That earned a smirk in reply. “Of course. Would you like assistance, my lord?”
“How many times have we been over this? Remind me.”
He held his hands up in placation. “I assume nothing.”
“I’m not my mother, Captain,” I said, opening the bathroom door. “And should I ever feel the need for an audience in the bath, I’ll give you fair warning and ample time to have my head examined, understood?”
He chuckled softly, and when I left the door open a crack, he took up a position beside it. “A question, my lord?”
I paused with my hand over the giant Jacuzzi I’d installed. After years of living in my bookstore apartment, it was extremely satisfying to be in sole possession of a tub large enough to host Olympic events. “Go ahead,” I called back to him across the echoing bathroom, willing several thousand gallons of hot water into existence.
Valerius hesitated. “I couldn’t help but notice the new, uh…barn.”
“I can move it if it’s troubling you.”
“No, no, nothing of the sort,” he hastened to assure me. I could almost see him cringing in expectation of the blow to come. “I…was wondering about its purpose…”
He let the question die, and I stripped off my soiled T-shirt. “Joey acquired a pet last night. He needed somewhere to house it.”
“A pet, my lord?”
“Of the draconic variety.”
My bodyguard swore softly. “May I ask why, my lord?”
I glanced in the mirror, which was beginning to fog over, and rubbed at a streak of soot under my eye. Small wonder Valerius had been concerned—I looked like shit, and Mother had never appeared with so much as a hair out of place. “Abandoned hatchling. She bonded with him, so what was I supposed to do?”
“Kill it?”
“Joey would never have forgiven me. So we came back here last night, and I put up the barn. And the sheep pen.”
“I was about to ask, my lord.”
“Hatchling needs to eat. Joey butchered and roasted a few before she settled down.”
“Hence the fire pit?”
“Hence the fire pit.” I shucked off my pants and sank into the tub. “When I left them, he was sleeping with her. He’s probably still out there if you want to shake some sense into him.”
“Perhaps later.” The door creaked, and I assumed Valerius had leaned toward the slight opening to be better heard. “My lord, uh…will you grant me one more question?”
I closed my eyes as my muscles unkinked. “Sure.”
He hesitated again, and I waited through a solid minute of awkward silence before telling him, “No, he’s not my lover. Or, to be clear, my plaything.”
The relief in Valerius’s voice at being saved the asking was unmistakable. “Then what is the mortal doing here, my lord? If I may enquire.”
It was my turn to puzzle out a response. “I like him,” I finally replied. “I can’t shake the feeling that I may have ruined his life, and for that, at least, he’s my responsibility. And he’s been mapping the woods for me, you know…”
Valerius cleared his throat. “I mean this in the best possible way, my lord, but are you quite sure you’re fae?”
I reached for the shampoo. “Realm seems to think so.”
“And the realm accepts your, um…guest?”
The question caught me off-guard, and I left the bottle where it sat. “Yes. Shouldn’t it?”
“Perhaps. The queen…”
His sudden quiet told me enough. “Go on.”
He coughed. “Some changelings couldn’t stay long. The realm wouldn’t accept them, and the queen—”
“The nagging, I know. You should hear it bitch when Toula pops by.” I grabbed the shampoo and tried to rub the smells of wood smoke and roasted mutton out of my hair. “Any commonality among the rejected?”
“None that I know, my lord.”
“Well, the realm seems to tolerate Joey for now.” I held my breath and ducked beneath the surface, letting the jets rinse the lather away, then popped back up and wiped my eyes. “Valerius?”
“Still here,” he called through the door.
“You’ve never spoken to me of Mother before.”
His boots shuffled against the stone in the other room. “I did not wish to cause offense, my lord.”
“You served her well. And willingly.”
He paused for the space of a long breath. “I did.”
“And now you serve me.”
“I do,” he replied without hesitation.
“Why?”
“My lord?”
