Rogue's Paradise

by Jeffe Kennedy

  That needed no reply. He’d only confirmed Rogue’s point.

  “General Falcon—are all your forces inside the walls?” Rogue asked.

  Mollified by the restoration of his title, Falcon sat straighter. “I sent many of the humans home—they’re useless except against other humans—but otherwise, yes.”

  “Not my monsters,” Lady Strawberry sulked.

  “Or my sailing ships,” said the fae noble I thought of as Navy Man. “We can’t possibly have a decent naval battle here. Unless we expand the moat!”

  Everyone ignored him.

  “And General Fafnir?” Rogue pressed. I had to love him for keeping things from devolving into shades of the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

  Fafnir and his cabal exchanged glances, shifting in their chairs.

  Rogue simmered with irritation. “Your plans to abduct and employ Sorceress Gwynn are done for. Your simpering war with Falcon over. You either join forces with us or leave.”

  “You kept me prisoner until now.” Fafnir looked at me as he said it. “I sought only to save you from disaster.”

  “Not only.” I stroked a hand down Darling Hercules’s back and he purred. “You hoped for my help with something else too.”

  He sucked his thin lips against his teeth, the gray scale pattern on his face glittering like the undulating coils of a snake. Oddly, instead of triumph, I caught a flash of hope from him. Perhaps he’d stolen Cecily’s corpse not out of a morbid determination to succeed, but out of real attachment. She’d believed he loved her. Perhaps he had.

  “If you throw in your army—the cabal’s forces—with ours, I’ll do my best to help you.”

  Rogue covered my hand with his, though I already had the strum of warning from him. I knew it would be tricky and very possibly traumatizing for me. This was important. The silent hum of his agreement confirmed that.

  Fafnir shook his head. “I do not forget—even if you do—that I owe you a favor still. I will add my forces to yours and we can finish with the bargains between us complete.”

  He had his brand of integrity and, though he wouldn’t care, I felt sorry for him and his aloneness. “I’ll help you anyway,” I added on impulse. “If I can.”

  His gray-dust gaze met mine. “My army is yours, Sorceress.”

  “They’re useless,” Mask Man complained bitterly. “On the other side of Titania’s forces. We cannot get them here. We may as well send them home.”

  “Same as my monsters,” Lady Strawberry glumly sympathized. They all sighed in their dismay.

  Feeling like the kid seeing the emperor was naked, I looked around the table, totally bemused. Walter, though, met my gaze and rolled his eyes.

  “Are you all idiots?” he exclaimed.

  Marquise yanked his leash and he subsided, with a strangled squawk.

  “Stop that,” I told her. “Everyone here gets to talk. What’s your point, Walt?” Though I knew, of course.

  “Duh.” He rubbed his throat under the collar. “Basic strategy. You bring those forces in from behind and trap Tit—the great bitch’s army between them and ours. Then we pick them off.”

  “Doesn’t sound very glorious,” Falcon sniffed and Fafnir nodded.

  “It’s not,” I chimed in. “It’s effective. And, Lady Strawberry—you could do the same with your monsters.”

  She cheered considerably.

  “Agreed then.” Rogue stroked the back of my hand thoughtfully. “Once Titania and her army convene, we shall bring in the rest behind.”

  “They still haven’t?” That seemed so odd to me.

  “You hadn’t looked?” Rogue raised an eyebrow at me.

  I hadn’t. I’d stayed off the mind web as much as possible. Taking a quick survey, more like running a search term than delving into the files, I found her forces scattered about. Close enough to threaten, but not immediately outside.

  “What are they waiting for?” I asked, more rhetorically than anything.

  Now it was my turn to receive incredulous looks. As if in response, the baby kicked for the first time, a jab of reminder from within.

  Oh yes. They were all waiting on me.

  And, at the bizarrely advanced rate this pregnancy was progressing, we would not be waiting long.

  “So.” I tapped my fingers on the table, not sure how I’d come to be leading this meeting. “I go into labor and she makes her move—then we go into pitched battle?”

