Free City of Fae by Pippa DaCosta

and back to Shay. He bowed his head and spoke close against her cheek. She stilled, her fluidity suddenly hardening, and stalked out of the room, long white robes rippling behind her.
    “Please someone turn Reign off,” Warren barked, drink in hand, lips pressed into a grim line. He rubbed at his forehead and winced. “Any louder and the queen herself will hear his caterwauling.”
    Mention of the queen wiped the smile from Reign’s face. Someone turned the volume down, much to the disappointment of the dancing fae. As no one was paying any attention to me, I wandered while they returned to their relaxed positions, and they continued to ignore me as I drifted between them. Books lay strewn about. I slipped a glance at a few pages but had no hope of reading the elaborate flourishes. The tapestries drew my eye more times than I could count. What was this place? Why were they all here? The chamber itself appeared to be an old storage tunnel, of sorts, but the fae had made it their own. We’d come here from Chancery Lane, twisting and turning through the tunnels. This was under London, the very place Andrews had highlighted as a hot spot. Did these fae live here? Was the queen here?
    I’d made my way around the room and stopped beside Reign. Warren glared at me, which considering all the other fae had ignored me, felt like something of an achievement. I grinned back.
    “You can’t trail a human pet around in here, Reign,” Warren said. “Take it back where you found it.”
    “Hey”—I’d had about enough of the stuck-up fae attitude—“I’m not some homeless puppy, okay. Get over your own egos already.”
    Warren sneered, baring his teeth in a predatory smile with enough gravitas behind it to have me flinching. “You are what I say you are.”
    “Whatever.” I snarled. Reign leaned against the bar, half smiling at me. “You.” I pointed a finger. “Why did you bring me here?”
    “You wanted to know more about us. Here we are.”
    I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t a patchwork of discarded furniture decorated with the entrancing fae. “Okay, I’m listening. What is this place?”
    “Right now, you’re in Under, the place the London fae call home. It’s not much, but at least it’s ours. The ones who’ve yet to earn their right to ‘free roam’ live down here. Some, like me, don’t like being trapped, so we strive to get topside. Some, like Shay, prefer it here.”
    I flicked my gaze away, not wanting to let him catch any glimpse of my thoughts about Shay on my face. “How big is Under?”
    “There are miles of abandoned tunnels, bunkers, and reservoirs under London. Room enough for thousands.”
    Thousands? A city beneath a city? Was such a thing possible? Searching Reign’s gaze, I found only honesty there. This revelation was huge. The implications were terrifying. We thought we knew the fae. They were our neighbors. Friends. Another mom at the school gate, a colleague at the office. But Under wasn’t normal. This place, it didn’t even feel normal. The mismatch of tired couches, the astonishing tapestries, and the fae themselves. It felt like an accident, like trying to force pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together when they wouldn’t fit.
    “What about the queen?” I asked, moistening dry lips.
    “The queen …” Reign leaned an arm on the bar and lifted his eyes to the tapestries. “She wove those,” he said with a slight air of sadness tinging his words. “Too long ago for her to remember. There was a time when she was very different to what she is today.” He offered me a half-hearted little smile and probably sensed I was about to unload a barrage of questions. “Judging by the spiders that attacked you, you have something the queen wants, whether you’re aware of it or not. She doesn’t send her constructs after just anyone; it takes a great deal of draíocht to create them.”
    “Is she here?” The fine hairs on the back of my neck