Grave Secret (26 page)

But that was his own damn fault. He lived in fairyland, for crying out loud. Wasn’t this a place where anything could happen? Hadn’t I seen glowing flowers and a man wearing an outfit made out of moss? Did we not arrive here through a magical fucking door?

I found myself getting angrier and angrier at Zuzu as we walked, upset with him for being afraid of us. Mostly because it meant we were somehow scarier and more fucked up than anything in the fae realm. And there was no way I could believe that was true.

As soon as we arrived in the throne room, Zuzu vanished out a side door. I would bet good money we’d never see him again.

“I trust your evening was restful,” Aubrey said by way of greeting. “Though I see one of your party has slipped his mortal form.”

“Alternative realities are a tricky thing like that,” I replied, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with his comments.

“Did you sleep well after the ball?”

“No.”

“Ah, well.” He gave me a knowing smile. A little too knowing. “That will happen.”

“Mmm.”

The more time I spent with Aubrey Delacourte—and granted it hadn’t been much time at all—the less I liked him. Besides the similarities of appearance and the way they tended to talk in circles, I couldn’t find a lot of ways Aubrey and Calliope were alike. They did both have a habit of trying my patience, but I could at least count on Calliope to come through with something useful in the end.

Aubrey wasn’t here to help me.

He snapped his fingers twice, and a door behind him opened. A man came through who was average height. He was the man from the night before, but I was able to get a better look at him now. He would have been incredibly handsome if he’d been in any other company. With Aubrey and Holden in the room the quota for beauty had already been exceeded, and this guy just looked pleasant and symmetrical. That was the best I could think of him.

Kellen followed behind him, her fingers entwined with his.
She was wearing a gold dress, her long brown hair done up in an elegant Grecian bun, and she appeared to be happy. I’d seen Kellen giddy-happy and drunk-happy, but there was something about the expression on her face I didn’t recognize. She was so happy I didn’t trust it. She looked over at us and gave a wave, but her attention was fixated on the fairy.

“You’ve had time to make your observations,” I told Aubrey. “Now let’s come to an arrangement. That was your promise. One of them, anyway.”

“Ah, careful now.” He raised his index finger and waggled it side to side. “I promised no such thing. I said if you and I could
agree
to terms, then I would let her go.”

Motherfucker. The fae should all moonlight as lawyers.

“I did have time to observe,” Aubrey continued. “I’ve been watching you since you arrived here.”

“I bet.”

“And I do have the terms of her release, should you be ready to hear them.”

“Never been readier.” That was the God’s honest truth. The sooner I could get Kellen and bring everyone home, the happier I’d be.

“My terms are a trade.”

The word
trade
hit me like I’d fallen into ice water. “A…what?”

“I will
trade
for the girl.”

The gears of my brain started grinding, desperate to find something, anything that would make him give me
any
other terms. “But she’s not yours.
He
took her.” I pointed to the average-enough-looking fae. “You can’t trade for something that isn’t yours.”

“Clever. But you are sadly mistaken. I am King, and therefore everything here is mine to barter and trade for as I see fit. He may have her now, but if it were my desire, she would be mine. As you wish to have her back, I feel like something should be left in her place. That seems fair, does it not?”

Don’t agree. Don’t agree. Whatever you do, don’t agree,
screamed the intelligent part of my brain. The desperate part wanted to grab Kellen and make a break for it. I wanted to do or say anything to get us out of there. But the underused McQueen smarts made me think better of rash actions.

“I don’t—” I stopped myself mid-sentence. I needed to think very carefully before I said anything. If I told him I didn’t agree to the trade, our promise was void. He’d only let Kellen go if we came to an agreement. I couldn’t tell him I
did
agree, because I had no idea what he wanted from me.

“You don’t what?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I have to offer that would inspire you to request a trade,” I said finally, picking each word carefully and making sure to keep sarcasm out of my tone.

He smiled, seeming to appreciate my participation in his game.

“As I mentioned, I kept a close eye on you.”

“As one does when observing,” I replied.

“Yes.” His look told me I shouldn’t interrupt again. “And I have found your attachment to your companions to be quite intriguing. You bed this one…” he pointed to Holden, “…but still you risk your own life instead of harming this one.” Desmond was sitting beside me like a well-trained dog. My hand went to his head, as if touching him could protect him from the weight of Aubrey’s gaze.

I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to make him think my feelings went one way or the other.

“I want you to choose,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“The terms of my trade are this. You are attached to both your male companions. I cannot tell which you care for more. It bothers me not to know, and so I want you to choose. The one you care for most you can keep. The one you do not choose will stay here in place of the girl. I will have done you a great favor.”

“How do you figure that?” I choked out, unable to believe I was hearing him correctly.

“Once you have chosen, you will no longer be torn between them. I will have saved you the heartache of further attachment and the moment when you would ultimately have to choose anyway. Now you may do it for noble reasons instead of selfish ones.”

“Swell.”

“And now, Miss McQueen, if you would be so kind. Make your choice.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“You’ve
got
to be fucking kidding me.” Decorum be damned.

“You don’t like the arrangement?” Aubrey feigned surprise at my outburst. “I thought it to be quite fair. Do you not think it fair, Brokk?” He addressed the fairy who was holding Kellen.

“I think it more than fair,” the fairy replied.

“And you, girl. Do you find it fair?”

Kellen looked uneasy, fidgeting from foot to foot, clutching Brokk’s hand. “I’m, uh…not sure? I don’t
want
to go.”

