The boisterous cougar and mountain goat frolic across the lawn. My attention flinches over to the Fae gauging my expression. Hell, his comely features rival the most devastating of his peers as well as humans, able to send both species to their knees.
“If we’re gonna do this, you’ll have to return the favor,” I dictate.
“Fair enough. Illuminate me,” he prompts.
“My favorite winged creature? A lark.” And when a sarcastic grin winds across his face, I shove his shoulder. “Get off your high throne. It’s not a vanity thing.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“It’s the first bird I ever saw. I mean, it’s the first one I remember truly observing, so it was the first time I realized how much I love anything that flies.” I tuck my hair behind my ears. “They can do something I can’t. They get to live in the sky, they travel with the wind, and they’re fearless when they do it. I’m right jealous they get to see the world from above. Growing up, I wanted the same freedom.”
I trail off, knowing I’ve gotten carried away. All my jabbering has cranked a smile out of me.
Cerulean considers that smile while asking, “Freedom from what?”
I shrug, though it’s nothing to shrug about. “I was a chimney sweep.”
The Fae’s reaction is immediate. His attention jumps to my eyes to see if I’m in earnest, then he shifts his frown toward the jagged mountain paths. Don’t know why, but he looks disturbed. “Will you tell me more?”
19
I don’t have to tell him a damn thing, yet a fistful of thoughts punch through my mind. Quit while I’m ahead or see where this goes, find out where this will lead. Treat this parley like another twist or turn in this mountainous labyrinth. Talk with my captor, keep him close. Find a truce but don’t yield. Dive off the edge but don’t crash.
Maybe I want to hear myself say it aloud. Or maybe I want to tell someone who’s opinion doesn’t matter, because there’s no risk. Or maybe his reaction does matter, a little.
I talk about being a tyke. Not the parts about having a home, a family, and a sanctuary. I talk about everything that came before. I live in Middle Country, but my roots are buried in the south among the dragons.
“I’m the foundling daughter of a brothel keeper,” I announce, crossing my legs. “I was born during an ale brawl between patrons, popping out of my mama’s womb and into the waiting arms of the wench who helped deliver me. Don’t know who my papa is—or was—but my mama didn’t have time for suckling or swaddling, so she dumped me at an overcrowded orphanage before I could crawl, which transferred me to Middle Country and another overcrowded orphanage, which I ran away from when I was eight.”
I throw a pebble into the valley. “Nobody ever told me the streets were just as mean. I got plucked from an alleyway by a man with the face of a bulldog, who turned me into one of his chimney sweeps.”
Cerulean listens as I describe the two years I spent scaling those blackened brick lungs. Two years of coughing on ash and trying not to pass out from exhaustion. Two years of soot flecks caking my eyes. Two years of raw elbows and scraped knees. Two years of grime-stuffed nails and whooping fits. Two years of crying myself to sleep.
My captor kept a retainer of us on hand, rotating the sweeps depending on which of us was hacking the least on any given day. If anyone refused, they’d get the switch—or worse—and we’d have to watch. Only a fraction of the sweeps made it through those years.
“I was crushed inside a flue one morning, trying to stifle my sobs,” I tell Cerulean. “Don’t know why, but that particular chimney didn’t have a cap, so I glanced at the clouds through the ceiling, where a box of blue shone down on me.”
My throat swells at the memory, but I smile through it. “That’s when I saw the littlest bird circling and singing over and over, as if it knew what I needed. I thought about freedom, how that creature made it seem so easy, and I stopped crying. It gave me comfort, and that was enough to get me out of there.”
I’d always been afraid my captor would find me if I tried to escape, but I didn’t care right then. While he was busy dragging another girl to a customer’s townhouse, I scrambled down the flue, raced out of that building, and followed that bird as it flew over the town. I ran, and ran, and ran in the same direction, until I bumped into an old man with a friendly face.
The lark had swooped down and perched on Papa Thorne’s shoulder as he braced me steady, concern etched across his dark features. I fought to kick him in the shin, but when I noticed the bird, I stopped.
