Authors: Melinda Hellert
The throne room is huge. It must take up the whole underneath of the castle. Dozens upon dozens of tables are gathered in rows on either side. A long narrow strip of floor leads from the door up to a couple of steps where atop the rise sits a grand chair. It’s wing backed and glistens in the soft yellow light filling the room like some sort of precious metal, two brightly colored canaries sit perched on the back and in it sits Ceara.
But she isn’t alone.
My heart stops in my chest.
Pacing the floor below her is the unmistakable figure of Queen Chrysantha. Her silver hair is pinned up in an intricate braid atop her head, her crown entwined with great care into it. She wears a black traveling cloak atop a midnight blue gown that billows out behind her as she walks.
Derek drags us back towards the doors, behind one of many pillars that dot the room, swearing an oath beneath his breath. So far they hadn’t noticed our entrance and I’m going to keep it that way.
“Am I to believe that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of two of my prisoners last night?” Chrysantha’s voice echoes through the room. “Forgive me for I do not think you had no part in it,
sister
. I’ve allowed you to live out of my rule for this long. Do not make me re-think my decision.”
“Well you must believe my innocence, dear mother. For I am. Take your leave now. This is my domain and you will treat it as such.”
“Do not disappoint me, Ceara. Or will you have to learn your sister’s lesson as well?”
“Leave. Now.” There’s a tremor to Ceara’s always calm voice. Something about it sends shivers down my spine.
Footsteps
click-clack
across the floor and we move around the pillar so that Chrysantha doesn’t see us. But not before I get one last glance at her. Fury paints her face and I cringe back. The sound of the door being slammed reverberates through my skull long after she’s gone. I feel sorry for Penn and Rowan.
“You three may as well come out now,” Ceara calls to us.
Derek has the decency to look sheepish as we clamber up to the front of the room.
“How’d you know we were here?” I ask.
“Darling, there is not a thing that happens in my house that I do not know about. What brings you here?”
Summoning all my courage before Derek can open his mouth I blurt, “there are
Faeries
tormenting a boy in your lands. A teenager. Can’t we stop them?”
“Alas, we
cannot
. They are free folk. They do what they please. But I will see what I can do. I see you two are safe and out of my
mother’s
clutches. This pleases me. Well done, Master Carson.”
“It wasn’t without difficulty,” Derek mutters with a glance at me.
“Tut, tut. What is life without a few trials?” she says with a small smile.
“There’s truth to that.”
“Now,” she stands up and floats over to us, “what do we do with you two charming girls now? You will need training, this is evident. Carson, would you mind teaching them?”
“He already is, your Majesty,” I interject. “Sorry,” I mumble. “It’s just, isn’t there anyone else who can teach us?”
Derek’s mouth drops open.
“Why do you not want Carson to teach you, mistress Katelyn?” she asks, genuinely surprised.
“It’s just . . . I . . .” I couldn’t word why I didn’t want Derek teaching us. It’s just when you think of a teacher you think of someone much older and wiser than you. Not someone who is your age and learning just as much as you are. Like earlier when I’d nearly lost my unborn child because he hadn’t prepared me for it. What kind of teacher does that?
“No matter,” Ceara shakes her head. “He is the only one available. So I am afraid you will have to be taught by Master Carson.”
“Okay,” I agree timidly.
“Now, what are your thoughts on the matter?” she turns to Maggie who has been unusually silent since the forest. That’s been happening a lot lately.
“I guess I’m stuck,” she says. I get what she means completely. It’s not like we can back out of this. We gave this woman our blood. I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with that that Derek hasn’t warned us against yet.
First born child. . . Eternal servitude. . .
Where does blood fit into that? I’m sure it isn’t good.
Ceara shakes her head. “Very well. Mr. Carson, take these two home. They look as if they could use a good rest. Good day, ladies, Mr. Carson.”
She sits back down on her throne and I take that as all the dismissal we will get.
We depart.
“I presume neither of us will lose our heads, Master Carson?” Penn asks as he shuts behind us. Rowan is deathly silent, his eyes closed impassive slits. Probably moping about before.
Well let him
I think.
“Her majesty is in a tolerant mood today, I believe you’ll be pardoned,” Derek smiles at him.
Penn chuckles. “Run along now, mortals, before she changes her mind.”
“Bye Penn,” I smile back at him as we walk away even though my feelings are anything but cheerful.
Chrysantha knew we were missing.
Of Course
she knew we were gone. How couldn’t she? It’s her Court. Ceara even said there isn’t much that goes on in her own that she doesn’t know about. Does that make Chrysantha any different? No. It doesn’t. But . . .
Derek
.
If she knows that we are gone then she
has
to know that he was behind it. She
has
to know that he helped us escape, that he never intended for her to keep us in the first place.
