“Forever?”
He shook his head, then shrugged, but trying to explain was already getting exhausting. That creeping feeling of violation, which any seasoned jinn should have been able to suppress, seemed to well up in full force. He wanted to talk to Violet, console her and yell at her all at once, and instead he could only stare and gesture. For a moment, he felt like he might cry himself, but instead he shoved aside the dresses on the couch and sat down hard.
“Ifra? Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” Violet put her small, cool hands on his, drew them away from his face, and pulled them against her heart. “Ifra? Is there anything I can do?”
Someone knocked on the door.
“Go away!” Violet screamed.
“We need to dress you for the king.” It was the impatient woman again.
Ifra gestured to the door. You should let them in.
“They’re cruel to me,” Violet said. “They said I-I was homely. They asked me why I was so skinny and small.”
He smiled faintly and cupped her cheek.
“Papa always said I was lovely like my mother. Was he lying?”
Ifra shook his head. If he could have spoken, he would have told her that it didn’t really matter. Violet might not look like the girls who would have been called lovely back home, but he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her.
“Belin doesn’t like me,” she said. “I need to act like a queen if he’s going to marry me, but I don’t want to marry him. Neither of us wants to marry the other. It’s stupid.” She put her hand over his again. “Will you stay here? I’ll let them in if you promise to stay here.”
He nodded, and she let him open the door, but he knew he couldn’t stay near her forever.
Chapter 24
Ordorio asked the Lady to remove the spell on Violet so we would not forget our mission, and we set off with clear skies and the faintest hint of spring, as if you could sense the snow loosening up a bit. We skirted around Cernan for obvious reasons, sleeping in unoccupied buildings, managing to find a house most nights. Many people wintered farther south, and with a bit of summoning, Annalie’s spirits could unlock the doors. We were a little giddy and panicked, breaking into empty homes, poking around the dusty parlors of strangers. We didn’t dare light candles, in case a passerby saw a light in the window and wondered, so the rooms were gloomy and spooky. But Annalie wasn’t afraid of the dark, and my heat magic almost tricked me into thinking we had the company of a fire.
After all the talk of the fairy gate, I rather expected something majestic and imposing, but instead the wooden wall was more like a country fort-built about ten feet tall from sturdy logs, with a row of spikes on the top. Two human men in military uniforms with rifles stood at the gate. Horses were tethered nearby in front of a two-story log house and stable where I supposed the guards lived. On the other side of the gate, we could hear faint music and clanging and clopping, suggesting more civilization on the fairy side of things.
The guards looked a little surprised at our approach. The blond one spoke. “What brings two young ladies on foot and empty-handed to the gate? You can’t be traders. I hope you aren’t chasing fairy husbands. It’s just glamour, you know.” He sounded almost flirtatious-they weren’t much older than we were.
I decided not to grant an answer, I just handed him my letter from Karstor with the ambassador of magic’s seal. The guard looked at it a moment with raised eyebrows, and the darker and quieter guard peered over his shoulder. He held it up to the sun. Then he lifted a horn that hung from a nail in the wall and blew. I looked frantically at Annalie-were we in trouble?
“That’s to let the fairy folk know someone’s coming through on our end,” the dark-haired guard assured me.
Set within the heavy, double-doored gate that was clearly for the passage of carts and carriages was a smaller door, and the guards opened this one for us. I heard one of them whisper something excited about “spies” to the other. My heart was beating at an alarming rate. Ifra’s letter had instructed us carefully:
There is a vast group of people called the Green Hoods in the fairy lands who are waiting for Erris’s return. They use old ballads for code, to know whether a person is friend or foe. If you must follow us, and Violet insists that you will, go to them, and proceed very cautiously-Belin can ask nearly anything of me and I don’t want to have to hurt you. I’m told that a number of them even guard the gate, so when you pass, look for people in green hoods and say a bit of poetry…
Would these be the right fairies?
A hamlet sprung up around the fairy side of the gate-the guard house, a general store, and a small inn, all with brightly painted signs and doors. Two guards were waiting, and not just any guards. These men were so beautiful, their hair shining gold and copper, their skin so clear and their eyes so bright, that I didn’t want to trust them.
Just glamour, the human guards said. I had always assumed glamour was for making things more beautiful, but now I understood it could play another role-making things intimidating.
They wore green hoods, however, so when they asked me to state my business, I mumbled, “Ay di day… we’ll gather up our swords.” The words sounded very silly, especially with two unnaturally beautiful men staring at me.
“What’s that? Speak up, girl.” The red-haired fairy had the rugged bulk of someone who would be comfortable wielding a battle axe, although he only had a sword at his side. I was sure he’d heard enough of what I said the first time that he clearly wasn’t a Green Hood. Or maybe Ifra had led me astray. I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Please, sir,” Annalie said. “Our-our husbands are traders and we’re looking for them.”
“Do you have permits to trade here?”
“We have a letter from the ambassador of magic,” I ventured. Ordorio hadn’t thought it would work for passage into the fairy kingdom, but I wasn’t sure what we had to lose at this point.
“We don’t care about a letter from your ambassador.” Even his voice was charming and threatening at once.
