“Tell me where she is!” Malachi found himself on his feet, his hand around the Human’s throat before he could stop himself.
Keller’s feet, barely touching the ground, kicked at the air as he strangled. Malachi set him down, feeling at once remorseful and foolish for what he’d done.
“Jeez, are you trying to kill me?” The Human rubbed his throat, eyes bulging. “That’s not the way to ask for a favor, you know!”
“I am…” Malachi struggled for the word. “Sorry.”
“You are,” Keller agreed. “Look, I’ll help you. But you need to know more than where she lives. Look at you! How are you going to get into the Lightworld to find her?”
Malachi was already outside the door, ready to drop into the filth to wade toward the Lightworld, but Keller had him by the arm, pulling him back into the workshop. “Not yet! Come back in here and listen to me!
“You can’t just rush off to the Lightworld. Their guards will pick you off the second they see you.” Keller’s heavy sigh echoed through the tunnel. “Come back inside. We need to work up a disguise for you, and a plan. And, let’s be honest, you need some serious help in the hygiene department, if you’re going to win her over.”
“Hygiene?” How much more equipment would be required? “I will go to the Lightworld and bring her back here. I do not need hygiene!”
For a moment, it appeared as though the Human was laughing. Then, he looked frustrated and sad. “Come inside. There are things I need to explain to you before you go after this chick. What’s her name again?”
Malachi realized he did not know.
Twelve
W hen Ayla returned to her bunk in the Assassins’ dormitories, her things were gone. Pixies would leave a calling card, to make the theft sting more. This was not the work of Pixies.
“Something missing?” Garret’s voice, as warm and friendly as it had ever been, grated on her now.
It was simply her missing things, and her anger at the theft. That was all. “I’ve come back to find everything pinched. I’m not in a good mood about it.”
Garret’s arm slid around her waist, a touch he would have never allowed himself before. “Perhaps they haven’t been stolen. Perhaps they’ve been…moved.” His mouth was so close to her ear that his breath stirred the hair at her temple.
Moved. Of course. How could she have forgotten all that had transpired before her disastrous trip to the Darkworld?
“Moved?” She tried to sound pleased. “Already?”
Garret pulled her to face him. Puzzlement clouded his eyes, but he kept his expression carefully composed. “I thought we’d made an agreement. You…accepted my proposal.”
She hadn’t. Not yet. She’d promised to, when she returned, but she hadn’t. And he’d taken her from the only real home she’d known, without asking her permission.
“I need to report to Cedric. Can I meet you later? At home?” The word burned her tongue.
His smile was polite. It did not reach his eyes. “I had planned something for us, and I do not wish to wait.”
If there was anyone in the Lightworld she could not say no to, it was Garret. And he knew it, and used it to his advantage.
“I need to get this filth off of me,” she tried, knowing the effort was futile.
His eyes lit up as if he’d anticipated this answer. “Then it is a good thing I’ve planned to take you to Sanctuary.”
She sensed a cold, blue frost racing across her veins. Surely, in the Other Sight, she would have seen the branches of her life tree withered and winter-black. “So soon?”
It was a tradition, when their kind wished to mate, that they declare their intention to the Old Gods. But the Old Gods were gone, so—foolishly, in Ayla’s opinion—couples declared their intention and consummated their union in Sanctuary, where the spirits of the Old Gods were said to reside.
Garret sensed her distress. He could not disguise his irritation with her, though he tried. His antennae twitched the way they always did when he felt she was fighting him. “I am eager to make our union something more than that of a mentor and his student, as I thought you were. Unless something has changed?”
The way he asked made it clear what he meant. If she turned him down, she was a fool. She could not disagree with him. As his mate, she would gain entrance to a life she could never dream of earning on her own. And if her life before the Assassins’ Guild had taught her anything, it was how to survive. There were much more unpleasant ways to do that.
