Chapter 23

My head breaks the surface of the water, and I gulp in air between sputtering coughs. I blink water from my eyes while my hands paw through the darkness in search of Destan. I call out his name, but the roar of falling water drowns out all other sounds. He finds me first, grabbing hold of my wrist when the moon appears from behind a cloud and illuminates the scene around us.

We float in the center of a river, a great waterfall behind us. The river flows through a dense, wild forest toward someplace that glows with pale, cold light. The entire world around us seems touched with an incandescence of life. The fungus growing on trees. The moss on water-slicked rocks. Even the flowers that bow their heads over the banks of the rushing river are lit from within. Flickers of light float through the air like curious stars, come down to investigate our arrival.

Destan pulls me towards me toward the waterfall and the weight of what we've done hits me. We weren't ready for this. We weren't prepared.

We swim through the waterfall. I forget how to breathe as a massive volume of water pounds my head, but Destan tugs me onward. On the other side of the waterfall, the roar of the falls echoes off a sheer wall of rock. "Destan!" I have to scream to hear my voice over the deafening thunder of the churning water.

He helps me out of the water onto the rocks, my feet sliding and scrambling for purchase. When they slip out from underneath me, he picks me up and sets me on an even surface, my back to the rockface. He lost the ribbon that held back his hair in the water. Dark, wet waves hang down to his shoulders and stick to his face. My breathing is heavy as I dig my fingers into the slimy surface of the stone. "Je suis désolé," I cry over the din. "I didn't mean to bring us through the portal. I — I didn't touch it!"

"I know," Destan says, his eyes scanning me for injury. He moves to stand closer to me so I can hear him better. "I saw what happened. It wanted you to come through."

"Then we are expected?" I shiver as my water-soaked clothes grow colder in the night air.

Destan's jaw pulses. I can feel a heat coming off him, but I don't dare lean into it.

"I don't know. But we need to go back. Now. Before anyone discovers we're here. I'm going to see if there is a portal at the bottom of the falls."

He steps down into the water's edge with impossibly sure footing. I start to follow, but he holds up a hand. "Wait here. I'll come back for you if I find something." He sinks into the water before I can object and disappears behind the falls.

I don't trust my feet to navigate the rocks on my own so I'm stuck to the cold stone wall until he gets back. I wrap my arms around my waist and clench my chattering teeth, but it doesn't stop the cold from seeping into my bones.

Destan's head breaks the surface of the water and his expression makes my stomach sink. "Nothing," he says. "The portal was one way only."

"So we have to find our own way—" My words catch in my throat as Destan disappears underwater in a blink of an eye. "Destan?" I shout, inching away from the wall to see if I can spot him in the river. All I see is churning black water and a froth of white foam on the surface. Then a hand closes roughly around my left arm. I turn, expecting to find Destan beside me, but I'm shocked to see a tall faerie man in burnished gold armor. He doesn't wear a helm, his long, pointed ears on display with the front of his chest-length silky red hair pulled back. He is so pale, his skin glows blue in the light of the luminescent plantlife behind the waterfall.

I try to twist my arm out of his grasp but a faerie woman in matching armor appears on my other side and takes my right arm. She is as dark as her companion is pale. Her brown skin shines with a purple shimmer and her dark hair is woven into many two-stranded braids. The twists are decorated with gold jewelry to match her armor.

"A human?" Her eyes travel my body from head to toe. "What is she wearing?"

"Please! I didn't mean to come here. I—"

"Is this armor?" The man pokes the boning of my stays, ignoring me. "She is a warrior, perhaps?"

His companion shrugs. "It protects the vital organs, but not very well. It's just made of fabric."

They talk like I'm not even there. "I'm not a warrior — I'm here looking for a friend."

There is a cry and a cacophony of voices on the other side of the waterfall.

"You may not be a warrior. But your compatriot is."

They pull me across the jumble of rocks behind the waterfall, not stopping when I stumble or my feet catch on jagged edges. We burst through the waterfall and the woman tosses me across the last gap like a rag doll. I land on the grassy bank in a clumsy tangle of limbs. "Destan!" I cry when I see the source of the noise. Destan, in Fae form, grapples with a contingent of gold-plated soldiers. He puts up a valiant effort even without a weapon. The faeries carry long spears and he quickly disarms one of them and turns the weapon on his attackers.

