She turned to me, and as she did, her face melted once
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more into her own. "Do you see what a fool's errand you've come on now? He cannot be freed, no matter how noble your intentions. Either tonight or a thousand nights from now, his soul is going to hell. I have seen his life, and believe me, he has earned it."
I stared, frozen, at Aodhan-turned-Luke lying on the stage. I couldn't move until Aodhan stripped himself of Luke's form and stood up again, watching my reaction with evident pleasure.
And it was then, when I thought I couldn't get any lower, that I felt all sound and light sucked from my eyes and ears. The curtains dropped behind me, cascading to the ground in velvety piles. Then sound came roaring back into my ears and the light returned. The curtains trembled, rising.
The Queen stepped out from the velvet and thrust the curtains behind her, chin lifted high. There was no doubt as to her identity; she reeked of power and age, though her face was as young as mine. Delicate blond hair shone on either side of her cheeks, held flat on her head by a beaten gold circlet that bore an eerie resemblance to Luke's tore. She was one of those beautiful girls that made you despise looking in a mirror, no matter how pleased you'd been with yourself before you'd met her. Then her eyelids flicked open and two ancient eyes stared back at me. I was repulsed; it was as if I'd peeked in a baby carriage and found a snake looking back at me.
Eleanor and Aodhan bowed low, their cheeks touching the stage.
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The Queen's eyes drifted over the scene: my harp, James in the rubble, me standing mere feet away from her.
"Why isn't she dead yet?" To my surprise, her voice sounded weary, a bit reminiscent of Luke's--maybe that was how a human body became after one thousand years.
Aodhan grinned at me. "We were just having a bit of sport."
"There will be more sport when she is dead." The Queen looked at me and said, disbelieving,
"And you are Deirdre? I thought, when I saw you, I would understand why Luke Dillon wouldn't do as he was told. But you're--" she shrugged, obviously bemused. "You're so ordinary."
The words were so human that they at least gave me the courage to speak. "You were ordinary once yourself."
The Queen looked at me incredulously. "You compare the value of your life to mine? You're nothing. And I am everything. Is that why you won't die? You thought you were worth something? Your story has been written a thousand times, and in every version, you and your lover die."
She stepped toward me, power seeping from her, and I stumbled back from the sheer drowning force of it. Was it true? Was I living "The Faerie Girl's Lament"?
Suddenly I felt a tug on my ankle, and a second later my leg was pulled out from under me, so fast that my breath abandoned me. In a blink, I was hanging upside down by an ankle, my iron key hanging precariously below my face. I jerked my hands upward toward the rope, but I was snared securely in the most obvious trap ever.
Aodhan's laugh carried across the stage and he clapped
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his hands, ignoring the Queen's dark expression. He strode over and stood face-to-face with me, his face right side up and mine upside down, the key hanging between us. "I thought you would never step into that."
He reached up behind my neck, his fingers too hot on my skin, and untied the cloth string that held the key.
No. Crap, no.
I summoned the dark outside, gathering it into me, intending to push it into his face. Anything to keep him away from Luke's secret.
"No, Deirdre Monaghan," the Queen said flatly. "I don't think so."
And just like that, as soon as she said my name, I went empty inside, like a balloon deflated in an instant.
The key clattered on the floor at Aodhan's feet. And I just felt limp, drained, captive. So, this was why the faeries kept their names secret.
"May I play with her now?" Aodhan's words were directed at the Queen, but his eyes never left my face.
"He's worked quite hard enough for it," Eleanor suggested.
The Queen made a vague gesture--like a teen's whatever--and instantly Aodhan was clambering up the side of the stage to cut the snare. My mind raced through possible plans, but my thoughts seemed to slip away like water, pumped out of my brain by my pounding heart.
And then I was falling. I barely had time to wheel my arms out when pain seared through me--the back of my head first, then my left hand. I gasped for breath and consciousness 303
lying in the same rubble as James. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. And my hand was killing me.
Oh, God. My eyes drifted to my hand and my stomach turned. Driven through the back of my hand was a long nail. The point protruded several inches from my palm, with almost no blood around its base.
"Did you hurt yourself?" Aodhan leapt on top of me, pinning my other arm to the ground, not worrying with the one nailed to the stubby board. He grinned down at me, his eyes bright. His body was too hot, burning me, and his thyme-scented breath invaded my nostrils. I should have been afraid, but all I could think of was how glad I was that Luke wasn't here to see me, pinned beneath Freckle Freak. The thought pricked tears of shame at the corners of my eyes. "I think I'll enjoy you quite a bit."
At his words, James shifted
