Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children #3)

“Thank you,” said Cora meekly, and took a step backward, putting herself behind Kade. “Truly, you’re a monarch to be emulated—and overthrown. Now!”

Kade had been trained as a hero and a warrior, and had earned the title of Goblin Prince in Waiting with his good right arm. His sword was free of its sheath before Cora finished speaking, the tip coming to rest at the hollow of the Queen’s throat, pressed down just hard enough to dimple the surface of her skin.

“Don’t move, now,” he drawled, behind the safe shield of his helmet. “You want to hand over that flute you took from our friend? He’s sorely missing it. Cora?”

“Here.” She stepped forward, holding out her hand. The Queen of Cakes scowled before sullenly reaching into her dress and slapping the flute, now smeared with frosting, into Cora’s palm. Cora danced back before the Queen could do anything else.

“You’ll pay for this,” said the Queen, in an almost-conversational tone. “I’ll have your bones for gingerbread, and your candied sweetmeats for my dinner table.”

“Maybe,” said Kade. “Maybe not. Neither of your guards seems to be coming to save you. That tells me a lot about the kind of place you’ve got here.” Indeed, the guards were standing frozen at their posts, seemingly unable to decide what to do next.

Cora walked over to where Sumi was tethered, leaving Kade with the Queen. Sumi turned her head to look at Cora, spectral eyes over glistening bone, and Cora suppressed her shudder. This was not the sort of thing she was prepared for.

“Hang on just a second,” she said to Sumi, and walked on, stopping when she reached the first guard. “Why aren’t you trying to defend your boss?”

“I don’t know,” said the guard. “I don’t … None of this feels right. None of this feels real. I don’t think I’m supposed to be here.”

Probably because he wasn’t supposed to be. He was meant to be tending a candy corn farm of his own, or fishing for some impossible catch within the waves of the Strawberry Sea. The Queen of Cakes was a dead woman as much as Sumi was, but unlike Sumi, she was dressed in skin and speech, still talking, still moving through the world. That had to warp things. For her to have a castle, she would need courtiers, and guards, and people to do the mopping-up.

“There are too many dead people here,” muttered Cora. Louder, she said, “Leave, then. If you’re not willing to defend her, you don’t have to be our enemy, and you can go. Get out and let us fix the world.”

“But the Queen—”

“Really isn’t going to be your main problem if you don’t get the hell out.” Cora bared her teeth in what might have been a smile and might have been a snarl. “Trust me. She’s not going to be in a position to hand out punishments.”

The guard looked at her uncertainly. Then he dropped his spear, turned, and ran for the door. He was almost there when the other guard followed suit, leaving the four of them—two truly among the living, two more than half among the dead—alone.

Cora turned and walked back to Sumi, who was still waiting with absolute patience. She dug her fingers into the braided licorice rope, feeling it squish and tear under her nails, until it gave way completely, ripping in two and setting Sumi free.

Sumi didn’t seem to realize that she was free. She continued to stand where she was, shade over bone, staring straight ahead, like nothing that was happening around her genuinely mattered, or ever could. Cora wrinkled her nose before taking Sumi’s hand, wrapping her fingers tight around the skeletal woman’s bare bones, and leading her gently back to where Kade was holding the Queen.

“Those traitors will bake for what they’ve done to me,” snarled the Queen of Cakes.

Kade cocked his head. “That’s almost a riddle. Will you bake them, or are you going to sentence them to some suitable length of time in your cookie factory? Not that it actually matters either way, since you’re not going to be giving any orders for a while.” He leaned forward and grabbed her by the arm. “Come with me.”

For the first time, the Queen looked afraid. “Where—where are you taking me?”

“Where you belong,” said Kade. He pulled her across the throne room to the door, shedding chunks of her dress with every step, and Cora followed, Sumi walking silently beside her, bony feet tapping on the floor.

*

CHRISTOPHER WAS STILL breathing when they reached the tower room, and Rini had tied their captive guard up so tightly that he was more a cocoon than a captive, propped in the far corner and making muffled grunting noises against the severed gummi bear leg she had stuffed into his mouth. She raised her head when the door opened, eyes widening in relief. Well. Eye. Her left eye was gone, replaced by a patch of nothingness that somehow revealed neither the inside of her skull nor the wall behind her. It was simply gone, an absence masquerading as an abscess on the world.

“Did you…” She stopped herself as Sumi stepped into the room behind Cora. “Mom.”

“She’s still dead,” spat the Queen of Cakes, struggling against the taffy rope Kade had wrapped around her wrists. “Nothing you do is going to change that.”

“I don’t know,” said Kade. “Killing her early seems to have brought you back just fine. Seems like cause and effect aren’t all that strict around here.”

He shoved the Queen of Cakes forward, until she stumbled and fell into a frosted, crumb-covered heap.

“Tie her up,” he said to Rini, holding his stolen sword in front of him to ward off any possible escape attempts.

Cora stepped around him, moving toward Christopher, who looked so small, and so frail. The blood seemed to have been leeched away from his face and hands, leaving his naturally brown skin surprisingly pale, like scraped parchment stretched over a bucket of whey. She knelt, careful not to jostle him, and lifted the dead starfish of his hand off the floor.

“I think this is yours,” she said, and pressed the bone flute into his hand.

Christopher opened his eyes, inhaling sharply, like it was the first true breath he’d been able to take in hours. The color came back to his skin, not all at once, but flooding outward from his hand, racing up his arm until it vanished beneath his sleeve, only to reappear as it crept up his neck and suffused his face. He sat up.

“Fuck me,” he said.

“What, here? Now? In front of Kade?” Cora put on her best pretense of a simpering expression. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

Christopher looked startled for a moment. Then he laughed, and stood, offering her his left hand. It was probably the only hand he was going to have free for a while. The fingers on the right were clenched so tight around the bone flute that they had gone pale again, this time from the pressure.

“Thank you,” he said, with all the sincerity he had. “I don’t think I had much time left.”

“All part of the job,” said Cora.