Page 99 of A Court of Hearts and Hunger
“What about portable magic? Packaged spells, relics, objects of power?” I ask pointedly. “Do those work in here?”
At my hint, Clara’s eyes widen. She flicks open one of her rings, removes the pellet inside, and places it on her tongue. The next instant, she vanishes.
“Fuck,” snarls Riordan.
In his moment of distraction, I try accessing my magical pocket. It’s a permanent spell I attached to myself years ago, and fortunately I can still reach into that liminal space. I whisk out one of my sticks of candy and jab the sharpened tip between my captor’s ribs.
He bellows in pain, but instead of letting go of my throat, he catches my wrist and slams it against the wall. He’s older and stronger than I am, but I’m not about to yield. I whip another candy dart into my left hand and slice across his exposed abdomen. He grabs my other wrist, twisting until a bone snaps.
I suck in a sharp breath. “Foreplay? Are you trying to seduce me, Riordan?”
“Stop it, Fin!” he hisses.
“Then let me go.”
“What did you do to Caer?”
“Sleeping powder. He’ll be fine.” I smirk. “You’re worried about him! How sweet. Are you two finally lovers? I always thought you should get some of that tail.”
“We are friends,” he growls.
“The best friends are the friends you fuck.”
“Speaking of fuckable friends—who’s the girl?” he asks. “Bringing a human into the Dread Court, right under the nose of the Queen? It’s either admirable sadism or daring brilliance. Or both. You’ve probably used magic on her, haven’t you? Even so, I’d love to harvest that pretty little—”
I slam my head forward, smashing my skull into his. His grip loosens slightly and I twist free, whipping my claws across his forearms and chest.
Tossing away my cloak, I leap clear of him, my wings whirring. I wait, half-crouched, all my teeth bared. “You won’t be touching Clara. Not ever.”
Riordan pulls off his mask and hangs it on a hook near the door. “Clara, is it? And she’s the artist who saw what none of us could see—acomhartha diaon the Queen’s chest.”
I frown. “What’s acomhartha dia?” It sounds distantly familiar, but I can’t recall where I’ve heard it before.
Some of the fight ebbs from Riordan’s body. “It’s a god-touched curse,” he replies. “The Queen’s resistance to magic, her liking for raw, living hearts, the way she is bound to her victims—it’s all a curse, cast on herself or inflicted by someone else. I’m trying to figure out how to break it. I’ve been scouring the Tama Olc, with no luck. It contains several pages about how to create a god-touched curse and set the mark, but nothing about breaking it, and no curse that quite matches this one. By all accounts, acomhartha diais unbreakable.”
Understanding wakes in my mind. “You’re trying to kill the Queen.”
“I’ve been fucking her for weeks, hoping to discover a weakness,” he says. “She used to be merely resistant to certain spells, but with every heart she consumed, her immunity grew until she is completely impervious. It has taken me too long to discover this one vulnerability, and now I fear it is too late. She will consume this whole realm and reign atop a pile of heartless carcasses.”
“There is one substance that can dissolve any curse,” I say slowly.
“Water from the Unending Pool, yes, I know.” Impatience threads his tone. “But the border is closed to my kind, and I’ve heard that the area around the pool has been fortified since the new king took the Seelie throne. I cannot gain access. Besides, the Pool is too far from here. Even if I could obtain permission to leave the city—even if I survived the journey and crossed the border—by the time I reached the Pool, obtained the water, and returned, the Queen would be even stronger, and even those arcane waters might have no effect.” Riordan sighs, running a hand through his hair.
He’s so despondent, so wracked with despair, while my heart is growing lighter by the second.
It couldn’t be this easy, could it?
“This is incredible.” I can’t help laughing.
Riordan glowers. “This is not a joke, Sugarplum.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s the hand of the god-stars, I swear.” I reach into my dimension pocket, mentally shifting objects aside until I touch the one I want.
In my palm appears a tall crystal bottle, stoppered with a chunk of amethyst. The liquid within it shines like transparent starlight one moment, and shifts into opaque molten silver the next.
“Clara and I visited the Unending Pool weeks ago,” I say. “And I collected this while we were there.”
Riordan’s jaw drops.
