The Angel's Fall (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 6) by Katherine Sparrow Page A

good would come of it, but… Diego. My friend, the Spaniard. The King. I had to at least look him in the eye and confirm that this was where he wanted to be. I owed him that much.
    As Lila put a hand at my back and pushed me forward, the compulsion placed on me to get her home flared once again. The spell overwhelmed any will to resist it. If she hadn’t tied my hands, I would be holding that blue piece of topaz and wishing us out of Hell. I squirmed and tried to get to it, failing and helpless to resist.
    “You okay?” Lila whispered.
    Her concern brought my control back. “Quite.” I breathed hard. “Shall we?”
    Lila opened a door that led out into a wide and lovely hallway. “You have a plan, right? Some kind of slickster smart plan?”
    “Of course,” I said. I had nothing and no plan beyond this. I had managed to get to Lila, and from here on out it was pure improvisation.
    Oh, Morgan,” she said. “You are going to hate this place. It's all caviar on toast and evil manservants in white gloves who get pissed off if you use the wrong spoon, and don't even get me started on the royalist hierarchical bullshit of demanding tithes and controlling goods.”
    “Language, Marid,” a woman’s voice called out, echoing through the hallway. “You are at court. You are a representative of Hell.”
    “Indeed, I hate it already,” I said, as we marched toward the Queen.

 
     
     
     
     
    8
    The Way of Kings
    Even though the Queen knew we walked down her hallway, even though she must have been plotting and scheming our reunion ever since she'd stolen my girl, she did not come meet us.
    “Sorry, sorry,” Lila said as she pushed me forward down the lushly decorated hall. It had vaulted ceilings of carved marble and the ground lay covered in blue and white patterned tiles. The walls bore heavy framed paintings. One showed a man getting his skin torn off by jackals. Another had a woman whose eyes, breasts, and toes were being eaten by some sort of impish demon. As we walked, I studied the cord of magic that flowed out from around Lila’s right hand and led into a room in front of us. It grew thicker and sparked with stronger magic as we neared the Queen.
    We turned into a room with tall oak doors carved with the images of various screaming creatures. Inside, the room rivaled any cathedral in Europe though this was not, of course, the realm of the Christian God nor any of his many saints. At the far end of the room, down a lush rug knotted with rich reds and blacks, sat two thrones. One was twice as tall as the other. They both reeked of the dank scent of uncured animal skins.
    Lila and I walked steadily forward, with her keeping a protective hand around my tied wrists. The cord that led from Lila to the Queen of Hell thickened as we moved closer.
    Maria, the Queen, looked no different than when I had seen her last: plump, lovely, dead-eyed, and emanating with dark powers. She also still wore yoga clothes. As we neared, I saw that her throne was made of a patchwork of different pieces of tanned leather stitched together with gold floss. The skins of the former rulers of Hell, and other enemies, I guessed.
    “Your throne,” I said. “A bit much, no? A bit too… on the nose. I always found the rulers of Europe who sat upon similar displays of violence to be the most insecure.”
    Maria’s lips curled upward. “I will add your skin to it soon enough. Right beneath my ass.”
    Diego, the King and my former friend of so many years and decades, sat beside her in his lesser throne. He looked at me, and then away.
    Are you there, old friend? Power changed people. His throne reminded me of another time. Of a different King that I’d wanted to save and couldn’t.
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    Some Western lord was stealing land from my father, and so even though Uther Pendragon was sick and had to be tied to his horse, he had ridden off to slay him. He had left Camelot, sure that he would return that day with another head to place upon a