Page 40 of The Fae Queen's Captive
Morgana’s lips press briefly together; she lifts her chin. “I won’t be long,” she tells me, as if she still has the right to make me feel safe. “I’ll be right back.”
And then she stands, refusing Acanthia’s hand but walking with her toward the waterfall all the same. Most of the courtiers, including Idalia, follow, keeping a respectful distance from the monarchs and seeming to forget about my very existence. Because why would they care about a mortal panting after more fairy fruit? How much trouble could I possibly make?
Coat, my mind whispers.The coat.
I stand slowly and then creep to where Idalia draped my coat over a log. And then, with a few short steps, I’m around a grove of trees, walking quickly toward the exit of the sanctuary. My body burns against the cool air as I do, keening for more fairy fruit, the same way my heart keens for Morgana.
Salt, I remind myself. I need salt to break the spell. I reach for the little cutlery set in my coat pocket, the paper packet with a disposable bamboo knife and fork. I pull it out of my coat pocket as I walk out of the Sanctuary and tear it open.
Sure enough, at the very bottom are two tiny packets—one is pepper. The other is salt.
It only takes the first few grains for my mind to clear and my body to cool. And once it does, I slip on my coat, hike up my skirts, and run.
Chapter16
The market is too crowded, too busy, and I have no idea where Castle Docherty is, but I shove my way through the fray regardless, my head down and the hood of my coat up over my blonde hair. Not that it helps any—in a place of horns, headdresses, and hair in every hue, my plain polyester hood is as much of a giveaway as anything else.
Castle Docherty. Castle Docherty.
It sounds familiar—one of the castles Dr. Siska investigated when she was looking for the site of de Segovia’s castle, I think. Fourteenth century, with an outer fortress wall. Sandstone, maybe.
I scan above the stalls as I walk, looking for battlements and conical roofs emerging against the slow-fading sky. There’s no way a castle canhide,not among tents and wide-open jousting lists, but it still takes me a good fifteen minutes of shoving my way through the crowd to see it at the very edge of the market, hulking in the twilight. Fog swirls at its base, and the weathered stone looks…worm-eaten somehow.
I can’t say I particularly want to go there, because it looks haunted as fuck, but I’m also a little low on choices right now.
I squeeze through the crush—vendors calling out bargains and sales, buyers desperate to get what they need before the market closes—and finally see a grassy path between two pavilions that will take me to the castle. It looks very untrod and bedecked with spiderwebs, like no one else has wanted to go to the castle either, and maybe it’s not a good idea to go off on my own—
A hand seizes my upper arm, yanking me back before I can get to the path. Choking back a yell, I spin and twist, trying to get away, but my assailant holds fast, their fingers digging into my arm through my coat. When I twist all the way around, I don’t see the queen or one of her guards, or even a random fairy looking to prey on a lost-looking mortal. I see Felipe.
Felipe, whom I thought was a friend.
He shoves a cloth to my face, and no matter how I wrench and struggle, I can’t seem to escape it. It smells earthy, faintly sweet, and then my muscles loosen. Darkness creeps at the edges of my vision, swirls in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” he says in Latin. “I’m sorry for this.”
* * *
I’m cold.
I’m cold, and everything smells like wet stone and dirt.
I drag my eyelids open to see that I’m somewhere dim and enclosed, and at the same time, I become aware of the stone underneath me, of the cold metal binding my wrists and ankles. I’m cuffed and spread-eagled on some kind of slab, and the only light comes from a single blue-burning torch in the corner of the space.
Felipe stands underneath it, his clothes blending into the dark stone behind him, and his sad features disappear and reappear as the torch dances in the strange arrhythmic gusts of this presumably underground space.
“You’re awake,” he says softly. “Good.”
“Where am I?” I rasp. I try to move, but the cuffs and chains are too heavy, and I’m still fucked up from whatever he dosed me with. “Back at the castle?”
He inclines his head. “You will be taken to the tithing place soon. But it is best if you are here until then.”
I close my eyes, the fear colder than the metal anchoring me to the stone. “So it’s all true. She’s going to kill me tonight.”
“It’s a very old tradition,” he says gently. “One that’s stabilized the realms for as long as anyone can remember. She has no choice. Even the Thistle Queen did her duty—it’s what real rulers must do.”
And Morgana would be aware of that, sensitive to that.Struggling, Felipe had said of her at the hunt.Young, Acanthia had called her. The tithe would be a show of strength, proof she has what it takes to rule in this vicious world.
“So that’s it,” I say, so tired now. “I’m going to be human sacrificed. Wonderful.”