  “I suspect nothing less will draw her out,” Rogue agreed. They all looked uncomfortable, twitching like kids kept at the adult’s table too long. If we’d made this a feast, they would have sat and talked all day and night.

  “The big problem with that plan is that I’ll be somewhat preoccupied,” I pointed out to him.

  “The Brownies will come to assist,” Larch intoned from behind me, in his surprisingly deep voice.

  I turned in my chair to look at him. “They will? From the villages nearby?”

  He puffed out his chest, purpling with pride. “From all of Faerie. All who can escape service to the queen stand by to serve you, Lady Sorceress Gwynn.”

  “My kind, too,” Athena averred, deftly spinning her dagger. Someone snickered and she stared them down, sweet lavender eyes filled with defiant malice. “We can be taught. Who do you think has been chasing down and destroying all the spider spies?”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. “Thank you, Athena. And pass along my gratitude.” Rogue shifted at that, but I didn’t care—I owed them and that deserved voicing. Darling Hercules added that he’d been helping as well, and I scratched his ears, pausing at his further promise.

  “Darling Hercules promises to stay with me when the time comes. With his immunity to the Queen Bitch, he’ll make an excellent bodyguard.”

  Decisions reached and roles decided, we adjourned the meeting. I stood and stretched, rubbing my lower back. Was my stomach rounder than when I sat down? If the pregnancy progressed too unnaturally fast, my body might not be able to stand it. Deep in my heart, the cat stretched, too, offering to take my flesh if I wasn’t going to be using it. I promised that the time had not yet arrived and maintained calm until she settled again.

  Rogue observed the interchange somberly, the Dog having risen in his core as well. Tied in tandem, we were. I gave him a confident smile, which didn’t fool him for a second, but he touched my cheek in acknowledgment of all the trepidation I hadn’t voiced.

  I started to take his arm and became aware that Starling was still sitting in her chair. She looked much recovered—enough to dress and come to the war council, as she’d insisted she should, as my seneschal—but now she seemed listless and weary, her hair tinged with brown. I brightened it for her, though she didn’t notice. Rogue discreetly moved away to confer with Lady Healer, who had pointedly waited for him.

  “Are you all right, Starling?”

  She shrugged. “I’m worried about Mother and Father, though I know they’ll be fine. It’s nothing.” She straightened her skirts, slapped her knees and stood. “Nothing to be done and there’s work awaiting me. Seneschal work,” she emphasized.

  Oh, right. “You’re upset that you don’t have a job to do in the battle.”

  “Well, that’s my lot isn’t it? I can’t complain.”

  “But you’ll be with me when I go into labor. Mistress Nancy will need help.” Darling Hercules clawed my ankle in reminder. “Help with hands,” I modified. “Please say you’ll be there.”

  “Of course, Lady Gwynn, but—”

  “There is no but.” I took her hands. “I need all the friends I can get. I’m afraid, Starling.”

  “Oh, Gwynn. It will be a beautiful experience that—”

  “No.” I laughed and it came out a bit hysterical. Rogue was occupied in conversation. I lowered my voice. “I need you there and Athena. Just in case. Remember what happened with Cecily.”

  Her brown eyes widened, flew to Rogue. “Surely you don’t think—But you’re married! True love changes everything.”<
br />
  I only hoped she was right. Nevertheless, when the time came, I would not be defenseless.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Omens and Visitors

  I think it may be a mistake to conceptualize Faerie as its own universe or world. Perhaps it’s more of a microcosm, a bubble of alternate reality stemming off another.

  ~Big Book of Fairyland, “Notes for Further Research”

  “So,” I said to Rogue, a few days later, “I need to go to Fafnir’s castle.”

  He’d been broodingly staring out the dome, surveying the deceptively peaceful countryside while I worked in my grimoire. I’d been going through my catalogs of the fae species, still working on a reasonable evolutionary tree for them. With the very strong likelihood that one species could eventually become another, it made for a messy diagram. I’d also tried to work out a way to indicate longevity, without much progress.

