Wander The Night, page 16
With a continued lack of knowledge as to the time of day, I can’t be sure how long we have until the Hill becomes busy and bustling once more. We may be invisible, but we are not intangible. If someone bumps into one of us, we will be discovered, and I don’t know how long we have to wander about unseen. With that in mind, I head toward the back exit I showed Kavi not too long ago. I glance behind from time to time to make sure no one is lagging. The others never make a sound, never say anything, only nod with equal focus.
Before long, we arrive at the glamoured exit. My senses are slightly dulled with my own glamour out of commission. Once the door into the tunnel is closed behind us, I have to rely partially on touch to feel my way along the dirt wall. As we near the end of the way, sunlight becomes visible.
We step out of the tunnel and into the forest and the midday sun that filters through the trees. A lone guard leans against the slope of the Hill, cleaning the underside of his nails with a small knife. The woods are quiet, sleeping like the rest of the realm. All the same, we don’t wish to disturb anything or anyone. Mostly anything.
I feel someone cast a slight glamour. Our footsteps become soundless among the underbrush. The guard never even looks up.
No one speaks as they follow me through the forest. It’s only a short trek to the small pool that serves as a faerie gate, which is the reason I chose this one. I would rather get everyone out of Faerie quickly than lead them across Green territory for a different human city. And the last place I want to hide them is the city Isobel lives in.
Once we have some distance between us and the Hill, we needn’t keep to absolute silence, which is good when Isobel suddenly startles and looks around.
“Hey, what happened? You guys just vanished!”
She settles when she sees Moth and realizes the issue: the spells are wearing off. In a few short seconds, each of us loses our invisibility. It’s just as well. It served its purpose. We make sure to give Isobel a hard time nonetheless. Besides, she’s saved from further torment when the gate too becomes visible.
“What’s on the other side?” Moth asks, motioning toward the mushroom-ringed pool. “And don’t just say ‘the human world.’”
Isobel snorts in amusement.
“There are some trees on the other side,” I say. “A little patch of what could be called forest if you're feeling charitable. Beyond that, it’s a small town with all the small town fixin’s.”
“I hate the human world,” Mustardseed sighs, resignation heavy in her voice. “It stinks of iron and rot.”
“The creatures on that side of the gate are less likely to impale us on tree branches or feed us to kelpies,” I say, crossing my arms. “Considering we just committed treason against one court and the other would gladly turn our skins to tapestries, I find myself pressed to advise the iron and rot as the better choice.”
She groans in petulance. “Can’t a girl complain in peace? Don’t get logical on me now, Puck. It doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s not so bad, really,” Isobel chimes in, though her voice is pitched low enough that she sounds like even she disagrees with what she’s saying. “You get used to it.”
Moth smiles, too wide by far. “To iron and rot,” she says, like she’s making a toast. And then she steps over the ring of mushrooms and drops out of sight.
“To screwing over faerie royals,” Isobel says. Her expression is full of spiteful cheer as she follows Moth into the gate.
“We are all going to die,” Mustardseed adds. But she steps into the pool anyway.
With a last glance around, I follow suit.
The iron in the air is dizzying without the usual barrier of innate glamour, but I adjust well enough after a moment. Moth takes just a second more, Isobel’s hand at her elbow. Isobel herself is unbothered. Mustardseed, however, is bent nearly double, gagging on air. I put a hand on her back, careful not to step in front of her in case the gagging turns to something further.
“Are you okay?” I ask, because I feel like I need to say something, even if it’s a stupid question.
She nods with a jerk. “In a minute.”
While we wait for the nausea to pass, Moth asks, “Do we have an idea of where we’re going?” Bees have appeared from somewhere and now buzz with excitement around her.
“There are motels, inns, in the area,” I say, looking around. “Once we find one, we’ll rest and figure out what to do next.”
Back on the faerie side of the gate, it had been early night. Here, the sun filters through the trees with afternoon light. It should be easy enough to find somewhere to stay.
“You’re awfully fond of this kid,” Isobel says, apropos of nothing. I can’t discern her feelings toward the statement, and I don’t point out that Kavi is, in fact, older than her. She eyes me with suspicion. “Are you sleeping with him?”
“What? No!” I nearly shout in response. I can only imagine the look on my face. “Why would you think that?”
Mustardseed huffs a weak laugh and finally straightens, still looking a touch green. Based on our previous conversation, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has puzzled together the things I did not say and figured out just what Oberon, Kavi, and I are to each other. But, in true Mustardseed fashion, she says nothing about it.
Isobel puts her hands up as though she’s deflecting a blow. “Okay, okay. Just asking.”
She shoves her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, the knees and hems of which are crusted with flaking mud. A stain of what looks like dried blood is smeared on one leg, as though she wiped her hand down her thigh. I realize all at once that she is still in the same clothes that she was wearing the day Kavi was taken. I’m not sure who the blood belonged to. I don’t ask.
