I glanced around. There were doors on either side of the corridor. I’d stepped into the trail, and it led forward, so whoever or whatever had caused the disturbance in reality had originated from behind one of the two doors.
“Where do these go?” I asked, pointing from one to the other door.
Falin frowned at me. “Currently?”
Right. Faerie and its shifting doors. I sighed. Then I started forward again, motioning Falin to lead on. There was no telling if the disturbance I felt was even real.
The sleet fell harder and faster as we walked. I balled my fists and tucked them under my armpits, trying to get some warmth back into my fingers. The disturbance also seemed to grow rawer the farther we walked. I wasn’t sure if we were actually following a trail or if my hallucinations were damaging Faerie. Or maybe it was another symptom of the queen’s loss of control.
Maybe the queen is also hallucinating.
If Ryese had been dosing her with Glitter, and he got an opportunity to slip more to her, he may well have given her the critical amount to reach hallucinations.
The sleet-slush had built up to ankle-deep by the time we turned the next corner, but soggy paths had been trod through it already. Falin frowned at the indistinct footprints, but I tried to keep my steps in line with those who’d cut the path—my boots were water resistant only up to the point the laces started, and as my feet were the only part of me still dry, I wanted to keep them that way.
Falin paused in front of one door. Based on the runnels in the sleet, a lot of fae had passed this way, and recently. The trail dragging across realities was stronger here as well. Sharper, almost, and deeper.
And oh so very wrong.
If it had been something I could see, I would have expected an infected wound, open and dripping with pus. The trail led directly into the doorway Falin was about to step through. I grabbed his arm, making him hesitate.
“If Faerie rejects the queen’s right to rule the court, would that cause a wound in the fabric of Faerie?”
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze moving over my face as if he’d find the answer there. “What kind of wound?” he asked, his voice low, cautious.
I tried to think of a way to describe the raw sensation, but I was cold and exhausted, and I wasn’t even sure it was real and not another Glitter effect. Instead of answering, I shook my head and dropped my hand from Falin’s arm. He studied my face one more moment before his gaze shifted to the screaming Deaths behind me and then back. Reaching out, he pressed a hand to my forehead.
“You’re burning up.”
“I promise you, I’m freezing,” I told him, wrapping my arms around my middle in an effort to slow my trembling.
Falin didn’t argue, he just gave me a look—a sad, knowing look—and said, “Let’s get you your tie to Faerie.”
Then he stepped through the doorway.
Chapter 33
I’d grown accustomed to the bone-chilling sleet that had accompanied me since I woke in Faerie. I was not prepared for a full-on blizzard, but that’s what awaited us through the doorway.
The throne room was a blur of white. A howling wind tore around the room, pelting me with wet snow from every direction. Fae huddled in clusters around the door, snow piling up on their hunched shoulders and bowed heads. Sleagh Maith and lesser fae alike clung to one another, fear all but radiating off their trembling forms. But as close as they were to the door, they didn’t move, didn’t dare bolt. Some sense of self-preservation telling them that the first to move wouldn’t be moving for long.
And the reason for all that fear raged in the center of the storm. The queen, sword in hand, stalked across the center of the room, raving in one of the fae languages. A body at her feet.
Dark blood stained the hem of her gown, splashes of the blood dotting the tattered garment up to her high waistline. More blood soaked into the icy snow all around the body, like the nightmare version of a snow cone.
The queen whirled around as we entered. More blood had spattered her pale skin, momentarily distracting me from the madness burning in her eyes. Until that gaze landed on me like a hot iron in the blizzard.
“You.” She pointed the sword at me, and I froze. “Are you satisfied now? I’ve killed him. I. Killed. Him.”
I glanced at the body again, I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop myself. It was at an angle, the face turned away from me, blood mixing with hair that glistened even in the storm. I couldn’t positively identify the bloody shape from this angle. Not by sight. But by her words, I knew who it had to be.
Ryese.