by Karen Chance
“Better run, brother,” one of the Greens called helpfully.
“Obliged!” Pritkin called back.
“Don’t mention it. Wouldn’t want to deprive Mother of the pleasure of dealing with you herself!”
And then I was jerked up, and we were running on top of the water, the way I’d seen the princess do the last time we were here. Not that we were as graceful. But then, she hadn’t had so many waves to worry about, causing the “ground” to feel like a fun house floor. Or as much floating debris to jump over. Or as many fey acting like blond-haired sharks, and trying to grab her from below.
Although that was preferable to what looked like a giant fist made out of air, the outline formed from twigs and debris, which plunged into the water just behind us. It threw us off our feet and almost caused us to get jerked up when it reversed course. But one of my doubles went flying instead, like a blow-up doll caught in a hurricane.
And was ripped apart a second later, exploding far overhead, like a firework made out of steam.
I stared upward, caught between terror and more terror, and seriously considered shifting. But before I could, Green Fey flooded the scene, what had to be two or three dozen of them, running across the grass-turned-lake-turned-battlefield, not attacking the Blue Fey or helping us, but getting terribly, terribly in the way.
The wind stopped, I guessed because the king, while perfectly happy to make mincemeat out of us, was unwilling to do the same to a bunch of his fellow fey. Especially when their queen had a vicious temper and was in a murderous mood already. And, anyway, he didn’t need to.
It wasn’t like we had anywhere to go.
Except back under.
Another wave hit, and before I had a chance to take a breath, or even to close my mouth, we were underwater again. And swimming for all we were worth. And slogging through the grasses at the edge of the brand-new lake. And emerging, not as Cassie and Pritkin, but as two waterlogged Blue Fey, our gorgeous attire ruined, our blond hair straggling around our faces, just like the half dozen others also wading ashore.
Every single one of which was being met by another fey, like the one who stepped in front of us. He must have been a new arrival, because his uniform was dry—and fancy, with gold embroidery in a design I didn’t understand but that Pritkin apparently did. Because he stopped abruptly.
The officer—at a guess—took a look at the arm Pritkin had slung around my waist, to help support me, and his eyes narrowed. He said something I couldn’t hear, because I had water in my ears as well as my lungs. Until I went into a coughing fit, and they popped.
“—half-drowned,” Pritkin was saying. “Getting him to a healer.”
The officer looked at me some more, and I attempted to look half-drowned.
It wasn’t difficult.
It also wasn’t enough.
Wind blew up around us a second later, like a miniature cyclone that caused my hair to flutter and my heart to pound. But it wasn’t like before; it wasn’t an attack—at least not yet. More like being caught in an oversized hair dryer.
But whatever it was, Pritkin didn’t like it. I heard him swear, and then saw him throw out a hand. And as quickly as it had blown in, the little gale died. Leaving me staring around, my nose running, my half-dried hair stuck to my face—and the officer looking far more relaxed.
“May I get him to a healer now?” Pritkin demanded, the words more polite than the tone.
But he wasn’t rebuked. “We were told to check. Go.”
We went, stumbling through the debris of the market, and up a path by the shore, trying to keep to the grassy edge to avoid leaving muddy footprints in our wake. Because we would be. The Green Fey’s illusions, like much of the rest of their magic, seemed to involve water in some way, and we were losing ours.
Fast.
I looked down to see skinny, freckled arms and rough, wet wool, instead of muscles and velvet. Pritkin still had his illusion, complete with cape, which he threw around me to hide my very un-fey-like features. But it wouldn’t last for long. Beads of water dotted the “cloak” and stuck to his “skin,” like his whole body was sweating.
And then I saw a young bearded man gesturing furiously from inside a tent.
It was across a dirt path from the riverbank, where dozens of sheets and articles of clothing had been laid out in the sun to dry. And where a young woman was whacking the hell out of some more piled up on a rock with a wooden paddle. We headed for the tent, crossing the path and dripping in the dirt, leaving an obvious trail behind us.
Until the man turned over a tub of water, spilling it everywhere. “Mallt!” he called.
A woman in a neighboring tent, older, plumper, and surrounded by children, nodded. And sent the bevy of kids out into the path, churning up the mud, and adding dozens of footprints to our own. And then running up the street, laughing and playing, and hindering a group of fey coming this way.
The tent flap closed behind us, and what looked like a skin of water splashed the dirt at our feet. Pritkin, now back to normal, went to his haunches, head down, breathing hard. And looking like he might pass out.
But he didn’t get a chance.
“Under here,” the man told me. “Quickly!”
We crawled under a table strewn with dirty clothes, some hanging off the sides, waiting their turn for a wash. Baskets heaped with more were quickly shoved in front of us. And then the tent flap was pulled open again, leaving me peering out from between pieces of soiled laundry at the little bit of street I could see.
“Damn fey,” the man muttered. “You’d think it was their town!”
