“Aren’t you a princess?” I interrupted one of her explanations.
“Not anymore, dear. Not since I married my Fergus.”
“Because he’s not a fae noble?”
“Well, not exactly. But it makes no never mind. I’m happy to live a quiet life.”
Starling had her head tipped back on the back of the seat, staring up at the sky. “And it’s not like you can marry me off to gain status, either.”
Blackbird patted her hand. “Not that you’d want that anyway. You wouldn’t be happy with that life.”
“How do you know?”
“I know my own daughter, don’t I? And I see myself when I look at you.”
Thumbelina looked back and forth between them, envy in her wide lilac eyes. If the dragonfly girls did grow as fruit, then she’d have no mother, no family to speak of. More and more I wondered if the intelligence we’d capriciously dumped on her wasn’t more of a curse. Self-awareness could be painful.
“If you were a princess, though,” I persisted, “does that mean your mother was the queen?”
If Blackbird were another woman—me, for instance—she would have rolled her eyes. Instead she gave me a look. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“How does it work?”
“It’s more like a kind of special status, being a princess. It has nothing to do with ruling.”
“That makes no sense to me.”
“Then perhaps you ought to examine what the concept of princess means to you—you’re the one hearing what we’re saying that way.”
Oh.
“What is that?” Starling pointed at the sky beyond the glass ceiling.
A vivid spot of scarlet winged through the sky, glittering with jeweled light, growing larger as it swooped toward us. I’d seen that exact sight before, back in battle. “That’s a dragon. Coming this way too.”
“Titania save us.” Blackbird paled.
“Somehow I doubt she’s inclined to do that.” I grabbed hold of a decorative curlicue as the dragon dropped over us, a stained-glass bomber, great talons outstretched. “Hang tight. This might get ugly.”
The carriage halted with a jolt that threw Darling off Thumbelina’s lap as the horses reared, neighing in terror, their thrashing sending us tumbling, sea monkeys in a goldfish bowl. A cacophony of shouts rang out and our company came running, the human soldiers firing arrows that bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s hide. With a swift wish, I cut the horses loose just before the magic-blocking claws the height of a house wrapped around the glass coach, shutting out daylight and our guards’ terrified faces.
We lifted into the air, the enormous wings creating a tornado of sound while the dragon labored, lungs working with steam-engine noise.
It carried us away, trapped in our glass cage, while our helpless retainers scurried like ants below.
Chapter Sixteen
In Which I Meet the Enemy and He Is Walter
Barbarism is in the eye of the beholder.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Falcon’s War”
“Do something!” Thumbelina’s rounded little nails dug into my arm with surprising sharpness. “Aren’t you supposed to be all powerful or something? Get us out of here!”
“Leave her alone,” Starling snarled, dragging the little fairy girl off me and dumping her on the floor, then braced herself against the swaying wall and blanched at the drop beneath the glass she stood on.
“Don’t look down,” I advised, practicing what I preached. Darling had crawled up my shoulder and buried himself between me and the bench seat, shivering in terror—and shredding my skin with his claws where he could find purchase. “And I can’t do more than any of you right now. That dragon’s magic-dampening field is canceling everything out. Look at Starling’s hair.”
The shining blond color had reverted to her natural brown. I put a hand up to my own hair, to find it barely grown out from the shearing I’d been given. The lily earrings fell from my ears and dropped into my lap. Now I knew one way to remove them. With a pang, I folded them in my palm. The grimoire had reverted to the wooden box it had started out as, sliding across the floor and banging into things until Thumbelina grabbed it.
“You look better as a blonde,” she informed Starling.
“Gee, thanks.” Starling eased back into her seat, steadfastly closing her eyes as Blackbird had done.
Thumbelina, still on the floor, placed her back against the curved glass wall and raised a pale blue eyebrow at me. “I like your do, though. Kinda punk.”
