by Ron C. Nieto
“I said the queen hadn’t had not shared her plans with me, which she hasn’t has not done,” Cadowain said. The archway led to a small balcony overlooking the forest of high trees they had crossed to arrive in court and he propped her up against the balustrade. “But I have other means to garner pertinent information, and low as I might have fallen, an event of this import wouldn’t go unnoticed. But I couldn’t share this with you while I thought you allied with the Unseelie court. Security reasons, you understand.”
“No. No, I don’t. You’re not making any sense.”
He looked toward the ball and then back at her. “You do know that Seelie and Unseelie are natural enemies, right?”
“No? I mean, why would you let Troy waltz in if he’s so evil?”
“Because we are civilized enemies, of course. Are you or are you not a doctor?”
“A doctor in training,” she conceded.
“I see. For how long?”
“I don’t know. Time is tricky with you fay. Four days? A week?”
“Oh dear.” His face fell. “Look, we don’t have much time, so you must listen carefully. Seelie and Unseelie are enemies, but they are also bound by balance, yes? Not a side would dare to strike the other because the power balance will eventually shift and those you offended will be in a position to strike back. Easy to understand, yes?”
“Yeah. I don’t see how I fit into your story, though.”
Cadowain stole another glance back and then gave her an irritated glare. “I am trying to explain that part. Now, try to imagine what would happen if one of the sides found a way to tilt the balance permanently in their favor.”
“Is there any way to do that?”
“It appears the Unseelie court has found it. There exists a… third power of sorts, if you will. An unstoppable force that exists both in fey lands and in the human realm, independent of both light and darkness. The Unseelie court believes if they can harness this power and use it to wage war on us, this action would permanently shift the balance and leave them ever dominant.”
“The consequences to that would be—”
“Dire, yes. Of course. And there lies the importance of Mackenna because we believe her to be the key to this third power.”
“What? For being a faerie doctor?”
“No, for knowing—”
“A most curious place to dance,” said Troy.
Cadowain bit his words mid-sentence and stiffened. Troy stood behind him, leaning a shoulder against the archway, and while his body language was calculated to present a lazy, calm facade, his eyes glinted like cut emeralds.
“My Lady needed fresh air,” he replied.
“I do not doubt that.” Troy gazed between them and, when his eyes found Lily, she remembered Cadowain’s words. He eats you. “The question is why she required it.”
“Well, it seems she is underfed, and lack of food, coupled with my dashing company—”
“Are you one of them?” Lily spoke over Cadowain. Breathing had become a hard task again and her attention focused on Troy. The dance and their surroundings fell away, and she ignored the little voice in the back of her head screaming that losing control like that was too dangerous.
“Them?” Troy arched an eyebrow, the perfect picture of mild curiosity.
“Winter. The Unseelie court. The beasts who tried to eat me.”
“Yes.”
Just like that. Just a word, plain and simple, enunciated with care in that curious, clipped accent of his. Not even a hint of unease in his features upon being exposed.
The world dropped below Lily’s feet.
“Why?” The question tore out of her insides and sounded more like a sob than she intended it to. She tried again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you knew,” he said. Surprise began to crack his calm exterior and Lily thought there was a flash of perplexity in his eyes.
“No, I never knew! I told you I didn’t know what a kelpie was, remember? I knew nothing of what you are!”
“You needed not have known beforehand. The redcap speaker told you in as many words. He said he and I both served the same powers, did he not?”
The memory had slunk in the darker parts of her mind with all the other things she couldn’t cope with that got shoved under a metaphorical rug so that she could keep functioning. That whole night had been experienced, the details pertaining to her grandmother extracted, and the rest had been stored and forgotten. Killing redcaps with her bare hands, watching them burn of iron poisoning, escaping death, having the skinned hand of a monster touch her while she drowned in the noxious vapors it breathed… it was all surrounded by a haze, but Troy’s words pierced it.
The redcap had, in fact, told them that exact thing. Right before he made an offer for her custody, right before Troy refused and all hell broke loose.
She had known she had been traveling with one of them all along.
“I didn’t take note of that. I was half in shock and you were negotiating over me, how could you expect me to realize it?” And now, shock was fighting with anger, and both emotions were losing in the face of fear and a yawning abyss of dismay.
“You are, in fact, expected to realize it and more so when the situation is dire and you know nothing. It is at such times that you must pay the most attention. Even if you had not, and even if this behavior could be excused due to your mental state at the moment, I fail to see how you can place the blame upon me when you did not think to raise a single question.” Troy’s anger rose to meet her recriminations, and she saw in him the cold eyes and menacing lines she had glimpsed during their first conversation, when she feared to be hit. She had all but forgotten about that moment, that feeling.
“Well, now, entertaining as this exchange may be—”
“Does your kind eat people?” she asked, once more speaking over Cadowain. She had barely heard his attempt at ending the confrontation. Right then, Cadowain formed part of the outside world, and where she stood, only she and Troy existed.
A muscle jumped in Troy’s jaw. “What relevance does it have?”