“They think it is their town,” the woman said, coming in. She was red-haired and red-faced from exertion, and picked a fussy carrot-topped baby out of a basket. “They say they protect it—”
“Rather protect it myself, and take my chances. They treat us like slaves, not men in our own land!”
“And what do y’think the Saxons would do?”
“The Saxons are men. You can outfight ’em, you can outlive ’em, or you can outbreed ’em.” He smoothed a hand over the baby’s fiery fuzz. “Or, worse comes to worse, you can mix w’ them and make a new people. What can you do with bastards that never die? They don’t belong here, and I’m not the only one sayin’ it!”
“Well, don’t say it so loud,” his wife said. “You’ll upset the babe.”
The man looked at Pritkin for support, who nodded, still breathless. “The fey . . . will protect us, but keep us exactly as we are . . . while the world goes on without us.”
The man looked at his wife. “Y’see? Bad times come, but sometimes they need to. Or you die anyway, of stagnation and rot. I know how I’d rather go out!”
“Would you stop that talk?” the woman hissed, hugging her child. “I want her protected!”
“And when they come for her? Who’ll protect her then?”
The woman looked at him fiercely for a moment, then deliberately pinched her child, I didn’t know why.
Until I saw two fey breaking off from the group to approach the tent.
I pulled back into the shadows.
“There!” the woman said, her voice annoyed. “What did I tell you?”
“What’s wrong w’ the child, anyway?” her husband’s voice demanded. “Have you lied to me, woman? Are you part banshee?”
She snorted. “More like you. Snore loud enough to wake the dead, he does,” she told someone.
“How would you know?” he demanded. “When do I get t’sleep? All night, it’s the same thing—loud as thunder, she is!”
The man had a point. The kid’s outrage was impressive. And I wasn’t the only one to think so. One of the fey I could now see was wincing in pain, while the other looked vaguely horrified.
“Picking up, good sirs?” the man yelled.
“What?” The first
fey looked at him while the other started trying to push inside, I guessed to start a search.
But the cauldron the couple was using to boil clothes was in the way, bubbling merrily. The man plunged in a paddle, and steam erupted everywhere, causing the fey to jerk back. And then the woman was blocking the small avenue that was left, along with the human foghorn.
“Let me by,” the fey told her.
“What?”
“I said, let me by!”
“You’ll have to speak up,” she screamed, almost in his face. “She’s teething.”
“What?”
“Teething!”
The fey looked at the child in concern, as if it was some alien creature. A tiny, smelly, very loud alien creature. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder how often the fey dealt with babies, considering their birth rate.
Judging by his face, not a lot.
“Then what’s that smell?” her husband asked, leaning over.
“You’re right,” the woman said to him, peering into some sort of proto diaper. And releasing a stench worse than anything the dirty clothes were giving off. “I guess she’s not teething yet, after all.”
The fey’s look of horror intensified.
The man plunged another paddle into the water, giving off a cloud of steam like a dragon’s breath. “Picking up or dropping off?” he asked again, in a cheerful bellow.
“Neither,” the fey said, and fled.
The woman stayed outside the tent, to ward off any more interlopers with the terrifying child, while the man went around to the other side of the table, where Pritkin had already scrambled out. And pulled open the back flap of the tent, to look out over the open space between the towns.
“All right, then, Myrddin?” he asked.
Pritkin nodded. “Thanks to you.”
“Glad t’ help. But they’ll be back, when they don’t find anythin’ elsewhere. Best be gone by then.”
“Can you glamour?” I asked.
Pritkin shook his head. “Not now. Not for two.”
“Not two. One.” I pulled my hood up. “I’m going to the castle—”
“The castle?”
“I need to see Morgaine.”
“Why?”
“To ask her about the staff. She was the last to have it—”
“And why do you want it?”
The question was as hard as the hand suddenly wrapped around my wrist. I looked down at it in confusion. “Does it matter right now?”
“Yes!” He looked at me, green eyes searching. “The king caught up with me, after you disappeared, at a camp in the forest. I think he would have killed me, if there hadn’t been three or four covens’ worth of witches around!”
“I’m sorry—”
He shook his head. “I got away. But he is convinced there was a conspiracy between us to steal the staff. Either that, or that you were using me to get your hands on it for some nefarious purpose he won’t talk about—”
“And you believe him?”
“I don’t know what I believe! I saw what you did. I saw you save those children, back at camp, and then I saw you get taken by those . . . those magic workers. And then the king said—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes on my face, searching. “I don’t know what to believe,” he repeated. “But you’re not getting out of my sight until I get some answers!”
I licked my lips. I couldn’t tell him—he knew too much already. But I couldn’t not tell him, either, if it meant sitting here until the fey caught up with us. And he would—he was absolutely that stubborn.
“All right,” I compromised. “I’ll tell you what I can. But not here.”
“Where, then?”
“I told you.” I looked up, at the distant gray towers. “I need to get in there. Can you help?”
Pritkin thought for a moment, his eyes on the castle. And then they switched to something coming down the main road, next to the theater. The one leading to the walled city.