What did she mean? The fairy must have a spell over her, convincing her she didn’t want to leave. What was it with fairies putting people under spells?

“That wasn’t the question, though,” Aubrey said. “I asked if you thought my arrangement was
fair
.”

Brokk patted her hand and whispered something in her ear. Kellen looked nervous but said, “Yes. Very fair.”

Holden raised his hand. “I’m not a big fan.”

I didn’t shush him because the deal was between Aubrey and me, so Holden could voice whatever opinion he wanted without undoing the bargain. I was still trying to suss out how I might magically talk my way out of this ordeal and still have Kellen with me when I left.

“Your Majesty, may I speak plainly?” I spoke through gritted teeth, each polite word more of an effort than the last.

“I suppose.”

“The terms you are suggesting are ones you know I cannot possibly comply with.”

“Nonsense, it is a simple choice.”

“It isn’t. It is an impossible choice to ask someone to choose favorites between those she loves, and if you knew anything about love, you’d see why I can’t pick one or the other.”

“I know love, possibly better than you do. You make a mockery of it by suggesting you can love two as equally as you can love one. The heart is not meant to be divided so.”

I was on a roll now, and there was no stopping me. I’d logic my way out of this if it killed me. “Can a heart be broken?”

“Certainly.”

“Then there can’t be a limit to the number of pieces a heart can be divided into. If my heart can break into a million pieces, surely it can be evenly divided more than once.”

Aubrey’s face went red.

“And if we’ve proven my heart can be divided as many times as it can be broken, you must also agree the love each piece feels must be equal to that of another. Correct?”

He said nothing, and his cheeks flushed darker.

“Then if all that is true, it must be true that I love each of these men equally, and neither less than the other, and as such the terms you have issued cannot possibly be complied with. You have set an impossible task for me, and the bargain is unfair.”

Silence filled the room. I wanted someone to stand and give me a goddamn ovation for what I’d just managed to pull out of my ass. I had to settle for the intelligent part of my brain giving a sigh of relief.

“Miss McQueen, a word if I may.” Aubrey rose from his throne and strode towards me. Not waiting for me to accept his invitation, he grabbed my arm and dragged me behind him with remarkable strength I would not have expected from his lean body.

He ushered me across the room and through a black-wood door that didn’t match the rest of the room. The room was dark inside and very small.

“Did you just pull us into a closet?”

Aubrey looked around, as if only now realizing where he had taken us. “I believe I may have, yes.”

Nice to know even the fae needed janitorial provisions. No magic mops and buckets here.

“Do you know what you did to me out there?” he asked. His voice was level, so if he was angry, he was hiding it very, very well.

“I out-talked you.”

“That’s certainly one way to put it. But, no, Miss McQueen. You played me for a fool.”

“If I was able to, then you set yourself up to be played. The terms were flawed, and I exposed the flaws. I did to your game exactly what you were trying to do to me. Doesn’t feel very good, does it?”

His cheeks flushed again. “No. It does not.”

“I’m still willing to comply with the arrangement we made. But you need to set real terms. If it’s a trade, it has to be something I can give, and the freedom of another person isn’t mine to barter with.”

“But we are bartering for someone’s freedom.”

“Kellen isn’t some fairy lord’s plaything. I know you might not understand that because your people have been kidnapping women since before there was a written record to show it, but you had to figure one day someone might come looking for one of those women.”

“You aren’t the first, you know.”

“Yeah, there are plenty of epic poems in my world, believe me. The point is, she’s not a
thing
, she’s someone’s sister. Someone’s friend. And we want her back.”

“The girl is nothing to me.”

“
Then let me have her
.” My anger rattled some jars on the shelf and was probably heard outside.

“Shush, shush.” He held a finger to his lips like that might soothe me. “Times certainly have changed in your world. I remember when a proper lady never spoke above a whisper.”

“Tough shit for you, then, because I’ve never been a proper lady.”

“And yet you are a queen.”

I crossed my arms and shrugged.

“I cannot simply
give
her to you,” he said once it was apparent I had nothing to add to his point. “It would look weak and even more foolish than you have already made me. I have set the terms as a trade, and so a trade it must be.”

“But it won’t be for another person.”

“No.”

“And it won’t be for someone you and your kind view as being something
other
than a person,” I added, recalling how Ghillie had dismissed Holden as being dead.

Aubrey tapped my nose and I recoiled. “You learn quickly.”

“A wise woman told me not to put my trust in fairies.”

“Don’t be so invested in what that woman claims is wisdom.”

“When you can see into the future, Your Majesty, I’ll start listening to your wisdom over hers.”

He didn’t have anything to say, which was a bonus because I was starting to get worn out with all the wordplay.

When he continued, we were back on topic. “We agree that I will take a trade.”

“Something mine alone to give.”

“It will be something valuable.”

“As long as it isn’t anyone’s life, you and I have a deal.”

He smiled, and I didn’t like it. “Very well. I believe I know just the thing.”

I was desperately hoping he would suggest my firstborn. With my useless, self-defeating womb, it would be the perfect solution. “And that is?”

“Something you hold dear but is reviled by others. Your greatest weapon.” He patted my cheek. “I will like to have it very much.”

I searched my brain for what he might be talking about, cataloguing my possessions. Then I remembered my fae katana, the one I’d soiled by using it to slay the undead. I remembered the way the creepy fairy twins had reacted to it, and
reviled
was an appropriate word.