“Better?”
“A noble effort.” Rogue sounded not at all convincing.
“Hey, you knew I was socially challenged when you roped me into this gig.”
“True. I’m not marrying you for your hostessing skills.”
“Nice. Be honest—am I screwing this up? Starling said tonight is important.”
“You’re doing fine. Just pay attention when they address you, nod, smile. And control your temper on this next one,” he added, squeezing my hand.
Uh-oh. I followed his gaze only to see one of my top five least favorite people in Faerie. A notable achievement, as I had a lot of folks on that list. Lady Incandescence—though I liked to call her Nasty Tinker Bell, due to her irascible personality and arrogant attitude, and for nearly pouring soup over my head when I was an invalid—pranced down the black runner, totally naked but for her porno-blond hair and a pair of transparent heels with black ribbons that crisscrossed her long legs to finish in a petite bow at her crotch. The first time I saw her I’d thought she could be Rogue’s fraternal twin. Over time I’d become better at distinguishing the fae features and now saw she looked nothing like him, other than being the same species.
“Who does she think she is,” I muttered under my breath to Rogue, “the Queen Bitch herself?”
“I feel certain her ambitions reach at least that high, though they may overreach her abilities.”
Rogue raised his voice as she drew near and thanked her for welcoming his fiancée, using a formal tone clearly meant to be a reminder to me. Fine.
“Lord Rogue.” She slipped a finger into the black bow on her mons, tugging at it suggestively. “You haven’t visited me since your return. I’ve been so lonely. I thought surely you’d tire of slumming it.”
“It hadn’t crossed my mind to do so.” He sounded gratifyingly uninterested. “You’ve met my fiancée, the Sorceress Gwynn.”
“Lady Incandescence.” I tried to emulate Rogue’s tone, totally mollified that he’d referred to me by my abilities, rather than arm candy status. “What a surprise to see you tonight.”
She giggled ostentatiously. Oh yeah, definitely a Titania wannabe. Exactly what we did not need.
“A surprise?” she cooed. “Not so. After all, I live here.”
I supposed I knew that. Not so wonderful to have it thrown in my face, but that was why she’d said it.
“So many people live here!” I exclaimed, using my mother’s brightest social voice. “It’s a wonder anyone can remember you’re here at all.”
Her fake smile froze. “I remember you though. It seems only yesterday I had to spoon-feed you soup.”
Such a sweetheart. “Funny, isn’t it? And now here I am—equal to Lord Rogue’s authority in this castle.”
That pissed her off, her pretty gilt eyes flying to Rogue for confirmation. I held my head high, really hoping I’d understood Starling correctly and hadn’t misspoken.
Rogue picked up my left hand and kissed the diamond ring. “As my lady deserves and will exercise as she sees fit.”
Nasty Tinker Bell’s gaze fastened on the stone and her pupils visibly dilated. I caught a burst of emotion from her—with stunned anger predominant. She stalked off, her tiny ass clenched.
“Please tell me she can’t do magic.”
“She can’t do magic, which is why I reminded her that you can. However, she does have powerful friends. Don’t antagonize her needlessly.”
“She antagonized me first.”
“Even then.”
“But I can antagonize her needfully, right?”
He glanced at me, amused. “Should I worry about you becoming a tyrant?”
“Probably,” I agreed cheerfully. “Always was one of my stretch goals. Should I worry about every other female needling me about having shared your bed in the past?”
His lips twitched. “No. I doubt it can be more than every third one. I may be immortal, but I’m not that old.”
“Ha-ha.”
We greeted several more guests and I studied the diamond in my ring under the guise of toying with my wineglass, which I’d filled with water. Sigh. What had bothered Nasty Tinker Bell about it so much?
Though we sat alone at the end of the table, with no one flanking us, the rapid arrival of more guests awaiting introduction kept me from broaching the question I should have asked in the first place—where had the diamond come from, if he hadn’t magicked it up? A good lesson there. Never get so overwhelmed by the sparklies that you neglect to ask for provenance.
