by Brindi Quinn
I would soon come to find out what an accurate observation that was.
Chapter 11
Goddess Save the Queen
Windley’s childhood home—though I didn’t know it as such at the time—was a brick two-story lined with a neat row of shrubs out front.
To me, the design of it was strange and boxy, like a brick rectangle topped with a slanted roof. Houses didn’t look like that back in the queenlands. Ours were squatter, cozier, with crooked chimneys and thatch between the cracks. Windley had once called them gnome homes, though I hadn’t any idea what a gnome was.
Through a veil of eyelashes, I took in as much of the foyer as I could. A stand for coats, portraits upon the walls, floors made of wood. It was warm inside, enough to rosy the cheeks, as fire blazed in an adjoining room.
The clean tap of shoes against the polished floor signaled someone approaching.
“Eddy! Did you bring him! Did you bring—! Oh! You brought her.”
I recognized that playful tone.
‘Seems like a magical reaction and not a hex to me. Let me taste her and find out, Master Ascian? Please?’
“Pip,” said Edius. “Where’s Master?”
“Not back yet,” said Pip. “He sent me and Charm on ahead to prepare the house… Hey, what’s going on with your face?”
“Just transformed back. I was wearing a mask so that the human wouldn’t curse me on the way here. Still got the wrong nose.”
I fought my eyelids to get a look at the imposter’s real face, but it was no use. The warmth from that fire was siding with the beguilement already swimming through my veins.
“Good call! Oh! Did you notice? Doesn’t she look just like Flo—”
“Where’s Charm?” Edius interrupted.
“In the bath.”
“And your… uh… creature?” said Edius.
“Sleeping.”
Creature?
“Okay, Pip, listen to me. Until Master Ascian gets back, I need you to lock yourself in your room with the human. Don’t open the door for anyone but him. Can you do that?”
“O-okay, Eddy,” said Pip. “But why?”
“I don’t want Charm to spoil her before Master gets home.”
We were walking now, up the stairs, Edius’s determined footsteps followed by Pip’s scampering ones.
“But Pip, remember what the human did in the forest?” continued Edius. “She’s dangerous, so you need to keep her beguiled the whole time, okay? Her magic wounded the Master—think of what it could do to you.”
I had wounded Ascian? What a lovely, lovely surprise.
Pip let out an uncertain groan. “But Windalloy will be mad at me if I do that…”
“He’ll be even madder if she gets loose and Charm destroys her, won’t he?”
We were stopped now, in front of a doorway.
“I guess so,” said Pip.
Edius brought me into the belly of a warm room and set me on what felt to be a quilted bed. “You have your key, Pip?”
“Right here!”
“Good. Now, she’s full of me at the moment, so she shouldn’t stir, but if she does, even the slightest bit, give her more. Watch her breathing, Pip. You know what to look for?”
Pip must have nodded, for I heard Edius’s steps trail from the room.
“And one more thing, Pip. Once you taste her, it may be tough to stop, but you have to. Think of what the Master will do if you drain her before he gets home. And think about how sad Windalloy will be if you devour his special snack. You understand?”
“Yes, Eddy.”
“Good boy.”
With that, I heard the door shut, followed by the satisfying clunk of a heavy key setting into and turning a lock. After, the room was silent but for the popping of another fire.
The shuffling of Pip’s nervous feet drew near, stepping over a creaky floorboard on the way.
Pip. The boy Windley had left behind when fleeing to the north. A source of immeasurable guilt and strife. The brother he cared for enough to betray my spell from hitting Ascian.
My first instinct was to steal a look of him and the room.
My second was somewhat wiser. If I stirred, Pip was instructed to subdue me. Instead, I needed to keep my heartbeat even, my breathing deep, and listen for the echoes to become clearer. If I could help it, I needed to find a way out of this room without injuring the boy still close to Windley’s existent heart.
I could feel him, leaning over me, his imprint at the side of the bed.
