Sirensong

Chapter Twelve

It was about one hour after we’d passed through the standing stones when we came upon the first real town we’d seen since we’d left Avalon. Of course, this being Faerie, the town was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The Fae—according to my dad—were much more connected to the land than humans. They didn’t do row houses or apartment buildings or stuff like that. Even small homes came with at least a couple acres of land.

The homes were designed to blend with the surrounding forest, and some of them did it so well they were almost invisible, walls thickly covered in ivy, rooftop gardens making the whole house look like nothing more than an unusually steep hill. If I didn’t look closely at my surroundings I might have thought we were still traveling through uninhabited forest.

The illusion of traveling through empty forest was somewhat lessened when doors and windows opened, and people popped their heads out to watch our procession. I half-expected people to come running out of their houses throwing garlands of flowers—isn’t that how pompous princes are supposed to be received when returning home?—but no one did more than stand there and stare.

I know the Fae are way more reserved than humans, so I wasn’t really expecting such an enthusiastic greeting; however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a tinge of disapproval in our reception, like Henry wasn’t everyone’s favorite person. It didn’t help that we were traveling down the only major road, and Henry’s people were forcing other travelers off to the side, like they didn’t have as much right to be on the road as he did.

No one protested the unfair treatment—stupid Fae class values!—but I caught more than one person shooting irritated and impatient glances our way. Once the prince was far enough past not to see, of course.

I thought after passing those first few houses we might eventually come to some kind of business district, a place with stores or inns or other, more town-like buildings, but the landscape remained the same, small, unobtrusive houses, spaced widely apart. There were no farms, no pastures, no orchards—nothing other than residences.

“Where’s the downtown?” I asked my dad.

“You’re looking at it,” he responded, and I wondered at first if there was more to the houses than met the eye. My father soon clarified. “The Sidhe do not engage in commerce as humans do.”

“But they have to get food and supplies from somewhere, right?”

“Yes, but those transactions are considered unattractive and are kept out of sight.”

“Like Brownies,” I grumbled under my breath. “Heaven forbid the Sidhe be seen doing something so vulgar as buying food,” I said aloud. My dad just sighed and let the subject drop.

Shortly after we crossed the border into the town, the road stopped all its gentle meandering and straightened out, giving me my first glimpse of the Sunne Palace in the distance.

Fae houses might blend into the background of the surrounding forest, but the palace was very much meant to be seen.

When I’d pictured the Faerie Queen’s palace, I’d imagined something beautiful and dainty and feminine. You know, like Cinderella’s castle at Disney. The imposing structure that rose out of the trees was about as far from my expectations as it could get.

What met my eyes was a solid, towering wall of stone with a crenellated top, punctuated by tall, skinny windows—arrow slits? Hexagonal towers, made of the same gray stone, rose from each of the corners, with tall, skinny turrets sticking up from the top, making it look like the towers were giving the rest of the world the finger. There was nothing remotely pretty or dainty about the place, and it looked more like a fortress—or a prison—than a palace.

This was a palace meant to remind everyone who caught sight of it that the Queen who resided there was untouchable and steeped in power, meant to intimidate the outside world and defend its Queen from attack. I suppose that considering the history of war between the Seelie and the Unseelie Courts, having a cozy little fortress to hole up in was only practical. No matter how ugly it was.

“I guess subtlety isn’t one of Titania’s strong suits,” I said, keeping my voice down so no one but my dad could hear me.

My dad chuckled softly. “No, it is not. In the eighteenth century, someone brought Titania a sketch of the Caernarfon Castle in Wales, and she fell in love with it. Titania had her palace rebuilt in its likeness, though it’s not an exact replica. To the Fae, mortal architecture is considered exotic, and this palace is stunningly beautiful.” He laughed again. “In a few hundred years or so, she will probably remodel it to resemble what you Americans would call a McMansion, because that will have become the new pinnacle of the exotic.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, feeling an uncomfortable flutter of nerves as we approached the forbidding walls. I wouldn’t be surprised if instead of a welcome mat, the front door had a sign over it that said ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE. I wanted quite desperately to go home.

The road led right up to a set of massive wooden gates, beyond which was a bustling cobblestone courtyard. The gates were open, but I didn’t know if that was the norm, or if someone had seen Prince Henry coming and opened them. I hoped like hell the gates weren’t going to close after us. I already had more than enough of a sensation of entering a prison, thank you very much.

The bustle of activity in the courtyard became a downright frenzy as our caravan trickled in. Henry, of course, made sure he was the center of attention, snapping out orders and generally being a self-important spoiled brat. Dad reined his horse to a stop and slid gracefully from the saddle. My own dismount was far less graceful, and I was glad for my dad’s steadying hand. I thought I’d been sore after riding solo, but that was nothing compared to my misery after hours of riding double. I kept a nervous eye on the gates, but no one closed them behind us. We weren’t trapped, no matter what the hairs on the back of my neck were trying to tell me.

