Eyes slitted, Arleigh whispered in the woman's ear, then threw the human backward.
The woman cried out, her hair ripped from her scalp where the fae queen had grabbed her. Stumbling to her feet, the woman began to run at Arleigh, but the fae queen waved her fingers and sent vines to wrap the human's throat and feet. Arleigh laughed as her vines pulled the woman in opposite directions.
"Please! Take me!" the woman shouted.
My stomach rolled. She was begging to serve the fae queen even as Arleigh was tearing her apart.
The vines slithered away from the woman, and two fae escorted Arleigh’s mumbling victim to the far end of the first feasting table.
“Please.” The fae queen took one of the high-backed, oaken chairs on the dais and gestured to the seats beside her. “Sit with me, and we’ll talk.”
Lucus and I joined her, each accepting a goblet from a pair of waiting servants. The mulled wine’s smell was nearly overpowering right there under my nose. No way I was drinking that. Especially considering the faerie wine might have been what had intoxicated Aurelio and Baccio so thoroughly. If it could take down two big dudes, I had no chance, and I needed my wits as sharp as they could be right now. I lifted the goblet and tilted my head back like I was drinking, but I kept my lips firmly shut against the ruby liquid. Setting my cup down, I licked my lips to allow some of the faerie wine to stain my mouth, making me appear more amenable and ignorant.
“May I ask where the other mages are?” I kept my voice light and kind of airheaded-ish. I knew the Binder was with Hekla at the next table, but I wasn’t sure where they’d carted Nora off to in order to prep for her appearance tonight.
While I waited for Arleigh to answer, fae guards brought in another fifty or so humans who stumbled into the feasting crowd, grinning and giving up their energy to the unseelie. The sight of that many people in such danger… Ice filled my chest. I forced myself to remain seated.
The Yew Bow’s magic hummed a few feet away, and my fingers tingled with the desire to touch it, to take it up, to draw the string back and aim. But for what?
When I dragged my gaze from the Yew Bow back to the queen, she was watching me with those freaky-ass glowing eyes. I did my best to smile like a fiend, like someone who belonged here. Her razor-sharp cheekbones pulled back as she grinned, sending an icicle down my back.
“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” Her half-lidded gaze slid to the Yew Bow quickly before returning to my face.
I swallowed and felt Lucus’s hand on my knee. With one eye on his brothers, he was talking to another fae male over a plate of black-and-white-speckled berries. Aurelio and Baccio seemed to have finished feeding on auras and were lounging on moss tufts and mushrooms with their glazed-eyed victims. It was tough to tell whose arm or leg was whose.
“I can feel the Bow’s magic from here,” I finally said in answer to the queen.
“I feel its power throughout my kingdom. The dark magic it pours into this place beats in the earth like a drum. The trees have begun to echo its rhythm.”
Servants brought out platters of milk-white cheese, black fruit that looked like giant grapes, and slices of meat. They also gave everyone a fae blade. Pretending to scratch my leg, I slipped my blade into my boot, hoping the tight legging things they’d insisted I wear would protect me from cutting my foot off.
“What does it do?” Of course, I wasn’t supposed to realize we were trapped here. Arleigh had no idea Nora and the Binder had told us everything. But she had to assume they would, right? I was a mage. They were mages. And she’d allowed us to train together. Regardless, I needed to know what she was willing to be up front about. There was information here that I might glean.
“The barrier, as I’m certain you heard about from your associates, protects my people from the outside world.”
“You’re so powerful. Why would you want to hide from the outside world?”
“I do not hide.” Arleigh pushed a lock of pale red hair behind the blackened tip of her ear. “I only long for peace. To be undisturbed by humans and mages.” An undefinable emotion flickered through her freaky eyes. It almost seemed like she’d winced. Had she been hurt in the past by humans or mages?
“What about vampires? Our friend Kaippa returned to…visit, and your guards took him captive. Has he disturbed you, Queen Arleigh?”
“Oh, of course not. He is welcome. I simply had to restrain him until I knew for certain he was your friend. I will send for him now.”
She clapped her hands, and before I could say anything to Lucus, a servant had been sent on his way to get Kaippa. I supposed that was good. One less prisoner to free? Somehow I didn’t think we’d be that lucky. I waited for the other shoe to drop, for her to say Oh, by the way, you’re not getting out of here ever, and my blood trees are super pumped about feeding on your boss magic.
The queen leaned forward. “Lucus, would you like a human to feed on? You look terribly pale. Are you ill?”
Lucus seemed to consider whether or not to reveal what Kaippa had clued us in on. His eyes moved as he watched Baccio finish a goblet of faerie wine and laugh. Aurelio gently kissed the woman draped over his legs.
