Page 11 of Ties of Bargains

His pack and exhaustion pressed heavily on Harm’s shoulders. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept.

With the dog still watching him hopefully, Harm gathered his remaining strength and pushed to his feet. He glanced from the cord on his wrist to where it stretched through thefeeënwoman’s door.

With a shrug, Harm shuffled across the strangely springy floor of the tulip house and gripped the petaldoor to the room she’d assigned to him. The petal was soft and smooth beneath his hand, exactly like a tulip petal back home. If a tulip were the size of a small windmill.

When he stepped inside, he found a bed formed of mounds of flower petals against the inner wall. A basin and pitcher of water set on a spindly wooden stand stood by the outer wall where it curved in the shape of the flower.

The yellow petal door slid shut behind him. When he glanced down at the cord, it ran through the wall that separated him from thefeeënwoman’s room.

Such a strange magic. Where it passed though the wall, the cord appeared more light than fiber. And yet on his wrist, it was as firm as an iron manacle, though thankfully far softer.

When he slid his pack off his back, the strap went right through the cord. Same when he shrugged out of his black coat. But when he tried to pass his hand through the tether, it remained solid.

Mind-bendingly strange. All Harm could do was shake his head, too weary to puzzle over the oddness of this place, and collapse onto the flower petal bed.

Dogs who only had three heads occasionally, cords that were sometimes solid, sometimes not, and tulip bloom houses were the least of the bizarre things he would face in the realm of thefeeënvolk.

Harm was dragged from hazy,outlandish dreams of pink frogs and talking tulips when something jerked his arm so hard that he was yanked from the petal bed. He fell to the springy floor with anoomphthat was more a startled exclamation than pain.

“Get up, pup, or you’ll be dragged.” Thefeeënwoman’s voice came harsh and clipped from the other side of the door.

“At least give me a moment to wash up and change.” Harm pushed himself off the floor. “If you drag me through the door now, I’ll be in a state of undress.”

Granted, he was only lacking his jacket and boots, but she didn’t know that. Thefeedidn’t seem as bothered by such things, but Harm was betting she’d still be reluctant to drag him from here if she thought he might be unclothed.

“Fine. Hurry up.” Her tone rang even more brusque.

Harm rushed through splashing his face with water and changing into his set of more practical clothing, which included thick canvas trousers stuffed into his boots, a plain shirt, and a leather overcoat.

The last thing he did was strap the iron knife his father had given him to his lower leg, tucking it underneath his trousers, then inside his boot. It was a clunky weapon, with a rounded knob at the top and a hilt that lacked any sort of grip over the iron tang. The knob would surely give him a bruise.

Hiding it like that didn’t make it very accessible, but he shouldn’t draw it until it was time to escape. Until then, it would be safely out of the warrior woman’s sight.

With that settled, Harm took out some of his salt pork, repacked his nicer clothes around the blue-and-white pottery items in his pack, shrugged on the heavy load, and strode from the room with his head high.

Thefeewore the same leather outfit and weapons as she had that morning, though her hair was now tightly done in a single braid down her back. She stood in the center of the room, munching on what looked like an egg on toast—except that the egg was green and the toast was pink.

She jabbed a finger down at the tray of food sitting on what appeared to be a toadstool table. “Eat. These foods should be safe.”

More of those green eggs and pink toast sat on the tray, along with an assortment of other strangely colored food. Hershould bewas not enough reassurance, given the odd colors.

Harm held up the unappetizing salt pork. “I have food.”

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and kept eating, even as she headed toward the door. “We might as well eat and walk.”

She didn’t have a pack or seemingly anything to gather besides her dagger, which she already wore. She snapped her fingers for her dog, and that was that.

Harm trailed after her. Not that he had much choice, given the roughly ten feet of glimmering cord stretched between them.

She set a brisk pace as she wound through the towering blooms. Variousfeeënmeandered around them, though the court seemed strangely quiet for themiddle of the day. Then again, it had been bustling late at night. Perhaps thesefeeënwere more nocturnal creatures.

Harm finished his meat, but he didn’t say a word until they were back in the fern forest. Only once they were well away from all the otherfeeëndid he ask, “How far of a walk is it to Queen Titania’s court?”

“Too long.” She all but growled the words as she stalked through the fern forest.

“We won’t arrive tonight, will we?” Even with his long legs, Harm struggled to keep up with her quick pace.

“No.” She rested a hand on her knife’s hilt but didn’t look at him.

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