“Do you eat people?” She insisted, fear and hope and disgust knotting together in her stomach and spiraling out of control.
“Yes.”
The world began to spin. Lily ran.
C H A P T E R XXVIII
Music still played when Lily burst in the dancing floor, but it reached her through layers of distortion, as if she heard it through murky water. The dancers weren’t graceful but desperate in their twirling, moving with an urgency that stank of fear over the merry-making. She didn’t feel the need to join them as she shoved her way through.
Someone jostled her. She thought someone grabbed for her. There was color and faeries and swirling cloth, and she couldn’t be sure of the direction she was running anymore. She gathered her skirts and ran anyway.
She’d reach a wall. She’d see the tables or the musicians. She’d escape the dance floor and find—
There it was. An opening in the white walls, a passageway into the palace proper. She rushed to it.
She hit the corridor and bowled over a creature that came through at that instant. White beard, three feet high, looking like a garden gnome with a blue cap. Lily screamed, pushed him away and ran faster. Her path took a twist and became much darker without the light spilling in from the ball, but there were faint glowing globes interspersed, almost like magical torches, and it was enough to see by.
It was enough to see that this hadn’t been the route she had followed to arrive at the ball.
Footsteps echoed behind her and she didn’t stop.
She recalled the room had been isolated, so she took a small corridor as soon as she saw it. She could go back there, barricade herself in. It’d let her flee the insistent cries behind her.
Her name reverberated along the smooth stone.
She tried to go faster. She tried to lose him. He was the monster hidden under the bed.
She took more turns. She cou
ldn’t tell when, or which ones; they just felt right, and she kept running down endless, empty corridors. Fleeing kept her from breaking down and sobbing, and that was good.
Wasn’t it?
She heard a curse behind her. There was no longer a hint of music, only her breathing, her feet slapping the floor, and the footsteps behind her. One set? Two sets?
Her corridor ended in a door ahead of her, a plain thing of flimsy wood. She launched herself at it. It gave.
“Lily! Wait!” Troy’s voice. Getting closer.
“Come back, My Lady!” Cadowain was with him. So there were some things they would still team up for, it seemed.
She staggered forward, struggling to regain her lost momentum.
“Lily Boyd, stop!” The command hit her like a whiplash and sunk hooks full of bitter poison into her soul. Her back arched taut, all her muscles tensing for one endless moment that didn’t allow her to breathe, and she collapsed in relaxation’s wake.
She tried to crawl forward, but she couldn’t move. Her treacherous body had stopped like a wound-down clockwork doll.
Then, she felt Troy’s hands on her shoulders, sliding down to her upper arms, twisting her around to make her look at him. She gave him the most defiant glare she could muster and couldn’t protest when he pulled her up with him.
“You fool,” he whispered, low enough for her to hear. His mouth was pressed in a hard, angry line and his eyes twinkled in the dark. Droplets of cold water fell in Lily’s face and a tiny rivulet ran down her bodice.
There was a swooshing sound. Cadowain had closed the door again.
“You know her name,” he said in the silence that followed. Lily caught a note of wonder in his tone.
Troy’s fingers tightened their grip on her, but he didn’t reply. Lily tried to work her lips so she could speak.
“Now you do, too.” Her words came out rasping and mangled, but they brought a laugh out of Cadowain.
“But I don’t own it. It wasn’t freely given to me, you see.”
“Going to stop you from using it?” She still couldn’t move, but talking was a bit easier. Breathing was a bit easier, too.
“In fact, yes. I couldn’t use it, you see? That would be stealing. And that would be wrong.”
The idea of morals struck Lily as very funny indeed, and she laughed quietly while Troy picked her up and carried her back to the room they had been given. Cadowain followed them for all his initial reluctance to approach them in their quarters.
“Shouldn’t you allow her to move now?” he asked Troy somewhere along the way.
“She can.” She heard his voice and felt it through his chest. She tried flexing her fingers and found she could. She didn’t want to. It was easier not to fall to pieces when she was in that brutal vacuum brought on by his commands.
“But the order you gave—”
“Worn off already,” Troy interrupted. “She only needs rest now.”
“Oh. Well, forgive me for being surprised at her meekness in your arms after she made us run across the whole court chasing her while she fled you.”
“You are not forgiven.”
Cadowain chuckled, a dry and mirthless sound. “Forgiveness was never in your nature.”
They walked a bit more in silence. Lily began to relax with the gentle rocking of Troy’s steps. Then, he said, “What game did you play with her?”
“Me? It wasn’t me she was scared of, let me remind you.”
“She did not heed your calls, either. Forgive me for knowing how much you enjoy your games and how often they leave broken mortals in their wake.”
“Not forgiven. Absolutely not forgiven.” Cadowain spoke in a heated voice at odds with his previous easy manner. “I would never jeopardize Mackenna’s blood.”
“So you say.”
“Do you claim me a liar? I have many talents, Kelpie, but I am still fay.”
“And you are still a courtier.” Troy cradled Lily closer to his chest for a moment, used his freed hand to open a door.
