A man in a fox mask stepped from the crowd. On his knees, he picked up the rest of the silver chalices, placed them on the tray, and helped the boy up to a stand.
Prince Desmond left, angry or bored or both. Butterfly Woman hissed at his back. The tensely knotted crowd began to slowly loosen and wander off.
Sir Geoffrey still stood a few feet away, disgust etched on his face. The tall fey man to his right leaned down and spoke with him. Hearing angry tones, I strained my ears, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Fox Mask mussed the fey boy’s hair, saying something cheerful, I guessed. The boy sniffed a little, then laughed before he left with his tray.
Dancers swirled across the wine-soaked grass between me and Fox Mask. He stepped around them in long easy strides. His gait told me who he was before he spoke.
“You like the costume?” Jackrun asked.
“Did you choose it for me?”
“I told you not to worry about what to wear,” he said.
Jackrun’s choice to come to the ball as my Path Animal made me feel vulnerable, exposed, even if he couldn’t possibly have seen my mark. I was about to tell him how real his full head mask looked, when the boy he’d helped a moment ago scampered up, tray reloaded with fresh wine.
“Thank you, Senni,” Jackrun said, lifting two goblets from the tray.
“You were kind to help him,” I said, taking the goblet he handed me as the boy disappeared back into the crowd.
“Desmond’s a fool to risk the fairies’ wrath,” he snapped.
The boy hadn’t sparkled with magic the way his elders did. “Perhaps he didn’t know Senni was a fey child?”
“He knew!”
I started. Not at the vehemence of his remark, but because I’d looked down at the side of my goblet and caught Jackrun’s true face reflected in the silver cup.
“Caught me,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“You thought this was a mask,” he said, pointing to the fox head. “It’s something else, a fey glamour spell. It fools the eye, but hold a mirror or any shiny surface like this up to a fairy glamour and you will see the truth. We can trick each other, but reflections do not lie.”
“The wolves and wild boars?” I asked, glancing around.
“Some shape-shifting going on here tonight,” Jackrun admitted. “A full animal form is achieved through shape-shifting, but most choose fairy glamours for a ball. A glamour takes much less skill and allows more energy for dancing.” I thought of the half man, half bull who’d danced past me on the veranda, shivered, and downed the goblet all at once.
Jackrun watched me, amused. “Hungry?” he asked, leading me to a long table laden with food of every kind.
I swayed a little from the strong wine that was already beginning to make my head float, and steadied myself against the table. Jackrun’s true reflection still shone on my shiny chalice. I noticed the lanky fey man nearby under his unicorn glamour. Just down the table a half girl, half deer was nibbling at the fruit. Jackrun’s sister, Tabitha, looked up at me, startled, before she pranced away.
Jackrun covered my wrist with his hand and slowly but firmly pushed my goblet down. “No one likes to be exposed,” he whispered. I left the reflective chalice on the table and backed away.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said.
“I don’t like bland English food.”
He swept a hand over the many dishes. “You must want something. Tell me what you want.”
“An egret feather.” I wasn’t sure if the elders would be allowed to do the Moon Dance two nights from now. Someone needed to.
Jackrun pretended to look for it among the cheeses. “No feather here,” he said at last. “You have particular wants.”
I didn’t apologize.
“What do you need it for?”
I hiccupped and shook my head. Jackrun grabbed something from the table and gestured for me to follow him to a stone bench bathed in torchlight near the wall. My skirts rippled like water as I sat. My head still felt light enough to float away with my skirts.
“You might like this,” Jackrun said, peeling an orange. “Take a segment,” he offered.
“Drop your guise first. Please, if we are going to eat together.”
“It’s a masked ball,” he protested, but the fox glamour faded and I was left looking at the Jackrun I knew; his thoughtful brows, his fierce eyes, and lower lip still swollen lopsided from the blow Desmond gave him.
I reached for the orange. It is shaped like a smile, I thought, cupping the cool wedge in my hand.
