“Seelie,” Talon said, clacking his beak and taking in Lockwood and me with fierce attention. “They’ve been getting closer to the castle each time. If they end up taking the city, it’s going to start a war in earnest.”
“How long have these raids been happening?” Lockwood asked.
“Where’ve you been?” Talon asked. “Been years now. But it's gone and got serious these last months.”
Lockwood’s face paled. “I’ve been away too long, it would seem.”
“Everyone’s getting tired of it,” Talon said. “What do we care about the murder of some Seelie? As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t affect us in the least. The sooner they realize this, the sooner they’ll leave us be.”
“Surely the Unseelie will retaliate?” Lockwood asked.
Talon shook his head. “At what benefit?”
“Justice, of course. Strike for strike.” Lockwood said it was the most normal thing in the world.
Talon smirked. “Sound like one of them Seelie, there, friend. You best be careful saying things like that too loud these days. Lucky for you I don’t talk to guards.” He turned his penetrating gaze and amber eyes back on Orianna. “What can I get for you?”
“Whatever he needs,” Orianna said, inclining her head toward Lockwood.
“Ah, yes,” Lockwood said, “we could use …”
Lockwood started reeling off a list of things he wanted. I lost interest quickly, and my eyes started to wander. There was a set of armor on one wall, with a hole right through the chest. A bandolier with a set of seven bells, from small to large, so dusty it couldn’t have been used for years. And a box full of what looked like chocolate bars, but there was nothing in the world that would make me try one.
I wandered over to a bird cage while Lockwood bartered with Talon, Orianna standing there, grinning from ear to ear, so pleased with herself. The two-headed bird peered curiously out at me, both of its heads turning to stare at me with one eye each.
It opened its beak and let loose a trilling song, surprisingly gentle and soothing. I wondered if it was a wild sort of bird in Faerie, or if they were like dogs over here, and domesticated. The cage suggested otherwise.
My vision flickered once more, fragmented, moving back and forth from what I was seeing and the other.
The bird in the cage was suddenly nothing more than charred feathers and bones, with black, empty eye sockets, its song gone.
I put my hand over my face, shielding my eyes until the song returned, along with the light.
“Cassandra, are you all right?” Lockwood had appeared. His hand landed on my shoulder.
“Fine,” I said. The bird was back to normal, feathers of red and orange. No bones.
“Come with me,” Lockwood said. “I’ve purchased you some things. Orianna is just wrapping up now.”
I followed him out of the shop, the environment around me back to normal, but my heart was beating uncomfortably. I wiped my palms on my jeans as we stepped out back into the cold, mountain air.
“All right,” he said, pulling some things from the sack I hadn’t noticed he was carrying. “These should help protect you. You can’t put them on here, though, because they will ruin your glamours. Once we are out of town and I can remake your glamour, I will incorporate your new items.”
“Fine with me,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. Damn you, Florida, for making me susceptible to cold. Or maybe it wasn’t Florida at all, but these strange visions. “Lockwood? Did you get me something to keep me warm?”
“Oh, I am so very sorry,” he said, and with a twirl of his finger, it was as if I had stepped out into a perfect afternoon in Florida, warm but not uncomfortably so.
“Thank you …” I whispered, the chattering of my teeth slowing. I brushed my hands against my arms to find they were still bare. Maybe he’d created a glamour to keep me warm, or some other spell.
“I also have a sword for you,” he said, “and an amulet for spell resistance, and—”
I held out a hand to shush him. The two guards who were had been at the gates, the ones who had checked our Unseelie marks, had just walked past the alleyway. Their heads were moving, sweeping the street. As if they were looking for someone. Tucked into the shadows as we were, they hadn’t noticed us.
“Lockwood …” I said, tugging on his sleeve.
“What is it?” he asked, his ramble about his purchases broken.
“Those guards from the gate,” I pointed at the mouth of the alley. “They just went past, looking for something.” I looked up at him. “I think they know we’re not Unseelie.”
He frowned. “How could they?”
The guards reappeared, staring straight into the shadows where we stood. In spite of that, their eyes locked on Lockwood and me.
“You there!” one of the guards called.
“Oh,” Lockwood said.
“What’s the—” Orianna had just appeared outside of the shop, a bulging bag in her hands, and her face fell. “Oh, dear.”
Lockwood grabbed onto my arm and turned the opposite direction up the alley, away from the guards. He surged into motion, dragging me along at high speed as I tried to keep up.
We were running from the law.
My feet, already aching and tired, were suddenly pounding against the cobblestone street, the adrenaline making me forget all of my pain. I clutched Lockwood’s hand tightly, my palms growing sweaty once more, threatening to slip out of his grasp. He did not let me go, though.
We ran, the shouts of the guards echoing against the stone as we tore through the city, knocking other faeries out of the way. Orianna was flying ahead of us.
My heart clenched as I panted. Lockwood would have been able to get away by flying if he hadn’t been stuck dragging me along.
The world flickered again, and I shrieked, pinching my eyes shut, trusting Lockwood that I wouldn’t run into anything.