Or for the price tag.
The arriving guests slowed to a trickle and I thought we might finally get to eat. Probably a good thing there was no fae equivalent of the bread basket or I’d likely have decimated it by now. On top of snarfing what amounted to a round of Brie while I got dressed. I spotted Starling by the door the servers had emerged from last time, flushed with her new status as seneschal, being imperious to a fae woman I didn’t know. That boded well for dinner coming soon.
Putting her in charge had been a good idea. Starling wouldn’t let me starve. I turned to Rogue to mention my staffing additions, when a whirlwind of pink, green and yellow burst through the archway. Lord Puck, surrounded by dancing dragonfly girls, each wearing a dress in a different pastel, executed a complicated whirling dance step down the carpet. Draped in flowing scarves in all the colors of his companions, he resembled nothing so much as an exploded carnival cotton-candy machine.
He ended up before us with a flourish and a tickle of unseen bells, bowing grandly, long strawberry ringlets bouncing. “Lady Gwynn!” he exclaimed, as if totally surprised to find me there. “At last we meet again. And to think they claimed you’d been eaten by dragons.”
“Not this time.” I had to laugh at his antics. “I confess I’m surprised to see you here also. Didn’t you say you were obliged to stay with General Falcon on the front lines?”
“But the war is ever so boring without you there.” He made an exaggerated moue of disappointment. “Besides, we heard that this is the place to be for all the latest developments in battle fashion.” Puck slid his mismatched gaze over to Rogue, the green-and-blue eyes sharp with interest.
“I believe you shall not be disappointed,” Rogue replied.
“Excellent!” Puck did a spontaneous jig that included jazz hands, bizarrely enough. “I do so detest disappointment. So...disappointing. I’m glad we all decided to come here instead.”
“All?” I echoed and looked over to Rogue to see if he knew what Puck meant. If Rogue had been the type to roll his eyes, he would have.
“All the pigs one might wish to have rain from the sky!” Puck agreed, obviously expecting me to be delighted. “Consider it a wedding gift, fair sorceress Gwynn. A girl can never have too many pink piggies.”
With that he danced away, his entourage following.
“I have no idea what that was about, do you?” I asked Rogue, but his face had gone eerily remote, his profile sharp with displeasure. Not with Puck, I thought. Using his method, I laid my hand on his, raising my brows in silent question. He looked at me, eyes sparking with irritation, the black lines shimmering with incipient movement. Pointedly he looked to the archway at entrance to the hall and General Fafnir stepped into view.
Stern as an old soldier, but resplendent in silver-gray that matched his close-cropped hair, he cut an imposing figure. His gaze sought me immediately and he strode down the runner, his face showing as close to an expression of pleasure as I’d ever seen on him.
“Lord Rogue,” he acknowledged with a dip of his chin, ever polite, then he swept me a deep bow. “And Lady Sorceress Gwynn. You look beyond ravishing, an oasis of beauty in the endless desert. I understand felicitations on your upcoming nuptials are in order.”
Rogue turned his hand and laced his fingers with mine. A bit too tightly to be a gesture of affection.
“Indeed, General Fafnir,” I answered, keeping my attention on him. What was Rogue’s problem with the man? “I di
d not expect to see you this evening. Surely you don’t dwell within the castle, as I’ve discovered so many do.”
I hadn’t really meant to slip in that barb, but Rogue didn’t have much room to be annoyed at my connection with Fafnir with the likes of Nasty Tinker Bell prancing about. At least mine had clothes on. Every third female indeed.
The pattern of gray on Fafnir’s face—the right side for him—shifted as he inclined his head. More abstract than some, the dappling reminded me of blurry snowflakes or oddly articulated scales. “As soon as I heard the good news, I could hardly stay away.”
