“I love touching you more than anything in the world,” Frolic said.
“Then show me,” Querry told him, taking his wrist and pulling him over. “Make love to me.”
At first, Frolic gasped and hesitated, but then he smiled and knelt behind Querry. He held his hand to Querry’s lips, and Querry sucked his fingers and lapped at his palm, getting it wet. Reg also planted damp kisses over Frolic’s hand. When he removed it, Querry and Reg found each other’s mouths.
Querry’s spine stiffened as Frolic’s fingers dipped into him, but Frolic deftly found his sweet spot, and Querry’s apprehension drained away, replaced by intense pleasure. “Oh, beauty, that’s perfect. Oh, Frolic, fuck. That’s enough. I want you inside me. Let me share this with you.”
Frolic haltingly penetrated Querry, clearly uncertain. It hurt; it had been a long time since Querry had been on this end of things and he would have paid half the gold he’d amassed for a tin of salve, but he struggled not to let on and add to Frolic’s nerves. Reg gave a little squeal, and Querry realized he’d bitten down on Reggie’s lip.
“It’s all right, love,” Reg whispered.
“Querry, move,” Frolic said, resting his hands lightly on Querry’s lower back. “Show me how you like it. Show me how fast and how deep you want me. I want it to be good for you.”
“It’s good,” Querry said, circling his hips and setting the rhythm. “It’s always good.”
“Because we love each other?” Frolic asked in a throaty whisper.
“That’s right, beauty,” Reg said. “We’re perfect together.”
Querry saw a shadow block the firelight, but Reg and Frolic didn’t seem to notice and kept moving and muttering endearments. Squinting into the gloom, Querry noticed a slight, graceful silhouette at the mouth of the hall. He knew by the glowing, green eyes that Tom Teezle watched them making love. At first he flinched, stunned and embarrassed, but just as the fey pressed his long finger to his mouth, signaling for Querry to stay quiet, Reg caught Querry’s lips, and Frolic pushed deep into him. In seconds, Querry forgot about Tom. Let him watch. What did he care? Nothing mattered to Querry but his beautiful lovers and the amazing feelings they conjured in his body and heart.
Chapter 30
THOUGH THE gloomy half-light and monotonous stone walls remained the same, something felt different to Querry when he woke. He had no idea how long he’d slept after his quick tryst with his partners; it was impossible to tell without the cycle of day and night. Querry felt restless and eager to leave this dank pit. As much as he loved the night—to him it symbolized safety and freedom—the shadows here felt oppressive. The whole place felt like a prison he couldn’t escape, and Querry hated it.
Something was about to happen; he felt it in his bones. He’d always possessed almost a sixth sense when it came to trouble. He felt it in the hairs on the back of his neck and the way his muscles tightened and twitched. The others were on edge as well: Frolic toyed with the beads and feathers in his hair, Reg flinched whenever someone spoke to him, and even Jean-Andre’s amused apathy cracked, and he drew his pistol at shadows.
“Hold on,” Jack Owens said after another several hours of plodding down corridors identical to those they’d traveled since entering the temple.
Everyone stopped walking, and Starling turned to face the mercenary, his brows lifted in curiosity.
The big man rubbed his forehead. “With all due respect, sir, we’re getting nowhere fast. There ain’t nothing here, and everybody knows it but you. We’re out of food, almost out of ammunition, and almost out of water. Time to face facts, I say.”
“Meaning what?” Starling asked.
“Meaning, it’s time to admit we’ve lost, sir. A good soldier knows when to retreat.”
“I am not giving up on this!” Starling’s eyes widened, and he looked manic in the faltering light of his mystic lanterns.
“We are,” Owens said. Istvan and Attila nodded. “We’re leaving this godforsaken place. He turned to Corny and took her hand. “Come with us.”
“But my friends—” Corny’s eyes glittered as she stared at Frolic.
“Don’t die down here, dove,” Owens said in a voice so gentle Querry couldn’t believe it came from the man he’d been traveling with all these weeks.
