Feversong (Fever #9)(87)
“I’ve heard your petition and will consider it. But as your queen, my first duty is to secure the safety of this planet.”
The male fairy with copper-tan spots bowed deeply again. “Well said, my lucent Queen. We will repair to our abodes and await an opportune moment.”
Clapping their hands to their heads, they vanished.
Frowning, I hurried back into the warmth and dryness of the bookstore. I’d assumed they were a lower caste. Could they sift?
My eyes widened. Could I sift now?
If I could sift, I had no bloody idea how.
Magic didn’t work for me the way it did for Harry Potter, by pointing a wand, muttering a spell, and getting the desired outcome, nor with the twinkle of a Bewitched nose. It was far more elusive and subtle than that. Either that or I just didn’t know the right magic words or the proper part of my body to twitch.
The two times I’d channeled the magic, I had no idea how I’d done it. When I’d returned from the planet with three moons, the bookstore was perfectly restored but I didn’t know why. I figured it was because I’d been found worthy, but that wasn’t a repeatable recipe. And thank goodness, because I’d hate to have to prove myself worthy every time I wanted to use it. Not only would that be a real time suck, but stressful to endure a new interrogation each time.
I’d envisioned the flowers from the mound, and the ice had melted. But again I had no idea why or what I’d done. I sat on the sofa for an hour this morning (after spending ten minutes braiding my insanely long mane of hair to get it out of my face), trying to do something so simple as grow a single flower, and met with repeated failure. I even tried stripping away all emotion and using sheer force of will on the world around me, employing my “belief is reality” tool with equally abysmal results.
Unable to take advantage of a queenly power I’d really like to use, I slogged like every other human in Dublin, through cobbled streets that were gushing with small gutter-bound rivers, fighting to hold my umbrella against the brisk, drenching wind, making my way to Trinity College to deliver the music box as promised.
Periodically I’d feel the acute stress of someone’s regard and glance quickly, to catch only a brief glimpse of one Fae or another as they melted hastily from my vision, behind a building or lamp or car.
The word was out. It was possible the Spyrssidhe alone—already banished and with little to lose—would dare approach me. I knew how feared the princes were among the Fae, inspiring obsequious fawning, obedience, and given wide, wary berth. No doubt their queen had been a hundred times as terrifying. How else could anyone control a race of immortals as power-hungry and brutal as V’lane/Cruce?
Damn it, I needed him on my side. He could teach me.
He’d prefer to kill me. I was the only thing standing between him and the throne for which he hungered. We’d left the princess cocooned in the boudoir.
“MacKayla.” Cruce appeared beside me as if summoned by my thoughts.
I startled, jumped back, nearly went down on the slippery pavement and caught myself on his arm.
He stared down at my hand on his forearm, a muscle working in his jaw, as if it was hard for him in some way to see me touching him. He was fully Unseelie prince, not bothering with glamour, dark, enormous, and powerfully built, with kaleidoscopic tattoos racing beneath his skin like brilliant storm clouds, flitting up his neck to flirt with the writhing torque around his neck. He’d dressed—no doubt in an attempt to disarm or make me see him as more like us—as a human, in faded jeans, boots, and a flowing linen shirt. I was inordinately irritated to see not one speck of rain falling on him. He was, I observed with a distant, unwilling part of my mind, unutterably beautiful, exotic, and disturbingly, basely male.
I snatched it away and stared up into his dark face.
He’d raped me.
And he had answers I needed. I’d offered to be the sheepdog, not the wolf, if he would cooperate.
I recalled the day Barrons had told me we couldn’t kill the Unseelie princes because they were linchpins. I’d thoroughly resented it.
I understood it now. And strangely, I no longer felt white-hot fury or trembling rage when I looked at him. He was a predator. He’d preyed on me. I was aware now. Wide-awake, eyes open. I knew what existed in the world and I knew how to protect myself from it. All that was left in me about the rape was a calm acknowledgment that this man had harmed me. I knew what he was and would deal with him accordingly.
He said icily, “Recall, when you regard me with condemnation in your eyes that I also gave you the elixir. I did not use the Sidhba-jai on you that day nor contribute to your madness. If I had not attended you then, you would have died in the street, maimed and broken as your sister. You have finally become the creature I knew you might one day be. If the price of your survival was permitting my carnal use of your body for that brief time, would you have accepted it, had the choice been presented to you?”
I said nothing, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of my spear.
“Answer me,” he said imperiously.
“I didn’t hear a ‘O Great and Glorious Liege’ in there anywhere.”
Abruptly, rain stopped splattering into my umbrella. He’d extended whatever power he was using to hold it at bay to encompass me as well. I closed my umbrella and rested the tip on the ground.
“I see the answer in your eyes. You, like me, would pay any price to survive to fight for your desires for even one more day.”