A moan dragged out of me. “Magus, please…”
“As I thought.” He freed my feet from the shackles and took the undergarment, sliding it up my legs, careful not to touch my skin. The thick phallus slid into me easily, slick as I was. He tapped the wand and it seemed to turn almost liquid inside me, but still firm, shifting shape back and forth. I don’t think it could change volume, so the wood changed from thick and short to long and narrow, quickly, with each rapid tap of the wand. The effect was an unpredictable, rapid penetration that tore a scream of pleasure out of me almost instantly. My feet found the ground and scrabbled back and forth. I don’t know if I was trying to escape the sensation or draw it in deeper.
“Magus, please…!” I screamed again.
He stopped with a wicked grin. My core was so hot, all my small muscles pulsing and trying to work with the fading frenzy he had produced in me.
This man. I didn’t have words for how he made me feel. I wanted to say it felt like a glorious death when I succumbed to him, but that wasn’t really right. I had never wanted to die, and especially not now. All the things I had ever wished for as a girl, the things I could never put a name to, were right here between us. The yearning, the striving, the need for a connection with something outside myself so deep that I lost track of where my own mind ended and the universe began. He was leading me down a path to all of that. When he could finally touch me, I knew it would be even farther out of the reach of words.
“Gretel,” he said. “I’ve been waiting all my life for something I didn’t understand. It was you.” He looked like he wanted to kiss me so badly that I actually drew back, on the verge of telling him to be careful. He stopped and bowed to me instead. Then he set me free. “Now, we have a lot of sweets to make and not much time.”
Chapter Ten
Gretel
I had no time to decorate the desserts. I made little cups of raspberries and cream while he set to baking two cakes. We managed to fill the counter before a courier came to take the bounty to the revels, but just barely.
That night, we shared the same bed, a roll of blankets between us, and I slept so well near his warmth. Growing up in a cottage with only one common room and a single bedroom, I was used to hearing someone else breathe near me. If he teased me in the middle of the night, I didn’t even remember it. But I did yearn for him, always. I wanted to yearn for him always. As days went by I started thinking more and more what a relief it was that he never questioned my own desires. He never shamed me for having them, never treated me like I was some aberrant creature sprung out of the farm like a two-headed calf. My desires were his, and his desires were mine, and both of our desires were insatiable and unending.
I had never imagined I’d be so happy.
And the work certainly didn’t hurt. More days passed, and I felt that at some point, we would run out of recipes. We never did. We turned out small cups of mousse, light yet rich; glazed dried plums that tasted almost alcoholic, stuffed with vanilla cream; cheesecakes covered in tiny leaves of chocolate in the shape of a tree, just like my dress; hard candies flavored with the juice of tiny, almost floral tasting limes and dusted in fine sugar. Growing up in poverty on a farm, do you suppose I had ever even tasted a lime before? Never!
“They come in fresh in the port cities,” the Magus said. “Hansel may have tasted them. Their price is not too dear in Hausach.”
I bristled at the thought of Hansel. Which was funny, because I missed him all the time. His presence was always in the edges of my mind. It was mixed with shame, though. I was happy, but he could never ever see me like this, I thought. He would not see happiness. He would see me like the whores on the church ceiling who had to be blessed by St. Yktrin.
“You haven’t written your brother,” the Magus said.
“No…I don’t like lying.”
“Even if you must lie, I think you should write. You want him to worry? He’ll come after you if he doesn’t hear something. Just make up a story about working for Anna. I know you’re clever enough for that.”
That was true. I supposed I had to say something. “I can’t lie to my brother. He knows me too well.”
“You can’t tell him the truth. He’s made up his mind. He’ll come here and make trouble.”
That evening before I came to bed I tried to write a letter. Hansel would expect more than a few lines. He would want details of my new life, from the work to the weather to the people I was meeting. I should invent a fictional life, but I couldn’t seem to think of anything except the moment at hand. My life with the Magus had a bracing immediacy. That was partly what I loved about it. I was no longer dreaming of something that would never happen. Each moment, I felt fully in my skin.
If I lied to him, I would lose him. And losing my twin, my only family? That was not an option.
Curse it all.
The quill scratched furiously along the paper.
Dear Hansel,
I must be honest with you although I know you might never understand. I have gone to live with the Magus. He is under a curse. If we break the curse, we can be properly married. Until then, he is unable to touch me, and I tell you, he has not corrupted me in any way that I was not already corrupted long ago by my own thoughts. Go ahead and clutch your heart in horror.
I don’t know why, but I was born a creature of passions, Hansel. But when I think about it, we weren’t that different. You love Peter and society says you should not. If you could make life easier on yourself and ignore that love you feel, would you? I don’t think you would give that up. And it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s not possible. I feel the same way.
You said I never judged you for loving Peter. I never will. But you would judge me for what I feel. It hurts me when I think about it, because I love you and I would rather be honest. I struggle to write you now, because I know you won’t approve, but I don’t want you to worry that something has happened to me. I actually tried to lie and say I was working for Anna, but I simply can’t.
