She made a face that suggested she might have downed a lemon by accident. “You’re joking, right?”
I sighed, shaking my head.
“What’s bothering your friend, hmm?” Orianna jerked her head toward Lockwood. “He seems a rather surly individual.”
“Um … you?” I asked. “You are bothering him. I thought that was your intention.”
“Okay, yes.” Orianna rolled her eyes. “But it’s more than just me, come now. I might be a nuisance, but he’s burning with some glorious purpose, isn’t he?”
I looked down. Sharing details of Lockwood’s quest—most of which I didn’t even know—with Orianna? Sounded like a bad idea. “I suppose he is,” was as much as I was willing to admit.
Orianna gasped with delight. “You don’t know, do you?” She giggled excitedly. “Oh, isn’t this a surprise?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped, staring at her. Angry and defensive. Not an effective posture for denial. But I was too deep in now to back off it. “Of course I know.”
She giggled again, reminiscent of a chorus of bells. “You’re a young Seelie, aren’t you? Haven’t quite mastered the art of deception yet?”
It was like a slap in the face. Me? Not good at lying?
Oh, hell no, she did not just throw down on my only marketable skill.
Lockwood reappeared, a very full bowl of water levitating behind him.
“What’s the matter?” Lockwood asked, stopping and staring from Orianna to me. He turned his gaze on Orianna. “What did you say?”
“Nothing that she didn’t already know,” Orianna trilled, grinning innocently up at him.
She was right. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know.
Still … being stuck here, in Faerie, on this quest with Lockwood, who I really didn’t know that much about …
It stung anyway.
Chapter 14
The tent that Lockwood had procured from the faerie turned out to be a great surprise. I followed Lockwood inside, only to find that he was nowhere to be found. I could hear him, but it wasn’t very big, and there was nowhere for him to hide.
“Where are you?”
“It’s the magic, Cassandra.”
“Please, she hasn’t ever been in a tent before?” Orianna’s voice rang through the air, as if she were sitting right beside me. “How old is she?”
“Ignore her. You are in your own tent, but we are all occupying the same space.”
“But—”
“Magic, Cassandra.”
I sighed, but soon forgot the other two. There was a soft, squishy feather mattress waiting for my bedraggled, exhausted self, along with blankets that would have kept a polar bear warm. As soon as I lay down in it, I fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning, I woke feeling more rested than I had in months, and I had a sneaky suspicion that Lockwood—or magic—or both—had something to do with it.
I polished off the berries from the night before in silence, my stomach still rumbling uncomfortably. Was it possible that back on Earth, it was still the night before?
I shook my head. Nope. Didn’t want to expend the energy it would require to wrap my head around that. Physics was never one of my favorite subjects.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” Lockwood said as I lumbered out of the tent.
Orianna and Lockwood were already awake, Orianna hovering above the small orange flames that still burned as brightly as the night before, Lockwood standing on the edge of the clearing, staring out into the pale woods beyond. Their gazes did not meet.
At all.
I had a feeling some words had been exchanged.
“What’s the plan for today?” I asked, trying not to reignite whatever conflict was between them. I’d seen enough of that yesterday anyway.
My teeth were mossy as I ran my tongue over them. A toothbrush would have been a great—
A small bundle appeared in my hands, and Lockwood looked meaningfully at it.
I peeled back the cloth and found a small tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush, along with a small hairbrush.
I smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you …” I mouthed, and I slipped back into the tent to clean up.
Refreshed and happier, I returned to them a few minutes later. Orianna took no notice of me, still hovering and staring up at the sky, presumably pointedly avoiding looking at Lockwood.
“We are still at least two days from the border of Seelie,” Lockwood said. “It would be best for us to get moving as soon as we can.”
With a blink of my eye, the tent was collapsed, the fire put out, and there was no evidence in the grass that we had been there at all.
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get used to Lockwood openly using magic. Had he used it like this in front of me on Earth without my even realizing it? Probably.
“Shall we?” Lockwood asked. “We need to find one of the main roads.”
“No,” Orianna protested. “We need to stay off the main roads.”
Lockwood glared at her. “It is the fastest way to Seelie.”
“You don’t know how bad it is now,” Orianna said. “What sort of corruption has been—”
“You’re one to talk of corruption, Unseelie,” Lockwood said darkly. “We take the main roads and you’ll have a better chance of finding a caravan to latch onto. Like the snifflefrim worm you are.”
Her fists were firmly planted at her side. “You would do well to heed my words, Seelie. It will be to your detriment that you won’t humble yourself and take advice from me.”
“Maybe we should listen to her …” I said. I really couldn’t explain why, but something was telling me that she wasn’t lying or being actively deceptive in that moment. Call it liar’s intuition.
Lockwood shook his head. “No. Cassandra, I understand your heart is in the right place, but I still know these parts better than her,” he said, with a pointed look at Orianna. “We will take the main roads. But we will glamour you. It’s safer for us all if we do.”
Orianna reddened. “You are going to regret that decision. I promise you.”
I groaned. The last thing that we needed was any more difficulty.
