Page 14 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
“Not all humans are the same.” I move toward him, knife in hand. “You despise us, yet you ask us to trust you over our father’s dear friend. The arrogance of it.” I laugh lightly, a nervous excitement flooding my body. I’ve never held a weapon like this, and it sends a thrill of power along my arm, through my heart.
The Nutcracker looks more human tonight than he did last time—his emerald-green eyes are less painted, more liquid—his limbs are less stiff, and his mouth is broader, softer. His square, jutting jaw is set, and his fierce gaze blends dark anguish and haughty courage.
“What would happen if I cut you with this, I wonder?” I tuck the tip of the dagger under his chin, tilting it up. “Would you bleed?”
“Louisa, what is wrong with you?” Clara gasps. “Stop this. I don’t think he’s tricking us.”
“You’ve read the same stories I have,” I throw at her. “The Fae are tricksters by nature.”
“Now who’s assuming that the members of a particular race are all the same?” says the Nutcracker dryly. The sword hangs from his hand, but he doesn’t lift it or threaten me with it.
I let the blade trail down the carved lines of his throat, right to the edge of his collar. The material isn’t painted on anymore—it has separated from his skin.
“We’ll let you pass through into Faerie,” I say. “But not alone. I’m going with you. We’ll see if what you say is true.”
I look up at Clara, expecting her to protest. But her eyes are alight with a craving that surprises me.
She’s an artist, a lover of the beautiful and the wondrous. It shouldn’t shock me that she wants to have a look at the Faerie realm. Cautious though she is in most areas of life, she occasionally makes a leap with me—like when our postman brought his good-looking cousin around one night. Clara and I crept out the back kitchen window and spent two hours with the boys in the garden shed. Later she told me she gave up her virginity there, in the dark, among the clay pots and the bags of seed.
Her tryst with the postman’s cousin came after months of her expressing dissatisfaction that she was still sexually inexperienced. She made a careful choice to leave childhood behind that night.
Yes, she has moments of rebellion, but hers is a calculated recklessness, always with a reason. I do love that about her. And I love that she’s not fighting me on this.
But the Nutcracker has other ideas.
“No,” he says sternly. “You can’t come to Faerie. Without me on the throne, the entire Seelie kingdom may be at war—or they may have already fallen to the Rat King and his armies.”
“Wouldn’t someone else have taken your place? Surely there’s a line of succession,” Clara says.
“It’s not the same in Faerie as it is in human kingdoms. Our monarchs are magically bound to the realm they govern. The throne and the crown do not yield power until the former monarch dies or relinquishes the role willingly. I didn’t die, so there could be no true succession. I’ve been alive, but trapped in another form, so I couldn’t yield my rights to the next ruler. Which means the throne has been sitting empty, the crown untouched.”
My mind churns through the logic of it. “Then the Rat King can’t truly conquer your realm unless you yield it to him.”
“He can’t take my inherited power, no. But he can conquer in every other way that matters. He’s already a king of Faerie—he can extend his own power into my territory and begin to corrupt my people and their lands. I need to get back now, and I don’t want a couple of mortal girls in voluminous skirts slowing me down.”
He moves past me, holding the Fae sword, wobbling on his stiff legs.
“Slowing you down, eh?” I scoff. “You seem a little slow on your own. What about when my blood wears off, and you turn back into a Nutcracker doll? How will you reclaim your throne and your power then?”
Slowly he turns, a reluctant dread on his face.
“Go on,” I say sweetly. “You can do it. Admit that I’m right. You need us. You can’t make it to the Forever Pond without our help.”
“The Unending Pool,” he grits out. “Fine. You may accompany me. But only until I can secure other aid. Then you must return immediately to your own world.”
I squeal, almost clapping my hands until I remember I’m still holding the dagger. I very narrowly escape slicing my own palm. The Nutcracker Prince notices and rolls his eyes.
“Let’s go.” He stalks across the hall to the study.
Before I follow him, I snatch the belt and sheath that go with my dagger, buckling them around my waist. Then I grab a bag from the floor beneath one of the tables, and I shove a few interesting objects inside. Clara takes a pair of carved, bone-white knives with her as well.
Then we dash across the hall into the study, where the Nutcracker stands before the ring of branches, staring into it.
“You said the portal moves, that it opens in a different place in Faerie every time,” Clara says. “What if it moves while we’re in Faerie? How will we know where it’s going to open next, so we can get back?”
“It’s likely that Drosselmeyer moves it himself,” the Nutcracker replies. “Without him along to alter its position, it will probably remain active and open in the same spot until your return.”
“But what if—”