“I—but—”
“No,” Frolic said. “It’s all right, Corny. You should go with them. I want you to be safe.”
“Frolic, are you sure? What will happen to you?” she asked, coming up to Frolic and gripping his shoulders.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
At that, she folded him in her arms and cried. Owens laid his hand on her back and said, “Listen. We’ll wait outside the temple as long as we can. At least we can find fruit and collect rainwater.”
“Go,” Frolic said in a small voice.
Scrubbing her eyes with her fists, Corny nodded, kissed him on the cheek, and turned away to collect her gear. Without saying anything further, she and the three mercenaries began retracing their steps back through the twisting halls.
Starling stood stunned, mouth gaping, for a full minute. Then he ran to the mouth of the hall and called after the deserters. “Wait! Hold on, damn it! I’ll pay you double! Triple! You can name your price! I’ll pay you anything you want! Come back here. I demand it. You must obey me! You are still in my employ!”
Querry couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the poor, deluded fool. “They’re not coming back, majesty.”
“Damn it!” Starling punched the wall again and again, bloodying his knuckles until Querry caught his wrists and restrained him with some difficulty.
“You’ve got to get a hold of yourself,” he told the baron.
“I—you’re absolutely correct. I apologize. We’ll press on without those cowards.”
“I hardly think it’s fair to call them cowards,” Reg said, but without the hostility he usually aimed at Baron Starling. “They’re only being practical. Sane.”
“You are more than welcome to join them, Mr. Whitney!”
“Majesty,” Querry warned, “I’ll ask you to show Reg some respect. You bloody well know he deserves it. Look at all he’s done for this mission even though he didn’t have to.”
“To hell with this nonsense,” Reg spat, rightly irritated. “I think this is madness. Anything I’ve done has been for Querry and Frolic, nothing more.”
“This is getting us nowhere,” Jean-Andre said. In the heat of their debate, Querry had forgotten him. Now he wondered what the Belvaisian had to gain by staying and risking his life. Jean-Andre certainly didn’t share the baron’s idealism or zeal. Maybe he simply hoped to find more gold.
“The water is going to be a problem,” Reg said.
“You should leave,” Frolic said, his voice both insistent and full of fear. Querry had never heard him so afraid. “Let me go on alone. I don’t need to eat or drink. Please, Baron Starling. Please let my friends go. I swear I’ll find whatever you’re looking for. Don’t risk their lives, or your own.”
Starling bunched his brows together as he regarded Frolic, considering. Querry didn’t know if the baron had researched Frolic’s history somehow, but he couldn’t possibly know how much the thought of being alone, especially in a dank, underground chamber so like the cellar where he’d waited for nearly a century, terrified the clockwork boy. Querry did, and the depth of his lover’s selfless bravery and devotion astounded him.
“Beauty,” Querry said in a weak voice, “I’d sooner starve to death next to you than leave you here alone. I won’t even think about it.”
“Nor will I,” Reg said. “Remember what we promised each other. I won’t abandon you just because things are a little tenuous.”
“But Reggie—”
Reg held up his hand to stop Frolic’s arguments. “Forever, remember?”
THEY DIDN’T get much farther before the path became steep, even narrower, and jaggedly hewn instead of smooth and polished. As small as he was, Frol
ic’s wings scraped against the walls even though he folded them close to his body. The others had to slouch and often turn sideways to navigate the close quarters. He continued, dragging the crate full of gold nuggets, toward a faint voice, a promise luring him on, a voice calling him instead of warning him away as everything else had. For the first time since entering the accursed temple, he felt a glimmer of hope waiting at the bottom of the tunnel.
“We should hurry,” he said, his voice breaking hours of silence. “We’re almost there. We’re really going to make it.”
“I agree,” Starling said, smiling. Frolic didn’t remember seeing him smile before, at least not with genuine happiness. Until now, his smiles had all been bitter mockeries of hope and joy, mockeries of himself. “The magic is strong. It’s flowing up from below. We must move faster. We must get to the source.” The baron cackled maniacally and ran as best he could bent almost in half. “I’m coming!”
