On the other side, she twisted her head around and let a huge, exaggerated sigh out. “Damn, I still have wings.” She looked up at me. “Although I don’t mind as much being shorter than you.”
I looked down at her. There were times she was as opaque as any other female I had known. Right at this moment, I wasn’t sure what to do with her.
“I’ll take you back.” I offered. She smiled sunnily.
“That would be nice. Have you eaten?”
“Um...” She popped a ‘port spell around us and I tried to remember food.
“Right, then. Dinner it is.” The spell popped and we were standing in our sitting room in the Court.
“Bella...” I couldn’t think of the words to explain what I needed to do. “I have to go do something.”
She snorted. “Not until you have eaten something. You are swaying on your feet. Sit.”
She pointed at a chair and I sat, not knowing how to walk away from the inexorable momentum of a woman in full nurture mode. I hadn’t experienced it in many years.
“Hang on a moment.” She pulled open the door to the Hall, and spoke to Joe Jr. before returning to sit with me. “Ellie is here, you know?”
I nodded. I vaguely remembered sending her to Bella. Plates suddenly appeared on the table and Bella grinned at the look on my face. “She’s been champing at the bit to feed you since she got here. She seems to labor under the impression you will waste away to nothing if she isn’t feeding you.”
I picked up a fork and realized I was starving.
“Thank you, Bella.” I raised my voice, “and you, Ellie if you’re listening.”
I ploughed into the meal, watching Bella pick at hers. I set down my fork and then picked it up again. I thought I knew what was wrong. I’d added to her nightmares again. And she wanted to work with me, she had no idea what she was in for. I felt buried under a mountain of remorse. I should have said no to Martin’s request to take the field of battle with us. I ought to have sent the youngest men back to Court when we swept the Great Hall. Hell, maybe I ought to have kept my mouth shut about the prisoners and just burned the Hall. I would never have known how many, or even for sure there were any survivors in there, and my men would be alive. I dropped my fork on the plate with a clatter.
“I have to go. I need...” I pulled the spell around me like a safety blanket and went home. There was a dusty cabinet, and in it were the bottles I had not touched in years, and in them, the numbness I needed to make the pain recede. I knew it wouldn’t go away, nothing short of death could do that, but it would at least give me some objectivity, to step back and take a look at what had happened, and what I could have done better.
I was drunk, sitting in the dark, having pulled the blinds on all the windows, when she showed up. She watched me as I poured with one hand, then lifted the glass to my mouth with the other.
“I wasn’t sure who to talk to when you ran off. I wondered if I should let you have some time, but you worried me with your... detachment. I considered your mother,” Bella leaned back in the couch, almost vanishing into the shadows, only her calm voice letting me know she was there. “Who has known you the longest, and she certainly wants me in your life. She bustled into the room when you left to fight goblins, smiled at me, and announced, ‘you two will be perfect together. Oh, I have wanted someone to make him happy again.’”
I took another drink, methodically pouring with my left hand and then using my right to lift the glass, squaring my corners as I did so.
“Margot came to mind, but although she has lived with you as her brother all your life, she does not understand you at all. Which left Ellie. You know, when I first came here, I thought she was your wife?”
This jolted me enough that I looked over. Her face was a pale oval in the darkness, her body melted into the couch, just her face turned toward me.
“Ellie has nursed you through many injuries, illnesses, and heartbreak, she tells me, but it was your first wife who you still mourn that she was in service to. She chose to stay with you of her own free will, although, she told me, you’ve tried often enough to fire her.”
I grunted, and poured another drink in my methodical effort to get stinkin’ drunk.
“She also told me not to let you mope. That if you have time to rebuild your walls, you might not come out again. That you’ve been easier with me than anyone else she has ever seen. Building me my own armory in your house... that was your way of making this my home, too.”
Bella stood and walked toward me, and I realized she was wearing a red dress that must have been painted on. It sparkled, even in the dim room. Her hair was brushed out and loose. She was every man’s vision.
I spoke for the first time. “If you can’t pour out with your left hand,” I demonstrated. “Then you’re too drunk and it’s time to go to bed.” I picked up with my right, and belted it back.
“Lom,” she bent over me and I could smell her, could feel the heat of her skin. “Pour me one?”
Chapter 33 - Alger’s Archivist
I have no idea whether I did. The next thing I remember was waking in my own bed, alone. I had a fleeting moment of disappointment that she wasn’t next to me, and then I remembered that I had decided I would be bad for her. If she was going to stay here, Underhill, then our relationship would be frowned upon, should we become more than partners. Should she be selected Queen, it would be impossible. But she had looked so inviting last night...
I swung my feet out of bed and sat up slowly, fully dressed and feeling more than a little hungover. Ellie knocked on my bedroom door and walked in while I was still opening my mouth to respond, carrying a tray. I closed my mouth and glared at her.
She set the tray on the bedside table, clattering it and making me wince. “Mad at me?” I rasped through a dry throat.
She didn’t answer, simply clearing her throat with a loud “hrmph” and pouring ingredients into a glass. I eyed it with trepidation. I remembered this concoction. It started to smoke slightly, and she handed it to me.
