by May Dawson
The cobblestone streets shone under the moonlight, and awnings decorated the rows of small, colorfully painted shops with apartments above.
At this time of evening, the low Fae owned the streets. A pair of female goblins loped past us arm-in-arm, their long, quivering ears pierced a dozen times and decorated with hoops.
A troll stomped by, his toothy face irritated. He passed a family of wood sprites, who appeared to be carved out of wood. Despite being almost all leg, with long arms dangling from their knotted bodies, they moved at a slow, languorous pace. Somehow the wood nymph children moved even slower than their parents, falling slowly behind until their parents turned to whisper at them. Then they managed to lope a little faster to catch up.
Alisa smiled at the sight. “I guess not much changes between worlds.”
“I don’t know if that’s a comforting thought or a terrifying one.” I glanced up and down the street, then squeezed her hand. “Let’s get you a disguise before someone recognizes you.”
“How are you going to disguise this?” she said, tugging on the ends of her long lavender hair—hair that symbolized to all just who she and Faer were.
“Trust me, I’m resourceful.”
“I know you’re resourceful, and that’s exactly why I wonder sometimes how trustworthy you are,” she teased.
I felt a jolt at her words, even though she was just being glib.
I pulled her into a shop. Clothes hung from pegs all over the walls and were stacked up on tables; mannequins with eerie, enormous eyes stared blankly into the distance as they modeled gowns.
“We need to cover up all this hair,” I murmured, picking up a red hood embroidered with gold thread and seed pearls.
She looked at me skeptically. “I don’t know what to make of that. The shape says nun, but the colors say mardi gras.”
“Nun, huh?” I picked up the gauzy wisp of red that went with it as a shirt.
“If I can dress myself, I’ll take it.” She swiped it from me.
The two of us pulled a few things for her to try on, then as the shopkeeper left her counter in the back and headed down the aisle, I pushed Alisa through the curtain into the dressing room. I didn’t want anyone to know who she truly was.
She emerged a few minutes later, a bemused smile on her face. Every bit of her hair was hidden by the cowl, but her shoulders and flat stomach were exposed by the wisps of red fabric that clung to her body like flames. Matching pants hung low on her hips, the satiny fabric loose and flowing.
“These feel like fancy pajamas,” she said. “So comfy and easy to move in. If I weren’t afraid I’d accidentally flash someone, this would be a great Hunting outfit.”
“If your prey is male, it might help you get the jump on them,” I managed.
We each picked out a pair of shoes since we’d gone barefoot. Once we paid, we headed out into the night. Street vendors were roasting food over fires as we neared the main square, and the scent of smoking meat and toasting nuts filled the air.
Raucous fiddle music played loudly from the square, and Alisa groaned at the sound. “I’ve had enough of parties for a lifetime.”
“No party with Faer is much of a celebration,” I said. “Just come see.”
I held out my hand, and I felt oddly gratified when she gave me a skeptical smile and clasped my fingers with hers.
“What are they celebrating?” she asked.
“Does there need to be something to celebrate?” I asked. “Life is hard around here. Maybe the harder life is, the more desperate we become for whatever joy we can find.”
Her mouth opened, but I didn’t want to answer the question that might form on those beautiful lips.
“Dance with me,” I said, tugging her toward me. She might look at me skeptically, but she still let me pull her close and slip my arm around her waist. I reminded her, “Azrael kept me away from all those parties. Let me dance with you now.”
She came with me as I danced her across the cobblestones, moving ever closer to the music, but the expression on her face was pensive.
“Why did Azrael keep you away? Really?” she asked, a frown creasing between her brows.
I hated for her to think badly of Azrael. Maybe she shouldn’t trust him—or any of us—completely. But Azrael was one of the best Fae I’d ever met.
“Faer barely tolerates me,” I admitted. “Because I come from the Winter court, he doesn’t trust me. Azrael has always protected me in the past, but now he’s just about all out of favors, all out of influence.”
“Because of you?”
I winced at her blunt words. “Yes, I suppose so. That’s part of why Duncan misses the front so much. In a strange way, it felt safer for us all there.”
“It’s not just because Duncan lives to tear things apart with his bare hands?”
“Well, you know we don’t have television here,” I said.
The two of us emerged from the street and the shadows of the towering buildings around us into the square.
“He grows on you, you know,” I said quietly. “He’s gruff and mean, but he’d do anything for the people he cares about.”
“I can see that,” she said, “but it’s not much of a redeeming feature unless you’re one of those people.”
She was one of those people, no matter how hard Duncan tried to pretend she wasn’t. But that was something they both needed to figure out for themselves.
Still, when the two of us began to dance, she seemed to lose herself for a while in the whirling crowd. Horns and tails and faces both monstrous and beautiful flashed behind her, but once she began to smile, I could barely register anything but her face. Her body was warm and lithe against mine, the music bright, and for a few moments, nothing mattered but the two of us and the way our bodies moved in easy rhythm together.
When the two of us finally stumbled out of the crowd, I felt lighter than I had in years, with my arm around her waist.