“Shall we both eat at the same time?” he challenged. We raised our hands in time with the music. I bit, squirting liquid in my eye. The juice stung and I had to squint a moment, but I laughed all the same. It was delicious. When he offered me another piece, I took it.
“Now will you tell me what you need the feather for?” Jackrun said.
I swallowed the new segment. “You English study the moon cycles.”
“Our astrologers and alchemists do.”
“We follow the way of animal moons.”
“What animal moon is it now?”
“Egret Moon.”
He leaned closer. “So the feather is for some Euit ceremony?” he asked, interested.
I regretted what I’d blurted out earlier. Jackrun was English; what if he didn’t understand?
Jackrun asked, “What are the names of the other moons?”
I watched the fey dancers twirling on the trimmed English lawn. This ball belonged to the fairies. I wanted to talk about something that belonged to me, if only for one night. I told Jackrun about the twelve moons, only touching the surface of our beliefs, not because Jackrun would be too slow to understand, but because there was so much about moon months I could not explain in one hour or six or twelve. I revealed that each animal moon related to parts of the body. “As with any month, the moon animal empowers some people and hinders others. Egrets have slender necks. Egret Moon strengthens some people’s throats, they sing with power, they can speak with clarity and insight and sway men’s minds.” Egret Moon hadn’t lent me her powers when I tried to sway the king, I thought before I went on. “Others lose their voices. We see more sore throats this month, and those who die often die from broken necks.”
My hand nearly wandered to my throat, but Jackrun had already reached up, gently touching my bruise. “The swelling’s gone down,” he said. “Does it still hurt you there?”
“It feels much better.” My skin sang where he’d brushed it even after he drew his hand away. How restoring a touch can be, I thought, a healing that has nothing to do with plants or potions. The revelation surprised me. Father had never mentioned touch.
“Tell me more,” he said, offering me another orange segment. I chewed and let the cool sweet liquid fill my mouth.
The Holy Ones ruled the four sacred elements of earth, wind, fire, and water, I told him, which were also a part of the moon months, each animal representing an element. “Falcon Moon, a time of wind; Bear Moon, a time of earth . . . ”
“And the animal moons are strongest when the moon is full,” he guessed.
I shook my head. “There are three times of heightened power: at the new moon’s birth, at its fullness, and on the night of its death.”
“Why is it powerful when its light is dying?”
“At death the tips are knife-sharp. It does not want to be replaced by a new moon. The dying moon can be like a wounded animal lashing out.”
He named a few animal moons, repeating them as if to keep them in his mind; last he whispered, “Dragon Moon,” staring at the white flesh inside of the orange peel.
“That is the strongest of all the animal moons because it carries all three elements of earth, wind, and fire.”
“Why not water?”
I laughed. “Everyone knows dragons hate water,” I said, surprised he would ask. “It goes against their nature. Have you ever seen one swim?”
“It would be unusual,” he said with a playful look. “When will Dragon Moon come?”
“In October.”
Jackrun said, “We call that one Hunter’s Moon. So do the fey folk.”
It pleased me in some deep reaching way down to my bones to learn my Euit people had a more complex relationship with the moon than the magical fairy folk. I thought I would tell Jackrun about the Murderous Moon, but changed my mind. It reminded me of the death I might face at the end of Dragon Moon.
Jackrun stood, held out his hand, and helped me up. “Dance with me.” His fingers were sticky, but so were mine. Before I could say no, he had me in his arms. His fox guise appeared again as he swept me into the crowd. I felt clumsy at first, not knowing the steps, but the fairy music pulsed through my body as he led me on. He laughed when I stepped on his foot and we didn’t stop.
Later we spun past Prince Desmond, who seemed to have forgotten the spilled wine now his arms were around a shapely costumed maiden. Jackrun’s body tensed before he yanked me away from his cousin, wheeling me deeper into the crowd. We turned and turned, the starry sky spinning overhead.
