“I wouldn’t know.” He growls. “I never got the chance to know him before you killed him.”
“Oh, that.” She sighs like she’s sad about Edgar’s death. “I figured one of two things was true; either that he’d helped Bram with his coup—I knew he’d been leaving you little hidden messages for years—or he hadn’t, and Bram was going to torture him worse than I ever would have. It was a punishment or a mercy depending on how you look at it.”
Emmett’s face crumples. “It was murder.”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t care for him. I regret what I had to do to poor Edgar. He was one of my favorite husbands.”
This is already going on too long; we can’t let her goad us like this. I know her well enough by now to know there is a good chance she is biding her time, waiting for Bram to find us down here, to prove her loyalty to him.
I flash the knife. “The time for discussion is over. What will it be?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve always been rather invested in my own self-preservation. Open the cell.”
Emmett produces the heavy brass key ring he swiped from its hook by the door.
The lock slides open and Queen Mor steps out of her cell with all the grace of a queen parading in front of her people.
She holds her hands out to us.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
We nod and take one hand in each. Like her son, her skin is the same cool temperature of the air. It’s like holding hands with a dead body.
The air goes still, and it’s as if I can faintly hear another far-off lock click open, and then the door materializes in front of us.
It first appears as a rectangle of light, appearing at eye height, about the size of a painting. Slowly, it expands until it’s large enough for a human to step through.
It’s daytime in England and the sudden change of light burns my eyes. Queen Mor tugs our hands, and without any fanfare, the three of us walk through together. In half a heartbeat we travel from the dungeons of the Otherworld into the grand foyer of Kensington Palace.
It’s just as I remember it. The leaves on the tree that grows up through the staircase have turned from green to brilliant orange. They flutter gently through beams of golden sunlight, from the eaves to the black-and-white checkered floors. The front doors to the gravel drive are wide open, letting in the cool autumn breeze.
It smells just like how I remember it, too, a mix of damp earth and floor polish.
There is no sense of relief, though. This is not meant to be a happy homecoming.
Emmett takes one step into the foyer, and I make no attempt to follow him before I am wrenched backward. Our eyes meet, and thespace between us is charged with all the time we wanted but will not get.
Queen Mor grips my hand tighter and yanks me off of my feet.
I don’t even have the time to gasp before I go tumbling back through the open door to the Otherworld.
“I’m sorry!” I scream. If he can’t forgive me, I hope he at least understands, in time.
I hear one last thing: Emmett screaming my name.
Mor and I land with a thud in the great hall of the castle. The sky is dark and a revel is in full swing around us.
The band whines to a halt and the crowd gasps as they see Mor and me, fighting like alley cats in the middle of the ballroom.
I land a blow to her stomach and she jerks me back by my hair hard enough that her hand comes away with a fistful of it.
She holds me down, but I buck my hips and roll, briefly escaping, before she scrambles to her feet and brings her foot down on my hand, hard, shattering the delicate bones and pinning me to the floor. My scream echoes off the rafters.
Maybe it’s her immortal strength, but it isn’t much of a fight after that. For all my kicking and punching and biting, she hauls me to my feet, pins my hands behind my back, and pushes me toward the dais at the end of the room. I never stood a chance against her. I knew that.
Sitting in twin thrones are Bram and my sister.
My sister’s face is parchment white, her hands gripping the arms of her seat, but Bram looks on with curious amusement.
