Page 15

Ready to Go?

Brigid froze, her eyes wide in a way that reminded me of the expression on the fox’s face that one time I walked into the community chicken house and found him with a hen’s neck in his mouth.

Completely caught in the act.

But then she wiped her face and reset.

“You know what, I’m prone to exaggeration. Tadhg’s always on me about that,” she waved a dismissive hand.

“You should hold off on judging your High King until you’ve had a chance to meet him yourself. I mean, you’re here , so he can’t be as bad as I thought, right?”

Confusion returned to roost.

“What does me being here have to do with?—”

“Oh my gods, look at you!”

Instead of letting me finish, Brigid grabbed my shoulders and spun me back toward the mirror.

“No need for braids, babes. If I had hair like yours, I’d be insufferable .”

I didn’t know what to say.

I stared at the thick cloud of curls resting on my shoulders, struck speechless by yet another completely new sensation.

Truly liking the way I looked.

“Well, enough of this admiring how gorgeous you are. Worthy pastime, for certain. But I’m supposed to escort you to brunch, and with the winter months setting in, Tadhg’s likely to eat you in the bad way if we take too much longer.”

I was starving, too, but…

“Eat me in the bad way?”

I chewed my lip—a stress habit my mother often fussed at me about.

“I’m trying and failing to imagine a future in which I’m not confused by this place and everything you all are saying to me.”

Brigid just laughed and opened the washroom door.

“You say exactly what’s on your mind. I like that.

“Though.

.. not as much as you’ll like finding out what I mean by eat you in the good way .

I’ve a feeling you’re about to leap into a pile of clovers yerself.

”

Then she stopped short.

“Oh look. Seems I won’t be escorting you after all.”

My nose filled with the sharp, refreshing smell of citrus.

I stepped into the main suite behind her and found the Shadow King standing there, this time in a new set of leather pants and some kind of half cape, half tunic-like shirt with a deep V that revealed his near paper-white chest was also covered in those strange symbols that looked like no language I’d ever seen before.

He held up the whiteboard: Ready to go?

Was I ready to go?

Either way, it was happening.

Brigid waddled back to the bathroom to grab my clothes for laundering, leaving me with a vague promise.

“See you later, babes, if this all works out the way Tadhg hopes it will.”

And then I found myself walking down a long hallway side by side with the Shadow King.

Questions buzzed in my head, but talking and writing probably didn’t go together.

The Shadow King had clipped the whiteboard onto a leather cord and slung it over his back, leaving our only form of communication an inconvenient over-the-shoulder reach away.

It was even harder not to stare at him than it had been with Brigid.

He was unbearably ethereal.

It felt like walking beside the moon.

An incredibly tall moon dressed in black.

So tall I had to tilt my head back just to look up at him—and every time I risked it, that scrambled-egg feeling went off inside me again.

Luckily, I had all the portraits hanging along the hallway walls to direct my eyes toward.

They reminded me a bit of the ones in Faoiltiarn, where the past Scottish kings and queens stared down at castle visitors from the stairwell.

But most of the kings in these portraits had dark hair with a distinctive streak of white running through it like lightning and wore imperious expressions under heavy silver crowns.

If these were past High Kings, I wouldn’t be surprised.

They were probably long dead, but I still felt like they were watching me—judging me down their long noses—as I walked past.

Each one wore a knotted bear medallion—an exact copy of the one Tadhg had brought out from under his T-shirt.

But unlike his, theirs weren’t hidden—they glinted in the painted light as the only jewelry displayed over their rich blue robes.

The kings were always pictured beside a queen.

And while the identities and robes of those queens changed, they all had one thing in common: either one or two bared shoulders.

And on that naked shoulder, a very obvious bite mark—painted in shimmering gold, as if to say it glowed.

Was this just an artistic choice?

Or did the male royals really bite their queens in a way that left a permanent mark?

And I did mean royals .