Together, Dad and I rounded up Kimber, Ethan, and Keane, and Dad started leading us to one of the enormous arching entrances.

“What about Finn?” I asked, dragging my feet.

“He’ll stay in the Knights’ barracks,” Dad answered over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Keane said with a sneer, “he’s a Knight, not a freaking guest.”

Dad gave him the same kind of exasperated look he usually gave me when I commented on the Fae class system, but didn’t otherwise respond.

At the entrance, my dad was greeted familiarly by several people, one of whom seemed to be something like a butler. The butler gave the rest of us a bit of a snooty look, then led us deeper into the palace, to a suite of rooms where we would stay until the Queen summoned me for the official presentation ceremony.

I expected the inside of the palace to be as gloomy and forbidding as the outside, but it was much more pleasant. The floors were stone, but they were covered by luxuriously thick rugs, all featuring white roses on various jewel-tone backgrounds. The walls, too, were stone, but I could barely see them past the potted plants and climbing white roses that lined them. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I was walking through a greenhouse. I wondered how the high, narrow window slits provided enough light to keep the plants alive and flourishing. Maybe they didn’t need so much light because they were sustained with Fae magic.

The high stone ceilings were all painted with wall-to-wall murals, sometimes depicting the sky, sometimes sunlit nature scenes. I guess that even while living in this stone monstrosity, Titania wanted to keep the illusion that she was one with nature.

The butler directed each of us to our assigned rooms, but as soon as he had hurried off, leaving us to our own devices, Dad shuffled us around. Originally, we had each been given our own room. Dad didn’t want me staying alone, so he ordered me and Kimber to share, and he traded rooms with me, making sure that my room was the one farthest down the hall, and thereby putting himself, Ethan, and Keane between me and the main staircase. At least he let Ethan and Keane have their own rooms so the rest of us wouldn’t have to worry about them getting into a fight and bringing the palace down around our ears.

“I don’t suppose anyone will give you any trouble,” my dad said, “but after the incident with the Bogles, I think it’s better to be safe.”

The room Dad put me and Kimber in was inviting, if a little … excessive in its floral theme. Floral carpet, floral bedspread, potted flowers on shelves against one wall, a mural of wildflowers on another. But I couldn’t have cared less about the decor once I spotted the bed. I very much looked forward to making its acquaintance, the sooner, the better, but Dad insisted on inspecting the room first. I didn’t know what he was looking for. Until he found the doorway against one wall, hidden by an illusion spell. I felt Dad’s magic gather, and he cast some kind of spell.

“I can’t prevent the door from opening,” he told me. “But I’ve set an alarm spell on it. If it should open, everyone nearby will know it.”

For someone who kept insisting Titania’s promise of safe passage meant I wasn’t in danger, he seemed awfully paranoid. When he left Kimber and me alone in the room, we looked at each other nervously, then started laughing.

“Bogle attacks, Green Ladies, standing stones, secret doorways … Was this what you expected when you volunteered to come with me?” I asked Kimber when we got our laughter under control.

She shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t expecting a walk in the park. And hey, your first trip to Faerie should be memorable, right?”

Oh, I was going to remember this trip all right. And as far as I was concerned, this was both my first and my last trip to Faerie. Nice place to visit, wouldn’t want to live there, and all that.

I let out a groan of pleasure as I sank into the feather bed that was even softer than it looked. I could do with a long soak in a hot tub and then a massage, but I figured a late-afternoon nap was the best I could hope for at this point.

“If I never see a horse again, it’ll be too soon,” I declared as I stretched out on the bed. It occurred to me that I really should have gone in search of a bathroom before even sitting on the bed if I didn’t want the covers to smell like horse, but it was too late now. “Try not to wake me up for at least three days.”

Kimber snickered. “If you think we’re going to have that much time to ourselves, you don’t know jack about Faerie hospitality.”

Unfortunately, Kimber was right. I hadn’t been lying down more than ten or fifteen minutes before my dad came knocking on the door to let us know that Titania was bestowing another “great honor” on us. We’d been invited to dine with Princess Elaine, who was one of the Queen’s granddaughters. According to my dad, I couldn’t be in the Queen’s presence until I’d been officially presented, but the princess would serve as a proxy because Court etiquette required someone play hostess.

The last thing I wanted to do after the exhausting, too-eventful journey was socialize with anyone, much less a princess of Faerie who might be cut from the same cloth as Henry. I stifled a groan.

