Page 72 of Fortune's Blade

That did not help, either, but something else did. One of the trolls, a younger specimen with a round, boyish face, a shaggy tunic made out of something’s hide, and a bright piece of silk wrapped around his wrist suddenly bellowed a few words at ear-splitting decibels. There was an abrupt silence, with the bow of someone’s fiddle sliding discordantly off the strings, all conversation ceasing, and every eye in the place turning—

On us.

The silence persisted, echoing in my ears, for a moment, while several other nearby trolls checked us out more thoroughly. I didn’t currently have a face, at least not with me, but Ray did and it was immediately full of trolls. Others tested out his limbs in a way that was probably meant to be a weak tug but which would have ripped a human’s right off.

An older troll said something, with a gold tooth winking at us in what I belatedly realized was a grin. And then we were airborne, hefted onto burly shoulders and carried around the room, not to silence anymore, or even to noise. But to utter pandemonium.

“I do not think we are succeeding at being subtle,” I told Ray, but doubt he heard me.

We were eventually plonked down at a table near the band, which seemed to be considered prime seating, and plied with food, drink and laughing, happy company, none of whom could understand a thing we said and vice versa. But all wanted to talk a mile a minute nonetheless.

That was extremely odd for trolls, who usually took taciturn to new heights, but not tonight. They talked and bellowed and laughed and drank, and we were pulled into all of it. I found myself getting my dance, after all, being swung from massive hand to massive hand, to the point that I wasn’t sure it counted as dancing as my feet rarely hit the floor.

Which was just as well, because in Faerie, the term “rivers of wine,” or in this case beer, was not a metaphor.

It seemed that we’d stumbled into a celebration. And slowly, over the next few minutes, we understood why. Because somebody came running with a torch and one of the older trolls made the flames dance, too.

“Oh,” I said in wonder, as a plume of fire billowed outward, slicing across half of the room before forming itself into an unmistakable shape.

Several pixies chattered angrily, having barely dodged out of the way in time, and then had to continue doing so as the fire-creature chased them about the great space. It was a dragon, and it was flying on wings that shed sparks everywhere it went. They fizzled out on the cold stones of the floor, but occasionally some dried rushes went up before being crushed under the rock-hard heel of a troll before they could do any damage.

I barely noticed; my eyes were filled with fire. And it wasn’t just red, orange or yellow. There were flickers of purple in there, too, and I thought perhaps an occasional flash of green, and the eyes of the great beast—

Were liquid gold, and almost as spellbinding as the real thing. I could see them well, as it had paused right in front of us, shedding sparks that Ray had scrambled to back away from, only there was no where to go. Trolls were all around us, hemming us in, sitting on the table on all sides and spilling into the floor, and hugging us as closely as if they would keep us with them permanently.

And maybe they wanted to, because yes, this was a celebration, I realized—of us. Or at least, of what we’d done in the arena. “They want to say thank you!” I told Ray, finally understanding. “I don’t think they like dragons here!”

“I don’t like ‘em, either! Not when they’re about to set me alight!”

But they didn’t. The sparks from the great wings fell just short, mostly raining down onto the stones a yard or so in front of us, reflecting in all the spilt beer. And in Ray’s eyes and splashing his face with color as he stared up at the creature in fear and awe.

Not being inside his head anymore, I could see him clearly, and he was amazing, too. The light limned his hair with red, turned his eyes to fire, and played off the lines of his face. Ray might not be conventionally handsome, and certainly didn’t see himself that way. But there was beauty there, nonetheless, and generosity of spirit, and a good soul—just as there was in the trolls, if someone cared to see it.

I suddenly wished that I could dance again, and with him this time. I wished for it so much that I was hardly surprised when my body appeared beside me. But not the one sleeping in my room, lulled to sleep by the sounds of sand against the ward, happy and warm.

But another one, right here, right now, that was merging with me.

I took Ray by the hand this time, and pulled him up.

“What the—oh shit, oh no,” he said, his eyes huge, because my hand was fire.

I noticed an old female troll, with heaps of beaded strings around her neck—along with little bird bodies impaled on pins, dried toads, and herbs in bunches—off to one side, watching me and cackling delightedly. And I remembered something Dory had said about the dark feys’ magic being fire. And then I laughed along with her, because I had another body now, if one as ephemeral as the substance that had created it.

But I had it, and I wasn’t going to waste this chance.

“Dance with me!” I said to Ray, who stared from me to his hand, which had yet to go up in flames, and back again.

“You really are mad.”

But I guessed he was, too; it was that kind of night. Because the next moment, he was up and we were whirling around the floor, feet flashing and people clapping. And stomping and yelling and laughing and trying to grab us as we whirled past, because this was Faerie and there were no true spectator sports.

I’d no sooner had the thought than everyone was dancing, the whole room caught up in the spell of the moment. In the fire flashing in a hundred eyes, winking off metal hilts and jeweled teeth, and sparkling in the air like rubies as we showed them what vampire speed could do. And dared them to keep up.

All while shedding sparks wherever we went and yet emerging unscathed.

“Only in Faerie is it this exciting to walk across a room!” I told Ray, laughing.

“Exciting. Yeah. Fuck!” he said in return.

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