Page 93 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
We’ve heard other prisoners screaming as they’re dragged out of their cells and taken up to the higher levels of the lair.
This time, the heavy tread of two pairs of boots halts outside our door. A sickly-green faerie light floats along beside the Unseelie guards, spilling some of its doleful radiance into our cell.
“The Rat King summons you to a festive dinner,” says one of the guards. The other snorts a laugh.
“Are we to be the main course, then?” asks Fin, a strained lightness in his tone.
“Not this time,” answers the guard. “You’re the entertainment.”
The Unseelie female with the bird in her chest bathes me, shaves me, scents me, sweeps my hair into a fancy coiffure, and dresses me in a few silky green scraps linked together by thin green ropes. Then I’m gagged, manacled, and led to the Rat King’s throne, where I sit between his feet—not on his lap, thankfully. Not yet.
That’s when I see Fin, chained between two pillars. He’s been washed and oiled until he gleams, but instead of clothing, scarlet ropes crisscross his toned body in an elaborate pattern, making the bulge of his muscles even more pronounced. The knotwork seems to highlight his pectorals and genitals. His wings are undamaged, thank god—they shiver at his back, a telltale sign of his agitation.
A dozen Unseelie Fae circle him, eager grins, ravenous eyes, and slavering tongues, taunting him, but not touching him.
The crowd in the throne room is much thinner, and the Rat King’s concubines are nowhere to be seen, but there’s a feast table burdened with all kinds of food, some of which looks very edible. My stomach growls, and I flinch, hoping the Rat King didn’t hear it.
“I present to you the traitor, the Seelie they call Sugarplum,” bellows the Rat King. “He is the one responsible for the slaughter of so many of my people. First we will feast. And then, he will provide dessert.”
A raucous cheer rises from the Court.
“One of my best spellworkers has prepared a little treat for our guest, to give him the inclination and the stamina to serve us all,” says the Rat King. “And when he is drained and begging for death, I will take his human in front of him, before I kill them both.”
More cheers, but I barely hear them. My mind is stuttering, refusing to accept the horror than awaits Finias tonight.
His head hangs forward, his pink hair tumbling over his brow. Every muscle in his straining arms and chest gleams in the amber light, and he’s so beautiful I think my heart will break because I can’t save him, I can’t help him. I can’t even speak to him.
The feast begins with a clatter of plates and a whine of dolorous music. Servants bring a heavily laden tray to the Rat King, and he props it across his thighs. He’s eating right behind my head—now and then I can feel droplets of his saliva on the back of my neck.
Despite how grotesque the Rat King is and despite my torturous anxiety about the events to follow, my rebellious stomach keeps growling. I think if the Rat King told me to suck his cock in exchange for a plate of decent food, I might be tempted to try it. Though its girth would likely break me. That’s what he plans to do later—wreck me in front of Fin, as the final torment.
Amid the roar of the feasting Unseelie, a bang echoes along the corridor outside the cavern, like the closing of a very large door.
“What was that?” growls the Rat King. “You, and you—go and check.”
Two of his soldiers hurry to obey.
A few moments later, I notice something moving near the throne room entrance. Two toy soldiers with white rat’s heads, marching jerkily across the floor. Miniature versions of the two guards who just left.
I hold my breath.
Following the tiny rat-soldiers, three metal orbs roll into the room. With a click and a whirr, they open.
The air in the chamber shudders, a visible ripple that turns everything wavy and watery, and carried on that watery air is a voice, somber and firm, speaking words I don’t understand—a long chain of words that vibrate with power.
It’s Drosselmeyer’s voice.
The Rat King lunges for his scepter, but he’s too slow—he has the tray of food on his lap and I’m already moving. I fling my whole body at the scepter, catching it between my bound hands and rolling with it off the dais, down the steps. Pain bursts through my elbows, my knees; I’ll have bruises, but I don’t care. I clutch the scepter as the spell continues, resounding throughout the room.
The Unseelie are moving in slow motion now, as if they’re caught in a giant vat of thick, gooey, invisible molasses.
Drosselmeyer strides into the chamber, his coat flowing behind him, brass spectacles gleaming, clockwork rings glinting on his fingers. He intones another spell, layering it over the first. One by one the Unseelie begin to shrink, and to change. Smaller they grow, and harder, and brightly colored, made of wood and paint and ball joints. They topple onto the seats of their chairs or tumble to the floor, reduced to a child’s playthings.
The Rat King is the last to go. He’s fighting his way through the thickness of the magic, clawing toward me, toward the scepter. But it’s too late. I watch him shrivel down to the size of my palm, to a wooden figure of a three-headed rat in a purple robe. He’s the tiniest toy in the room.
I struggle to my feet—a difficult matter with my hands bound, but I’m still clutching the scepter, and I press the butt end of it against the floor to pull myself up. Then, with that same end of the scepter, I smash the Rat King toy. I strike it again and again, smashing, screaming, until the heads and limbs have broken off and the body is reduced to splinters. I keep pounding and crushing him until I become conscious of Drosselmeyer’s thin, dark-clad figure standing quietly nearby.
Panting, I look up at him.
