Page 38 of Royal Ransom

“Excuse me, sir?” I said, pulling a nervous Basil behind me when I could fish him from the crowd.

The older lord didn’t stop or even acknowledge my presence, so I kept talking. “I’m looking for Queen Janara. I wanted to thank her for this evening’s dinner. Have you seen her recently?”

Those words were enough to make the man’s glassy eyesshift to me.

Man, these people are hammered, I thought, starting to realize the full extent of the party lifestyle that characterized the Fae realm. And I’d thought breaking up frat parties had been bad.

Thinking quickly and boldly, I grabbed the man by the shoulders and shook him slightly, hoping to jar some alertness back into his alcohol-addled mind. “Did you hear me, sir?”

“Sirwas my father,” the man said indignantly. “I’ll have you know that I’m only two hundred—”

“Have you seen Queen Janara?” I repeated the question, dropping the “sir” and adding a sneer to my voice. I was done with being nice.

When he nodded like a bobblehead, my heart fluttered with a rush of hope. He pointed a thin finger up the road, which was coated in glittering rime. I caught a glimpse of fluttering blue wings before a group of Sidhe disappeared over a hill and out of sight.

The stranger became more engrossed in his wine chalice and went back to chugging it. I didn’t try to stop him; I recognized the exact hue of the wings—I’d seen them once before when Janara and her flunkies escaped the mushroom circle near Poppy’s home. The wings reminded me of a rare butterfly, making her seem more harmless than she actually was.

“What’s over the hill?” I whispered, leaning close to Basil to ensure no eavesdroppers could hear. I tried to force a smile, as though we were sharing a delightful secret.

Basil’s smile appeared equally forced as he leaned in. He disguised a whisper in my ear by brushing a lock of hair behind it. How strange it must be for him, talking to me while looking into Priss’s face.

“The lake,” he said. “I have no doubt troops have lined up to perform for the royals tonight. You’re lucky to have performersthis far out, but since the Queen is here, they’re sure to put on an even more lively show than usual. It’s not surprising she’s taking a look. Shall we?”

Basil offered me his arm again, and I took it reluctantly. I didn’t want to pose as my sister, hanging on the arm of a banished autumn professor who didn’t have my best interests at heart. I wanted Maverick at my back, a blood bolt shimmering like a crimson heat haze between his fingers. I wanted the reassurance of having him here. Even if we went down, I knew we’d go down swinging. I’d at least bloody my aunt’s nose. No matter how much of a pain in the ass Mav could be, he was a good man in a fight.

Basil... I still couldn’t get a good read on him. I considered myself a fairly good judge of character, but I couldn’t tell where he’d draw the line. His daughter’s future was at stake, which made things fraught. He might turn me over just to preserve her life. Unlikely, but stranger things had happened to me in the last few years.

“Lead on then,sir.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Taliyah

The lake stretched toward the horizon, flanked on either side by a sweep of evergreens.

Each pine was dusted with snow, giving the whole affair a Christmassy feel. A small army of performers had gone to work on the surface, sculpting it as though it had been made of clay rather than brittle ice. A Sidhe woman with a rather large nose and spiky silver hair was watching the performers intensely, anticipating scene changes with little flicks of her wrist. The sets glided up from the ice gracefully as needed.

“Okay,” I said under my breath. “That’s officially cool.”

“If you embraced Olwen, it wouldn’t seem like such grand magic to you,” Basil responded. “It’s complicated, yes, but not too challenging for a Sidhe of your caliber. You might be happier if you embraced that half of yourself.”

I could have argued the point. I’d be more powerful, yes, but not happier. A world without my boys would be a cold and joyless place. It was why I could never call this place home, no matter how much it might feel that way.

The crowd had spilled out onto the ice, getting as close to the actors and gymnasts as they could without actually touching them. I couldn’t see Janara in the crowd, but I could feel her nearness. The air around her was cold and bitter enough that I could practically taste it.

As we walked nearer, the crowd enveloped us, a perfect semicircle of brilliantly beautiful structures. The twinkling lights from the windows of the castle just beyond the hill lit our way, while silver taper candles floated amidst the trees as if held by invisible lamplighters.

“I think I’m happy where I am,” I said, eventually answering his offhanded comment. “And I don’t need to become someoneelse to become a badass spellcaster. It’s just going to take longer doing it my way.”

Basil inclined his head with a small smile. “Touché.”

The songs and shouts coming from the surface of the lake mixed with the mood lighting, making the entire thing sparkle with incandescent energy. I wasn’t sure what play they were performing, but a massive icy oak had risen from the center of the lake, an entire village of tiny faeries making a home in its branches. It was as if hundreds of pristine cottages were stacked in the beautiful tree until the facade of a castle appeared.

“So where do you think we’ll find her?” I asked, scooting closer as the crowd pressed in. Almost no one was paying attention to us, and those that were would be too drunk to report on what they saw with any accuracy.

“She’ll turn up for the finale,” Basil said with a hint of disgust. “This isn’t a play; it’s a reenactment.”

“A reenactment?”

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