Chapter 48

Chapter 48

F ey had managed to melt a few segments of the chain that held her shackled to the floor during her second Awakening, freeing herself to walk around. Still, it was a profound relief when Alice unlocked the manacle at her wrist and it dropped free.

"That was an incredibly fucked up thing to do, Alice," Fey said, rubbing at the skin where the metal had chaffed her wrist.

"I know," Alice answered, and to her credit she managed to look appropriately ashamed. "I know, babe. Look, I'm sorry, but… you have no idea how much we've sacrificed to get to this point, and if there was a chance—even just a tiny, insignificant chance—that you could have stopped us, then all of that would have been for nothing."

"Fuck you," Fey told her, but there was no heat behind it anymore, no venom. "You could have come to us about this. We would have helped you."

"Really, Fey?" Alice asked, holding her stare like a challenge. "No, I need you to really think about it and put yourself in my position. Our entire job is protecting the Realm. You're telling me, without any doubt, that you would have jumped up to help me take down the very institution you trained your whole life to protect? "

"I…" Fey stuttered and paused.

And that was it. She didn't know, did she? If she hadn't seen Dameon slit her sister's throat, if she hadn't had reason to doubt the forces behind the throne, would she have believed Alice? Would she have offered her help?

Or would she have turned against her, choosing her identity as a Queen's Blade over her own sister?

Alice chuckled at her silence. "See?" she said. "I would have been asking you to turn your back on everything you knew and trusting that you wouldn't just kill me outright. It was a risk, Fey, and one I couldn't take."

"And Joy?" Fey asked, unable to hide the bite in her voice. "You couldn't even trust Joy? With everything she meant to you?"

She flinched and looked away, unable to hold Fey's gaze any longer. "Even Joy," Alice whispered in a small voice. "Fey… what do you know about our sisters from before they joined the Blades?"

Fey opened her mouth, then closed it quickly. Nothing, she realized, and that was the point. She knew nothing about their lives from before they were her sisters.

"You told me a little about your time in the army, a little about your family and who you were," Alice was saying. "But Joy? Lilith? I know so little about their old lives. About where their loyalties really lie. How could I trust them, with so little information?"

"Lilith always said it didn't matter," Fey insisted. "That who we were before died the moment we became Blades."

"And you'd be willing to bet your life on whether or not she was lying? Not even your life, Fey—would you be willing to bet the lives of everyone in this building? On this block?" Alice gestured around them. "Because they're all in on this. Thousands of us, working together for months, some of them years , to bring an end to the Crown's oppression. Would you be willing to bet every single life here on that?"

No, Fey realized. She wouldn't.

"Not telling Joy… Leaving Joy… Fey, it was the hardest thing I've ever done, believe me. Even if we both survive this, what do you think are the odds she'll forgive me? I lied to her. Hell, I made her think I was dead ." A single tear slipped from Alice's eye and rolled down the dark skin of her cheek. "I had to sacrifice that, all of that , to be here. I had to throw it all away like it was nothing, when it… it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was the best thing that ever happened to me, Fey."

Fey glanced away, giving her sister the privacy of her own emotions as Alice's careful veneer of strength began to crack.

"But this is bigger than me. Bigger than Joy. For years, the Queen has let them steal our powers, the power the Goddess herself gave to us. And she has to pay for that. She has to pay for the starvation in this city, for the Fallen who have been forgotten and who fell through the cracks all because she never cared about anything but her own Faction."

"Is that why you're working with Prey for the Crown?"

Alice almost laughed. "Yes," she said with a smile. "Goddess bless them Fey, they were in shambles when Phillip put me in contact with them. They're children trying to play in the big leagues. The biggest move against the Crown they'd ever made was to stage a sit in at one of the Temples."

Fey chuckled.

"And now? Now I have them staging a coup alongside Demons, of all things. It wasn't hard to find people dissatisfied with the Queen, you know. Things are… bad here, for most citizens. It hurts to think I never saw it, before, that I never noticed …"

They were silent for a few minutes, each taking a moment to struggle with their own emotions. It's easy to be blinded to suffering. But once you see it, once you open your eyes to the less fortunate around you, there's no turning back.

After a while, Alice stood, shrugging off their conversation and motioning for Fey to follow her.

"Come on, it's time you met everyone."

Everyone , it turned out, was only three people.

"Fey, this is Karla, Sam, and Rex," Alice said, pointing to them each in turn. "Everyone, this is Fey."

Alice had walked her from the nook where Fey had been held captive, back through the huge basement laboratory and up to an office on the second floor of the factory. Sunlight poured in through the factory windows, and the assembly line floor was now filled with workers. However long she'd been held down there, at least it seemed like the world hadn't stopped spinning in her absence. There was a strange comfort in that.

"Is she the one who killed David?" The big, heavy-set Shifter—Rex—asked Alice, ignoring Fey entirely.

"The Shifter boy who was in the warehouse," Alice explained, all four of them watching Fey for her reaction.

