“Hardly,” Dallan interjected, swinging the front door open and ushering us inside. “We don’t meet many Godparents that are… worth knowing.” He cleared his throat and all the lights in the hallway burst into light.
“This is Graciously Celestial of the Reynold’s Clan,” Dallan announced in such a formal way that I curtsied deeply in response.
That appeared to be the right thing to do, according to Astraea’s nod and smile and the way the lights turned slightly pink as if the house itself was blushing.
“Thank you for having me over at the last minute like this,” I said in the sort of demure voice my mother would have been pleased to know I remembered from all my lessons about society. “I don’t know when I’ve seen a prettier house.”
The pink tiny deepened and a couple of glass fairy lights exploded.
“Don’t lay it on too thick,” Dallan murmured, as he turned towards me and held out his arm as if we were at a ball.
I blinked at him for a moment, then placed my hand on his arm. It was such an odd gesture to make, even old fashioned by fairy standards.
“The house,” Astraea mouthed before she danced up the stairs ahead of us.
I nodded in understanding. No doubt the house held its owners to high standards, perhaps the standards that had been fashionable back when it was created.
We climbed a long flight of stairs, of course, and entered a wide and deep hallway. It appeared to go on forever, disappearing into the darkness at some unknown point.
“Do we have rooms ready for Grace?” Dallan asked.
In response, the house gave a slight little shiver. A smaller hallway appeared, branching off as if it had always been there. Around that corner, there was a lavender doorway with a glistening doorknob just encouraging me to open it.
“This is where I leave you,” Dallan murmured, taking my hand off of his arms and bring it up towards his lips. He didn’t quite kiss it, but he hesitated in that position, his eyes on mine.
I shivered.
He dropped my hand and bowed, striding off down the hallway in a different direction than his sister had taken.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I muttered as the door in front of me swung open and I was ushered by the house into the rooms it had prepared—custom made, even—just for me.
I tried to give the room it’s dues, but I was so exhausted that I barely managed to stumble into the on-suite bathing room and necessary, splash some water on my face, clean my teeth, dress in the nightgown set out for me—just my size—and climb into the overstuffed bed.
“This is perfect,” I murmured to the house in appreciation. “You truly are the most specular house in any world anywhere.”
The last thing I remembered was the lights dimming slowly as I drifted into a desperately needed sleep.
Chapter Eleven
I awoke to a knocking on the door. I sat up to yell at whichever family member it was that was disturbing the best sleep I’d had in centuries when I discovered that I was not home at all, but it a Magical house in a room that had been designed just for me.
I was so awestruck as I took in the silver and blue color palette, from the thick carpet to the curtains around the four-poster bed I was resting so comfortably in, that I forgot that someone was at the door before they knocked again.
“Oh!” I cried in surprise. “Right! Come in!”
Dallan poked his head inside, then back out again. “Are you sure you’re decent?”
I looked down at the nightgown the house had given me. Last night, I had been too exhausted to appreciate how elegant it was. It was feminine and lacy, and entirely modest from chin to ankle.
“We’re fine,” I said dryly. “This nightgown covers more than most dresses I wear as a Godmother.”
He cautiously reappeared and stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Did you sleep well?”
I nodded, stretching to chase the last of the sleep away. “The question is how long did I sleep exactly?”
“About eight hours,” Dallan said. When he saw my dismay he hurried to add, “we did not learn until moments ago that they did, indeed, find a missing party from the Gilterran castle. We have plenty of time for you to get ready and join us for…” He glanced at the timepiece he pulled from his pocket. “Lunch. We can then head off back to Gilterra together. Unless there’s a problem.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Just that I have no belongings of my own here,” I pointed out. “I could wear my dress again, I suppose.”
Dallan flushed inexplicably. “About that,” he said, clearing his throat and tugging at the collar of his shirt. “I’m afraid… the house destroyed your things.”
I gaped at him. “What?”
“The house took an extreme dislike to your belonging and has insisted on replacing everything itself except for your wand, which was deemed acceptable.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t quite understanding what had happened. I knew that my family didn’t approve of my modest wardrobe, but I hadn’t thought that it was bad enough to offend a house.
“Well, the house was kind enough to provide me with a toothbrush last night,” I said in a sort of daze. “I am sure I can trust it with… everything else.”
Apparently, that was the right thing to say. A happy breeze blew through the room, flinging open wardrobe doors and cabinets in every direction.
Dallan smirked, then bowed in my direction. “I will allow you to get dressed. We have a full day ahead of us.”
He closed the door behind him before I could respond.
I stared after him for a long moment, trying to figure him out. He was one of the most confusing creatures I’d ever met.
His sister was another member of that list.
I’d worried that the house would have taste far to ornate for me to wear, but it had provided me with more or less sensible clothes, from underthings that were both practical and comfortable, to shoes that soothed my aching feet, and a dress that flattered but wasn’t heavy with ornamentation or fabrics that wouldn’t breathe or wear well over a long day.
The colors were flattering, bringing out the blue in my hair and the softer blue of my eyes. Sometime during the night, the house must have done something to me, or perhaps while I was bathing, for I could swear fewer gray hairs were lacing through the darker strands.
