Page 3 of Ties of Bargains

The movement drew Vlek’s attention, and the dog lifted his head, his tail swishing over the sheet.

Harm rested a hand on Vlek’s head, giving the dog a scratch behind his ears.

Father turned his face away from Harm to face Gijs, as if he needed the reminder of why he was doing this. “Thefeesaid to be at the circle in the tulip fields at midnight tonight.”

Tonight. So little time to say farewell and prepare to be snatched away by thefeeënvolk.

Harm nodded, swallowing down the lump of panic so that it twisted deep inside his chest but didn’t so much as flicker on his face.

Perhaps it was just as well. Gijs needed that cure as soon as possible, and the dread of being taken away would be worse than simply facing whatever came.

Chapter Two

With his pack weighing heavily on his shoulders, Harm paced beside the strangely circular patch of pure white tulips in the field several miles up the Ronddwalende River from the city of Tulpenwerf. The full moon beamed overhead, its silver light glistening in the dewdrops on the tulip blooms. Near the river, the squat silhouette of a windmill broke the otherwise flat landscape, its blades still in the breezeless night.

The mucky black dirt squelched beneath Harm’s tall leather boots, and he still wore his good black coat, white shirt, and gray trousers. He was likely overdressed, but he was the heir of Tulpenland. He couldn’t walk into the realm of thefeeënvolklooking scruffy.

His father marched back and forth a few paces away while a handful of guards waited with the barge docked beside the riverbank. They were far enough that they wouldn’t overhear or see, but close enough that Father could get to them quickly if things went wrong.

So far, the only thing going wrong was that thefeewas late.

Father halted and glared at the tulip circle. “It’s well after midnight.” His tone indicated that he found it quite insulting.

Punctuality came above cleanliness and thriftiness for virtues. Bad enough that afeewas coming to take Harm away. It was a nearly unforgivable affront that thefeewould be late doing it.

Harm huffed and rubbed his hands over his arms. At this time of spring, the night held a chill. “What do we do if they don’t come?”

“If they don’t come, they are the ones who broke the bargain. You would be free.” Father’s voice held a heavy weariness as his breath puffed silvery in front of his face.

But Gijs would die.

Harm paced along the squishy mud yet again, trying to stifle his yawn. He’d spent most of his day reading all the books on thefeeënvolkhe could find in the palace and the city libraries. When all the knowledge to be gleaned there had been exhausted, he’d haunted the merchants’ quarter, asking the far-ranging traders for stories from other kingdoms.

Until a few generations back, Tulpenland had very few dealings with thefeeënvolk, except for the occasional merfolk getting tangled in fishing nets. The theory was that the land—so waterlogged and barely kept above the reaches of the sea by dikes, canals, and windmills—didn’t provide the firm anchoring points forfeeëncircles like other nations.

After tulips were introduced, Tulpenland experienced more interactions with thefeeënvolkduring the spring when the tulips were blooming. Even then, such occurrences were rare and usually staved off by the farmers cutting the blooms off the flowers.

But that left Harm unprepared for what he was about to face. He didn’t have generations of lore of thefeeënvolk. Just a head full of hastily crammed book knowledge and secondhand stories told by the seafaring merchants.

As Harm turned to pace back along the row between the tulips once again, a shiver spread through the night, tingling against his skin and raising the hair at the back of his neck. He and his father both turned toward thefeeëncircle.

The white tulips glowed, the moonlight collecting in a pool of silver.

A figure appeared in the silver a moment before a woman stepped from the circle into the tulip field, followed by a well-muscled dog.

In the haze of moonlight and shadows, Harm couldn’t make out much of her features, though he guessed she was only a handful of years older than him. She had brown skin and straight black hair that she wore unbound down her back. Her clothes were leather and more form-fitting than anything he’d ever seen a woman wear before. The dagger belted at her waist was all business.

The brown dog at her side only came up to the woman’s knees. But its square head was set on a thickneck over such a muscled chest that it looked like it could plow over a cow.

Thefeeënwoman halted before them and rested a hand on her dagger’s hilt. “Duke Johannes?”

“Yes.” Father took a step forward before halting again, as if he wasn’t sure how to address this strange, warrior-like woman. She must not be the samefeewho Father had bargained with before as he didn’t seem to recognize her. “Who are you?”

“I’m the mercenary tasked with delivering this and retrieving the package.” She held out a stoppered glass vial. The contents glowed with a milky blue light at odds with the silvery moon overhead. “Have your son drink this as soon as you return tonight. He will be well by morning.”

Father took the vial, closing his fingers over it almost hesitantly as he glanced at Harm, the moonlight glinting in the pained depths of his eyes. With that action, he sealed his choice of one son’s life for the other’s.

Harm gave his father a slight nod, and Father hugged the vial to his chest. His father might have promised his life away, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t Harm’s choice.

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