Page 80 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
Caught in that dream, I dance, and Clara paints, and time passes—a couple of hours at least. The Queen must enjoy this particular group of musicians, because she neither dismisses them nor eats their hearts, so they play on, desperately, wildly, and I keep dancing, watching my brave mortal girl in her Fae glamour. She wields her brush as if no one else exists, as if she were safe in her shop back home, instead of beneath the open sky of the Dread Court.
And then—a dissonant break in the glorious flow of the music.
Three wrong notes. A slight deviation by the weary fiddler in the troupe.
All around me, dancers’ movements stutter and halt, frozen grins on their faces as their heads turn toward the musician.
A hush falls over the Dread Court.
“Your Majesty, forgive me,” begs the fiddler, his antennae quivering. “I-I’ll try again. I’ll play it perfectly this time, I swear.”
The Queen rises. She extends her white fingers, claws pointed at the fiddler. Threads of red light, straight as arrows, stretch from her fingertips. The lines of light glide through the neck of the fiddler, and as his head tumbles from the scorched stump of his neck.
Terrorized cries erupt from his companions. The Queen flexes her fingers, her scarlet magic slicing the rest of the troupe into steaming chunks.
“Off with them,” commands the Queen, and servants scurry forward to collect and remove the bodies.
I manage to breathe again. For a moment I thought she might turn and slash those wicked lines through Clara, who sits rigid and white-faced on her stool.
But Clara is not the target of the Queen’s wrath. Not yet.
The next two groups of entertainers are incinerated by blasts of crimson lightning, until the Court Manager, sweaty and nervous, pushes forward a group of pipers, who begin a jarringly jaunty tune.
The Queen sinks back into her throne, and the Dread Court comes to life again, continuing its endless fucking, dancing, drinking, and eating. I move among them, catching whispered comments, anxious cautions, hisses of fear. These Fae are grappling with a horror greater than the Rat King—the tragedy of what their kingdom has become in such a short time.
A familiar fragrance catches my attention. Several Fae lean against the edge of an obsidian fountain, smoking a sweetish weed whose odor I recognize, while another group nearby is peeling strips from mushrooms and sampling their effects.
The old compulsion twinges in my body, the urge to experiment, to spin my brain into new circles, to forget where and who I am.
But I don’t want to forget, or to lose myself. Not anymore.
I move away from the smoke and the mushrooms, spinning through a gap between dancers. My wings stir under my tailcoat, aching to break free, but I’ve learned to hide this obvious sign of my Seelie nature when I’m among the denizens of Mallaithe. It’s too much of a temptation for some of the Unseelie.
I twirl again, following the music, but this time my back crashes into someone else’s chest—someone dressed in impeccable white, who grips both my arms with gloved hands. My wings twitch at the contact.
I know him by scent. His aroma is always blended with faint, tantalizing traces of human skin, and with the warm, salty tang of blood, mixed with the citrus essence of the soap he uses after an experimental session.
“Sugarplum.” His deep voice throbs in the pit of my stomach.
I wrench myself out of his grasp and face him.
The White Rabbit wears his brown rabbit-mask, its cheeks covering the toothed gashes in his face.
He wasn’t there the night I was eaten. He doesn’t care for orgies. But I still hate him. His presence reminds me of what I allowed him to do, the things I didn’t stop.
I was different then. I’ve changed,I’ve changed…
“Sugarplum, why are you here?” he asks, low.
“Why am I ever anywhere?” I say airily. “There’s debauchery and devilry to be enjoyed.”
“And after three years, you suddenly decided to return.” Disbelief saturates his tone.
“Maybe I came to visit you. To see if you’d take me back.”
He sighs. “We tried that once, and it didn’t suit me.”
“Not the fucking,” I exclaim. “Gods, no—the research. Your studies. There’s more I could learn from you.”
