Queen Rising Read online

  “And where would I go, home with you and the witches?”

  “I am not with the witches anymore. I am on my own. And I have come into some money. I could set us up nicely.”

  “And how did you get that money?” Go asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “It doesn’t matter. I have it. We can finally be the family we’re supposed to be.

  “I am happy here. I like being here. Where would I go?”

  “You are living someone else’s life, not your own,” Margot countered, thinking of him, but also thinking of herself and the witches. “I was given my freedom even before I stepped into the witches’ Hollow. I think I didn’t fight for yours because I didn’t realize it. Because your cage was . . . no, is . . . a castle. I am so sorry. I was wrong; I encouraged you to fit in here. I should have done everything in my power to rescue you.”

  “Do I look like I need rescuing?” Go gestured around the room.

  “Would they let you walk out that door if you wanted?”

  “Of course.”

  “So when was the last time that you did?” she pressed.

  Her brother thought for a beat and frowned in frustration, apparently unable to come up with an example.

  “The Prince never leaves the castle, either.”

  “But you could if you wanted to. If you wanted, you could walk right out the door with me right this second and no one would follow us?”

  Go didn’t answer at first. “The only reason you are here now is because the witches do not want you. I think you should go—”

  “Come home with me, Go.”

  “Would you be saying this if you were still with the witches? I have been here for years and this is the very first time you have ever suggested I come home with you.”

  Margot could see the old hurt flash in his eyes. Why had she never noticed it until now? All those years. All those visits. And she had never asked until she left the witches.

  “You’re right. It took losing them to realize what is important. I see it now.”

  “Well, you are too late.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I think it’s best if you don’t come back here,” Go said, looking up at her like she was a stranger. Worse than a stranger. He looked at her like she was something he could not bear to see.

  “What about us?” Margot asked.

  Her brother said nothing in response.

  “Go, remember? How does the story end?” she prompted. When he got like this, intractable bordering on unkind, these words always seemed to being him back to her.

  “Happily ever after,” he answered.

  She smiled a small smile, feeling relieved as he finished her thought.

  But then he added something that wasn’t in their usual script. Something that sank her heart.

  “We can have our happily ever afters. But who says we have to be together?” Margot walked back to the boarding house with purpose. A new plan formed in her mind. One that she felt should have been there all along. She would make enough money so that Go would want to come stay with her. She would buy them whatever clothes or manners they needed to make him comfortable. She would make them a home.

  She wasn’t exactly sure what Rule would think of this, but she assumed that as long as the end result meant they all would be rich, he wouldn’t care what her reasons were for doing it.

  15

  “What is it?” Rule asked, reading Margot’s face as she walked through the door. She could never be sure if he knew what she was thinking because he was a thief or because he knew her.

  She told him everything, more than she had intended to. But the words came out in a flood as she and Rule sat side by side on the bed, an inch apart but somehow closer with every word. And when she was done, Rule pulled her up onto her feet and said, “Where do we start?”

  Margot had been right. Rule was more than happy to participate in a bigger mission with an even bigger payoff. They planned and plotted and practiced their Robber skills. It would happen at the opera.

  On the night of the mission, Rule surprised her with another dress. Rather, it was a gown. It was red and edged with white lace. It matched Ora’s shawl perfectly.

  “You couldn’t very well go to the opera dressed like that,” he said dismissing his gesture.

  “Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me; it’s coming out of your cut. And you don’t want to know where I got this one.”

  “As an almost witch, I absolutely want to know.”

  “The morgue. There’s great shopping at the morgue. Did I shock you, Queenie?”

  She laughed. “Well, it isn’t as if the dress’s owner is using it anymore.”

  Later, when Margot slipped on the dress, she understood why his clothes and the dresses he brought her smelled of lavender. Lavender was often used to mask the scent of the dead. A tiny shiver went down the center of her. But she shook it off. The dress was hers now. The fact that Rule had braved a morgue to get it for her was almost as flattering as it was creepy. She reminded herself that Rule’s actions were not for her. They were for their mission. But as she modeled it for him, she liked having his attention. And she couldn’t help but notice how long his eyes seemed to linger on her.

  Rule cleared his throat but he didn’t offer any compliments. He simply nodded as if to say that she was acceptable.

  Margot knew that her looks weren’t her great power, like Ora’s. And she had come to the Hollow with virtually nothing but the clothes on her back. But her time with the witches had changed her. She could fully admit to herself that she liked things. Pretty things. No matter where they came from.

  Margot slipped her arm through Rule’s and let him lead her out into the streets. She had never been anywhere as nice as the opera house, other than the palace. But this was different than the palace. This place belonged to the people—rich people. But there was no gate keeping anyone out. If you had enough coins, you were welcome here.

  Inside, everyone was looking at one another, trying to see or be seen. Margot felt eyes on her. She was a jumble of excited energy.