As he spoke, a man-also in a green hood-had stepped out of the general store with a sack of potatoes, and now he was walking our way. “Why, is that Nirima?” he said, quite as if he knew me, except that he had my name slightly wrong.
He was a fairy too, of course, but I didn’t think he had any glamour. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, with a cut on his chin, maybe from shaving or maybe from something more… wild, with a very lean face and a mischievous air. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him, either, but I said, “Yes, that’s me.”
“Are they with you?” the fairy guard said.
“That’s right, my friend.”
“What’s your business with them?”
“I’m escorting them down south to work as teachers.”
“Yes,” Annalie said. “That’s where our husbands work as traders.”
We all nodded, and then I wished we hadn’t all nodded-we looked like players in a bad production.
“It’s just a couple of girls,” the blond fairy said. He looked rather bored and had taken a pouch from his pocket, maybe tobacco or snuff-he had the look of someone wishing for indulgence.
“Hmph,” the red-haired fairy said, but he stepped aside and let us pass.
“Let’s be on our way, girls,” the man said, grinning. He led us down the path, past the inn-not much activity there at the moment besides the sign swaying in the breeze and a woman selling pickled vegetables from the back of a colorfully painted carriage.
I had always imagined the fairy lands to be lush and green, but of course even fairy gardens went to bed for the winter, and this place looked just like Cernan, except that the buildings all had the brightly painted accents, and the fairy clothes were brighter too. The man walking beside us had a red coat under his green cloak.
“How did you know my name?” I whispered.
“I’m one of the Green Hoods, milady Nirima. The word traveled among our numbers that you might be coming.”
“I
t’s-it’s actually Nimira,” I said, shy at correcting him. “And this is Annalie. Thank you for helping us with the guard.”
“Not at all. My apologies about your name! I’ve always been terrible with them. I’m Rowan, by the way.” He bowed slightly to each of us, without breaking his stride. “I’ll explain more once we’re away from the village. We should move out and off the roads as quickly as possible, but we’ll wait until we’re out of sight and we’ve crossed the bridge.”
I glanced around nervously, and then forced myself to look ahead, thankful for the hood obscuring my face. It was probably obvious I was a human, and I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself.
The path winding through the forest sloped down to a small bridge crossing a creek that was running fast and swollen from melting snow. Once we’d passed, Rowan motioned us off the path.
“Hungry?” Rowan took what looked like meat jerky from a pouch at his waist and handed it back to us.
“Oh, yes,” Annalie said. We’d eaten the last of our dried fish the previous afternoon, and now we were down to dried fruits and corn cakes.
She looked puzzled when she took a bite. “What is this?”
“Dried and smoked mushroom.”
“Ohhh.”
“Do you not care for it?”
“I just didn’t expect it to taste so… fungal.” She took one more bite and handed it to me. She was right, it tasted very strongly of mushrooms, but I was hungry enough to eat several good mouthfuls.
Rowan grinned and nibbled on the rest as we walked. “We don’t eat much meat here.”
“Yes, so I’m told,” I said, thinking that was one part of living in the fairy lands I would not care for.
“Now, I bet you’d like to know the plan,” he said. “I’m taking you to meet with some of the other Green Hoods. We should be there before nightfall. Is it true that you were actually with Erris Tanharrow, in his clockwork body?”
“That’s right.”
He whistled. “Now that’s a situation I don’t envy. How did it all happen?”
My history with Erris certainly made for a good yarn to fill the time as we walked along through the soft snow and the still air. I had just reached the point when Erris and I left to find Ordorio Valdana when we heard voices ahead in the distance. The land rolled in gentle, forested hills, so you heard people quite a bit before you saw them. Rowan glanced around at the barren winter forest. The snow was full of our tracks.
Rowan paused a moment, with the same expression Erris had when he was listening to the forest, then he motioned us sideways. I could see an open space ahead indicating another creek or ravine, but I wondered about the tracks.
“I can hide our tracks,” he whispered. “At least for a ways. Once they’ve passed, we have to hurry along to the camp, just in case they’re looking for you.”
We ran forward to overlook a brook making tiny rapids over the rocks below. I shivered just looking at it, but it had rocky banks with enough room to hide. I was mostly concerned with getting down-from where we stood the best way to get down to the riverbank, as far as I could see, was to slide down the slope. It would be dirty business, and Annalie was wearing a dress.
“You go first,” Rowan said. “I’ll create a glamour on the tracks. I do apologize, ladies.”
Annalie, with a slight frown, tossed down her pack and gathered up the hem of her skirt, which was already dirty and wet from the snow, baring her wool stockings. “Well, do be a gentleman and turn away.” She made her way down, using her arms and legs to keep from falling in the steeper portion, and I followed the same way, the dirt turning to mud as we reached the bottom and the snow runoff. My gloves and the seat of my trousers were now black with grime.
“What a mess,” Annalie muttered. “This whole voyage is making me feel quite the pampered princess. I should have worn trousers like you, but I just wouldn’t feel right in them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Look, at least your dress hides the dirt better.”
“Shh!” Rowan dropped down beside us, somehow managing not to dirty himself at all. I hadn’t noticed how lean and lithe he was while he was tromping through the snow, but now I thought he was probably quite skilled with the knife at his belt too.
