25

TayloR

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about being a human sacrifice: there’s a lot of preening involved. The servants of the Dark Court dragged us to the forest, forced us to undress, and pushed us into the snow. They didn’t want to touch me, so they mostly used sticks with patches of moss to scrub me clean, which would’ve been comical if it weren’t so painful. The icy water made my skin splotchy and raw, and the sticks only deepened the damage. I could feel cuts opening all across my back, and I couldn’t help but think of the way Naeve had broken his iron sword into tiny pieces, and slid each shard into Elora’s back.

Was this my punishment for causing her to be caught by him? Did I deserve this treatment? Did it make her and I closer somehow?

Okay, maybe I was trying to find some explanation for all of this horror. Maybe I was trying to turn my sacrifice into some grand romantic gesture, the way people romanticize the suicide of Romeo and Juliet. But in the end, hurting yourself for another person isn’t anything but stupid. And Elora wouldn’t have wanted this.

Where is she?

When the “bath” ended, we were ordered to our feet, which was hard enough for the four of us who didn’t rely on a wheelchair to get around. For Kylie it was impossible. At least the dark faeries had the decency to let Alexia help her—or maybe they just didn’t want to get human filth on their precious skin, and decency wasn’t a factor. Either way, I could hardly look at any of my friends, or myself for that matter, because our skin was blotchy and we were all shivering, and I wondered if one of us was going to die before we even made it to the sacrifice.

But something funny happened then. As the faeries picked up thicker branches, not to cleanse us, but to “properly put us in our place,” I heard a voice at my back. It said, “My mistress has requested your safe passage.”

“I don’t suppose you mean safe passage from these lands,” I muttered, too frozen and, all right, terrified to turn around.

“I’m afraid not,” the faerie replied, taking a swing with a stick. My whole body tensed, waiting for the blow, but it never came. It stopped just short of my back. Still, my skin was so raw that I felt the wind crashing against me, and I cringed.

“Just do it or don’t,” I snarled, wrapping my arms around myself. Lot of good that did. “The anticipation is kind of the worst part.”

“You say that now,” the faerie said, almost hitting me a few more times. “But trust me when I say the impact is worse.” A single, delicate wrist made its way in front of my face, the pale skin barely visible through all the discoloration. Blue bleeding into purple bleeding into black. A multi-colored tapestry of pain. “And the bruising after.” 

“It’s gotten bad, hasn’t it?” I asked, meaning the treatment of the servants by the courtiers.

“It has never been anything but bad,” came the reply. “Now turn. They are watching from the windows.”

I turned, but there wasn’t time to take in the sight of the sickly pale faerie in front of me. Suddenly I was surrounded, hair combed and skin smoothed by faeries who didn’t have the social standing to refuse this kind of work. Still, they did their best to keep from making contact with my skin.

Old habits aren’t murdered easily, I thought. But some things are. Me, Kylie, Keegan, and—

Damn, I was rambling. And even though it was only happening in my head, it scared me that I couldn’t focus on my impending doom. I needed to be plotting our escape, but I didn’t know where to start. How could I convince the Queen that I hadn’t sullied her daughter’s virtue? I mean, sure, we hadn’t had all-the-way sex, but sullying was sullying, in the eyes of the dark faeries, and virtue was …

Wait, were dark faeries even concerned with virtue? Or was there something else I had done to her daughter, something worse in the eyes of the court? Elora had been raised to believe that humans were vile, disgusting creatures, and the minute she stopped believing that was the minute she threw out her mother’s teachings. So maybe that was the insult, more than any physical indiscretion.

“Ow. Back to beauty school, asshole,” I heard Keegan say, and it shattered my train of thought for the moment. Across the way, some faerie was combing his hair. Except it seemed more like “attacking,” and the comb was so white, it could’ve been made of ivory. Or maybe human bones. I didn’t want to think about human body parts raking through my hair, so I looked away, into the trees.

That’s when I saw her. She was half-hidden by the snow, her frog’s body blending with the bark of the tree. Or maybe she was using glamour. Her skin looked darker than it had before.

Yes, I recognized her. She was a friend of Elora’s. At least, I thought she was, because I’d seen her at the borderlands when we’d crossed into the Unseelie Court. I didn’t know her name, or how close she was with Elora. All I knew was, when Elora had come home, this faerie had cheered with the others, and that was enough.

