Queen Orlaith steepled her slender fingers together and spoke to Jason patiently. “That was quite an entertaining performance. However, when I told you to dance, I meant for you to dance with Princess Sadie. You’re familiar with the waltz, yes?”
“The waltz?” Jason repeated. “Does anybody do that anymore?”
I glanced out at the couples flowing across the dance floor. They were smiling and speaking in hushed tones, wrapped up in each other, yet still doing every step perfectly. Jason and I wouldn’t look that way. “I don’t know how to waltz either. Perhaps we should sit out and watch.” I surveyed the chairs on the side of the pavilion. They weren’t far from the queen’s table. If Jason and I sat there until midnight, we’d be able to see the goblet as soon as she got it out.
Queen Orlaith stood up with a sigh. “Another couple from one of those uncivilized centuries. Well, I suppose we must teach you.” She glided around the table, her long green dress trailing across the floor. She held her hand out to Jason, reaching for him with fingernails that looked like they’d been dipped in gold. “We’ll see if you’re a fast learner.”
I was surprised the queen wanted this job—dancing with a mortal. I only had time to consider what odd dance partners they were when I noticed Kailen at my side, hand out to me. He’d moved so quietly I hadn’t heard him.
He smiled, but there was something disapproving in his eyes that looked anything but happy. “It will be my pleasure to instruct you.”
“Oh.” Flustered, I took his hand. His fingers around mine were firm and warm. I’d expected them to be as cool as his demeanor.
He led me to the side of the dance floor and pulled me into formation. He smelled crisp and woodsy, without any of the heaviness of cologne. I’d slow danced with a few guys before, and they’d always had casual stances, as though—even while dancing—they were kicked back and slouching. Kailen stood straight, poised. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was a fairy or because he was royalty. Whatever the reason, everything about him was so imposing I doubted I’d be able to remember anything he said.
This prediction proved to be true for the first ten minutes of his lesson. One wouldn’t think waltzing would be hard. It only requires you to count to three and step in the shape of a box. Of course, both of those things become more difficult while dancing with a guy who could turn people into garden ornaments.
Every time I got one move down, he immediately added something else. Instead of stepping in a stationary square, we went forward in a line, then backward. We twirled, broke apart, and came back together.
I kept forgetting things and bumped into him several times. It didn’t help that Kailen kept throwing out derogatory comments such as, “Pray, try to step to the beat.”
Prayer wasn’t likely to help.
“You need to follow your partner’s lead,” he told me for the fourth time. “The women of your century have forgotten that art. You always want to be in charge.”
Should I pretend this was true or admit that no, I just couldn’t count to three in my mind and also pick up the subtle clues he was about to swing me outward?
“I’m not used to dancing this way,” I said.
Kailen nodded in Jason’s direction. “Your prince is doing well enough.”
He was right. Jason and the queen twirled on the floor, doing a step with ease that Kailen hadn’t taught me. An elegant rise and fall accompanied their movements, like the sway of waves in the ocean. Jason wasn’t as graceful as the queen, perhaps mortals couldn’t achieve that, but he was still an excellent waltzer. Much better than me.
The incongruity of that struck me. “I wished to be a good dancer. I should be picking this up easily.” A piece of hope welled inside me. If Chrissy didn’t fulfill my wish, then I still had a wish coming, and I could use it to take Jason and me home.
The corner of Kailen’s lips lifted in a smirk. “Perhaps Miss Everstar’s powers aren’t what they should be. Or,” he said, pulling me back toward him after I’d misstepped, “perhaps her standards of good are lower than one would suppose.”
A nice guy wouldn’t have agreed so quickly that I was a bad dancer.
I was so busy thinking about what I would say to Chrissy, I missed Kailen’s signal to turn and had to take a quick step to catch up.
Kailen shook his head. “You should choose your fairy godmother more carefully next time.”
As if I had a choice. “How well do you know Chrissy?” If he knew her, he might guess why she’d sent me here.