“Dragons,” Jackrun said, stopping and looking up. The thin strands of clouds drifting in the night sky turned red. A hot, spice-scented wind swirled in as the dragons flew over the castle turrets. The bright blazing ring they breathed as they wheeled overhead reminded me of the red dragons’ fire on the birth night of Dragon Moon, the only Moon Dance the reds ever took part in. The sight made me hunger for Devil’s Boot, for other dragons, other dancers, another kind of celebration that happened only one place in the world with a small tribe that might someday die out, a language lost, a people lost. I swayed on my feet, feeling the fire circle as if it burned around my heart.
“Babak’s up there,” Jackrun said, shaking me from my thoughts.
I looked at him, pointing at his dragon. “You could be adding your fire to theirs,” I whispered.
His fairy glamour melted away. “Uma, you don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“What?” I asked. “Tell me.”
He gripped my wrist and dragged me through the noisy revelers, past a bear juggling knives, couples kissing in the shadows. His large hand was too tight around my wrist, his skin too hot. We moved farther and farther away on the lawn, deeper into the dark. I could have pulled back and dug my feet in. But I wanted to go with him. He’d rolled up his sleeves when he’d fought in the practice yard, proudly showing his dragon scales. Why hide his greater dragon’s gift from everyone as if he were ashamed of it?
But before he could say anything, Lady Olivia called, running up to us. “Uma? I have been looking everywhere for you. The queen needs you.”
Jackrun had stepped away from me the moment she’d called out, sliding into his fox guise. He remained behind in the shadows as we raced back for the castle.
• • •
WE FOUND LADY Tess trying to manage Queen Adela in the corner of the Great Hall. The duchess had removed her cat mask to speak to the queen, who laughed and swayed, conversing with a pillar.
“I think she’s had too much wine,” Tess said.
Lady Olivia and I both knew her babbling could not be blamed on wine alone. The duchess had done her best to quiet Her Majesty; still, revelers gaped at us, some speaking behind their hands. At least King Arden was too busy dancing with a pretty fey woman to notice me dosing his wife with the bapeeta I’d brought. The queen licked the honeyed spoon. Now we only had to wait.
I wanted to run back outside and find Jackrun, but I was trapped here until Her Majesty’s mind was sound.
“You are enjoying the ball?” Lady Tess asked, flicking a spot of paint from her wrist. I’d heard she had an artist’s studio somewhere in the castle. Her thumbnails were misshapen. It was strange to see warped, discolored nails on such finely shaped hands.
I looked up. “Yes, my lady.”
“Some of the fey glamours and shape-shifters might upset you if you aren’t used to them,” she said. “They used to frighten me.”
“I’m not nervous, my lady.”
“She is a strong young woman,” Lady Olivia said proudly.
“I can see that,” the duchess said, pausing to tug the tip of her cat’s tail out from under her shoe. She watched the guests in her Great Hall. She was close to Queen Adela’s age, yet she looked too young to have a seventeen-year-old son, but maybe her fey blood added the youthful blush to her skin.
For a moment I let myself wonder how different things would be if Tess had followed the fairies’ plan, married Prince Arden in his youth, and become our Pendragon queen.
I would be at home in Devil’s Boot. My father would still be alive, my people free. I felt an ache so deep I put my hand over my stomach.
“Are you well?” Lady Tess asked.
“Yes, my lady. I . . . must have spun too fast dancing outside just now.”
She smiled, and looked about again. Her eyes sparkled when she fixed them on her husband, who was joking and laughing with a fey man at one of the refreshment tables. I saw that things could never have been any different than they are. She’d choose the same man now. The love between this man and this woman had changed our island’s history.
“Her Majesty will be fine now, Lady Tess,” Lady Olivia said. “We can attend to her if you need to get back to your other guests.”
I watched the duchess of Dragon’s Keep slip her cat mask on again. It was adorned with silver whiskers, but otherwise very plain. She was half fey and could have used a glamour spell, like Tabitha or Jackrun, for tonight’s ball. For some reason she had chosen not to.
