“I don’t know. Past the Black Bogs, for sure. Somewhere near the Plain of Fire. Why are you wondering?”
“Everything I can learn about this world could be vital information.”
She giggle-snorted into her beer. “I really don’t think knowing where the Glass Mountains are could be vital to anyone.”
“Knowledge is power.”
“I thought power is power.”
I parsed through the image I got from her, trying to decide if she’d used two different concepts that I received as the same word, but I didn’t think so. “Knowledge is a way of gaining power then.”
She pointed a finger at me. “No. Magic is a way of gaining power. That’s the fast road to the top.”
“Are you drunk? Already?”
“‘S really good beer. Best ever.” Starling stared dreamily into her mug. The soldiers laughed uproariously and broke into a drinking song. One of the dragonfly girls fell off the table and was upside down, giggling with her skirts over her head. Larch appeared to be passed out with his face in a basket of chips. No sign of blue ringlets.
I felt fine and Darling seemed his usual self. He waved his tail in contentment and asked for more chips.
Sipping my beer—and empty stomach or no, it wasn’t hitting me anywhere near as much as the others—I stretched out my thoughts, listening for what might be going on. It just felt wrong. Like some sort of ambush. Clearly Liam and his men were in no state to defend me, should something happen.
Some magic glittered here and there—mostly fixed spells of the kind Rogue could make and I couldn’t. One tangled nest of magic carried an interesting signature I didn’t recognize, but was almost mathematically constructed to convert heat to cold. Thus the unexpected refrigeration. So interesting.
Beyond the human men and Starling, who now had her mug upended over her face, waiting for the last few drops to run down, there seemed to be only two other minds in the vicinity and the thoughts of both were curiously obscure. Not muted like Rogue when he didn’t want me to hear what he was thinking, but...almost like they were in another language? Which couldn’t be right.
“Don’t fret—none of them others can read my mind either.”
The near-Cockney accent, speaking English, no less, started me out of my near trance. A cheerful woman stood next to the table with an enormous platter. I scooted our chips aside to make room for her to set it down. “Mistress Nancy, I presume?”
“The one and only. Welcome to the Inn of Seven Moons, dearie.”
The advent of the promised bangers and mash sent increased excitement through the room, waking the sleepy and stimulating those in fits of hilarity to get serious about their plates. The dragonfly girls staggered only a little while bringing more platters and additional mugs of beer. Starling seized hers and took a deep drink, burping happily.
Meanwhile Nancy served me a generous plate, adding a dollop of enticing chunky applesauce.
“Now taste that and tell me if it’s not just like home.” She fixed me with a keen eye.
I speared a piece of sausage, swirled it in some of the gravied mashed potatoes and dipped it in the applesauce. She nodded at my technique, then grinned when I groaned at the flavor.
“This is amazing! It does taste totally authentic.” I glanced around the place and sized her up again. “Everything here is. Why do I think there’s a story?”
She chuckled and set her ample rear end in the chair next to me. “Where did you come though?”
The question didn’t surprise me at all. Clearly she was several steps ahead of me.
“Devils Tower. Big rock monument in Wyoming, in the U.S. New world,” I added, just in case.
“Your kitty want a sausage?”
“Undoubtedly.”
She tossed a banger to Darling, who pinned it with one set of flexed claws and started enthusiastically gnawing on the end.
“What year was it when you left?”
“2012. You? And where did you come through?”
“1867. Time flies, don’t it? And somewhere in the English Channel. I tell you, dearie, I was ever so happy to wake up here instead of in my maker’s arms. Got tossed overboard.” She winked. “Never tell a drunk ship’s mate that you’re carrying his child. Doesn’t go over well.”
I remembered the boy out by the horse troughs and the thought electrified me. Surely he couldn’t be the same kid.
“What happened to the child?”
“Oh he’s hereabouts. Billy!”
The red-headed lad came racing into the room, covered in mud and carrying some kind of froglike creature—with eight legs. “What, Ma? Look what I found!”
