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His voice was hypnotic, the melody haunting and sad. That poor maiden, separated from her love, from the life she had chosen. Only to finally be free and find everything that she hoped for was gone. Her lover was long dead. And while he sang, I was that maiden, ripped from the life I had wanted. When I returned to the human world, what would I find?
Nellie was living her life without me. Before we were friends, I’d treated her horribly. Used her to help me get good grades in school so I could pretend to be the perfect daughter. She deserved to have happiness.
And Mina. She’d been raised human like me, only to find out that she was actually a faerie. Despite that, she’d somehow found a balance between her faerie and human life. Something I’d never been able to do.
God, I missed them.
And yet, as Dagda’s voice continued drifting around me, the horrors of the last couple of days drifted away along with the complexities of home and I simply felt at rest.
Chapter 19
WhenDagdahadfinishedhis song, I was back in that drowsy stupor. He’d risen from the bed and a clarity opened in my mind and I felt a sorrow so deep, I wanted to cry.
“If you need me, I’ll be in my new bedchambers right across the hall,” he had whispered before he left the room. “Goodnight, Chels.”
I slept soundly through the night for the first time since coming to the Otherworld and awoke the next morning without feeling as if the world was going to end.
The smell of fresh food wafted from the table to me. My stomach growled. I slipped out of bed and walked over to the plate of eggs and ham. A folded piece of parchment rested along the plate’s edge with my name scrawled elegantly across it.
The dry paper scratched against my fingers as I flipped it open.
Roisin has threatened to get the servants to revolt if you decline to let her in. Do consider the rest of the poor, good-hearted tenants of the castle in your decision today.
-Dagda
I snorted. A small smile twisted my lips as I set the note down and picked up my fork, spearing it through an egg and taking a bite. The thing was, Roisin could get the servants to revolt if she so chose.
After several more bites, I went to my bedroom door and opened it.
The guards jumped to attention, hands on their weapons, as if I’d wipe them from the face of the planet with one look.
“If Roisin should stop by, I’d like to see her today,” I said.
“Yes, your majesty,” said a young guard. He hesitated, glancing at the others, but then added, “How shall we know that this order is from the queen and not…”
“My sisters?” I supplied.
He nodded, looking both relieved and uncomfortable.
This was Keelin’s doing. The guards must have been ordered to question everything I said. Their discomfort at doing so was palpable.
“Send someone in with her, I suppose,” I said.
The guard nodded, and I shut the door, and tried not to roll my eyes. Keelin was being thorough in his duties. I should be grateful.
And concerned that at some future date he was going to die grotesquely on a large battlefield of corpses.
I thought of the tokens. The bargains from Ornan under my pillow, and I took a couple of steps toward the bed. Time to see if they were able to free me and save everyone.
But I wouldn’t go in blind. I couldn’t afford to botch it up.
A pounding made me wheel around. The bedroom door flew open and Roisin stormed in, arguing with a guard.
“I do not need you in here watching me like a mother pixie hovering over her newly hatched brood,” she roared. “I am her maid. Out, out. Now!”
The guard cast me a harassed look, and I waved him away. He gratefully stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
She looked me over, her jaw clenched. “You let others in but not me. Why?”