Querry and Reg cast confused glances at one another before hurrying to follow, and Jean-Andre shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. Tom Teezle hesitated, hanging back until he and Frolic were alone in the tunnel. The fey’s eyes burned with emerald fire as he looked deep into Frolic’s eyes. When he touched Frolic’s elbow, Frolic recoiled in alarm from both his rapacious expression and the power surging from him.
“It is time for you to fulfill your contract with me, Frolic.”
“I won’t do anything to hurt anyone,” Frolic hurried to say. Right now, Tom really frightened him. “I never agreed to hurt anyone.”
Tom stroked Frolic’s cheek with the back of his hand and licked his lips. Frolic recognized the spark in his eyes: he saw it in his lovers’ gazes when they wanted to touch him. That same desperation wafted from Tom, and Frolic wanted to run from him because it felt nothing like being with Querry and Reg.
“You swore an oath to me, and you must follow through. There are rules.”
“What, then?” Frolic breathed.
Tom smiled, bearing his teeth. “Give me the deepest desire of your heart. Give me your blackest and most hidden secret, the one you’ve never even told to your lovers. The one you fear even to think about when you’re alone. Give me that piece of yourself that no one has ever seen. Do not lie to me, or I’ll know.”
Frolic exhaled, profoundly relieved. He’d expected Tom to demand something horrible. In a way, it was liberating to give voice to the thoughts that had tormented him even before leaving Thalacea. His words came out in a rush, tumbling from his lips almost before forming in his mind. “I don’t want to be different. I hate it. For a long time, I thought I wanted to be human like Querry and Reg. I wanted to be able to die when they did, so I wouldn’t be alone. But now—I’m so ashamed to even think this way, but I don’t want to be human anymore. Humans are so easy to break. I don’t want to have to depend on food and water. I like being strong. I mean, I can fly. You, the fey, and me, we can do so many things they can’t….”
“Say it. Give it to me.”
“I wish I could make Querry and Reg like me.”
“Frolic, tell me.” Tom was panting and clutching the straps that held Frolic’s wings to his back.
Frolic squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could. He couldn’t bear to look Tom in the eye as he said what he couldn’t even admit to himself until now. “We’re… I’m… more. I’m better than a human.”
Tom threw his head back, laughed victoriously, and clapped his hands. Whisper howled with fright and buried his face in Frolic’s hair. Frolic had no idea what had just happened, what Tom could possibly have gained from his confession, but a green glow outlined the fey, and he seemed taller and far more powerful. In fact, Tom seemed almost as much a force of nature as Frolic’s father, the gentleman. What had changed in him all of a sudden?
Frolic never got a chance to ask, because Tom waved his hand, and they all stood in a rounded chamber with a raised dais in the center. The ceiling was so high Frolic couldn’t see it, and from somewhere, a cold, blue light shone on the platform and the rough-cut, stone stairs spiraling around it. Tom hadn’t been able to transport himself or others outside the temple. Whatever changed in him must have negated that limitation.
“Come,” something atop the pulpit whispered. “Come to me. I’ve been waiting.”
Starling, so ecstatic at the discovery of what could only be the wellspring, never noticed the drastic change in his servant. The baron punched the air and hooted in a very un-aristocratic way. “I knew I could do it! I knew everything inflicted on me meant something. There was a point to everything after all. A point!”
The baron, chuckling madly and smiling until he looked like he’d split his face in two, ran up to Jean-Andre and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Merci, monsieur,” Starling said, spinning Jean-Andre around as if they waltzed. “Merci, mon ami. If only I were a younger man, I could show you such gratitude.”
Jean-Andre, so much more relaxed and less susceptible to surprise than any human Frolic had ever met, just winked and said, “You seem in perfect health to me, monsieur.”
Starling kissed him again before moving to stand in front of Reg. “Mr. Whitney. Reg. I sorely misjudged you, sir. You are brave, capable, and dedicated to your lovers. They are fortunate men indeed.” He extended his hand, and Reg stared at it a moment before grasping it and shaking.