Your loving sister always,
Gretel
In the morning, the Magus said, “I think you could use some sunshine. You spend too much time shut up in here. Why don’t you journey to Pillna and take the letter to town to mail?”
“Alone?” I had never left my village without Hansel. No woman walked beyond the gates without a chaperone to protect her.
“I’ll give you a charm. It’ll ward off the bears in the woods. You’ll be all right in the village. Go to Anna if anyone gives you trouble. Hold still.” He took a necklace from his pocket. His golden eyes regarded me fondly as he fastened the clasp at the back of my neck, careful not to touch my skin. “Someone must go. I need to stay here and make the desserts. You can change back into your old clothing for this.”
I touched the green stone that now hung just below the blue one he had given me before. He was letting me walk through the woods and go to a town where I barely knew anyone. “You trust me?”
He lifted a brow. “Shouldn’t I?”
“It’s strange to have freedom… Every moment I’ve been here has belonged to you.”
“I’m not worried you’ll forget me,” he said. “But it would be quite ridiculous if you never left the house. There are parts of you I wish to fully possess. But your feet are not among them. A walk will do you good.”
The freedom to walk out the door and travel on my own was not something I had even realized I could have, but now that I could, I wanted it badly. I set off down the path and for the first time, I could savor the beauty of the woods while setting my own pace, and it was wonderful. Better yet, the Magus told me I could buy a new dress and new embroidery thread. My old dress no longer fit. I was well fed for the first time in my life and my curves had filled in. The bodice laces were strained wide, and I had to cut the waist of the skirt, covering the gap with an apron.
I reached town in the afternoon and went straight to the dry goods shop, eager to select my colors of thread. Another woman was already
keeping the shopkeeper occupied, looking at bolts of fabric.
“Give me a good thick wool,” she said. “Olvar wants a winter coat and I need to make something for little Roland, come winter. How about that green one?” She pointed at a bolt on the top shelf. As the wiry old shopkeeper climbed a ladder on knees that seemed somewhat arthritic, the woman sighed and looked at me with a slightly apologetic smile.
Then her eyes glanced over the necklace with the charm, to my face, and then my clothes. She didn’t say anything, but she lingered and browsed after her cloth had been cut, and I was nervous picking out the thread. I had so been looking forward to this and now a stranger was shadowing me. When I left the shop with my dress and thread in a box, she followed me out.
“Miss?”
I turned, trying not to betray any nerves. “I don’t know why you’re following me.”
“I think that’s a faery necklace. Where did you get it?”
“Oh—I bought it in a marketplace somewhere. Please, I have business to attend to before dark.”
“Have you been to the Wicked Revels?”
“No.”
“You have that…look,” she said. “You don’t live here in town, do you?”
I pushed through the door of the inn. Anna was at the counter with the tourist trinkets today. “Oh,” she said. “Gretel…and Jeannie. You two don’t…know each other, do you?”
“No,” I said. “I just need to send a letter.”
Jeannie followed me to the counter.
I put my hands on my hips. “I don’t know who you are or what you want with me, but it’s rude.”
She chuckled. “I am known to be rude when I want information.”
“There’s no information to be had with me.”
“You’re with him, aren’t you? The last king.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone if you’re not in trouble or trying to make trouble,” Jeannie said. “Will can be hot headed. Then again, so can I. I suppose I gave him the knife that killed the king, but I didn’t think he’d actually kill anyone, you know.”
“Killed…the Magus,” I said. This was what the Trickster Mage was talking about. “How did it happen?”
“Simple enough, really. Will put my knife into his back. Not very honorable, but it wasn’t a fair fight either; the faery king had magic and Will didn’t.”
“Are you…the Queen of the Wicked Revels?”
She laughed. “No, no, spare me from being queen of anything! I’m Will’s sister. Lately, I’ve been the nursemaid of the Wicked Revels, keeping an eye on young Prince Roland and the baby. How’s that for a romantic position? I married a wood elf who isn’t much for dancing. We’re happier playing cards by the fire. I’m no threat, really, but you can’t blame me for wondering what the last king is up to. I love my brother dearly.”
“I understand,” I said, feeling a pang.
“After the king died,” Jeannie continued, “his people took him to bury. And one would normally expect that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. He came back. A bit paler, a bit more drawn, but alive as anyone. Now, I’m told it happens, and far be it from me to judge, but I expect he made a bargain with someone quite wicked.”
“The Trickster Mage…”
“I don’t know him,” Jeannie said. “But he sounds like a man best avoided.”
“The Trickster Mage said…” I tried to form the words. The Magus will die on Samhain night if he can’t touch me. But my throat strained and nothing came out.
“What’s wrong, love?” Jeannie asked. I was starting to like the woman, although I resisted it with all my being.
“I—I can’t say. But the Magus needs help. He’s not a bad man.”
“His sentence will be lifted in just a few weeks,” Jeannie said. “Or are you wanting to come to the Revels with him? Well, I hardly think that’s a good idea. The Magus and Will are about as fond of each other as a house cat and a barn cat.”
“Why, exactly, did your brother kill him?” I asked, my tone careful.