“The Unseelie Court doesn’t mingle much with those from the Seelie. At the best of times we have an uneasy truce. Some fairies, however . . . well, I’ll just say if Chrysanthemum showed the same enthusiasm for her studies that she shows for socializing, her precious university would have accepted her long ago.”
“You don’t like the university?” It was better to keep Kailen talking about other subjects than have him give me more dancing instruction.
“Fae of the Unseelie Court don’t become fairy godmothers.”
“Why not?”
He raised an eyebrow, surprised that I asked. “Mortals destroy and plunder the forest realms. We don’t grant wishes to your sort.”
There are several ways to make your dance partner uncomfortable. I’d thought Kailen had already hit upon the major ones by pointing out I sucked at dancing and insulting the women of my generation. But no, this kept getting worse. “I love forests,” I mumbled. “I wouldn’t ever destroy them.”
Kailen casually pulled me out of the way of a passing couple. “You’ll have children and they’ll have children. Among your descendants will be those who would gladly destroy every tree and blade of grass for enough coins.”
What was I supposed to say to that? “Sorry. I recycle whenever I can.”
His dark eyes fell on me again. In the dim light the seemed almost black. “The people of your century no longer believe in magic. You think of yourselves as builders and creators, yet not one of you can create a tree. You fail to see the magic lying within every seed.”
When was this song going to end? As soon as it did, I would claim I was thirsty and escape to the refreshment table. “If you don’t like people, why invite us to come here every night?” His “feed the trees” comment still sat in my mind, worrying me.
Kailen didn’t answer for a moment, and I wondered if he would ignore the question all together. Then he said, “Doesn’t Chrissy know the answer to that question?”
“If she does, she didn’t tell me.”
Kailen twirled me under his arm. My skirt spun, making the material bloom outward. He pulled me back, recapturing my hand. “I suppose there’s no harm in discussing our trees with a girl who loves forests. Surely on the trail here, you noticed how poorly the trees fare.”
“They’re not supposed to be silver, gold, and diamond?”
“It’s summer. They’re supposed to have leaves.”
“Oh. Right. I knew that. I just thought magic ones were different.” I could tell I’d lost all credibility as a nature-loving person. But really, how was I supposed to know what time of year it was? I wasn’t even sure what continent I was on.
I gazed at one of the diamond trees near the edge of the pavilion. Small leaves lined its branches—the way spring leaves look before summer changes them to full dress attire. These trees were either stunted or behind schedule.
“The trees here,” Kailen said, “are only kept alive by my mother’s magic. She believes if her orchard basks in the air of lovers, the fruit will grow again. Every night the couples come and dance. Yet still, their fruit remains unripe and unusable. It’s a fool’s errand, this dancing, and we the fools for it.”
“You can’t fertilize them somehow?”
He made a scoffing noise. “So speak the fools.”
Okay, maybe I should have known that if the queen could fertilize them, she would have already, but Kailen didn’t need to be rude. I was just making conversation.
The music woun
d down and he dropped my hand. “I won’t venture to teach you more steps tonight. Practice with your prince and perhaps tomorrow I’ll show you others.”
Only if I didn’t manage to snag the goblet tonight. I curtsied in return. “Thanks for your help.”
Queen Orlaith and Jason strolled over to us, her arm linked through his. Even in that position, they didn’t look like a couple. The queen was too otherworldly too mature. She seemed to be walking Jason like she might walk a dog. She deposited him in front of me. “It will give me great pleasure to see you dance with your lady. Enjoy the night.”
“Remember to let your partner lead,” Kailen added to me. He and the queen sauntered back toward their thrones, moving with effortless poise. A fairy thing, I supposed. No wonder Kailen thought I was a failure at dancing. I couldn’t compare to his kind.
The music started up again and Jason took my hand so that we could waltz. “This place is wild, don’t you think?”
A good word to describe fairies. Wild and undoubtedly dangerous too. It wasn’t a comforting thought. Before the night ended, I had to steal a magical object from them.
