A Kind of Magic (18 page)

“Sophie hasn’t told me anything,” Emily said, fighting the urge to whine like a left-out little sister. More graciously, she added, “Her ballet opens this week, so she’s busy.”

“Well, then, in short, your power-hungry enchantress is working with at least one fairy in my court. I want to find out who else might be working with them, and you’re not nearly as widely known here as Sophie is. Do you think you can go mingle and see what you can pick up?”

Emily gave a mock salute. “I’m on the case and at your service.”

“Good. Head in through the side door. It’s less noticeable than making a grand entrance through the front doors. If you need me, I’ll be out here.”

Emily felt a little silly about how eager she was to carry out this mission. She knew she wasn’t in competition with her sister, but it was still nice to get an assignment that Sophie couldn’t carry out, even if it was because Sophie was more famous.

She scanned the crowd as she entered the throne room, but didn’t see the familiar silvery head she was looking for. Eamon was the queen’s scribe, so he should be at court. Or had he made himself scarce when she arrived? She had kind of thrown herself at him last night, and he hadn’t been too keen about that. Or maybe he’d been more keen than he was comfortable with. Emily had to admit that ruining the queen’s granddaughter for mortal men might count as a career-limiting move for a royal scribe. Both of them had a lot to lose from a relationship.

She noticed the Hunt members standing around the room. Their new forms were less fearsome, but they were still intimidating. Their presence probably kept a lid on any palace insurrections, but it also suggested that there might have been some fear of that.

The one familiar face in the crowd was Jen Murray, Michael’s former wife. She stood on the far side of the throne room, snuggled against the dark-haired fae man she’d become attached to in the Realm. Emily was glad Michael wasn’t here to see that. He hadn’t talked much about how he felt, but it couldn’t have been easy to lose her after all he’d done to save her. Jen surprised her by catching her eye and raising an eyebrow. Had Nana recruited her to the spy team, as well?

Emily took another look at the room. Although any gathering of the fae quickly turned into a party, this crowd wasn’t as festive as she’d initially thought. They looked nervous—sitting on the edges of their seats, pacing, gripping their drink glasses a little too tightly. There was music but no dancing. This wasn’t a crowd of sycophants hanging out at court with the new queen. It looked more like people taking refuge in a castle during a siege. They clearly knew something was up. Then again, Sophie had apparently been there recently, and that was bound to have left some lingering tension.

Emily recognized some of the courtiers from her previous adventures, but she doubted they recognized her. Amelia and Athena had tinkered with her aura, and when it came to physical appearance, all humans looked alike to the fae. No one gave her more than a second glance. Beau seemed to be getting more notice than she was. Under other circumstances, she might have been miffed, but it was what she needed right now.

A woman in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform made her way around the room with a tray, delivering drinks to the courtiers. On Emily’s first trip to the Realm, human captives had done that sort of thing, and she hoped Nana wasn’t continuing the practice. On second glance, Emily realized that the servant was Maeve, the fairy who’d captured her in the first place.

Maeve would normally be suspect number one in any scheme to take the throne, make the queen look bad, or otherwise seize power, but since she was physically incapable of leaving the palace, her options had to be pretty limited. Did she still have enough sway to get others to do her bidding and run around carrying out her plots?

Emily took up a position behind a pillar and watched Maeve as she went about her duties. She didn’t pause to talk to anyone, and they all treated her as though she was invisible, not even acknowledging her as she handed them drinks and took their empty glasses.

But as Emily observed, she realized the others weren’t quite as oblivious to Maeve’s presence as they initially seemed. One of the women in the group Maeve was serving was talking just a little too loud, in the manner of someone who wants to make sure she’s overheard. “Have any of you managed to leave the Realm lately? It’s so much easier with the barriers falling, as long as you can find one of the holes.” She gave Maeve just enough of a glance to make it clear that she knew Maeve wouldn’t be leaving the Realm.

“Have you gone?” One of the other fae women in the group challenged the speaker.