“No. I am surprised.” She tried for a smile like she’d seen on the ladies at Court, knowing and promising all at once. It felt stiff and unnatural on her mouth. “I did not think that when I visited Sanctuary for this purpose that I would be covered in filth.”
He laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. “Come. We will find a messenger to deliver the news of your conquest. Then, we will go to our home and perhaps you will find some more appropriate attire there before we go to Sanctuary. Ayla, this is truly the happiest day I can remember.”
Something stirred in her chest at that. She’d made him happy. It was not often that she had the chance to do that for anyone. If she could hold on to that feeling, perhaps it would be enough.
And if it were not, at least she would still have a home.
Garret’s apartment was warm and clean, more so than usual. Ayla was aware that this was for her benefit, to impress her, as were the various colored robes and exquisite toiletries, probably collected from his sister’s ladies-in-waiting. She thought she should question how he had obtained them, but she forced herself to think about anything else, so that she would not be upset by the answer. Strangely it did not sting her pride to think he might have exchanged intimate favors with Mabb’s servants. She could not summon an ounce of jealousy.
Rather, it hurt her more that she lacked any feeling of possessiveness. The very fact that she was not upset, upset her.
“I did not know what you preferred,” Garret said, moving quickly to the bed, where her new clothing was laid out. “Each one is fine, but none match your beauty, Ayla.”
She almost laughed at that carefully practiced remark. “They are very fine.” She reached out to touch one, but he quickly shooed her hand away.
“Perhaps you should wash a bit, first,” he said, squinting in distaste at her muddy, bloodstained hands. “There is water in the pitcher on the hearth.”
Outwardly obedient while chafing inside, she went to the hearth and poured the slightly warmed water into the clay bowl beside it. “You said you brought my things here. Where are they?”
She did not have to wait for her answer. The few possessions she owned were stacked carelessly beside the door, as if in the hopes they would show themselves out in shame at the face of the splendor around them.
After washing and tossing aside her filthy leather, she slipped one of the new robes over her head. The delicateness, both the light blue color and the fine weave of the fabric, seemed only to highlight the coarseness of everything about her. The calluses on her fingers, the scars on her bare arms.
If Garret noticed, he did not seem to care. “Let me help you,” he said, stepping behind her to fasten the fabric at her shoulders. His hands lingered there. “This was the life you were meant to lead, Ayla. If your mother had only chosen another Faery to mate with, you could have achieved it without my help.”
“It was not my choice to be born this way,” she snapped, before she could help it.
Garret was quick to soothe her. “Of course it was not. But it is something to think of. Something to…guide your actions. In the future.” He turned her to face him. “You have mortal blood in your veins. You will always be prey to mortal temptations. Do you understand what I am saying to you?”
She did not, not completely, but enough, at least, to be vaguely insulted. She nodded, anyway. No good would come of such an argument.
They started out for Sanctuary in casual conversation. Garret made no further mention of her shameful par
entage, no thinly veiled criticism of her past actions. They talked as they had when they had first come to know each other, after the initial awkwardness of new acquaintance had faded and been replaced by tentative and exciting friendship. Ayla found herself more relaxed in Garret’s presence than she had felt in a long time. Since before his attitude toward her had changed from that of a teacher to a suitor, she realized.
Though Sanctuary was thought to be a gift to all of the Lightworld, it remained cut off from anyone not in good standing with the Fae, as it had appeared in the Faery Quarter. It had started, Ayla had been told, when a seed from an Upworld tree fell into the Lightworld. Sunlight and rain followed it through the grates separating the Humans above from their enemies below. As the tree grew and seeded new growth in the cavern it occupied, the Fae took it as a sign that they had not been abandoned by the Old Gods. Sanctuary went from a curious and pleasing accident of nature to a sacred place, a promise that the Fae had not been forgotten.
