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Galantha gritted her teeth, a touch of cold anger bleeding into her eyes. “What goes on between me and my son is of no concern to you—”
“It is when you start threatening him. And other friends of mine, running respectable businesses, working respectable jobs.”
“Again, who exactly are you?” Galantha sneered, looking down her nose at Ethel. “Just a wizened old hag who—”
“I like to think I’m a queen of sorts myself, actually.” Ethel smoothed back her wispy blue-rinse hair.
“That’s right, mimi,” Freddie called encouragingly. “You’re a queen to us.”
“Thank you, bubs.” Ethel peered back to give her grandson an affectionate smile.
“This is pathetic.” Galantha snorted in derision. “So you are what—the Queen of the Crones? Am I supposed to be impressed or intimidated by this? By you?” She looked over at Crossbody, and her expression morphed into a disgusted, seething glare. “This was your plan to try and worm your way out of your duties? Asking a decrepit hag to fight your battles for you—”
“I don’t think the name-calling is necessary, do you?” Ethel said sternly.
Galantha’s nostrils flared with outrage. “You called me a bitch.”
“That’s true. That was a low blow. I apologise for that. Anyway”—Ethel peered over at us with a nod—“we’ll be leaving now with your lovely son, and you’re going to let him live his life in peace. Yes?”
“What?” Galantha let out an incredulous laugh. “You don’t get to talk to me like that. You don’t get to tell me what I will be doing with my son. He’s my property. He will do what I—”
“He’s not property. He’s a person.” Ethel took a threatening step forward and seemed to swell in size. “You’re getting my temper up, dear.”
“Oh no, how utterly terrifying.” Galantha rolled her eyes, then she jerked her chin at Ethel and told her guards, “I’m bored of this now. Get rid of them.”
“Hold on.” Ethel frowned, paying no attention to the guards who began to approach, pointing their weapons at her. “We’re not quite done here, dearie.”
Galantha barked out a harsh laugh as she spun back around. “And I’m not quite sure why you still think you have any say in what is happening, hag. You are in my queendom. My palace. That worthless coward”—she pointed a sharp finger at Crossbody, and I bristled immediately—“is my son, so you don’t get to tell me what I do with him—”
“That is enough.” Ethel’s voice suddenly boomed through the cavernous room, deeper and rougher and growlier than before. In an instant, her body grew at least three times in size, her back hunching as a line of spikes burst from beneath her floral dress.
In seconds, she had become a hulking alligator-like creature with rough purplish skin, a spiked spine and a snout crowded with sharp, curving teeth.
Queen Galantha went pale as she stared at her. The guards stumbled back in shock, and all the noble fae in the room pressed themselves back against the walls in an attempt to get as far away from the giant reptile now standing in the centre of the room as possible.
“Let me clear things up for you, little girl.” Ethel’s stern voice was now snarly and almost impossibly deep. “You might have a little scrap of power here, but back there, where your son lives, I have all the power. You think you’re impressive because you know a bank manager? I used to babysit the damn managing director! I got him that job! He works for me. Everyone in my town does. All the little connections you’ve spent years making to try and bully your son into doing what you want—they’re all worthless, my dear. All it would take is a single phone call from me, and none of them would ever listen to a word you say again.”
Queen Galantha’s face had turned a dark purple as she stared at Ethel, a muscle ticking in her jaw.
“And who the fuck are you?” she eventually asked, voice unsteady.
“I’m Ethel.”
“Best damn mimi in the whole country!” Freddie called.
“Thank you, bubs.” Ethel smoothed down her dress with her huge, clawed hands. “My family run a very respectable waste management and garbage disposal business. We also have our fingers in a few other pies. Dabbling in politics, law enforcement, property management… You know, all kinds of things.”
The queen didn’t really seem to know what to say, as if she was beginning to grasp just how little control she suddenly had in this situation. Which meant after a few long, tense moments, she turned her seething fury back onto the easiest target—her son.
“I have never been more embarrassed of you than I am in this moment,” she spat at Crossbody. “All you had to do was produce a fucking heir, and you don’t even have to do the hard part. How are you this worthless?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarled, stepping forward. “You don’t get to fucking talk to him like that.”
“And who are you?” she hissed. “The ghoul he employs to clean that hovel he calls a home?”
“He’s not my butler,” Crossbody yelled, surprisingly loud. I blinked, staring in surprise when he snatched up my hand and scowled at his mother. “He’s my—He’s mine. We’re—”
“As if you couldn’t become even more of an embarrassment,” she sneered. “Cavorting with a ghoul.”
