Shadow Faerie

Chapter 15

Fifteen

“Who was that?” Dash asks immediately. His body has gone rigid, his hands poised at his sides as if ready to grab a pair of glittering guardian weapons from the air.

“Nobody you need concern yourself with,” Aurora says. She wraps her arm around his and turns him toward the garden. She leads him down the stairs and into the sun, while Roarke does the same with me, his hand pressing against my back.

“That woman is a witch,” Dash says.

A witch. I look over my shoulder again, my mind sifting through everything I’ve learned in the past few weeks and landing on the memories associated with the word ‘witch.’ Aurora said she spent her first few years with a witch, before the woman grew tired of her and dumped her here. And Jack, Violet and Ryn’s son, said witches killed his sister years before he was born.

“Watch where you’re going,” Roarke says to me as I almost trip down the next step.

“Yes, she’s a witch,” Aurora answers. “What of it?”

Dash pulls his arm away from hers as they continue to descend the steps just ahead of us. “You’re right. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. You Unseelies have such similar magic to the witches. It makes sense to find you conspiring with them.”

“Conspiring,” Roarke repeats with a chuckle. “Your friend is far too suspicious for his own good, Emerson.”

I don’t answer him. I’m wondering instead if this witch might possibly be the woman I overheard in his room. The woman who spoke to him about that shadowy place.

“You don’t need to worry about any conspiring,” Aurora assures Dash. “She is a guest here, and so are you. We don’t want our guests fighting.”

“Really?” Dash asks lightly. “I imagine that would make for a fascinating new form of entertainment in this court.”

“You know, you could be onto something. I’ll have to ask Mother about that. Perhaps our next party can incorporate guest fighting.”

Beside me, Roarke breathes out sharply through his nose. He removes his arm from around my back and takes hold of my hand instead. “While this kind of flippant banter is amusing, you and I need to get to the tea,” he says to me, increasing his pace and pulling me along with him. “Aurora, Dash,” he says as we pass them. “We’ll see you there.”

Roarke and I cross over a little bridge spanning a stream of water that shimmers with translucent rainbow colors. At the sound of a distant roar, I look up. I now know that the indistinct figure high above me is actually a dragon. I stare longingly upward for another few moments before Roarke pulls my attention back down with a squeeze of my hand.

We reach the queen’s bower, an area of the garden shaded by enormous overhanging branches laden with thousands of purple and white blossoms. Seats crafted from entwined twigs hang from the branches. Amidst these hanging seats, numerous tables are covered in drinks and delicacies of every shape and size. In such a pretty outdoor setting, I expected pastel colors and flower-painted tea cups, but every item of food is either black or white. The striped tea cups are also black and white, and the champagne flutes are filled with fizzy black liquid.

Many of the guests are wearing colorful outfits, but I’m pleased to see the queen in a form-fitting dress of black, white and gold. At least I don’t have to feel too out of place in my charcoal grey outfit. As Roarke and I approach Queen Amrath, she lifts her glass and takes a sip. I watch closely to see if the drink will stain her lips black, but as she lowers the glass, her lips remain a dark, glossy red.

Roarke and I greet his mother, and Roarke introduces me to the friends and cousins who are sitting around her. Dash and Aurora hurry up behind us then, and Aurora introduces Dash as a friend she met several months ago. “Remember when Mizza and I spent a week at her family’s home in Nordbrook while we had my suite redecorated?”

“Ah, yes.” The queen nods.

“I spent a lot of time with him that week and decided to invite him to your party. Remember I told you about him?”

“I’m so sorry, darling.” The queen reaches for Aurora’s hand and squeezes it. “It must have slipped my mind. Why don’t you get something to eat and drink, and then bring him back to me. Dash, if you’re a special friend of Aurora’s, I’d love to get to know you better.” She gives him the same kind of smile she gave me on my first night here. Polite, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

We wander around the tables, selecting delicacies to add to our plates, and Dash eventually ends up at my side. “You should be concerned that there’s a witch here,” he says in a low voice.

“Should I?” I ask. “I’m sure the addition of a witch can’t make this place any more dangerous than it already is.”

“Most witches keep their distance from faeries. Faeries of any kind. This one can’t be up to any good if she’s hanging out here.”

I add a square-shaped chocolate cake with black icing and silver sprinkles onto my plate. “Perhaps witches aren’t all bad. You can’t judge them all for killing your friends’ baby.”

“What?” Dash frowns. “Do you mean … Did someone tell you about Victoria?”

“If Victoria is the sister Jack mentioned, then yes,” I continue. “He said she was killed by witches.”

Dash tips a glassful of black liquid down his throat and leaves the glass on the table. “Well, it was something like that. Vi and Ryn believe witch magic was responsible for Victoria’s death, even though it was actually a faerie who placed the magic on her. And yes, that’s one reason for my intense dislike of witches, but there are many others.”

“So what do you want to do? Find this witch and demand to know why she’s here? You’re supposed to be flying under the radar so you can get out of this place alive, not provoking the enemy.” At that moment, a lizard with feathery wings plops onto the table, startling me and almost upsetting a plate of coconut bonbons. The lizard jumps off the table, hits the ground, and scurries away.

“Flying under the radar,” Dash repeats, bringing my attention back to him. “I’ve heard that one enough times in your world to figure out its meaning. And what kind of guardian—” he whispers that last word so low I can barely hear it “—do you think I am? Certainly not the kind that goes around demanding information. I never would have graduated that way. No, Em, I’m perfectly capable of flying under this radar you mentioned while also finding out everything I need to know.”

“Dashiell, darling,” Aurora calls from the other side of nearby table. “My mother wants to chat with you.”

Dash frowns for a moment. “Did I tell her my full name?”

I shrug. “Maybe Dash is always short for Dashiell.”

