Page 72 of A Fae in Finance
“Thank you,” I whispered, my eyes damp.
The Gray Knight took my shoulder and lifted me. “Stop fussing,” she said, but she didn’t sound angry.
“Will the humans all react like her?” the Builder asked, getting to his own feet and looking at the Princeling.
“You know our magic is stronger than that of any other species.” The Princeling glanced at me.
“And our weaknesses proportionate,” the Builder muttered. But he inclined his head to me. “Your joy has given me joy, lady. Thank you.”
The Princeling sighed. “I imagine it will be a few days before you can continue construction.”
The Builder rubbed his upper arm. “I intended to build the foundation over several days. This did not alter my schedule.”
“The Blue Knight will come back three days hence,” the Princeling said. I caught the look the Red Knight gave him and promptly filed it in the part of my brain labeledSomebody Else’s Problem.
As we left the site and the Builder closed the door in the air, I kept seeing the sky come down across his back and lay itself in the dirt for him.
Chapter 12
In Which I Receive a History Lesson from the Gray Knight
The Gray Knight put me back on my horse, and the rest of the retinue rode ahead, much faster than us. “They have other councils to attend,” she explained.
The sky flushed pink and gold, night setting in.
Our horses slowed further, and we rode next to each other at an easy pace, our knees bumping every few strides. I couldn’t look at her, embarrassed by the closeness but unsure how to move away.
“Would you like to stop here, with me?” the Gray Knight asked. She sounded more unsure than I’d ever heard her. I glanced at her, but she had her eyes fixed on the road ahead of us. “There is something I would show you.”
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips.
My stomach rumbled. If I said no, she would take me back to the Court. And I was hungry. But…
“Sure, I will stop with you,” I said carefully. “And see what you want to show me.”
She leaned forward and said something to her horse, who stopped and turned off the path. Sparkles followed.
We rode for several minutes, the way grassy and easy for the horses to traverse. The sky had deepened into a velvet blue and stars twinkled overhead, swirling into new patterns like our own personal pictographs. I’d grown used to Sparkles’s even gait, and it was becoming natural to shift with her as we moved. Thick-trunked trees dotted the area, branches swaying in a breeze that felt exactly calibrated to cool my temples without mussing my hair.
The horses stopped on the riverbank, where a cascade of smooth stones in descending size order sloped at a perfect angle into the clear shallows. The Gray Knight dismounted, then lifted me off the horse as usual. This time she lingered, holding me against her, her hands around my waist and my toes barely touching the ground. I put my hands on her shoulders. Our eyes met, hers silver and implacable in the night.
When she let me go, I stepped away, startled and flustered. I stared down at the rocks, searching for something to say. “Is everything in Faerie so… perfect?” I asked. “So beautiful and well-made?”
She shrugged. “It is all designed,” she said. “So of course it is designed well.”
I tried to think of this riverbank like that: a cage designed to keep danger out. But it was so difficult, with the streams of starlight in the sky and the birds in the trees.
“You said you wanted to show me something.”
She pulled a basket from the air in front of her and set it on the ground.
I watched, too surprised to help, as she laid out a blanket on the largest stones at the edge of the grass and knelt, taking perfect plates of sliced hard cheeses and jam and bread and setting them on the ground.
After a moment, I knelt, too, and held out my hands. She glanced up and smiled. It hit me with the force of a swift fall, the moment where your stomach braces for impact before you’ve even hit the ground.
But she didn’t appear to notice the way I knelt, laid bare by confused longing. “You are always offering aid,” she said. “I desire only your company.”
Swift inhale. Slower exhale. I pulled my last remaining thread of composure up my spine.
