“Something that sees them as trespassers. Something that will need to be killed or sent back to Faerie, and it will need to be done quickly, Hunter, or things will unravel for us all.” The queen glances away from the window, meeting my gaze.
I swear she’s trying to tell me more than I can hear in her words. “Whatwill unravel?”
“Accords that predate your life, Gabrielle. Peace between our kinds is fragile, and this violence will endanger it. You will have a solution if I can get an accord.”
The full weight of her admission hits me. “You alreadyknowwhat’s killing men. Show me some clue or direction.” I spin around the archive, hefting samples, casts, and weapons. “This? Or this? Or maybe this?”
Her expression is unchanging. She neither nods nor gestures. “I know a great many things I cannot say.”
“Pick something up.Showme.”
“That is not a direct question.” The queen turns her back to me. “You are the Hunter now, Gabrielle. You will learn that not all truths we know are ones we share with the world.”
“Tell me where to find the monster.” I take a step closer to the queen. “People are dying. Myfatherdied.”
“I have ordered announcements sent to the local villages banning all travel within Brimmond Wood. I have also sent a message to Faerie.”The queen sounds as if she’s being helpful, but it feels as if politics outweigh the safety of Alveus. Her political machinations are not helpful, not in finding real solutions.
“That’s not enough.” I snarl the words. “People will continue to die. Emma Iversson was attacked today. I have been attacked twice. Three men dead. Myfatheris one of the dead.”
“Then find the beast, Hunter.” Morag shrugs slightly. “What more can I do?”
“What more ... Surely, you jest!” I let out a noise that is half anger and half shock. “You could tell me what the beast is, where it is, what its weakness is. You’re withholding clues that I can use, clues that will let me save lives, Your Majesty.”
Instead, the queen glides toward the curtained passageway. “I believe the Chathams are hosting the Hunter. You should depart soon.”
I take another step toward her, hand raising, but I’m not certain how much freedom I truly have. Touching her is treason, and if I am imprisoned, who will stop the Beast of Brimmond?
“My duty is to protect all of Alveus, protectyourempire, so why would you withhold answers?” I ask in a raw voice.
The queen glances back at me. “Even queens must follow treaties and rules. Do you think, truly think, that thefaerieswould not craft holes in the treaty?”
“I know they did. That’s why I exist,” I say softly. I am, in truth, a living loophole for them. “If they break the treaty, I exist to stop them. If they ever intended to adhere to it, there would be no need for a Hunter.”
“Indeed. And if you exist, so, too, must we knowotherthings exist, Hunter. You will resolve this. I believe in that. I believe inyou, Gabrielle. My hands, however, are tied.”
“So there’s something here like me? But working for them?” I ask.
Queen Morag smiles in a way that feels like an answer. Then she pushes the curtain aside and leaves me alone in the archive to puzzleout what would make the queen unable to share answers with her own Hunter.
Only one person could force Queen Morag’s obedience. Queen Gloriana, ruler of the Faeries for centuries, cocreator of the original Queens’ Treaty. My first duty as Hunter is, apparently, to stop a beast protected by the queen of faeries ... and I have no idea how to do so.
Chapter 18
“Pookas are black-featured fellows mounted on good horses; and are horse-dealers.”
—The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countriesby W.Y. Evans-Wentz [1911]
My mind is a jumble that does not improve when I return to our home in the city. I am barely inside the door when Mother bars my path, stopping me. She steps up to me, her cane extended to the side like a barricade, folds her arms, and stares at me. I take her in, noticing that her dress is draped in a long black cloak, and I realize that she needs more mourning clothes, as she’s having to layer black fabric awkwardly over her gowns.
“I need to return to the manor at once,” she says. “I am done with the city. I must go home.”
“No. You are safer here in the city.” I am curt, but of all the things that feel out of my reach to manage, this one I think I can accomplish. I must keep her safe; the only thing I can still do for my murdered father is to protect his widow. “The beast kills there, not here. There were no deaths by the creature in the city, and so I think—”
“Is that an order?” Mother stares at me in a way that makes my stomach roil like I’ve eaten bad meat.
“I can have the seamstress come and see to proper mourning garb,” I offer in a softer tone. “There is no need to travel to—”
“Nothing here smells of him.” Mother wrings her hands and whispers, “At home the sheets, his clothing ...” Her words get lost in a sob, and she leans toward me. “My bed there still smells of him. Here? Nothing. He hated the city. I want to go home.”
