“Don’t make any deals with her,” Fieran told me, calmly but swiftly. “If you make her promises—even if you think your language is carefully crafted, if you think you’re clever—you will be outwitted?—”
She raised a hand, fluttering a few fingers.
Fieran flew across the room and a cage grew around him. I could see him from here, but nothing he said; his words were being drowned by some enchantment.
“Neither of us can trust him,” the queen said, which was a strong opening move, saying the one thing I would be hard-pressed to argue. “Are you really ignorant of his plot?”
She raised her hand to summon me closer. Since I didn’t think I would survive being flown around the room as well as Fieran, I rapidly headed up the stairs to the dais where her throne sat.
“Close enough,” she said, holding her palm out toward me, her nose wrinkling faintly as if there was something offensive about my mortal form.
I stopped, gripping my hands tightly in front of me, my posture stiff. “I don’t know what Fieran wants with me. He won’t tell me.”
She studied my face. “But you are mortal and yet…dragon-marked?”
I nodded.
“Dreadful. Who are your parents?”
Why did I feel she was asking questions knowing my answers?
“My mother is no one,” I said. “Just a mortal. Not special. I don’t know who my father is.”
“Your mother must be special to have caught the eye of a shifter.” She was watching me carefully. “Do you look like her?”
The question was so unexpected that I stumbled. “A little.”
Truth be told, I didn’t like how much of my mother I saw when I looked into the mirror.
“Did your mother ever tell you how she met this shifter?”
I shook my head.
“Do you know anything about her life before you?” At my slow response, she clucked her tongue. “Children are so ungratefully uncurious about their parents’ lives. As if your existence is the only part of ours that matters.”
I wasn’t going to argue with the Fae Queen, who I was beginning tosuspect might be slightly mad as well as terrifying, ancient, and powerful.
Though to be fair, I wasn’t surprised that anyone who spent much time around Fieran might be driven mad.
“She never wanted to talk about my father.”
“She didn’t tell you much, but you’re a clever little thing. Fieran wouldn’t like you otherwise. What assumptions did you draw?”
I stared at her, reluctant to answer.
“Speak,” she said, and I found myself eager to speak.
IknewI was enchanted, but I couldn’t stop myself; the dreadful truth I couldn’t control myself was a worm that writhed under my thoughts as the words spilled out. “I’m afraid he might have forced my mother. Or at least been cruel to her. She’s afraid I’ll find him.”
“Well.” She leaned forward, studying my face again. She had a disquieting way of looking as if she were seeing directly into one’s soul. Fieran had inherited that from her. “I can tell you a few shifters you should visit to see if you make them nervous with your existence.”
“My mother told me to stay away from him.”
“But your mother, as you said, is just an ordinary mortal. And I’m giving you a different set of advice.” There was a distinct hiss in her voice with the wordadvice, and the stone walls seemed to pulse closer, as if they were narrowing.
She leaned back, and I had the sense of my tongue being my own again, thick and clumsy. “I would like information from you, Cara. About your father. About Fieran’s plans. And then I would like to send you home, where you can’t possibly be useful to my traitor son.”
“I would like to go home.” My voice was fervent. The desire to run was alive in my every tense muscle.