  “What a brilliant idea,” he replied without looking at me, his profile sharp against the radiantly blue sky. “Or perhaps I should just deliver you directly to Titania and save her the trouble of fetching you.”

  I closed the grimoire. “You know, before the wedding, it was that I couldn’t leave the castle because of Fafnir’s cabal. Now it’s because of Titania.”

  He turned to survey me, not without sympathy. “Feeling imprisoned in my tower after all?”

  “The eerie similarity to my hasty prediction has not escaped me.”

  “The waiting is difficult for me too.”

  No news there—he practically oozed restless impatience. Especially since sex was suddenly quite uncomfortable for me. I suspected my nervous system had become overly sensitized with the massive changes to my body. My hip bones practically creaked as they adjusted to the rapid expansion of my uterus. Mistress Nancy simply shook her head and did her best to reassure me that, despite the extraordinary rate of progression—she figured me to be in the seventh month now—in all other ways the pregnancy appeared normal.

  Small comfort there.

  “Nevertheless.” I stood and, groaning, braced my hands on the bench to let my body adjust. “I said I’d help him.” It went without saying that I might not be in a position to do anything, if the birth did not go well.

  “You redeemed your favor. We have his forces without this unwise offer of yours.”

  “I know.” I pressed my fists into my lower back, willing the muscles to relax. “I can’t explain it. I just have a feeling I should help him.”

  Rogue echoed my sigh but didn’t argue further. “He cannot bring the corpse here?”

  I made a face. “Apparently it has decomposed enough that he’s loathe to move it again. And flesh—so no poofing it here, though I think being inanimate should count. I’m informed that doesn’t matter, however.”

  “I don’t like this idea of you going off with Fafnir.”

  “Jealousy is a sign of insecurity, not affection.”

  “And your point is?”

  I glanced at him. So gorgeous, exotic, powerful. Yet, uncertain of me, after all. “Even if I didn’t feel like a cranky hippopotamus, and even if I weren’t forever joined at the hip with you, I’d hardly pick Fafnir over you.”

  “No?” He moved behind me and ran warm, radiant hands down the knotted muscles of my back. I sighed in relief as the vibrating massage lessened their tension. “Why not?”

  “I can’t believe you’re fishing for compliments.”

  “What an amusing image. You are correct, however. I don’t savor the idea of you in Fafnir’s home. That said, I’m mainly concerned that he cannot protect you from Titania. In addition, would you take Mistress Nancy with you? What if you should begin to deliver the child? You’ve made extensive plans to carry that off in the safest possible way.” And here he paused, leading me to think that he might know that I’d taken measures against him turning on me, as well. He found the sorest point on my back and worked it loose. I nearly purred. “Why would you jeopardize that? Staying here is the wisest course.”

  He was right. I just felt so confined. No wonder people used to refer to pregnancy as “confinement.” Imagine if I’d had to experience nine real-time months of this.

  “There’s a reason I never wanted babies,” I muttered.

  “So you’ve mentioned.” More than once, he didn’t say.

  “Fine. What’s your solution?”

  “I’ll go with Fafnir and we’ll bring the corpse here. You can experiment with it in the safe hall.”

  I unbent and faced him, suddenly fearful—and hating how dependent I felt. “What if you don’t come back?”

  “Ah, Gwynn.” He stroked my cheek. “Where else would I possibly want to be?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  Not only cranky, but superstitiously worried. The closer the time came, the more I saw Cecily’s fate and imagined it mine. I knew better than to dwell on the images, not to detail the scene of Rogue striding in under Titania’s control, silver-blue sword in hand to cut the baby from my belly. I reached for the icy control Marquise and Scourge had taught me at such great pains to my mental health and managed to dissolve the thought.

  Don’t make it real.

  “Perhaps it would be better for you if I’m not here.” Rogue withdrew from me mentally, just enough that I noticed.

  I rubbed my forehead. “No. That’s not better. I want you here. I need you here.”

