“I was twelve when I first started finding the notes hidden in the books. My father, unable to speak to me any other way, started dog-earing passages and underlining words and phrases. He was communicating with me. It took me years to put it all together. He wants to unseat the queen.”
My blood runs cold. Unseat the queen? If she found out about even a hint of rebellion, we would all be destroyed. She’s hung people at Traitors’ Gate for much less. “How?” It comes out in a whisper.
“I’ve spent the last six years researching. Books on the Others are forbidden, most were burned long ago, but from what I gather, a faerie bargain can be broken one of two ways. The first way is that the fae who made the bargain agrees to undo it. Obviously this is extremely unlikely.”
My mind flashes to Mrs. Osbourne’s storybook turning to ashes in the kitchen hearth. “But there is another way?”
“A faerie bargain is null and void if the fae who made it violates the terms of their own bargain. Queen Mor’s first bargain was with King Edward on the battlefield. That bargain made her queen. All subsequent bargains have been made between a queen and her subjects.”
I take a breath as understanding dawns on me. “Which means, if we can get her to violate the terms of the bargain she made with King Edward, every other bargain will be void. The whole system will crumble.”
Emmett smiles in approval. “Exactly.”
“But how do we get her to do that?”
“First, we have to figure out exactly what the wording of that bargain was. Which I believe my father has already done.”
Emmett crosses the room to his desk and pulls out stacks of paper, pages ripped from books, torn scraps of fabric with ink scrawls all over them. I don’t see how anyone could make sense of them. But Emmett begins to lay them on the floor in an arrangement clearly only he understands.
All of England, yours to reign over
The cities, valleys, and fields of clover
The one twice crowned, the ruler of all
As long as your heart beats, yours to call
These terms shall not bend
A sovereign twice crowned shall rule to the end.
“What do you think?” Emmett asks.
“That’s some seriously bad poetry.”
“Not the point I’m trying to make.”
The words rattle around in my head. “Twice crowned? That’s an odd phrase.”
Emmett nods. “That was her trick. Edward thought she meant him, crowned once on the battlefield and once at Eltham Palace. But she meant herself, crowned once as queen of the Otherworld and once as queen here.”
“How would we break it? King Edward is dead.”
“But his bargain remains. She’s already crowned you as May Queen.” Emmett leans forward, his eyes flickering in the firelight. “If you win, you’ll be crowned again as princess. ‘Theonetwicecrowned’ will now be two. Her bargain will be void.”
My head is spinning. “But why would she crown anyone as May Queen if it could threaten her rule like that?”
“It’s been over four hundred years. Maybe she’s gotten complacent and forgotten. Or maybe she’s certain the one who won May Queen won’t be selected as Bram’s bride. We have to make sure Bram is so in love with you that even if his own mother says he cannot have you, he will elope. We have to make him love you. Love you for real.”
An uncomfortable feeling curdles in my stomach. Sedition, trickery, risking my family, everything I’ve ever held dear for a shot in the dark.
Emmett must sense my hesitation, because he leans in. “It has to be you, Ivy. This is our only chance of unseating her, of creating an England free of her bargains and her cruelty. We could bring this country into the modern world.”
“How does Bram feel about all this? Why not just tell him?”
“Bram loves his mother too much to betray her. And even if he wanted to, the Others can’t lie. I can’t confide this to him. It puts everyone at too much risk.”
“I—” I stutter, but there’s no way to verbalize the storm raging within me. It’s all too much to take in.