“I suppose it would be a horrendous insult if we declined?” I asked.

Dad laughed like that was really funny. “We have ninety minutes to clean up and get dressed. The servants should deliver your bags shortly, and there are bathrooms at the end of the hall. The dress code is casual, which means wear the dressiest clothes you brought.”

Better and better, I thought sourly as I reluctantly abandoned hope of a nap.

We met in the hallway at what my watch said was six thirty. The sun hadn’t gone down yet, but there were torches lit anyway. They must have been fueled by magic, because there was no smoke, and when I got close to one, I realized I could feel no heat coming off of it. Then I caught sight of the ceiling, and my jaw dropped.

When we’d been shown to our rooms, the ceiling mural had been of an azure blue sky, artfully dotted with fluffy white clouds. Now the mural depicted a stunning sunset in tones of peach and pink and purple, and the clouds were thin and wispy.

Kimber followed my gaze and smiled. “Cool,” she said.

“Yeah,” I agreed, but I was more inclined to call it creepy.

My dad had dressed in a charcoal gray suit that looked fantastic on him, especially with the splash of red from his power tie—not that I thought people in Faerie would recognize a power tie when they saw one. Kimber had chosen a light blue sundress paired with cute wedge heels, and I was wearing khakis with a button-down shirt, which was about as dressed up as I ever willingly got. Keane wore his usual all-black, and Ethan had chosen a polo shirt with dress pants. All in all, we were a bit of a motley crew, and we probably looked as silly to the Fae as Prince Henry had looked to me at that state dinner.

I frowned when I realized Finn was nowhere to be seen. I glanced up at my dad, and he read the question on my face before I had a chance to ask it.

“We’re in Faerie,” he reminded me. “Knights do not dine with royalty. And he would not have felt comfortable sitting at table with us anyway.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, though I suppose I should have guessed Finn would be left out. “Then why can Keane come?” I asked.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Keane stiffen, and I realized I’d made it sound like I didn’t want him coming to dinner with us. “You know that’s not what I meant,” I said to him.

Keane’s face said he was less than mollified. “I can come as your guest because I’m not a Knight. And because I was born and raised in Avalon, I don’t give a rat’s ass if someone of my ‘class’ isn’t supposed to eat with royalty.” His lip curled in his trademarked superior sneer.

“Charming,” Ethan muttered. “I’m sure you’ll win us all kinds of new friends with that mouth of yours.”

I groaned. “Don’t you two start!” I warned. “This dinner is going to be long enough already without the rest of us having to play referee.”

They both subsided, but the hard feelings between them hadn’t exactly been softened by the time they’d spent together on this trip.

Dad led the way down to a smallish dining room on the first floor of the palace. Apparently, there were quite a few dining rooms in the palace, some designed for grand dinners, some for more intimate affairs like this one. Of course, “small” in a palace meant big enough for my entire safe house to fit into.

Like every other room I’d seen in the palace so far, the ceiling, walls, and floor were all stone. And like in every other room, the decor was designed to hide that stone. More rugs, more murals, more plants. The walls were lined with liveried servants, and the entire room was lit by the multitude of candles on the dining table. Everything was both ornate and delicate, from the furniture, to the china, to the silverware. And the male servants’ livery included breeches and fluffy white neckcloths, while the women wore ankle-length gowns with bustles.

The princess wasn’t there yet, but one of the servants directed us to our assigned seating, and another hurried around the table filling wine glasses. With a start, I recognized Elizabeth. I hoped that didn’t mean Henry would be dining with us. I smiled at her as she poured my wine, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She seemed to be in a perpetual state of fear, and it made me hate Henry just that much more. When I thanked her for the wine, she practically flinched.

“I’m sorry,” she said in the faintest of whispers.

I didn’t know if she was apologizing for being so jumpy, or for me having to take her place in the Green Lady’s embrace. Either way, the apology struck me as a little strange, but she hurried away before I had a chance to respond or ask her what she meant. I guess she was so scared of Henry that she was edgy even when he wasn’t around.

I had been seated next to Keane near the head of the table, and I turned to share an inquiring glance with him. He’d noticed Elizabeth’s skittishness, too, but he shrugged to indicate he was as clueless as me.

Everyone else picked up their glasses and sipped the wine, but I wasn’t much of a drinker, thanks to my mom. And I didn’t like the smell of wine, so I suspected I wouldn’t like the taste much better. No one talked, the room seeming somehow oppressive in its formality.

There was a very definite sense of waiting, like we weren’t allowed to move or even breathe until the princess graced us with her presence. I tried to shake the feeling off, to no avail, and I wished more than ever that I could have a nap, followed by a quiet meal in my room.