I still worried about the flicker I had been seeing. I was unsure what it was or what was causing it. Was it something that might happen in the future? Or was it something that would happen? It didn’t make any sense. But since Orianna never gave Lockwood and me more than a moment to speak, it was likely I wouldn’t understand what was happening for some time—because hell if I was going to give away that I was experiencing magical acid trips to Orianna, in spite of how innocent and/or helpful she might have appeared to me. Her finding out I was a human suffering bizarre hallucinations was trouble we definitely didn’t need.
With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I followed Lockwood back through the trees, grateful that he knew the way. I would have gotten hopelessly lost in these woods, especially if they were intentionally trying to confuse us.
I kept glancing over my shoulder at Orianna, who was refusing to walk at all, it seemed. Her wings were moving so fast they were nothing more than golden blurs, and they hummed like a hummingbird’s. She just buzzed along behind us, staring at the ground like a bloodhound or a pouting child, the sound of her wings like white noise.
What was her plan? It wasn’t like Lockwood and I could really offer her anything. She certainly had enough to say about Lockwood’s choices. Was it because she was Unseelie that she was so obstinate?
Though Lockwood, to be sure, wasn’t all that much better, at least as it related to Orianna. He seemed to tolerate her for my sake. He always seemed about a half second from violently exploding and telling her to leave, which I was … mixed on. In spite of my initial pity, Orianna had been enough of a pain in the butt by now that if we weren’t in a dangerous spot, I’d have gladly told her to take her leave. As it was, I didn’t want to leave her high and dry.
The image of Orianna leaning on Lockwood�
�s blade flashed across my mind, and I wondered with a jolt of fear if he actually could overpower her. Did Unseelie have some sort of hidden powers? Did she? Was that why Lockwood was so wary of her?
I rolled my eyes and nearly tripped over a protruding root in the ground.
Maybe I had been too eager to allow her to come with us. But could we really have stopped her? She could have easily tagged along with us, and then it could have ended in a fight. If she had somehow taken down Lockwood … what would have happened to me?
I shuddered.
“What’s the matter, little Seelie?” Orianna patted me on the head.
I ducked away from her, waving her hand away.
“Nothing,” I lied.
“Hmph,” Orianna said.
“Here we are,” Lockwood said, taking a step up.
And I realized what he meant. We had found our way to a great cobblestone street, but unlike any I’d ever seen on Earth. The stones were all exactly the same size and were white with a sheen like a pearl. The road was bordered with a long stretch of stone like a sidewalk, but there were no weeds poking up through cracks or pieces of gum scattered on top. It was so perfect and so clean it might have been finished just a moment before.
Yet something told me that these roads were older than me by ten times. Maybe even more. And the strangest thing was that it was entirely deserted. There was no sound of anyone in the distance, and our footsteps echoed off of the trees as we walked.
“This really is the stupidest thing that you’ve suggested this far,” Orianna said, hovering just off of the road. Her arms were crossed, and her eyebrows were knit together in one angry line. Her cranky disposition made her golden aura glow with a darker sheen.
“I already told you. You don’t have to follow us,” Lockwood said, already starting up the road.
“And I already told you, it’s stupid to travel alone. So I’m stuck with stupid either way.”
“I’d really rather you chose the other form of stupid, then,” Lockwood said. “The solo form, where you can inflict your charming personality only upon yourself.”
“Can we just … not fight for a little while?” I asked. “Please?”
Lockwood’s eyes were narrow as he glared at Orianna. Without another word, he turned and started up the deserted road.
I huffed, but continued on after him.
My feet were sore from the day before, and I nearly asked Lockwood to conjure me up some comfortable boots or something. But I couldn’t say anything remotely human-like with Orianna around.
So I had to suffer in silence.
As we walked, I wondered what sort of creatures traversed this road that made it so necessarily large. Four or five horses could have easily walked down it, side by side. Were there creatures this large in Faerie? Giant unicorns, maybe? Perfectly healthy, non-bleeding-in-vision ones?
Yeah … I didn’t really want to know the answer to that question.
“Come on, Seelie, aren’t your wings better by now?” Orianna moaned. “We could go much faster if we flew!”
“Are you mad?” Lockwood asked. “We are sure to be spotted if we were to fly. The whole point of walking is to stay out of sight.”
Orianna trilled with laughter. “You really did something naughty, didn’t you?”
Lockwood ignored her, but I wondered the same thing. I knew that Lockwood was using that as an excuse because of me, since I obviously didn’t have real wings, but since he couldn’t lie …
Lockwood suddenly stopped. His gaze was intent, pointed at something off in the distance, through the trees.
I followed his eyes and my heart sank.
There was a place that looked like it had once been a perfectly lovely little fairy tale cottage. The thatched roof was scorched and blackened. Half of the stone wall had been knocked down, the stones like pebbles at this distance, rolled all over the earth before it. The garden out front was trampled and mangled, no sign of crops within, only upturned earth and carbon scoring close to the building.
“This war is touching all corners …” Lockwood murmured.
A house so remote, so far removed, that was destroyed like this?
