City of Fae

“Yes, my queen.”


A chittering rattle emanated from her throat. “Do not mock me. I tire of your delays, your insubordination. How can I trust you to finish this?” She reached out a leg, and this time Reign did move his face away. She pulled back, black forelegs flared, her masklike face twisting with rage. “How dare you turn your face away?”

I almost bolted from my hiding place. Reign dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “I serve you, as I always have. I’ve obeyed every order. I have not failed you.”

His submission seemed to placate her. I huddled tighter into the arch. “And you will not fail me, will you? You know I alone control you. It is my draíocht which speaks to yours. We are of the old world, you and I. You are an old spirit, residing in a young soul. I caught you, brought you here. I am your queen.” She moved back on rippling legs, her slick body twitching, legs tapping out a beat. Tap-tap.

Reign lifted his head. “There’s a girl—”

The queen sliced Reign a glance. “The girl … Do not worry yourself with the girl. She is mine.” Laughter trickled from her lips. Candlelight licked across dripping fangs. She scaled the archway, returning to her shadows. “Beware the last keeper. He suspects we are close. What will you tell him?”

“Only that I serve my queen,” Reign replied, tone flat, level, void of any emotional distraction.

A scuttling tickle ran across my neck. If I hadn’t already clasped my hand over my mouth I’d have yelped. I brushed at the spot, knocking something brittle to the floor. Looking down, I noticed—thoughts oddly calm—how the floor around my feet glistened. The hissing I’d heard earlier flooded into my ears; a horrible, monotonous white noise. A spider, fat but fast, scurried across my hand. With a gasp, I flicked it off and staggered back. The ground crunched underfoot. I reached for the arch but recoiled as a coating of black undulated up the bricks. Spiders. The floor rippled. The puddles had swollen to flood the chamber. It’s not water. It was never water.

The flow of spiders surged. I clamped a hand over my mouth and bit back a scream. God, no … Please, please, wake me up from this nightmare already. You can’t die in dreams. You always wake up. I will wake up. I have to wake up. A trickle of spiders spilled around my leg. At first they didn’t appear too interested in me but their numbers surged, and the flow spiraled up my calf, over my knee, my thigh. They came fast and hungry then, surging as one. I screamed, twisted, desperate to be free, and fell. The swarm of black devoured my arm, shoulder, neck. Hundreds of legs scurried across my skin. No, no, no … “Reeeign—” They tumbled over my lips, my tongue, and plunged down my throat.





Chapter Ten


I shot from my bed so fast that my legs failed. I fell, hands out, face first, to the floor. Spiders, spiders everywhere… Scrambling anywhere, just so long as I was away, I bumped against the wall and blinked reason back into my mind. Bedroom. No spiders. Something delicate and nimble tickled my neck. I yelped, lunged sideways, lurched to my feet, and brushed at my shoulder, while spinning, trying to get the damn thing off. My hip found the dresser’s edge with a dull thud. I froze, blinked at my reflection in the mirror, and saw the stray tendrils of hair that had worked free of my band. No spiders. Holy crap, I looked like I’d been run over. Twice. Not a dream. My shoe was missing. And the other was caked in mud, bits of grit and tunnel debris, just like the rest of me.

Yanking at my headband, I freed my hair and shook it out. A spider tumbled to the floor. I squealed and stamped on it. A second fell free. Dead, its legs curved inward. The first one might have been dead but I’d not given it the benefit of the doubt. A third fell free. I stomped on it and fled to the safety of the shower, tearing off my clothes, dry heaving, suddenly terrified I had hundreds of the critters against my skin.

Only when scalding hot water blasted my pale skin did I feel halfway to normal again. The spiders were real, Under was real, ergo the conversation between Reign and that thing had been real too. The spider was the queen? My skin prickled, even under the pummeling jets of hot water. I snatched the soap up and lathered everywhere, taking off a layer of skin if I had to. If the spiders were real, then had I really been smothered by them? I assumed Reign had brought me home, but I had no memory of him doing so. How he’d saved me didn’t matter, not in that moment. I was alive. I was home. Back in reality. But, what I’d seen had been real. The queen … How was I going reveal something like her to the world? It would sound like the ramblings of someone losing her mind. Or someone lost to fae bespellment. I needed evidence. I couldn’t write about a giant spider living under London. It went against everything we knew about the fae. They were beautiful, not hideous. Damn, I’d have to go back. I needed proof.