  It had been her idea to step up their mission. But she knew that Rule would pay the price alongside her if their plan did not work.

  Rule wasn’t a perfect Robber, but he did have a perceptiveness that came from studying so many marks. He leaned into Margot and knew exactly what to say to quell her nerves.

  “You do not have to be the prettiest girl in the room to be the prettiest girl in the room. Or the richest. Act like you belong here and everyone will believe it. No one will question it, or you,” he advised.

  Margot adjusted her posture and exchanged her purposeful step for a more graceful, leisurely one. She relaxed her expression of wonder and replaced it with boredom. The last part was hard, since she was enamored with this place.

  “But for the record, you do look ravishing tonight . . .”

  She moved to punch his shoulder in protest, but at the last second she looped her arm through his again.

  “This way,” he whispered in her ear.

  She picked up the scent of lavender and musk as he leaned into her. Margot inhaled deeply, hating how much she liked it but inhaling all the same.

  Rule led them to the standing-room section of the theater, which just happened to be behind the most expensive, prized seats. Her eyes lit on the operagoers in all their finery.

  The lights dimmed and the music swelled. Margot had never heard music like that, and the story that unfolded before them was one that would have made Ora swoon. The opera was a story about a princess and a commoner and a true love that could not be denied. The music and the story stirred something in Margot. Something she wanted to tamp right back down. The witches spoke of romantic love as a distant shore where they never landed.

  Just as they’d planned, Margot waited until the last act to remove the magic vial from her shawl. Rule nodded to her and disappeared in the crowd.

  When the lovers on stage finally had their
first kiss, Margot set off the vial.

  The explosion of light and color was bigger this time and showed up better in the dark theater. People thought, just as she had planned, that the lights were part of the show. As they craned their necks to see, Margot saw their smiling faces bathed in the light of the fireworks and caught a glimpse of Rule making his way through the crowd.

  Margot reached for the purse of the woman closest to her. At that exact moment, the woman smiled. Margot froze.

  “The King really outdid himself. What a treat,” the woman said.

  Margot smiled back and then moved on.

  She tried again with another operagoer. Her second mark was a tall man who seemed to be alone. She slipped one of her hands into his pocket and took all his coins.

  The money felt heavy in her hands and she was relieved when she released them into the pockets of her dress.

  The next lift was easier. And the next. She moved from person to person, filling her pockets as her magical light show continued above.

  By the time the fireworks stopped, she and Rule were on the other side of the city walls heading back to the boarding house.

  16

  They poured the contents of their haul from the opera house on the bed. Rule whistled low and long at their prizes.

  She expected him to be proud of her and for him to be excited about the other jobs they could do. But as they sat in the room cross-legged and counting their spoils, Margot could feel Rule’s eyes on her. Sizing her up, assessing her. She wasn’t sure if using her magic had changed them. Or if he was jealous of the magic she knew how to use and he didn’t.

  In that moment, Margot realized that despite Rule’s skills as a thief, sleight of hand didn’t compare to magic. Perhaps it was all the years of watching the witches do the impossible, but there was something about stealing that wasn’t quite as satisfying as the moment of creation, the moment of power.

  “Can you teach me?” Rule asked after the longest of pauses. He touched her arm, tracing the length of it to hold her hand.

  His eyes touched somewhere inside her that she did not know existed, and his touch set off an electricity that shot through Margot. She felt like she was finally seeing behind the curtain of charm. For the first time, she wasn’t seeing exactly what he wanted her to see. There was longing in the look, not the same kind of want she’d seen when he held coins in his hands, but something more soulful. Maybe he was asking for more than magic. Or maybe he was asking for a different kind.

  “Of course,” she said finally. But she was unsure if she would be able to uphold her promise. She wasn’t a witch, and the magic she possessed was limited to and contained in the potion vials hidden in her shawl. And the only way to make more required blood and sacrifice.

  Margot remembered all the times that she had cut herself. And the chanting. And the small magic she had accomplished. And the Witch of the Woods’s warnings. But she remembered, too, that not every girl at the Hollow could do what she could do. What little magic that she had—the kind that was manufactured from potions—came from her pain. She didn’t know Rule’s past. She didn’t know if he was capable of dropping the mask he hid behind to find it. And now she had so much more pain herself. When she made the first cut, she wondered if there would be more or less magic in her blood, in her sacrifice, since she had lost the witches.

  Rule smiled at her and squeezed her hand. Some of her trepidation slipped away. But some remained. What little knowledge of magic she had, she would share with Rule. He had done the same for her.

  Margot didn’t know how she could or would teach Rule magic. Only that she would try.

  They sat opposite one another on the floor the room. Margot had lit candles they had taken from all over the boarding house, and there was an unlit candle between them.

  “Now tell me something you haven’t told anyone. The saddest thing you can think of,” she demanded.