The first time Ayla had been to Sanctuary had been before she had begun her training in the Assassins’ Guild. Cedric, the Guild Master, had brought her so that she could renounce the life she had lived outside of the Lightworld, and pledge her allegiance to the Queene of the Fae. She could not have dreamed that on that day, when her feet had touched grass for the first time, the first time that sunlight had warmed her face, she would one day be mated to the brother of the Queene.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Garret whispered reverently as they approached the oval of brick that framed the entrance to Sanctuary. Elsewhere in the Lightworld, it was still night. The daylight borrowed from the Upworld filtered down to them long after it gilded the Humans’ blocky towers. But the wide expanse of metal grid that stretched over the opening above Sanctuary let in the daylight in its own time. A thin, white haze wreathed the trees, and from somewhere inside the small wood came the sound of a brook.
Wide, broken steps led precariously down to the grass, and Garret helped Ayla make her way over them. They stopped on a level bit of concrete to slip off their shoes to feel the crisp prickle of grass and the soothing cool of the soil beneath. She turned her face to the pale sunlight filtering through the grates, smelled the air. It wasn’t fresh, but fresher than the staleness of the tunnels. It would be a shock to return to that, Ayla knew from past experience. When you’ve never breathed fresh air or seen sunlight, it is too bright and wholesome in reality. When you return to what you knew before, it is too dark and never quite the same as it was.
When she left Sanctuary this time, things would be changed again. On her first visit, she’d come as a refugee, left as citizen of the Lightworld. Now, she came lonely and would leave mated to her constant companion for the last five years.
“Not long from today, we will come to this place to ask for a blessing on our heir,” Garret said quietly, resting a proprietary hand on Ayla’s stomach, as though a babe already grew there.
It wasn’t something Ayla had given any thought to. Fae only bred when they wished to, not out of necessity. That would not happen today, though, and she locked the worry away to the back of her mind. Far off possibilities would not hang over her today, when she could concentrate on more pleasant things.
“Have you ever been up there?” Garret ask, pointing to the grates that separated Sanctuary from the Upworld. “It is beautiful.”
She turned to him, unsure why he asked the question, hoping it was an invitation.
He nodded indulgently. “Go. I will wait for you here.”
Though it would have been more polite to stay behind, Ayla’s curiosity was too powerful. Tentatively unfolding her wings, she let them buzz against her back before opening them completely and taking to the air.
The feeling of pushing herself higher and higher, not limited by the low ceiling of a tunnel, was indescribable. The tapestries lining the halls of the Palace depicted this kind of flight, but Ayla had never allowed herself to imagine it. It was an unspoken rule of the Lightworld, not to long for the old days, in order to make their imprisonment more bearable. It had been easier for Ayla, who had been born in the Underground, to ignore the instinct to fly; she had never, in all of her visits to this place, thought to fly here. After this, would she find the short trips—up to a door, over a span of water, to avoid a crowd—satisfying anymore?
But it was a false freedom. Though the limit had been raised—she was far above the trees now—it still existed. Ayla reached the grates and poked her fingers through the metal grid. Separated from the world of the Humans by metal bars and half of her blood. What would it have been like, to be born wholly Human? She’d imagined being born completely Fae, but she’d never thought of the other side of the coin.
Garret called to her, and she looked down. A Human in her position would fall and die, their fragile mortal body smashed on the ground below. She folded her wings and let go of the grates, falling like a star from the sky—as such an event had been described to her—her stomach leaping, limbs seizing in terror. It seemed much farther with her eyes closed, and she wondered what would happen if she didn’t save herself. Would she die before the healers arrived? Certainly there would be no consummation of her relationship with Garret today, no formal announcement to follow. It would be at least a week of rest and healing, if she survived.
“Ayla, stop.”
She twisted, opened her eyes, saw the tops of the trees rushing at her and opened her wings. The pull of air against the stretched skin stung a bit, but it slowed her fall, giving her a moment to collect herself. It wasn’t Garret’s voice that had called to her, but she saw no one else.
Garret looked up as Ayla’s feet touched the ground beside him. He didn’t appear worried in the least that she had just fallen from the sky. It could not have been him that warned her.