It actually made me a bit cross, to think that after all I’d been through, this stranger was escorting us to the Green Hoods and I presumed they would lead the rescue. My role felt almost an afterthought. What use did they really have for me?
I had a fleeting wish to break away from Rowan, and even Annalie, and steal away to Telmirra to find Erris myself, if he was somewhere to be found. My fingers traced the outline of his key beneath my shirt.
With the water rushing over the rocks, and the hill we had just slid down muting sounds from above, we could no longer hear the voices. Rowan had his hand pressed against the dirt, obviously trying to sense when they had passed. Annalie sat down on a rock to rest while I paced.
“All right,” Rowan finally said. “They’ve passed. Let’s hurry on before they find the tracks. We can travel down the riverbed for a time.”
And so we resumed our march, nibbling corn cakes and dried mushrooms along the way. A mile or two down, the riverbed narrowed and became too treacherous to continue down, so we had to scramble back up the embankment, getting even dirtier in the process. What a sight we would be to the Green Hoods.
“Rowan, when we get to the camp, what will happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to discuss it. We learned of you from the jinn, but he has to do whatever the king says, so we’ll proceed cautiously. We just need to hurry along now and worry about all that later. We want to reach the camp before nightfall.”
Despite Annalie’s obvious exhaustion-she had, after all, spent most of the past few years cooped up in a handful of bedrooms-we managed to reach the camp before dusk. A tall, athletic woman with a stern expression was mending arrows, while a man was tossing more of the strong-tasting mushrooms-goodness, I was already getting sick of them-in a pot half submerged in the ashes of a cookfire. When we appeared, they both looked up. The woman remained stern and went right back to her work, but the man stood and grinned.
I had somehow expected more people, and more of an excited air about the Green Hoods’ camp. This place had the feeling of a party nearing its end.
“You found them.” The man approached us, and suddenly Rowan grabbed my hands from behind, while the other man took Annalie.
Or a trap!
Action came to me before thought; I jerked from his grip hard and fast, but it wasn’t enough. He still had me, but I kicked backward, trying for the most painful place, although I couldn’t quite see. He deflected my kick with his leg, and pulled me closer.
“Sorry, Nimira. Nothing personal, just my job,” he said, but I was furious at him for daring to apologize and call me by name even as he betrayed me. How ironic that the humans at the gate had thought us spies and instead, we walked right into a spy’s trap!
All the while, the fairy woman was replacing the heads of broken arrows, without seeming to care what happened to the rest of us. Clearly, she was so confident the men had it under control that she wouldn’t even bother. That angered me too, when in a rush I thought of Ifra attacking Celestina to break our attention. I reached with my magic into the cookfire-my body was already blazing with anger, and the connection came with surprising ease-and flung it at her, a ball of red flames that caught her hair and clothes.
She screamed, and now-now I kicked again, managing to plant my heel between Rowan’s legs. He let go with a howl, but I heard a knife slip from its sheath.
Oh God. I didn’t want to get cut with a knife.
I ran around the other side of the cookfire, which was still blazing as if I’d taken nothing from it. The woman had rolled in the snow to staunch the fire. She’d acted quickly enough that she was barely scorched and was already back on her feet-at least she didn’t appear to have any arrows at the ready-
and the other man still had Annalie.
The fire was my only asset, but I couldn’t fling fireballs at all of them at once-it took too much time, and the fire didn’t last.
Could I touch the heat, now that I had a connection with the fire? I’d never tried it before, but it felt like something that could work, and, backed into a corner as I was, I was desparate. I grabbed a smoldering stick from the fire, and sure enough, it seemed the same temperature as my own warm hand. I threw the stick at Rowan, and before it even reached him, I lobbed another at the girl. Both managed to dodge. These fairies were clearly experienced at their business, and one winter hadn’t turned me into a great sorceress.
Of course, if I didn’t know that already, I wouldn’t be in this mess.
I shouted, “Who are you? What do you want with us, then?”
“I’ve been undercover with the Green Hoods,” Rowan said. “But really, I work for Prince Tamin. When I heard you might be coming with word of Erris, I knew he’d reward us handsomely for you and your companion. That’s it, really, and I do feel badly because you spun such a tragic tale, but I have a family to feed like anyone else…” He trailed off, glancing at Annalie. The firefly lights of spirits had appeared around her. They still lacked their full impact in the blue light of dusk, but suddenly she seemed to melt out of her attacker’s hands, black sleeves flowing behind her. She rushed to my side.
“Do you know what to do?” she whispered in my ear.
“I can throw fire at one if you can handle the other two.”
“No. There are three of them. They have weapons, and they’re fast.”
“So what do we do?” I hissed.
“Surrender. For now.” Her eyes darted to the woods. “I don’t think we’re alone.”
I didn’t dare follow her gaze to see if there really was someone watching us, for fear of alerting Rowan and his friends.
“I hope you’re right. What if the king wants us dead?”
“There are worse things than death.” She shook her head, even now with an infuriating air of serenity. “But I don’t think any of that will happen.”
Magic Under Stone Page 20
