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Through eternity I tumble, spinning and flailing, screaming with no reply but a distant echo to my voice. Head over heels I fall—like I fell for Wolf what feels like ages ago—my hands and feet never touching a wall. The cold water fills my lungs, steals my breath. I’m going to die in here, in this dark well with no way out, while Wolf...
...while Wolf lies dead at the Empress’ feet and I’m not even there to stroke his hair and kiss his lips and mourn him until my heart gives out and I lie dead beside him...
I can’t think about him right now, not when the force carrying me away seems to be intensifying, the drag so strong I can’t even move, spinning like a knucklebone in the air, like a star falling to earth.
Light appears overhead—or below?—and I hurtle toward it, a scream caught in my chest, caught as if in a nightmare, unable to change my course.
I burst through the surface and gasp, splashing in the water, my long gown dragging me down. My chest aches as I draw breath after shuddering breath, hitting the water with my arms, struggling to stay afloat. Through watering eyes, I try to make sense of where I am, the bright opening overhead, the water lapping at stone walls.
Another well, a wide one. Something feels familiar about it.
As my breathing starts to ease, I gather my thoughts. First, I need to get out of here, find out where I am. Unbelievably, I find footholds on the stones in the wall of the well, and my hands find purchase. Straining with muscles I didn’t know I had, I heave myself up toward the circular opening on top.
Then I almost fall back into the water when a face appears over me and a voice booms, “What is going on here? Who are you?”
“Help me!” I say once I’ve gotten over my shock. “I fell into the well. Get me out.”
“How did you...? Wait, I’ll bring rope.”
That sounds good. I brace myself against the wall and wait and sure enough, a while later a thick length of rope drops in front of me.
“Grab it,” the man says, “and I will pull you out.”
Gratefully I grab the rope with both hands, then walk up the wall as he pulls me up and up and up, to the well mouth.
“There you are,” he says, a burly, bearded fellow with a brown hood and lines of laughter around his eyes. “How did you manage to fall inside? Did someone push you?”
“You could say that,” I mutter as he grabs my hand and helps me out where I proceed to drip water all over the flagstones of a large courtyard.
“You are a lady!” He exclaims, obviously taking in my finery for the first time. The crown Wolf placed on my head is gone but I’m still wearing the earrings and the pale gown, now leaking in a puddle around me. “Whoever did this to you will be punished.”
“Not sure you can find them,” I whisper, standing there, shivering, in a state of disbelief—because above me I see a bright sky.
It’s blue. Not pink. A bright, clear blue.
Gods. I am in the human world. It worked. Mathes shoved me through a gate and sent me far away from them.
Panic grips me. This can’t be true. In the blink of an eye, I’ve found myself a world away from the only man I have ever loved.
Think, Mina, think. Time passes differently in Faerie. Days here are moments there. If I jump back inside, will I find them exactly where they were?
But Wolf is dead. What do I have to go back for?
I have to see him one last time. I can’t... can’t fathom this. I bow over, the pain lancing me like a spear through my middle. He can’t be gone. I can’t believe it, can’t accept it.
I have to go back to put my arms around him. How can I get through life without his teasing laughter, his strong embrace? I can’t, I can’t...
“My lady.” The man is staring at me. “Are you unwell? You must be freezing. Let me get you inside the palace, we’ll find you a change of clothes. Are you from around here?”
“Where are we?”
“The palace of course.”
“The palace of Kyrene?” I whisper, stupid with grief and shock.
“Yes, my lady. What other?”
“I live here,” I whisper. “My family is here.”
I have to see them, tell them that I am alive, and for a moment there is joy in me, though a faint voice is muttering at the back of my mind that this is the family who locked me up to die in a tower and never once visited.
“You live here?” He’s frowning now. “Visiting, perhaps? Let me at least take you to a room with a fire, my lady, before you catch your death.”
I almost laugh at the irony of that as I turn back toward the well. “I can’t, but thank you. I shouldn’t be here. This is a mistake.”
