Page 21 of A Bear in a Birdbath

Eva’s sympathy strained. “Don’t be dramatic,” she said impatiently. “I didn’t do any of those things.”

It was the second time that she’d surprised the Queen, and no less startling.

“No matter,” the Queen said proudly. “You are back where you belong now, and I will not be so careless with you this time.”

Eva felt her heart sink. “I-I do not want to stay here. I want to go back to—” my mates, she wanted to say, but she hesitated at the last moment. Would she put Margo and Bruno in peril if she pointed the Queen’s ire at them?

“The human world?” the Queen guessed in disgust. “You want to go back to that ugly, magicless place? They have mosquitos! And poverty!”

Eva had known poverty. She had been at its mercy and made terrible deals to escape it. She was still paying off the debts it left. But she had also known hope, and the compassion of people like Harriet.

“Their food has calories,” the Queen added with a sniff. “You are better off here, and since your judgment cannot be trusted, I will hold you here until you see the sense of it and love me again of your own will.”

“No,” Eva said firmly, with all the courage she had learned.

“No?” The Queen said the word as if she was unfamiliar with it, and maybe she was. Her court was full of magic bound to her rule.

“No,” Eva repeated boldly. “I will not love you again. I never did, not the way you wished I would. I was never whole with you, and I will never willingly stay with you again.”

The Queen rose and bristled, her angry power causing the flowers to shrink into themselves and the birds to flee. Even the brilliant fae light seemed to dim in the face of her fury…and Eva was not afraid. The Queen’s fury was like a storm breaking over stone, energy that would wash away after it had tantrumed itself out.

There was no substance to the Queen, not now that Eva knew what true love and true loyalty was. “You cannot keep me,” she said softly. “I am not yours.”

“If you are not mine, you will certainly not be anyone else's,” the Queen snapped, and she swirled and vanished with the scent of honey and burnt sugar.

The chain at Eva’s ankle shimmered with no end, but the shackle remained. Eva settled back on the bed as the flowers shyly opened again in the wake of the Queen’s departure, and a few brave birds flitted in to taste them.

The magic might hold her here, but it could never touch her heart again.

19

BRUNO

“Well, this is as far as I can get you,” Tobias said, swinging the beam of his flashlight over the end of the tunnel.

The passage they stood in was short, far too short for Bruno to comfortably stand. Bruno and Margo were both half-crouched, staring at the door they’d been led to.

Bruno wasn’t sure what he’d expected the gates of Faery to look like. Gold filigree, maybe, or made of flowers. It ought to be magical, Bruno thought, and magical ought to look fancy.

This was not fancy.

The door had rusted iron bands patterned over graying wood. There were silhouettes of animals carved all over it. Was it supposed to imply a zoo?

It was definitely the door of someone who wanted to keep people out, not invite them in.

Tobias tapped his flashlight on one of the iron bars, but there was no answer. “Really not sure what you’ll do from here. This thing never opens.”

“It will open for me,” Margo said firmly. “Please stand back.”

Tobias very sensibly scooted back behind Bruno.

But when Bruno expected her to charge forward and try to take it on with her shoulder, Margo merely took her own flashlight and frowned at the door, inspecting every edge and hinge and latch and grain of wood.

“Is she looking for a weak spot?” Tobias asked.

“Yes,” Margo said shortly. “What would you say this door looks like?”

“A prison door?” Bruno said.

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