The princess kept us waiting for half an hour before sweeping into the room. My dad pushed back his chair and stood when she entered, gesturing for the rest of us to do the same. I was grumpy enough to want to stage a sit-down strike, but I decided that would make this ordeal last even longer.

Stifling a yawn, I appraised our hostess. She looked remarkably like Henry, although the features that looked harsh on him somehow looked lovely on her. Her neck seemed impossibly long, almost swanlike. Her gown of lush green silk glittered with jewels, and despite the bustle—a fashion accessory that looked just plain silly to me—her fashion sense was considerably better than Henry’s. The green of the gown was a perfect complement to her green eyes and strawberry blond hair.

She began making the rounds of the table, greeting each one of us by name without need of an introduction, and though the gesture came off just as formal as the room, she seemed a lot less stuck-up than Henry. She had an easy smile, and there was genuine warmth in her eyes.

When she got to me, she took both my hands in hers. “My uncle has told me so much about you,” she said, and I realized she meant Henry.

“Umm…” I had no idea what to say to that. I seriously doubted Henry had said anything even remotely good.

She patted my hand, laughing lightly. “Never fear, child,” she said. “I have always chosen to form my own opinions rather than rely on others’.”

I hoped that meant she wasn’t a charter member of the Prince Henry fan club. I tried to smile, but the expression felt forced. “Thanks.” I felt once again like there were undercurrents I didn’t understand here, and I figured my best bet was to say as little as possible. What I didn’t say couldn’t hurt me. At least, that was my theory. I wished she would let go of my hands, but I didn’t want to pull away and be rude.

“I have never been to Avalon,” she said, releasing my right hand, but keeping my left and bringing it closer to her face. I realized she was looking at my watch. “This is beautiful,” she said, touching the face of the watch gently, as though it might break. I almost laughed, because the watch was a cheap digital with a fake leather band. I’d bought it at a drugstore, and it was about as far from beautiful as could be.

“Is this technology?” The word sounded strangely alien and uncomfortable, like she was trying out a foreign language.

“Um, yeah. I guess.”

The princess’s gaze slid to my backpack, which I of course had to carry with me even to dinner to preserve my mortal goods. “Have you any other technology you can show me?”

The excitement and eagerness in her voice made me wonder why she’d never gone to Avalon herself. She could have seen a lot more “amazing” things there than what I had in my backpack. But there was no reason for me to say no, so I rooted through the backpack and pulled out my digital camera.

I hadn’t taken as many pictures in Faerie as I probably should have, seeing as I was the only person capable of doing it and this was the only time I ever planned to come here. Still, I had a few, and I showed them to the princess one by one. She seemed amazed, if a little unnerved by it, especially when I took a picture of her. The flash made all the servants in the room jump, and I felt an instant surge of magic in the air. Someone in here was more than just an ordinary servant.

“It’s just a flash,” I hurried to explain. “It’s too dark in here to get a good picture without it. See?” I held the camera up, showing everyone the princess’s picture. Dad gave me a reproachful look. Maybe I should have known better and should have warned her about the flash in advance, but I hadn’t thought of it.

The princess looked at the picture a bit warily, but the magic in the room died down, and I let out an internal sigh of relief.

“Would you like to try taking a picture yourself?” I asked, holding out the camera to her.

There was a hint of wistfulness in her gaze, but she didn’t take the camera. “I think I’d best not.” She smiled and took a step back from me. I wasn’t sure if the flash had made her suddenly afraid of me, or if she had just decided that playtime was over.

“I have been remiss as a hostess,” she said, smiling at everyone. It was the kind of practiced smile you see on the face of celebrities who were posing to have their pictures taken, looking ever so slightly false. “Please, take your seats and let us have some dinner.”

Princess Elaine moved toward the thronelike chair at the head of the table. The rest of us, taking our cue from my father, remained on our feet. I presumed we were waiting for her to sit first.

The princess touched her chair, and one of the servants hurried forward to pull it out for her. He didn’t get the chance.

A deafening boom shattered the stillness of the room, and a wall of heated air punched me in the chest, throwing me to the floor. Flames leapt from the princess’s chair, catching on the tablecloth and linens as splinters of wood rocketed through the room like arrows. Smoke and dust filled the air, making it hard to breathe.

I’d fallen hard on my back, and for a moment I lay there in shock, having no idea what had just happened. But the fire was advancing along the tablecloth, the wood beneath it beginning to burn, and I knew I couldn’t lie there until I got reoriented. I pushed myself up unsteadily to my elbows and peered through the smoke toward the head of the table.

The princess’s chair had been almost completely obliterated, and flames now consumed it. And the princess lay facedown, bloody, and unmoving on the floor beside it.