R. Anderson - Wayfarer

“You know what will happen if you fall,” the Empress told her. “This is your last chance to confess before you burn to ashes, and I am forced to interrogate the human in your stead. For I will have the truth,” and with a flick of her fingers she set the cage swinging on its chain. Linden shrieked as the hot bars brushed her arm, scorching through the sleeve of her tunic in an instant; panicked, she wove back and forth in midair, trying to avoid another collision.

“We went-to find more faeries!” she cried as the cage spun dizzily around her. “Ones who would help my people, give us back our magic-but I couldn’t.” A sob ripped at her lungs. “I couldn’t!”

The Empress put out a languid hand and stopped the cage; the heat radiating from its metal bars seemed to bother her not at all. “You see?” she said. “So much easier. Do you wish me to put out the fire?”

“P-please,” whimpered Linden. The hem of her skirt was smoking, and blisters had broken out on the soles of her feet.

“Then it is done,” said the Empress, and instantly the cage was cool again. Linden collapsed to the floor, faint with relief.

When she had caught her breath, she sat up slowly and looked at the room around her. It was eerily similar to the Gospel Hall she and Timothy had visited in Aberystwyth: The high, peaked ceiling and narrow windows, the platform over which her cage hung suspended, were the same. Yet this hall was webbed in sinister shadows, with only a few candles to light it, and the only furniture was a single throne in the center of the platform, facing the empty floor.

The Empress walked to the throne and sat upon it, smoothing her silken skirts. “No wonder my servants caught you so easily,” she mused. “For your quest had failed, and in your hearts you had already given up.” She ran one finger across her lips. “Tell me more about your people. No magic, you say? How did that come about?”

Linden wiped her tear-smudged face on her sleeve-and only then did she realize that there were no scorch marks on the cloth anywhere, just as there were no burns on her skin. The cage had never been hot at all: The whole ordeal had been a glamour, a cunning illusion.

“We were betrayed,” she said shakily. “By a faery named Jasmine. She stole our magic and used it to change our bodies against our will-all because she wanted to keep us from having anything to do with humans.”

“And rightly so,” said the Empress with approval. “Or at least the intent was noble, even if the execution was shortsighted. What happened to her then, this Jasmine?”

“She became our Queen, for a while,” said Linden. “But then a faery she’d forgotten about came back to the Oak-Amaryllis. She’d been away when Jasmine cast her spell, so she still had all her wits and magic about her, and when she learned what Jasmine had done to the other Oakenfolk, she challenged her to a duel.”

The Empress’s eyes widened, like a wondering child’s. “How exciting! Go on.”

“Jasmine lost,” Linden said. “And Amaryllis wanted to punish her properly for what she’d done. So she took away all her magic, turned her into a human, and banished her from the Oak forever. That’s all I know about her.”

The Empress let out a sorrowful breath. “So cruel a fate for such a heroine! It is a pity. Had I only known, I would have sought out this Jasmine and taken her into my court. How long ago was this?”

“It’s been nearly two hundred years,” Linden told her, adding with a flash of private satisfaction, “She’s long dead by now.”

“And all that time your people have been without magic. Living like prisoners, I am told, inside that Oak of yours, struggling for every mouthful, and hardly daring to set outside lest some predator swoop down upon you. You replace yourselves with eggs when you die, but bear no children, and now fewer than fifty of you are left. Is that not so?”

Linden was taken aback. Where was the Empress getting all this information? Surely the Blackwings hadn’t observed all that from one brief flight over the Oakenwyld…but there was only one other possibility, and her mind balked from the thought.

“What a wretched existence,” remarked the Empress, flicking dust off the arm of her carved throne. “If it were not for your willful attachment to humans in spite of all Jasmine’s attempts to enlighten you, I should feel quite sorry for you all. But as it is…”

“Why?” Linden burst out. “Why do you hate humans? When you depend on them for so much-”

“I do not hate them,” said the Empress coolly. “Any more than you hate the sparrows and rabbits you eat for your dinner. But I do not befriend my dinner, either. And it does not please me to see my subjects degrading themselves by keeping company with humans, telling them our secrets, and encouraging them to waste their creativity on their own kind, when those talents would be so much better used by us. And speaking of which…”

She murmured a word Linden could not hear and made a beckoning gesture. Immediately Rob stepped out of the shadows, his guitar slung across his back. He bowed to the Empress, then sat down at her feet and began to play, paying no attention to Linden at all.

“My court musician,” said the Empress fondly, looking down at him. “And my most loyal subject-are you not, my Robin?”

“Your Imperial Majesty,” said Rob. “To serve you is my only pleasure.” There was no trace of irony in his tone, and Linden felt a shiver of unease.

“My Robin is also an accomplished spy,” the Empress continued. “The night you first came to Sanctuary, he saw you rescue the human boy from Veronica, and set out to discover why you had done it. Imagine his surprise when he learned that you were one of the Forsaken! I could scarcely believe it myself when he brought his report to me.” She smiled indulgently. “Of course Veronica was furious with him for stealing her prey, but she soon calmed down when I told her he had acted on my behalf. She appreciates cunning, though she has yet to master it.”

Brought his report to me …Had Rob betrayed them after all? Linden’s stomach convulsed, and her hand clenched on the Stone she still carried in her pocket.

“Indeed, if not for dear Robin’s vigilance, I might never have guessed that there was treachery breeding among my subjects,” the Empress went on, her fingers twining idly in Rob’s hair. “But he has insinuated himself into their very midst, gained their confidence, so that when the time is ripe I can gather them and destroy them in one blow. And, of course, he has also met with your new Queen and tested her powers, that I might know precisely how many soldiers I will need to send out to add the Oakenwyld to my empire. The answer being, of course, hardly any,” and she let out a merry little laugh.

No, thought Linden numbly. It can’t be. Not after all he’s done to help us…

Then Rob gave the Empress one of his slow smiles, and Linden’s last flicker of hope died. Surely, no one could look so adoringly at a woman he hated.

“You never know, my lady,” drawled Rob. “I may be a rebel myself.”

The Empress smiled back tolerantly, as though this were an old joke. “He will have his fun,” she said to Linden. “But what he and I both know is that I own his very soul. Do you know what sets him apart from faeries like Veronica? Poor child, she strives to be like him without knowing his secret: She has enticed one human after another, and yet the talent she steals from them always fades away. But Robin received his gift by tasting the blood of a human musician, murdered for his sake. He took that cup willingly from my hand, knowing full well what was in it; so to deny me, he would have to deny himself.”