Orianna fluttered over to us. She crossed her legs in midair and shrugged. “They were probably hiding an Unseelie. They destroyed the house for good measure.”
Lockwood’s face was murderous. “And what if they were hiding a Seelie? It is far more likely that is the work of Winter.”
I flicked my glance between the two of them. There was no way to tell, I suspected.
“Whatever happened … it shouldn’t have,” I said. Somehow, it was sadder to wonder what had happened to the owners than to know. An untold story that we would probably never know the ending to.
“Come on. It’s not wise to linger in places of Winter magic,” Lockwood sneered.
“Summer magic can be just as deadly,” Orianna spat.
Lockwood was silent for some time after that, his hands in the pockets of his tunic. I could see the tension in his shoulders and posture of his body.
Orianna had taken up humming again, apparently unperturbed by what we had seen. Maybe she had seen so much that she was just desensitized. Or maybe she really didn’t care.
“I wonder who lived in that house,” I murmured. “If they had kids. Or if they lived there alone … ?”
“War doesn’t care who gets hurt,” Lockwood said. “As long as victory is achieved, the winners will write it all off as collateral damage.”
My stomach tied itself in knots. A lump formed in my throat. He said that with too much conviction to have been a simple bystander …
Suddenly, before I could react, I was yanked to the side, off the road and back into the trees.
Lockwood’s hand was clamped over my mouth, and he was shooshing in my ear.
My heartbeat pounded in my chest, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
He must have grabbed Orianna, too, because I blinked and she was there beside me, golden hair tangled up in the branches of a large bush. Through the leaves, I could see the clear sky overhead.
My heart skipped a beat as a half a dozen faeries flew over us, all wearing the same white armor that I had seen at the farm the day before, when the whole world had wavered. Their wings made but a whisper, and they flew with great speed.
“Patrols …” Lockwood said after they had passed. He helped me to my feet, where I dusted off the knees of my jeans, and winced as I touched a small prickle on the back of my arm where a branch had gotten me. When I pulled my finger away, there was blood on it.
I quickly hid my hand behind my back. Red blood would be a dead giveaway to Orianna that I wasn’t, in fact, a real faerie.
“Patrols for what?” I asked.
“All this war nonsense,” Orianna said.
Lockwood’s eyes blazed. “It would seem to make sense to try and keep the enemy out of your lands.”
“This isn’t their lands,” Orianna laughed. “Or it wasn’t. They’re not even here for anything as noble as conquest, either. Probably just looking for anyone they can string up—”
“I’m done listening to you.” Lockwood grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the road once more as we resumed our walking.
Orianna floated back over to us, her eyes fiery.
“I see that you still took the time to hide me, too,” she said. “Summer soldiers … I’m sure they would have enjoyed finding me here.”
“They would have searched the area had they found you,” Lockwood said. “I couldn’t very well risk being spotted.”
I was staring up into the sky once more.
“Why are you afraid of your own people?” Orianna asked, a genuine curiosity oozing out.
“I’m ensuring that we get to Seelie as quickly and as safely as possible,” Lockwood said. “Being forced to stop and answer questions from some junior officer looking to his regulation book would slow us down.”
There was a movement just above the tree line, but it move
d so fast that I couldn’t be sure I actually saw it.
“Shouldn’t a paladin be able to waltz right into the court?” Orianna asked. “Oh, that’s right!” She snapped her fingers. “You aren’t one anymore!”
I squinted, and was sure that I could see a patch of white there. Was it a cloud? Why wasn’t it moving? Why hadn’t I seen any clouds in Faerie?
“It is none of your business why I am choosing to—”
“Um … guys?” I said, pointing up at the tree. “What’s that?”
Lockwood and Orianna both looked up, and at the same time, the thing revealed itself to be three more of the white-clad patrol Seelie. They stood up on the branches of the tree, as effortlessly as birds, staring down at the three of us.
“Good morning, there, friends,” called one of the patrols. In spite of what he said, he did not sound … friendly.
Lockwood tensed again. “Good morning,” he called back.
“You folks all right?” one of the others, a skinny male with green wings and hair, asked. “Awfully strange to see Seelie walking along the roads instead of flying.”
“I’ve been injured,” I called, knowing very well that Lockwood would not be able to lie for me. I might as well step up and be of some use. “My companions have been kind enough to travel with me at my own speed.”
“Why haven’t you seen a healer, yet?” the first one asked.
“Haven’t had a chance,” I replied. I could see it written all over Lockwood’s face that he wanted me to stop, but I saw a chance to get rid of them if I spun them a pretty enough tale. “Been wandering through Unseelie territory for days before we even made it here. Ran into some avara and Unseelie … not a lot of charity out here, let alone healers that’d be happy to see our like.” I glanced back at Orianna; I didn’t know when she’d done it, but she looked different … less golden, a little more muted. I had a feeling she was trying to pass for Seelie.
The three patrol Seelie nodded to each other. “Are you all going back to friendly territory?” one of them asked.
“We are trying,” Lockwood said before I could answer. His arm was outstretched toward me to prevent me from continuing. Apparently I had done enough.
Lies in the Dark Page 10
