Page 39 of Heir of Autumn
“Sapling?” Aphrodite didn’t skip a beat, turning her head to address me, completely ignoring what Sylvain had said. “A question. Did you hear the thing in the well?”
“The Wispwell?” The lines in my forehead creased as I frowned deep enough to match Sylvain’s expression. “How did you know I heard something? Do you know what it is?”
She shrugged. “I only wish I knew. That is why I asked. You’ve only lived at the Wispwood for years, after all. One would believe that you think of the academy as home, of its institutions as family. Blood is thicker than water and all that.”
I shook my head and scoffed. “That makes no sense, Aphrodite. Why in the world would I think of a puddle of water as family?”
“That’s not at all what I said,” she answered, her lip turned up. “I was merely wondering if you knew the truth of the well. Curious, is it not? I would ask your headmasters what they know.”
What did the headmasters know, anyway? Nothing that wasn’t already written into one of the big, boring history books about the Wispwood castle.
“In fact, the two of you have plenty of questions that need asking. For example, Prince Sylvain. Why aren’t the leaves you conjure ever golden-brown, as they presumably are in the Court of Autumn?”
“All fae are different, as are our talents. That doesn’t make me any less a Prince of Autumn.”
“You know,” Satchel said, rubbing his chin. “I did wonder sometimes.”
Sylvain squinted at him. “Oh, now don’t you go getting involved, too. You vanish in and out of pockets of reality, Satchel. How is the color of the leaves I control so much stranger than a pixie who can warp the space around him?”
”Dunno,” Satchel said, shrugging. “He’s got a great point, Aphrodite.”
“I suppose,” the goddess said. “But I am only asking questions out of curiosity. I imagine I must have piqued yours in turn.”
The goddess clearly had an agenda here. I could smell it.
“But I suppose I shouldn’t keep you gentlemen. Have a wonderful trip, all three of you. Aphrodite, away!”
Tiny Aphrodite raised her fist in the air, then rocketed toward the window. Good thing we left it open. She flew out like a superhero, her great waves of hair rippling like a cape, forever one for dramatic entrances and exits.
Satchel gawked after her. “She doesn’t even have wings. I mean, how?”
I shrugged. “She’s a goddess, Satchel. Headmaster Belladonna can fly, too, and she doesn’t have any wings.”
“Right, fair point.” He looked at the table, the broken shards of chocolate, then glanced up at me meekly. “But look at this mess she left. Someone should clean it up. With their mouth.”
“Oh, for the love of — go on, then.”
Sylvain laughed.
16
In a secret space,in a secret place, somewhere Sylvain made me promise never to tell, there existed a portal to the Verdance. One of several, in fact, though many had already gone defunct over the ages, either drained of their energies from disuse or sealed off on purpose.
We couldn’t use his circlet to enter the Verdance this time, presumably because his royal mother would like to see him wearing it in court. Fair enough. But with the amount of secrecy Sylvain made me swear to, you’d think he was asking me to sign an NDA.
He made me pinky swear, too. Something so simple and innocuous to us humans, but the burning sensation his skin left against mine suggested that I was better off not violating this particular promise.
When I’d contracted him as an eidolon, the Pact of the Unknown had exerted its binding magic in interesting and often painful ways. I didn’t want to find out the consequences of breaking a fae covenant.
I was, however, allowed to describe the portal itself, found somewhere in a forest. The door came in the shape of an archway formed by a pair of wizened trees, their branches tangled and twisted with each other like ancient lovers.
But it wasn’t a simple matter of stepping through, of course. The portal would only respond to certain travelers — a fae prince, in this case, Sylvain acting like his own passport. Without those restrictions, more hikers and stragglers would end up getting lost in the Verdance.
Sylvain had assured me time and again that the fae didn’t really do that sort of thing anymore — lure unsuspecting humans into the Verdance in order to keep them trapped forever.
“Methods of fae entrapment have become more sophisticated, and certainly more selective,” he said, one hand on his hip, the other gesturing at the archway. “We want quality abductions and hostages these days. High-value targets, as it were.”
I stared at him with my mouth open, wondering if he could hear the callousness in his voice. Apparently he could, at least after seeing the horror on my face.
