by WB McKay
"We're not like dragons," she said, not quite answering my non-question. "Let's have a look at that wound."
Another woman whose skin was so dark it almost absorbed light, stepped out of a corner to touch Graulfv on the arm. "If you'll come this way, I'll see that you have a good meal. You must be hungry after your journey."
Graulfv nodded and allowed himself to be led off.
"Hey, I'm hungry too," I called after them.
The woman stopped long enough to reply. "I'll see to it that your plate is ready when Lea is done tending to your injuries. It shouldn't take long. She's quite adept."
There was a hint of something more than admiration in her voice and it made me grin. "I appreciate that."
Graulfv's voice, followed by their mingled laughter trailed behind them. I knew he was making his favorite joke about my appetite.
"If you'll remove your shorts," said Lea.
"Wow, you get right to the point," I said. "No wonder…" I tilted my head in the direction the other woman had departed.
"Xia," she supplied.
"No wonder Xia is so smitten," I said, then laughed. "Xia and Lea. That's just too cute."
Lea didn't blush, but her smile did turn up a couple notches past blinding. With her light complexion and bubbly attitude, I'd pegged her as a blushing giggler. It made me hate her cheerfulness a little less. "She is the darkness to my light." Her smile faded until she almost looked serious. "Now, disrobe so I can treat your wound."
"Yes ma'am," I said, sketching her a little salute before unbuttoning my pants and sliding out of them without standing up. It probably hurt marginally less that way. I still winced. "Lava snakes aren't poisonous are they?"
Lea's head tilted to the side. "There are several varieties of snakes that live in Derinia. All of them are what you may be describing as a lava snake. A couple of them inject toxins when they bite."
I grumbled. Of course, there were a bunch of kinds of lava snake. "How about the ones that hang out on the head of a lady made of stone?"
"Ah, no, those snakes aren't poisonous." She gestured for me to turn over. "Is that what injured your posterior?"
"Yes." I put my face down on the couch and tried not to be self-conscious about waving my behind at a stranger. Being naked was fine. Ass in the air for an examination was pretty weird. "Is this going to take long?"
"Not at all," said Lea. I could feel her step close and a thought occurred to me.
"Wait," I said, covering my wound with my own hand.
"No need to worry," she assured me. "My healing fire isn't painful."
"It's not that. I just want to try something." One more attempt couldn't hurt. I squeezed my eyes closed in concentration. After a bit of searching I found the warm thrum of my healing magic and focused it to the task of healing the snake bite. Nothing happened. "Hmm."
"That never works," said Lea, a laugh in her voice. I turned my head to look up at her. "She waved her glowing blue fingers at me. "I can't heal myself either. No healer can, as far as I know."
"Do you know why?" I asked. It was nice to be able to actually ask someone about some facet of my magic. Well, somebody other than The Morrigan, anyway.
"The best analogy I've heard is that it's like a battery trying to charge itself."
"Ah, that makes sense," I replied.
She laughed for several seconds and my face scrunched up in confusion.
"What's funny?"
When she finally calmed, she said, "I was laughing because it took me two days of research into what a battery is before I understood that analogy and decided it made sense."
I laughed. "Yeah, I've lived on Earth my whole life, and there are still so many things about human life that are a mystery. Like, how exactly are you supposed to use a bidet?"
"A what?" she asked, and we both dissolved into fits of giggles.
I buried my face in the cushions of the couch, and as my breathing calmed, I became aware of a warm, tingling sensation in my rear. It only lasted for a couple of seconds longer, then I felt a cool draft.
"There you go," said Lea. She patted me on the back. "You can sit up and put your clothes back on."
"What? This isn't the naked ball?" I teased.
"No, but if you walk around here half naked, Xia might get some ideas in her head," said Lea, her smile turning a little wicked.
I sat up and dutifully pulled my clothes back on. There wasn't even a twinge of pain.
"Now, I was promised food," I said loudly.