My grimy face and shredded knees told Papa Thorne what I was. He wiped away the black coating my hair and revealed a shock of white beneath the cinders. After that, he bought me a big fat cheese tart and took me to a healer, and the bird stayed on Papa Thorne’s shoulder the whole time. That’s how I knew he was safe. And that’s how I found a home.
My sisters came after that, stumbling separately into our lives that same year, bringing their own stories with them. Papa Thorne isn’t someone who sees an abandoned child and leaves them to their fates. So we became a family.
“The lark stayed until I was able to sleep through the night without coughing. Then it swooped off into the wild, maybe to save others,” I say. “That’s where I get my name from. Since I didn’t have one when Papa found me, he suggested that I name myself. So I chose Lark, to thank the bird for giving me hope.”
The moon and stars pump light onto the range. As I watch the sky inhale and exhale clouds, Cerulean’s attention sears a trail across my profile. The instant I meet his eyes, he bends one knee and lounges into a negligent pose, the opposite limb draped close to mine, both spilling off the rim.
Sprawled like that, he says, “Except you didn’t need wings to free yourself. You simply needed to run.”
Lucky for him, he said that without being condescending. “You saying it was always in my power to run away? ’Cause that’s not how it felt for two years.”
“I have this habit of believing how something feels and what that feeling means…well, perhaps it’s rarely obvious until the moment is over. What do you suppose?”
“Is that a jab?”
“No. It’s me asking what you think?”
Oh. “I’d rather know if it’s in my power to escape this mountain.”
“And I, for one, cannot wait to find out.”
“For once, we agree.”
We chuckle, the sound foreign and downright alarming, because we peter out. Where had that laughter come from? Why had it seemed nostalgic?
I shake my head. “Why did I tell you this?”
“Why did I listen?” he asks, equally flummoxed.
Despite the questions, some type of upheaval simmers off Cerulean, his dark blue mouth thinning with bitterness. He looks as though he actually cares about my story.
Another awkwardness settles over us. I shift, restless but not ready to go back inside.
That same silhouette from earlier swings over the landscape, spiraling around the tail of a creeper. As opposed to the ones in my world, the climbing vines here are twelve times the size, lacing the bluffs or flopping over rocky brackets and swaying in the air. Cerulean’s owl friend launches off the spire and beats its wings after the other creature. They meet halfway, swerving around one another in a continuous spiral formation.
“You have one, two, three, four, five, six questions drifting through your mind,” Cerulean observes. “I’m beginning to decipher the number based on nothing in particular. Needless to say, that many questions sound like a wealth of bargains.”
I wonder, “How do you keep predators from snatching the refuge dwellers? How did you get ’em to share this habitat without fighting for dominance or preying on one another? Did they accept each other outright, or did it take time? Are you and Moth tending to ’em alone, or do other Faeries help? What about animal healers?”
“So I was wrong. Five questions.”
“Who said I was finished? I’ve got all night.”
“Are you applying for a keeper’s position?”
“Don’t need to. I’ve got one of my own.”
“One what?”
I let my deadpan expression speak for itself. His brows slam together. Surprise looks good on him, and I’m proud I put that expression there.
“You’re a keeper?” he asks.
“You might call it that, but I prefer the term, Fauna Goddess. It’s exotic and goes with my hair.”
The Fae scans me anew, intrigue enlivening his features. “Well, well. Very hush-hush of you, withholding that morsel from me. What manner of fauna?”
I hedge. “How much time have you got?”
Cerulean doesn’t answer, just crooks his mouth.
Since it’s a lot more fun to talk about the Fable Dusk Sanctuary, I tell him how I spend my days saving creatures, as that lark once saved me. Though I could never succeed without my sisters. Juniper’s a master at figuring out poacher routes and locating their traps, so we’re able to steal the animals back. With her skill at prying open steel jaws and metal cages, and with Cove’s talent for pickpocketing, we learned how to work quietly and swiftly, mostly without crossing weapons and making enemies.