We were out of the gates when I opened them again, the wild world of Faerie ahead, trees and mountains and river banks.
“Was that the faerie with the glamour?” one of the other guards on duty asked as we ran past, not stopping.
“Get them!” the other said, leaping to their feet. Maybe they’d been on break. If so, it was over now, and they were hustling to pursue us.
Lockwood must have had enough, because suddenly I was in his arms, and we were in the air, off the ground and flying higher, and higher, and higher.
I gasped and shut my eyes tightly.
“Um, we’re flying,” I said, trying to keep my low-key panic from busting into a higher key. “We are officially off the ground and flying, which is not normal for me, absent a plane.”
Lockwood was frowning, the strain of carrying me while he flew showing on his tight face. “They must have been able to detect you were wearing more than one glamour …” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “Remember how I said that two were weaker than one?”
“How?”
“I don’t know, it seems that additional measures have been taken since I was last here …”
“You don’t think they suspect I’m human, do you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. They probably think you are one of the Seelie who raided the city last night.”
“That does not sound like the sort of thing I want to be while here,” I said.
“Indeed,” he said, his muscles straining as he carried me toward a river below. “I don’t imagine they would look kindly upon you should we be caught.”
“Let’s not be caught, then,” I said.
“I assure you, I am endeavoring to make that so,” Lockwood said. Now his voice was straining, too.
Orianna flashed into view ahead of us, coming in for a landing on the bank of the river. A simple, wooden bridge stretched hundreds of feet over it. The sound of it raging below was like distant thunder. The other side was distant, shrouded in a thick mist, and much darker.
“Why aren’t we crossing?” I said over the roar of the w
ater. I looked behind me. The guards had stopped a short distance away. “Wait, they aren’t following anymore …”
“They don’t care enough to put their own lives in danger,” Orianna murmured. “Going this way is practically a death sentence.”
“What … is out here?” I asked.
“Neutral territory,” Lockwood said heavily. He glanced over his shoulder at the guards and Stormbreak again. “And it’s twilight. Wonderful. I was hoping we could at least stay the night there …”
“The witching hour …” Orianna said, just as darkly. She laughed, then it cut off abruptly as a more sober look came over her. The nerves were just radiating off these two faeries. Two people who knew this land, and knew what we were in for on the other side of this bridge.
And something told me that it wasn’t going to be a tea party and a nice nap waiting for us.
Chapter 12
Neutral territory was strange.
I mean, everything in Faerie was weird. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t dreaming. Or hallucinating. Either was likely, given the amount of stress I had been under in my life as of late. Or maybe I was spending too long on Netflix.
Neutral territory, though, crossed from weird to eerie. Everything looked perfect on the outside … but something just didn’t … feel right.
I couldn’t put my finger on it as we walked through the trees, the fallen leaves crunching beneath our feet, Orianna humming quietly. It was beautiful, it really was. The swirling, glowing green mist had returned, surrounding us, but never really there. It just screamed … magic.
Lockwood had removed his glamour, thankfully. Baldness didn’t suit him. Neither did the red eyes. Orianna was back to her golden self, grinning mischievously as she hovered in the air behind us.
“Why don’t we fly again?” she asked after we had crossed the bridge. Lockwood had muttered something mystical-mumbo-jumbo-y about why we couldn’t fly over the river. Something about the water. “We could cover a lot more ground that way.”
“I hurt my wings,” I said flatly. I didn’t need Lockwood attempting to make something up for me … especially since he couldn’t technically make anything up anyway.
Orianna’s eyes widened. “How did you do that?”
“You don’t even want to know,” I said.
Lockwood looked at me with mingled frustration and gratitude.
“Besides, we should try to keep a low profile,” Lockwood said. “There are sure to be others here. And if we can be as cautious as possible …”
Orianna clicked her tongue in annoyance, floating on her back as if swimming, her arms crossed over her chest. “Caution is slow. Caution is boring.”
“You prefer death?” I asked, getting grouchy.
“Why are you still with us, anyway?” Lockwood glared at her over his shoulder. It was strangely amusing to see him so flustered. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about Orianna, but we had agreed to help her, and I meant to keep my word … in this case. Something about breaking a promise here bothered me. Maybe it was the fact that I was already marching toward telling a massive lie in service of Lockwood. Adding broken promises on top of that? Yuck. “I thought you said that you just wanted to get to the neutral territory.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Orianna asked. “It’s dangerous here! Only a fool would travel through neutral territory alone.” Her eyes flittered around, as though someone were going to come leaping out at us at any second. “Maybe I’ll join a caravan or something if we come across one. Tag along with faeries who aren’t injured or exiled.” She gave me a pointed look.
“I’d advise keeping your opinions to yourself. Last I checked, the only sort of protection that you had was a pair of pretty eyes and the power to lure children away from their mothers.” Lockwood’s hands were balled into fists.
Orianna stopped in mid-flight, staring daggers at Lockwood’s back. “And all you have is some flimsy sword and a bag of charms. Not much for a mighty Seelie warrior, is it?”
Lockwood had pulled the sword that he carried at his hip from his sheath, whirled around and pointed it right at Orianna’s breastbone faster than I could follow.
