Page 9 of Changelings
“You know her! Excellent! Take me to her.”
Orek squinted, and Balar didn’t like that one bit.
“Why?”
Balar squinted back, resisting the urge to lift his lip to show fang. Instead, he raised his hand to show the mussed feather. “Saba em pash-ket,” he declared. “The feather has fallen.”
“Mm.” Looking between Balar and the feather, Orek said, “And this is Imogen’s fault?”
“Entirely. At least, I believe so. I must speak with her.”
“Sorcha would want me to tell you that Imogen doesn’t like people,” Orek sighed. “AndIwould want to tell you that she’s rather…prickly.”
“She’ll like me,” Balar said.
Orek remained unconvinced.
Growing impatient, Balar flapped his wings in agitation. “Will you show me to her or not?”
“I’m not sure I should. You chased her here, yes? Smelling like the inside of a tavern?”
Balar opened his mouth to protest but found he hadn’t a genuine rebuttal. What Orek said was true. Stepping back with a groan, Balar conceded the point.
“Very well. I’ll return home and change.”
“And bathe,” Orek coughed.
“And then I shall return.”
“She’ll probably return home by then herself. Imogen never stays the night.”
Ears pinned back, Balar felt his right eye twitch. “Then I shall present myself on her threshold. Where does she live? In Granach?”
The halfling shrugged.Shrugged. “No one knows. She has a cottage on her own bit of land, apparently, but not even Sorcha has been invited there.”
Scowling, Balar accused, “I don’t know whether you’re lying, but I do know you’re being obtuse.”
Orek raised his hands in nonconfrontation. “That’s all I know. Like I said, she doesn’t like people. She keeps to herself.”
Balar huffed.I am not people, I am mantii.
“I must know, one way or another. I will find Imogen and present her with my feather.”
Orek nodded gravely, thankfully not mocking his declaration. “I wish you luck, then, friend. I think you’ll need it.”
4
Although Balar knew Orek to be as good as his word, he still hastened home for a quick rinse, throwing on clean clothes before hurrying back to the Brádaigh’s estate. It was late into the afternoon by the time he careened around the great stables, only to be told by a surprised Sorcha Brádaigh that Imogen had left already.
Sorcha either didn’t know where Imogen lived or feigned ignorance. Balar trudged home again, dejected and no closer than he’d started.
It put him in a foul mood, the residuals of his headache lingering past suppertime. Usually the calm, reasonable one, his brothers were mystified when he barked and growled at them to quiet down long before bedtime.
Diar and Akila just snorted, not taking his warning seriously, and so when they continued to be loud, their voices grating against the inside of his skull, Balar bellowed, “Out with you! Shake your own timbers for a change!”
His brothers looked on in shock; he’d never exiled them fromhis cabin before.
When their otherly village was first established, many took to making themselves cabins around a wide cleared area. Balar’s had been the first raised, and then Soren’s. Diar and Akila had their own cabin, and Kiri alternated between Balar and Soren—but honestly, most nights, the five of them crowded into Balar’s cabin.
