Page 101 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
Strange that Alice should care about the Cat’s wellbeing.
“So you’ve figured it out, then.” Alice is looking at Riordan now. Her tone is gentle, threaded with fondness. “You know how to undo the Queen’s curse and save everyone.”
Riordan nods. “I know the cure—water from the Unending Pool, which my old pupil happens to have in his possession. Now all we must find is the vessel in which to deliver the water to the Queen. We don’t have enough of the liquid to immerse her, so she must consume it.”
Again, that strange familiarity between Alice and her captors. I raise an eyebrow at Clara. She shrugs, looking as confused as I am.
“But it’s simple, isn’t it?” Alice says, stepping forward. “Just now, you said the Queen only eats hearts from victims she chooses. What if she is presented with a victim she can’t resist? A soft, delicious human—a virgin, gifted to her by someone she trusts.”
Abject horror wakes on Caer’s face. He scrambles to his feet. “No, Alice!”
Riordan looks utterly stricken.
“It would work, wouldn’t it?” Alice continues, her eyes fixed on Riordan alone. “If I drank the water, and then you gifted me to the Queen, she would accept. She would consume my heart and drink my blood, flowing with that water.”
Through tense lips Riordan replies, “It could work. I doubt she could refuse such a beautiful delicacy.”
“No!” Clara exclaims. “We came all this way to save you, Alice—to bring you back to the Seelie kingdom, or find you a way to the human world. None of this mess is your fault, and you shouldn’t pay the price for fixing it.”
“But if I don’t, this realm will fall,” she says softly. “And the Queen will find a way into the human world, too. When I picture her ripping open my little brothers and sisters—I can’t bear it. Nor can I bear the thought of her devouring Caer’s and Riordan’s hearts.”
Fuck me. The woman actually cares for these two bastards; and judging by their tortured expressions, the feeling is mutual. Is there some sort of epidemic in Faerie—lovely human girls stealing the hearts of our most powerful males? Not that I’m complaining, but gods, it’s strange to watch a pair of Unseelie be reduced to puddles of goo in front of their captive.
It would be deeply amusing, if it weren’t so tragic. Because Alice is right. Her heart is the one offering Riordan can make that the Queen will not be able to resist. And the timing is perfect, because the Queen turned her back on Riordan tonight. It makes perfect sense that he would try to buy his way back into her good graces. She won’t suspect him of anything more than trying to preserve his place of honor at her side.
“Finias!” Desperation sharpens Clara’s tone. “Say something! You have to stop this!”
I turn to her, a reluctant resignation in my gaze. I can’t speak against this sacrifice, not when it could save this kingdom and our own. Not when I’ve seen the Heartless swarming outside the walls of Mallaithe.
Clara reads my wordless answer, and her brown eyes widen with sorrow and reproach. She whirls to face Riordan and Caer. “You’re letting the human you kidnapped give her life for your miserable kingdom? What is wrong with you? Andyou—” she rounds on Alice— “Why do you even care about them? Fin told me the kinds of things they do. They’re wicked, both of them—the Rabbit by nature and the Cat by association. I won’t let this happen.” She’s panting, shaking, her voice cracked with sobs. “After all we did to get here… no. No.”
“Clara.” I move to her side, filling her space with my body, my scent, my love. She crumples against me, and I pick her up, carrying her out of the foyer, all the way down the long hall, as far from the others as I can get. I take her into the smoking room and kick the door shut behind me.
“Fin, you can’t agree to this.” Her slim fingers claw a fistful of my shirt. “It’s wicked and wrong.”
“It’s Alice’s choice,” I reply. “I need you to be Unseelie a little longer, dearest. Just until this is done.”
“But we came here to save her.”
“We did. But perhaps fate had a larger role for us to play. Perhaps we were meant to save an entire kingdom, a whole realm, rather than one girl. Surely you see the danger the Queen poses, to all of us.”
“I do, but—it’s sad, Fin. It’s so sad.”
I sink onto a couch and hold her closer, while she buries her face against my chest. Being enveloped in her luscious scent again is absolute bliss. I press my nose into her hair while she weeps.
Caught up in her weariness and frustration, she doesn’t seem to hear the yowling and roaring coming from the front of the house. The Rabbit and the Cat seem to be having a disagreement.
“We’re not expected back at Court tonight,” I murmur. “We can stay here, and tomorrow Riordan can present Alice to the Queen. This will work. Imagine it, Clara—the Queen and all the Heartless, eliminated. These lands, freed from terror and ruin.”
“Maybe they don’t deserve to be freed from terror and ruin,” she mutters, sniffling.
“Maybe not. But I have long thought that the Unseelie are wicked because they are expected to be wicked, and because they are ruled by wicked monarchs. This could be a chance to change all that. With the right leadership, this kingdom could be what it’s supposed to be—a land of wild freedoms and questionable morals, yes, but not so dreadful and deadly as it is now. We could be the catalyst for that change.”
Clara leans back, looking into my eyes. “You’re being so serious and earnest. Are you feeling all right?”
I laugh, raking a hand through my hair. “God-shit, I sound like Lir. Listen to me, playing at politics, scheming for the good of others. Not my area of expertise.” I gather her glossy auburn hair in my fist and tug, forcing her chin up so I can nuzzle beneath it, inhaling her scent fresh from the source. “I think perhaps you should remind me, sugar, of how very inappropriate, selfish, and despicable I can be.”
“And how would I do that?” she says breathlessly, while I nibble at the pulse point of her throat.