I sniffed the ends of my hair, still picked up hints of campfire, and shampooed again. The exercise was unnecessary—I could have simply willed myself clean—but what’s life without little pleasures? “You were under no obligation to keep your position,” I told him. “I mean, you were there—”
“I saw what she did to Lord Robin,” he murmured, almost inaudible with the distance between us. “And Lady Moyna. And the child’s mother. And…others.”
I put the bottle down. “And?”
“And Joey is an excellent shot.”
“That he is,” I said, and ducked under again.
Valerius had the decency to wait until I’d broken the surface once more before continuing the conversation. “Is he going to be staying here now, my lord?”
“Joey?” My hair passed the sniff test, and I drained the tub and began to dry off. “I would assume so, given the dragon. Why?”
“The sword he carries—”
“Is for his protection,” I interrupted, “and I won’t hear anything about it. Hell, if the kid wants to wear maille, I won’t stop him.”
“I wasn’t suggesting disarming him,” Valerius replied—again, too quickly to hide his unease, and I wondered what Mother had been in the habit of doing when her guards displeased her. “How adept is he?”
I gave it a moment’s thought. “Passable, though I understand his martial training was at the hands of actors.”
Valerius groaned. “I could work with him.”
I tried to imagine Joey—who, on his best day, was still a twenty-five-year-old kid—squaring off against a guy who’d been armed and fighting long before Caesar set off on his French vacation. “Promise me you won’t kill him.”
“Or seriously maim him, my lord.”
“That, too.” I willed my hair dry as a set of clothes appeared. “Ask him. He might want a challenge.”
“Aside from the dragon, you mean?”
“Eh, kid’s good with animals.” I straightened my robe, wiped the mirror clear, and made a face at my improved reflection. “But if Joey sets the lawn on fire, do me a favor and put it out, won’t you?”
Once decent and fed, I wandered down the rose-hedged avenue behind the palace to survey the work I’d thrown together in the dark. The barn was rough, yes, and of a style more properly belonging in a pasture than squatting in my pleasure gardens like the world’s shabbiest folly, but at least the framing seemed level, and the containment measures around the rudimentary fire pit appeared to have done their job. The place could use a good paint job, I decided as I pushed open the narrow side door, and maybe some nice stonework to match the vaguely gothic palace beside it—there was no reason not to class the place up, now that I could see what I was doing—but first, I needed to check on Joey.
He still lay where I had left him, spooning behind the snoring hatchling on the straw pile he had requested. The charred carcasses of two sheep had been stacked in the far corner of the room beside the remains of Joey’s camping gear. I took a closer look at the bones and discovered, with some unease, that the dragon had bitten through the skulls.
When I straightened and turned around, I saw that Joey was watching me from his makeshift bed. Raising his finger to his lips, he gingerly slipped away from his sleeping charge, who had begun to run in her sleep. He cocked his head toward the open door, and I followed him out to the sheep pen, where a dozen pairs of bored brown
eyes stared as we leaned against the wooden fence.
Joey frowned, counted the sheep, and gave me a strange look. “I thought we started with twelve last night.”
“We did.”
“There are still twelve in there.”
“Those aren’t ordinary sheep. Watch,” I instructed, pointing to a fat specimen a few yards into the enclosure, who bleated on cue before splitting down the middle. As the head and hind parts walked away from each other, each quickly regenerated its missing half, and the two sheep turned their attention to the grass, unfazed.
Joey’s frown deepened. “The sheep are budding.”
“Slowly. I can speed up the process when little Smaug’s appetite grows. And it will. Have I mentioned that? Giant lizard—”
“Several times.” He smirked and propped his dirt-caked hiking boot on the lowest rail, then ran one hand over the three-day blond growth on his chin masquerading as a beard, giving him the air of a rancher straight out of, oh, Boston. “And her name is not Smaug.”
“She could be,” I replied, mimicking his pose.
“Says the guy who’s looking very Rivendell today.”