I had no idea what a Faerie punk movement might entail, but surely Thumbelina would be in the forefront, with piercings and tattoos to reflect the newly fierce personality behind her pastel prettiness. As for me, it was sobering—and not a little painful—to be reminded of the shorn slave that still lurked under my illusory image. Once we got out of this, I resolved to permanently fix my hair and the grimoire—if any of the information I’d painstakingly recorded survived.
And if we got out of this.
“Now what?” Thumbelina asked us, looking pointedly from one to another.
“I think we wait,” I replied in a dry tone.
“That seems awfully passive. Shouldn’t we fight or something? Make a plan?”
“Any suggestions?” I managed to extract Darling from my shoulders and let him bury his face in my lap. The thoughts, if you could call them that, coming from him were all frightened kitty with none of his usual intelligence. Hopefully he wasn’t severed from that self forever. Interesting, in a ghoulish way, that he hadn’t reverted to human-form fae, but instead became more entirely cat, which meant the spell that actively bound him let him retain his higher nature even though he’d become a permanent animal. A daunting thought.
“We could break the glass.” Thumbelina rapped her fist on it thoughtfully.
Blackbird opened one glittering eye. “Don’t you dare.”
We were flying over water now—likely the ocean we’d been traveling toward.
“Even if we could break the glass, which I doubt we could do without magic, I don’t know that I could stop our fall in time to keep the impact from killing us. It might depend on how far the dragon’s field extends. Something I’m not excited to test with our lives.”
Thumbelina pushed her ringlets back with a little snarl. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing at all.”
I petted Darling, who trembled, and remembered all the days I spent starving in that cell, waiting for something to happen. “Sometimes that’s all you can do. Our time to act will come. Quite soon, I suspect.”
We rapidly closed on an island outcropping in the midst of the ocean. Waves dashed themselves on jagged rocks and dissolved into sprays of water. Rising out of the rock itself, a fortress crowned the island in an array of towers, walls and fantastic walkways.
Where the hell did the dragon plan to land?
The dragon stooped, dropping in a dizzying spiral distinctly reminiscent of the near-vertical drop in a roller-coaster ride, dragging involuntary screams out of everyone but Blackbird. I’d just be happy if no one puked. The drop slowed, steadied and I risked looking down.
We hovered just over a circular tower roof. The dragon set the carriage down with jaw-dropping precision, the glass wheels making the barest clink against the stone. As soon as the talons released us, the magic rushed back in with an audible rush, like air filling a vacuum. My ears even popped.
Ready for it, I put my hair back how I liked it and Starling’s too. I decided to leave the grimoire as it was, for safekeeping. I’d find out soon enough if I’d lost all those notes. I placed the earrings against my lobes and they thankfully clicked into place with the now-familiar zing that made me think in totally inappropriate ways about Rogue’s nipping teeth. Distracting, yes—but any protection I could get would help, and being sexually revved would only increase my magic. I fervently wished for Rogue, knowing full well this one would not come true. At least Darling’s awareness seemed to be coming back. He
blinked green eyes at me, wondering muzzily what had happened and where he was.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked Blackbird.
She smoothed her hair into place, giving me a sharp look. “Not for certain, but I believe this might be Castle Terra Incognita.”
I wanted to slap myself on the forehead. Starling gasped and peered outside. “Really? I thought that was only in stories.”
Thumbelina snorted and pushed her charming curls out of her face again. “Does anyone have a hair tie? And a knife?”
I winked at her and drew up my skirt, showing her the dagger I kept strapped to my thigh as Liam had taught me.
“Nice. But what about me?”
With a wish, I dropped both at her feet. “Anyone else?”
Starling watched Thumbelina fit the dagger into her tiny fist and flash it experimentally through the air. “I don’t know how to use one.”
“What’s to know?” Thumbelina looked disgusted. “You stick the pointy end in people you don’t like.”
Hearing my words come out of her pretty pixie lips was beginning to unnerve me.
I dropped knives at Starling and Blackbird’s feet too. “Can’t hurt.”