I’ve already put my hands on the lip of the well, ready to jump back inside, when there is a gasp behind me.
“A Fae! She’s Fae! Get her!”
And before I can climb up onto the well wall, hands grab me and haul me back.
No...
***
Wolf had warned me. I keep thinking of that as they wrap iron manacles on my wrists, and the iron scalds my skin. Wolf gave me the choice and I took it.
Because I thought I’d be with him in Faerie, not alone in the human world.
He tricked me.
He wanted to do the right thing and now he’s dead.
A sob catches in my throat and I push it back down. I can’t fall apart now. I have to find a way to escape, to get back to Faerie, to...
To do what? Mourn Wolf, and then? The curse is still heavy on the Diamond Court and I’m its queen. I’m supposed to govern it, but I don’t even have the crown or the gem to revive the earth, to keep it producing, keep it from dying completely.
Will the people even recognize me as their queen? Most of them have never seen me. The wedding was only witnessed by those people already inside the palace.
What a mess.
Wolf should have talked his plan through with me. I know palace and kingdom politics much better than him.
But then of course I wouldn’t have agreed to it.
And Wolf might have still been alive.
Damn you, Wolf, and your stupid, self-sacrificing ideas. Damn you for giving up your life for others, when all I wanted was you.
All I wanted was to be with you and damn the world.
I am selfish. I know. But I’d have given up more than my humanity for you had you asked. The only thing I couldn’t give up was you.
Is that so wrong?
I am jerked along, straining against the shackles but the pain is too much. Panting softly, I stumble along, my wet gown tripping me up, as we enter the palace.
It’s been a while.
It’s familiar and yet foreign. How long has it been since I was here, trying to free Wolf from the cage? The tapestries on the walls are different. That’s not something you change every day. How long has it been? Weeks? Months?
“What’s going on here?” A guard comes forward, frowning at the two men pulling me along. “Where are you taking her?”
“She’s Fae,” the man who pulled me from the well says, and the guard goes still.
“Inside the palace?”
“In the yard. Came from the well. We need to board it up. It could be a gate.”
The guard hisses. “I’ll see to it. Take her to the king.”
“No. Don’t.” Despite the cold and the pain from the iron, despite the exhaustion and the conflicting emotions wreaking havoc in my mind, I yank my arms free from the two men and turn around.
I have to go through the well, through the gate, before they close it. No matter what, I have to go back.
But the guard grabs my shoulder, turns me back around and his gauntleted hand hits me in the face.
The world darkens. My legs buckle. My head empties of all thought as I finally slip under.
***
A splash that I feel in my bones brings me back—then the cold hits and I start to shiver violently.
The guard swings the empty bucket as he steps back. “There she is, Your Majesty. A High Fae. She put up a fierce resistance but we managed to subdue her eventually.”
I sputter a laugh. “Subdue? A fierce resistance? You grabbed me from behind, shackled me in iron, backhanded me like a coward—”
He hits me again and I go sprawling on the marble floor, my ears ringing. “You only speak when addressed by his Majesty the king,” he says, “Fae scum.”
Oh, for all the gods’ sake. Is this how Wolf was treated in all his time here? It’s angering me but it’s starting to sink in that I am one against all of the humans in the palace, in the town, in the kingdom.
In this world.
I can feel the helplessness Wolf must have felt, the urge to hide, blend in, pretend to be one of them. I feel for him and I wonder how they hurt him, how many ways they invented to make him squirm and groan and cry out in pain. How they diminished him, a creature so powerful but also cut away from his memories and his home.
My Wolf...
I see him with that stunned expression on his face and the ice shard sticking out of his strong chest and my own heart shatters. I’m lying on my side on the floor, my wrists shackled behind my back, and can’t find a reason to get back up, to fight and answer back.
What is the use?
My Wolf is gone.
