Eleanor and Aodhan bowed low, their cheeks touching the stage.
The Queen’s eyes drifted over the scene: my harp, James in the rubble, me standing mere feet away from her.
“Why isn’t she dead yet?” To my surprise, her voice sounded weary, a bit reminiscent of Luke’s—maybe that was how a human body became after one thousand years.
Aodhan grinned at me. “We were just having a bit of sport.”
“There will be more sport when she is dead.” The Queen looked at me and said, disbelieving, “And you are Deirdre? I thought, when I saw you, I would understand why Luke Dillon wouldn’t do as he was told. But you’re—” she shrugged, obviously bemused. “You’re so ordinary.”
The words were so human that they at least gave me the courage to speak. “You were ordinary once yourself.”
The Queen looked at me incredulously. “You compare the value of your life to mine? You’re nothing. And I am everything. Is that why you won’t die? You thought you were worth something? Your story has been written a thousand times, and in every version, you and your lover die.”
She stepped toward me, power seeping from her, and I stumbled back from the sheer drowning force of it. Was it true? Was I living “The Faerie Girl’s Lament”?
Suddenly I felt a tug on my ankle, and a second later my leg was pulled out from under me, so fast that my breath abandoned me. In a blink, I was hanging upside down by an ankle, my iron key hanging precariously below my face. I jerked my hands upward toward the rope, but I was snared securely in the most obvious trap ever.
Aodhan’s laugh carried across the stage and he clapped his hands, ignoring the Queen’s dark expression. He strode over and stood face-to-face with me, his face right side up and mine upside down, the key hanging between us. “I thought you would never step into that.”
He reached up behind my neck, his fingers too hot on my skin, and untied the cloth string that held the key.
No. Crap, no.
I summoned the dark outside, gathering it into me, intending to push it into his face. Anything to keep him away from Luke’s secret.
“No, Deirdre Monaghan,” the Queen said flatly. “I don’t think so.”
And just like that, as soon as she said my name, I went empty inside, like a balloon deflated in an instant.
The key clattered on the floor at Aodhan’s feet. And I just felt limp, drained, captive. So, this was why the faeries kept their names secret.
“May I play with her now?” Aodhan’s words were directed at the Queen, but his eyes never left my face.
“He’s worked quite hard enough for it,” Eleanor suggested.
The Queen made a vague gesture—like a teen’s whatever—and instantly Aodhan was clambering up the side of the stage to cut the snare. My mind raced through possible plans, but my thoughts seemed to slip away like water, pumped out of my brain by my pounding heart.
And then I was falling. I barely had time to wheel my arms out when pain seared through me—the back of my head first, then my left hand. I gasped for breath and consciousness, lying in the same rubble as James. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. And my hand was killing me.
Oh, God. My eyes drifted to my hand and my stomach turned. Driven through the back of my hand was a long nail. The point protruded several inches from my palm, with almost no blood around its base.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Aodhan leapt on top of me, pinning my other arm to the ground, not worrying with the one nailed to the stubby board. He grinned down at me, his eyes bright. His body was too hot, burning me, and his thyme-scented breath invaded my nostrils. I should have been afraid, but all I could think of was how glad I was that Luke wasn’t here to see me, pinned beneath Freckle Freak. The thought pricked tears of shame at the corners of my eyes. “I think I’ll enjoy you quite a bit.”
At his words, James shifted on the rubble near me. His teeth gritted, and his voice was barely audible. “Get off her.”
Aodhan told me, “You’ll have to wait a minute, lovely.” He reached to his waist and unsheathed his knife. “I have to take care of this first.”
Okay. This was enough. As Aodhan lifted his knife, I summoned every bit of physical strength I had and swung my left hand—nail, board, and all—at Freckle Freak’s pretty face. There was no time for him to jerk away, and the nail stabbed into his cheek.
The knife dropped from his hand.
Aodhan wrenched his cheek from the nail and stumbled off of me. Staring at me, he touched the wound with his fingers. It was no worse than the wound on my hand, certainly not enough to kill him, but his eyes told me otherwise.
And then, bursting from the hole the iron had made, a new, green bud surged forth, unfolding into a delicate leaf. And then another, and another still. The fresh growth spread across his cheek, exploding into beautiful white flowers with yellow stamen, and purple daisies with deep black centers, and small, pink bleeding hearts that bobbed as he stumbled back again. In seconds, endless beauty erupted from the filth that was Aodhan, consuming him with life and promise. He fell back, but before he hit the floor, it was only a cascade of flowers that spilled across the stage, making no more sound than a whisper.
I wrenched my hand from the nail and grasped my key. My hand was bloody but had stopped hurting; was that a bad thing? The Queen looked at the pile of flowers that was Freckle Freak and then looked at Eleanor. “The time for sport is over. Bring me Luke Dillon.”
I stopped breathing.
“With pleasure,” Eleanor said, sweeping over the petals as if they meant nothing to her. I crept over to James’ side, crouching protectively between him and the Queen, though who knew what I could do against her if she tried to kill him. She had my name. The power to stop me in my tracks. A small part of me wished that Luke would whirl in and rescue me again, but I didn’t really think it was going to go down like that.
The Queen looked at me, her eyes flitting over the bloody key and over James, behind me. “You aren’t strong enough, you know. Not to kill me. Not to rule Them.”
I cradled my hand in my lap, shoulders hunched, and gazed back at her. “I don’t want to rule Them.”
She shrugged. “Then They will kill you. Haven’t you heard the legends? Don’t you know what happens to cloverhands who cannot control the fey? Eyes gouged out. Paralyzed. Killed.”
Her words rang true, echoing faerie tales from my childhood. But my mind slipped away from her, escaping into a memory of Luke’s—him playing a wild reel in a circle of faeries who bent bows and pounded drums. I recognized Brendan, saw Una’s smile, heard the feral beauty of the tune. It was one of the most beautiful memories I’d gotten from Luke, the only one I’d wished I’d been there for.