Chapter 15
Jason and I danced for a few songs. I wasn’t any better with Jason than I’d been with Kailen. Worse maybe, because Jason’s leads were vague. He would move his hand upward, and I would think he wanted me to twirl when he actually wanted me to go forward.
Every time I apologized for messing up, he said something like, “Don’t be so uptight. That expression won’t go over well on camera.” Or “You don’t need to be so starstruck around me, babe. I put on my pants one leg at a time like everybody else—except for this pair. A butler named Archibald dressed me. I could get used to that, actually.”
I nearly told him I stopped being starstruck around him after he called me a wannabe, but I figured there wasn’t a point to bringing that up.
Every once in a while Jason asked me where I thought the cameras were or how the show had rigged up the sound system. I always shrugged or said, “Beats me.” Which wasn’t a lie, so my nose thankfully remained unchanged.
While we danced, Kailen strolled around the pavilion, hands behind his back, impatiently checking the trees for changes. Every so often he returned to the queen’s table to speak with her.
She sat in her chair, haughty and cat-like, sometimes stroking the vines that swayed near her like fawning pets.
A large crystal clock hung from the ceiling at the far end of the pavilion. I kept glancing at it, waiting for midnight. At eleven forty, Jason and I made our way to the refreshment table. He poured himself a drink then plucked a yellow rosebud from a platter and popped it into his mouth. “Mmm. That one tasted like caramel.”
I poured myself a drink and examined the platters. Besides the fruits that I was used to, bouquets of lilies, roses, and daisies lay across them. The blossoms looked real. “They’re candy?”
“Either that, or I just discovered the reason women like flowers.” He picked up a white daisy and bit off a few petals. “Vanilla. Not bad.”
I picked up a red rose, hesitating before I brought it to my lips. “What if this is like the story of Persephone, and we’ll have to come back here if we eat the food?”
“Who’s Persephone?”
“You know, the Greek goddess.”
“I thought this place was Renaissance themed. What are you doing in Greece all of a sudden?”
Jason was apparently lacking in Greek myth trivia as well as fairy tale knowledge. I took a bite of my flower because I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. The petals tasted like hazelnut chocolate, and were therefore worth six months of my life, should it come to that.
We stacked fruit and blossoms onto plates and went and sat in the chairs closest to the queen’s table. Just before midnight she snapped her fingers and a wand appeared in her hand. I had expected something ornate and regal, but it looked like a thin branch plucked of leaves. She tapped it against the box, and the sides stretched and bent backward like clam shell opening.
The golden goblet sat inside. It was smaller than I expected, more like a tea cup with ambitions than a goblet fit for a fairy queen. She placed it in front of her and lifted her hand to Kailen. “The elixir?”
He pulled a vial from his shirt pocket, fingering it reluctantly before handing it to his mother. “Don’t waste the magic tonight. No matter how you phrase the question, the answer remains the same. It’s time to ask something else. Ask what Queen Titania plots against you. Ask if you have enemies in your midst.”
No, I thought. Don’t ask that.
Queen Orlaith popped the vial’s stopper off and poured the liquid into the cup. The first bell tolled the hour. Midnight. Picking up the goblet, she swirled the liquid around and around. “Magic cup within my hand, make me wise to understand.” Her tone was pleading, desperate almost. “What more of love is now required, to cultivate the fruit desired?”
“Huh,” Jason whispered to me. “Do you think you have to speak to the goblet in rhyme? ‘Cause that would totally suck if your question ended in orange.”
“Luckily, very few questions end in the word orange.”
A voice emanated from the direction of the goblet, at first with a softness like wind rushing through trees, then growing louder like a storm picking up speed. “For lack of love your trees do pine. Give them this and the fruit is thine.”
The queen showed no emotion to the answer. Her eyes had the same firm resolve they’d shown all night. But she slammed the goblet down so hard it clanged and sloshed drops of liquid onto the table.
Kailen lifted his chin, coldly triumphant. “You can bring twelve couples here or twelve hundred. It matters not. While we sit and watch dancers, our enemies will move against us.”
