Page 109 of The Blood Queen

The High Blade. She killed me. I died. Why did I die? What did I—

I died for her. For her, the woman I see, dark hair, dark eyes, all fire and fury, she’s fire and fury, my girl, my—

Alyth.

My heart seizes, aching clean through.

Alyth.

I remember.

Reality snaps into place. All of it. The tragedy and the horror and the wonder and the love, so much love.

And those spiders. Their webs. That throne room.

I was there, in that room, when Alyth did something to the loom. Whatever it was she did—I got sent back. Back and over, to this new reality, one where I’m sitting here in this carriage and I know there’s no High Blade, not anymore. She’s been trapped in the fae realm for ages, and Cecil’s a Red Cap like me, yeah, but he serves the human English queen, nothing more.

But—what about Alyth?

My mouth goes dry, body seizing in cold horror.

What did she do? What price did she have to pay?

“…in order to attack our queen,” Cecil’s saying.

I shake my head. “What?”

Cecil’s glare is dull. “Really, Sammy. What’s gotten into you today? I need you to go to Scotland. It is suspected that Mary Stuart is plotting to assassinate our queen.”

In this reality too? Many threads lie the same. Not everything changed.

Not everything changed.

Urgency floods my body, makes me lurch to the edge of the carriage seat as it sways us through the streets of Southwark.

“Yeah, of course,” I say. “You’re sending me to Scotland to figure out an assassination plot. That’s all?” I question, scowling at him.

In this reality, I grew up knowing about Red Caps, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still scheming.

Cecil looks perplexed. “What more should there be, boy?”

“No Red Cap plots you’re working behind my back?”

He gapes at me. I’ve never seen him so dumbstruck, and I realize, to him, I’ve gone from meek and desperate to driven and unyielding in one flash. A whole other lifetime played out for me, but he’s left here wondering why I’m not cowering to him now.

“There are no Red Cap plots,” he hisses and glances around, but we’re still moving. His face drops, sulking. “The Seelie Court watches us too damn closely. But—” He points at me with a glower. “If you get swept up by the Seelie Court, well—there is nothing I can do. So keep yourself right. Don’t draw attention. Last thing you want is to end up like the High Blade.”

My god. He’s afraid of the Seelie Court.

My father, who was plotting to invade the Seelie Court with the High Blade, is now kowtowed, brought low by the threat of the Court imprisoning him the way they did the High Blade, cocooned in spider silk.

That’s this reality.

Alyth changed fate. She changed it. She didn’t kill the High Blade.

So I have to believe she survived.

Do I dare ask my father about her? Draw his attention to her? But I defeated him once. He’s toothless now.