Only a couple of the early portraits showed just one king and one queen.

Most often, another man stood beside them—usually with a white streak of hair.

Possibly a brother?

Their crowns were smaller, and they didn’t wear bear medallions.

But in those paintings, the queen had both shoulders bare, with two golden bite marks on display.

Occasionally, a hulking redheaded king would take that second spot instead.

None of them wore spectacles, and they all glowered rather than smiled, but I suspected they were the Mountain King’s descendants.

Then came a portrait unlike the rest. A Mountain King and a white-streak High King flanked a tall, slender woman with heavily hooded eyes and jet-black hair that fell nearly to the floor.

She wore an ornate crown, dripping in gold jewels.

Her skin was much darker than the male who walked beside me, and her smoky black eyes held a serene confidence that made me recall the long, slinky models of indeterminate ethnicity I’d seen on posters advertising luxury goods in the Edinburgh Airport’s duty-free shop.

Still, I pointed to the portrait and asked the bear I suspected to be her descendant, “Is she your ancestor?”

The Shadow King nodded once.

And then I saw the next painting—three kings surrounding a short and plump pale blonde queen.

A High King with the white streak to her right.

A glowering red-haired Mountain King to her left.

And on the far right.

.. a tall, slender king in black robes and black leather pants.

All three wore knotted bear medallions.

And their queen had both shoulders bared, with a hand raised to show yet another set of teeth indents along her wrist. Three bite marks, all glowing gold.

That was the only portrait with three kings, though.

The rest featured either the High King and Shadow King or a Mountain King—never both.

And as we neared the end of the hallway gallery, the paintings began to feature couples composed of just one male and one female.

Which was probably how it was supposed to be.

I braced myself to feel the same squirmy discomfort Amanda had when the idea of multiple males sharing a wife had come up.

But the revulsion never arose.

Much like the scent-matching thing, it made a strange sort of internal sense, even though it went against almost every rule I’d grown up with.

Rules that were starting to make less and less sense now that I knew I was a bear.

To my surprise, we stepped out of the royal gallery into a strikingly modern central space, full of comfortable chairs, low couches, and soft pools of light.

If not for another back wall featuring that you-could-just-walk-straight-into-it lake view—like the one in my room—I would’ve sworn this place was a hotel lobby.

One of the fancy ones I’d seen in the in-flight magazine on our way to Scotland.

Also, on a raised dais directly in front of the lake wall sat a huge throne encased in rich blue velvet.

Next to it, a slightly smaller version—same velvet, same embroidery.

Even if I hadn’t seen a similar setup in the Faoiltiarn castle, I would’ve known what that second seat meant.

It was a queen’s throne.

My heart stuttered a little for some reason.

And it occurred to me that the last king in the final portrait might not have been some dead ancestor.

He could be the person this palace belonged to.

And hadn’t Brigid said she was married to the High King’s younger brother?

Back in St. Ailbe, older siblings usually married first.

“Is the High King married?” I asked the Shadow King.

He shook his head with one efficient sideways back and forth.

And I tried. I really tried not to ask the moon I’d mistaken for Death another personal question.

But blurting is a disease.

Two more words slipped out before I could stop them.

“Are you?”

Another Yes/No question.

But to my surprise, the Shadow King pulled the whiteboard from his back, uncapped the marker, and wrote two words, followed by one of those pictograms Tara had called emojis while showing Naomi and me her smartphone: Not yet :)

Then he stopped in front of a high arched black glass door, which slid open to reveal a columned, covered patio—with an actual real-life view of the glimmering lake just beyond the hedge of trees lining the property’s edge.

And in front of that stood a table that made the Exchange House spread for fifty she-wolves seem like a last-minute potluck.

Also, Tadhg was there, with his arms spread wide, looking the same but somehow opposite of all the glowering Mountain Kings in those paintings.

“Welcome to the Secret Kingdom, Sadie,” he boomed.