Otherwise, some fauna get away on their own. In those cases, we comb the neighboring villages, hamlets, and farms, rescuing survivors or any creatures that have been hurt. It’s backbreaking work, but my family loves it.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cerulean stumped—or disturbed. A bundle of questions crowds his face, so he asks, and I answer. Stories about the animals flow out, including how my sisters and I learned to foster them, the hard stuff as well as the precious bits. I tell him about the pond that Cove built, the pastures that Juniper maintains for deer and fawns, and the makeshift aviary I’ve outfitted with houses, swings, and feeders.
Our chatter grows animated, drifting from one detail to the next, Cerulean revealing tidbits about the Fae fauna that aren’t recorded in the Fables. He has his own memories, some bittersweet, some hysterical, some heartrending, some fascinating. We go so far as to swap ideas for tending to the wildlife. I can’t believe it, but I lose track of the night.
That is, until my thoughts veer. Reminiscing about the animals Juniper, Cove, and I left behind pierces my gut, the same as thoughts of Papa Thorne do. Sharing this with the Fae who ripped it all away spreads the wound wider.
I whip up a steely expression and hurl it at Cerulean. “Where are my sisters? What’s Juniper being forced to do?”
He blinks from our trance, his expression morphing into nonchalance. “That is up to Puck, not me.”
“What’s Cove being forced—”
“And that is up to Elixir.”
Puck. Elixir.
The other two rulers of this realm. One of the woodland, in the depths of the forest valley. One of the underground river, where channels rush into natural tunnels.
“Don’t you know ’em well enough to guess?” I argue.
“I could. I might. I may,” Cerulean volunteers.
I read his mind. These tricksters and their deals. “What do you want?”
“That depends on what you want.”
“I just told you.”
“So many questions for the same answer.”
I threaten to push him off the mountain’s edge. To that, he throws back his head and belts out a laugh, only partially vexed that we’ve stumbled from the unbeaten, friendly path.
Cerulean spins the flute between his digits. “Call me the elegant trickster. Call Puck the mischievous trickster. Call Elixir the vengeful trickster. The question is, which is more vicious? Think carefully. Very, very carefully.”
Not knowing about my sisters is torture. But if Cerulean takes his best guess, I’ll have to carry the visuals up this mountain, and worrying will distract me. If that happens, my sisters and I will be at risk.
“I don’t want to know, do I?” I mutter.
Cerulean’s about to reply when a set of bars squeals through the park. I tense, but the Fae beside me drops the instrument and whips toward the disturbance, his muscles locked. Glancing over his shoulder, he peers at the wild with frantic eyes.
I follow his trajectory. In one of the trees, the cardinal perches on a rusty bird swing, which must have bumped into a neighboring rung. If I didn’t know any better, I’d reckon it sounded like a cage door shutting.
I turn back to the Fae, who stares at the swing through slackened features, those orbs ballooning. Tonight, he’s weaponless. I gauge his fattening pupils and his fingers instinctively hovering over his waistband, where he normally tethers the collapsible javelin.
He’s scared.
Cerulean’s eyes dart over to me. A flush races up his cheekbones, but he covers it up right quick, repugnance eclipsing fear and humiliation. He locates his flute on the grass and deposits it into the quiver at his back. “I would hardly wish to know the suffering of people who matter to me. Not unless it helps me to save them.”
An ominous inkling squats in my stomach. “And did it help?”
“Yes and no. No and yes. Both and neither, and all at once.”
“Bullshit me again, and I’ll throw your flute over the edge.”
“Throw it over the edge, and I’ll make you catch it.”
“Make me catch it, and it’s mine.”
Cerulean peers at me. “Where in The Dark Fables did you come from?”
“We’re not talking about me anymore.”
“Such a pity. I like talking about you far more than I should.”
Shit. He just goes and admits that, and my body just goes and reacts. Tingles rush from my scalp to my toes, charging me with more energy than I had seconds ago.
All the same, I brush his words from my shoulders like dust. Lots of people in the village call me a hussy, but with this Fae, I can’t afford to think like one.
Around us, crickets scrape through the silence. The lawn emits the herbal fragrance of thyme.