“Thank you,” I told the house gratefully as I finished my preparations. I’d found the perfect pocket for my wand in my new dress and tucked it in there now, smiling to myself at the convenience. For some reason, dresses rarely ever had enough pockets.
Little fairy lights sparkled in answer to my thanks. I grinned. I loved this house. I was going to have to be on my best behavior not to beg to be allowed to stay.
But then, I remembered Brunhild’s lonely house. I hoped it had been left to a proper guardian who would keep the dragons’ secrets. If not, I would have to find some way to protect them.
That, it turned out, was one of the things the twins wanted to talk about while I broke my fast. They also, it appeared, had slept in late and were eating their first meal of the day as well. That made me feel a little better about my own laziness.
Flit appeared just as I was sitting down at the table. He initially sat on my shoulder and stared longingly at the food, but it didn’t take much encouragement for him to settle himself in the middle of the table and begin to stuff his face.
I’d lost track of him sometime the evening before, but now he was back and acting as if he’d never left.
I wondered if he had returned home to check in with his relatives. I figured that was likely. I wasn’t going to ask him how he found me again, in this surely secret location.
The house seemed to like its new little guest and soon more food appeared from the kitchen, the kind of meats and fish that would tempt a miniature dragon.
“Brunhild’s house,” Dallan said, spreading jam on his already buttered bread with ridiculous precision. Seriously, no one needed jam to reach the very edge of every slice. I u
sually just slathered it on, myself. “You never read the scroll, did you?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t feel that it would be right. Brunhild might be dead, but she deserves privacy all the same.”
“It seems Brunhild had her eye on you,” Astraea said. “She expressed interest in you taking over her home and left everything of her to you, with the contingency that you accept it and the responsibility it requires.
I put my knife down. “Why would she do such a thing?”
“There are ways of knowing the best path to take when it comes to something like a person’s will,” Astraea said, eyeing a ball of melon she held on her fork. “She most likely used Magic to discern who the most appropriate choice would be, and that happened to be you.”
“Ah,” I said. I bit my lip and looked down at my plate. The cheese pastry that had looked so divine now looked tasteless. I’d lost my appetite.
I knew that I would accept the responsibility, but the idea still intimidated me. Living with dragons… out in the woods in a large house… it was… frightening to consider.
“You don’t have to accept it,” Dallan said.
I glanced up at him, then down at my hands. “Yes, I do,” I said quietly, surely. “I will make it work. I wish…”
The twins raised their eyebrows at me, his dark, hers fair. It was funny how they could look so dissimilar, yet share the same expressions so often.
I laughed at myself. “Well, I wish that that house were like this one. I know it’s silly. It’s just… so nice here, so comfortable and peaceful and warm and beautiful…”
The house made a soft creaking sound, and the air around me warmed as if I was receiving a gentle hug from the building.
The twins exchanged another one of their loaded glances.
“We could visit,” Astraea suggested. “And by we, I include the house. If there is potential there, this house may be able to… expand its consciousness.”
I blinked. “Really? You would allow that?”
The twins chortled with laughter. “The house does what it wants,” Dallan pointed out. “If the house likes you and there’s potential in the new place, it will most likely adopt you. Just you see.”
I hesitated, wondering if it would put the dragons in the Keep at risk, to bring Justice and Mercy right to their door. I caught Flit’s eye, wondering what I should do.
In response, he flirtatiously meandered over to Astraea and climbed into her lap. He immediately snatched a melon ball from her plate and chewed it with his mouth wide open.
“I think that would be fine,” I said cautiously. I just hoped that Flit could speak for the rest of the dragons.
Dallan dusted crumbs off of his hands. I noticed, for the first time, that he was not wearing gloves at the moment. He had nice hands, very square and masculine, with strong fingers. I glanced over at Astraea and nodded that she, too, had shed her gloves while at home. Her hands were very ladylike and pretty, her nails as neat as any Gifted princess’s.
I fought the urge to hide my own, bitten messes. I glanced down and was startled to see that, like with my hair, the house had fixed those, too.
“I really love this house,” I mentioned as I bit into my perfect cheese and fruit pastry.
The twins laughed in response.
“You truly are refreshing,” Astraea said, seeing my confusion at their reaction. “You are strangely… untainted for a fairy of your centuries.”
“Thank you?” I couldn’t tell if that was meant as a compliment or not.
“Fairies, particularly Godparents,” she explained, “grow self-centered and bored and jaded very quickly. They become convinced of their own grandeur and look down on everyone else. It is quite tiresome.”
Having grown up in a premier Godparent household, I agreed full-heartedly with her assessment.
“We do not mean it as an insult,” she continued, “but you do not seem as if you are a fairy at all.”
Well, that was a fascinating thing to say.
“Are you?” I asked. “I mean, if it’s not rude to ask, are you fairies?”
“No, not really,” Dallan said. “We have some characteristics in common with fairies, and we share parentage with some of the fairy families, but no, we are not precisely fairies.”
“Which is why you can lie,” I blurted.
Dallan nodded seriously. “Yes, that is a peculiar side effect of our situation.”
