Page 76 of Fortune's Blade

“It’s Faerie,” Ray said, the words bursting out of him as if a dam had broken. “No where is safe.”

“Some places are.” Shrewd eyes slid to me and then back to him, as if evaluating something. “And if I wanted to hurt her, I’d go after the body lying alone and unprotected in your room, wouldn’t I? Save for the guards I had to bribe to go back there.”

“What?” Ray looked suddenly alarmed, as if he hadn’t thought of that. And started for the door, only to find a cloud of pixies in his way. He whirled on the queen. “Tell ‘em to move—now.”

“Or what?” she asked curiously.

“I’ll move ‘em!”

She laughed, and once more, I was reminded of bells. “I think you would try,” she agreed, sizing him up. “But it isn’t necessary. My guards are there to protect the body whilst the mind is elsewhere. And you can come along,” she added, before he could speak again. “You are linked, and she might vanish if you get too far away.”

“I, too, should like to see the nursery,” Mircea said, only to have the Pythia snort into her wine.

The queen shot her an amused look. “Another time,” she said, and glanced at her guards, “Keep them here.”

And then she flew off into the darkness, with Ray and I scrambling to keep up.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I expected her to head to the forest in the next room, but instead she flew the other way, across a considerable space of uninterrupted flagstone to a hallway hiding in the gloom to the right of the table.

A bevy of tiny bodyguards swarmed through the air after her, but a glance over my shoulder showed that some had stayed behind, I supposed to guard her guests—or to watch them. The Pythia didn’t seem to care, having already gone back to eating, using bread to sop up the juices on her plate and calling for more wine from a tiny steward. She had seemed the most unbothered by my presence, and appeared equally so by my absence.

But she was the only one.

Marlowe was talking urgently to Mircea—I could tell from his expression and the way he leaned in, although his lips weren’t moving. The two were speaking mind to mind, probably to avoid being overheard, and thus his words were likely important. But I wasn’t sure that father noticed.

His eyes were on me and nowhere else as we disappeared into the hall and I lost him from view.

The queen did not speak as we made our way past numerous darkened doorways, some of which had loud snores emanating from them that could only belong to trolls. I had learned that music well enough on the road with the Wanderers, where I’d questioned why they bothered with stealth when they brought thunder with them wherever they went. Those rooms often had cracked or open doors, as if the occupants were unconcerned about being attacked here.

But others were tightly closed and slightly ominous, with misty, neon-colored wards gleaming in the air outside them.

We went to one of the latter, where three of the queen’s guards muscled past us to break through the ward. And then flying inside to check the place out, zipping about the small room as if determined to examine every square inch. I did not know what danger there could be in a magical castle hidden in another realm and disguised as a sandstorm, but they were taking no chances.

They finally allowed us inside and there was a forest in there, too, although not a real one. But it looked almost lifelike, with painted boughs and pinecones that almost sprang off the walls they had been so cleverly done, and then enchanted to sway slightly as if in a small breeze. A riot of spring flowers likewise decorated the bases of the trees, and I swore that I could smell them with the aid of Ray’s excellent nose, shedding a subtle but sweet perfume.

It was an enchanted glade at nighttime, I realized, staring about at the walls and ceiling and floor, with glistening mushroom caps pushing up through the rich soil and shimmering dewdrops on delicate insect wings. There was no sky, with the boughs closing overhead like a protective embrace, and no windows. The room looked as if it might have been a converted closet, something that probably seemed enormous to pixies, yet would be of little use to anyone else.

So, they had made it into a perfect nursery designed to encourage slumber, and it did its job well.

I felt a yawn coming over me, despite the fact that my body was already sleeping.

The pixie flew over to a small crib shaped like a flower among the colorful profusion under a tree. And snuggled her little one in downy comfort amid a mass of soft blankets in the center of it. He quieted down immediately and drifted off to sleep, while the queen took a seat nearby, on a small mushroom protruding from the wall.

It wasn’t the only piece that was three dimensional, I realized, with elements of the mural extending into the room and forming the necessary furniture. There were small tables masked as mossy tree stumps, a mobile above the crib of fluttering butterflies, and a wardrobe hidden inside a painted waterfall, the slowly moving splash sending pale, rippling shadows across the room.

There was no furniture suitable for Ray and I, as I doubted any non-pixies were ever let in here. But we settled well enough onto the floor. Where areas of grasses and tiny flowers had leeched off of the walls like paint spills to decorate the old boards.

“We come from the desert, but learned to love the forest where many of us took refuge for a while,” the queen told me, glancing about, as if seeing it through my eyes. “I find I miss it these days, when I’m not there, although it isn’t home.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said, because it was. “And . . . cozy.”

She seemed to find that amusing. “I’m glad you’re comfortable here. You should try being one of my people. This whole place feels ridiculously huge to us.”

“Because giants built it,” I said, remembering what Ray mentioned.

She nodded. “Yes, long ago. Or they started it, at least. But a terrible toll has been taken on their kind in recent years. They cannot hide as well as we can.”

---