I could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest, but his hand was steady as he held the blade. The gaze in his eyes could have melted steel.
“Don’t push me, tyls. I can end you with one word.”
Her eyes narrowed, and a wicked grin spread over her face. She folded her arms and laid them down on top of the blade as if it were made from plastic, leaning on it. “Go ahead, then.”
The tension was thick as a summer night in Florida as I stood there, staring between the two, unsure what to do.
Silver blood was beginning to drip from the blade where Orianna’s arms pressed into the metal, hitting the ground below with a soft splatter. I was half surprised that it wasn’t gold.
Lockwood gritted his teeth, and then lowered the sword from underneath her arms, drawing it back toward himself.
She took up her balance as he removed it and snickered low in her chest. “That’s what I thought.”
Lockwood didn’t look as he turned and started back up the path, each step turning up dust as he stepped lightly, but with surprising fury.
I fell into step beside him as he pulled a cloth from his pocket and began wiping down the blade.
“I … uh …” I started.
“Don’t worry yourself,” Lockwood said under his breath. “It’s fine.”
It definitely didn’t look fine. A power play had just occurred, Orianna testing Lockwood's resolve and finding him...weak? Well, maybe not weak, but definitely a little too compassionate to just strike her down out of caprice. That she had the measure of him this quickly maybe should have worried me, but that was a distant concern next to the awkward tension now filling the air around us.
“Where are we heading now?” I asked, hoping to break the very uncomfortable silence that seemed to be getting louder and louder with every step. He may not want to talk to her, but I didn’t want him tuning me out, too.
“Still on track for the Seelie court,” he said. “Hopefully with one less companion, soon.”
Orianna shrugged as I glanced at her.
“You know where you’re going, right?” I asked him. “This isn’t like the gate?” I looked around. The forest seemed just as normal as it had the last time something had gone awry. “The trees aren’t, uh … betraying us again?”
“No,” he said. “We’re quite fine now that we’re out of Winter’s territory. We are going to have to find a place to stay for the night, though,” and he stared up through the trees. “While I no longer fear betrayal from the woods themselves, we don’t want to be caught out here where it’s dark.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Beasties,” Orianna chortled.
I looked at Lockwood for confirmation.
His refusal to reply was as good as a yes.
The trees had begun to thin, and the green light became more golden, deeper, darker. We followed a curve in the dirt path, as it wended its way to a clearing, at the edge of which stood a building that resembled a farm house. A great expanse of open fields stretched into the distance. A building made of stone, almost like a little castle, was nestled in the middle, smoke billowing from its copper-colored chimney. A whinnying sound, something like a horse, but higher and hauntingly beautiful, echoed across the plain.
“We’ll stop here.” Lockwood started to trudge through the field, each row of crops evenly spaced. Strange pink and green plants were growing there, their leaves transparent like stained glass. I was careful not to tread on any as I followed.
The earth smelled sweet, like cinnamon, and my feet churned up fresh folds of it as we walked. Orianna floated along behind us, eyes darting around in all directions. Her demeanor had changed, all amusement gone. Her wings twitched nervously as she looked about, as though expecting attack to come from above at any moment.
Who might be doing it? Well, that I had
no idea about.
It certainly seemed quiet. Not uncomfortably so, but the tension in Stormbreak had been heavy, and the unease and apprehension that both Lockwood and Orianna had felt as we crossed into the neutral territory was enough to keep me on my guard. I’d been expecting calamity any second the first hour or two we’d walked, but with every hour that passed, I started to wonder what they had been so worried about.
Dimly, I still hoped I wouldn’t find out. If it was worse than the avara, after all …
Lockwood’s hand was suddenly around my arm, halting my steps.
“What is it—”
A figure was flying through the air toward us, wings blue against the reddening sky overhead.
I jumped behind Lockwood as the figure struck the ground a short distance away. I saw a great flash of yellow light, and heard the sound of metal swooshing through the air.
“Who are you?” It was a deep voice, clear and demanding.
I peered over Lockwood’s shoulder. A tall male faerie stood before us, his short blue hair as bright as a turquoise, his skin reminiscent of a glass of electric green soda. He had four ears. Behind him, his wings trembled angrily, like a cat whose tail is twitching in protest.
“We are friends,” Lockwood said, holding his hands up, revealing empty hands. Not that that mattered much, since I had seen Lockwood do magic with his bare hands.
Lockwood stood up straight, and then threw his left hand behind his back, curled into a fist. He must have made some sort of sign in the front that I couldn’t see, because the opposing faerie’s eyes grew wide.
“A paladin?”
“I used to be,” Lockwood said, a tightness in his voice.
“What is a Seelie doing traveling with an Unseelie?” the faerie asked. A curved blade that looked like it was made of yellow sparks shimmered over his head, swinging back and forth menacingly.
“We’re helping her out of some trouble,” I said.
Lockwood and the farmer glanced at me. I couldn’t tell whether Lockwood was mad at me for speaking out of turn. His face was as neutral as the territory.
Lies in the Dark Page 8