“Q-Queen lion?” said a whisper as a pudgy finger poked into my cheek.
I felt him lean closer.
“Windalloy never liked taking pets. Guess he does now.”
Through nearly shut eyes, I saw his silhouette examining me.
“You smell like him a little. Your spirits must have mixed a lot. Are you the reason he stayed gone so long?”
It was a moment I can only describe as soft, for the tone in Pip’s voice was familiar—the same Windley had used when recounting his memories of the boy.
These two were bonded by their shared trials.
I had determined Windley to be innocent of his crimes. Was Pip the same?
Were all of Ascian’s ‘children’?
No, captive ones. Some of them were indeed villains.
Pip leaned away. “Windalloy will be mad that I helped.”
He seemed to be talking to himself now, rather than at me. What had Charmagne called him? ‘Impressionable’? I could see it. He sounded like a person that could be easily swayed—like someone walking a tightrope, ready to topple in whichever way the wind blew. And it seemed that after all this time, he still cared what Windley thought of him.
The diplomat in me wanted to try reasoning with him, but the risk was too great. I had to get a better read on him first. Whatever Windley thought of him, eight years was enough time for a person to change.
Windley himself was proof.
A spattering of rain against glass caused Pip to straighten. “Starting up again,” he observed toward what I assumed to be the window. “It’s been raining off and on all day. Too bad Eddy didn’t bring Windalloy. Rain’s his favorite, ‘specially at night.”
Yeah, we were the same in that regard. He had never said it, but I had seen the contentment on his face once or twice listening to rain pelt against the tree fortress’s belvedere. A symphony of chaos, comforting no matter how disorganized, no matter how angry; a barrage of renewal.
“Queen lion?”
Pip’s voice was near again.
“I know you’re awake. You’ve been awake, haven’t you? I’m good with heartbeats. Better than Eddy and the others.”
Again, I felt him leaning over me.
“The magical reaction may be gone from your feet, but there’s still magic in you, I can tell. You understand, right? I have to do it. So you don’t hurt us.”
By ‘it,’ he meant the slow trail of his fingernails from my inner elbow to my wrist, sending a familiar warming sensation through my blood.
There was no use biding my time now.
I opened my eyes to find his staring down at me—though they weren’t any gleaming color. They were dark, the way Windley kept his most of the time. His face was as boyish as I remembered, his cheeks pinked from the warmth of the room, his hair a light shade of purple. He looked at me as a stray animal might look when offered food—curiosity battling fear.
“You do taste nice,” he said slowly, drawing his fingertips lightly in a circle pattern over my palm. “Clean, like an innocent, but a little… spicy.” He chuckled to himself. “So that’s what Windalloy likes.” He slipped his opposite hand under the back of mine. “T-tell me about him? I’ll let you stay awake if you do. But only if you promise not to hurt me.”
Throat like dust, I did my best to acknowledge the terms.
“That was a yes?” said Pip.
I mustered a nod.
“Okay! But—” Pip’s eyes flashed golden yellow. “If you try
to move, the deal’s off.” He squeezed my hand. “Mmkay?”
I closed my eyes and tried to compose against his subduing power. “De…Deal.”
Though I said so, his eyes didn’t change back. They were lemony pools, holding me tight—a color of spring. His expression was somewhat firmer now, as if the soft edges had hardened.
And did he suddenly look older?
“P…Pip?” I struggled to clear the dust from my throat. “I’m M…Merrin.”
“Merrin,” Pip repeated like he was tasting it. “How long have you known Windalloy?”
I considered lying but didn’t see the point. I didn’t know Pip enough to know which lie to tell. So I sided with truth, hoping it might lend me a means for escape.
“I’ve known him more than eight years,” I said.
Pip paused his beguiling mid-stroke. “Wow! Ever since he left?”
I nodded, words coming freer with his hand no longer in motion. “After he left home, he traveled north, beyond the Emerald Wood, where he trained to become a royal knight—my best friend’s knight, actually. She’s a queen, like me.”