“Querrilous,” Starling said, touching Querry’s hair lightly and then cupping his cheek. His eyes misted, and a few tears spilled down his cheeks, though Frolic couldn’t imagine why. “Querry.”
“Majesty?” Querry asked, perplexed.
Starling blinked, shook his head, and kissed Querry softly on the top of his hair. Then he moved on to Frolic.
Frolic felt very self-conscious as Starling regarded him with red, watery eyes and a strange, almost sad smile. “Do you know that you’re a marvel?”
Frolic shuffled his feet and looked at his worn and filthy boots. “I suppose.”
“You are, dear Frolic. You’re very special. A very special person. I’m glad I had the opportunity to meet you.”
“Um, thank you. And likewise, Baron Starling.” Frolic extended his hand, as was only polite. Instead of taking it, Starling wrapped his arms around Frolic and hugged him tight.
“Now then,” the baron said, “let us all ascend those stairs together. After all, we would not be here if not for each other, so let us share in this great victory.”
His triumphant mood spread, and everyone but Frolic and Tom Teezle clapped.
“Come,” the voice whispered, like the distant sound of the waves crashing on the beach, or the wind rustling the high grass. Frolic felt an almost physical pull as he walked slowly up the stairs, ready to witness the magical fount the others had spoken of with such disbelief and awe. Finally he stepped onto the dais, eager to behold the wonder.
The sight waiting for him made Frolic cry out. He stumbled backward and almost plummeted from the platform. On a stone slab lay the naked and desiccated body of a tall faerie. A dozen long, iron spikes held it to the rock. Though little more than a skeleton wrapped in wrinkled, gray skin, it was alive. Frolic sensed the life force behind its sightless, milky eyes, and now and then it twitched slightly and a horrific, raspy sound escaped its leathery lips.
Jean-Andre covered his eyes with his arm and whimpered. “I ’ave… never seen something so… ’orrible.” His native accent came forward with his distress.
Reg clutched his stomach and threw up over the edge of the platform. Then he buried his face against Querry’s chest and sobbed. Querry held him, his face absent of both color and emotion.
“Kill it,” Frolic choked out, not even sure he spoke aloud. It all felt like a horrible nightmare. “Querry… somebody put a stop to this.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Starling demanded. “Teezle!”
“I am no longer yours to command, human,” the fey said, as if oblivious to the misery of his kin. “If you wish something of me now, it will cost.”
/> “I must understand,” Starling said. “What is the price of that?”
“Everything,” Tom said with a shrug.
“Very well. Explain this… this atrocity.”
Frolic didn’t think anything in the world could explain something so awful. If he had his sword, he would end this creature’s misery, for he knew it had lasted a long, long time. His lonely years in the doll maker’s cellar were the blink of an eye in comparison.
Tom Teezle, unmoved, knelt beside the other faerie’s table. He ran his fingers over the swirling script engraved around the base. Then he gasped as he swore a strong oath in his language. “This… this is the first of my kind. Deposed by his son, him who we call Good Father, the Shining One. The tales of his defeat of this creature, his father, were thought to be mere legend, metaphor. They say the Good Father saved the races of fey and man by slaying his sire, who sought only to devour them. Not even my people believed these stories. Not even the oldest of the Fair Folk has ever seen the Radiant One. If you fool mortals have any sense, you’ll leave and forget you’ve ever seen this place. It is not meant to be known. We should have listened to everything warning us away. We shouldn’t be here.”
“But, but the source of all life, the great magic,” Starling stammered.
“You ass!” Tom got to his feet and slapped the baron with the back of his hand. “You misunderstood those texts you stole from my people. This is the taker of life and of magic. Leave it.”
Then the Baron Starling did something Frolic couldn’t believe he could endure: he stood beside the twisted form of the first of the fey, put his palms against the stone on either side of its head, and looked down at its face. For a long time he neither moved nor spoke, but simply stared into those cloudy, yellowed, blind orbs.
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