Page 17 of Fae Tithe (The Cursed Courts #1)

“Anyway,” the Fae cleared his throat, dragging Eleanor’s attention back to him.

“I am Mr Gavson. I conduct the Tithe Interviews on behalf of the Seelie Court of Solas. Who, as you should know, are the highest Court of Seelieland and rule the Kingdom. I am explaining this to you to ensure you understand that my authority in this Interview is absolute.” He paused for a moment, brown eyes scanning her face.

“You are Miss Neycur, correct?” His tone was jaded.

Eleanor tightly balled her fists in her lap, nails digging into her palms. “Yes,” she swallowed, wary. “I am.”

“Excellent.” Gavson opened the drawer of his desk and placed a golden ball, slightly bigger than a hen’s egg, on top of the table.

“Now, this is an enchanted object, forged with my own magic. It will tell me when you are lying to me. It is a Truth-Teller.” Gavson tapped the top of the contraption with his shiny, pointed nail.

“Do not lie. I will know. Understood, Miss Neycur?”

“Understood,” Eleanor replied.

She watched as Gavson ran his light brown eyes over the papers in front of him.

Even upside down, Eleanor recognised them.

It was her enrolment documents from Portson Finishing School for Girls, their insignia on the top.

She remembered helping her mother fill in any parts with numbers.

Helena occasionally struggled with numbers.

It was also why she had Eleanor and Rose check over the account books from time to time.

“Sixteen?” he asked.

“Yes.” The Truth Teller flashed green.

“Your school?” he continued.

“Portson Finishing School for Girls, in the provincial capital of Portson, Archipelago of Sol, Seelieland.”

Another green illumination.

“How did you perform there?” The Fae’s eyes were fixated on the Truth-Teller.

“Well.”

Another flash of green.

“What did you excel at?” he huffed, eyes narrowing at her face.

“Geography, History… most things, really.” Eleanor hesitated but decided to include a personal detail. She sensed he was getting impatient at her short responses. “My favourite is cartography. I want to travel and make maps.”

The Truth Teller flashed green for the fourth time.

“Thank you for sharing.” Gavson flashed a predatory smile of encouragement. “Tell me about your father.”

Eleanor shifted in her seat. “Dead.”

“Yes, but tell me about him,” the interviewer insisted.

“Peter.” Eleanor balled her fists harder, her nails digging further into her palms.

“His house?” Gavson pressed, his eyes glancing at the paper and back to her face. “I have it here, remember?”

“Curr House, of Archipelago of Sol,” Eleanor replied through gritted teeth. She hated talking about her father, loathing him for how he treated her mother.

The Truth-Teller flashed green.

“Excellent. That matches all of our information. You are from human aristocracy – and from an older, wealthier family, too. Yet, you live out in the Clusters ,” he sneered.

The Fae ran his eye over her paperwork again, turning over the documents.

“Where, it appears, you do not have a proper address. Your enrolment papers have the post office number of the one office that serves three islands… and that’s it. ”

Eleanor felt a flush of shame heat her cheeks at the way his voice cut about her home.

“Tell me about your mother?”

The teenager squeezed her eyes shut and screamed internally.

Every instinct told her to say nothing. Eleanor did not want to tell this Fae anything about Helena.

She knew it would put her mother in danger, and her mother would be coming for her.

Eleanor was quickly realising that Helena may be her only hope to get out of this nightmare.

When she opened her eyes again, Gavson looked at Eleanor with a furrowed brow and the corners of his beautiful lips were pointed down. He wore an ugly expression marring his perfect face. Eleanor studied him and sensed a vicious temper brewing just beneath the surface.

Tell him something. Anything. It doesn’t have to be important. She took a deep breath “My mother was married to my father when she was fifteen and he was twenty-five…” she exhaled. Younger than me, she must have been terrified. “…then my father died in a bar brawl just after I was born.”

A green flash came from the golden Truth-teller.

“That is not the information I am seeking. Where do you and your mother live in the Clusters? Which island?” Gavson asked, all the curated kindness having left his voice.

Eleanor raised her chin slightly. “ I live in Portson,” she replied. It was not an outright lie. She did live in the provincial capital most of the time.

Red, and then green, from the contraption.

“Half-truths are obvious, Miss Neycur. This is your last chance. Where do you live, when not in Portson?” he growled.

