Page 47 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
I’d been inside the carriage, the city blacked out from my view, for most of the trip up from the city gates to the castle. Now, I wished more than ever that I’d not been.
I drew the hood close around my face as we trudged further out still from the castle itself. I would have gone to greater lengths to conceal myself had I known where our journeys would take us.
There were no other fae in this outer ring, none except the guards—of which, there were more than plenty.
The moment we stepped through the gates, it was as if Ifelta shift in the air.
And I’d thought the contrast between the first two sections of the city was great.
The air was less sweet here, thicker with that ocean spray, but the salt that cut through the air in the higher rings seemed to hang heavy here.
What hung heavier still, however, were the spirits of fae and humans alike.
It should have been hard to find the signs of unrest and rebellion, but even the faces of the fae guards looked disgruntled as we passed. I looked to Zev and Finch to make sure I wasn’t the only one who saw it, but from the way both of them drew nearer to me, I knew they saw it, too. We walked in silence for a while, the tension palpable as we made our way through the outer ring of the city. The streets were narrower here, the buildings smaller and far less manicured. They were lucky to have a potted plant outside, let alone the gardens and hedges that had brightened the higher levels of the city streets.
It was strange, in a way, to think that this was the only court where the fae claimed they actually got along with the humans that they ruled. This was also the only court where the humans remained at all. We’d burned down the rest of their cities and then built our own, leaving them with our scraps. No wonder they’d never risen up in all this time. There were too busy trying to rebuild, still.
I knew my power, the power of the Tongues was great, but was it really so great that it could keep an entire court in line for so long?
Was it really so great that without it, even for just a few weeks—three months at most—that the entire court, that the entirekingdomcould be on the verge of crumbling?
All this I wondered before we even saw it, the first signs that Phina had not lied.
It was strangely, reassuring, the sight of this crowd. It was a sign my mother hadn’t lied, that the letters she’d sent summoning the courts were, in fact, for this purpose—and not something more sinister.
Perhaps I’d been wrong to be so suspicious. The queen, for all her faults, hadn’t yet lied about the bargain we’d struck. I was the one who was here, now, instead of upholding my own end.
That little reassurance, however, only lasted so long.
We didn’t see the first signs until we left the main, winding street, and stepped out into the crisscrossing maze of alleys that made up most of the outer ring of the city. It was a massive city, far larger than the other courts I’d been to. Much larger than the human city where Shiel, Zev, Finch, and I had spent one fateful night so long ago. With a map, it would be difficult to traverse the full width of this outer ring within a couple hours. Without it, I could imagine getting lost for days.
Especially when the crowds began to thicken, pressed closer by the buildings set too near together.
The air grew heavier with every step we took. The buildings here were built with rough-hewn stone, the few once considered grand enough to deserve the white of a lime wash now so stained with dirt and salt and grime that they nearly matched the shade of their untouched neighbors.
The streets grew uneven and unkempt, debris piling in the corners and broken glass crunching underfoot.Most of the windows didn’t even have glass anymore, just thin waxed paper to keep the wet sea air out.
But it wasn’t the general disrepair that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was the sense of tension that hung here, heavier even than the thick salt and brine, so thick it was almost tangible. We weren’t the only ones that seemed to constantly be checking over their shoulders. Our voices weren’t the only ones that dropped to hushed tones whenever a dark-clad figure passed too close.
All the figures were dark clad here.
If the sense of unease was a match, this entire ring of the city would already be on fire.
Faces turned towards us with growing suspicion the further into the ring we passed. I might have been able to hide my face, but there was no hiding the two fae beside me. They stood out among the humans that lingered here like glowing beacons.
Up ahead, at long last, we saw an actual crowd gathered. Even from a distance, the displeasure in their voices was thick enough to swim in. It was a gruel of restlessness and resentment.
The throng up ahead was gathering quickly, growing larger by the second. It was clear from the flurry of movement where the front of the crowd seemed to converge before a small, dilapidated market stage, that whatever tableau was about to play out was soon to begin.
Zev put his arm around me, tucking me further into the safety of his shadow.
“Are you sure you want to see this?” he asked. “This place, it doesn’t look like it’s going to stay so quiet for long.”
I pulled the hood up tighter around my ears, and not for the first time, wished I had my old face back—the one that might not be so easily recognized. I’d grown far too comfortable in my new skin under the protection of the glamoured castle.
“That’s an understatement,” Finch said, still pressed closely to my other side. He too huddled close to the massive warrior with his arm now somehow slung over both of our shoulders. “This crowd looks like it’s looking for a reason to turn into a riot, and whatever they’re here to see hasn’t even started.”
I paused for a second to look up and down the streets branching beyond us to either side. While I looked, at first, for any sign of the guards I was sure would already be breaking up this gathering if they had the chance, my sight lingered on what it found in their absence.
