Garnet 0 - The Black Knight on the Chessboard

Except for the night of Homecoming and the day I shattered Jack's soul-contract, I used to only see the Twilight Chessboard in my dreams. Now I could see it whenever I closed my eyes and let the scent of honey and the knife-sharp touch of magic brush through my mind. When the walls around the magical nexus in my chest fell, the Great War Game of the Fea Fayre superimposed itself behind my eyelids.

 

Everything had changed since Homecoming. Now the pieces of the Game were scattered, some of them missing. The playing cards had different faces. There were different colors displayed. The board itself was all-new.

 

But two thing was still the same: there were still three sides to the board, and I hated this place.

 

I smelled the sickly honey scent of the Borderland Mist, the soupy, gray fog that surrounded the Chessboard itself and kept it separate from the rest of Faerie. A dull, bronze light emanated from the giant, razor-sharp playing cards ringing the board and the strange pieces assembled on its checkered surface. It made the whole place look like some kind of hellish Wonderland, and I was Alice, confused and irritated as crap.

 

“Why am I even here?” I muttered to no one, crossing my arms against the dry, cool wind. That wind always blew here.

 

I hadn't come to the Chessboard on purpose. Part of my “learn-to-use-your-magic-properly” regiment included meditation, and the lowering and re-raising of my nexus walls so that I didn't have to turn into a homicidal maniac in order to do anything remotely magical. But every time I practiced, I ended up right back here: my not-so-happy place.

 

“Looks like you've got something to learn, Black Queen.”

 

Oh, crap. I knew that voice. That voice was liquid gold spiked with tequila and happy crack. It was a sound like angels singing. It raised goosebumps on my arms and made the hair at the nape of my neck prickle with static nerves.

 

It was also incredibly annoying and gave me the heebie-jeebies.

 

“I don't like cryptic comments, Darren,” I told my unwelcome visitor, clenching my teeth against the weird tingle in my extremities when he walked up beside me.

 

Darren Moss, known at Pillar Preparatory Academy as the Black Knight (yeah, I know) was drop-dead gorgeous. Chris Pine, Hugh Jackman, even the current Mr. Universe—none of them could hold a candle to Darren, thanks to his use of magical plastic surgery. Darren was only pretty thanks to blood magic. Sexy he might have been, but creepy cut down his sex appeal by like, nine-tenths.

 

“Have you been studying the Chessboard?” Darren asked. He moved as if he were going to put his arm around me, but I must have twitched because he shifted away from me instead. I didn't like touching Darren. It was like snuggling with a giant maggot slathered in honey. At the same time, I liked it a little too much. He had that effect on people thanks to his magic.

 

I scanned the Chessboard. Each square was maybe the size of a big-screen television, and unlike before, when each square was either solid ivory, red, or black, now the white tiles were spattered with blood, so they were all sickeningly, vibrantly red. There was only one white piece on this board. Before Homecoming, there had been pieces to represent all three sides. Now there was only Gavin Whitmoor's White King, and his sister Lily's fallen White Queen, slowly crumbling to bone dust, and then me and Geneva Carson, the Red Queen.

 

“What am I looking for?” I muttered to Darren, nervous despite myself. “There's so many Red pieces, I can't see anything. And why aren't all our Black pieces on the board?”

 

Darren shrugged, an elegant rippling of muscle. The fact that I even noticed made me want to put a fork in my eye. He said, “We're all there. We just don't have that many.”

 

“The entire White Court, except for Gavin's people, belongs to us.” That had been confusing as heck, but incredibly useful since it meant that everyone bonded to the White Queen couldn't hit me anymore. Raise your hand if you're all for not getting beat up on a daily basis!

“Technically, yes, they do.” The look he flashed me was reminiscent of one he'd probably give to his mentally deficient, inbred cousin. “But wars have been lost on technicalities before, Black Queen. Just because they're bonded to you doesn't mean they're yours. Take Zachary Moonsword for example. He doesn't care about you at all. If you can't even control one of your Knaves, why should anyone else worry about you?”

