Shadow Faerie

Chapter 6

Six

“Yes, very good,” Aurora calls to me from across the terrace as I swing beneath my dance partner’s arm, spin around, step-step-step behind him, and return to our starting position. After clapping briefly, Aurora adds, “You only messed up once this time.”

“What?” I step away from the young man who’s been filling in as my partner. Aurora’s cousin or second cousin or something along those lines. My husband-to-be is, apparently, too important or busy for this kind of thing. “I thought I got it all right.”

“No, the part in the beginning straight after you touch palms? You turned the wrong way.”

I roll my eyes. “Do you really think anyone’s going to notice?”

“Yes. In a ballroom full of dancing couples, when everyone else turns one way and you turn the other, it will most certainly be noticeable.”

“Fine. I assume you’re going to tell me to do it again?” I’ve been practicing for hours already, but I know Aurora won’t be happy until I’ve got it completely right.

“Yes,” she says with a nod.

So I face my partner and try not to sigh too loudly as we begin again. At least my outfit is fairly easy to move in. After my terrifying meeting with the king, I set aside my stubbornness and took a closer look at my wardrobe—and discovered I didn’t detest the clothes as much as I expected I would. They weren’t all puffy dresses, I was pleased to see. More like combinations of pants and fitted, coat-like dresses, some with long, embellished sleeves and high necks, others with no sleeves and full-length gloves. As the days have passed, I’ve come to appreciate the rich details and exotic styles worn by the members of the Unseelie Court. And the more I think about it, the more sense it makes that in a world filled with magic and enchantment, the clothing would be anything but ordinary.

Or perhaps I’m simply getting used to being here, which is a terrifying thought.

We do the dance three more times before Aurora finally lets us stop. Her cousin, who looked like he might stab himself if forced to spin me around one more time, bolts before Aurora can pin another boring task on him. “Noraya, we’ll take refreshments now,” she says, waving past me to where her handmaid is waiting in the doorway to the library.

I join Aurora on the other side of the terrace and lower myself into the swinging seat beside her. It hangs by nothing more than a single vine, and I’m a little wary of placing my entire weight into the hollow hemisphere. But Aurora keeps telling me not to doubt magic, and her seat’s been perfectly fine so far. After a few moments, I relax back against the cushions and lift my feet so I can swing gently back and forth. I look out at the garden, but there isn’t much happening. The library terrace is on a quieter side of the palace.

“So, now that I can dance without messing up,” I say to Aurora, swinging my seat to face hers, “can we do something more exciting this afternoon? Like archery? I was starting to get slightly less than terrible at our last lesson. Or I could show you more parkour moves. You could actually try some of them this time instead of just watching me.”

She laughs and shakes her head at my apparent silliness. “You don’t think that was it for the dance lessons, do you? You’ve learned one dance, Em. Now you need to learn the rest of them. And we only have three days until Mother’s birthday ball.”

My feet drop onto the floor. “Seriously? I have to learn every dance?”

“Yes. It’ll be bad enough when people discover that the princess-to-be is someone who’s spent her entire life in the human realm and knew nothing of this world until a few weeks ago. If they don’t see you using magic or dancing every kind of dance, it’ll be even worse.”

“Wait, you want me to use magic at the ball? In front of people?”

“Of course.” She moves her hand in a circle, and her seat begins to slowly spin. “That should be fine, shouldn’t it? You can handle the basics now.”

“Yes, I just didn’t realize it was expected, that’s all. I’ll try not to forget.”

“That’s the thing, Emerson.” Her voice reaches me from the other side of her hemisphere seat. “You need to get to the point where you don’t have to remind yourself. It should become an automatic part of your daily life, used even for the simplest of tasks.”

“Sounds a little bit like laziness to me.”

“You know what’s lazy?” She brings her seat to a halt once she’s facing me again and plays absently with the pendant around her neck: a silver oval shape with a black stone at its center. “Sitting in front of a glossy screen and mindlessly watching moving pictures.”

I give her my least impressed look. “Are you referring to TV and movies? Because that isn’t laziness. It’s entertainment, and it’s part of—”

“Part of human life. Just as magic is part of faerie life. It’s part of your life now, Em, so get used to it.”

“So many things to get used to,” I muse, staring out across the garden again.

“Yes, like beautiful clothes, exotic holidays, lavish parties and being waited on for the rest of your life.”

“I was referring more to this world and its politics and geography and history and creatures and … everything,” I say quietly. “It’s all so different from the life I grew up in.”

“True,” she says. “That’s why you should focus on the frivolous stuff instead. It’s a lot easier to get used to. The rest will follow in time.”

I nod, despite the fact that I don’t agree with her. I can’t tell her that I’m still determined to find a way out of all this. Even now, after endless lessons in magic, etiquette and dancing, after lengthy discussions of union ceremony details, I still can’t imagine this wedding actually taking place. I know I’m probably in denial. I know it’s unlikely Roarke will tell me anything else about my mother until we’re married. But I won’t give up until the moment that union ceremony begins.