Their room. The fire cackled in the fireplace. Someone had been by, had cleaned the bathtub. Her mortal clothes were folded over the vanity, clean. The bed’s covers had been thrown back.
Troy deposited her in the bed. He didn’t take off her dress, and he didn’t have to take off her slippers. She must have lost them during her mad dash away from the dance. He did tuck her in, and Lily watched with detachment.
“Try to rest, Lily,” he said. “I shall try to procure you some food for when you wake. Surely rest and a full stomach will let you appreciate the situation as it is.”
“Are you leaving her alone?” Cadowain asked, doubtful.
Troy gave her a long look and sighed. “Yes. She needs space.”
“I am not sure—”
“Come, Cadowain.” Troy moved toward the door, not looking back. “I recall you did not want to be seen visiting us in the guard’s chambers.”
“Well, yes. But that was before I worried.”
“Let her cope.”
Cadowain lingered a bit longer at her bedside, his beautiful, fair eyes darkened with concern. Lily managed to conjure a small smile that more resembled a grimace, and a nod, and then he left as well.
C H A P T E R XXIX
Lily woke with a startled gasp. She hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep and she couldn’t tell what had roused her.
“Down here, My Lady!”
She sat up straight, pulling the covers up as a shield even though the voice had been high-pitched and squealing like a child’s. Her eyes darted around the room. Had she dreamed it?
“Down here, I say!”
There was a little sprite. Lily watched as she grabbed a fistful of bedding and began to climb onto the bed.
“Tinkerbell,” she whispered.
The little woman tutted. “What a silly name to give. It does not fit, not at all.”
It did to Lily. The sprite was about a foot tall with red hair and a little dress in fiery oranges, and she had gossamer wings that hung down her back like a cloak. Peter Pan’s friend might have been blond and preferred green, but other than that, the similarities were astonishing.
“Okay. So what do I call you, and why are you here? Better yet, how did you get here?”
“You are unseemly rude,” said the sprite, tiny fists propped in her hips. “All questions, not a gracious word. Good thing I was warned this could happen.”
Lily bit back an apology. “Gracious guests don’t wake up their sleeping hosts either,” she said instead.
The wings stirred to life with a low humming and then the sprite gave her a wide smile. “At least it has spine, this mortal! Very well, you may call me One.”
“Hi, One. Nice to meet you.” She wiggled in the bed, trying to look decent. Her beautiful blue dress was wrinkled and the neckline had twisted out of place. It had become uncomfortable.
“Greetings. I would not say nice, but meeting you is interesting.” One shook herself and her wings hummed again. “Right. Now that formalities are out of the way, I may give you my message. Cadowain asked me to ask you if he could ask you for a meeting.”
Lily’s head swam. “That’s lots of asking in just one sentence,” she grumbled.
“Look, it is not hard,” huffed One. “Will you talk to him, yes or no?”
“Yes,” she said, kicking the covers back and standing up. “Oh, yes. We have to talk.”
“Hush!” One used her wings to keep her balance and then rushed to Lily, grabbing onto her hand and half-hanging there. “You must be quiet! This is a secret meeting!” The little faerie cackled.
It did sound a touch unhinged, but Lily chose to listen to her anyway. She sat back down and lowered her voice. “Why is it so secret? And why didn’t he come himself?”
“He did not come because there is a dark fay sitting by your door,” One said in a “duh” tone. “And I do not know why it is so secret. If he had told me, where would the secret go?”
“Right. You’r
e just a messenger here. Did he tell you how we were going to meet if Troy’s standing guard?”
“He is by the door! We must only go to the window!” One pointed and giggled. “That is how I came in, by the way.”
The window was open. The curtains flapped a little in the breeze. Lily walked over, One clinging to the sleeve of her dress, and took a deep breath before peeking out.
Her room was in the lower level, so the ground was perhaps twelve or fifteen feet below her. There was open, grassy space and then, several yards away, the huge trees rose to the sky in their peculiar forest.
“There!” One pointed at a shadow, deeper than the ones pooling around it, and then Lily caught a glimpse of silver clothing. Cadowain.
He stepped out, until he stood directly below the window, and One dropped down and perched on his shoulder. They exchanged nods and the little sprite flew toward the trees, her gossamer wings whirring like a bee swarm. Cadowain stared after her for a moment and then looked up.
“Are you feeling well, My Lady?” he asked.
Lily took a moment to think of the appropriate answer. She felt calmer, she supposed. Still far from well. She shook her head and he frowned.
“If I could help you deal with the shock you must be feeling, I would.” He sounded sincere. His eyes never wavered from hers. Faeries couldn’t lie.
Lily wrapped her arms about her middle. “You were telling me about this instrument of unbalance and what it has to do with my grandmother,” she said, not acknowledging his comment.
Cadowain shifted. Had he just camouflaged a wince?
“Well, yes. We were talking about it before we were so rudely interrupted, weren’t we? But in truth, I came to see how you fared. It didn’t sit well with me, leaving you alone and upset like that.”
“I’m better. I did need the quiet to calm down, I suppose. And I needed to rest. Now let’s finish our conversation.”