“So, what,” I said, feeling uncomfortable under his steady gaze. “You two think that I’m like you?”
The shrugged in unison.
“We’re not sure,” Astraea admitted. “We do think that it’s possible.”
“Is that why you… touched my hand in the carriage last night?” I asked.
Dallan nodded. “That was part of it. And, no, I can’t answer any questions about that because I couldn’t tell.”
“That’s unusual in itself,” Astraea leaned forward to confess. She reached for a muffin and presented it to the tiny dragon that was still in her lap, picking from her plate.
“Enough about that,” Dallan said authoritatively. “We have news from Gilterra. One of Princess Talia’s foremost suitors has also disappeared from the castle. We cannot be sure of the timing, but everything unusual at this point is suspect.”
I nodded in agreement. “And I assume that his name wasn’t Denny and he couldn’t be mistaken as this mysterious cad from the woods?”
Dallan shrugged. “We will have to determine that when we speak to the princesses again. You were right to assume that they noticed more than they were given credit for.”
“Girls notice everything, in my experience,” I agreed. “Most children do, but girls of a certain age are always on high alert. Perhaps, it is because women must fill their roles so precisely, or find themselves outcasts or worse.”
“The roles of femininity are merciless,” Astraea agreed.
“Sadly so,” Dallan said with a nod, tossing his napkin to the table and shoving back his chair. Somehow he had reduced his jam-laden toast to mere crumbs without getting a bit of jam on his shirts. The creature was an enigma. “If you are ready, we will return to Gilterra and see what we can discover about this missing suitor. His name, I’ve been told, is Alexander. He has been fostered in Gilterra for the past ten years, learning statecraft from the king and weapons handling as is usual for aristocratic sons. His birth kingdom is not far from Gilterra and known for breeding fine horses.”
Astraea looked up with interest. “Paardenstad? Isn’t that where our team was bred? Is the suitor from there?”
Dallan nodded. “Yes. Which is why we will be visiting Paardenstad before we return to Gilterra. They may have heard word from him and we must hope that he knows more about Talia than we do.”
Chapter Twelve
Upon arriving in Paardenstad, we discovered that our arrival had been anticipated. Guards were waiting outside of the castle to escort us is to meet with the king and queen without having to wait.
Paardanstad was a pretty, pastoral sort of kingdom. It was made up primarily of fields, surrounded by mountains on three sides, but mostly rich pasture with a unique silver-blue cast to its grass. Everywhere I looked, I could see horses being paid homage to in art, and in sculpture, even in the little everyday details like door handles and paving stones, they all were made in the image of horses.
The castle itself displayed tapestries of horses cavorting in the waves, or firehorses dancing among flames, or through the woods, or winged horses spreading their wings and taking to the sky. Stained glass windows surrounded us, following the same motif.
The king and queen, I noticed as we entered the room we were guided to, were dressed appropriately for such a kingdom, both wearing riding clothes of the best quality. The sat at a small table, no doubt finishing their own luncheon as they waited for us.
“Queen Evi and King Consort, Sem, welcome you to Paardanstad,” we were introduced.
The king and queen stood quickly, brushing c
rumbs from their clothing and smiling in a friendly sort of welcome.
This was not a stuffy sort of kingdom. I could feel myself relaxing in the informal atmosphere. Both Evi and her consort were hearty, healthy people with athletic builds. The queen wore her hair in braids wrapped neatly around the crown of her head, while the king’s own fair hair was just long enough to frame his congenially handsome face.
“We have heard that you have questions about our Alexander,” Queen Evi said, welcoming us to the room and gesturing for us to be seated at the table. “Refreshments?”
I glanced at the spread. Even though I had just finished eating, the table was covered with temptations. I thanked her and served myself a couple of treats.
To my surprise, Dallan and Astraea pushed back their hoods and followed suit.
“We have learned that Alexander was present in Gilterra when the Sleeping Spell was set into motion,” Astraea said without preamble. Like me, she seemed to think this pair of royals would appreciate a more direct approach than most. “However, he is no longer there. Have you heard from him since Gilterra began sleeping?”
Queen Evi pursed her lips thoughtfully. “No, we have not heard from him. I do know that Alexander intended to make an offer for Princess Talia and had hoped to be the one to wake her from her sleep.”
“That would be impossible, if he was under the sleep himself,” I pointed out, trying not to drool too badly over the fruit-dotted roll on my plate. There were pieces of chocolate and crystallized ginger dotted throughout the soft dough. A treat like this was sure to add to my curves, but it was a piece of art and a shame to ignore it when it deserved my full appreciation.
“Yes, that’s why he made arrangements,” the queen said, offering me a dish of butter.
I took it thankfully. “What kind of arrangements?”
The queen tapped her cheek. “Well, my great-grandmother was a Godmother, and she passed down some Magical ability in our line. When Alexander realized what was about to happen in Gilterra—we follow all the traditions, you see—I was able to make him an amulet that made him immune from the Sleeping Spell. We’ve met Princess Talia several times over the years. Our families have always been great friends. I wanted to give Alexander every opportunity to prove his love to that sweet girl.”
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