But Nancy had her eyes on me, nodding as I assimilated the shock. “I should say time flies in some places. Not in others.”
“You weren’t surprised by my time.”
“Nah. I heard tell of you and took a guess. Go on then, lad. Take that critter outside again. Last immigrant I met was 1927 and that was a while back, so I figured the next would be a jump. Tell me—do you all have ships that fly to the stars?”
“Who wants to go there?” Starling demanded, then hiccupped. The soldiers must have finished their meal, because they once again broke into a drinking song.
“It’s not important,” I told her, raising an eyebrow when she gulped more beer to stop the hiccups. She grinned, foam on her lips. “We do,” I answered Nancy, “but mainly to the moon and Mars.”
“So, this isn’t Mars then?” Nancy asked this so earnestly, with such urgency that I managed not to laugh out loud.
Starling listened with a puzzled frown. I could just imagine the images she might be getting.
“No. You thought maybe Faerie was on another planet?”
She made a face, sad now. “I remember hearing tell of such things. This place—I don’t think it’s connected to home, you know?”
“I do know.”
“I thought maybe as the people come through who are smarter. You know, with more technology, you all might have more answers. That’s why I arranged for you all to stop here—so I could ask.”
“I suspect that the old stories your granny told were closer to the truth.”
Nancy cast a jaundiced eye toward the Brownies and dragonfly girls, who’d now pushed the tables back so they could conduct an intricate, weaving dance while several Brownies played fiddle and pipe. “The Little People are real. Who’d have believed it?”
One of the soldiers Starling had been flirting with showed up at the table and, giggling, she accepted his offer of a dance and stumbled off to join in. Darling, however, stayed, to all appearances listening intently to our conversation.
“How did you do that—arrange for us to stop here?”
She winked at me with broad good humor. “I may not have been graced with a gift like yours when I landed here, but I have my ways. A gal learns to make careful bargains, yes? A little magic to make life easier. A little help to make a normal life for my boy.”
“So—he’s all human? Came over with you in the womb? And he’s your firstborn?”
“Aye. Why should you ask such things?” But she didn’t look puzzled. Instead she leaned forward, intrigued.
“Have any of the fae...courted you?”
She laughed, a hearty, booming sound. “No, dearie. They take a look at me and turn up their elegant noses.” She patted her rounded belly. “None of them have wanted to plant another bairn in me, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“It is, yes.”
Nodding sagely, she leaned in and lowered her voice. “I steer clear of politics and keep to myself and my inn—but I hear tell you’re Lord Rogue’s consort these days. I do hope you’re watching yourself with that one.”
I glanced at Darling, who blinked at me, smug, unhelpful.
“In what way?” I tried to keep the question neutral, so as not to bias such a good source of information.
Nancy cocked her head at my own belly. “If you end up in the family way, you migh
t end up wishing yours had tossed you overboard, if you get my meaning.”
“Can you be specific?”
“Do you want a tour, dearie? Of the kitchens and such like? I’ll show you my little brewery too.”
Okay then. I followed her into the kitchen while the others danced and drank. Darling trotted along at my heels, waving his tail with interest. I considered making him stay behind but he gave me an owlish glare and I figured he might as well know all my secrets. He was my Familiar, after all.
The kitchen astonished me, with all the fittings she’d managed to cobble together. A small room served as the refrigerator/freezer—cool on one end and icy on the other. “Magic, you know,” she explained cheerfully. “This was my most expensive bargain, but well worth it.”
“What did you trade for it—do you mind saying?”
“Oh, quite a few things. Let’s just see.” She strode over to a little desk under the kitchen window and opened a sort of ledger of accounts. In it were listed names, items and exchanges, marked complete or not. “They can’t read, see. Had you figured that out?”
I was frankly surprised that she could and wondered who she’d been. Probably a housekeeper, with her management skills.