My body goes rigid when I feel the cold edge of steel against my neck.

"Tell him to stop." The woman's breath brushes against my cheek.

"Destan, stop," I say, my voice weak with fear.

Destan freezes at the sound of my voice. At the sight of the knife at my neck, he drops the spear and raises his hands in surrender. "Don't hurt her," he growls.

"See, that was easy," the woman says. She doesn't move the blade away from my neck. "We were expecting her, but we weren't expecting you. Did you follow her here? Are you one of the traitor Princess Henriette's spies?"

"No. We are no friend to Princess Henriette," Destan says.

"He came with me," I say. The knife vibrates menacingly against my throat when I speak, a less-that-subtle reminder that I'm a twitch away from a quick death. "We mean you no harm."

"Well..." She lowers her knife. "I guess we shall see what The Queen wants to do with you."

The Fae march us along the bank towards the source of the glow downriver. I regret leaving my shoes behind as I traipse across the forest floor. We wind through trees and brush, snaking our way through the woods, though always parallel to the river's flow. Like Destan, the leader of these soldiers must have keen senses to move so quickly and decidedly through the wild and narrow path.

The pads of my feet cry out as I step on sharp jagged things. I stumble over branches and rocks and jutting roots, but the Fae do not slow their pace. The path we travel can hardly be called that. It's only wide enough to walk single file so all I can do is follow the red-haired Fae in front of me. My wet skirts stick awkwardly to my legs and make it harder to maneuver. A bush with glowing indigo berries catches the fabric with its inch-long thorns and I hiss through clenched teeth when the thorn finds flesh. The Fae woman behind reaches for my skirt faster than I can. She tugs it loose and I wince at the loud tear.

It's just an underpetticoat and a chemise, I tell myself, but the milk-white skin of my thigh and an angry red gash is visible through the gap. My cheeks heat with a blush, but I don't have the time to feel embarrassed before the woman nudges me onward. I try to hold the rip in my skirts closed, but I have to keep my hands free to stop the sinewy branches of saplings from snapping me in the face. The red-haired man in front of me pushes past them with little regard for what he sends whipping back in my direction.

After a laborious trek, the forest opens to a sheer cliff face. My breath stops at the sight in front of us. To our right, the river rushes over the cliff in another roaring waterfall. We stand on the rim of a horseshoe-shaped gorge where four different waterfalls pour misty streams of water into turquoise pools in the forest below us. The white walls of the gorge, dotted with plantlife, glow under the light of the moon, but they aren't the source of the light I saw when we emerged from the river. On the other side of the gorge, a château was built at the top of the largest of the four waterfalls— but a château doesn't quite describe it. The structure follows the curve of the gorge, filling it to its very edges, and then it moves downward into the forest below — structures carved into the cliffside itself. It is the size of a small city and built in an architectural style caught between the Medieval and Renaissance châteaux throughout France. The styles are so familiar I wonder if this was the architect's inspiration. Rounded towers and bartizans with blue slate roofs rise above the city and crown it with their gold finials.

A long, stone bridge supported with towering arches stretches across the gorge and connects our side to the city. The bridge is protected with a high gold-plated gate that make the gates in front of Versailles seem like a garden fence that wouldn't keep a rabbit out of a potager. Four guards keep watch at the gate from a bartizan.

When the leader of our party approaches them, they give him a solemn nod. It takes two soldiers each to heave open the gates for us. The bridge is narrow, only wide enough for two carriages to pass by each other. My legs tremble as I think of the widening space between me and the ground. I'd never been anywhere this high to tests the extent of my fear of heights, but even the third-floor balcony of my garret in Paris made me nervous enough to keep back from the railing.

Destan looks over his shoulder, his eyes questioning, his brows knit together in concern. He can probably hear my pulse racing faster with every step.

I smile at him through gritted teeth to let him know I'm fine. I don't need him making a fuss on a bridge where a scuffle could knock someone over the railing and plummeting to their death.

