Page 39 of Royal Ransom

He nodded. “It’s meant to show Fennec’s final stand. Janara will blast the tree down and kill a prisoner made up to look like him. The crowd will cheer, and then she’ll probably retire back to her own palace for a nice night of torture.”

I came to a stuttering stop, dragging Basil to a halt beside me. A milling woman with hair the color of a cardinal’s wing and the tail of an Arctic fox actually bumped into his elbow, giving him a pointed shove and a disgusted look when he didn’t immediately bow out of her way. He managed to inch closer to me, allowing her to pass, and only received frosty eyebrows for his trouble.

“You didn’t think to mention thatbeforewe came here?”

Basil’s lips thinned into an unhappy line. “If I had imagined our quarry would be so close at hand, I would have. I told you my intelligence was decades out of date, and this is the consequence.”

“I can’t just let Janara torture and then kill someone as entertainment.”

“You have to,” Basil hissed back, using my elbow to guide me closer to the ever-changing set. Streaks of light and cracks of enormous thunder rolled overhead, simulating the magical battle fought and lost all those years before I was born. “Charging in to stop her is guaranteed to get the guard involved. You’re good, Taliyah, but you aren’t a pro at this yet. Stick to the plan, please.”

I wanted to tell him where he could shove his concern. This was wrong. But... he was also right. There was more at stake than one person’s life. Cain’s ring was resting on Janara’s bony finger, his eternal fate left in her cruel hands. She had the citizens of what used to be Misty Hollow in her dungeons. And all of the subjects she oppressed needed me too. Not to mention Fox. Right—I couldn’t barge in.

That didn’t mean I had to like it.

“If I can save the prisoner without blowing our cover, I’m going to,” I hissed back.

“Fine,” Basil said easily.

The easy acquiescence immediately put me on edge. He was patronizing me, telling me what I wanted to hear. The chances I could rescue the prisonerandkill my traitorous aunt without revealing who and what I was were so slim that they might as well not have existed.

Basil and I reached a break in the crowd, brushing past a pair of stone-faced Sidhe guards in dark armor as we went. And then, without warning, I found myself standing only a few feet away from the inner circle.

A bald Sidhe lord with a beak-like nose had taken up a position at the rear of the throng. Standing a little apart from him was one of the most charming little girls you’d ever seen... outside of aChild’s Playfilm. Wren looked like all the cutestparts of a doll Frankensteined onto a winged harpy. There was too much cruelty in her wide doe eyes to ever make her appear harmless. The staff she clutched tightly in her little hands had nicks and odd stains in places, evidence of combat. Her eyes kept flitting around her warily, not as relaxed as her lanky counterpart. Her ear was bandaged beneath the small circlet she’d donned for the party. Did it make me a bad person that I liked it that I’d ruined her doll-like looks?

“Relax, my dove,” Janara said, running a hand through Wren’s hair, as though she were a beloved cat instead of the spiteful little sorceress she was. “It’s a party. The real fun is due to start any moment. You won’t be in any fit state to participate if you sulk.”

“The energy is wrong here,” Wren said, more to herself than to Janara. “I can feel a change. Can’t you?”

“What I feel is annoyed,” Janara said, tightening her hold on Wren’s locks. The smaller faerie leaned close, trying to keep the temperamental queen from yanking her hair out by the roots. “Olwen got those pesky hunters involved. It’s going to be a headache. And on my birthday, too. Are you truly going to spoil my mood with your ill portents, Wren? During my birth week?”

“No, my queen,” Wren said, ducking her chin just a fraction. I might have felt bad for her if she hadn’t been instrumental in more than one kidnapping plot in my town.

Janara glanced away from the fistful of hair she held, swiveling to face back toward the oak tree. The “battle” was taking on a more fevered pitch. I heard screams in the distance, and some of them sounded distressingly real. I’d been in enough scrapes to know genuine pain and terror when I heard it.

Basil and I exchanged a glance. While I knew my rattled nerves were showing, Basil kept his new face completely blank. I tried to mirror his aloofness but felt like I was failing miserably. He was trying not to let any apprehension show as Janara’s gazefixed on us and she took a few steps forward.

“Good tidings, Majesty,” Basil said with a bow. “I am—”

“I don’t care to know your name,” she said dismissively. “You don’t matter. Introduce your lady.”

“Lady Aprecity, this is Her Highness, Queen Janara.”

I cleared my throat and tried to speak normally. I bobbed into a graceless curtsy, cursing myself for not brushing up on the etiquette Jonathan’s parents had always been on about. It might have come in handy at a time like this.

“Ah, the Lady of the house. I hadn’t got a chance to meet you upon our arrival. You retire quite early.”

I forced a shaky smile. “Rest is important, especially while one is still learning her duties.”

Janara’s face was as open and genial as I’d ever seen it, glowing with the certainty of the truly mad. The glassy mirror shards that made up her eyes were unfathomable, and I couldn’t meet them for more than a second or two. She tickled me just beneath the skin, as if I were the most precious thing on earth.

“Indeed. If my guard were half as wise as you appear to grow, the matter of succession would be settled by now.”

My heart threw itself violently against my ribs. Beside me, Basil stiffened, probably reading more into the phrase than she meant. No one knew who Aprecity was in relation to the queen. She’d been kept a secret for that very reason. But...

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to sound innocent.

“This matter with Olwen. She’s still evaded my guard. Slippery little brat.”

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