“Let’s buy something to drink,” I began, then felt someone loom ahead of me. I pulled my gaze away from Alisa’s laughing face and stared right into a belly-button. An enormous expanse of white belly floated in front of me.
I looked up to find a snow troll.
The snow troll. Gior, the only snow troll who was both smart enough to survive and foolish enough to live openly in summer court territory.
Now wasn’t an awesome time, not with Alisa.
He stared down at me with that surly expression on his face that all trolls had, no matter the occasion. I shook my head, trying to warn him off.
Gior looked at Alisa, cocking his head to one side. His body swung as he looked back at me. He looked again at Alisa. The frown-lines of confusion that ran across his enormous forehead puckered deeper than usual.
“This one is pretty,” he said to me. “Why?”
“Why what?” she asked sharply.
“Why are you with him?”
Her tension evaporated like the morning mist, and she laughed. “We’re not together.”
Gior let out a low grumble that could have meant just about anything. I didn’t particularly want to find out what.
“I’d love to catch up,” I told Gior, “but Al…ah, Alandra… and I have plans tonight. We should talk soon!”
I caught Alisa’s narrow wrist and began to pull her past him. Gior lagged for a second; he was always slow to move that big body around. I wondered how he had possibly survived the butchering of the winter court.
But before I could go far, his big hand settled on my shoulder, and my knees buckled as if I’d just been slammed with a shovel.
Alisa swung around, stepping into a fighting stance, ready to fight for me. It was oddly touching, but I knew Gior didn’t mean any harm. He gripped my shoulder so I wouldn’t fall.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I always forget how flimsy you bird-fairies are.”
“Not bird-fairies,” I disagreed.
“Bug fairies,” he tried again.
“What do you want, Gior
?” I demanded, then realized I shouldn’t have asked that.
I was in trouble if Gior spoke openly in front of Alisa. He meant well, but it wasn’t his nature to be guarded.
Trolls didn’t bother with deception; they usually worked out their problems with more of a smashing technique.
“Two winter troll cubs,” he began.
I shook my head frantically; I’d have slapped my hand over his big meaty jaw if I could’ve reached it. “Not here.”
“It has to be now,” he grumbled. “They’re out of time.”
Alisa looked at me curiously.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll take care of it. Where are they?”
I wished I could meet with him secretly instead of asking in front of Alisa, but the odds weren’t good I could sneak out of the castle again tonight.
He checked our surroundings, his knuckles dragging the cobblestone as his body swung. I pinched the bridge of my nose; trolls make terrible spies. But he was brave enough to go against Faer and his cronies to protect our court. I couldn’t fault him for that.
Although, as I watched him slowly try to maneuver his body in a circle, there were plenty of other things I faulted him for.
I said, “Out with it, Gior. By the time you finish looking around, there’ll be a squad of kings’ guard behind you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. He stopped to turn around completely, revolving slowly in front of us.
Meanwhile, Alisa eyed me curiously. I didn’t want her to have any inklings of my true identity, but Gior’s request was a pretty inconvenient clue.
Gior finally finished his runway turn and leaned in to whisper, “The old north den.”
The scent of rotted fish washed over me along with the hot whisper, and I winced. “All right, Gior. I’ll take care of them. Don’t go back there. I worry you’re being watched.”
He winked at me, but whenever Gior winked, it took both eyes.
“Goodbye, friend,” I briefly clasped his arm—and staggered as his big hand wrapped around mine with too much force—then finally, finally managed to break away.
Alisa let me take her hand as we walked through streets that seemed even busier now, even though the moon was at its peak, full and bright like a coin above us.
“Tiron,” she said sweetly as soon as we started down a quiet side street, “I have some questions.”
“I don’t have any answers for you, Princess,” I told her, but I already knew that answer wouldn’t fly.
Chapter Forty-Four
Alisa
I stopped and faced Tiron, chewing my lower lip. His mind was obviously racing, even though he offered me that usual easy handsome smile when he told me that he didn’t have any answers.
Because he didn’t trust me.
Clearly, he was trying to protect those trolls from his own court, which had almost been destroyed. We didn’t know each other well. It made sense that he didn’t trust me…not with the shreds of his kingdom.
“Okay,” I said. “Is there some trick to getting back into the castle? Or can I fly back on my own?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “That’s not happening. I’ll… I’ll fly you home.”
“Okay.”
He glanced at me as we headed down the streets toward the docks, the scent of the sea growing ever sharper and more pungent. The air between us felt thick with tension.
“What are you up to, Alisa?” he asked finally.
“Nothing. Looking forward to going home and curling up, drinking some—” I cut myself off as I realized I was down a maid, and every time I left my room I found myself in trouble, and I lived in a world without Diet Coke now. “Tea, I guess. If I’m lucky.”
I missed my crappy little apartment and Wi-Fi and grocery shopping and doing whatever the hell I wanted, without having the entire summer court judging my every movement.
But I wasn’t going to try to go back, even though I missed the human world. Something was very wrong; Tiron was trying to help those trolls because my kingdom had turned rotten.
