Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

Cristina could still see a glimpse of blue-black hair beneath the edge of the hood but hoped no one would be looking all that closely. If they did, they could tell easily enough that he was a prince. It was in his bearing, in the way he moved, the look on his face.

Mark must have had the same thought, for he bent down, took a handful of mud, and rubbed it firmly into Kieran’s surprised face, leaving smears of dirt on his cheek and nose.

Kieran was not pleased. He glared. “You did that because you enjoyed it.”

Mark grinned like a little boy and tossed the remaining mud aside. Kieran scrubbed at his nose, still glaring. He did look less princely, though. “Stop it,” said Cristina.

“Thank you,” Kieran said.

With a grin, Cristina grabbed some mud and smeared a bit on Kieran’s cheek. “You have to get both sides.”

Mark laughed; Kieran looked indignant for several seconds before giving in and laughing as well.

“Now let’s not waste any more time,” Cristina said a bit regretfully. She wished the three of them could simply stay here, together, and not join the revel.

But they had no choice. They pressed forward into the revel, through the area where many of the dancers had already collapsed, exhausted. A boy with smeared metallic paint on his face and striped breeches sat gazing at his hands in a drugged haze as he moved them slowly through the air. They passed a pool of steaming water surrounded by mist; slippery bodies were visible through gaps in the smoke. Cristina felt her cheeks flame red.

They moved on, and the crowd closed around them like fast-growing vines. It was nothing like the revel Cristina had seen the last time she was in Faerie. That had been a massive dance party. This was more like a slice of a Bosch painting. A group of faerie men were fighting; their bare upper bodies, slippery with blood, shone in the starlight. A kelpie feasted hungrily on the dead body of a brownie, its open eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. Naked bodies lay entwined in the grass, their limbs moving with slow intent. Pipes and fiddles screamed, and the air smelled like wine and blood.

They passed a giant lying unconscious in the grass. All over his huge body were hundreds of pixies, darting and dancing, like a moving sea. No, Cristina realized, they weren’t dancing. They were—

She glanced away. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire.

“This is my brother’s doing,” said Kieran, staring grimly at the largest of the pavilions, the one that bore the crest of the Unseelie Court. An ornate throne-like seat had been placed there, but it was empty. “Prince Oban. His revels are famous for their duration and their debauchery.” He frowned as a group of naked acrobats hooted from a nearby tree. “He makes Magnus Bane look like a prudish nun.”

Mark looked as if he’d just heard that there was an alternate sun that was nine million times hotter than Earth’s sun. “You never mentioned Oban.”

“He embarrasses me,” said Kieran. A branch broke overhead, depositing a goblin-size horse wearing a garter belt on the ground in front of them. It wore woolen hose with runs in them and golden hoof covers.

“I can see why,” said Mark as the horse wandered off, nibbling at the grass. It studiously avoided the couples embracing in the tangled undergrowth.

Dancers whirled past Cristina in a circle surrounding a ribboned tree, but none of them wore expressions of enjoyment. Their faces were blank, their eyes wide, their arms flailing. Every once in a while a drunken faerie knight would pull one of the dancers from the circle and down into the long grass. Cristina shuddered.

From the top of the tree hung a cage. Inside the cage was a hunched figure, white and slimy like a pale slug, its body covered in gray pockmarks. It looks like an Eidolon demon in its true form, Cristina thought. But why would a prince of Faerie have an Eidolon demon in a cage?

A horn blared. The music had become more sour, almost sinister. Cristina looked again at the dancers and realized suddenly that they were ensorcelled. She remembered the last time she’d been at a revel, and how she’d been swept away by the music; she didn’t feel that way now, and silently thanked the Eternidad.

She had read about faerie revels where mortals were forced to dance until the bones in their feet splintered, but she hadn’t realized it was something faeries might do to each other. The beautiful young girls and boys in the circle were being danced off their feet, their upper bodies slumping even as their legs moved tirelessly to the rhythm.

Kieran looked grim. “Oban gets pleasure from witnessing the pain of others. Those are the thorns of his roses, the poison in the bloom of his gregariousness and gifts.”

Cristina moved toward the dancers, concerned. “They’re all going to die—”

Kieran caught her sleeve, pulling her back toward him and Mark. “Cristina, no.” He sounded sincerely alarmed for her. “Oban will let them live, once he’s humiliated them enough.”

“How can you be sure?” Cristina asked.

“They’re gentry. Court hangers-on. Oban would be in trouble with my father if he killed them all.”

“Kieran is right,” said Mark, the moonlight silvering his hair. “You cannot save them, Cristina. And we cannot linger here.”

Reluctantly Cristina followed as they pushed swiftly through the crowd. The air was full of sweet, harsh smoke, mixing with the mist from the occasional pool of water.

“Prince Kieran.” A faerie woman with hair like a dandelion clock drifted up to them. She wore a dress of white filaments, and her eyes were green as stems. “You come to us in disguise.”

Mark’s hand had gone to his weapons belt, but Kieran made a quick settling gesture at him. “I can trust you to keep my secret, can I not?”

“If you tell me why an Unseelie Prince would come hidden to his own brother’s revel, perhaps,” said the woman, her green eyes keen.

“I seek a friend,” Kieran said.

The woman’s eyes darted over Cristina and then Mark. Her mouth widened into a smile. “You seem to have several.”

“That’s enough,” said Mark. “The prince would proceed unhindered.”

“Now, if it were a love potion you sought, you might come to me,” said the faerie woman, ignoring Mark. “But which of these two Nephilim do you love? And which loves you?”

Kieran raised a warning hand. “Enough.”

“Ah, I see, I see.” Cristina wondered what it was she saw. “No love potion could assist with this.” Her eyes danced. “Now, in Faerie, you could love both and have both love you. You would have no trouble. But in the world of the Angel—”

“Enough, I said!” Kieran flushed. “What would it take to end this bedevilment?”

The faerie woman laughed. “A kiss.”

With a look of exasperation, Kieran bent his head and kissed the faerie woman lightly on the mouth. Cristina felt herself tense, her stomach tightening. It was an unpleasant sensation.

She realized Mark, beside her, had tensed as well, but neither of them moved as the faerie woman drew back, winked, and danced away into the crowd.

Kieran wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “They say a kiss from a prince brings good luck,” he said. “Even a disgraced one, apparently.”

“You didn’t need to do that, Kier,” said Mark. “We could have gotten rid of her.”

“Not without a fuss,” Kieran said. “And I suspect Oban and his men are here in the crowd somewhere.”

Cristina glanced up at the pavilion. Kieran was right—it was still empty. Where was Prince Oban? Among the rutting couples in the grass? They had begun to make their way across the clearing again: Faces of every hue loomed out of the mist at her, twisted in grimaces; Cristina even imagined she saw Manuel, and remembered how Emma had been forced to see an image of her father the last time they had been in Faerie. She shuddered, and when she looked again it was not Manuel at all but a faerie with the body of a man and the face of a wise old tabby, blinking golden eyes.