
“Good,” Kallah said. “I don’t want to have to show you the way again. Follow me.”
She led Sid to the servants’ bathrooms and left her to wash. The rooms were clearly communal, with large pools and spouts of continually running water, so Sid did so quickly, dipping into a wooden bowl filled with soft, unscented soap to scrub her body, face, and hair.
She rinsed in cold water that poured out of one spout. It was icy cold and she was soon shivering, but she was in no mood to complain. She was truly clean for the first time since she could remember. Having nothing else, she used her dirty hoodie to dry off. She had just pulled on her jeans, T-shirt, and shoes when Kallah appeared again, carrying a thick pile of what looked like folded laundry.
She followed Kallah back to her room, and Kallah set her load on the bed. A pair of scissors lay on the top of the pile. “Here is bedding, a drying cloth for future baths, and clothes. You have two outfits, a dress, and a tunic and trousers. Look after these things and keep them clean. It’s easy to do, since the fabric has been spelled. All you need to do is rinse them.”
She raised her eyebrows, intrigued. “Does that include the blanket?”
“Yes. The water will run off the fabric and rinse away any dirt. If you ruin your blanket or your clothes, you’ll have to account for your things to the laundry mistress. She doesn’t take kindly to people who make unnecessary work for her, do you understand? And I won’t take it kindly if people come to me to complain about you.”
“I understand,” Sid told her.
Kallah assessed her with a cautious gaze. “Good. Now as soon as you change out of those horrible clothes, I’ll cut your hair. Then I’ll show you to the music hall so you can get started.”
Setting her jaw, Sid did as she was told. Both her new outfits were a nondescript brown, so she chose the dress and the leather slippers. She wasn’t quite sure how such a plain dress could be so ugly, but she couldn’t care less what it looked like. It was clean, and while the slippers were used, they fit well enough to stay on her feet.
When she folded up her dirty Earth outfit, surreptitiously she slipped her hand into her jeans pocket and scooped out her twenty-one pebbles. As she transferred them to the pocket of her dress, Kallah held her hands out. “Give me those clothes.”
This time it was Sid who gave her a narrow-eyed glance. “Why?”
Kallah’s nostrils curled in disgust. “They’re disgusting. I’m going to have them burned.”
Rage flashed through Sid’s body again. Filthy as they were, the jeans, T-shirt, shoes, and underwear were the only things she had in this place that were truly her own.
She wanted to lash out so badly it left her shaking again, but now was not the time to show a rebellious streak. She had barely gotten herself out of prison.
When she felt she could speak calmly, she dropped the pile of clothes in one corner of the room while she suggested, “Why don’t you leave that to me? I can take care of it later. The sooner you cut my hair and show me to some musical instruments, the sooner I can start practicing, and you can get on with your regular duties.”
There was a brief hesitation while Kallah thought that over. Then the Light Fae woman shrugged and picked up the scissors. “Very well. Sit down.”
As Sid perched on the corner of the bed, Kallah cut off her shoulder-length hair.
She’d already had her moment of outrage. Now she felt unmoved as she watched the long, silken black strands fall to the floor. Isabeau had meant the order as an assault on her autonomy, but Sid wasn’t going to let her have the victory. What happened to her hair was the least important thing about all this. It would grow back soon enough if she wanted it to.
Kallah didn’t spare an extra inch but snipped the hair as close to her scalp as she could. When she was finished, Sid ran her fingers through the short length. She’d worn her hair short before, and remembered how much she had liked the sensation as it lay against the curve of her scalp. Shorter haircuts highlighted her best features, making her eyes seem larger while accentuating her cheekbones, the shape of her mouth, and her neck.
As she looked up, she caught Kallah staring at her with an odd expression. Sid didn’t know the other woman, but if she had to guess, Kallah looked troubled, almost pitying.
“What is it?” Sid asked. “Aren’t you done?”
“I don’t think her majesty will be quite as pleased with this new look as she thinks she will,” Kallah murmured.
Oh, for crying out loud.
“Why not?” Sid demanded. “She said she wanted it gone, and you followed her orders to the letter. You barely left anything for me to run my fingers through.”
Kallah’s expression closed. “Never mind. Yes, I am done. You will clean this up later when you burn your clothes. Most of the castle is cleaned with magic, but the servants’ rooms are their own responsibility.”
The castle was cleaned by magic? But they couldn’t manage to share any of that with the servants?
Exasperated, Sid said, “Fine.”
Standing, she shook her dress to rid herself of the last of the loose hair and brushed off the back of her neck. When she was finished, Kallah led her back to the richer part of the castle.
“Remember this route, human,” Kallah said. “For the next few days, you will either be in the music hall or in your room. You will take your meals in the servants’ quarters. I do not expect to hear reports of you going anywhere else, do you hear? You have been granted leave from prison to do this one thing. Don’t waste the opportunity.”
