by Eva Chase
“Thank you.” I pick up a handful of the mirrornuts and pop one into my mouth. It crackles apart with a delicate flavor that reminds me of the tea my mother used to make for me when I wanted to join her in her morning ritual on the back porch—mine always decaf and mixed with a large helping of sugar.
A mix of fond nostalgia and homesickness squeezes my throat. I chew the next one more slowly and nod to Harper. “Those are really good.”
She snatches up a few for herself and then sighs when her father calls her name. “Enjoy yourself,” she tells me, and marches off to see what he wants.
Whitt is still watching me. Wondering whether I trust him enough to take both of his recommendations? Maybe I should show that I do if I want him to trust me.
I pick up one of the husked fruits he called tumblemeld and nibble at the jelly-like lump. The flesh dissolves on my tongue with the consistency of caramel, but tart almost to the point of sourness rather than sweet. When I swallow, a flicker of warmth kindles in my chest in its wake. Okay, that’s not so bad.
“You appear to have survived,” Whitt teases.
A fae couple drifts by, their dreamy smiles suggesting they’ve been consuming more potent stuff than I have. “Aren’t you going to dance, human girl?” the woman asks. “I thought mortals loved to frolic with the faeries.”
“I’ll take her for a spin-around,” the man offers, dipping in a bow and extending an arm in a sweep so extravagant he nearly loses his balance in the process. The woman titters.
I’m not sure how to answer, but Whitt saves me from figuring it out. He grasps my hand and tugs me away from the table. “She’s already promised me all tonight’s dances, I’m afraid.”
Drawing me into the center of the gathering, he raises my arm to turn me in a circle slow enough that it doesn’t challenge my brace-bound foot. When I’m facing him again, he sets his other hand on my shoulder. We sway and swivel together with the music like the other fae around us, although many of them are more tightly intertwined.
“This doesn’t seem to be a very complicated dance,” I say. “I don’t think I’m going to need your guidance the whole night.”
“Perhaps not, but I think it’s best you stick with me for anything handsy.”
“They know I’m with August. What do you think they’re going to do?”
Whitt shrugs, his voice dipping secretively. “Intoxicated fae don’t always make the wisest decisions. And you do look awfully charming in that dress.”
I make a face at him. “Are you sure I don’t need to worry about you then?” I haven’t seen him drinking yet, but he never seems to go anywhere without his flask, and his breath carries a faint tang of alcohol.
“Definitely not. For one thing, I’m never half as drunk as I seem.”
“I guess that’s reassuring.”
“It should be.” He turns me again but only halfway, stopping me when my back is to him with a clasp of my waist and lowering my arm so it falls across my torso. “What do you think of your first revel, then, mite?”
I look at our fellow dancers and the fae sprawled around us, taking in their laughter and the lilt of the music, the sweet and tart flavors still mingling in my throat. More tension than I realized I was holding in unravels with my next inhalation. Seeing everyone enjoying themselves so free of concern makes it easier to shed my own worries. “It’s nice. I’d like to do it again. Although it’d be nicer if the pack wouldn’t think it was strange for August and Sylas to join in.”
“Am I not enough protection for you?”
“That’s not what I meant.” I twist my neck to glance up at Whitt. “And is that what you’re doing—protecting me?”
He leans in close enough that his lips graze my ear, his voice so low now that no one other than me could possibly hear it. “Every expression, every comment, is useful information. Just by having you out here with us for a short while, I know much more than I did before about who looks the most benevolently on you and who I wouldn’t count on to dose you in water if you were on fire, who I should be sure to never let dance with you and who would probably be safe as long as they’ve gone easy on the absinthe. If you’re going to stay with us as long as it appears, I may need to bring every bit of that information to bear.”
I hadn’t realized he was paying that much attention to everyone around us—or that so much of his attention was centered on their reactions to me and what that could mean for my safety or simply my comfort. I hadn’t realized my safety and comfort mattered enough to Whitt that he’d focus that much thought on it. Of course, he’s probably doing it for his brothers’ benefit more than mine.
I turn myself in his grasp, trying to suppress the tingle that races over my skin at the slide of his fingers along my waist, so I can look at him without straining my neck. “Is that what these parties are about for you? Just gathering information?” When I watched him from the keep’s windows before, I thought he was basking in the festive energy.
His blue eyes glitter. “I get plenty of fun out of them too, and it’s always a pleasure to bring some delight into my pack-kin’s lives. Although nothing I pull together out here compares to the grand revels I could put on back at Hearthshire, closer to the Heart’s power and with so many more to join in. Oh, we did have a time or two then…”
A hint of melancholy crosses his face, suggesting he misses their old home just as Sylas does. It vanishes quickly, though, leaving him with the same sly expression. “But a spymaster’s work is never truly put aside for the night. I wouldn’t be much of one otherwise.”
He says those words flippantly, but something about that breeziness, maybe because of the commitment he just made to my protection, sends a pang through my gut.
“You must be able to relax sometimes. You don’t have to be on guard like that when it’s just Sylas and August around.”