  “I thought this was a magic lesson, not confession.”

  “Magic requires sacrifice. And honesty. If you cannot tell the magic who you are, it will not work for you.”

  He looked at her, unsure. The boy who had no problem breaking into a morgue blinked at telling the truth.

  “I’ll go first.”

  She took a deep breath and cut her hand. The cut wasn’t deep, and it was welcome. The simplicity of this pain felt good compared to the complexity of the other hurt she’d experienced.

  She whispered into the blood: “My mother sold us. The witches sent me away.”

  She held her hand over the candle and a flame lit when the blood dropped onto the wick.

  “Pain is the match?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Your turn . . .”

  She blew out the candle and handed him the knife.

  He took a deep breath and took it.

  He cut his hand and began.

  “Once there was a boy. Or at least he looked like a boy. He was raised by the birds. They found him and taught him how to take. And take he did. And when he was old enough, they left him, because if they didn’t they knew he would take from them. Or he would catch them and bake them in a pie.”

  Margot recognized the story. It was an old tale, meant to tell children something about gratitude to their parents or about eating their dinner. Margot couldn’t remember which, since there was never enough dinner and never any reason to be grateful to her own mother.

  He held his hand over the wick. His blood dropped onto it.

  Nothing happened. The wick remained unlit.

  Rule looked up at her, his face filled with disappointment.

  “The magic needs more than a child’s tale. You have to tell it the truth.”

  “I did,” he said, his face going red with frustration.

  She looked at him hard. Had Rule been lying so long that he did not know what the truth was anymore?

  “Who are your parents? How did you become who you are? Who has hurt you?”

  “Who says anyone has?” he deflected. But she knew better. She could see it behind his eyes.

  “You are more than a thief. The magic needs to know who you are.”

  He paused and opened his mouth as if he were ready to tell her his story. And she was ready to hear it. All these weeks of being close but never really knowing each other. She had told him bit by bit about Go and about her mother and about the witches, and he had given her nothing in return. She needed to know just as much as the magic did.

  “You know who I am . . . ,” he said finally, leaning into her. He was going to kiss her.

  She was surprised and she wasn’t. But she didn’t want him to kiss her to avoid telling the truth. If his lips ever met hers, she did not want it to be another con, another trick.

  “Magic doesn’t thrive on distraction,” she said firmly.

  His face fell, but only for an instant. He smiled again, quickly and easily, as if nothing had happened.

  “Rule . . . ,” she said gently.

  “You’re right. Magic doesn’t thrive on distraction. And neither does robbing. We should stick to what we do best.”

  He got up. And busied himself with blowing out the candles.

  “We can try again tomorrow,” she said.

  “I think I’ll leave the magic to you.”

  Before she could protest again, Rule rushed out into the night to take a walk. Margot relit the candle with her blood. He’d given her a little more pain to work with.

  17

  Margot spent most of the night waiting for Rule to return and wondering if he would. She finally drifted off. She awoke to sunlight blaring through their window and the smell of coffee. Rule was back.

  He handed her the coffee and she opened her mouth to smooth over the events of last night. But Rule smiled at her, letting her know that her protests were unnecessary.

  “If you ever want to try again . . . ,” she began.

  “I’ll let you know,” he assured her.

  She took a deep sip of her coffee. It tasted bitter a
nd sweet at once. The coffee was his apology. His way of putting things back in place between them. She took another sip and smiled at him to let him know she accepted it.

  They shared another long, charged look. And the need to explain why she pushed him away bubbled up in her.

  “Shouldn’t you be on your way?” he asked suddenly.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked, alarmed.

  “Never. But aren’t you late, Queenie?”

  She remembered her brother. It was visitation day. She pushed down all her thoughts and feelings about Rule and rushed off to the palace.

  When she got there, Margot’s pockets were filled with coins and she had more hidden back in her room at the boarding house. She wanted—needed—to say something important to Go. The words mattered like a spell. She had to get it just right for the result she wanted. She was going to tell Go that she had money now. How they could start anew. How they could be together. Go could be a gentleman with the money she stole. And she could be a lady, or whatever he wanted, just as long as she could be his sister again.

  “I am sorry, miss,” the palace guard said. “But your brother does not want to see you.”

  Margot took her usual seat in the anteroom and was only half listening to the guard.

  “Tell him that I will wait here until he is ready.”

  Margot sat in the anteroom until the sun went down and the North Lights came up. But her brother never came.

  “Tell him that I will be back tomorrow,” she said to the smirking guard.

  Margot would come back. Every day, no matter what it took. Witches, Robbers, money . . . She had lost sight of what was important for a minute. But never again.

  18

  Margot returned to the boarding house, feeling lower than ever. Rule was pacing around.

  “I thought maybe you weren’t coming back,” he said, relief washing over him.