“Are you crying?” The guard sneers. “I didn’t even hit you all that hard. Are you mayhap trying to pretend you feel remorse for all the evil you have wrought? Are you trying to make us feel sympathy for you? Well—”
“Who are you?” The king peers down at me, and at the sound of his voice, the guard steps back and falls silent. “Who sent you? Are you a spy?”
“A spy?”
“We heard that a power may be rising in Faerie.” The king—my grandfather—strokes his white beard, frowning down at me. “We are seeing increased movement at the gates of Faerie, more High and Lesser Fae passing through to torment us. Is there a war coming? Are you—?”
“I’m no spy.” I start to sit up and he leans back, something like fear crossing behind his narrow-set eyes.
“Don’t come any closer. Guard!”
The guard kicks me back down and I curse under my breath. “I’m not. Look, I don’t know anything about a war. It’s me, Mina. Milhelmina Lisanthis. I crossed over to Faerie to heal myself from the consumption but now I am back, but of my own free will, I can assure you that, and—”
“You lying creature.” The king lifts his golden scepter and points it at me. “Milhelmina is gone, dead and carried away by carrion birds. Don’t try to fool me.”
“Carrion birds? I was not...” I sigh. Telling him that a Fae carried me away won’t do Faerie any favors, even though Wolf did it to save my life. “I am her. Ask me anything. I grew up in these halls. I am your granddaughter, I—”
“Blasphemy,” the king says, distaste written all over his plump face. “And calumny.”
“Where is the queen? She would recognize me. She gave me a doll with a head of porcelain once. I called her Millie. She would know—”
“You’re an accursed Fae,” the king spits. “The queen is not to approach a Fae, so that you can strike her down with one of your diseases. We are expendable. She is not.”
I blink at him. He’s protecting her. I never knew if he loved his wife but it seems I was wrong to doubt. He’s protecting her like Wolf sought to protect me.
The pain of the returning memory—he’s dead, dead, dead—takes away any sound for a long moment, leaving an unpleasant buzzing in my ears. Through it, I realize that the king is still talking.
“... you look like her well enough. But of course you’re the tricksters and as you name suggests you’re full of tricks. Wearing my dead granddaughter’s face is an insult to her memory which we cherish always—”
I laugh. I can’t help feeling that this situation is laughable if not tragic. “You cherish her memory! You locked me up at the top of the tower to die! How dare you. Instead of searching for a cure, you sentenced me to certain death!”
“Consumption is a lethal disease,” he says calmly. “Which is why Milhelmina Drusilla is dead. There is no cure.”
“A Fae disease only affects humans,” I whisper, “so I crossed over to cure myself, and that’s not even what I am talking about. You abandoned me up there, never visiting, never making what remained of my life more comfortable, the only person I ever talked to was old Anton. He brought me food and drink once a day and took away my bedpan. Don’t you wonder how I know all this?”
“A trickster would ask and know; a trickster would use magic to ferret out secrets. Anyone around the palace would know all this.”
I sit up again, the guards be damned. “I am no trickster.”
“You are Fae. My granddaughter was human. If you want to be her, then we’ll put you where she used to live until we decide what to do with you.”
“No.” I shake my head, more hysterical laughter bubbling up. “On top of considering me a spy and a trickster, they will think I am mad. You wouldn’t.”
“Guards! Take her now. The council will decide her fate. We need to make of her an example of the Fae crossing over and harassing our people.”
“So, you’re sentencing me to death a second time!” I yell at him as the guards haul me to my feet and pull me after them. “That’s the extent of your affection for your own family. You will sit and watch me perish once again when you could have held me in your arms, healed and whole.”
“You’re a Fae!”
“And what does it matter? I am different, but I am still me. Why does being different bother you so much? Why does it scare you, king of Kyrene? I am still me!”
The doors of the throne room close behind him.
He doesn’t even know the rest—that I am married to a dead Fae, that I am the Queen of the Diamond Court, that I apparently have an eternal flame inside of me, waiting to be let out.
And he thinks he will lock me up in the tower, he thinks I will sit and wait for death like the old me had?
He’s got another think coming.