Already, a blade was at my throat, pressing against my skin.
28
AVA
At the mention of Queen Mab, fury slid through me, a rage so hot it made my legs shake, a wrath sharp as thorns that would set me free.
I saw it in my mind as it happened. Behind me, a vine shot through the fae’s skull. His muscles went limp, and he slumped to the floor. I whirled to find two more Unseelie standing there, mouths agape. Hardly had the words formed in my mind, hardly did I dare to admit to myself the monster I could become. Flaming violence, hot as a forge, burned all rational thought out of me. My thorny vines carved through the two other fae, severing their heads from their bodies.
Blood spattered around me and on the new white dress.
My body shook. I am death.
The first fae I’d killed was unrecognizable, his face destroyed beneath long, silvery antlers. I pulled my gaze from the other two, trying to block out the screams of the soldiers trapped in branches outside .
Shaking, I turned to the stairwell.
What was I capable of?
Maybe the people here in the Court of Sorrows should have asked themselves that before they decided to find out. Maybe they should have considered that before they locked me in a prison and forced me to kill my lover. Maybe all this blood and the screams were their fault.
By the time I reached the upper levels of the tower, carnage danced in my thoughts. From the stairwell, the tower room glowed with fiery light.
I stepped through the archway into the Dusk Tower itself, and the light seemed to shift, darkening to periwinkle and violet, streaming through windows.
My breath caught at the sight of three enormous silvery wolves that sat protectively around the figure in the center of the room. A fire burned in a stone pit before her, illuminating the stooped woman and her wolves. A pewter-blue veil covered her face, and it hung down over the silver fabric of her dress. She sat still as stone. The only parts of her that were exposed were her pale, wrinkled hands and the enormous silver antlers that jutted from her head. I had the distinct impression that I was trespassing in a place I didn’t quite understand.
One of her wolves lifted his head, narrowing his eyes at me, and let out a low growl. A shiver snaked up my spine.
A flicker of movement caught my attention. There was no glass in the soaring windows, just the open air and the vines that snaked in from the outside. When I took another step into the tower room, the vines twitched.
“Isavell,” the woman murmured.
The name lit a spark of recognition in my mind. I’d been called that before. “I need your help. Please. I want to know how to get out of the Court of Sorrows.”
“Is that what you call our kingdom?” She spoke without moving, and I had the unnerving sense that her words were coming from inside my skull.
I breathed in sharply, frustration burning like an ember inside me. “Please tell me how to get back to Faerie.”
“You will return to Faerie in the Avon River. There, in an abandoned temple to the ash goddess, you will find a mirror hanging from the wall, one that can open a world by naming it. “ Little sparks from the fire danced in the air around her. “East of the castle along the river. That is where the temple stands.”
I closed my eyes, so relieved I could cry. But an unsettling feeling shivered up my nape. This felt too easy. “Why would you help me escape?”
Her head arched back sharply, and her wolves bristled, baring their canines.
“I only foretell the future,” her voice boomed. “And nothing happens in this castle without the queen’s consent. Everything occurs as she intends. Your own sense of control is only an illusion.” The flames rose higher before her.
I stared at her, and despite the growing fire, a sense of dread chilled me down to my marrow. “So nothing I decide actually matters. ”
“You have another question for me.”
My breath had gone shallow. “Where do I find Torin’s body?”
“Do you burn for him? Does he burn for you?”
Not the answer I was looking for. “Where do I find his body?”
“You will find him in the throne room.”
“They left him there? Why?”
“I foretell the future, not the past,” she hissed. “That is where you will find him. And her soldiers come for you now. If you do not leave at this very moment, they will capture you. And if you don’t eat or drink soon, you will die.”
My lip curled. “I thought it didn’t matter what I did because the queen controls everything.”
“She will throw you off the tower.”