This seemed directed at Rogue, who did not respond, and the odd emphasis on “good news” struck me as referring not just to the wedding, but specifically to my pregnancy, which I had denied the last time we met. In all honesty, but still.
“Apparently no one expected me, so I used unorthodox measures to enter the castle. Locked up tight as a drum, Rogue—well done—though you might check the chinks here and there.”
“I intend to remedy that immediately.” Rogue’s voice held an echo of a growl.
“Wise.” Fafnir smiled at me, a bit stiff with it, as if he was out of practice. “We shall talk more later, Lady Gwynn. I have a story you’ll appreciate. I understand there will be dancing. Perhaps we shall share a dance together as we enjoyed so much last time.”
He bowed out and sat somewhere on the other side of the hall. Servers streamed in with platters of food, having clearly waited for this final audience to end.
Beside me Rogue seethed. The black anger rose high enough under his skin that I didn’t try to tug my hand away, lest I set off his transformation into the Dog. I wasn’t entirely sure what the exchange with Fafnir had all been about.
“If you don’t want him here,” I said, “make him leave. I won’t argue.”
“We cannot afford to alienate anyone at this time.”
“Then why—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Later.”
“Do I have to wait until then to get my hand back?”
Rogue turned a look on me that, had it truly been heated chromium, would have melted my face off my skull. “Why,” he asked, steel-edged as his sword, “what do you plan to do with it?”
Chapter Thirteen
In Which I Meet a Doppelgänger or Five
More and more, I perceive how the physical laws of the universe are common between my old world and Faerie, but are perverted by magic in the latter realm. Or, to be fair, are made mundane in the former.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules of Magic”
I studied him. Not intimidated, because I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, but uncertain how to handle this side of him. Not that he was Mr. Even-Tempered, but this felt different. Jealousy?
“Did I do something wrong?” I inquired, keeping the question as cool and reasonable as possible.
“Did you have to dance with him?” he snapped back.
Really? “No. I could have caused a diplomatic incident instead. You know how I love that. It was a real toss-up.”
“You’ve never hesitated to say no to me.”
“Does this mean we are discussing this now?”
“So it would seem.”
If he only knew how difficult it had always been for me to refuse him, even back when I’d been much better at it than I was these days. “Rogue.” I threaded my tone with as much of the deep feeling my heart held, wondering if it would translate to him as “dear Rogue,” or “my Rogue,” the way my name did on his lips. “You know how much I hated him from Mistress Nancy’s tale and, at that point, I didn’t know otherwise. It made my skin crawl to be in the same room. I never wanted to dance with him. In fact, the whole time all I could think was that it should have been you.” But you weren’t there.
I didn’t say the last out loud and I didn’t have to. We both knew that truth and Rogue no doubt caught my flash of emotion on that, since it broke through so unexpectedly that I had no opportunity to hide it. Probably I was still worked up from the whole ring thing—not to mention everything else—but how I’d felt when Rogue had apparently abandoned me, the things I’d faced alone while dreaming of him laughing at me from Titania’s silken arms, it smacked me between the eyes just then.
Rogue released my hand and stroked his down my back, sending some of his energy into me. “Your point is well-taken. Neither of us can change the past. Eat. You’re hungry and worn-out. If I could have avoided the timing on this feast, I would have. Even with the magic you’ve ingested lately, you’ll find that the babe drains you faster.”
I’d noticed that, on the journey to Titania’s castle in the Glass Mountains, though I hadn’t thought I could be pregnant and so I had put it down to the lack of Rogue’s stimulating presence. “Why would something physiological like that affect my magical energy?”
“Sex involves your body, too, doesn’t it? And that has an effect.”
That was oh so true.
“I would love to eat, as soon as someone feeds me.”
Rogue indicated the platter of pastries, fruit and other sweets that had appeared in front of me as if by magic—except that I knew someone must have set it there. Meat courses would come later, so I tried not to gorge on the empty calories and save room for some protein. The fae had missed the concept of silverware so I tore apart something like an almond croissant with my fingers and scanned the army of human servants swarming the room now. None of those uncanny drudge guys in sight. What had become of them?