“Drink,” she ordered, putting her hands on her hips and frowning.
I shuddered and held my nose, tilting my head slightly to accommodate the glass as I gulped it as quickly as possible. It burned all the way down, and then my head felt like it had exploded. I flopped back onto the bed.
“No, you don’t.” She reached over and took the empty glass from my grip. “Up, dressed, and you’re due at Court in three hours.”
“Why so early?” I sat up again, and the headache was already receding. My brain felt clearer, too.
“That’s not early. It’s past lunchtime now, and you will be there tonight.”
I stood up. “I hear and obey. Now... can I take a bath?”
She collected the tray and left, again with a voluble sniff as she closed the door behind her. I tried to remember what was planned for tonight as I washed and dressed. A plate of food had appeared by the time I was out of the bath, and by that time I was ready to eat. A note lay next to the plate.
“Lom,” Bella wrote, “sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night, but I’m not going to let you tell me what I want, or don’t want. Partners doesn’t imply that you get to be boss and I’m only doing what you tell me to. I will meet you at the banquet hall this evening, if you would do me the honor of being my escort.”
When had we become partners? I let the paper flutter back to the table top, standing and looking out my window, not seeing the scenery, but a shadowy woman in red. It had been the fight with the Ogres, I thought. She had unflinchingly had my back. Then, in the hall while we were surrounded and outnumbered, she and I had stood back to back and she had made jokes while we fought. Sure, she needed experience, but she was smart, had the library on tap, and I thought I could stand looking at her once in awhile. I felt myself smiling broadly.
The rest of my afternoon I passed in working in the armory. The familiar rhythms of tasks that didn’t make me think was a good way, I had found, to reset my mind when
I was deeply upset. If I was going to have Bella’s back tonight at Court, I needed to be able to focus. Her trial time at Court wasn’t over, and the trouble with the goblins, and now, Low Court, were only going to prolong it. Also, I was increasingly afraid that if the King became aware of the true extent of Bella’s power, he would choose her as Queen. That would make Bella pissed at me. At everyone Underhill.
I didn’t remember that Alger was going to be at Court until I walked into the entry hall of the upper levels, where transportation bubble spells flickered and popped all around me. It was a very busy evening, so whatever was planned was a big function. Alger materialized nearby, looked around, and spotted me.
“Lom!” he greeted me enthusiastically, heading for me with open arms. He was dressed for the occasion in a suit that had probably been made more than a century before, with satin knee breeches and a tail coat. His hair was neatly restrained in a queue for once, and he almost managed to look distinguished. I ducked the hug.
“Alger, why are you here?” My own greeting was much less effusive.
“I would like to finally meet Bella.” He sounded very pleased with himself for some reason. “I have been looking forward to determining if we have a new Family Archivist.”
“She is not your librarian.” I reminded him sourly, heading for the foot of the stairs. I’d been told to meet Bella here, but not a precise time, so I would loiter. Alger kept up with me. There were times I forgot he was as tall as I am. That reminded me of the portrait of Alonzo Mulvaney Bella had ‘ported to my house just before the whole thing got complicated. I hadn’t seen it when I was there, had entirely forgotten about it, and I wondered both where Bella had put it, and if he had been tall for a Pixie.
I realized Alger had not responded to me, and looked at him. Then I followed his line of sight, as he was staring, mouth slightly hanging open, up the stairs. Bella was making her entrance. I felt myself start to laugh, softly. I knew where the dress had come from, and it was an allusion that would miss most everyone Underhill. I’d also seen the dress before, I realized, the night before.
I met her at the foot of the stairs and offered her my arm. Alger still stood to the side, frozen. Bella smiled at me and slid her hand into my crooked elbow.
“Hello, Jessica...” I chuckled. “So, how do you keep that dress up, anyway?”
Bella grinned at me. “Magic, of course. Do you like it? I don’t think you really saw it, last night.”
“Oh, I saw it. So, what brought this on?”
“You said formal, and feminine.” She nodded demurely at Joe, whose stone facade had cracked enough to allow a glimmer in his eye as we swept past him into the ballroom.
“So, this is a revenge dress for my not giving you better details?” I was trying hard not to laugh out loud, and this time, a belly laugh.
“No, my revenge will be making you dance with me.”
“What if I tell you I can’t dance?” I made the mistake of saying that just as Margot walked up to us.
“Lom, you dance beautifully! Bella, that dress is... amazing.” She gushed, holding out her hands and Bella took her hand from my arm to take both of my sister’s.
“Lom was most unhelpful when it came to designing a wardrobe for Court appearances. I’m afraid I’m very modern compared to the rest of you.” Bella smiled at Margot and released her hands. “Perhaps we should talk about clothing sometime soon.”
“Oh, yes! But my dear, I will be asking you questions, because you, Bella, are going to set the fashion. I am so bored,” she emphasized the word heavily, “with what we have been wearing forever.”
Bella blinked, turned slightly pink, and looked at me helplessly. “Don’t look at me,” I backed up a step. “You’re the one in the knock-out dress.”
“Oh, but I am interrupting,” beamed Margot. “I do believe you were about to drag my brother out on the dance floor. Do have fun!”
