Page 61 of Knight's End
I laughed. What a sweet, silly offer. “I don’t like him much either, but he’s very good at organization.” Then I turned back to Donaloo. Despite his idiotic method of answering, his jumbled rhymes had helped me before, with Blue. I needed his help again. I needed to know what I could do to defeat his enemy. “How do I use wishes against the djinn?” I asked.
“You have a half-djinn,” Dini said.
Horror washed over me. She meant I should use Quinn? I stared back and forth from flower to wizard. “Are you mad? I can’t do that to Quinn!” I couldn’t force him to be silent again. “Any wish that would take down Raj would be on such a huge scale—Connor just read to me about a nightmare that lasted three years for one djinni. Three years!”
The flower just curled and uncurled the tips of her petals, and I rather got a feeling from her that if she were a person, she’d be arrogantly studying her nails. “You’re just not thinking cleverly then. There are ways—”
“Tell me!”
Donaloo shook his head. “I can’t win all your battles or fight all your wars. At best, I can unlock your mental doors, help you to see beyond your nose, to possibilities where magic flows.”
“What?” I asked. “What does that even mean? You’re helping me fight my battles right now!” I waved my hands at the giant mirror spell above our heads. “What do you call this spell? Why do you help Evaness so much when I haven’t asked, but then when I do ask for advice, say things like that?”
Dini sighed. “He hasn’t told you about our daughter, has he?”
Shock and a series of very disturbing images flitted through my head.No!
Quinn popped into my head, noticing the unusual thoughts. I must have projected them.
Flower sex, Dove?
I didn’t answer him. I was too busy gaping at Donaloo, who had a slight blush on my cheeks.
What tumbled out my mouth was a completely unqueenly, “WHAT?”
Dini’s petals drooped. “Our sweet little Posey, she’ll be one-hundred-eight this year.”
I glanced back and forth between them. “This isn’t some joke that Quinn’s coordinated with the two of you, is it?” I asked. I mean, Quinn’s timing jumping into my head was suspicious. Had he been waiting for me to think about flowers? Had he been waiting for me to imagine how a human/flower mating might be physically possible?
I glanced around, searching for my knights. My eyes scanned the parapets along the edge of the castle. I didn’t see anyone there. If this was a joke, wouldn’t they be hiding, wanting to see my every reaction?
Quinn, did you tell Donaloo to trick me? Not funny!
Dove? Hold on a sec—
Where are you?
Local tavern, getting some info. Seems like something’ odd has been seen down south.
He nearly distracted me. But Quinn loved practical jokes. I narrowed my eyes as I listened to him and studied Donaloo and his lady-flower friend suspiciously.
Dini’s leaves folded over one another and she held them close to her stem, like a woman might hold her hands close to her heart. “Posey’s the sweetest girl. But she got caught up in politics in Gitmore.”
Donaloo shook his head sadly. And for once, the silly facade faded from his face. I could see the lines etched from a father’s worry on his forehead. “Try as you might to teach them right, your child’s day could be your night.”
Dini shook her petals. “She wanted to be a warrior. Nothing we could say could talk her out of it. Do I look like I passed on a warrior gene? I’m a flower sprite, for goodness sake! But off she went, got caught up …” her voice sank from its normal squeak to a melancholy pitch. “She ended up in the undead army.”
Donaloo reached up a hand and gently stroked Dini’s petals.
My heart constricted as I watched them. They looked heartbroken. But shouldn’t they be proud? Their daughter got what she wanted, the life she wanted, even if it wasn’t the life they’d wanted for her. The undead army. The thought of that didn’t appeal to me at all. But maybe it was someone else’s dream. My mother had fought so hard to restrict my own freedom, that a bit of my old resentment reared its head. And my stupid tavern-wench mouth had to spout off my opinion. “Why is that a bad thing?”
The wizard said, “Sometimes we choose our path without knowing the price we’ll pay—”
Dini pulled away from Donaloo and interrupted what was sure to be a long-winding rhyming monologue. “She was tricked into it; that’s why we’re devastated. Didn’t know what she signed when she signed it—the queen and that old bastard wizard, Raster, had no scruples. About twenty, twenty-five years ago, they recruited a lot of young kids, runaways, the like. Promised them they’d see the world, travel as soldiers, get all the glory—only to kill the kids and wake them back up, undead. Posey wasn’t a kid, but she was always trying to find a way to fight more, do better. They fed her a line of fertilizer—”
My cheeks heated. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’re destined to fix it!” Dini twirled her petals.