I smiled at her.

She nodded back. Her lips didn’t even twitch.

Ah, so it’s like that, is it?

She must’ve hated humans, just like the rest of the dark faeries. I didn’t know what Elora was doing, keeping all these secrets from her servants. Regardless of the revolution’s outcome, how did she think they were going to react when they knew she was in bed with the enemy?

In bed-ish.

God, if I managed to survive all this, I’d better get some time alone with her. Even if we just lay together in bed and looked into each other’s eyes, not saying a word, it would be worth it. I could play with her hands, and she could touch my face in that way that drove me crazy, my heart racing and my body rising and my entire being feeling like it belonged in the universe for once.

Feeling like it was home.

And just like that, I got my second wind. Okay, maybe it was my fifty-second wind, but still. I would survive this, damn it, and I would get to kiss her again. We’d live an unbelievable life.

Even we wouldn’t believe it, sometimes. How good it was.

“So, what do you think my chances are?” I said, not really expecting the faerie with the messed-up wrist to help me. But what could I lose, at this point?

She leaned in close, speaking so only I could hear. Her jet-black hair tickled my shoulder. “There are many among us who would like to see Naeve suffer,” she muttered. “But he cannot be appealed to by humans.”

“And, what, the Dark Lady can be?”

“Not appealed to, no,” she said, running her hand through my hair with a swiftness I couldn’t follow with my eyes. Pulling her hand away, she examined it like she expected it to be covered with insects. “But taken off guard, perhaps.” Even though her hand was clean, she brushed it against the rags of her dress. She caught me looking and blushed, as if ashamed. “I … ”

“Old habits?” I offered through gritted teeth.

She nodded, barely. “Turn, now,” she said, apparently incapable of forming the word “please.” I did as she asked, and something warm fell over me. Something warm and dry. A cloak.

“Thank God,” I murmured, though the sentiment would probably sound weird to her. Where she came from, faeries had the powers humans attributed to gods, and they sure as hell weren’t in the business of salvation.

I hugged the cloak around me. It really only covered my shoulders and back, but if I bunched it up in my hands, it covered more. A quick look around showed more of the same: my friends pulling their cloaks around themselves. Even Brad had the sense to draw his in like a blanket, which was somewhat counterproductive, considering he was squatting in the snow.

I turned away. I couldn’t deal with my conflicting feelings about Brad right now. Couldn’t deal with the hatred that still swam inside of me, dulled by pity. Dulled by compassion. Caring for him felt too much like forgiveness, but hating him felt too much like sealing his fate. Leaving him to die. Why had it fallen on me to protect or abandon him?

Like Kylie said, this wasn’t about avenging her anymore. Maybe it had never been about avenging her, not entirely. Even back in the human world, when his actions had hurt her directly, I’d felt responsible. If I’d stood up to him before the end of my senior year, he might’ve realized that his actions had consequences.

Then maybe he wouldn’t have hurt her in the first place.

Suddenly I felt warm. It wasn’t due to some kind of realization or epiphany; the faerie servant was using her power to warm me. It felt so good, I almost fell to my knees. The small bit of sanity I had left kept me standing, and I managed to say: “Why are you helping me?”

The faerie was quiet a minute. “Not helping,” she said, and I thought that was what she needed to believe. “But not hurting either. There comes a point when any violence, even the justifiable kind, becomes too much. And how can I long for peace if I am not its greatest proponent?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I think we’re a long way from peace, even if … ” The battle goes as planned, I finished, not knowing how much Elora would want me to say in her servants’ presence. She’d left us all in the dark about something. I hoped that didn’t come back to bite her in the ass. I hoped she was as smart as she thought she was, because all of this secrecy could lead to some pretty major misunderstandings.

Case in point: we were supposed to be racing down a tunnel right now, preparing to fight. But Naeve had thwarted that, and since the servants didn’t know we were good people, they wouldn’t risk the wrath of their queen by helping us escape.

Still, they were helping us, in their way. Instead of beating the crap out of us with branches, they were covering us with a glamour that made us look beaten. I know, it was pretty messed up. But I’d take a magical shit-kicking over the literal kind any day. My skin looked practically purple, patches of white peeking through. In this weird way, I fit in with the landscape better than before.