The first woman gestured airily with her cocktail. “I’m thinking about it, though I’m not sure what the point would be, other than curiosity. If humans are anything like the new queen, that world must be a very boring place. I don’t see the appeal.”

“Oh, but there’s the power over humans,” another woman said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “Just imagine, a world where we’d be like gods. We once were, to those people.” She shot a little glance at Maeve as she said, “Wasn’t that the plan before, to leave the Realm and demand tribute the way we once did?”

Emily was impressed at Maeve’s self-control. She hadn’t thought the would-be queen had enough restraint not to jump into this conversation. One of the other women—one of the few still dressed in the mid-century style of Maeve’s former court—spoke up instead. “Yes, that was the plan. But the human descendants of the last queen took the throne instead. Obviously,
they’re
not going to go against their own kind.”

“I’d rather just forget about that world,” one of the other women said. “Why should we care? We have what we want here.” She was dressed closer to the style of the free fae, in wispy clothes drawn from nature without mimicking any particular human era.

The one dressed like one of Maeve’s minions said, “I’ve been outside.” The others all leaned toward her, looking at her like girls at a high-school slumber party whose friend had just announced that she’d gone all the way with her boyfriend.

“What’s it like?” the first speaker asked, most of her sophisticated air gone in her eager curiosity.

“Cold, mostly. I just stepped out and came back. There was nothing to it. But it’s the humans that hold the real value, not the world itself. And they know nothing of us anymore.” She gestured to Maeve with her glass. “Another one.” Maeve hurried away without even acknowledging her, but her eyes were full of icy hatred.

The one most like the free fae said, “But don’t we lose some power over them if they don’t know anything about us? We’re weaker without their belief.”

“Then we give them a reason to believe, and that will make us even more powerful.”

Emily couldn’t tell if this was open plotting or just talk. She had a hard time believing that anyone actually conspiring with enchantresses to stir up a war between the fae and the human world would be so open about it, whether or not the queen was present. Some of the courtiers had to be loyal. At least, as loyal as fairies got.

She noticed a silvery head across the throne room and suddenly lost interest in the fae version of mean girls. Eamon would probably be able to clear up a lot of things for her, including whether to take these women at all seriously. She left Beau snoring on the floor behind the pillar and moved to intercept Eamon as he made his way across the throne room.

He was so focused on the book he held that she had to jump out of his way so he didn’t run into her, and even then he kept going without acknowledging her. She cleared her throat and said, “Hey, fancy meeting you here.” It took him a second or two to notice she was there. She was used to him being a bit absentminded, but this was getting ridiculous. “Remember me?” she prodded.

He blinked, returning to this plane of existence from wherever he’d been. “Emily Drake!” he said. “Of course I remember you.” Maybe she was just being paranoid, but he didn’t seem that pleased to see her. It was like running into someone the morning after an encounter in the supply closet at an office party when he wanted to pretend it didn’t mean anything. He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

“Nana summoned me. I’m helping her with something. But I’m glad I ran into you. I have some questions about last night.”

He took a big step away from her. “Last night?”

“Yeah. Like, did it really happen? Was there a last night?” She held up her hand so he could see the scratch on the back of it. “I remember scratching this on a rose bush as I left. Is that what happened? Because I also woke up in my bed, all wrapped up in the covers like I’d never left. So was it all in my head, or was it real?”

“Yes.”

“Yes which?”

“Both.”

“So it was real, and things happened to my body, but it was also all inside my head?”

“Who says that the things that happen in your head aren’t real?”

“Uh, most people.”

“They are not fae.”

“So is this like that thing where if you dream you’re falling and you hit the ground, you die in real life?”

“I am not aware of that rule. And this is hardly the place to have this discussion.”

She noticed then that many eyes were focused on them. “Okay, then, where do you want to go to talk?”

“This is not a good time.”

“Then name a time.” She realized that was a dumb thing to say to a fairy, but Eamon had to have at least some sense of time to make it to see shows as often as he did—or was that merely about the time of day it was easiest to pass between worlds and he happened to be lucky?