“Which is why we need the fruit to ripen.” She picked up the goblet as though it might tell her more information. After a moment, she put it down again with a frustrated thud. “How could the trees lack love? The princesses love their suitors enough to defy their father in order to see them. It must be true love.”
“Or the thrill of rebellion,” Kailen uttered. “Mortals don’t know why they love.” He gazed out of the pavilion to the night sky. “The goblet is giving you riddles, not answers. We love our trees more than these silly girls love their princes, and still not a leaf grows without your magic aiding it.”
Queen Orlaith’s dark eyes grew even darker. “It isn’t my love the trees need. The goblet has made that clear enough. The trees require true love between mortals.” She picked up the cup again and sipped its contents. “Perhaps we just need patience. Love, like fruit, requires time to ripen.”
Kailen folded his arms. “Fine. Then let the couples’ love ripen on its own for the next month. Tomorrow we should return to court and use the goblet for more productive ends. Ask what plans Titania has set in motion.”
Queen Orlaith frowned tightly. “Am I not still queen? I decide where and when I’ll hold court.”
Her words silenced him.
She leaned back in her chair, clicking her golden fingernails against the arm rests. “You must learn to take counsel instead of giving it.”
I’d stared at the goblet for so long, when I turned my gaze I still saw its outline everywhere my eyes went. I put my hand on Jason’s arm. “Should you ask to sing to her now, or wait a few minutes and hope she’s in a better mood?” If she blew him off now, we’d lose our chance, but if we waited too long, she’d put the goblet away. Once the goblet was in the box, it wouldn’t fit into my pocket.
Jason bit off half a carnation. “Trust me, women are never in a bad mood when I sing to them.”
The music from the current song wound down. Worry swirled in my stomach. If this went badly—no, I didn’t want to think about it. I tightened my grip on Jason’s sleeve. “Remember, keep the queen’s eyes on you.” That way, I’d only have to worry about making sure Kailen didn’t see me.
Jason shoved the rest of the carnation into his mouth, not bothering to swallow b
efore he answered me. “Don’t worry. Charming is my middle name.”
Well, so far it hadn’t been his last name. He stood and walked over, all strut and swagger. I trailed after him, nerves shifting into overdrive. I had to tell myself not to wring my hands. Too conspicuous.
When Jason reached the queen’s table, he bowed with a flourish. “A most excellent party, Your Majesty. It’s only missing one thing.”
She arched one dark eyebrow, regarding him. “What, pray tell?”
“One of my songs.” He unbuttoned a few coat buttons. “Have your people sync up: Baby, You’re the One For Me and we’ll get this place rocking.” He winked at the queen, and pointed in her direction. “I want to sing it to you, because I have a feeling, baby, you’re the one for me.”
Queen Orlaith’s eyebrow didn’t move. “Rocking?” she repeated.
“It’s a term from our time,” I clarified. “It means people will enjoy themselves a lot.”
No movement from the eyebrow.
I stepped between Jason and the table, skirt rustling as it bumped into the marble. “Jason is a famous singer. People from our time pay a lot of money to hear him sing. It’s a great honor.”
The queen picked up her wand, repeated the name of Jason’s song, and tapped her wand with one finger. A perfect rendition of Jason’s song rolled through the pavilion.
The couples dancing out on the floor didn’t seem to know what to make of the change of music. They did their best to waltz to the faster beat.
Jason moved so he stood directly in front of the table. He nodded confidentially at Kailen. “If you have someone special in your life, pay attention to how I sing this song. The ladies love it.”
Kailen didn’t grace the advice with an answer.
Jason smile gleamed in the queen’s direction, suddenly boyish and adorable. His voice rang out, with the clarity that had won him fans around the world. “Baby, I need to tell you what’s in my heart.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was impressive or tacky that he could turn on the charm like that. He put his hand on his chest and sang, “I see you standing there and know you’re the one for me. With everything I have, girl, it’s still you I need.”