“So how do we catch the Queen off guard?” I said, speaking to the faerie at my back. The one in the tree, too.

“The Queen will only ever see humans in one way. Maybe all of us will,” my faerie groomer said, and I wasn’t sure if she was ashamed or just stating a fact. “But Elora’s part in things … the princess … if you could convince the Dark Lady that her daughter was innocent of any wrongdoing, that you’d coerced her, or … ”

Acted like Brad, I thought. Acted like Naeve.

“No, why should I do that? The Queen will kill me and let Elora go.”

Oh. You know that moment when you answer your own dumb question? Reality hit me like a branch to the face. And maybe she was right—maybe the only way out of this was to sacrifice myself for the good of the group. There was honor in that.

Sure, tell that to my shaking ass.

It was true, I was shaking; the uncontrollable kind. The faerie must’ve realized what I was thinking, because she narrowed her eyes at me. “You do care for her. That much is true.” Her eyes went wide, and she touched her hand to her lips. I guess the world was turning on its head. But I didn’t have time for an episode of That Moment You Realize You’re a Bigot.

I had to know if there was another way.

“Is that the only possible plan?” I asked as she placed a crown of thorns on my head. When she yelped, pulling back her hand, I realized she’d been pricked. Poor baby, I thought with a snarl. It really sucks when you injure yourself in the name of torture.

I guess I was starting to feel furious, in spite of the fact that she was man-handling me nicely. This situation was entirely wrong, even with all of her gentleness. She was handing me over to be killed in the name of her princess.

After everything Elora had done.

“Wait a minute,” I said, trying to catch her eye. She squirmed under my gaze, like I was a spider who was sizing up a fly. Isn’t that ironic? “Do you believe Elora? Do you believe she went to the human world to steal us for the Queen?”

I could’ve been a faerie myself, the way I worded that. She had gone to the human world to steal Brad for the Queen. Just, you know, not her queen.

But the faerie didn’t catch my trick, and she seemed to genuinely ponder the question. “I believe the truth lies somewhere in between. The princess must’ve gone to the wasteland to capture you, otherwise she couldn’t have said it. But while she was there, I believe … ”

“I corrupted her with my wicked human wiles?” I asked, thinking of the way Elora had talked about humans her first week in my world. Of course, at the time, I thought she was some sort of runaway who’d escaped a cult and was skeptical of civilized society. Of people who relied on microwaves and running water. People who were wasteful and didn’t realize how easy their lives were.

I guess some of that was fair.

The faerie looked at me as if sizing me up. It was uncomfortable, considering the whole naked thing. “I cannot speak on what happened there, only the consequence,” she said. “Clearly, the princess’s … perception changed. Otherwise this process would be a lot less comfortable for you.”

“You try standing naked in the snow. You do that and tell me it’s comfortable.”

“It can always get worse,” she said, and it sounded like a promise. Or maybe she was just speaking from experience.

“So you believe both Naeve and Elora are telling the truth.”

“They have to be. Or, at least, they believe they are. What is the other explanation?”

“And you believe he was justified in hurting her? You think she had it coming?” I tried to hide my fury, because I knew it would give too much away. I was in an impossible position: unable to show my love for Elora without putting her in danger. Unable to be indifferent without proving them right about humans.

The faerie stepped closer, her eyes ablaze. “I love my princess,” she said fiercely, “And not just now, with freedom hovering on the horizon. I’ve loved her since her birth. She never once raised a hand to me, or spoke to me cruelly.” A small smile, with a hint of a taunt behind it. “She saved her cruelty for those that were cruel first. It’s as if she was born with an innate sense of justice.”

“What does that tell you?” I said, gesturing to my friends.

The faerie froze. The humans froze. The entire damn ensemble froze.

Frozen, to match my feet.

“It tells me she is worth saving,” the faerie said after a minute. “And perhaps, so are you. But I cannot be certain, and I will not sacrifice her to save you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“The Queen requires a sacrifice, and she will have one. The best you can do is divert her attention from the both of you.”

“What, to my friends?”

The faerie shrugged, like we weren’t discussing murder. “Unless you can make Naeve look like a fool.”

“He’s mighty good at doing that himself.”

Her eyes were cold as ice when she said, “Not this time.”