“Make mine a sword, dearie.” Blackbird flexed her fingers. “It’s been some time, but I used to be quite handy with a rapier.”
Starling gaped at her. “You never told me that.”
“It never came up.”
Darling demanded some body armor and I quickly gave him a plain set, telling him I didn’t have time to give him anything more elaborate, so he could suck up the grumbles.
A door in the wall bordering the roof opened and a train of mossy-green gremlin-type creatures marched out, carrying spears three times their height and arranging themselves in a loose circle around the tower roof. “Okay, look sharp. I think we’re better off out of the carriage. Stick close to me, okay? Starling, would you carry this?” Box or no, I didn’t want to leave the grimoire behind.
“Can’t you just wish us back to where we were?” Thumbelina grumbled.
“I’m not good at the poofing thing—sorry.”
We climbed out, Darling bristling his fur irritably against the sea mist. He stayed right by my ankle, promising to defend me to the death. Unfortunately he imagined himself twice the size of the gremlins and I worried he’d get himself into trouble. Starling and Blackbird gathered behind me and Thumbelina arranged herself square in front of me, hair tied back in a tight ponytail, her petite figure in an attack crouch, dagger held out with surprisingly effective menace. I appreciated the thought but still invoked a kind of force field around us. I should have practiced with this concept—making something impervious to attack that would still be permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide. Note to self.
A pudgy figure waddled out of the doorway, draped in misty rainbow robes that appeared to have food stains on them. He carried a staff with a crystal globe topping it. He paused, planting the staff so he could lean against it, and beamed at me, a fatuous smile puffing out his chubby cheeks.
“Gwynn!” He opened arms wide. “Come give us a hug! I’m so excited you’re finally visiting.”
“And you are?” I stayed right where I was, not trusting this for a moment—even if I had been able to get past my dainty blue-haired warrior. Please don’t say Gandalf. Or Merlin.
“I’m Walter, Wizard of the Western Keep.”
“Walter?” I repeated, like an idiot. But really—Walter?
He thumped his staff on the stone. “You can call me Walt. Come on inside. We have so much to discuss.”
“Actually we’d prefer to go back to what we were doing before you kidnapped us.”
“Would you?” He gestured to his gremlin guards. “Unfortunately being captives means you don’t get to make decisions like that. You leave if and when I decide you do.”
I’d had enough. I reached out to his mind, fully ready to twist his thoughts until he let us go.
And hit a blank wall of gray.
“Uh-uh-uh.” He beamed at me with jovial indulgence and bounced the crystal staff a little more. “No fair starting a magic duel without setting up the rules first.”
“What are the rules?”
“Come inside and we’ll discuss. Hot cocoa for everyone!”
The gremlin guards closed ranks around us. Darling hissed and Thumbelina stabbed her little dagger at one. It danced back, making the sound of an agitated beetle. Another ran at Darling, but bounced off the force field like a rubber ball.
“Now, now. We don’t need any of that!” Walt called over his shoulder, turning a little sideways to wedge himself through the doorway and pointing the staff at me. My force field collapsed in a puff of pink sparks. Just like that. Even Rogue hadn’t dissolved my spells that easily. Or hadn’t tried.
The fear I’d been holding at arm’s length tried to rush in. I pulled on the center of quiet. If we were as screwed as it appeared, I’d need all my wits.
“Thoughts?” I asked Blackbird as they escorted us inside.
“Not many,” she answered. “I’ve never met him before. We’ve been at war for so long, you know.”
“War? This is one of Falcon’s opponents? Is that what this is about?”
Blackbird twirled the tip of her rapier thoughtfully, staring hard at Walter’s back. “Hard to say.”
“I doubt it,” Starling added darkly, then looked abashed at my questioning glance. “I just think that if this was about the war, Falcon would have called you in. This isn’t the way the war is conducted.”
She had a point.