“I eliminated them,” Rogue replied to my thought.
“You did? When?”
“Early on, when I began preparations for you to return with me. I knew you didn’t like them.”
I hadn’t—and it touched me that he’d been so considerate, yet again—but I also worried what “eliminated” meant. “So, you...sent them away?”
He slid a look at me from the corner of his eye. “I converted them into more of the Black Guard, which you also don’t like, but you at least have no need to interact with.”
“It’s not that I don’t like them—I worry about intelligent beings having no agency of their own. Even if they are Cylons. Besides, you shouldn’t fuck with technology. That shit never turns out the way you expect it to.”
He clearly didn’t think I was funny, but at least he seemed less pissed. “If you’d like to speak to one, I believe I can demonstrate that they are neither intelligent nor beings. At least,” he amended, “not in the way you think of that idea.”
Hmm.
“I appreciate it,” I said, “if I haven’t told you already or enough. All the work you’ve done to see me happy here. All the things you’re still doing.” With my thumbnail, I rubbed the band of the diamond ring, so the gem moved in glittering glory. None of Rogue’s magic clung to it. But something else did. Another flavor of magic I didn’t recognize.
“There is very little I wouldn’t do to please you, my suspicious Gwynn. Please try to remember that the next time you fret over my motivations.”
I decided not to ponder the vast gasp between “very little” and “nothing.” I knew full well he chose his words as carefully as always, leaving room for the ever-present option that he might not have any choice in acting against my happiness.
“Where did the diamond come from?”
The falter in his demeanor would not have been visible to the casual observer, but I sensed it in the tremor of his muscles, the bare hitch before he replied.
“I didn’t magic it up, as you put it.”
“So you told me.”
He glared at me, full of offended pride. “I swear to it. You laid the parameters for the quest and I—”
“Just slow down and back up there, Prince Charming. I did not lay out a quest—certainly not intentionally—so relax. I can recognize your work as easily as you identify mine, so I know you didn’t make it. Also I believe you went to some kind of extraordinary lengths to get it, even though I can’t imagine where you found the time.”
&nb
sp; “So why are you asking?”
“Because of the way people look at it.” And because I told you it should be a sacrifice to obtain and I’m worrying what it was.
His thoughts had gone as quiet as mine and I ate, anticipating that he’d either refuse to answer or would duck the specifics in some way.
“From the dwarves,” he said finally and very quietly, like an admission of guilt.
I tipped my head and studied him, looking for clues. “I guess I don’t know the import of that. What did you exchange?”
“That much I cannot say.”
Had sworn not to then. Not that I could have pressed. Already my long-passed Grandmother had started up a lecture in my mind about how tacky it was to try to find out the value of a gift.
“You went while I was with Starling?”
He flicked a glance at me. “You think I would have left you alone in the practice arena?”
No, I hadn’t thought so. Still, I liked knowing for sure. “Just seemed like not much time.”
“It didn’t take long.” He sounded amused and I wondered why. “And, as I told you before, I wanted you to have it before this event.”
“Why did the welcome feast have to be tonight?” I asked, dipping a slice of sweet bread into bowls of butter and honey. It tasted like wildflowers made liquid. Heaven. But nutritious? Hmm.
“It didn’t.”
“You said if you could have avoided the timing, you would have.”
“Ah. That.”
“Yes.” I waited. Might have poked him with my fork, if I’d had one. “That.”
“Your...involvement with the heart of the earth sent certain ripples through sorcerous society, engendering attention that was best brought into the open as soon as possible.” He kept his voice pitched very low. This seating arrangement worked quite well, however. With no one beside us to easily overhear, and the rest of the hall ringing with exuberant conversation and music, it made private dialogue much easier. “No doubt that’s also why Lord Puck is already here and General Falcon is on the way with the rest of his army.”
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