Page 36 of A Fae in Finance
I could barely hear him over the din. “What does that mean?”
It had gotten louder, a lot of scraping chairs on the floor. We were in the center of the room now, surrounded by tables on all sides.
“I bound myself to you in fealty,” he said, louder, just as a hush fell across the room. Everyone had stood, and they were all staring at us. “I am your knight.”
“Well, then,” someone drawled behind us. “If you are already hers, I gather you will not become a knight of mine, Sahir.”
The Princeling had arrived.
Chapter 6
In Which We Experience Community Theater
Sahir flushed.
“Has the madness afflicted you, Sahir?” the Princeling asked, in a way that destroyed any lingering hope I had that he wasn’t listening in on my every conversation. Did he have nothing better to do, really?
I glanced around the room again. Everyone was staring at us. Oh good, another dinner show put on by the Faerie Players, featuring One Scared Human Girl.
“My lord,” Sahir replied, bowing his head. “I do not believe myself mad.”
“They never do,” the Princeling mused. He had that same little half smile on his thin lips.
He had his usual cohort with him, the knights Gray and Red and Blue, and the Crone in her blue cloak. They all stood by the cafeteria door, in the wide center aisle that ran the middle of the room.
The Crone leaned on the Blue Knight’s arm and he supported her. Her cloak fell in folds that seemed to suck the color from Blue and Red both.
The Crone pushed her hood back, her black eyes burning in her head. “I saw it all,” she said in a voice likely meant to be menacing. She sounded more like a gleeful teenage girl about to recap the plot ofBlood, Guts, and Pizza Huts: How We Found Friendship at Our High School Reunion and Then Died.
Without looking at her, the Princeling jerked his head in acknowledgment. “Show us then, Crone, what has made this wretch forsake his future in my Court for a mortal woman.”
The words made me uncomfortable, and I tried to pull my hand from Sahir’s. But he held on.
The Crone raised both her hands—the knights Red and Blue each held an elbow—and spread her gnarled fingers wide. Between each finger a web of blue spread, joint to joint and then hand to hand, the color of night in my parents’ backyard when I was a child and went out to stand under the stars, feet cold in the wet grass.
I wanted to fall into the color, but it fell toward us instead and lightened, until the room had transformed into the dull lonely gray of the courtyard between our office building and the next one over, the sort of gray that has heard of sunlight but isn’t convinced of its relevance.
I shifted my weight. I knew this was vitally important, but it had started to feel like the time I went to Shakespeare in the Globe Theatre and it was standing room only. My knees hurt. No one else in the room seemed like they wanted to sit.
The Princeling and the Gray Knight moved off to the side, leaving the other three in a place of prominence. There, leaning against the illusory wall by the building entrance, stood the Red and Blue Knights, the Crone between them. They each held a cigarette and wore the illusion of a black suit.
The Red Knight opened his mouth, and Matt’s voice came from the Crone’s lips. “Where is that stupid prick?”
“Calm down,” said the Crone, as Corey. The Blue Knight moved his mouth in time.
“Calm down? This is so fucked up,” Red Matt sputtered.
Between them they still held the Crone upright, and as they moved their mouths she spoke.
“It’s probably a misunderstanding,” Blue Corey said, flicking his live cigarette butt onto the pavement for dramatic effect. I glared. I always told him not to litter.
“Everyone sit down,” the Princeling cut in, lazy and commanding. The Red Knight and Blue Knight paused midmotion as weight shifted around the room, faeries resting in their chairs.
Sahir stirred and slid his hand from mine, which left me standing in the middle of the room like an idiot.
He walked through the illusion—it parted like mist beneath his outstretched hand. When he’d passed through the revolving door, he turned and pushed it. It spun this time, like a solid object under his hand, and he walked “outside.”
Red Matt called out to him. “Hey, fairy-boy!”