Noraya returns then with two tall glasses floating in front of her. She’s so good at this levitating thing that she doesn’t even need to use her hands. They remain neatly clasped behind her back as she walks forward, eyes pointed firmly ahead instead of watching the floating glasses. “Lemonade, Your Highness,” she says as she reaches us.

I push myself forward and stand as one of the glasses moves toward Aurora. I wrap my hand around the other one. “Thanks, Noraya.” She risks a glance at me, smiles, then looks hurriedly away.

“You need to get over that,” Aurora says to me once Noraya has walked back to the library doorway. “There’s nothing wrong with being waited on.”

I settle carefully into my seat without spilling any of my drink. “I don’t like lounging back and being handed things. It just seems … rude.”

“It’s rude to keep her from doing her job properly.”

“Well, anyway, she smiled at me, so I don’t think she minded.”

Aurora lowers her glass and blinks. “She smiled at you?”

“I mean, not at me,” I add hastily, not wanting to get Noraya in trouble. “Not in an impolite way. Um, anyway, I wanted to ask you about dresses for your mother’s birthday ball. I assume you’ll tell me what I’m supposed to wear? I don’t think I can be trusted to pick out the right kind of dress.”

Aurora narrows her eyes at the abrupt shift in subject, but she lets it slide. “Yes. Mother and I had three dresses made for you. We’ll decide which one to go with once we know what Roarke will be wearing.”

“Right. Of course. Because it would be dreadful if the colors clashed or something.”

She rolls her eyes and nudges my knee with her shoe. “It would be dreadful. The two of you need to look like the perfect match.”

“Which is silly, because we’re never going to be the perfect match. We don’t even—Oh.” I sit forward slightly. “My Griffin Ability. I can sense it coming on.” In the time that I’ve been here, I’ve become more attuned to the way my magic feels. Being forced to keep endless records of the ordinary magic I use each day, how much I eat, how tired or energized I feel, and exactly when my Griffin Ability appears has made me far more aware of every tiny change in my magic.

“Ah, that’s just about the same time as the past few mornings, right?” Aurora says. “A little before lunch time?”

“Yes. And I used a lot more of my normal magic than usual last night trying to melt that fountain, so we can probably say for sure now that ordinary magic levels don’t have much influence on my Griffin magic.”

“Excellent. Don’t forget to add that to your notebook. I think we have a reasonably good idea of how your ability works now, but you should probably continue keeping track of it for another few weeks. Just so we can be certain.”

I didn’t think my Griffin Ability made any sense when it first revealed itself, but perhaps, as Aurora suggested, it was still ‘settling’ during my first few days in this world. Since then, my excessive record-keeping has revealed a fairly regular pattern: My Griffin Ability appears twice a day, approximately twelve hours apart, give or take an hour or two. And in between those times, there’s nothing I can do—aside from taking the elixir, which is now depleted—that will make it appear. Which means it’s likely that Aurora’s replenishing theory is correct.

I lower my glass of lemonade and sit at the edge of my seat. I close my eyes and try to predict the exact moment just before I get that tingling sensation racing up my spine. “I picture it kind of a like a volcano getting ready to erupt,” I murmur. “Pressure builds up deep inside me, and then suddenly it all rushes to the surface, ready to explode.”

“What did Roarke compel you to say this time?” Aurora asks.

Just as the king instructed, Roarke gives me a compulsion potion every day—well, twice a day now that we’ve figured out the pattern—and tells me exactly what to say when my Griffin Ability is ready for use. “He compelled me to try and preserve the power, if possible. If not, then I’m supposed to tell every yellow rose in the garden to become blue.”

“Ugh, what a stupid command. He really needs to come up with some more interesting uses for your magic. Anyway, I’m glad he’s letting you practice trying to hold it back. You need to learn to master this, Em.”

“Yeah.” I clench my hands together and clamp my mouth shut as the Griffin magic ripples through me, demanding to be released. Hold it back, hold it back, hold it back, I silently instruct myself. And when I’m certain the magic is about to rip itself free of me, forcing me to speak the instruction Roarke gave me, it just … doesn’t. Slowly, it starts to feel like less effort to hold it back. I open my eyes, my hands relaxing in my lap. “I think I did it,” I say with a smile. “I can still feel the power there, like a weird humming just beneath my skin. I wonder how long I can—”

Power rushes out of me, turning my voice deeper and more resonant. “Every yellow rose in the garden will become blue,” I say.

Aurora sits forward a little, looking past me. After a moment, she says, “It worked. I can only see a few yellow rose bushes from here, but they just turned blue.”

I slump back against my cushions, sending my seat into jerky, swinging motion. “Crap, that was barely a minute.”