Lady Olivia and I tempted Queen Adela with sweetmeats, watched her eat, waited. When at last a calmer, more controlled queen went out to dance with her husband again, we breathed a mutual sigh. If she remained balanced, happy, the king might visit her bed tonight.
“You are a fine physician, Uma,” Lady Olivia said.
“Thank you, my lady.” I wasn’t used to compliments. It was like eating unfamiliar food. I had to chew on it a while.
“I heard about the incident between Prince Desmond and the fey boy on the lawn,” Lady Olivia said, tapping her foot and craning her neck to follow the king and queen on the dance floor.
“Who told you, my lady?”
“All the fey folk are talking about it. Were you there?” she asked pointedly. “Did you see?”
I nodded.
“What did you think, Uma?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to this woman who favored the prince and hoped he’d marry her daughter. “I think it was . . . dangerous,” I admitted under my breath.
“Yes, the fairies can be devious and dangerous. It is not good to cross them. I don’t trust them myself.”
I looked about anxiously, hoping no fey had overheard her. A moment later I excused myself, headed for a refreshment table by the side doors, and slipped back outside.
Down on the green, I found Jackrun in his fox glamour, dancing with a partner under the circling dragons. The woman in his arms wore shining fish scales and fan-shaped wings like the magical sea folk Mother used to tell stories about. Her rippling laughter when he swung her around made me think of the dangerous water women who lured fishermen to the deeps, and drowned them.
She’d pulled her sea woman mask up. A human girl, her skin soft and pale, not one of the fey folk using a glamour spell. She was nearly as pretty as Desmond’s favorite back home, Bianca, but not quite. Jackrun held her close. One arm tucked under her wing. My hands itched for a silver chalice so I could catch his true expression, but something made me step back into the jumbled crowd as he whisked her away past the row of torches.
Chapter Thirteen
&nbs
p; Pendragon Summer Castle, Dragon’s Keep
Egret Moon
August 1210
A TAPPING SOUND awakened me that night. Not the door, I thought groggily, the window. I opened the shutters and jumped back. A long black dragon’s talon pressed against the glass.
“Uma?” Jackrun’s muffled voice said from somewhere outside.
“What are you doing?” I asked, poking my head out. Jackrun clung to Babak, who hung nearly vertical, his tail wrapped like a vine around the tower below for extra support, his claws gripping the tower ledge, and his wings flapping slowly.
“Here.” Jackrun handed me a long white egret feather. I took it, surprised.
“You left the ball,” he said.
“Physicians do not have time to dance.” And you were dancing with a mermaid when I came back out.
“I see.” His eyes were piercing as if he’d read my thought. “We cannot stay,” he added. A moment later Babak lost his grip and plummeted down, flipping nose to tail before he straightened out again, wings pumping. I sucked in a startled breath.
Jackrun clung to his dragon’s back, laughing. Yes, laughing.
“Thank you for the feather!” I called as Babak winged toward the bay, unsure if he could still hear me.
Jackrun was both dragon and fairy, hot-tempered and human, a man who loved swordfights and oranges. Who did not mind retrieving feathers.
The sun wouldn’t rise for a few hours. I took off my nightshift, belted my gown, and strapped my knife to my arm before locking the door. Drunken revelers were sprawled everywhere in the downstairs hallways, sleeping in wrinkled costumes, masks askew, snoring in chorus.
When I reached the beach, I spotted Jackrun and Babak flying out toward the water. Above me, partway up the cliffs, were caves. I shed my slippers and climbed up to one in my bare feet, settling in the cave’s mouth, on the lip.
I leaned my head against the rough wall and closed my eyes. Had the king gone to the queen’s bed to make a child tonight? If my Kuyawan medicine finally worked, if the queen conceived. If . . . if . . .
A roaring sound somewhere beyond the receding tide drew my eyes to the sea again. Babak breathed silken fire over the water. Below him, Jackrun swam in the illuminated ocean, moving through the shining light as if through fire. I knew how cold this sea was even in late August.
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