He guffaws. “I’d argue that being aware of my lord’s and my cadre-fellow’s concerns is even more vital than any other’s.”
Is that really how he feels about them? Like they’re part of his job more than family? “But—you need someone in your life you can just be with, without having to think about all that.”
“Do I? I seem to be getting by just fine as I am.”
Getting by, sure, but what about being happy? What about having the space to just be himself, not a spymaster or whatever?
I know what it’s like to stay constantly wary, evaluating everyone around you for warning signs, never having a chance to fully relax. It wore me down even when I was living here in the keep with proper food and shelter. To just accept that as a permanent state of being…
I’m probably reading too much into it and Whitt doesn’t mean it the way I’m taking it. Still, I can’t help wondering what that handsome face of his would look like lit with the kind of open, unfettered joy I saw on August’s this morning when he told me he loved me. I think I’d like to see that.
An odd flutter passes through my chest, and I yank my gaze away, abruptly aware that I’ve been staring. “I guess you’ve been gathering information on me too? Making sure I’m up to tomorrow’s trip?”
Whitt adjusts his hand against my side, his fingers barely touching me now. “As far as I can tell, your participation in our ‘trip’ has already been decided.”
“But you’re not convinced it’s a good idea.”
“Did I say that?”
I can’t help raising my eyes again. “You didn’t have to.”
He tsks at me with a slanted smile. “You made a perfectly convincing argument. As many distractions as you might create at the border, I’d imagine certain parties would find it even more distracting contemplating what might be happening to you back here beyond their reach.”
“So you think I’m going to distract them if I’m with you. I said I’d stay out of the way—”
“Talia,” Whitt says firmly, cutting me off. He bows his head next to mine again. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I made my decision that night in th
e woods, and I’ll defend your right to be with us—wherever we go—with claws and teeth if it comes to that. Of all the things you have to worry about, you can rest easy when it comes to my good will.”
He sounds serious when he so rarely ever does. The night he must mean is the one when he practically ordered me to flee to the human world so my presence wouldn’t provoke any more conflict between Sylas and August. When they caught up with me, fighting off another fae who’d attacked me, Whitt told me he’d changed his mind, that I was good for them. He asked me to stay.
I didn’t know how much I could trust that unexpected flip, but apparently he meant it even more than I’d have imagined.
A lump rises in my throat. I want to reach out to him somehow, which doesn’t make any sense because I’m already less than a foot away from him, one hand enclosed in his.
Whitt turns us with a lift in the music and falls back into his usual breezy tone. “We’ve been talking far too much about my predilections. This obviously isn’t where you could have pictured you’d be at this point in your life, back before Aerik rampaged into it. If you’d never left the human world, what do you suppose you’d have been up to by now?”
My earlier homesickness hits me with a fresh twinge. “I guess I’d have gone to college. I was going to study something like environmental science—ecosystems and climate patterns and all that.” If I’d even stuck with that by the time I had to choose. I hadn’t researched it a whole lot, only snagged onto an idea that might give me the chance to explore the world and get paid for it at the same time.
“Hmm, so practical. What would you have been doing for fun?”
My mind drifts back to my scrapbook, to the hours spend reading up on exotic locales across the continents. “If I’d gotten together enough money, traveling. There were all kinds of places I wanted to visit. It seemed like there was so much out there that was so much more interesting than our little town, so many different things…”
Whitt laughs, with a note that sounds almost sad. “You couldn’t have come much farther than you have now, could you, my mighty mite?”
I manage to smile, even though my throat is outright aching now. “I guess not.” I pause. “You know, I wouldn’t have complained about coming to this place if I’d had more choice in how I came. To the Mists in general, I mean. It’s not exactly the kind of adventure I imagined going on, but now that I have more say in how I live here… there are definitely a lot of good things along with the bad.”
Whitt is silent for a long moment as we sway together and the music winds around us. Then he inhales sharply and raises his hand to my cheek in the briefest of caresses. “And tomorrow we’ll manage to take you even farther.”
“Yes.” Another shiver travels through my body, but this one is almost giddy, and not just because of the heat his touch woke in my skin.
“And you’re not a fraction as frightened as you probably should be.” He tsks at me teasingly again.
I meet his eyes steadily. “I don’t think it can be worse than what I’ve already been through.”
“No, perhaps not. I’ll give you that.”
Whitt rotates me in one more slow spin, my misshapen foot only just starting to twinge at how long I’ve been putting my weight on it, and then lets me go. “Have a little more tumbleweld, mite. We won’t have treats like that out at the border.”
Harper has returned from her chat with her father, and I settle onto a cushion next to her with another husked fruit to nibble on. The ache inside me fades with the blooming warmth the stuff sends through me. We trade more stories, my memories of human life in exchange for her limited but still fantastical rambles around this part of the fae realm, and then lie back to peer up at the stars, Harper pointing out the constellations the fae have legends about.
Every now and then I peek Whitt’s way, watching him circulate through the other revelers, bringing a smile to each face with his passing remarks. This might be work for him, but I think he does like it too.
