Page 12 of Crown of Wings and Whispers

“As a favor to me,” Griffon said, from behind us, “would the pair of you go back to being enemies?”

Archer and I looked at each other for a long minute, if only to tease him. Then the old sober Archer returned. “We’ve called a truce is all,” he grumbled, heading for the back door. “By the way, brother, how isYarmouththese days?” Then he stepped outside and was gone.

I hurried to catch the screen door before it could slam. When I faced Griffon again, I gave him exactly five seconds to explain where he’d been. When he missed the chance, I walked around him to turn off the oven, then headed for the backdoor myself.

He caught my arm and turned me, then leaned down to kiss me. But I pulled away and searched his face, wondering if I’d been the last woman he’d kissed that day.

“Who’s in Yarmouth?”

His eyes closed and he hung his head, but he didn’t release me. I decided to give him another minute or two to confess whothose otherswere. The seconds that followed seemed like minutes as I imagined him weighing my importance against someone else’s.

Finally, he looked up, resigned. “A girl,” he said, breaking my heart out loud. “There’s a girl in Yarmouth. A girl…and her grandmother.”

4

Welcome To Fairy

“Fallon? You mean Fallon and Annag!”

He answered with a wink. “My brother thinks I have regular assignations with other women, and I prefer he go on believing it.”

“He doesn’t know about Fallon?”

“I trust him in all other things. But if he’d known about Fallon, he might have gone to Orion and offered her in exchange for Daphne’s return. He is loyal to me, yes, but he was just as loyal to Daphne. Maybe more so. It pains me to keep anything from him, but I hope, in the end, he will understand.”

* * *

For a quick afternoon tea,Bridie served us a stew she called Cawl, and a funky thing called lava bread. Archer warned me not to ask what it was made of. Griffon didn’t appreciate the fact that we were on speaking terms, illustrated by the fact that he scowled each time Archer and I spoke to each other.

Bridie laughed at her sons, watching them exchanging dirty looks, and said it reminded her of the good old days. When the three of them started looking through old photos of their sister, trying to choose a few to display, I excused myself and went out to the patio. It was hard enough hearing the purple fairy’s name, but so much harder to look at her face.

It was a faint and odd consolation to me that she didn’t look particularly happy in most of the pictures I saw. Maybe two hundred and twenty-three years of being unhappy meant there was more to her giving up than just being caught and caged by a pissed-off witch.

I’d been sitting alone for an hour when Griffon joined me on the porch. He didn’t sit. “Mother would like to speak to you upstairs,” he said, his face void of expression. “Alone.”

That last word sounded like a test, but I laughed it off. “I’m not afraid of your mom. Unless you’re telling me I should be.”

“Certainly not.”

“Okay, then.” I dragged my hand along his arm as I passed, still smiling. When he didn’t return my smile, I braced myself for an unpleasant conversation. If the woman asked me to leave—if she’d caught wind of my involvement in Daphne’s death—I would obviously respect her wishes. I just didn’t know where I would go.

Or maybe she would warn me away from Griffon and tell me I wasn’t good enough for her son. In that case, her wishes be damned.

I had just taken the first step on the second staircase when Bridie called out my fake name. She was standing in a doorway, waving me to her. As soon as I looked inside, I knew it was Daphne’s room by the half-dozen shades of purple on the walls, the bedding, and a hundred knick-knacks displayed on a wide, tall set of bookshelves. For a grown woman—or Fae—her obsession with the color seemed adolescent.

A sudden dread gripped my chest and made it hard to breathe. Almost like an afterthought, Hank began hissing in my head. Some new, inner alarm warned me to turn around and never return, but for Griffon’s sake—and his mother standing in the middle of the room waiting—I stepped onto the purple carpet.

Hank hissed louder, if only to be heard, since the hissing of a half-dozen other voices rushed into my head, then swirled around together like fish in a jostled bowl of water. I reached for the door jamb and stepped back into the hall. It didn’t help. The hissing contest continued.

“Take the stairs too fast, did ye?” Bridie’s soft hand grabbed mine and firmly led me to the bed. “Sit down a’fore ye fall down.”

I heard her clearly above the rustling voices. Apparently, my ears still worked despite the music-less concert in my brain.

“I’ll fetch ye some water,” she said, and was out the door.

I got to my feet, checked my balance, and then started searching. I knew just what I was looking for.

Pet rocks.

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