He took her hand to lead her into the trees. Here was the heart of Sanctuary, where it was said the Old Gods hid, waiting for the day they could return safely and crush the world of man.
“I hear the water,” Ayla said absently, her feet tingling where they touched the charged ground. Something in the trees shifted; she thought she saw a face in the leaves before it disappeared in the breeze. Soon, they came to the source of the water sound, a tall, jagged stone with a narrow crack in the face. A thin, arcing stream fell from the lowest point of the fissure to disturb the face of the pool below. Ayla wondered where the water came from, but the thought fled, her mind overwhelmed by the power that crackled in the air.
At the edge of the pool, Garret pulled off his robes and slid into the water. He grimaced as the slight current caused by his disturbance of the surface pulled at his wings.
Ayla knelt on the bank, watching in envy. Garret’s wings were fragile, like dragonfly wings, with the rainbow sheen of chemicals on water coloring them. She reached back to touch her own, tough wings, skeletal monstrosities covered with tawny skin, as if they belonged on a mortal.
“Are you going to come in?” Garret asked, a hint of impatience in his voice.
The faster she got in, she reasoned, the faster she could hide her hideous wings from his scrutiny. He’d seen them before, but if she managed to cover them before he commented on their appearance she would save herself much embarrassment.
The water was pleasantly cool and clean. She slid off the bank, for the first time not thinking of how the wet would seep into her clothing and cause hours of misery as it dried. She left her robes on the bank and sank down, until her head was completely covered. Beneath the surface, she opened her eyes and watched her hair float around her like rust-colored seaweed.
When she broke the surface, Garret was beside her, laughing. “I forget that you probably do not visit here as often as I.”
She swam to a low rock shelf beside the waterfall. “I do not have much time.”
“You will, now,” Garret said, breaking off to duck his head under the water. When he emerged, he swam beside her and pulled himself to sit on the rock. “We’ll come as often as you like. As often as
will make you happy.”
Her heart sank at his words. She couldn’t say she’d ever been happy, even as a child. Her happiest day had been when her people—her true people—had grudgingly accepted her into their world. Even then, any good feelings she’d had on that day had been tainted by the knowledge that she was still, in many ways, an outsider.
Garret smoothed her hair behind her ears, then cupped her jaw between his slender hands. “I know at times it seems I can see nothing but myself. But I have been your mentor for five years now, and you would not be alive if I were as self-absorbed as you believe me to be. I see your pain, every day, and it has grown over these years. I do not want to see you in such a state, not anymore.” He leaned forward, his lips hovering just over hers. “Let me take it from you, Ayla. Let me make you happy.”
It was the last chance she was likely to get. And looking into Garret’s eyes, so kind and, for once, earnest, she wanted to be truly happy with him.
She seized the chance.
In a moment, she was beside him on the rock, their wet skin sliding together as he pulled her into his lap. There could have been some spark of feeling, but the novelty of another person’s hands on her, and the disturbing knowledge that it was Garret, her mentor, someone she’d never thought of in such a way, squashed anything but a slight giddiness that fluttered in her stomach at the thought that she was about to experience something that until now was a secret to her.
Garret had touched her before, in training, to show her a move or correct her grip on a weapon. The way he touched her now was possessive and hungry. He did not linger overlong on just one part of her. His mouth slid from her neck to her breasts, his hands smoothed a restless path to her hips. All the while, he whispered against her skin, promising to be a good mate, trying to reassure her, to ask her not to be frightened. She wasn’t frightened, but she didn’t wish to correct him, for fear of disappointing him.
It all happened so suddenly that she almost missed it. A strange buzzing set up in her head, angry and red, and she realized she’d never experienced a sound that had a color before. Then, her body felt it was no longer under her control, and she feared she might faint. She gripped Garret tighter, and he strained against her, but she could not tell him that it was not from his ministrations that she felt dizzy.
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