She fluttered off, and Bella giggled. “She just has no filters, does she?”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“You don’t have to dance with me tonight,” she turned and looked up at me, flaring her wings so no one could see over her shoulder or hear her as she spoke softly. “I wanted to get you out of the house, but I know this had to be difficult.”
I looked around the brilliantly lit room full of oblivious people. “There’s a reason I’m not a social being.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be. We could be curled up in your library room, reading by firelight and sipping coffee.” She furled her wings, like a debutante tucking away her fan. “But tonight we have to pretend we fit in here.”
“So, we dance.” I held out my hand to her. She took it, and I led her onto the floor as they began a waltz. That dress was more suited to a tango, but I didn’t think the Underhill musicians knew anything that lively.
“Why,” I asked as we moved to the music, “is this a command performance for me?”
“Because we aren’t done yet. Jenny may be gone, but the power behind her remains.” She pointed out what I already knew. “And you pouring yourself into a bottle meant I was going to have to go after them myself.”
I growled at her. “Not your job.”
“Not yours, either. You haven’t been assigned it by the king.” she pointed out calmly, maintaining a little smile as we danced.
“Who else is going to take it on, Bella?” She put a finger to my mouth as the music stopped.
“Hence, a command performance. I can’t do it alone, I do know that.” She walked away from me, as I stood still on the dance floor.
She meant that, I knew. She had every intention of coming with me to Low Court. The music began again and jolted me out of my reverie. I walked off the dance floor, and realized that Alger was leading Bella onto it.
“Alger!” he ignored me, of course, whirling her around in a swirl of red skirt and a low laugh from Bella.
I watched them from the edge of the dance floor, wondering why I was so uneasy about this meeting between her and my old mentor. She had the library in her head, and hadn’t shown any signs that she couldn’t access it at will. He didn’t think that was possible... and I hadn’t warned her not to tell him.
She was laughing up at him, her hair falling down her bare back in a cascade of blue-black waves. He was looking rather struck by her, and I wondered if she would distract him from his interest in her mind. But no... I could see that he was talking to her, not missing a beat in the dance, and her eyebrows were going up in a very amused reaction. I couldn’t make out what they were saying to one another, the movements of the dance kept me from reading their lips, but I could guess.
Alger would ask her about how the library was working for her, she would tell him it was atrociously organized... I found my lips quirking up. She could handle him, and I could see from all the way across the room that he was looking disconcerted. She was not from Underhill, where the women were inconsequential by upbringing, and he had forgotten that. Underhill, it wasn’t that women were oppressed, they easily equalled men in power by virtue of magic, and there was no reason for ours to have been a patriarchal society, unlike humans. It was simply that our society was stagnant, and so the little petty affairs were what had become important, not the work that Bella had been doing prior to her exile Underhill. She had been a scholar in her own way, and active physically in ways my sister, for example, could never understand.
I wondered how having the library of magic in her head was going to change Bella, was already changing her, as she circled the dance floor in a shimmering red dress held up by magic. And then, as she came to a halt in front of me, and came to me with a smile on Alger’s arm, I wondered how she had changed me. Was it obvious? I looked at Alger, who was smiling besottedly at her. Well, he hadn’t seen it, at least.
“Lom, M’boy!” he boomed at me, all smiles. “This is wonderful, wonderful!”
“What is, Alger? Bella, would you care to take refreshment?”
Sh
e took my arm as well and the three of us cut a path into the adjoining room where a buffet was laid out. Alger went on with his exhortation.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. She shouldn't be able to access more than a tenth of the library, but it seems...” he broke off to peer down at the woman smiling up at him. “How much can you access?”
“I’m not sure. I just... search for things, and find them. It never occurred to me to think I was being blocked from some of it, so I may be. How would I know?”
She sank into a chair at a small round table, and I brought glasses of non-alcoholic fizzy stuff for us. Alger was sitting with her, talking, and I stood and watched the others in the room while he tried to decide how much she knew. Or could know.
The Folke seemed unruffled by how close they had come to death, or worse. They still laughed and flirted and fluttered around the room, a dazzling display of color and glitter. I felt gloomy, watching them. Why had I bothered with the goblins? Was this really a society that was worth saving? Martin and Henry had been worth a dozen of these airheads. I spotted Joe, in all his Majordomo serenity, sailing through the crowd. I dropped a hand onto Bella’s shoulder to get her attention and went to meet him. I knew without a word said that he wanted me, as he made eye contact and raised an eyebrow fractionally.
Chapter 34 - Unwelcome News
Bella broke off mid-word and looked up, putting her hand over mine. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re being summoned, I believe. Alger, you will have to interrogate the Princess later.”
He rose gallantly and took her hand, kissing the back of it and making her giggle. Then we strolled out of the room, following Joe out the side door. As soon as it closed behind us, I stopped, and Joe kept going for a couple steps before he caught on, then he turned and raised an eyebrow.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “You wouldn't have pulled us out of a busy reception for the princesses on anything less than the King’s command, but I need to know what I am walking into with Bella. Last time the two of us sat down with him, he put her under house arrest.”
Pixie Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 1) Page 23