"It's waiting in here for you, Ms. Morrigan," called Xia's smoky voice from the next room.
The other room was a large, beautiful kitchen with a table big enough to seat eight off to one side. Graulfv and Xia sat at one end, three serving dishes between them.
Lea followed behind me and our stomachs carried on a conversation with one another. "Healing makes you hungry too, doesn't it?"
"Ravenous," Xia answered for her. She and Graulfv burst into laughter again.
I let out a small groan, and looked to Lea for commiseration.
She passed me to sit beside Xia and gave me a small shrug. "I've grown used to her teasing about my appetite." She smiled at Graulfv. "You will too, eventually."
"Well, I'm too hungry to argue about it right now, so let's eat." I scooped several mounds of meats, vegetables, and pasta on my plate and smiled when Lea did the same. "After the meal, though, Graulfv and I need a little privacy, if that's all right."
"Of course," said Lea between bites.
"We are here to serve," said Xia. "If you need privacy, we shall make certain you have it."
Graulfv scooped food onto his plate and Lea gasped when she noticed he'd suffered a couple of bites on his arm. "Why didn't you tell me you were injured as well?"
"I wasn't worried about it," he said.
Lea fussed over him for a couple minutes and healed his three bites. "Silly human," she said, swatting his arm when she was done.
He smiled up at her and we all dug in as soon as Lea was seated.
The rest of the meal passed with light conversation about Lea and Xia, and their lives. They asked very few questions, and for that I was thankful. I used the time to ponder my next move. One of these days, I was going to come up with a complete plan before I was in the middle of a life and death situation.
It was quiet as a whisper, but it was hard to miss the sound of the Fleece laughing inside my head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As soon as the meal was done, Lea and Xia cleared the dishes and excused themselves from the apartment, giving us the privacy I'd asked for, with a promise to return in two hours to help us dress for the ball. When I'd suggested we could dress ourselves Lea had laughed like it was an absurd joke and Xia had looked downright appalled.
"They are delightful," said Graulfv, taking a seat on the couch.
"Yes, they are," I agreed. "All the more reason to get this thing right. They deserve to be free."
"Everyone deserves to be free," he replied.
I nodded. "Indeed they do." I sat on the couch across from him. "So, we need to do some scouting."
"Yes. We need to figure out where we can acquire replacement armor for you."
"Right. We need to do some scouting and figure out how to disable the mask and destroy it. Stealing it isn't enough. If I get captured before I get it to MOD, it could be used again." I always turned in what I recovered. It was protocol, and I was sure there were reasons. There was value in dangerous magical objects, I knew Owen liked to study the stuff. But this was different. "Of course, that's if The Morrigan were to even let me turn it in. No, destroying it is the best way."
"I'll check on security," said Graulfv. "They may have spare armor, or an equivalent of some kind."
I looked at Graulfv. He appeared as lost in his thoughts as I was. I wasn't sure of all that he'd said, but I'd caught the word "security". "Yes! We should know what they have for security here. We need to know what we're dealing with before I go busting into a roo
m of evil oppressors."
"On second thought, it's much more likely that one of the guests would have brought spares. I should see if I can get into any of their rooms."
"One of the guests' rooms! This place is full of powerful fae. Someone here should have a way for me to destroy the king's mask. It's so obvious. You're brilliant, Graulfv."
"Someone has to have armor that you can wear out of here. Even if we have to take it from their body."
I retraced the things Graulfv had been saying in my head. "Wait, what?"
"Hmm?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Your safety, of course."
"Huh?"
"The armor," he said. "Haven't you been listening to me?"
"Well have you been listening to me?"
After a ten minute rehash of what we'd both been talking about, it was decided. Graulfv would hunt around for some new armor for me and keep his ears open for any information about a fae that could destroy magical objects, or something similar. I would be snooping around the areas where other guests were staying, trying to do the same, but with the focus on destroying the mask. We would work from different directions, so as not to draw too much attention, and work back toward our room in an hour and thirty minutes.