I pushed up my robe’s embroidered sleeves. “Just giving it a try. This is, apparently, on trend right now.”
“Said who? Peter Jackson?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” The robe melted into well-worn jeans and a gray Oxford, and Joey grunted. “Testing the waters, you know. I’ve worn worse.”
His eyebrow rose. “Oh?”
“You have no idea what used to pass for underwear.”
“Duly noted.” Joey bit at a hangnail, gave his filthy knuckles a quick glance, and turned his attention back to the sheep, nonplussed by matters of hygiene. “I’ve been trying to decide what to call her, now that you mention it.”
I tried to judge the size of the bags beneath his eyes, then adjusted the strength of the coffee before it appeared in my hands. “Thoughts?” I asked, passing him the thermos.
He accepted it with a nod and swigged. “Well,” he said after running the back of his hand over his mouth, “I don’t want anything that screams, ‘I am the Demon Lizard, Destroyer of Worlds,’ so I was thinking of something a little girlier. Maybe Stella, maybe Aurora.”
Honestly, I tried not to laugh—Joey seemed so serious about the matter—but I couldn’t hold it back. “Come on, kid, you’re one leaping dolphin away from a Lisa Frank poster,” I said when the fit had passed. “Would you like some glitter? I could make the sheep pink for you.”
He scowled and drank again. “Okay, plan B: Georgina. Call her Georgie.”
I produced a slightly weaker carafe for myself and contemplated his choice. “Naming a dragon for Saint George, eh? Cheeky.”
Joey snorted into his coffee. “Try me, man. I’ve got a saint for all occasions.”
We stood in silence at the fence, drinking and watching the sheep graze until one paused, let out a quick bleat, and split in two. “That’s fucking creepy, Colin,” said Joey.
“It’s a regenerating flock,” I protested. “And it doesn’t hurt them, you know.” Joey regarded me skeptically over his thermos, and I sighed. “Look, you come up with a better idea at three a.m., and then we’ll talk.”
Joey’s retort was silenced by the tramping of boots that had become far too familiar to me, and I turned from my mutant flock to see Valerius tromping through the dirt with his fingers firmly digging into my brother’s shoulder. “Problem?” I asked, and sipped my coffee, fairly confident that I was going to need it.
Valerius grimaced. “Your pardon, my lord, but Lord Doran wouldn’t be denied.”
I nodded, and he released Doran, who rubbed his bruising shoulder through his robe, a confection of green silk and gold thread that put my discarded garb to shame. “You’re early,” I said. “Coffee?”
He glowered, then inspected his shoes—also silk, I noticed, and now mud-caked. Joey had to slaughter the sheep somewhere, and I had washed the area down instead of creating new dirt. My creativity is at its ebb before breakfast.
“I requested a meeting,” Doran began, simultaneously drying the ground beneath him and producing a clean pair of slippers. “You would insult me, Coileán?”
“I don’t build my schedule around your whims,” I replied, “and it was a busy night. This isn’t a convenient time.”
His eyes—Mother’s eyes, large and dark brown—glittered. “My quarrel with Syral—”
“Can wait. And I’m going to tell you both what I told you last time: you’re fighting over a stupid acre. Split the hill and get on with it.”
His face began to flush. “Mother gave me—”
“And Syral says Mother gave it to her. Mother isn’t here with the truth, so I’m settling this my way.”
Doran massaged his shoulder again, and his voice was harder when he spoke. “No, she isn’t here, is she?”
I saw Valerius tense, then cut my eyes to Joey, who was unarmed but for a carafe. His coolness was glacial, however, and when I followed the direction of his gaze back to the barn, I understood why.
“No, Mother isn’t here any longer,” I told Doran, and pointed over his shoulder. “But I am, and I’m slightly busy with that right now, so why don’t you get out of the way?”
He turned, then jumped back, straight into the unhardened mud. “What is—”
“That’s Georgie,” Joey drawled. “And you’re standing between her and her breakfast. Come here, sweetie!” he called, waving to the groggy dragonet. “The food’s this way!”