I couldn’t tell what it was; too much dust was billowing around. But I guessed Pritkin could. “I have a way in,” he told me. “But you may not like it.”
“Trust me. If it gets me in, I’ll like it.”
Chapter Forty-nine
I didn’t like it. “Are you sure there’s no other way?” I asked, frowning.
One pale brow arched. “You’d prefer to fight your way in?”
“I’d prefer more than half a shirt!” I said, tugging at the handkerchief hem, trying to get it to meet the skirt. Which would have been easier if said skirt had started higher than my hips. And if the tugging wasn’t threatening the shirt’s already low neckline. And that was despite me picking out the most modest of the costumes.
“Isn’t this going to get them looking at me more, not less?” I demanded.
“But not at your face,” Pritkin replied, and ducked when I threw a pillow at him.
The little wagon we were in was full of them, probably because the thing didn’t have springs. Just costumes, masks, rolls of canvas backdrops, and a large, stuffed dragon’s head on a stick. We’d had no choice but to join the players, who had rumbled into town during the chaos, because there were anti-glamourie charms on the castle. Pritkin’s abilities wouldn’t help us there, even if he rested up. Which was why I’d slapped on a face full of makeup to go with the bright crimson outfit.
Of course, that wouldn’t help, either, if somebody ratted us out.
“Are you sure you can trust them?” I asked as the wooden box we were in swayed and shook, partly because of the road, but also because the girls up top kept leaning over.
Tonight they played for the court, tomorrow for the townspeople, and they were busy drumming up business. Which meant that, instead of furtively sneaking in through a back door like I’d hoped, we were heading for the main city gate on the medieval version of a party bus. A bright red, blue, and green party bus, with a bunch of waving, shimmying, half-naked girls on top. One word to a guard . . .
But Pritkin didn’t seem worried.
“I arranged the job for them,” he told me. “They’ll help us.”
“There are other jobs.”
“Not as many as you’d think.” He was trying on different wigs, because he was better known at court than I was, and the current one did him no favors. Of course, that would have been true of anyone except Ronald McDonald.
I pulled it off, substituting a tasteful, forgettable brown.
“They started in Constantinople, playing to large audiences,” he said as I tried to stuff his cowlick underneath the wig. “But once the emperor closed all the theaters, they had to take to the road. Their fortunes have been mixed ever since.”
“He closed the theaters?”
Pritkin nodded, looking up at me with a grin. “Ironic, when you consider that his own wife was an actress before they met. Theodora was famous for dancing in nothing but a single ribbon. And then there was that business about Leda and the swan—”
“A swan?” I frowned.
“More like a goose and some strategically placed grain. They say she—”
“I don’t want to know,” I said quickly.
He grinned some more. “But he needed the church on his side, and they don’t like the theater.”
“Why?”
“We’re all licentious fiends,” he said, steadying me with hands on my hips as we hit a pothole.
Considering that it was something like the ninetieth one, that didn’t seem strictly necessary. And then I looked down, to find that his eyes were especially green next to the new, dark hair. And open and clear . . . and inviting. No strings, no agenda. Just the promise of pleasure, shared and given.
I swallowed and picked up a comb. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I tackled the bird’s nest on one side of the wig, where it had been crush
ed in a trunk. “So, so many reasons.”
“Name one.”
“You first.”
“Ah, but I don’t have any reasons,” he said while the thumbs began to move in slow circles on my hip bones.
I shot him a look.
They stopped.
“I mean, you tell me something first,” I clarified.
He looked a question.
“Back in Nimue’s . . . thing,” I said, because I doubted “Winnebago” would translate. “You wanted to know my name. My real one. Why?”
I immediately wished I hadn’t asked, because a lot of the fun faded from his face.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to answer.”
“No, it’s fair.” He looked up at me, through a fall of brown hair. “You know the old couple I told you about? The ones who raised me?”
I nodded. After Morgaine’s supposed death, Rosier had dumped him on a farmer’s family, who’d thought he was basically Satan incarnate, and then fled. It made me angry all over again, just thinking about it. I knew he’d had a reason: that if Pritkin didn’t end up with his power, he’d be better off growing up in this world, where he had at least a small chance of fitting in. I even agreed with it. That is, I agreed with the idea.
The execution, however, had left the fey knowing more about Pritkin’s true heritage than he did.
“I spent most of my time with the old woman,” he continued, “but one day the old man decided to go fishing, and agreed to let me tag along. I was quite excited. I was never allowed to go anywhere—officially.”
“But you went anyway.”
He grinned. “But I hadn’t been caught in a while, so I suppose this was their way of rewarding me.”
I rolled my eyes and started on the other side of what I was deciding was more dust mop than wig.
“In any case, we were halfway to the lake when we met one of the farmer’s friends. They stopped to talk, and I wandered off, trying to catch frogs for bait. They must have thought I was out of earshot.”
“And what did they say?” I asked, carefully. Because the smile was gone again, lost—not in the usual anger—but in sadness.