We wound our way down a spiraling set of stairs that protruded from the stone walls, a seemingly endless black drop down the center of the tower. All of us, except Darling, clung close to the outsides of the steps, away from that daunting abyss. The gremlin guards swarmed over the walls, clinging like locusts with spiny feet and hands and waving their spears, chittering.
For once, the noises made no sense to me. If the dragonfly girls—with the dramatic exceptions of Thumbelina and Dragonfly herself—were the mental equivalent of intelligent fruit, then these fell several levels below that.
Starling, descending right in front of me, hunched her shoulders. “I hate those things.”
“No kidding.”
The air grew warmer as we descended, becoming downright hot when we finally reached a level surface. We entered a great hall, enormous columns of the same gray stone rising up out of sight, into cavernous shadows. No furniture or anything else to designate what the room was meant to do. We had to be in the heart of the castle, deep inside the craggy island. Walter waved his arms expansively.
“Biggest throne room in all of Faerie. Those nobles can stuff it!”
So big it swallowed the throne, apparently, but I held my tongue. The floor burned through my soles and Darling trotted faster, then asked to be picked up. The gremlins crawled up the pillars and on the walls, watching us and staying off the floor.
“Why is it so hot?” Starling muttered.
“Dragons!” Walter shouted, still marching onward through the unending room. “Screw geothermal heat when you can have dragon heat.”
“I don’t suppose he’s one of your apple customers?” I asked Blackbird and she shook her head, uncertain.
“But I mean to find out,” she answered.
“Thumbelina—are your feet okay?”
She grimaced at her bare toes. “Hurts like a son of a bitch. Can you give me boots or something?”
“Sure.”
“Actually—” she waved a hand at her silky fairy frock, “—how about pants too? Something less...silly.”
I took a moment to concentrate, ignoring the wilder suggestions Darling inserted into my thoughts, and dressed her in a fighting outfit of dark blue leather, worthy of Angelina Jolie in her scariest roles.
Thumbelina surveyed herself and gave me the thumbs-up. “Awesome, Lady Sorceress Gwynn.”
“Just hope Walter doesn’t pop that spell too and lea
ve you naked.”
“Better naked than silly.”
Words to live by. It occurred to me that she’d never lost her enhanced intelligence even when all the other spells failed—undoubtedly because of the permanence conveyed by the crystal cave.
“Oh, sweet Gwynn and entourage, where aaaaarrre yoooouuu?” Walter’s call echoed uncannily off the stones.
We picked up pace and found him perched on a huge throne. Of course, to be truly in scale with the room, the chair would have to be the size of a blimp, but Walter had clearly gone to great effort. Unfortunately, it dwarfed him, making him seem to be an overfed toddler perched in his dad’s armchair.
He frowned at Thumbelina, sniffing the air. “No fair, Gwynnie. No more magic without permission.”
At least I was smart enough not to ask “or what?” The answer to that could be gruesome and I didn’t dare risk my companions.
“All right, Walter. Thank you for explaining that rule. What are the others?”
A gremlin skittered up to me with silver bracelets on a platter. It danced from foot to foot impatiently, waiting for me to take them.
“You’ll wear these so you can’t do magic until the duel.”
Involuntarily, my fingers went to my pulse. At least I managed not to touch my throat, as I remembered the silver collar my trainers had made me wear. Silver prevented me from using my magic, taking away my only real weapon. I’d never be that helpless again. “Absolutely not.”
“But you have to.” He frowned, petulant, then brightened. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“Fine. The only way you’ll get those on me is on my dead body.”
“Well, what then? You’ll just promise not to use magic until the duel starts?”
“I agree.”
“Hmm. That was easy, pretty Gwynnie.” He flicked a hand and the gremlin raced off again. Walt laid the staff across his lap, caressing the crystal globe in a way that seemed almost obscene and leering at me. “You’re so pretty.” His gray eyes wandered with affection over the group. “All of you. Pretty little flowers for my garden.”
Rogue’s Possession Page 21
