Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(87)

The surprise of it launched me to my feet, an inarticulate cry on my lips—it was as if I had awakened from slumber, and a great terror at what I had been about to do rose within me. The king stared at me, then at Aud, then at the wine soaking into the ice. It bubbled and frothed, and then a tendril of smoke went up, as if in the wine there had lurked a flame, now snuffed out.

A murmur of horror went up among the courtiers.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” Aud said with her usual cool calm. “But as Her Highness moved the glass into the light, I noticed that the wine had turned an odd colour—I know our vintage well. I believe the glass itself was lined with poison. No doubt a foul plot hatched by allies of the former queen.” She paused as if to process a shock, yet I saw the wheels turning in her mind. “It is fortunate that your betrothed is mortal—no doubt her blood is too warm to have been affected.”

Aud gave me a brief, sharp look, and I collapsed back into my throne, still staring at her. She hadn’t understood my hesitation—I could see that written plainly on her face. But far from thinking me mad, she had trusted me wholeheartedly, and she had acted, twisting the story into a new shape. An inarticulate sound rose within me, close to a sob.

And yet—it almost didn’t work.

The king looked from Aud to the spilled wine, still smoking, then his gaze swept over the assembled courtiers and guests, whose shock quickly turned to terror. As one, they shuffled away from him, bumping into one another. I didn’t blame them—the king’s expression was contorted, and all the sunlight and playful rainbows had dissolved in a swirl of ice crystals. He looked at me, and I knew my shock showed plainly on my face, while my mouth hung open in an idiotic way—unintentional, but in retrospect, it was the best possible alibi I could have given him. His face softened, and he squeezed my hand.

“There, there, my love,” he said. “I’m quite unharmed. You needn’t worry.”

Then it all began to unravel. There came a series of screams, and a drab, black-haired faerie woman was hauled through the gathering and thrown at the king’s feet.

“The traitor queen, Your Highness,” one of her captors declared. “She has disguised herself!”

The king made a sharp gesture, and suddenly the huddled faerie was drab no more, but unspeakably beautiful, all sharp lines and frost-glittering skin and white hair that flowed all the way to the ground. At her side she carried a sword, nearly as tall as she and wonderfully incriminating. It struck me that the two faeries who had dragged the queen before the king should not have been able to identify her through her glamour, if the king could not, and I also noted the way their outraged tones contrasted with how they kept swallowing and darting looks at the king. But he did not spare them a glance. His gaze never strayed from the queen.

“I thought I had killed you, my darling,” he murmured to the queen in a voice that was almost a caress. I cowered away from him, not caring how I looked.

“You thought, you thought,” she spat. Her voice was as lovely as her face, even in her fury. “Your power is matched only by your stupidity, my husband. Twice now I have played you for the fool. I shall rise and play you a third time.”

I could not help admiring her self-possession, though her threat struck me as unlikely, particularly as there were suddenly a great many hands upon the queen, striking and shoving her, stripping her of her sword and handing it to the king.

By this time, a number of Folk were running for the doors. Some of the king’s guards were mowing them down with their ice swords, though it was impossible to know if their flight was the result of guilt or simple panic. Guests were screaming, and there came the intermittent noise of clashing weaponry. It was chaos—that part of the plan, at least, had come off.

Suddenly, Wendell was at my side with one of the king’s guards. “We must get Her Highness to safety,” he told the king. He might as well not have spoken, for the king took no heed of him whatsoever, nor of me. He stood before the queen, tapping her sword against the ground, drawing the moment out for the enjoyment of it.

“The show is over, Your Highness,” Wendell murmured, dragging me off the throne as he threw a cloak over my shoulders. “Time to put your notebook away.”

Aud, Aslaug, and Finn fell into step behind us as we ran. At one point, Wendell drew the king’s guard behind a wall, whereupon he brushed the guard’s face with his fingers as he’d done to my maid, and the guard collapsed almost comically, as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut.

I stopped suddenly. We had just run through the first set of doors, beyond which was a hallway that should have led us to the outermost doors of the palace. But instead, we found ourselves in my horribly familiar chambers.

“I’m still caught in the king’s enchantments,” I told Wendell. “Take the others—you’ll be able to escape if I’m not with you.”

“Shut up,” Aud said, and she gave me a brief, painful hug. She looked at Wendell. “Is there anything you can do?”

“Possibly,” he said. “Yes, you’re still caught, and this would be a lot easier if he were dead.” He glared at me and Aud. “But he’s quite distracted right now, which means that his enchantments are wavering. I may be able to find us a way through.”

“Here.” I hardly recognized Aslaug’s voice. She pulled off my cloak, turned it inside out, and put it back on me again. “He’s a great lord, I know, but perhaps this will help a little.”