“Right. Time to chat up the old ladies.”

Since rolling my eyes is considered unladylike, and I’ve already committed the dreadful act of shrugging my shoulders, I settle for a sigh as Dash heads back to the queen’s side. I gather a few more strange-looking treats before searching the gathering for Aurora. She and Roarke are sitting next to the circle that’s formed around the queen. Aurora’s back is almost against Dash’s, and I assume she’s paying close attention to whatever he’s saying, preparing to intervene if she needs to. I walk around the tables and hover near Dash, close enough to listen, but not quite close enough to be included in the conversation. I assume I’ll be forced to join in at some point, but I’ll enjoy the snacks until that moment arrives.

“Oh, yes, it’s beautiful here,” Dash says in answer to one of the queen’s questions. “I count myself truly lucky to have been able to visit both your palaces now.”

Mild confusion crosses the queen’s face. “Both palaces?” she enquires.

“Yes. You have this one that is both summer and winter, for day and night, and the other one that’s shrouded in smoky shadows.”

I watch as Aurora’s smile freezes in place. Her eyes snap across the gathering to settle on Roarke, who’s suddenly directing his full attention at Dash. With a puzzled look, the queen says, “I’m not sure what you mean. We have numerous manor houses across the world, but only one palace. Are you referring to one of our past parties, perhaps? We had one a few years ago with the theme of … what was it, dear?” she asks Aurora.

“Obsidian fire,” Aurora provides, twisting in her seat to look around. “Is that the one you’re thinking of, Mother?”

“Yes, that was it. Every surface was sleek obsidian. We had black fire dancing across the walls, and dark smoke that took on the form of phoenixes. Oh, and everyone dressed in silver, remember? It was magnificent. A stunning effect.”

“That sounds enchanting, Your Majesty,” Dash says, “but no, I wasn’t here for that party. I’m referring to a completely different palace—or perhaps it’s more accurate to refer to that one as a castle—with gardens where smoke as black as shadow curls and rises from every tree and plant. Even from the walls themselves.” He gives Aurora an innocent smile. “I’ve never been anywhere like it. It felt almost like … a different world entirely.”

Though Aurora’s smile is still frozen in place, her eyes contain a barely masked fury. If it were possible to strike a person down simply by looking at them, I have no doubt Dash would be dead right now.

Roarke breaks the silence with a laugh. “Sounds like your friend here ate some of those berries at the last party you invited him to, Aurora. Those green hallucinogenic ones. I had no idea they were so effective. I’ll have to try them out for myself sometime.”

“Roarke!” the queen says in a horrified tone. “That is hardly appropriate for a prince.”

Roarke laughs louder at this, and several people join in. Perhaps it’s normal for the queen to admonish her son in front of company. The chatter returns to normal then. Aurora takes Dash’s seat and pushes him away from her mother while the queen is looking elsewhere. Roarke returns to his conversation with a slightly rotund man, sending an occasional glance at Dash as he walks toward me.

“What the hell was that about?” I whisper to Dash as he reaches my side.

“Don’t you want answers about that place?” he asks. “I’ve never been anywhere like it. I still can’t figure out exactly where or what it was, or how we got there. Or how we got out, for that matter.”

“But did you have to ask about it now? In front of all these people? That is not what I would call ‘flying under the radar.’”

“Yes.” He glances past me, smiling politely at the person squeezing between me and the table behind me. “I wanted to see their reaction. Now we know that Roarke and Aurora are hiding that place from everyone, even the members of their own court.”

“Except …” I look around the gathering as I think of the woman I overheard while I was hiding in Roarke’s room. If it wasn’t the witch, then it could very well have been one of the ladies at this tea.

“Except?” Dash prompts.

“I overheard Roarke speaking to someone about it,” I murmur. “A woman. They called that place another world.”

“Really? They actually said that?”

“Yes. And there’s at least one other person who knows about it. There was someone else there the day you and I saw that place. We heard a male voice, remember? Someone called out to Roarke and Aurora, and that’s when they told us to run, as if they didn’t want that person knowing we were there.”

“The king?”

“Possibly. I think it was his voice.”

Dash’s brow furrows. Then, as if remembering where he is, he blinks and pastes on a smile as he looks around. “I need to find out more about that place,” he whispers, still smiling unnaturally. “That world, or whatever it was. If the Unseelie King and his children are keeping it a secret from everyone, that can’t mean anything good for the rest of our world.”

“You can’t know that,” I say, more to myself than to him. I need to believe the Unseelies aren’t as bad as Dash makes out. “It could just be some other private palace they want to keep hidden from everyone except their immediate family.”

“And from the queen?”

“I’m sure the Seelies have hidden palaces too,” I add, ignoring his interjection.

“It’s another world, Em,” Dash says through smiling, gritted teeth. “At least, that’s what it sounds like. And if that’s true, it’s unlike anything else in … well, in history. There have only ever been two worlds. If it turns out there’s a third? That’s just … that’s huge.” He looks around again. “Roarke’s right. I should be taking advantage of the fact that I’m here and gathering as much info as I can.”

“Sure, if you want to wind up dead.”

“I won’t. I’ll be careful. These Unseelies are hiding something, and I need to find out what it is.”

“Why?” Fear begins to unfurl in my chest. “Why does it have to be you? Just leave this place with your life intact and let someone else deal with it.”

Dash’s smile becomes more genuine. His hand wraps around one of mine. “It’s nice to know that you care, Em, but I don’t run away from dangerous situations.” His gaze flicks to someone behind me, and he turns the false brightness of his smile back on. My attention, however, seems oddly drawn to the way his thumb moves against the inside of my wrist. “Looks like people want to speak with their future princess,” he whispers, his hand slipping away from mine. “Don’t forget to smile.”