“Later,” he said, already moving away. She wanted to call after him, asking what his deal was, but that was
really
something that shouldn’t be done in public, in this world or the human one. If he were human, she’d say he was acting like a man who’d gotten what he wanted from a woman and immediately lost interest, but he hadn’t actually gotten anything out of her unless all he was looking for was a kiss and a dance. With him being fae, she had no idea what was up. Had she said or done something to insult him during her dream excursion? Maybe he was annoyed that she’d left so soon. Next time she’d have to turn off the ringer on her phone.

It didn’t seem like she was going to get any answers now, so she went back to where she’d left Beau. He was still asleep, sprawled on the cool marble floor. The women she’d been eavesdropping on earlier had eyed her progress around the room, and now she felt their attention on her even as she pointedly ignored them to kneel beside her dog.

“Isn’t that the queen’s offspring?” one of them asked in a bad stage whisper. Emily hadn’t paid much attention to the different voices in the group, and now she resisted the urge to turn around and see who was talking. Not that it mattered, though it was tempting to imagine siccing Sophie on them.

“Which one, the one who was queen for a little while or the other one?”

“The other one, the one I took.” Emily recognized that voice: Maeve, but flat and weary.

The others ignored her. “This is the one without power.”

“Oh, really?” Emily didn’t like the amount of relish in that voice. It gave her a mental image of a gang circling a helpless victim, brandishing weapons. She shifted position ever so slightly so she could glance at them without being obvious. They were all still sitting on their sofas, doing nothing more than staring at her. She’d grown up with Sophie, so she knew all about passive-aggressive bitchiness.

Then again, these people had magical powers. They wouldn’t have to move from their seats to hurt more than her feelings. She rubbed the wrinkles on the back of Beau’s neck, giving him a deep enough massage that she hoped it would rouse him. He’d proven helpful in the past when it came to fae confrontations.

“What do you think you’re doing here, human girl? The queen isn’t here.” Out of the corner of her eye, Emily thought she saw the one who seemed to be the ringleader of the group speaking.

“I think she likes the scribe,” the one in free fae attire said with a giggle.

What was this, junior high? Emily had outgrown that ages ago. She’d survived as an actress on Broadway. She’d lived with her sister. They were going to have to work harder than this to rattle her. She gave Beau another nudge, and he gave her a glare before reluctantly pushing himself to his feet with a loud snort.

A couple of the fae women shrieked and cringed away, like they’d never seen a dog before. Beau barked in response, which terrified them even more.

One of them, though—the one dressed for Maeve’s court—stood and moved toward Emily. “What happened to you, human girl? Did you not get the magical powers in your family? Or would you like to try for the throne?”

Before Emily had a chance to react, the fae woman and a couple of others lunged at her, grabbing her arms. Beau growled, but they moved too quickly for him as they hauled her toward the throne.

Emily fought against them, trying to keep herself away from the throne. Sophie had told her that the throne had physically ejected Maeve when she tried to take it. Emily wasn’t sure what would happen to her. She had the right bloodline, but she hadn’t gone through the trials to win the throne properly. The former Hunt guards moved forward but were still catching up to the situation. Emily kept struggling, but even though fairies were less substantial than humans, there were too many of them for her to fight off. She was inches away from being forced onto the throne when she shouted, “Back off!”

The fairies suddenly fell away from her. They lay on the ground nearby, staring up at her in shock. Beau waddled through them and butted Emily in the ankle with his head before sitting down at her feet and leaning against her.

“Well, now, this is interesting,” Nana said as she climbed the dais steps. Emily wasn’t sure when she’d arrived. Or had she been there all along?

“What happened?” Emily asked.

“I’ve been wondering when your powers would manifest,” Nana said, smiling. Raising her voice, she called out, “Take those ladies away, dears. I need to have a chat with them.” The Huntsmen guards took care of Emily’s assailants.