“Well, perhaps you got excited too soon.” Aurora leans back and takes a sip of her lemonade. “Try for longer next time before you tell me you ‘did it.’ All you need is practice.”

“Wonderful. Another thing to practice,” I say with a sigh.

“Tell Roarke to compel you to actually hold it back, not just to try. And none of this ‘If you can’t, then this is what you’ll say.’ He’s basically giving you permission to fail.”

“Mm.” I’m waiting for the day Roarke is busy enough to forget to compel me. That’s the day I’ll make sure I’m with him at exactly the right moment. I’ll command him to write down every spell required to wake and heal my mother. Then if anything’s left of my Griffin Ability, I’ll use it to get myself out of here.

“Don’t you want to finish your lemonade?” Aurora asks, lifting my glass from the ground with a simple wave of her hand. “You need to remain hydrated if you’re going to survive the rest of the day’s dancing lessons.”

I take the glass from the air and down the remainder of the lemonade. “You’re going to have to find another willing member of your court to be my partner,” I remind her, “and your cousin’s probably already told everyone to avoid me and my terrible dancing, so—Oh. That’s an idea.”

“What?”

“Do you think it would work if I used my Griffin Ability to tell myself that I can dance every faerie dance perfectly?”

“Uh …” Aurora’s expression becomes thoughtful. “Hmm. I wonder. I mean, how does your Griffin magic work in the first place? Does it obey your exact words, or your intention behind the words? Does it work according to what you’re picturing in your head when you command something? In which case, the dancing thing wouldn’t work because you don’t know—and therefore can’t picture—all the steps in the other dances. And another thing,” she adds, tapping the side of her glass with her fingernails. “If you tell me to do something, but the way I understand your command isn’t the same way you meant it, whose intention will the magic obey? Yours or mine?”

I tilt my head back against the cushions. “I have no idea, but I’m starting to wish this Griffin Ability came with an instruction manual.”

“Experimentation, Em. That’s all it requires.”

“Sure, but it’s frustrating when I have to wait half a day between every new experiment.”

“Unless you can hang onto your power and use little bits at a time.”

“Maybe.” I turn my seat to face the library doors as footsteps tap across the terrace.

“Your Highness,” Clarina says as she reaches us. “My lady,” she adds, directing her words toward me before turning back to Aurora. “Phillyp is ready for your lesson.”

“Oh, wonderful.” Aurora hands her glass of half-finished lemonade to Clarina before standing.

“And your mother just sent a message to say she’d like to discuss some of the details for the ball with you.”

“Mother always has fabulously bad timing, doesn’t she,” Aurora says with a sigh. “She’ll just have to wait.”

“Of course, Your Highness. Shall I tell her the usual?”

“Yes. Tell her I’m in the middle of my archery lesson. I’ll come straight to her as soon as I’m done.”

Clarina nods once. “And shall I escort Lady Emerson back to her chambers?”

“Um … no, actually. Em can come with me this time.” Aurora gives me a wicked grin. “I trust you now to keep my secrets.”

After a quick curtsey, Clarina leaves. “Goodness,” I say. “I’m shocked to discover that the perfect princess is keeping secrets from her own mother.”

She gives my arm a playful smack. “No you’re not. Besides, it isn’t a big deal. It’s just something my mother doesn’t approve of.” Instead of going back inside, she steps off the terrace onto the grass.

“Your mother doesn’t approve of you doing archery either,” I point out as I follow her, “but she hasn’t stopped you from taking lessons.”

“Yes, well, I told her it was either archery or magical combat, and there was no way she’d ever allow her little princess to learn magical combat.”

“Which is what, exactly?” I bend as both a silver butterfly and a lizard with wings—one chasing the other—flit too close to my head.

“You know how you draw on your power, and in its most basic form, it’s just raw power held in your hands?” Aurora says.

“Yes.” That was the very lesson I received from Azzy at Chevaliar House.

“Well, all you do is throw that magic at someone. I mean, there’s more to it than that. Those who are trained in magical combat will often transform their magic into other things. Stones or blades or flocks of birds with sharp pecking beaks. Something that can more easily take down an opponent than just a mass of sparks. But your mind has to be so quick. You have to be able to mentally shape your magic just like that.” She snaps her fingers. “Over and over, while also protecting yourself.”

I look around as we move further away from the palace. This part of the garden is unfamiliar to me, and all I can see up ahead is a thicket of trees. “So the queen didn’t want you learning this skill?”

“No. It isn’t very princess-like. We have guards to fight for us if necessary. She agreed to archery instead because all it entails is shooting arrows at inanimate objects that don’t shoot back at me.”

“Far more civilized,” I comment. “But that clearly wasn’t daring enough for you, so you had to try something else.”

“Yep.”

“Something your mother most certainly wouldn’t approve of.”

“Exactly.”

“And that is?”

A grin stretches her lips as we reach the trees. “Dragon riding.”