"Sounds like a plan," said Graulfv. "Who is leaving first?"
"I will," I replied. "I'm not patient enough to sit around while I know what I'm supposed to be doing."
Graulfv smiled at my self-assessment. "I will wait five minutes and start on the rock side of the castle. I'm sure the powerful fae will be closer to the windows."
"Right, wouldn't want to miss the views of the ramshackle houses." I rolled my eyes, exhaled, and met Graulfv's eyes. "Good hunting." I patted him on the shoulder, then ducked into the lavish hallway.
It was impossible to tell how many floors were in the castle, but based on the number of windows I'd seen from the outside, the number was high. Since there weren't elevators, it seemed likely that the most important people would be on the lower floors, so they wouldn't have to trek as far.
I shook my head at my own assessment. No, I was thinking like a poor person. Rich and powerful people needed to be up high and have the best views. They didn't care about the effort it would take to go up and down stairs for trivial things because they would send servants to take care of them. Hell, if the climb of the stairs was too much they'd probably have someone carry them.
That meant, despite my recent upgrade in magic and the Fleece, my position on a lower floor indicated I was still regarded as a minor power. Factors like being from Earth, my age, and the fact that no one in Faerie had ever met me likely weighed in on that assessment. Mostly, that made me feel relieved. Some small part of me though, rankled.
I was deep into a philosophical argument with myself about whether power by definition corrupted when I reached the top floor of the castle. At the end of the hall, a lithe form passed from one room and disappeared into another. It caught me off guard, and I stumbled on the thick carpet. He barely glanced in my direction, but I could have sworn I saw a flash of orange around his eyes. Is that… ? It couldn't be… I'd only ever seen one person with bright orange eyelids, and he worked for Erik Bresnan. Bresnan was off somewhere licking his wounds. He'd been humiliated when I'd expelled him from the fae council. He wouldn't be at an event for the powerful fae of Faerie after all that. Which meant that Paulo—his lackey with the orange eyelids—wouldn't be there. Maybe he had a brother…
I shook off the thoughts. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I'd look into what Erik Bresnan was up to another day. Today, I had to find a way to destroy the mask. If only it were as easy as stomping on it. Unfortunately, high level enchantments were almost always immune to physical destruction. If I shattered the mask into a hundred pieces, at least one of them would still have all the controlling abilities as when it was whole.
In my trek to the top of the tower, I'd found that most of the floors had lounges where the attendees were mingling prior to the ball. Without too much trouble, I located the one on the top floor and sat off to the side of the main circle, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible for a girl with wings wearing a piece of powerful history for a hat. There was no way these fae, power obsessed as they were, didn't notice me.
Still, they pretended, and so did I.
The conversation was predictable. Like most with power, these fae were keen to boast of the influence they had.
"Oh, I reached a hundred and fifty servants a year ago," said a woman with pale skin and an abundance of insectoid legs sprouting from beneath her dress. I wasn't sure if the crown and trident were her costume, or just the way she always presented herself. "They're such a bother. It's a wonder I don't feed them to my children."
"Yes, being a monarch is a bother," said a man in pants so tight I could have used him to teach an anatomy lesson. "It's so hard to restrain myself from locking most of my subjects in their own minds. They're all halfway there anyway."
"Ugh. These people are the worst," I said, unable to help myself.
I wanted nothing more than to move away from their group, but they were the center around which the rest orbited. From what I could tell, the power players were four or five people surrounded by at least three lackeys each.
A giant of a man with a thin slit of a mouth and flat face shouted for another drink. On his head he wore a floppy red hat that seemed completely out of sync with the formal attire he, and everyone else wore. It wasn't until he wiped a smear of blood from his face and licked it off his finger that I realized what type of fae he was. A redcap. The floppy hat was a disgusting amalgamation of organs and blood-soaked cloth. From what I understood, they grew in size and power with each life they claimed, and they would die if their hat wasn't kept wet with the blood of their victims. I had never heard of one as large as he was. He stood nearly eight feet tall.