When my eyelids are starting to droop and the cushion is feeling so comfortable I’m not sure I want to bother getting up, the music dwindles. A few pack members sprawl out on the blankets to sleep beneath the stars. Others gather the now-empty dishes from the table. As Harper sits up with a stretch of her arms, Whitt comes for me.
“Up you go,” he says, lightly but briskly. “I have something else to end off your night.”
I peel myself off the cushion drowsily but with an itch of curiosity and follow him to the keep. The lantern orbs waver on to meet us.
Whitt leads me up to his office and simply points to a silver box about the size of a textbook on his desk. He stays standing off to the side as if he doesn’t want to come too close to it.
Opening the box, I find a velvet bag that sags across my entire hand with a shifting weight. As I tug it open, a mineral smell reaches my nose.
It’s full of salt crystals—maybe ten times the small portion August secreted to me weeks ago so I had some small protection against Kellan. The salt I used to break the magic locking the keep’s doors. The salt Sylas chided August for giving to me.
When I stare at Whitt, his smirk comes back, though it looks a bit tired now. “August’s job might not be cleverness, but that doesn’t mean he never has any good ideas. Salt will work just as well against the winter fae as those of summer—and I can’t promise every Seelie you might run into by the border will be friendly besides. We couldn’t have you coming completely unarmed, could we?”
I do also have the small dagger Sylas presented me with this afternoon that August taught me a few basic techniques with, but that would only make for a last-ditch defense. Salt is one rare thing I can wield that none of the fae can match.
Whitt managed to get this from the human realm, however much discomfort being near it would have caused him. He must have gotten it today, since they didn’t know I’d be coming with them until then.
Just how much is going on behind those ocean-blue eyes, feelings and intentions that he hides with his smirks and mockery?
My fingers curl into the thick fabric of the bag. “Thank you. Does—does Sylas know?”
“You don’t need to hide it from him. He seemed pleased enough when I suggested it. I wouldn’t go flashing it at any fae beyond the three of us unless you mean to use it right then, though.”
“Of course not.” I have the urge to hug him or to figure out some other gesture to show I recognize how much he’s offering, but I’m not sure how he’d react. He seems to want to treat it as if it’s no big deal.
I’ll never scoff at the idea that he intends to protect me again, I can say that much.
Whitt gives me a gentle nudge toward the door. “You’d better get your rest. We have a long trip ahead of us tomorrow.”
Chapter Eighteen
Whitt
I always forget how much I hate dealing with arch-lords and their cadres until I’m faced with the pompous bastards again. Of course, given the way the three cadre-chosen representatives are eyeing me, I’m lucky they agreed to meet with me at all.
“What’s so urgent that Sylas of Oakmeet felt the need to come all the way out here himself?” asks Cashel—the one who belongs to Ambrose, so naturally the most obnoxious—folding his arms over his chest. We’re meeting in one of the temporary war camp buildings near his post, and the sunlight seeping through the massive woven blades of grass that make up the walls turn his ruddy skin sickly greenish. “If he had a matter to bring before the arch-lords, I’d imagine he hasn’t forgotten how to make a standard petition.”
Sylas would be here himself standing up to these pricks if it wouldn’t have been an act of humiliation for a lord to negotiate with another lord’s cadre, as if he didn’t trust his own cadre to do the job. I doubt they’d offer him much more respect than they’re giving me regardless.
“My lord isn’t here to ask for help,” I say, smoothing as much of the edge out of my voice as I can manage. “We’re here to offer it, as I belie
ve I already mentioned.”
Maeve, the hawk-nosed woman from Celia’s cadre, snorts. “And why would any of the arch-lords require ‘help’ from Oakmeet? Your pack hasn’t exactly contributed any stunning victories so far, and I’m not sure I want to hear any ridiculous schemes you’ve come up with, ‘Wild’ Whitt.”
My reputation, carefully cultivated as it is, does occasionally have its downsides. Never mind that I’m truly ridiculous even less often than I’m fully drunk. Never mind that the warriors we can spare are no more than half what any other pack would be able to send out—or that not even the arch-lords have won any truly decisive victories with their far greater numbers. If they had, we wouldn’t be standing around in a stuffy hut having this damned conversation.
“They’ve contributed enough that we’re aware of shifts in the tide,” I say, glancing from her to Donovan’s man, Hollis, and back to Cashel. “You’re anticipating a strike beyond anything the Unseelie have pulled off yet, aren’t you? How many of the other lords have put together the pieces—and bothered to make an appearance to show their support?”
None of them bothers to answer that. Hollis adjusts his weight on his feet, his narrow face tight with apparent discomfort. Out of the three arch-lords, his tends to be the most lenient. But even Donovan didn’t argue all that hard against our banishment to the fringes, so I can’t expect much cooperation from that quarter.
Like any fae, they’re not inclined to lie, but that doesn’t stop them from talking around the truth. Cashel raises his head at a haughty angle. “We have no news to report. Perhaps you’ve come here on a misguided errand.”
Perhaps, not definitely. And they have no news they want to report to me. If the fact that they reacted with defiance rather than confusion hadn’t already convinced me that Sylas’s theory was correct, that response would have done the trick.
