It began to melt slowly back into the ground, or the ground began to reform slowly beneath the visible mist.
Theo ran silently toward the captive children. At the edge of the dance floor, he beckoned to the nearest one, a boy of about ten with haunted eyes.
The boy looked at the fairies, then at the ogre. Apparently deciding that the ogre was less terrifying, he stepped out of the dance.
In an instant the attention of all ten fairies snapped toward the dance floor.
Theo bared his teeth and roared, startling himself with the volume of his glamoured voice. Cedar had outdone himself with the authenticity of this glamour.
One of the fairies began to scream in a high-pitched wail. Another one gave it a vicious shove, and he, along with the eight more courageous fairies, began to take defensive positions against the other side of the dance floor. They apparently intended to use the magic of the structure, along with the prisoners, as shelter while they encircled the attacking ogre.
Lightning blasted past his ear, and he flinched.
Then he roared again and charged toward the dance floor, as if he meant to run right through the middle of the children toward the fairies.
A fairy with fair skin and brilliant green hair reflexively shot a fiery blast of magic at him. Theo threw himself to the ground just in time to avoid being incinerated, then shot back to his feet. The magic, as he had hoped, had blasted a hole clean through both sides of the magical barrier around the dance floor. He threw himself through the gap into the floor and put up the defensive magical shell. He bodily picked up two children and shoved them into the relative freedom of the forest, then hauled the other two children out. He roared at the fairies again.
All this time he had kept the defensive shell up, though he could feel it beginning to weaken. Cedar’s magic was strong, but it had not been intended for this direct assault. But in the moment, seeing the poor boy’s exhausted, hopeless face, he could not think of anything more effective.
Now, he pointed them through the woods and roared, “RUN!” The children pelted off in one direction, while he raised his arms and lunged at the fairies, provoking one last bit of panic that he hoped would slow them. He didn’t know much about the ogres of the Fair Lands, but he knew that they were credible threats to even the strongest fairies.
He sprinted after the tired children, who had not made it very far, and gathered them into a little knot. It was harder than he’d hoped, since they were, somewhat understandably, terrified of him, but they were slow with fatigue and he was at his quickest and most alert.
“Stay together,” he said as kindly as he could, in his gravely ogre voice. “You’ll be safe with me.” He pulled them quickly through the forest.
A blast of fiery magic splashed against his shield, and he felt it failing.
The boy in the lead stumbled and fell into a hollow large enough to hide all of them, formed by the tangled roots of an enormous tree that had fallen and ripped the ground up with it.
“Hide here!”
Theo turned to look at their pursuit as he pulled the children into the sheltered nook behind the fallen trunk. A tangle of buckthorn hid them from view momentarily, and he crouched beneath a sheltering bough as he pulled the last girl into the hidden space. He turned to hold a finger to his lips.
“Be silent,” he said, as quietly as he could.
A bright flash of lightning ripped through the air to his left, and a fireball passed over his head. The fairies had lost sight of them, still confused after the ogre’s terrifying attack.
Through the leaves, he could see that the fairies had split up in pursuit. He prayed they would not be able to sense the human presences, much less identify them as human.
Another fairy threw a fireball in his general direction, which he ducked.
A blast of lightning came from another direction, and he saw it only from the corner of his eye.
The ogre flung itself in front of the children just as the protective magic snapped. The sheltering bough above the little hollow crashed down upon its head, and dirt and rocks from the tangled roots above and the hillside pelted both ogre and children, covering most of the bough, much of the ogre, and nearly all of the entrance to the tiny shelter.
The children were stunned into terrified silence. The ogre was knocked insensible. It lay facedown in the dirt and broken tree limbs and roots, one arm flung toward them.
A sound above them made the children freeze.
For long minutes they crouched, terrified and mute, listening to the sound of pursuit above. There were several more crackles of lightning, and twice the ululating call of a hound, but higher pitched and wilder, from far away.
A distant horn sounded, and they waited, scarcely daring to breathe.
The ogre twitched one long hand, then gave an almost inaudible groan as it woke.
The children pressed themselves against the far wall, as if they could burrow into it to escape the terror before them. Yet the ogre before them was less frightening than the fairies hunting them, so they kept silent.
The ogre clutched its head in its hands and breathed out a low, agonized breath. It curled into itself, then seemed to gain a little more awareness. It tried to press itself up from the dirt before realizing it was half buried. Then it stopped and looked around, finally seeing the children in the shadows barely out of arms reach.
“Don’t be afraid,” it rasped. “I’m here to help you.”
The eldest of the boys whispered, “You’re an ogre.”
The ogre gave them a wan smile. “Only for today.” They had hidden so long in the little hole that the glamour had begun to fade. When he smiled, they saw his white, straight teeth, not at all ogre-like, inside the beast’s great mouth.
“Are you human, then?” the boy asked. “Do you want help?”
“Yes, and yes, please.”
Maybe it was the ‘please’ that finally convinced them that he wasn’t an ogre after all.
“Who are you?”