“So you really are a queen. Charm said that’s why you smell different.” But this was of secondary interest to him. Pip’s real takeaway was: “A royal knight. For a queen.” His eyes shined in a manner different from a beguiling’s normal shimmer. It was the shine of admiration.
Pip idolized Windley.
“Would you like to hear more?” I said, hoping to keep him distracted. “Wind’s an amazing fighter. He’s quick with a weapon and has flair when he fights. And he’s brave. He’s gone headfirst into danger for my sake more than once.”
“Because he’s your knight too?” said Pip.
“Er—No.”
“Because you’re his pet?” Pip pressed.
I shook my head. “Because…”
‘I’m in love with you, Merrin. You have to know that, right? I’ve always been.’
Did you know, captive ones? Love can be most painful when it’s in memory.
Deep inside, our monster cried.
“Ooh. I don’t recognize that rhythm. Your heartbeat’s changed. What is it?”
Heartache. Deep, ache-ity heartache.
“I miss him,” I admitted. “We haven’t been apart in a while.”
“Oh.” Pip leaned away, as if disappointed it wasn’t something juicier. “That’s just his power in you. It’ll wear off.”
“It won’t,” I said. “Windley doesn’t go into danger for me because he’s my knight or I his pet. He does it because we have feelings for each other. We’re in love.”
Let me stop for a moment.
During all this, I knew I was in danger. That whole ‘waking up in an imposter’s arms’ thing was telling. I knew our journey was off course and that I might see some disagreeableness before it corrected, but only in this moment, as my heart welled with thoughts of Windley, did the weight of it hit me.
I was bait. Right now, my charming devil could feel Pip’s power at play. He would come for me, into the mouth of danger, into the arms of his abuser, and into the memories he had worked so hard to suppress.
For his sake, I needed to escape before he got that far.
“He said he loves you?” said Pip. “Even after he tasted you?”
“He did,” I said.
Pip cocked his head. “You are a human, right? Then… you’re his anam cara?”
I had never heard the term, and although my interest was well piqued, sudden commotion in the hallway warned that our time was running short.
Specifically, there were voices.
And the female one? It didn’t sound pleasant.
“Pip, listen, you could leave this place too, just like Windley did. You could start a new life in a better place. And I could help you get there.”
Confusion settled on Pip’s brow. “Why would I want to do that? This is my home.”
“You’ve been made to do bad things, haven’t you? You’ve been made to hurt people? And… Ascian has hurt you too, hasn’t he?”
“Hurt people? No, I don’t hurt people. I make them feel good. See?”
This conversation was flowing in the wrong direction, for it made Pip remember what he was supposed to be doing. With added intensity, he pressed his yellow stare into mine and resumed his entrancement, but not before I caught something familiar upon his right index finger—a blackstone ring identical to Windley’s.
“W-what about your hexes?” I said. “Those hurt people, don’t they?”
“Hexes?” Pip brought his hand to the side of his temple and winced.
The motion was familiar, for I had seen Windley do something similar the night we first encountered Ascian.
Come to think of it, Pip did seem a bit flighty.
“Pip, have you taken a memory elixir?”
He didn’t answer but listed his eyes across the room in a mannequin-like stare, hollow and detached.
“Pip?”
“I only hex baddies,” he said slowly.
Based on what Windley told me, that wasn’t true. “You don’t hex innocents with clean spirits for your master to consume?”
“Nope.” Yet he was wincing and holding his head as if in conflict with himself.
When Charmagne said he was impressionable, maybe she really meant unstable. The way he was now, he seemed like an egg with too many cracks to safely handle.
“Pip, you said Windley will be upset if he finds out you aided in my detainment. What if you help me escape? Surely he would be pleased with you then?”
“He would be happy, but… if you really are his anam cara, he’ll come for you. I’d rather see him while he’s unhappy than not see him while he’s happy.”