“I understand,” she muttered grimly. She hadn’t won her way out of that prison cell yet. She had only won the chance to try to stay out of prison. “Believe me, I have no intention of doing anything but getting ready for my next audience with the Queen.”
“As you should.”
Kallah stopped at tall double doors made of rich, polished wood. Opening one door, she stood back to let Sid step inside.
Stepping into the music hall, Sid’s curious gaze ran over the room. Horror blindsided her, followed by a flash of panic.
The door settled into place behind her. Kallah hadn’t bothered to step inside the room. Instead, Sid could hear the rapid click of footsteps fading down the hall as the Light Fae woman left her to her fate.
The richness of the music hall revealed just how much music meant to the Queen. The space was large and beautiful, decorated with paintings, intricate tapestries, and bookshelves, and what looked like crystal globes attached to the walls in iron sconces.
Tall windows let in copious amounts of light, and there was comfortable furniture grouped around a large fireplace—couches and chairs, and a table strewn with parchment paper, inkwells, and pens. There was a variety of musical instruments set on wooden stands—tall, stately floor harps, lap harps and lyres, flutes, dulcimers, and lutes.
Sid’s primary instrument was the violin. That was her performance instrument, her area of expertise, the one she knew she could always pick up and create a soaring crescendo of music. She was also quite comfortable playing a viola, a cello, a guitar, and she did a lot of her composing on a piano.
Her confidence had been built on a lifetime of study, practice, testing, and performance. It had been built from a very early age, when her mother had forced her to practice, whether she wanted to or not, and had stood over her to make sure it happened. Then she had discovered she loved music and practiced of her own accord, while her parents showered her with praise and encouragement.
It had never occurred to her to question her own proficiency, or what kinds of music the Light Fae Queen might prefer, because she had an entire library of music living in her head.
Aside from her own burgeoning body of original work, she knew whole concertos by Bach, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Paganini, and Mozart by heart. She also knew pop and jazz, and could make her violin weep when she played the blues.
But she had never once played any of the instruments sitting in Isabeau’s music hall.
Moving like a sleepwalker, she went to one of the couches, sat, and put her face in her hands as she breathed, “I am so fucked.”
* * *
After returning to the cottage to drop off the supplies, Morgan went on the hunt to find the source of the scent that by all rights shouldn’t have been at the night market and yet had been.
He knew that meant the scent would be elsewhere as well, its source delving into places it shouldn’t be, snooping and spying. Causing dangerous mischief without regard to consequences. Hurting innocent people.
He ignored the moon’s passage across the heavens and the approaching dawn. His sole focus was on catching his prey.
He caught the scent again two miles outside the city. The source had hidden its trail with a lavish array of cloaking spells and spells of aversion, but Morgan was the better sorcerer. He shredded those spells like they were so much tissue paper.
Finally he came upon a cold camp hidden in a dense thicket of trees and overgrown foliage. No fire ring or woodsmoke gave the location away. It was how Morgan would camp if he wanted to keep his presence a secret.
The camp appeared to be empty, but his sharp, inhuman gaze caught the subtle, stealthy slither of a snake slipping away in the underbrush.
Gathering himself into a lunge, he caught the snake by its tail. Hissing, it whipped around and would have bitten him, except he grabbed it by the throat. The snake’s body heaved and bucked in his hands, and changed, and suddenly he clutched a lion by the throat. It roared in his face and thrust its powerful body forward for the kill.
Twisting his whole body in a way that made the wound in his side flare with fresh fire, Morgan lifted the lion bodily in the air and slammed it on the ground. Magic flared, a quick, desperate spell of corrosion. Morgan jerked his head back and rapped out a dissipation spell, while the lion melted away underneath his hands, and in its place, he held an alligator with a long, wicked snout filled with razor teeth.
The alligator twisted to snap at his legs. With another whole-body twist, he flipped onto its back, wrapped an arm around its neck, and locked it in place with his other arm. As he began to squeeze, he gasped out a null spell.
Silence fell over the scene, punctuated by the alligator scrabbling at the earth, mouth gaping, while both bodies strained. “Give in before I snap your neck,” Morgan growled. “I’ll do it.”
As he spoke, he felt the null spell dissipate. Before his adversary could attack again with more spells, Morgan spun quick threads of Power around him, binding his adversary’s magic to himself.
Suddenly the alligator’s body collapsed and melted away, and in its place, Morgan held a slim, wiry body roughly the size of a teenage human boy’s, only this was no human teenager. It was something older and much more dangerous.
Letting out a wail filled with equal parts rage and despair, it gave up the struggle. Once again, Morgan had captured Robin the puck.