Page 38 of Heir of Autumn
“Pie.”
“Sorry?”
“Or cake. Doesn’t matter. I hear you fae folk have the best baked goods. I’d like to find out for myself. Bring me something sweet when you come home from the Verdance, and I’ll be too busy chewing to flap my gums about your big secret.”
“Why, this is blackmail!” Sylvain said, outraged.
“But is it, though?” Cutler rubbed his little hands with gleeful anticipation. “I’m a demon from the prime hell of Gluttony. It’s in my nature. What’s a basket of fae delicacies to you in exchange for my silence?”
I kept my smirk to myself. Cutler was too much of a softie to ever really say or do anything that might hurt Sylvain, but he was going to get his jollies by hook or by crook.
“Very well,” Sylvain said, defeated. “A basket of sweets in exchange for your silence.”
Cutler pumped his fist. “Yes. A sugar-based diet to keep me quiet.”
“You rhyming little ruffian,” Sylvain grumbled.
Satchel poked his head out of our own basket of treats, the backup rations Cutler brought already partially demolished. “Hey, Cutler? I thought you guys only made the dark chocolate in bars. Are you trying something new in the kitchens? This one’s shaped like a naked lady.”
“Like a what, now?” Cutler reached for the brim of the basket, stretching up to take a peek.
The naked lady-shaped piece of chocolate in question shifted, then shuddered, like it had a mind of its own. Satchel squeaked as he leapt out of the basket to safety. The chocolate splintered, then cracked as something broke out from the inside, a sweet sarcophagus, an iron maiden.
“Ah, splendid. Ta-da! Greetings, sapling.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Cutler grunted, vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Tiny Aphrodite brushed flecks of chocolate from her mostly naked tiny body, shook shavings of it out of her hair. This time she more or less resembled Satchel’s ideal vision of her, a four-inch-tall beauty.
“Wow,” I said, my forehead wrinkled as I waited for her to step out of the basket. “Did you wait all day for someone to embalm you, or was there some other way you managed to entomb yourself in a chocolate cocoon?”
“Don’t be preposterous, sapling. A goddess needn’t explain herself.” Aphrodite pouted for a beat, arms crossed. “And it was neither,” she added sheepishly. “I fell into a vat of melted chocolate. Piping hot. Quite bracing, really.”
Aphrodite’s diminutive avatar paced around the table as she dusted herself off. Her skin seemed perfectly clear and rosy for someone who’d just taken a dip in some molten chocolate. Like Cutler, her eyes fell on our bed, and on the assortment of stuff I’d yet to pack for our trip. She gave us a sly grin.
“So, preparing for a visit to the Verdance, are we?”
“Don’t play coy, Aphrodite,” I said, making my smile as friendly as I could muster. “We know that you’re always watching. You’ve known for a while now that we’ve been planning to go.”
“This is true.” She sat down on the edge of the table, kicking her legs in the air. “A pity that my people will never have a chance to visit ourselves. Why, I imagine the rulers of the realm would immediately consider it an invasion. Aeons of conflict between the four courts, and yet nothing would unite them faster than the threat of an attack from Earth.”
Sylvain’s chuckle transformed into a scoff. “You speak the truth, goddess. It’s difficult enough to gather the high fae in a single space without risking threats or bloodshed. But if just one goddess walks into the Verdance, I promise you, they’ll suddenly behave like the best of friends.”
He’d told me about it, once, a point in the Verdance where the lands of the four kingdoms converged. The rulers of the seasons would meet there, but only in times of disaster or great urgency, communicating while still remaining within their borders.
“I’m glad you agree about the high fae yourself, kind prince,” Aphrodite said, fluffing her hair. “No offense meant, of course, but at times it’s tempting to envision, even if only to see the looks on the faces of your many kings and queens.”
My breath left slowly through my nostrils, a subtle, close-lipped sigh of relief. It was good to know that Aphrodite was no longer in attack mode. Knowing what she was capable of always made every meeting a matter of walking on eggshells. But if the rulers of the seasons could unite, at least in this hypothetical war, then surely a goddess of love and a fae prince could get along without trying to kill each other, too.
“Princeling, allow me to posit a question.” She didn’t wait for his response. The gods were too accustomed to getting what they wanted. “You are a Prince of Autumn, are you not?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “As if there was ever any doubt.”
“Indeed. Then have you ever wondered why your talent only attracts the crispest and freshest of leaves? Why, I’d venture to say that you’re better off as a Prince of Spring. Perhaps even a Prince of Summer.”
Not this shit again. I’d already gotten my head on straight about that whole situation, how Sylvain had originally lied to me about his origins so I wouldn’t suspect the Court of Autumn of engineering the Withering. And now Aphrodite was trying to turn things around again? What the hell, lady?
Sylvain frowned. “I do not understand what you’re suggesting, goddess, but I’m sure I don’t like it.”