Doesn’t she? And where does that leave him? He says that he’s a double agent, so to speak. If she found him out he’d be dead. Or worse . . . But then why isn’t he worried? Why didn’t Ceara tell him to go hide and lay low for a while? Why is he calmly walking with us out of the mansion/castle and back through the woods as if he hasn’t a care in the world?
“Say something!” I shout when we get back in the Jeep, it rings loudly in my ears in the enclosed space. “I know that you can’t be taking this
that
well! Chrysantha
knows
! She has to know you did it! Why aren’t you upset? Why aren’t you worried?!”
Derek turns off his radio, cutting some metal song off, shuts the car back off and sits back against his seat and looks at me coolly. “I’m good at what I do. She doesn’t know that it was me. If she thought it was then I would be hauled to her house faster than you can say her name. Do you think that I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’ve gotten us into? News flash; I do. And it would be a lot easier if you would trust me already.”
“Well that’s a
little
hard to do!” I retort.
“He’s right,” Maggie says softly, so low I’m not sure if it’s what she said at all.
“What?”
“We do need to start trusting him. He’s our mentor now. We have to. Like I said before, we’re stuck. There’s not much else for us to do right now except let things play out for a while. Whether or not Chrysantha figures it out . . . we’ll just have to see. I’m not saying we sit by and do nothing in the
meantime
. I
want
to learn. If this is what we were meant to do, I want to know how to control it. I want to know what I’m capable of. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I say slowly. I consider her words and realize that I was just freaking out. Why am I the only one freaking out about this? I know the answer to that. Chrysantha’s appearance in Ceara’s thrown room rattled me. Hard. It made everything that happened in her tree all the more real. I close my eyes, pressing the palms of my hands over them as visions of my dad flit across the insides of my eyelids. I want to know who killed him and why. I want to know this more than anything right now. But I know that if I’m going to receive any help on the matter I have to go along with what Maggie and Derek are saying. I can’t face my father’s killer alone.
I take a breath. “Okay. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat about it. I’ll try and be more reasonable from now on, I promise. But you can’t expect me to be ambushed by Chrysantha and not flip out even just a tiny bit.”
“That was a
tiny bit
?” Derek snorts. “I’d hate to see your definition of being really distressed.”
“Shut.
Up
.” I snarl.
“Don’t bite my head off, I’m only joking. Partly. How about I take you two home and you get some sleep? Ceara’s right, you’ll need your strength.”
I drop my keys in the dish on the table by my front door and step lightly through my house towards my bedroom hoping to make it without my mother noticing I’m home.
Lucky I am not.
“Where have you been? I came in this morning and you weren’t in your room.” Mom gets up from the couch, muting some soap opera she was previously engrossed in. She’s still in her mint green nurse’s scrubs and her sand colored hair wisps out in a halo around her face from her ponytail.
“Maggie and some friends and I went out for an early breakfast.” It isn’t the entire truth, but it’s enough to keep the red creeping blush from my cheeks that normally happens when I’m lying.
“‘Some friends’? What friends were they? Have I met them?”
Harsh. Talk about the third degree. Since when has she started caring who I see and when? “Just a boy,” I allow as annoyance coils at the pit of my stomach. Who is this woman and what has she done with my real mom?
“I want names, Katelyn Alexandra.”
The middle name card. Very inventive, mom.
“What does it matter?! He’s a friend from school. It’s not like I was sneaking out to drink beer and go to some wild party. It was
breakfast
. That was
all
.” I shouldn’t be too mad at her after
Faeries
have probably meddled with her brain. She’s probably taking out my disappearance from yesterday on me and not even realizing it. But
still
. Now I know what Maggie meant about teenage brattiness erupting when parental units talk like this. It’s so
degrading.
“Did you ride in this boy’s car? Were his parents there? I want to meet him if he’s important enough to go out to breakfast with you two. I’m sure Parker will too.”
“Parker has already met him,” I say, sidestepping the other more dangerous questions.
This gives her pause. “Really?”
“Yes.” I don’t mention that he practically hates Derek.
She deflates. “Okay. But I still want to meet him and his parents. And I’ll be talking to Parker later, too.”
I’m afraid of that, but I’m too tired to really fret about it right now. “Sure. Can I go now?”
She un-mutes the TV and I take that as the only dismissal I’ll get.
I shuffle down the hall to my bedroom. Practically every available surface is some shade of bright green. My bedclothes and walls are the exact same shade of lime green. The outlines of white butterflies flurry about the wall opposite my bed, varying from about the size of a fifty cent piece to the size of a dinner plate. What can I say? I like green and butterflies. My furniture is all white. From my four-poster bed to my Armoire sitting in the corner next to the window, and my tall dresser with the big knobby drawers. No closet, sadly. I have limited clothes space. Not that I really need it. I could probably fit all of my articles of clothing in one large suitcase.