Fafnir regarded the sky, eyes tracking something I couldn’t see. Then a galloping horse flew across the moon, morphing into a fragment of cloud. I stared in wonder.
“The Wild Hunt gathers,” Fafnir observed.
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t know it? It rides through your world also.”
“Um, we really don’t have horses galloping across the sky—sorry to disappoint you.”
He leaned back against the stone balustrade, seeming not to feel the bite of the wind. “You simply saw what you expected. With the dying of the year comes the hunt, gathering up stray mortal souls from your world and this. The autumn winds tear through the skies, now taking form, now vanishing again.”
“How can the hunt move through both worlds—I thought no one could go back and forth through the Veil.”
“The Veil grows thin this time of year and the worlds come closer together. Cecily came through around this time.” He tipped his head back again, watching the sky. “Ah, I miss her still. It’s an unnatural thing, for your kind to mix with ours. Only grief comes of it.”
“Seems like you had some joy and love before the sorrow.”
“What good is a sweet flavor if only the bitterness of regret lingers in your mouth?”
“What do you regret, Lord Fafnir?”
He laughed, a hollow sound. “So many things. Your life is so fresh and new. You cannot possibly understand how regrets pile up like stones, a tomb that crushes but never kills.”
“You’re not much like the other fae nobles I’ve met.”
“No.” He looked at me again. “I was there when Cecily died and yet I do not remember her death. What do you make of that, Lady Sorceress who knows more than she ought?”
“I don’t know what to think of that.”
“Liar,” he said softly. “Who are you protecting—me? You cannot wound me, for I am already the walking dead. Tell me what you know and I shall owe you a favor.”
“Any favor whenever I ask for it? That’s an enormous thing to offer without caveats.”
“I am not like the other fae you’ve met because I have nothing left to lose. There is nothing you could ask of me that it would harm me to give to you. I care for nothing, therefore I have nothing I cannot give up.”
I didn’t see a reason not to, though I believed it would hurt him more than he thought to hear Nancy’s story. So, for the second time that night, I told the story. Funny how horrible images that haunt one’s head lose their power when described aloud. The tale didn’t quite drive me the way it had before, though I found myself hesitating when I got to the point where Nancy went upstairs to check on Cecily.
Fafnir had dropped his head while listening, gray hair like the shredded clouds overhead draping his severe face. He hadn’t moved or commented, keeping his thoughts very close. When I paused, though, he spoke. “Go on. Finish it.” A sound of a stone door scraping against rock.
I did, tucking my freezing fingers under my arms inside the cloak.
“She is buried there, at this inn?” he finally asked.
“I think so. Or nearby. And the favor I ask of you is that you will not take any form of reprisal against Mistress Nancy or anything she cares about.”
He studied me then. “You’d squander your favor in this way?”
“I don’t consider it a waste.”
“Keep your favor. I will visit Nancy and reward her for the care she gave Cecily.”
“She’ll be frightened to see you.”
His thin mouth twisted in a wry grimace. “That thought had occurred to me, Lady Gwynn—I shall approach the situation carefully.”
“Okay, then I’ll ask for something else.”
“You are quick to exhaust this debt. Are you sure you don’t want to save it?”
“I don’t like open-ended accounts.”
“Then what?”
“I’m taking Walter with me and will decide what to do with him. No public sentencing.”
“You’re within your rights to make Walter your slave if you wish. Keep the favor, open-ended or not. Though the crowd will be disappointed.”
“My hearts weeps.”
His brittle laugh whispered over me at that. “You remind me of Cecily. I think you would have liked each other.”
“Did you love her?” I surprised myself by asking it. My bruised heart speaking for me.
Weariness creased his face. “We are not as you are. Do not experience the world in the same way and yet...” He smiled, a heartbreaking expression crossing his distinguished face. “I think I did.”
We were quiet and I felt I should say something more. Anything. “But you don’t remember any of what happened then?”
“Pieces. Fragments. Incandescence should not have been there and yet, now that I know, I see her face, that silver-clad bitch.”
I realized then that what I’d taken for acquiescence and sorrow in him was instead a hugely bitter rage, tightly contained—and all the more explosive for it.
“Tell me.” His face looked lean and haunted in the moonlight. Maniacal laughter drifted on the wind, howling through the towers. “Do you believe I killed her? Took my sword and carved our child from her still-living belly?”
“I don’t know.” I whispered it and he nodded.
“That time you told the truth. Tell me this one—do you carry Rogue’s child?”
“No.”
He cocked his head with a shade of doubt. “If that’s so, why does he not dance attendance upon you?”
“You mean, since the goal of the game hinges on impregnating me?”
Fafnir just gazed at me, inscrutable. Not that I thought he’d be able to discuss it.
“My Lord Rogue is currently dancing attendance on the Queen Bitch.”
His gaze darkened. “Then she believes you to be with child. How very interesting. Does Rogue?”
My own memory blank haunted me. Surely I would have known from the evidence of my body if we’d done more than I remembered. More—I knew I would never agreed to intercourse and I couldn’t believe he would have done so without my enthusiastic compliance. A great deal rested on me believing that.