Staring back at the Shifter who had asked, Fey shook her head slowly. "No," she said, honestly. "But I was there when he was killed. We had no idea who he was, or why he was there, and he pulled a knife on us."

Rex snorted, crossing his arms, and looking away. A Bull Shifter, maybe, Fey guessed. His face certainly had a distinct bovine look to it, with that long drawn-out face and small deep-set, wet eyes.

The smaller Shifter at Rex's side sighed. "That does sound like David," he said, in a light delicate voice, edged in pain. "He always wanted to play the hero." He gave Fey a small but inviting smile. "I'm Sam. I'd welcome you to my building, but Alice tells me you've actually been with us for a few days now."

Chained in the basement , Fey thought sourly, shooting Alice a glare. She just shrugged.

"I had to be sure she was safe," Alice explained.

"And?" Rex asked gruffly.

"And she's anything but safe, but she's on our side, at least."

"Is it true?" the Demon, Karla, asked, leaning forward over the table to get a closer look at Fey. She had delicate, curved horns that circled her ears. "That the antidote worked, I mean? And you have control over all four elements?"

Fey glanced at Alice, waiting for her nod before she spoke. "Yeah," Fey said. "I do."

Karla whistled, impressed, leaning back in her chair.

"Well, we're really glad you're here, Fey," Sam said. His eyes were just a fraction too large for his face, the color like molten chocolate. Hare Shifter . "We have been giving Alice all the help we can, but… we aren't warriors, you see. I have helped by providing this space, my equipment, and whatever she has needed to make that, that potion of hers, but when the fighting comes…" Sam looked uncomfortable. "I can't, in good conscience, send my brothers and sisters to die for our cause. I can't put them in harm's way."

"I could," Karla said quickly. "But it's a fifty-fifty chance they'd turn right around and kill you first if the fighting turned against us."

Rex just snorted.

"You've done plenty," Alice assured Sam. "Thanks to you we have more than enough antidote to go around. And thanks to Fey, we now know that it works. I won't need to ask any of you to sacrifice anymore of your friends and loved ones." She turned to Fey and gave her a wide smile. "Not if Fey agrees to help me, at least."

Fey shook her head. "No. Not until you tell me exactly what it is you're planning, Alice. No more secrets, no more surprises. Tell me the plan. Then we'll see if I agree to do what you ask."

And, with a huge smile, Alice told her.

For years, Fey had said that Joy was the most brilliant Witch she'd ever known. She would stand by that, even decades later. But today, listening to Alice's plan, Fey couldn't help but think that even Joy couldn't have come up with something so clever.

"When?" was all Fey asked her, after Alice had finished explaining everything. Sam and Rex had kept quiet throughout most of her explanation, only jumping in a few times to clarify some of the finer aspects of the plan. Karla had been sent from the room, with even she herself admitting that it was best not to let her know too many details just in case she decided to turn them in for some sort of reward.

"Three days from now," Alice told her. "We get this one chance, Fey. And if we don't get it exactly right, this could be a bloodbath."

Fey nodded. One chance.

"I won't tell you not to warn them," Alice said, softly. And Fey knew without asking which two Witches Alice meant. "But you have to promise me you won't do so until after your part of the plan is over. We can't risk it, Fey. Even if you trust them to help, I need you to wait until your part is over."

"I understand," Fey answered. She rolled her shoulders back. Her body itched for the kind of relief only a few hours punishing herself in the training gym would provide.

"And you," Alice said, looking from Sam to Rex. "You need to work with Karla to make sure you keep your Factions off the streets that night. We need to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, and I am relying on you three to keep the peace. We can't have anyone taking advantage of the distraction to wreak havoc in the city. Or, even worse, having them caught up in the slaughter."

"You'll have no trouble with us," Sam insisted.

"What about the predators?" Fey asked, and Sam blinked at her with his large, liquid eyes.

"My dear lady, I speak for all of us, not just the prey," he insisted. "We are not as… separated, I think, as you have been led to believe. I have been working with a representative from the Wolves and the Lions of the city, and they have assured me that whatever date we tell them, we can expect nothing but quiet from them and their kind."

Fey nodded. "And the Vampires?"

Alice visibly winced. "That is our only problem," she sighed. "I only met Sam through Phillip—he put me in touch with all the other Shifters, and with Karla. But no one, and I mean no one , has any reliable connections to deSanguine or any of the other Vamp families. And every message I've tried to get to them has been ignored."

"I can help with that one," Fey admitted with a sigh.

Alice shot her a surprised look. "Don't tell me you've been associating with Vamps in my absence, little sister."

Fey only smirked in reply. "Trust me," she said. "I can get the word out, and you won't have to worry about the Vampires. You don't need me until the big night, right?"

Alice shook her head. "No. You know what you have to do. And you know where to find me if something changes."

"Good," Fey said. "Can you help me get a message out to someone? "

"That depends," Alice answered, cautiously. "On exactly who it is you are trying to contact."

"Not any of the Blades," Fey clarified.

"Then probably, yeah. Who did you have in mind?"

Fey smiled. "The Prince of the Vampires."