Page 116 of A Fae in Finance
“No, it is not human saliva, nor any other bodily excretion,” Kamare said.
“So… is it some kind of textile?”
Kamare stopped in the path and turned around. “Can someone silence the human?”
I tripped again, and this time I fell onto the dirt. I caught the worst of the fall on my palms.
As was his wont, Sahir hauled me up by the straps of my backpack. He set me on my feet, his hands on my shoulders.
“Miri, I do not think we should play twenty questions with things that kill faeries,” Sahir said in my ear.
I nodded and mimed zipping my lips shut and throwing away the key.
Kamare’s eyes followed my elaborate gestures. “What is the human doing now?” she snapped. “Is this some arcane magic? Is she summoning a vision?”
I mimed unzipping my lips and said, “It’s a gesture humans use to indicate their silence.”
“Such an odd people,” Kamare said. “Imagine a culture where you speak so much that you must have a hand signal to indicate silence. Do they use the hand signal because others are talking at the same time?”
“Um.” I shrugged, Sahir’s hands still heavy on me. “Anyway, I won’t ask any more questions. I only hoped to understand the argument. It makes sense that you don’t want to let strangers into your home, but I don’t see why you would need to.”
Kamare turned her back to me. Sahir dropped his hands, and we all continued along the way. I thought she wouldn’t answer; she took several minutes before she spoke again.
“It is a fair exchange,” she said. “If we are permitted to enter your lands, so you should be permitted to enter ours.”
“I don’t think any humans have asked for that,” I said. “And we don’t have anything like that with the other—species.”
But that wasn’t true, was it? I thought about the Bureau for Vampire Relations, which had initiated a form of population control that prevented new vampires from turning without years of paperwork. Humans were wriggling themselves into everyone’s business in any way possible.
“I hear the lie in your voice, human,” Kamare said. “And I know more of your world than you might expect. Your people have always taken more than you are owed. My people are bound by magic to act equitably, and your people have no such restraints. How can we treat together, when our limitations are so different?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And I’m sorry that my being here put you in this position. But I was trapped, too—you know I had no choice and didn’t want to stay.”
“Your death would have solved both of our problems,” Kamare said, which quashed any sympathy I might have had for her.
For the next hour, we traveled in silence. I hardly noticed when the terrain changed again, until Lene elbowed me and pointed out the shapes of the trees.
Where previously, we’d been traveling under what I might have called oaks and conifers, these trees were long and slender, almost tropical. Their colors verged on jewel tones, red and orange trunks soaring skyward. The air warmed, too, and the path widened, the stones lightening and smoothing out under our feet, as they had at the sacred site. At our sides, waving blue-and-purple-fronded plants dotted the ground instead of underbrush. Here, the leaves hadn’t fallen. I glanced up at a gorgeous blue sky, like threaded turquoise. Thin, wispy clouds promenaded along their stately way.
I was so busy staring up, mouth open, that I didn’t see Kamare disappear.
Lene grabbed my arm, hard, and I glanced around. Kamare was gone, and the other crimson-clad Fae had come into a wide clearing with us. At our feet was a hole in the earth, dark and deeply unappealing. It was so narrow only one person could possibly enter at a time.
Lene unshouldered her pack, then helped me with mine. Sahir and Gaheris shed theirs as well, and we made an untidy pile at the side of the hole.
Sahir glanced at me. “I will enter first, and catch you at the bottom, Miriam.” He pressed his hand to my cheek, so quickly it almost hurt, and then stepped backward into the hole.
I gaped as he disappeared, then glanced at Lene. Her face was expressionless.
“In,” she ordered.
“You want me tojumpinto aholein theground? Do you know anything about human anatomy? Is the fall hundreds of feet? I could die.”
Lene rolled her eyes. “It was a short fall when I jumped last. In, coward,” she said, which stung.
In the spirit of compromise, I got down on my hands and knees, crawled to the edge of the hole, and slowly rolled myself over the side until I was dangling, staring up at her.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, fighting the strain in my fingertips.