“I think he knows I’m not.”
“Even more interesting. Have a care, Lady Gwynn. Step carefully.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“And a word to the wise. Never think it’s a game. Nothing is more serious.”
* * *
In the morning there was no sign of Fafnir and I felt quite certain I knew where he’d gone. Walter, however, joined us on the high tower where the glass coach still waited and I sighed at the sight of him. I’d hoped to drop him off somewhere, but Starling had told me he remained quite determined.
“You really don’t have to do this, Walt.”
He sneered at me, but his gaze went to the staff Athena carried. “I can handle anything you can, Gwynnie. I’ll take my punishment like a man and then we can duel again. I’ll win my staff back.”
“What if I told you there’s a way back through the Veil?”
“How?”
“The Wild Hunt. It’s gathering now and they move back and forth between the worlds.”
Walter laughed at me, holding his jiggling belly. “Odin’s hunt? With carnivorous horses and the hounds of hell? No. Thank. You.”
“You know something about it?”
“Hey, I read. Or did, when there were books.”
A tornadic gust of wind warned of the dragon’s approach and I hurried into the coach, with Darling Hercules in my arms. I didn’t want to run the risk of him reverting to cat too soon and dashing off to hide. Walter’s bulk made the interior of the coach a tight fit. To my surprise, Starling took the seat next to him without complaint. Blackbird settled herself next to me and Athena sat cross-legged on the floor, keeping the staff out of Walter’s reach.
I’d experimented with it some the night before, with Starling keeping an eye on me for odd behavior, like a spotter standing by in case a weig
ht lifter gets in trouble. I reconstituted the grimoire which, to my great relief, manifested carrying every last one of my notes, even what I’d written down moments before Walter’s dragon snatched us. Using the crystal, I tried solidifying the spell. I decided against the one on my hair, since I could see permanence there being a real drawback.
Starling carried the grimoire and Walter looked over her shoulder in interest at it.
“Hey—is that a book?”
“My book. Yes.” I answered for her.
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
“Aww, come on.”
“It’s her grimoire,” Starling explained. “It’s full of super secret magical incantations.”
Walter raised an eyebrow at me and I restrained myself from squirming. Who was the humbug now? “Nicely played, Gwynnie.”
“Shut up or I’ll negotiate you a bad deal with Marquise and Scourge.”
“No you won’t,” he replied with confidence as the dragon’s talons closed over the glass. “You don’t have it in you. Hey—your hair looks like crap.”
I thought of Fafnir’s face as he considered whether he might have wielded the sword that ended Cecily’s life. Did any of us really know what monsters lurked inside? Not always. Sometimes not until we faced ourselves in the mirror and saw the image, splashed with blood of the ones we loved most.
Chapter Twenty
In Which I Face the Monster(s) in the Dark
The pattern of lines on fae faces seems to be an external manifestation of their internal state. A barometer of the “not self” within.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules of Magic”
The dragon took us directly to Marquise and Scourge’s castle—I suspect more at Walter’s bidding than mine. Especially since I really did not want to go. At first, I told myself that I’d come a long way. I’d faced various trials and those two held no power over me. I could hand over Walt to his foolishly chosen fate and walk away. But, as we traveled, my calm thinned, giving way to a frost of fear. Though I tried to think of other things, flutters of terror cast shadows over my thoughts, scattering them. Clammy panic edged in with gnawing bites as the silent edifice came into view. What had possessed me to think I could do this?
I couldn’t.
But however the dragon had known our destination, it now did not hear my increasingly strident thoughts to take us somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Inexorably fast, we closed on the castle and, for a wild moment, I pictured myself clawing against the glass, scrabbling to escape like a frantic hamster trapped in one of those clear plastic exercise balls.
Not a pretty image.
Darling Hercules had once again abandoned me for Athena’s clearly superior belly scratches, and Blackbird had her eyes closed in an apparent nap. Walter and Starling continued to chatter, as they had for most of the journey. I hadn’t paid attention to their conversation, but looking for anything to distract myself from the shrieks bouncing around the inside of my skull, I listened in.
“But the dragons don’t eat flesh—they only eat the apples,” Walter explained.
“Then why do they carry animals off?” Starling pointed out.
“Probably because some wizard or sorceress commands them to.”
“So dragons only do what they’re told?”
“Definitely not. They won’t do anything that doesn’t sound like fun.”
“Hard to imagine a dragon wanting to have fun.”
“Really? Everybody likes to have fun, Star.”
She pinked prettily and looked over at me, her forehead creasing. “Are you okay, Gwynn? You’re looking like...”
“Like she’s gonna hurl,” Walter confirmed. “Shoot it the other way, chickie.”
Blackbird’s eyes snapped open and Athena studied me with concern. This had to be the worst part of being the walking wounded. How everyone thought you were so great until you just collapsed into a broken heap of pitifulness.
“Just let me get through this,” I told them, closing my eyes and concentrating on finding the protective nothing place.