Cerulean twists toward the valley, a great big gash that punctures the landscape. “I was raised by animals—a wandering ram, a wolverine, a mountain lion, and a raptor who’d been rejected by their kin. My mother and father departed to one of the Unseelie Courts, leaving me behind when I was a fledgling, so the fauna reared me amongst the rowans and boulders. They taught me how to defend myself and live off the flora. They taught me patience and vigilance. I trained with my javelin against them, honing my speed and reflexes. And every night, I’d entertain them by playing the flute my parents had left me—the only thing they’d left me besides a weapon. I’d rest with the animals, wrestle with them, hunt with them. They were mine, and I was theirs. Nobody could sever that, and even so young, I knew I’d slay anyone who tried.
“I may be a ruler, but the creatures of the wild are my family—and I saw what you did to them.” His haunted eyes swallow the view. “The day of The Trapping, I fell asleep in The Watch of Nightingales. At the time, it was my favorite resting place. With Moth living there, sometimes her parents would invite me to dine at their cottage. Other times, Moth and I would read to each other beneath the wind chimes. But on this particular evening, we’d just finished playing a hiding game in the woods, and then I’d fallen into slumber amongst the nests after she traipsed home.
“Not an hour later, I awoke to a cacophony of bleats, roars, screeches, and hoots. Under a blinding midday sun, the humans had stolen past the Triad, using fire laced with molten iron to extinguish the veil shielding our land.” He hisses, his profile trapped in memories. “So many noises from my wild family. The humans threw them into crates forged of more iron. I remember the scent of charred wings and fur sawing through my nostrils. I remember the animals screaming, their eyes frantic as they searched for a means to flee, searched for help…searched for me.”
Cerulean sucks in an anguished, serrated breath. “I tried to liberate them, but the iron bolts singed my palms before I could rip the grates from their hinges. Suddenly, a gag found its way into my mouth. Oh, but The Trappin
g didn’t astound me as it should have. What did astound me was that mortals had targeted the fauna, who had done nothing to them.”
A lump swells in my throat. “And what did they do to you?”
“I awakened in a cage barely large enough to stand in. My mortal captors fed me and provided water when they were in the mood, but mostly they played impressively creative games.”
To emphasize, he inclines his chin toward his arms, where shriveled craters pit into his skin, as if someone had jabbed Cerulean repeatedly with a chimney rod. I hadn’t noticed the scars until now. They look…familiar.
Also, I know all too well about being plucked from one life and shoved into another. I know how it feels to see creatures harmed in captivity. I understand the drive to save them. I know what it means to have a family, humans and animals alike—and to lose them.
And although I hadn’t seen the brunt of The Trapping, I’d known one exception. I wonder if Cerulean had known him, been friends with him, but I won’t ask. I don’t want to share that boy yet, not with anybody.
After all that’s happened, I shouldn’t pity Cerulean. But that would lump me with my neighbors, who hadn’t known when to stop, even after they were victorious.
“For weeks, I had no conception of what they’d done to the fauna,” Cerulean continues. “But the sounds of them being taken circled in my mind. I thought I might go mad with anguish, questioning what befell them and what happened to my Solitary neighbors. I imagined the worst, rightly so.” He compresses his dark lips and whispers, “Baiting. Slaughter. Abuse. When I fled at last, I found them and saw the price of a mortal’s vengeance. It was too late for the Fae elders and children, and my family was massacred but for one. There were so many Faeries and creatures—too many of them. I might have sunk to my knees amid the carnage, if it weren’t for the last member of my family and the remaining animals, who needed me to save them.”
My eyes water. “We’re not all like that,” I venture quietly. “Parents love their sons and daughters. They adore their animal companions and consider them family. Farmers worship their livestock. Hunters honor their catches,” I say, thinking of Juniper and her crossbow. “You can’t be shocked that not all humans would’ve hurt your fauna or those Fae children who were taken. As for the rioters who did? They were crazed with grief and anger. You made plagued ’em for ages, and they were raised to think all magical beings are evil.”
Kiss the Fae (Dark Fables: Vicious Faeries Book 1) Page 19