I understood if he didn’t trust me. But one day, I was going to earn his trust.
He glanced at me sharply. “It’s that easy? I have that very weird conversation with the troll—although to be honest, there’s no other kind of conversation to have with a troll—and you just smile and move on? What are you really up to, Alisa?”
“Oh my god.” Males, no matter the species, were impossible. “You don’t want me to pry, correct? So here I am. Not prying. Or did you want a different response?”
He was still frowning, so I decided to try the different response out for size and see how he liked them. I caught his arm and told him, “Tiron, don’t you dare leave me out. I insist on going with you and helping you.”
His frown deepened. He was beginning to look as confused as the troll.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded, letting go of him so I could spread my arms in exasperation.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. Then he shook his head slowly, a smile crossing those lush, kissable lips. “You’re not what I expected.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Even though Duncan made it clear he didn’t expect the new Alisa to last.
“Maybe, maybe not.” One corner of his lips lifted. “Maybe my life would be easier if you were the villain, Alisa.”
“Don’t you mean, Ah-Alandra?”
His smile widened into something real. “Never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Never,” I promised him. “You’re usually so smooth. It was kind of nice to see your human side.”
He huffed a laugh at that, and I said, “You know what I mean.”
“Come on, we’ve got a journey ahead of us,” he said. “And we have to make it back to the castle before Duncan comes looking for us to train in the morning.”
I could have groaned at the thought of facing Duncan’s quips—and the stinging flat blade of Duncan’s practice sword—without any rest. But a warm glow spread through my chest, and I held my tongue. Tiron wanted me with him.
“Lead on,” I said.
The city gates rose ahead of us, closed; the shadowy figures of two guards stood in front of them. I followed Tiron’s gaze to spot enormous winged Fae squatting on top of the walls, so still that at first I mistook them for statues. Maybe we could fly over the sea undetected, but I supposed it would take us a while. I glanced at Tiron curiously, but he pulled me to one side down an alleyway.
“There’s an aqueduct,” he told me, opening a door covered with ornate scrollwork in the side of a building.
“Are you sure it’s not a sewer?”
His grin spread. “Travel with me and you’ll only ever travel in style, Princess.”
His infectious smile was impossible not to resist, no matter where he took me. I followed his broad shoulders as he led the way down unending circular steps. We descended into darkness, and I heard a low, constant rush of water. At least it smelled no worse than the sea.
It grew dark enough that I had to feel with my toes for each step. Tiron muttered a word, and a ball of light formed in his palm. He said another word, and the ball of light shot upward and followed us, illuminating our path.
If I couldn’t trust Tiron, if he had some grudge against me, I could die down here.
The thought came to my mind once—I was a Hunter, after all—and then I dismissed it. I was taking a risk, but my gut said Tiron was a friend.
Why would I trust a note from the same person who stole my memories and shoved me out of my world, anyway? The note nagged at me. Why would my enemy want to make sure I knew my name and that I could defend myself? Had it been someone close to me—someone who still cared about me?
There were just a few names on that list.
Tiron raised his hand, white sparks forming at his fingertips. The water ahead of us froze, forming a long trail that led down the tunnel ahead of us. He held his other hand out to me, and I wrapped my fingers around his.
&nbs
p; “Winter court powers?” I asked.
“Being the sixth son might mean I don’t inherit material things, but it didn’t change what kind of magic I inherited.”
“I need to learn about my summer magic.” The ice was slick under my slippers, but Tiron seemed surefooted, so I matched his pace. I knew he’d catch me if I started to slip. “I know Azrael can’t teach me much without getting on the wrong side of Faer. Maybe I can find a tutor from the summer court.”
Somehow. Even though I didn’t know who to trust here.
“I don’t know summer magic,” he said, “But I’ll teach you what I can, Alisa.”
He taught me the words to his light spell as we walked along the icy path. The sound of water rushing underfoot and the constant crackle of the ice breaking apart faded as I focused.
Warmth swept over my skin as I formed the words. The light that blossomed in my hand was so bright I closed my eyes, and the sound of cracking ice was suddenly loud in my ears.
“Things I learned today,” Tiron said hastily. “Summer magic is hot.”
I tossed my ball of light into the air the same way he had, and the two of us ran as the ice began to crack apart under our feet. He muttered his spell again, magic sparking at his fingertips, as he began to try to heal our icy path underneath our feet.
The ice broke apart between us, and he leapt onto my ice floe, which rocked under his weight. He grabbed me close, pulling me against all that ropy muscle. The tunnel was too narrow for his wings, but suddenly the water was all ice around us again.
“Wrong place to practice,” I said with a laugh.
He was still holding me tight, and he made no move to pull away.
“I’m a terrible teacher,” he murmured. “Don’t tell Azrael.”
“Your secrets are safe with me,” I promised.
I meant that promise in every way, and I hoped he knew that.
I couldn’t imagine anything I’d find in my memories that would change how I felt.
“I know,” he said.
The ice rocked underfoot, our bodies swaying with the movement of the water that still rushed underneath. There were little flecks of silver and gold in his emerald green eyes.