I think Isabeau has come here to defend her family, but she surges forward and her claws dive deep into the Beast of Brimmond’s belly. Isabeau continues forward until she is at the edge of the sea cliff, holding the dowager duchess in her clawed hands. She lifts her mother up higher.
“Isabeau! Wait!”
A furred, monstrous Isabeau hurls her mother over the edge of the cliff, and the Beast of Brimmond plummets into the dark night. The rocky edge of the cliff will impale her, and if those sea rocks do not kill her, the icy water will. I can feel the weight of thegeasrelease me.
All that is left is sorrow, pain, and confusion.
Isabeau looks at me with the same eyes I know and love, although they are currently lost in a furred face. “You scared me, love.”
She opens her arms as if to embrace me, but I cannot. She is still a faery, and I am still the Hunter. Even as my heart breaks, I lift the point of my sword and await the fight that will likely end my life.
“You are not bound to kill her,” a voice says from behind me. “Thegeasonly was to kill the murderous one.”
I whirl, blade still at the ready.
A feral barefoot woman stands there in a long dress that looks as if it was made of molten silver. As she steps forward, taking two pacestoward me, the length of her right leg from ankle to hip is bared. More scandalously, she appears not to have a chemise or anything under the gown. Even nightgowns are more modest than this. A long swath of cloth trails over one shoulder, but her arms are bare, and only one leg is covered.
Corpses in their winding cloths have more material.
Infants do.
Seductresses—who make their money teaching nobles and merchants the ways of intimacy—wear more.
“Where did you come from?” I ask, still holding my blade in hand as she strolls by me and reaches up to touch Isabeau’s face.
From this angle, I see that under the woman’s long hair, her naked back is exposed. Her hair, however, is as a cloak. It falls around her shoulders, sliding over her arms and back like something living. It writhes, serpentine waves undulating from shoulder to hip.
Faery,my mind supplies in a panic.
The woman’s skin is luminous, and staring too long at her makes my eyes burn as if I’ve been looking directly at the sun.
“You’re a . . . faery.”
“Thefaery, in fact.” The woman’s voice is as inhuman as her appearance, and I can’t decide whether it is cacophony or symphony. The two options are equally possible and simultaneous. The woman either sounds like the screams of the damned or the sweetest music of nature. I’m not certain which ... or if it’s both.
I shake my head and guess, “Queen Gloriana?”
She smiles. “We must speak now.”
“Faeries aren’t to be in this world. There’s a treaty. An accord. The queen—”
“Themortalqueen, you mean?” Gloriana tilts her head like a feral creature trying to understand words.
“Gabrielle?” Isabeau stares at me. “How did I get here?” She glances at the sky, and a lovely smile suffuses her face. “I’m not cursed! It’s nighttime and—”
“Why would you be cursed?” Gloriana frowns. “Oh, child. Your mother has not told you.” Her language is not the common tongue, but I recognize it all the same.
The language of Hunters is the language of faeries.
Then the queen sweeps away from Isabeau again and passes me, trailing a cloud of some intoxicating fragrance that feels like peace inside my body. I stand there, speechless, senses blinded by the scent exuding from the faery queen. My mouth is dry, and my vision blurs. Sounds mute, and I feel like the very air pauses. In the distance, I hear the waves against the cliff stop.
“What are you doing?” Isabeau manages to say, and I see her moving toward me in the heavy air.
“Do you see?” the faery queen asks. “She wants to save you, protect you, love you. And you love her, Hunter of Mine.”
I am unsure whether she means hunter ofcreaturesthat are her subjects or whether she is calling me one of her creatures. I don’t want to know either. I want to stop bleeding, to see my family, to figure out what to do about Isabeau.
“Take her to Faerie,” I blurt out. “I can’t kill her.”