A woman wearing a black dress with white accents, and a white bow tied around her waist flitted into the room, a tray holding two drinks balanced on her hand. Her ears were pointed, and her skin was a dark red. She moved with the grace of a dancer. Far too hypnotic to be relegated to serving drinks for a bunch of snobs like this.
The cronies parted around her, allowing her to slide in between Mr. Tightpants and the redcap. She handed the first drink to the redcap, and the second to one of Tightpants's lackeys. The lackey was so unobtrusive, I'd barely noticed him. He was a wisp of a man, a yellow cast to his skin, and stooped shoulders. He brought the drink to his own mouth and held it there for a few seconds, then handed it to Tightpants.
Hmm. Are you paranoid about poison? I bit my lip, mentally running over the possibilities.
I watched them for a few more minutes, but didn't note anything of interest, so I moved on before they caught me staring. I'd have to cruise by them later to see if I could get a whiff of magic that might be what I was looking for. I'd come across a couple of magic eaters in my time at MOD. For some reason, they both smelled a little like lavender. MOD usually didn't bother them. The exception was when magic eaters stole from powerful fae. That was never a fun situation. The heavyweights wanted the world to crumble when some priceless object of theirs was stolen so some "low level degenerate", as one had said, could have a midnight snack. I could sympathize to some extent—no one wanted to be robbed—but the fits they threw made sympathy harder to come by.
There was only one other group worth observing, so I migrated into their orbit. One of the waitresses caught me and asked if I would like a drink. I wasn't much of a drinker, but I ordered a glass of champagne so I would blend in. She came back with it and I took a sip and tried not to grimace. "I appreciate it." I appreciated having some camouflage, anyway.
I had no idea why so many people were clustered around Tightpants and friends. This other group was where it was at. In the middle of the small crowd was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, though if you pushed me, I couldn't have described more than her voice and her sea blue eyes. She sang a lilting tu
ne with words I couldn't understand, but reminded me of crashing waves and salt air. Everyone around her wore a rapt expression and swayed where they stood.
There was a nagging voice whispering in the back of my head, but it was taking focus from the music, so I pushed it down. I had to get closer to the woman and her voice, feel it swirl around and through me.
That unimportant part of me, something I vaguely recognized as conscious thought, urged me to turn away. I tried to tell it about the sounds of the sea, and the woman's beautiful eyes. The crowd surrounding the object of my adoration parted, knowing that we were meant to be together. The lovely creature's arms spread wide, inviting me to press myself against her.
A loud crash resounded through the room, shattering the illusion made by the woman's song. I was on my knees in a corner, drooling up at a beautiful fae, her pale blue skin patterned with scales and lined in swirling patterns. She reminded me very much of Enid, a nereid, when she was in her water form, with one key difference: this woman radiated fury and menace. Her mouth spread open, baring long fangs and letting out a harsh hiss.
I wiped the saliva from my mouth and scrambled to my feet.
"Oh, do shut up, siren," said Tightpants, gesturing at the serving tray and shattered glass on the floor. "Someone has attempted to enchant my drink. If it weren't for my servants, I could have been put under someone's sway. I don't care about your silly little games."
"Actually sir, it was relatively harmless. The enchantment would have forced you to briefly strut around like a chicken. I'm not sure why such a light enchantment was considered worth the effort."
I had to struggle to hear the last of the lackey's words because Tightpants had tried to shut him up by shouting over him. I sidled away from the siren. It seemed she had already turned her attention to another target, but it was better to be safe than sorry when she'd already proven she could get in my head.
As I made my way through the party, I noticed the rest of the crowd surrounding Tightpants appeared to be stifling their laughter. It was never a good idea to laugh openly at the ridiculous antics of the powerful. The fact that the other people who rated well enough to score a room on the top floor were displaying that behavior meant Tightpants was extremely powerful. Another reason to look elsewhere for what I needed.