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Ruby wailed and rattled the bone bars of her cage. “Lettie, Lettie! Please? Please, home. Take me back.”
Queen Persephone glanced over at Ruby, and her moue of disappointment and lidded eyes were easy to read.
The queen is jealous that the child likes me. The realisation hit Lettie like a thunderbolt. It cannot be true. “Sorry, Ruby,” Lettie mumbled, unsure if Ruby could hear her over the whispers of the surrounding fae and rumble of the distant fighting.
“Silence, traitor. Thou shalt pay for thy crimes.” Persephone’s voice was like the crack of thunder on the bluest day. Points of red flushed her cheeks as she glowered at Lettie, all mirth gone and only hatred in her eyes. A hatred that burned as brightly as the lightning crackling through King Hades’ hair.
The gathered fae flinched. Several fled, taking off in flutter form to hide in the depths of the forest. Lettie tried to follow, but Zadie and the soldier’s hands pulled her back. In the ruckus Lettie’s dress caught on the bramble bush that held Queen Persephone’s large concave seeing-glass. The magical device wobbled. Glass wobbling? Lettie tried to right it, and it collapsed—not glass at all, but made of sticky spiderweb and dew.
“Reckless fool,” Queen Persephone snapped.
A distant cry and the clang of swords interrupted the gathering.
“Giveth us one moment.” Queen Persephone reached over to a rambling rose and plucked a flower shimmering with dew. Carefully, she tipped dew into a spiderweb, bigger than a crow’s nest, that was one of many decorating the bramble bush. The dew spread, shimmering and forming a clear concave lens.
King Hades peered through. He adjusted the curve, all the better to see the battle being fought in the human village.
Queen Persephone’s hands tilted and she clapped daintily; as if the battle was a performance just for her. Her court joined in, rustling with excitement and barely knowing where to keep their attention—their queen, or the battle.
Lettie ignored the sycophants and stared, horrified, at the wide grin on the face of her beloved queen. Spiders were dragging humans up into the eaves of their main building. Could the spiders do the same thing to fae? Have they already?
Queen Persephone also clapped when one of the humans cleaved a leg from a spider. Those cheers were muted—as if she didn’t want the spiders to hear. As if the battle is a game, nothing but entertainment.
Someone coughed.
Wyrden.
The traitorous skin-demon scum stepped out from the shadows and sketched a bow. “We really should sort out this underling issue before the demons chase the humans toward our position.”
Underling issue?
“Quite right,” King Hades said. “My dearest, what is your most wise plan for your little traitor and the other one?”
“Ah yes, the traitor and the brave hero. Firstly, congratulations, Zads? Zadsum?” Persephone waved a bored hand at Zadie. “Thou hast done well. Thy loyalty shall not be forgotten.”
Zadie grinned, making a series of pretty bows and elegant flourishes. “Thank you, most beneficent queen.”
She was rewarded by a smile as bright as silver.
Queen Persephone turned to Lettie. “Now, little traitor. What shall we do with thou?”
Lettie prostrated herself on the soft, cool moss. “What have I done, oh great queen? Why am I here? I brought the child as you commanded and gave up my changeling...”
“Enough lies. The human desecrators we sent you to kill are still alive. Zadie’s changeling is dead. Dust. And all because of you. This war,” Queen Persephone waved her hands toward the distant battlefield, “is all on you.”
“You know that’s not true,” Lettie hissed.
Zadie wrapped faer arms about faerself and smirked like a boggart who’d stolen the cream.
“And now we are fighting for our very lives.” Queen Persephone continued in a voice that carried across the crowded clearing. “Your treachery threatens us all.”
“No!” Lettie cried, unheard over the gasps of the gathered fae.
“For thy crimes, traitorous wretch, thou shall be sentenced to the catacombs. Return my treasured silver axe from the centre of the labyrinth and thou may return to my court. Fail, and thou shall be banished forever.”
Nobody leaves the catacombs alive. Lettie slumped, unable to summon up the horror she knew she should be feeling. Her heart was empty. There was a changeling-sized hole in it. Mercurial Nada, the changeling whose preferred form was a butterfly or a bird—all the better to flit about merrily, or cuddle close. Her charge for a hundred years was gone—traded for this small, imprisoned creature with snot and tears running down her face. Yet another child I’ve betrayed. Maybe dying in the darkness of the maze was not so bad. Staying here and being mocked, knowing she’d destroyed the one thing she loved—and this other trusting soul—that would be worse.
Queen Persephone waited for the gasps and whispers to die down. “Take her away!”
Two Quips grabbed Lettie’s shoulders, hauling her to her feet.
Little Ruby banged her fists against the bones and screamed as Lettie was dragged away. “But I like Lettie. Where’s Lettie going? Bring Lettie back!”
“Silence, child. Lettie is going to the catacombs, like all the other traitors.”
“Lettie, no!” Ruby wailed. “No go to cat-a-toms.”
Lettie fought to say a final goodbye to the wild-eyed youngster, but the Quip’s hands were as implacable and unrelenting as iron.
“No, my dear, dear, child.” Jaw clenched; Queen Persephone gazed over the clearing. “Any other fae you choose. But this traitor will pay for faer crimes.”
She, her, Lettie thought. But stayed silent.
“Zadie? Queen Persephone? All the good Fae of FaerLand?” Lettie begged. “Please know I am innocent. I swear it.”
“The rest of my soldiers!” the queen yelled. “Hear me.”
The Quips saluted, hands to chests, their silver armour glittering as they marched to face their queen.
“Thou art mine forces elite. Show thou my foot soldiers the way, not to cower in the shadows, but to prove that we are a match for the puny mortals who threaten our very lives and our precious forest. Then, once we have uprooted the humans and sent them far from our realms, I will seal the borders. So, do not get left behind. Go hence, and do not disappoint, or thou wilst join Lettie as food for the creatures of the catacombs.”
All the soldiers, except the ones holding Lettie, strode from the clearing.
“I’m sorry, Ruby,” Lettie muttered to the small girl in the cage. “I hope you find your way home.”
“See. I told you she was a traitor!” Zadie spat. “Did I not tell you, Oh, Great Queen?”
“Thou didst,” Queen Persephone said. “Start the music! It’s a busy night and we have no more time for games.”
A melody of wind instruments rippled like running water. Their scales and arpeggios flowing ever faster like a stream picking up speed.
The soldiers pushed her on. More and more fae joined them. Swarming in close, they shoved Lettie’s back. Her arms. Her shoulders.
Faster and faster the crowd tumbled along, pushing and shoving her to the underground labyrinth of twisting passages and nightmares.
The melodic gusts of flutes, pipes, ocarinas and other wind instruments rose to become a river, a flood, a waterfall of sound—discordant and merciless in its crescendo as Lettie was pushed along faster and faster, caught like flotsam in the current. Her silver blood ran colder than ever, every push a betrayal.
And then the world stopped.
Her arms half numb from the grip of the soldiers, Lettie found herself standing on the outside of the wood and iron door of the labyrinth. The forest suddenly as silent as death.
Wyrden opened the door, bound with iron and streaked with red rust, with a mocking grin and a flourish.
A lingering smell of death and mould, dank air and deadly iron wafted over Lettie as she peered down into the rough-cut stone tunnel. Beyond a tiny patch of bone-covered earth floor, there was only unfathomable darkness.
A thin howl split the night—a howl more terrifying than hell-hounds—rocked Lettie back on her heels. The people down here are traitors and murderers. The kinds of evil not even Queen Persephone would tolerate.
And now, me.