  “We’ll be all right.” He said it with his usual certainty. But I knew the inside of his heart well enough to know how much of that was bluff, gamble and his excellent poker face.

  “Has it occurred to you that we’re relying heavily on me and our bond with each other to keep Her from making you act against me—and I’m the one who’s most likely going to be out of commission? What if I lose too much blood and pass out? All the stories say it’s ungodly painful—what if I’m so distracted by the pain that I can’t muster the concentration to help you?”

  He gave me a crooked smile. “Are you saying that the training you survived did not put you through painful and distracting trials?”

  I shuddered. Pushed those memories back down. “Right. Can childbirth be any worse?”

  “Exactly. I shall assist Fafnir and be back directly. You’ll hardly know I was gone.”

  I hated that his words sounded like an omen.

  * * *

  Rogue’s absence, however, brought me a visitor.

  “Yoo-hoo, Lady Gwynn.” Puck popped his head through the doorway. “Are you decent? Please say you’re not.”

  “I am,” I replied, “and not someone you’d want to see indecent in my current state anyway.”

  He waltzed in, wearing an eye-jarring shade of cherry, with a train of ribbons that had clearly been co-opted from the wedding decorations. With a dramatic pause, he surveyed me. “Good Titania—whatever have you eaten? You’re positively engorged.”

  “Gee, thanks. And it’s the kid. This is how it works.”

  “Reeeallly.” He drew out the word in musical astonishment. “I’ve only ever seen them after they’ve hatched. It seems so...bestial.”

  Oddly, I laughed. Maybe it was Puck’s solid good spirits. I smoothed my hands over my straining belly. “That’s not a bad word for it—pretty close to how I feel.”

  “You always did feel more than the rest of us,” he observed, prancing closer, his fascinated gaze following my hands. “May I do that?”

  “What—touch my belly? Sure.”

  He held out his hands but didn’t quite close, as if afraid to touch a flame. Taking his wrists, I pressed his palms against me. His eyes—one grass-green, one sky-blue—opened wide. “It’s...moving,” he whispered.

  “Yes.” I couldn’t help myself. I added in a creepy tone, “It’s aliiive.”

  He laughed and booped the tip of my nose. “I told you so, Sorceress Gwynn.”

  “Told me what?”

  “That it would be grand fun. Didn’t I say so? And it has.” He spun off, dancing around the room in an aban
doned jig.

  Bemused, I shook my head at his antics. “Why are you here, Puck?”

  “Instead of there? Now that’s a very good question to ask. One you should consider.” He picked up the rubber ducky off my workbench. “Do you like it? I always liked the toys best. Your world comes up with the most delightfully absurd ideas. Or absurdly delightful ones—whichever way you prefer it.”

  “You’ve been there.” Well, boy howdy. This explained so damn much.

  “But you knew that. You recognize me.”

  “I feel sure I would have remembered you.” I swept a hand at his outrageous appearance. Nothing like an inhumanly tall, gangly and fundamentally clashing fae to draw attention in the human world.

  “I am that merry wanderer of the night.” Puck singsonged the line. “Now do you remember?”

  Oh, he meant not personally, but in the way he surfaced in the plays and stories. “But you brought me this rubber ducky.”

  “You were so sad. I thought it would please you. People like to have things to remind them of where they were born. And where they grew up. Which aren’t always the same place.”

  “It did. It does. How can you go back and forth, though? Can you do it at will? What’s the mechanism?” I looked for my grimoire, wanting to get the details on this. Puck laid his hand, festooned with glittering rings, on the book. Holding it closed.

  “It’s who I am. It’s what I do.” He sounded uncharacteristically serious. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “No.” I had no compunction admitting that. “Can you explain?”

  “You can put a pig in a pond, but you can’t make him swim.”

  I tried reassembling the sequence of images in my head and still came up with nothing.

  “You can bake a pie with four and twenty blackbirds, or only one. When you open it, they’ll sing.”

  “Blackbirds? Do you know where Blackbird and Fergus are?”