My shoulders don't unclench until we reach the other side of the gorge and there is no longer a gaping distance between my feet and the ground. We head through a gate in the city wall and the Fae encircle Destan and I as we climb up a steep city street.

"Afraid of heights?" Destan whispers as he moves to walk at my side.

"They're not my favorite," I reply.

"Wow." He chuckles low.

"What?"

"You surprise me. I thought you didn't have any survival instinct–"

"Quiet!" a female guard commands.

I glare at Destan and he purses his lips to hide a smile. I want to thank him for breaking the tension, but I don't dare disobey our captor's orders.

The streets are surprisingly empty, but even without Fae moving about, they are teeming with life. Nature is woven through every crevice of the city. Not for lack of care, but in loving surrender to its will. Even the stones teem with it. Where the French sought to dominate the elements of the natural world into submission, the Fae let them run with reckless abandon. There is no severe pruning, no neat lines, no canals to channel streams of water into more convenient paths. Towers and walls are built around ancient trees and windows are carved into stone without glass panes to keep out the elements.

At the highest point in the city, we come to the city's keep: a château of quatrefoil design with an ostensibly decorated exterior. The roof alone brings to my mind the jagged skyline of Paris, full of chimneys, towers, cupolas, gables, lucarnes, and gilded spires. It's certainly a palace of leisure, not a place that fears an outside attack.

We ascend a curved double staircase and make our way into the grand hall. The great wooden doors have already been thrown open and a group of guards and the sounds of a ball await us within. Like the rest of the city, the château is woven with flora. Though well-kept, the portraits on the walls are nestled within climbing vines, the marble floors buckle and crack around protrusions of roots. It would feel abandoned if candelabra and a crystal chandelier didn't light the hall with a cheerful glow.

"This way," says a château guard in a golden helm decorated with a plume of white horsehair that makes her look like the goddess Athena herself. The senior officer in our midst, she leads us towards the sounds of the ball and my heart starts to race all over again. I know I'm expected. Someone wanted me to find the portal, but I don't dare let myself hope to find a particular person waiting for me. A glance at Destan strikes me with a pang of worry. And what will happen to him?

The ball is in full swing when we enter. Fae in ethereal gowns and glittering silks embrace each other as they twirl through a mad dance. There is no constrained court decorum here where only a touch of hands is allowed between dance partners. An orchestra in the gallery above stops at our entrance and the dancers all pull to an abrupt stop. Hundreds of beautiful faces turn to watch us. The crowd parts and the guard leads us towards a low dais in front of the twisting roots and gnarled trunk of an ancient tree.

The Queen of Alsaecia, for she can't be anyone else, sits on a throne made from the wizened fingers of the tree's roots. Her beauty is unlike anything I've laid eyes on, her raven hair woven into a crown of willow branches, her eyes and cheeks tinged with a shimmer of gold. Her high-collared dress is a strange pattern of black and pale turquoise that shifts in the light. When she stands, her dress shifts, and I realize it's not patterned fabric at all. The gown is made up of thousands of live butterflies. As she moves toward us, some of them take flight to flutter around her before settling against her pale skin once again. Except for this time, they form a sweeping, curved neckline and short sleeves that sit off her shoulder.

The effect of it is breathtaking, but I shiver at the thought of so many tiny feet crawling over me.

"Welcome, Florette, honored guest," she says with a glittering smile, both palms extended towards me.

I dip into a curtsy, but she takes my hands and guides me upright. "We don't do that here," she adds.

"I — I don't know what I've done to deserve this invitation — this honor." I stumble for the right words to say to a Faerie queen. This wasn't covered in The Order's training.

A knowing grin flashes across the Queen's dark red lips. "I thought it would have been obvious? We are simply desperate for our court painter to be reunited with his apprentice."

My mouth goes dry as the Queen turns me around to face the crowd. My lungs forget to breathe as I see the tanned, golden-haired man standing behind me. His angular jaw, strong cheekbones, and slim figure are as familiar to me as my own reflection. And those eyes. Blue and clear and penetrating.

Morel.