“I live in the province of Archipelago of Sol,” she replied, meeting his steely gaze.

The Truth-Teller flashed green. Eleanor’s lip quirked upwards gently at the emerald light. After all, there was no lie in her answer.

“Miss Neycur,” Gavson tutted and waved a lazy hand in her direction.

Immediately, burning began at the fingertips of her right hand, as though she had put the pads of her fingers on a wood-burning stove. “Ow!” she cried. “Stop!”

“When, and only when, you tell me which island of the Clusters?” the Interviewer pushed again.

The thought of the Fae finding Eleanor’s home, of them hurting Rose and taking back the boys, hunting down her mother and Lance, sent a sweep of dread through her. Eleanor knew if the Fae really wanted to, they could track down that her home island was Majora, the biggest island of the Clusters.

They aren’t getting this information from me. She raised her chin. “No.”

Eleanor gripped her right wrist with her left hand as the needling pain migrated up to her elbow. She gritted her teeth, ready to take more. Eleanor would never be the one to unleash the Fae onto her home.

“Enough,” a velvet voice growled softly from the dimmed half of the room.

The needling pain under her skin immediately ceased.

The man rose from his lounging position.

Eleanor squinted into the shadows as he stood to his full height.

The dim outline moved with a feline grace, lithe and supple, as he stepped into the illuminated half of the Interview Room.

He was taller even then Lance, who until that moment, was the tallest person she had ever seen.

Danger! Eleanor’s instincts screamed.

It reminded the teenager of the day a mountain lion, nearly as big as a pony, crossed the path to the village.

Helena had been walking Eleanor, then five years old, to lower school.

She remembered so vividly how the lion swaggered across the road and turned its lazy head to the mother and daughter.

Eleanor recalled how Helena shoved her behind her legs and spread her arms defensively to hide Eleanor from view.

The feline blinked lazily at them and continued on its way.

It strode into the long grass, its pelt blending into the vegetation scorched by the Seelieland summer sun.

That was what this Fae was. He was a lion, a predator. Her eyes tracked up until they met his. They were a rich brown. A sunburst of swirling red writhed in his irises. For Eleanor, he was both the most beautiful and the most terrifying person she had ever seen.

On his white-blonde hair sat a spider web of gold.

The crown had ensnared several blood-red rubies that shimmered in the light given off by the hovering Fae Lights.

On either side of his head peeked out pointed ears that escaped his immaculate curls.

Eleanor took in his perfect face. She recognised it from the portrait that hung in the foyer of Portson Finishing School for Girls.

The pure power that emanated from the Seelie Fae, the first she had met, forced her to bow her head.

“King Rian,” she fumbled to find the title. Refer to the Seelie King as Grace and The Seelie Lords as Lordship, that’s what that book said. She licked her dry lips. “Your Grace,” she murmured, eyes on her lap.

Eleanor trembled with shoots of terror travelling down her limbs.

The fear clenched her stomach, and she fought to maintain control of her bladder.

Just as the teenager had learned at school and at the manor, King Rian was, unquestionably, the ruler of the Seelie Court.

She remembered that he was relatively new to the throne, having ruled for forty years or so, as Miss Taylor had taught them.

The thought of the teacher strewn across the floor sent a stab to her gut.

Eleanor tried to rein in her spinning thoughts and emotions, a spider web of them clogging her head.

Facts, she needed facts that would help her in this situation.

The Seelie King rules over the Seelie Court, she recited.

The Seelie Court is made up of five Seelie Lords and the King.

Her heart rate slowed. Each Seelie Lord rules a province.

The six Seelie Fae of the Seelie Court are the only Seelie in the Kingdom…

She felt calmer after she retrieved this fact from her mind …

and under each Seelie Lord are several Fae Lords, each with their own small courts in their given lands.

King Rian must have made his way across the room as Eleanor calmed herself, as she heard his purring voice above her bowed head. “Your hand, Miss Neycur?”

Eleanor, trembling, lifted her previously burning hand.

She kept her face downcast to her silken lap.

To her terror, the Seelie King took her hand in his, and then with his other, tipped her chin to meet his gaze as he pressed his soft lips to her hand.

The King’s eyes wandered across her face, then angled to her neck and bodice as his mouth lingered on her skin.