Jeannie shifted her packages in her arms. “You know what? Let’s have a seat and talk over a bit of ale. My treat. Anna?” She caught the attention of the proprietress and pointed at a table. Before I knew it, I was in deeper than before, our parcels stacked up together in an empty chair, and both of us sitting together by the window. I’m sure this was not what the Magus had in mind when he sent me to town alone, but I wanted to hear the other side of the story.
“He was trying to protect Princess Evaline,” Jeannie said. “The old king lured the Princess Evaline, trying to get her mask from her. When Eva gave her mask to Will, your Magus said they both belonged to him, in the end. He tied her up in his bond tree. And they fought over her and did what men do. Will thought the king was a wicked faery, and perhaps he wasn’t wrong. A lot of the Revelers themselves wanted the king gone. But perhaps the old king also thought he had a right to her. Faeries don’t always play by the same rules as humans.”
“I don’t know…what went on between them.” I flushed. “He said the power of the masks corrupted him. But the Magus—I feel sure he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wants to live his life. He doesn’t deserve this sentence, not to be able to touch anyone…”
“It isn’t forever. His time is almost up! Will’s sentence didn’t seem too harsh to me. He just doesn’t want the old king playing his old tricks. You must see, from my brother’s perspective, that the Magus, as you call him, tried to trap both of them in the Wicked Revels, feeding their sexual power to him, through the tree. The other faeries asked Will to be rid of him. And then, after he was killed, he came back from the dead! No wise ruler would give too much leeway to a man like that. My brother must protect his kingdom. One doesn’t just let one’s rivals waltz through the gates.”
“We just want to be free to marry…” Only, this wasn’t true, from the Magus’ perspective. He was planning to take back the throne. I hated the thought. If the Magus could have me, maybe he would give up on the rest.
“His sentence is up on All Saints’ Day, just after All Hallow’s Eve,” she said. “And then you can marry him. Just hold on for a few weeks!”
“Oh Jeannie, you’ve been so kind. I beg you, couldn’t Will end the sentence just a little early?”
Jeannie’s brows furrowed. “You know I can’t ask him to do that. Perhaps if the Magus swore his allegiance to Will, that would be one thing. But without something in return, a king can’t go soft on a punishment that was already generous enough.”
Damn it all. It was so simple, but the Magus would die for the sake of his pride. “Just a day early?”
Jeannie sighed gently. “I don’t know what bargain he made with this Trickster Mage, but if the Magus won’t make any concessions, then you’ll have to contend with his terms. A cruel king could have killed or maimed or imprisoned the old king. I think my brother has been quite fair. ”
Chapter Eleven
Gretel
“Gretel, I am aware of how unfortunate this situation is,” the Magus said when I returned home. I was honest with him about my meeting with Jeannie. Time was running out for us. “You think I haven’t gone over every angle of it?”
“Are you sure…if you tried to make peace with the current King and Queen…,” I ventured. “Have you ever apologized?”
He said, in a slightly halting way, “Yes…for my mistakes, of course.”
“I can tell this wasn’t a very good apology.”
“Do you want me to grovel and beg, Gretel? I am a king!”
“You’re a baker,” I said softly, although it made him snarl. “And you’re wonderful at it. We make such beautiful things together. Do you want to be king again because you would truly rather be king? Or because you just don’t want to serve someone else? I love—this—” I waved at the kitchen. “And I love you. And I don’t know if I really want to be the queen. Not if it means we can’t make things
together anymore.”
He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring slightly, his anger restrained. I thought he was going to order me to get on the rack and despite that I was really very upset at him, the thought still aroused me.
Instead, he said, “Let’s take a ride.”
“A ride? On what? You don’t have any horses.”
“I don’t keep them in a stable, but who says I don’t have horses? Perhaps we both need fresh air today. Did you get a new dress in Pillna, Gretel?”
His voice made me shiver when it took on that slight tone of command. I thought this might not be an ordinary ride, but part of the game. “Yes.”
“Let me see.”
I opened the box and took out the dress. Like all of the dresses of the region, it had a sleeveless bodice that dipped into a V in the back to show off a bit of lace blouse, and had a low neckline in front, just below the nipples, supporting the breasts. Young maidens wore the blouse beneath the dress fairly low to show off the mounds of their breasts, while older women wore blouses with a higher neck. The bodice laced in front and the skirt fell several inches above the feet to display the ankles and neatly laced boots.
“I chose the simplest black wool this time,” I said. “To show the colors of the embroidery. I might have gone a little wild with buying the thread.”
“Spent all the coin I gave you, hm?”
“I’m afraid so. But you did give it to me.”
He ran the wool between his fingers. “Very soft. Not too itchy. You’ll be glad of that. Take off all of your clothes including undergarments and put this on instead.”
I pulled off my dress and laid it on the table. Despite this distraction, I had not forgotten our argument. I looked at the pastry dough in progress and the bowl of berries and I wondered briefly, Does he hate this work? Is our happiness more on my end than his, because he is dreaming of taking back the throne? I don’t believe it. He gets lost in this. I’ve seen it in his eyes. Taking back the throne has nothing to do with happiness, only with pride.
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