Page 70 of A Fae in Finance
I stared down at the stony path beneath us.
“I do feel sorrow,” he said, so softly I almost didn’t hear him over the clack of hooves on the ground. “I cannot regret your… relocation. But I apologize for the inconvenience.”
Bone shards and blood mist.
“Why did you do it?” I asked, still not looking at him.
“Whenever there is someone different, people can be afraid,” he said. “That is not true only for humans. Familiarity reduces fear.”
I stared over his shoulder, flushing and confused. But I couldn’t keep my eyes on the wending river for long.
“What’s wrong with Milo? He’s a human.”
He said nothing.
“Are there other humans here?” I chided. “Why couldn’t you use him or one of your other human pets to get faeries more comfortable with my kind?”
The Princeling tilted his head consideringly. “We take in madmen and wanderers, for madness is a specialty of the Fae.”
“So you wanted asanespecimen?” I snapped. “You chose wrong there, buddy.”
“For some, Faerie is a refuge.” He frowned. “I understand that it may not feel that way for you.”
I turned away fully, so he wouldn’t see the frustrated tears in my eyes. He seemed to take the hint; he urged his horse forward, leaving me to Sparkles’s sedate clomp.
Another half hour passed in silence, the rolling green hills and sparkling water bookending the perfect tableau of the idyllic road stretching on into the distance.
In front of me, the Princeling, the Red Knight, the Blue Knight, and the Crone stopped like four pigeons in a synchronous flying competition hitting the same glass wall.
“We have arrived,” the Princeling called back, though the landscape wasn’t discernibly different in any way. As Sparkles stopped, he slid off his own horse. I looked around for the Gray Knight. She was still behind us.
The Princeling came to stand next to Sparkles and held his arms out. I slid my leg over the horse and he caught me as I dropped down. He put me on the grass next to him.
The Red Knight strode up beside us. “Have you been to many factory construction sites?” he asked, startling me. I didn’t think we’d spoken before.
“This will be my first,” I said, and then wondered if I should have lied.
He examined me for a moment, a hard set to his rugged jaw. “It would not matter if you had,” he said finally. “No human building can rival the construction of the Fae.”
“I’m sure,” I replied, meaning it.
“Though I would rather not give the humans an opportunity to compare,” he added lowly, the tendons in his throat in bas-relief. I blinked at him, startled. I knew the Blue and Red Knightshadopinions; they’d just never yet deigned to share them with me.
The Gray Knight joined us. “I shall alert the Builder to our presence.” She stalked off toward the side of the nearest hill.
I checked my cell phone. There was no service.
The Gray Knight knocked on a piece of empty air. A hollow reverberation sounded.
“What?” someone snapped, and then the air opened, revealing an irritable-looking man with curling ram’s horns and a patchy red flush across his cheeks, holding a small hammer in one hand. I could see his other hand,curlingaround the edge of the sky.
Behind him was… more air. It looked the same as the other air. I blinked, which changed nothing about the landscape.
“The Princeling has come to assess your progress,” the Gray Knight said. “Will you allow us to pass?”
The faerie grunted acquiescence and stood back, pulling the air doorway open enough for us to pass through. The Gray Knight led the way, and the five of us followed her.
We just left the horses outside, which was bold. But no one seemed to be around this area anyway.