“Oh. I’m afraid my feelings are quite the opposite.”
But no matter my feelings, my time was up.
“You’re giving me a headache. You should stop talking now.” An overwhelming wave of power swept up my arm with his next motion, coming to my shoulder before branching out in hot, throbbing roots that seeded into the depths of my muscle. I melted at each place they touched, sinking further into the quilted bed. The echoes, which had steadily encroached during Pip’s break in beguiling, retreated to the furthest reaches of hearing, further muffled by the rhythmic drum of rainfall upon roof. The house was now under siege from the night’s rain.
“E…choes… Ex…it…ium…”
The best I could do was mouth it, for my throat was rapidly becoming clogged with Pip’s magic, which was different from Windley’s and Eddy’s—a bit humbler and seeming not to elicit any of those ‘carnal desires.’
Pip leaned over me, putting one hand on my clavicle, the other against my cheek. “I see it now, miss queen lion, your color. You prefer green, don’t you?” With a blink, his eyes shifted from springtime yellow to the emerald Windley reserved for me—lovely, rippling. I didn’t mean to, but in thinking about Windley, a drop of fondness may have slipped out, for Pip suddenly shivered. “Ooh, Eddy was right. It IS hard to stop.”
Three loud fist raps against the door preluded a woman’s singsong call:
“Oh, Pi-ip! Open up! It’s my turn to play with the human!”
And there was another voice:
“Stop it, Pip! We can feel you in there and you’re doing too much! Make sure that creature of yours doesn’t wake up!”
Edius. Again with the creature? What creature? I saw no other creature in the room.
“Come on, Pip. Back off.”
“Enough, you little cretin!”
Pip had no intention of listening to either of them, though. “There’s something else in you, isn’t there?” he said, pushing tingles through my abdomen in greater potency than Windley had ever dared. “Just a teensy more—” His appearance was definitely changing this time. He looked at least five years older, with cheeks and jaw growing more defined and his eyes changing into a wiser shape. “The magic in you… that’s another being in there!”
It wasn’t as though
I was capable of response. I heard him, felt him, but all I could see were those emerald eyes twinkling through the darkness.
Darkness?
Yes, the room was steadily flooding with darkness enough to mute the fire.
I didn’t realize it was coming from me until Pip let out a gasp and fell to the ground, twitching and hands stained black.
Chapter 12
Negotiations
“Get up, Merrin.”
“MErrIn.”
“MerRIN.”
“MERRiN.”
Within the room dimmed by the darkness I had unwittingly released, a swell of unhuman echoes prodded at me, saying my name from different corners of the chamber, one voice cutting through that was more stable than all the rest.
“I said get up!”
“Exitium?” I whispered.
“If you had called on me sooner, we could have been out of this mess hours ago!”
I sat up from the bed, body weak under Pip’s power which was only leisurely exiting my body. “How did this happen?” I said of the room’s shadows. “I wasn’t able to summon the echoes.”
“I told you before, you need only speak my name!”
I had barely strung it together. Apparently, that was enough.
Off to the side of the bed, Pip was unconscious, looking very different from when I had first encountered him. Where I had once called him cute in a boyish sort of way, those terms were no longer fitting.
He was far more attractive than an average person and old enough now to be a peer.
On the other side of the door, Charmagne and Edius were taking turns to ram against the room as my darkness crawled out from under the threshold.
“Why would you leave him in there alone with her, you moron!”
“Because I didn’t want to leave her with you! You would have consumed her for the fun of it before Master even got home!”
“Clearly I have more self-control than Pip! He doesn’t even know what he’s capable of!”
Side note, remember how Windley said Pip was an ‘early bloomer’? Yeah, pay attention to that. We’ll come back to it later.
“Let us in, Merrín,” said Edius, redirecting his efforts. “Pip’s the strongest of us and if he loses control, it won’t be good for you.”