Their rescuer swallowed and put his head in his hands, taking slow breaths. “It’s a secret,” he said finally. He twisted with a hiss of pain to shove some of the dirt and rocks off his back.
It took several minutes to remove enough debris so that Theo could slither free. He peered out the tiny opening to the outside, then listened for long minutes. At last, he said, “Right then. We’re actually quite close to the way home. Stay with me.”
He squeezed out the hole and crouched dizzily at the top. The darkness was nearly absolute, and they could see him only as a vague outline against the unfamiliar stars. The Fair Lands had ever-shifting streaks of pink and cerulean across the sky, brightly visible at night and lighter during the day. Against the pink hue, they saw his double profile, both human and ogre, for a moment as he looked around, listening, then motioned them to come out.
“Hold my hands.” He gave them a reassuring squeeze. “We’re almost there.”
He led them quickly through the trees. The children were terrified, but the human ogre did not seem frightened at all, and that reassured them. At last he led them around a tree twice, then stepped into utter darkness.
“What is this, sir?” gasped one of the younger children.
“Just a little shadow to keep us hidden. Don’t be afraid.” Theo kept his voice light and reassuring. He led them through the darkness for what felt like hours, keeping his steps steady as long as he could. At least there was no sound of pursuit. The inky black spun around him.
“We’ll have to stop for a moment.” He stumbled to his knees and retched. The motion only made the pain and nausea worse, and he heaved again. He bent double, resting his head on the cool, smooth stone floor.
The murmurs of the children brought him back from the haze of throbbing agony in his head and weakness that made him tremble. He struggled to his feet and groped for them in the darkness, finding first their shoulders, then their small hands.
“We’re nearly there. You’ve been very brave. Ju
st a little farther.”
It was not only a little farther; it was at least another hour. He staggered drunkenly toward the door he could not see, murmuring reassurances to the frightened children clinging to him.
Finally, he said, “I need my hand. Here, hold my jacket.” He guided the child’s hand to the cloth, then let go. He opened the door with his free hand, and they stepped out of the darkness into the shadows beside the guardhouse outside the palace. He stared at the guardhouse for a moment in confusion. It would have been better to take them to the palace, where Essie and John would care for them, but he must have become disoriented in the darkness and taken one too many lefts. Or was it rights?
Theo raised a fist and pounded on the guardhouse door. At an answering sound from inside, he stepped back into the shadows. He waited until the guardsman opened the door and brought the children in, then slipped away.
He didn’t make it far. Dizzy, aching, and nauseated, he leaned against a wall, thinking muzzily of his options. Finally he stepped back into the veil and collapsed just inside the entrance. He didn’t even notice when the darkness took him.
Chapter 28
A Lonely Morning
Theo groaned and blinked into the shadows, then struggled to his feet. He braced himself against the damp stone and took deep, slow breaths to quell the nausea while he tried to get his bearings. The way home was not far distant, and he staggered toward it, bracing himself against the dripping wall.
The door, or what he thought of as a door, to the human world opened readily to him, and in the right location. He closed it carefully behind him.
The lawn was silvered by moonlight, already damp with dew. It must have been an hour or two after midnight. He stumbled across the grass toward the west wing of the house and let himself in.
He leaned against the wall at intervals as he made his way through the corridor. The wide, sweeping stairway loomed above him, and he paused at the bottom, gathering his strength.
“Thank God.” The whisper came from his left. Anselm raised a candle and took in Theo’s appearance. “You’re dead on your feet, sir.” He pulled Theo’s arm over his shoulders and began to haul him upstairs.
“Gently, my friend,” Theo groaned.
“Where are you injured?”
“I’m all right. Just need a bit of sleep.” Theo stumbled on the next step and would have fallen but for Anselm’s solid strength beside him.
“You don’t look it. Shall I call the physician? Your dinner’s long cold but I can warm you something. Beef broth to start with?”
“Just sleep, Anselm. I need to look cheerful for the ball tonight.”
Anselm huffed in disbelief. “Cheerful isn’t the problem, sir. You need to look alive, and that’s more of a stretch.”
Theo laughed under his breath. “You know me too well.” Then he grew silent, because the steps were swimming before his eyes in a most alarming manner, and he did not want to heave up whatever little remained in his stomach onto the loyal servant’s slippers.
“Here we are, sir,” said Anselm. “Let me get you undressed.”
“I’m fine. Go to bed, Anselm.”
“Just cooperate before I wake your mother and tell her the state you’re in.” Anselm did not mention Lily. He did not know exactly what had passed between them, but he knew that it was not the time to prod the wound.
Theo blinked dizzily at the pattern on the rug. “That’s blackmail,” he muttered. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Yet I am not.” Anselm pushed Theo’s hands aside and began to work on the buttons of his shirt.
Theo closed his eyes.
Distantly he heard Anselm’s hiss of dismay at the bruises across his back, the ugly scrape from the broken end of a branch, the dirt that had slithered down his collar and gathered at the small of his back beneath his shirt, and the knot on the back of his head that Anselm found with careful fingers.
Then there was only darkness.