“Beer. Beer and food. Aha!” Her finger pinned the page. “Sixty-seven instances of beer and food for parties of no more than ten.”
“That is expensive.”
“This party—” she jerked her head at the revelry in the other room, “—is on the house for Lord Rogue. In exchange for the opportunity to meet you.” She closed her accounts book with a snap. “Come see the brewery.”
And here I’d contemplated what it was that Rogue did all day—apparently he got around. “They all seem unduly drunk on your beer.”
Nancy widened her cornflower-blue eyes in innocence. “Such a surprise that my brew affects those with fairy blood differently that pure humans. How was I to know?”
“But the soldiers—aren’t they human?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head tightly. “More like us, yes, but never think it. The magic, it’s a pestilence. It infects everything, after a time.”
I might have imagined it, but for a moment her gaze touched on my temple and skittered away. The brewery equipment was housed in another building out back, taking us farther away from the others. “You should know, dearie. Lord Rogue drove a hard bargain. He only agreed if I promised to tell you that you should have his child as soon as possible. So, here I am, telling you so.” She nodded crisply, checking the obligation off in her mind.
I let the irritation burn a little, to clear my mind.
“But I have another story to tell you.” She led me through the warren of tanks and supplies, pointing to things, as if explaining the brewing process, but speaking of something else entirely. “Some years back, when Billy was still toddling about, a grand lady stopped to stay the night with her party. She was nigh to bursting with child and said she traveled to her lord’s castle, for the lie-in.”
“The woman from 1927?”
“You’re a smart cookie. You pay attention. I like that. Yes, Lady Cecily—cute thing she was. Saucy with it. Had a handmaid with her as you do. Nasty piece of work. Lady Incandescence. You know her?”
I did indeed. Though I usually thought of her as Nasty Tinker Bell. “And her lord—who was that?” I found myself hoping and praying that it wouldn’t be Rogue. Please not Rogue.
“A Lord Fafnir—know of him?”
I breathed a sigh of relief and shook my head.
“Well, you wouldn’t, given what happened.”
At the dark warning in her voice, my stomach congealed. This would be the moment in the horror movie when I couldn’t bear to watch. The dread became too much to face. “Tell me she lived.”
Nancy pressed her lips together. “No, dearie. I’m sorry. You would have liked her too.”
“What happened?” Feeling a little faint, I sat on a bench. Darling sprang up next to me and bumped his head under my hand.
“She went into labor early. I tried to help—I’ve done a bit of midwifing in my day—but that Incandescence locked me out of the room. Then Fafnir appears on my doorstep, sword in hand, and nearly tramples little Billy in his stampede to Cecily’s room. I hear her screaming, begging him not to. Just bloodcurdling, I tell you, I—” She took a look at my face and stopped herself. “Well never you mind that bit.
“Next thing I know, all goes quiet. I mean, bad quiet. And them two come down with the baby all wrapped up in a blanket. I didn’t stop them.” Nancy shook her head, anger at herself written all over her.
“You couldn’t have. And then Billy would have been orphaned.”
“Aye, so I tell myself. But that poor bairn. They take it out to the courtyard and the Queen Bi—You know who I mean? Yes, that one. She shows up. Bolts of lightning everywhere. Billy is wailing away, but that little baby never made a peep. She takes it up, pulls the blanket off and examines it. It’s still bloody from its mama’s womb. Then—maybe I should stop there.”
“No.” I buried my fingers in Darling’s fur, the image of Titania holding the newborn in her cruel hands burning in my head. “I need to know this.”
“Well, I wouldn’t tell you otherwise. It’s not a tale for idle telling.”
“I understand.”
“She looked that little baby over and then, well, her mouth got all big, like a gopher snake’s will, and she swallowed it down. Whole.”
I really hoped the food wouldn’t come back up. I wiped my brow and found it clammy.
“You should know the rest.” At my nod, she continued. “The queen then looks at Fafnir and Incandescence, all disappointed-like and says that the child was no good. Fafnir starts raging and she gives him this look. And then she melts him.”