Georgie happily trotted over, splashing Doran and Valerius with muck as she passed, and my brother, walking stiffly in his filthy clothes, ripped open a gate home and disappeared without another word. Valerius ambled over and took up Joey’s spot on the fence as Joey, coffee forgotten, began to chase the suddenly spooked flock around the pen.
“I should have taken out their self-preservation instinct, too,” I muttered.
“It’s good for him,” Valerius replied, wiping mud from his face as he watched the sheep enter their third circuit. “Entertaining, at least.”
One of the flock paused and bleated, and Joey leapt upon it as it split, then dragged the regenerating halves out of the pen by their legs. “Somebody want to get me a damn axe?” he called, straining as the sheep regrew.
Valerius glanced at me, and I waved a finger. The sheep dropped dead at Joey’s feet, and with a nod of acknowledgement, he dragged the corpses toward the fire pit with Georgie at his heels.
“She’ll learn to hunt on her own before long,” I said, topping up my coffee.
“Undoubtedly. It’s what they do best.” Valerius hesitated, then produced a clay tankard and sipped when I showed no sign of objection. “A word of counsel, my lord?”
I studied him only a moment before deciding that one did not simply turn down advice from a man more than twice one’s age. “Please. But I’m not getting rid of the dragon unless Joey tires of her.”
“I recognize a futile endeavor,” he replied. “No, a word concerning your siblings.”
“I can’t get rid of them.”
His mouth twitched in the ghost of a smile. “Let them put on airs, my lord. Take their grievances seriously. The queen…” He mulled over his thoughts. “‘Coddled’ isn’t the right word, but you see the idea.”
“I think you’re looking for ‘spoiled,’ Captain.”
“Perhaps.” He drank deeply and watched a sheep bud. “That really is revolting, my lord.”
“Yeah? Then I’m holding court here from now on. Between the mud and the flock, I’ll shave hours off my work day.” When he hid his amusement again, I added, “You and Joey should get along well. You can bond over my attempts at animal husbandry.”
“We’ll have much to discuss. But I meant what I said about the high lords and ladies,” he continued, sobering. “Lord Doran is…temperamental.”
“Full-blooded, you mean.”
“As is Lady Syral.”
“And the
others. I get it.” I shook my head and returned to the coffee’s comforting embrace. “You don’t reason with insanity. You merely placate it.”
“Precisely.”
I slouched and looked Valerius in the eye. “How did you survive all those years with Mother, anyway?”
He blinked slowly and drank. “The first lesson is silent obedience.”
“I see. I, uh…I’d appreciate a bit of feedback. On occasion.”
Valerius cocked his tankard. “The second lesson is observation.”
The sheep continued to graze, even as Georgie’s hungry squawks echoed over the yard.
“I need eyes, Captain. And the wisdom to know what they’re seeing,” I said quietly.
“I know,” he began, but turned in alarm as the fabric of the realm ripped open behind us. Faerie itself began to shout its displeasure in my head, and when I dropped my coffee and wheeled about, I found a slim woman, her hair styled into blue-tipped black spikes, stepping through in three-inch black heels—and then sinking into the mud.
“Aw, for crying out loud,” Toula muttered as she pulled her feet free, then absently waved her shoes clean. “What sort of operation are you running now, Gramps?”
I grinned and pushed the realm’s warning to the back of my mind, and Valerius relaxed his stance. “Good morning to you, too. What’s the occasion?”
She spread her arms, showing off a tailored black pantsuit and a heavy, braided silver necklace. “Greg asked me to aim for professional. I told him you didn’t care what I wore.”
“True, but make me happier and leave the jewelry home next time, all right?”
Toula touched her neck, realized what was there, and rolled her eyes as the necklace vanished. “Forgot. Still friends?”
“I don’t suppose I’m going to be free of you either way,” I replied.
The Faerie King Page 2