Breakfast was a lonely affair. Lily had hoped Theo would come to breakfast, and if they could not entirely trust each other, these quiet mornings were at least the beginning of reconciliation. But he did not appear. She did not dare venture into his private suite, so finally she wandered down to the dining room, which was empty.
She asked Anselm, “Will Mr. Overton be coming down for breakfast?” She hated that her voice sounded so forlorn.
“No. He will take breakfast in his suite this morning.”
“Oh.”
The servant kept his eyes straight ahead and his face carefully schooled into a neutral expression. He did, however, say blandly, “If I may, my lady, I would venture to guess that his absence this morning has little to do with you. I believe he has a headache.”
Lily nodded, not believing a word of it. Anselm had been troubled by the rift between them, and he would try to mend it at every opportunity.
“Thank you, Anselm,” she murmured.
Chapter 29
Disappointment
Lord Willowvale had conscripted two of his servants to continue his surveillance of Oliver that night while he snatched a few hours’ sleep on the wide seat of a nearby carriage. The servants were sworn to wake him if Oliver did anything at all.
He woke to the grey light of dawn, having slept nearly the whole night through, and stormed up the oak tree from whose branches his lackey had been watching the Hathaway front entrance.
“You didn’t wake me? Why not? Has he done nothing at all?”
“No, my lord. Nothing.” The fairy gestured at the door. “I’ve heard nothing from Hemlock, either.”
Lord Willowvale, fuming, walked around the block to find the other fairy perched comfortably in an old maple tree with a view of the rear of the house and the small, enclosed garden.
“Nothing?” he asked in disbelief.
“Nothing, my lord.”
At that moment, Oliver emerged from the rear door. He proceeded to spend the next two hours pacing the garden.
Lord Willowvale climbed the tree and settled in to the crook of a branch. Over the following hours, he became increasingly frustrated and irritable at the young man’s apparently impotent distress.
In recent months, Lord Willowvale had accused nearly everyone in the Valestrian court of being in league with the Rose, albeit always in the form of a question to skirt that pesky inability to lie. He had spent a great deal of time studying human facial expressions and trying to understand those alien creatures. Miss Hathaway’s reaction to his accusation had been the most interesting, indicating not only fear but some level of shocked, unhappy assent, though she had not exactly said as much. This had supported Lord Willowvale’s vague but growing suspicion of her brother Oliver.
The fairy who had been surveilling the front of the house came to the bottom of the tree in which they sat. When Lord Willowvale jumped down to meet him, he informed the Special Envoy that there had been a confirmed Rose incident the night before in the Fair Lands some distance from the palace. Four children had been taken by the Rose to the new, unknown refuge.
Lord Willowvale sighed, frustrated to the depths of his soul, and growled to himself.
“Keep following him, in case anything interesting happens,” he said finally. “I’m going to the Fair Lands to investigate.”
Lord Willowvale’s clever theory that Oliver Hathaway was the Rose was unraveling before his eyes. The Fair lord was entirely focused on his goal of catching the Rose and not unwilling to reconsider his conclusion based on new information. But he had precious little other information to work with. Perhaps the interrogations of the fairies tasked with guarding the children would yield something useful.
Chapter 30
A Troubled Afternoon
Anselm entered Theo’s suite not long before noon, having already ascertained that Lily was not in the shared space and thus would be unlikely to overhear anything. He was alarmed to see that the young man was still asleep and had apparently not shifted since Anselm had helped
him into bed in the early hours of the morning.
“Theo,” he said quietly. “Wake up. You need a bath.”
To Anselm’s immense relief, Theo groaned and turned his head, but that was the extent of his response.
“Wake up, Theo,” Anselm said more firmly. He strode to the window and flung the curtains open, letting the golden late morning light flood the room.
Theo groaned again and covered his face, then mumbled, “Anselm, if you don’t close the shades I’ll vomit on your shoes, and you’ll deserve it.”
Anselm pulled them halfway closed. “What happened last night?”
“I think a tree fell on me.” Eyes shut tight against the light, Theo tried to sit up and nearly fell out of the bed.
“You’re bleeding,” Anselm said in surprise. “I didn’t see that last night. I should have looked closer.”
Theo grunted, his head buried in his hands.
Anselm drew closer and gently pushed the young man’s hands aside. “From your ears, sir.” The servant looked at each ear and determined that the bleeding had stopped. The right ear was the worst, and there was a dark spot on the pillow where Theo had laid. Anselm pulled the pillowcase off to wash.
“Shouldn’t wonder. My brain was nearly turned to jelly,” Theo muttered. “I’ll be all right.”
“I’ll heat bath water. I don’t think attending the ball tonight is wise.”
Theo sat with his eyes closed, picking at the blood crusted around his right ear. “I’ll be all right,” he repeated.
“I’ll bring up some beef broth while the water is heating.” Anselm looked at Theo doubtfully. “I’ll help you downstairs. Don’t go gallivanting about yet; you look a bit wobbly.”
Theo mumbled something like agreement, and the servant hurried off.
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