“Melts him?”
“Yes. Like he was a piece of ice in the sun.”
“Good riddance.”
“I thought so too. Then the queen, she tells Incandescence that it’s Lord Rogue’s turn to try now. That’s the part I thought you should know.”
I nodded, my throat tight. “And Cecily?”
“They’d cut her open. Left her to die like a gutted pig. Sorriest thing I ever saw.”
We were both quiet for a bit.
“I appreciate you telling me.” I finally managed.
Darling purred, comforting.
“That’s why, when I heard you were Lord Rogue’s consort, I thought I should tell you.”
“I see.”
“And one more thing.”
I laughed a little bitter. “How can there be more?”
“An important thing. Cecily—she told me she was in love. That Fafnir had married her and desperately wanted this child. She couldn’t wait to see him again. She was ever so happy.”
The earrings clung to my ears, taunting me.
“I didn’t stop what happened to Cecily. But maybe I can keep it from happening to you, Lady Gwynn.”
Chapter Ten
In Which I Return to the Scene of One Crime
Rogue is somehow obligated to see this game through as much as I am, and he obeys the rules with utmost care. I often wonder who is on the other end of his strings.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rogue”
We rode out to Castle Brightness in a merry string of song and shouts of drunken glee. Except for me. I lagged behind the festive group, and Starling eventually gave up trying to tease information from me and moved up the line looking for more interesting company. Nothing could distract me from the image of Titania’s jaw unhinging and that monstrous maw swallowing the newborn while Cecily lay upstairs, gutted by the sword of the man who’d sworn devotion.
The silver flash of Rogue’s sword as he dueled with Liam stabbed through my thoughts, sickening my stomach.
It didn’t help that the afternoon sun beat against my scalp, curdling into a headache. Maybe the beer had gotten me more than I thought. Magic creeping into my blood. A pestilence, Nancy had cal
led it. Or a kind of radioactivity, mutating my genomes, changing me into something else.
And yet, Nancy remained immune in a way that I was not. Stolidly human and cheerfully unmagical. Why was I so vulnerable? Why had I been able to work magic—huge, potent magic—from the moment I arrived and not her or poor, doomed Cecily? Or perhaps since before that and I just hadn’t known it. But I’d seen it, hadn’t I? The blue sparkling magic running down the dark face of the tower and into me. My stomach shifted greasily. Whatever it was that connected me to Rogue, that led me to Devils Tower and those fateful steps that brought me here in the first place, it lurked within, as surely as the white claw of the cat that would likely tear me apart from the inside out.
If Rogue didn’t kill me first.
In a few hours, I would see Rogue again. I’d have to kiss him, share his bed, keep to all our bargains, big and small. All the while wondering if Cecily’s fate would eventually be mine.
I had no idea what I’d say to him.
Except I wanted the fucking earrings off right now.
I fought the urge to tear at them, knowing it would lead nowhere. Perhaps if I cut off the entire lobe? I would be like Van Gogh, cutting off my ear to send my lover, to express my great anguish. With as much effect, most likely. Still, the drama held a certain appeal.
For a while I tried reversing what I’d done in the cave, making the attachment un-permanent. But I couldn’t dig my nails into it. What Rogue had put into place stayed neatly sealed, smooth as glass, far beyond my strength to reach.
He’d well and truly trapped me.
Darling leaned against my back, sending sleepy thoughts of affection—and the image of him, horse-sized, and me riding his back to glorious safety. The addition of Rogue running after and flailing his arms in the air made me smile.
“If only I could escape these ties that easily, Darling.”
Felicity topped the rise and, though we’d been riding no more than an hour or two, it appeared that the company had decided upon naptime. The soldiers had doffed their packs and lolled in the shade of some trees. The Brownies and dragonfly girls had piled together like happy puppies and were already snoring musically. Starling had curled up in a tight little ball, cheek pillowed on her folded hands.
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