 

Meaning it didn't matter that I had the incredibly toothy Knave of Diamonds, the hulking bruiser who was the Knave of Spades, two flesh-eating Faerie boys (including the former Knave of Hearts), a werecat who owned a demonically-possessed Ford F850, a warlock immune to witchcraft, two witches, a motorcycle-riding werebunny, and a member of the bloodthirsty Wild Hunt in my inner circle.

 

I was missing the scrawny, certifiably-crazy Knave of Clubs, which apparently meant I was at the bottom of the food chain.

 

I stared at Darren. “Seriously?”

 

He grinned, and my stomach filled with butterflies. If he made me barf, I was puking on his stupid Prada shoes.

 

“You're a Queen of Faerie, Alyssa. You’re a demon Queen. You've fought and won a battle on the Twilight Chessboard. You've made it to the center of the Maze of Mist.” He laughed and shook his head ruefully. “Did you honestly think things were going to get easier after all that?”

 

“Um, yeah.” Seeing as that's what they were supposed to do. After taking care of Lily (check) and Geneva (sort of check), I was under the impression that my life was supposed to go back to normal. Well, as normal as could be when my boyfriend was an immortal cannibal from a completely separate species and a whole bunch of Faeries were camped out in my living room. Never mind the homicidal witch living half-in my closet.

 

Darren was laughing at me again. His laugh was like velvet, and usually gave me happy shivers against my will, but not when he was laughing at me. “You poor, delusional simpleton,” the Black Knight said, reaching out to pat me on the head.

 

“Touch me and I'll rip off your arm and beat you with it,” I warned him, raking my hands through my short-chopped hair. Could I get hives from stress? Could I get zombie plague from stress? I wasn't sure. The only way to know was if I started craving brains, but by then I'd be so entrenched in the zombie mayhem I probably wouldn't even find that unusual.

 

“Usually girls ask me to touch them,” Darren said, breaking me from my zombie thoughts, and he grinned at me as if inviting me to share in a dirty joke.

 

Part of me wished he would touch me, and part of me wished someone would come and snap me out of this. I could get to the Great War Game of the Fea Fayre on my own, but I couldn't get away. Magic never worked the way I wanted it to. Case in point—I couldn't use my bond with Darren as his Queen to switch off his sex vibe. In fact, being the Black Queen and being bonded to Darren's Sluagh and human servants actually made it worse!

 

“If you touched me, I'd probably gag.”

 

“Are you still upset that I bought this face with dead kittens?” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “Because I have to tell you, it was totally worth it. I got laid way more often afterwards.”

 

“Nope. That's not it at all. I just hate pretty people. I have a complex," I added, nodding for emphasis.

 

Sarcasm was one of my cures for wanting to punch the gorgeous warlock. In the week after Homecoming, Darren had taken to talking about himself and sex a lot around me. He'd actually told me that it was because he was trying to wear me down and get me in bed. He wanted to make it with me, not because he was attracted to me, but because I was the Black Queen. His words, right to my face. Can you believe that?

 

Unfortunately for him, I didn't believe in having sex as a teenager (no chemical imbalances in my brain for me, thanks) or before marriage (I refused to commit without paperwork), not to mention I had a boyfriend, so he was out of luck. So he kept trying to get me to give in, and I kept trying to keep from strangling him with one of my dad's adorkable neckties.

 

“After what you did to Lily's face, that doesn't surprise me,” Darren said, just when a sudden pressure bore down on my shoulders. Someone was shaking me. “By the way,” the warlock added. “You need to learn how to see, Alyssa. There are only two colors, but there are three sides. Think about that.”

And then Lilith Whitmoor was shaking me out of my magical daydream, snapping me back to reality. She'd already murdered my best friend; what did the face-slapping mutant she-witch want with me now? My soul?