The Exiled Queen

Prologue

THE EXILED QUEEN   

I am unsure of what haunts me more as I lay here night after night in my little brother's room in Heather and Vivi's cramped apartment in the mortal world: The night I slept with Cardan. Or when we awoke the next day and he exiled me and then mocked and humiliated me in front of half the court and the queen of the Undersea.

Or perhaps--my own mortal stupidity.

I anguish at the thought that it is as if I am still the Queen of Mirth....am I not?

I vaguely am aware of Oak and Vivi's stirring in the morning as Vivi helps ready him for school. They are kind enough to speak in whispers and not draw open the curtains so that I may sleep. I struggle to adjust in keeping mortal hours and often end up not sleeping at all during the dark hours and then sleeping only once the sun rises. Often times not waking until Oak has returned from school.

Except for today. Vivi returns from walking Oak to school--glamoured as human and carrying some type of superhero backpack--to find me slumped beside the toilet and the wall of the tiny bathroom. I have wretched and wretched until nothing but froth comes up from the pit of my stomach.

And I am sitting here not in dismay at my current misery but instead am musing over the clever convenience I find in a mortal bathroom. One of the only things I distinctly remember from my time here before Madoc took us away to Elfhame. How clever these toilets, much more favorable over chamber pots, I think to myself. My eyes slide over to the sink and the shower, how clever the plumbing, hot water at your command.

But of course if I actually were folk I could enchant the water in my basin to heat as Tatterfell could...There are many disadvantages to living in Faerie as a mere mortal: not possessing any magic for one. These are the ridiculous musings I consider through my dizzying discomfort.

I am still frustrated over all the suffering I endured of my mithridatism for nothing, the tolerance I had built up in my system now wasted in pains of withdrawals. I shudder at the hells at which I suffered under Orlagh's capture beneath the sea.

I have spent nearly each day like this but have mostly been able to keep my suffering to myself until now. In one distraught and shamefully embarrassing moment of desperation, I briefly considered combing the wood near Vivi's apartment in hopes I could find blusher mushroom, maybe even wraithberry here in the mortal world--it may be possible to find. Definitely not any faerie fruit though. I thought surely if I could just get the smallest doses of the poisons I had been taking back into my system I would feel better.

Vivienne comes to a stop when she spots me here on the tiled floor, her face frozen in a look of surprise or horror or something in between. "You are still ill..." She mostly says rhetorically.

I wasn't in the most healthiest state when I first arrived at her doorstep: a sodden, dejected, and defeated mess, still thin and wrought by Orlagh's relentless torments. Vivi attempted to nurse me back to health in the weeks following. Which mostly consisted of what she called trash TV and greasy, heavy foods and sweets. Which I quickly realized were favorites of hers and not mine.

She helps me up and urges me to the room I share with Oak, I sit on the edge of the bed kicking Oak's discarded pajamas out of the way and a few scattered toys. Vivi offers me a glass of water. Her gaze settles on me in an uncomfortably calculating manner, she nibbles at a fingernail--a habit that started after Heather left, "Jude...did you sleep with Cardan?"