Girls, Spies, and Other Things the Faeries Stole

Part 3: How To Make A Deal With An Ice Queen

Then I stepped back onto the dance floor, fully visible, and cut in on the fae man dancing with the eldest of the twelve teen girls. He glided off for drinks and she accepted my hand, smiling curiously.

"You know it's dangerous here, right?" I said.

Her eyes showed only the briefest flicker of surprise before she rolled with my unusual opening. "No more than in any other fae court."

"That's dangerous enough."

She narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"

"Why do you and your sisters dance here?"

She gave a light shrug of her shoulders. Her shimmering purple dress brought to mind the color of a different girl's eyes . . . I pulled my attention back to my dancing partner as she spoke. "It reminds us of when we were children and could dance free of scrutiny. When you do something you love until it becomes work, you may love it, but it's still work. Father doesn't understand that. There's no pressure here."

"Being trapped in a fae bargain isn't pressure?"

"It was freely entered into."

"But your father doesn't know."

The barest hint of a frown creased between her eyebrows, the only indication that this fact bothered her, but I could see it did, at least a little. She wanted to tell him, and was somewhat displeased that she couldn't.

We danced in silence for a moment across the gleaming icy floor.

"If you could go home and your father would allow you to go back to the life you remember before the stage, would you do it?"

"Of course," she said. "But he doesn't know, and we can't tell him, and nobody else who's come looking for us has done anything about it."

"But would you agree not to come back here?"

"It's beautiful here. Perilous, I know, but beautiful. I think I would miss it," she said, glancing around.

I started to speak.

"But," she went on, "I'd still give it up in a heartbeat if we could all be a happy family again."

"I'll see what I can do," I said, bowed as the dance finished, and stalked off toward the refreshment table, leaving the young woman staring quizzically after me.

The fae queen was just turning to leave, a drink in each hand, probably to go back to her throne and Riel.

"Evening," I said, taking one of the glasses unceremoniously from her hand and drinking half of it in one go—after the barest pause to smell whether it was fae or enchanted, which it wasn't.

"I don't believe we've been introduced," she said, her slightly icy tone and cold eyes the only indication she gave of her annoyance.

"We haven't," I said. "Why are those twelve girls dancing here every night?"

She tilted her fair head. "All are welcome to come to my court."

"Not the ones who came looking for them," I said.

She gave a thin, cold smile. "I said all are welcome to come. Not always welcome to leave."

"Here's the thing," I said, hooking my thumbs into the belt loops of my jeans. "I came to get them back to their father, and also to release the others who tried to rescue them and failed, but I don't intend to sneak around like they have. No tricks. I don't step on your toes (figuratively), you don't retaliate, we make a deal, they walk out of here and don't come back, and everyone's happy. I'll do whatever you like. Almost whatever," I amended. "Just let the twelve girls go, and the people who came looking for them, including the pompous clod with the blond hair who's currently lounging on your throne pretending he's important."