“But Gwynn, maybe we should—” Starling started in.
“No, Star,” Walt unexpectedly stopped her. “Leave her be.”
I cranked one eye open to give Walter a stare of disbelief.
He shrugged, scratching his greasy chin. “Yeah, I know—I called you chicken and nagged you into this. I didn’t realize you’d go this psycho about it.”
“Then you’ve changed your mind.”
“No. I can’t.” He glanced at Starling. “I know I’m a little shit. If I’m ever going to be more than that, then I need this Scared Straight deal.”
I surprised myself by laughing a little. “Honey, you have no idea.”
He nodded, fleshy jowls bouncing, looking more than a little afraid. “I figure as much. But I gotta do this. Do or die, right, Gwynnie?”
My lips curved into a rueful smile, cracking the chapped skin. I let out a long breath. “You’re a fool, Walter.”
“At least I know it.” He grinned and gave me a little two-fingered salute.
Then the ground rushed up and we hit the emerald green grass with a solid thunk of reality. The dragon—I wasn’t sure if it was the same one I’d “talked” to or not—labored aloft again. Stranded. And in my least favorite place in all of Faerie.
And there was some stiff competition for that honor.
“Athena, I’ll take the staff now.”
The fact that she handed it to me without hesitation and Starling didn’t breathe a word of protest spoke volumes. Don’t upset the unstable person. As if they’d planned it—who knows, maybe they had—they all climbed out of the glass coach and left me to come out at my own speed. Except for Darling, who sat quietly beside me until I was ready.
“What would I do without you?” I ran my fingers through his plush fur and he purred, sending a picture of me sitting there, bored and lonely.
“It’s true.”
He arched his back under my hand, then leaped like dandelion fluff to the floor of the coach and looked inquiringly from me to the door. The dragon had gone and I could hardly sit in here forever. Though, at the moment, that prospect seemed entirely possible and definitely more enticing. I might have done it, if only the glass hadn’t been, you know, now totally transparent and worthless for hiding behind.
I decided not to fix my hair, to face them as I was. The small defiance shored me up, oddly enough. I had nothing to hide.
So I got out.
Sounded so simple. Took every last dreg of courage I could muster.
And they waited for me, Marquise and Scourge, my erstwhile masters, iridescently beautiful as ever. Arms wrapped around each other’s waists, her bright head leaning against his dark one at identical angles, they smiled at me with sensuous warmth. They held open their free arms in invitation, as if I might join them in a three-way embrace.
I stopped right where I was.
“Lord Scourge. Lady Marquise.” I gave them a bare and formal nod. “I’ve brought you a new pupil. I expect you to treat him well.”
Marquise let go of Scourge and took a step forward, holding out lovely hands to me, her crystalline eyes like Christmas ornaments, sparkling with pleasure. “I thought perhaps you’d come back to play with us, little pet. We’ve missed you so.”
“Indeed.” Scourge followed her, laying an ebony hand on her alabaster shoulder. “Perhaps you’d like to stay for a while. The collar doesn’t have to be silver. You can obey simply because you desire it.” His voice dropped in timbre. “Because I require it.”
I studied the grass, trying to keep my gorge from rising past the hard knot in my throat.
“Or—” Marquise clasped the hands I’d refused to touch, “—you could help train the new pupil. I think you might have a knack for it. The most submissive pets often make the severest masters.”
I raised my eyes to their hopeful, seductive smiles, then made myself look at the others. Walter stared a
t Marquise with horrified fascination, unable to tear his eyes from her gorgeous body, fully displayed in a loose dress of copper net. Starling gazed at me with a stricken look, as if she might burst into tears at any moment. Blackbird kept a serene expression while Athena looked between me and the sadistic twins with calculation. Darling Hercules stood beside me, tail wrapped around my ankle.
“Definitely not, Marquise.”
She tilted her head, sly and pouting. “I think you underestimate yourself. You have a new cruelty. Almost animal.” She shivered in delicate, deliberate arousal. “I’d be your pet, if you asked me. Scourge would like that.”
“Ah,” Scourge rasped, “ecstasy incarnate. The new pupil will need to...stew...for several days, as you know. Come play with us. Perhaps you’ll find your cure in the poison. There are many tricks we can teach you, if you’ll let us. Ways to use your magical skills to drive a being beyond the edge of reason.”
I’d been beyond that edge and I recognized the lure in what they offered.
“I have better things to do.” Something tight broke inside me, in release and relief. The truth of it rang strong and true. Whatever else I might become, after all the ways they’d twisted and molded me, they had never touched the fundamental core of who I was. I had become someone with important things to do. Missions of my own making, perhaps, but all the more integral for that reason.
“So here’s the deal. Walter here needs to learn to maximize his magic.”
“Does he?” Marquise fastened her avid attention on Walt, who went bug-eyed with delighted terror when she ran her hands through his hair and used her inexorable strength to force him to his knees. It never paid to forget the strength of the noble fae. Their limbs might look spun-glass delicate, but that magically amplified superior leverage trumped everything.
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