“Theoretical question then,” she continues, breaking me from my thoughts. “Would it be such a bad thing if we cut our losses and left him to Mab? If it soothes the anger of not just one, but two faerie queens, would it not be wiser to leave things as they are and let the courts forget about it?”
Before I can garner a response that isn’t borne of spite, Moth speaks. “It won’t soothe their anger. It will only prove that Mab has the power to make the Green fey cower in her shadow,” she says. “Mab may claim honor, and I’m sure she sees this as honorable recompense, but it’s not. It’s holding one person accountable for someone else’s deeds. If we can make her see that—that there is no honor in placing guilt on an innocent person—maybe then we can avoid further conflict.”
“Are we all talking about the same Mab?” Mustardseed asks, one neon-streak eyebrow rising. “The Mab who recently slaughtered a contingent of soldiers at the border for no other reason than to get Oberon’s attention? The Mab who continued to steal away Green territory by force until her sister became its queen?” She shakes her head. “That Mab will not reason with you. Reason be damned in the face of Grey honor. Her sister was slighted, and Mab will burn the world to nothing if she thinks it will make a difference.”
Everyone is silent for a moment.
“Then I’ll hand her the match,” I say.
The others glance back at me, and I stare into the underbrush.
“What are you talking about?” Isobel asks.
“I won’t ask anyone to follow me into the fire,” I continue. “You’ve all already done more than I can repay.” I shake my head. “But I know firsthand of Mab’s cruelty, the way she makes even death seem preferred to living under her control. If she thinks she can make an example of you, if your weakness can give her power, she will take that opportunity. Oberon may play at parenting, but he has never been a father to Kavi, not in the ways that count.” I meet their eyes, their intent silence, and give a weak shrug. “I’m all he has, really.”
Moth’s eyes are soft. “Kavi is our friend. We will help however we can.”
“He isn’t my friend, technically,” Isobel says, and Moth cuts her an uncharacteristic glare that she pointedly ignores. “But if it won’t get me killed or worse and it will send a big ‘screw you’ to Mab, I suppose I’m not averse to lending a hand.”
“But,” Mustardseed puts in, and her tone causes us to turn to her, “before we help you, there should be some ground rules.” She ticks off points on her fingers as she speaks. “First of all, I’m not going into the Mound. I’ve heard the stories; I don’t need the proof. The rest of you can do as you like. Second, you get us all absolved of any charges Oberon has placed on us. And third…” She pauses, dark eyes piercing as she stares at me. “You share the rest of the secrets you’re keeping about this whole thing.”
“What secrets?” I ask, deflecting.
“What secrets, indeed,” Isobel says. She crosses her arms and cocks one hip to the side. “What are you hiding now, Goodfellow?”
My eyes dart to each of them in turn. Their faces are unavoidably expectant. I sigh at the inevitability of it. Of course, they’re right to suspect. I am Oberon’s closest sounding board. I have enough knowledge of the inner workings of the court and of Green Court secrets to fill a book, like one of those spill-all political memoirs. The kind where the author turns up dead right as the book is due to be published, and everyone acts like their death is so bizarre and mysterious and wasn’t obviously a hit funded by a rival. But I digress.
“All right,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “But not here.”
“Acceptable,” Mustardseed says, and claps her hands together. “For now, we should probably look a little less like we recently came from a Renaissance faire.”
She casts a glamour over herself, and her appearance shifts into something not so otherworldly. Her yellow hair turns more golden blonde. Her sharp, dark eyes soften. She now appears to be wearing a pair of laced boots and a yellow sundress patterned with tiny white daisies. The others follow her lead, casting their own varying magics. Moth’s eyes shift to hazel-brown, and her wings disappear. Her long white dress, already passable as human if one was dressed for a music festival, isn’t altered except for the dirt and grass stains vanishing from the hem. The bees disperse, but she is still barefoot. Isobel doesn’t change much, though her wild curls are smoothed down a bit and her clothes are clean.
I stand in silence, face burning when they finish and look to me, expectant but for Mustardseed. I remain all too noticeably unglamoured.
“I’m so sorry,” Mustardseed says, looking sympathetic. “I forgot to tell them.”
She waves a hand, and glamour weaves over my clothing to create a denim jacket, black jeans, and combat boots. The points of my ears round out. Isobel and Moth shoot each other bemused glances but say nothing.
I bite the proverbial bullet.
“I pissed off Oberon. He bound my glamour.” I spread my hands in feigned nonchalance. “That’s just one thing I won’t have to share with you later at circle therapy, table for one.”
If they find my response snappish, they don’t point it out. Glamour is an enormous source of pride for the fey, and pride is a vice above all others for us, though we tend to dip into the others as well. Denying a faery their own glamour? You might as well strip them naked and beat them in front of the court. It would be less humiliating, at least.
Oberon doing the same to Kavi was bad enough, but at least he didn’t know to miss it.
“Wow,” Isobel says. “What a dick move.”
And it’s unexpected enough to startle a laugh from me.
“We should go,” Moth says, and I’m grateful for the topic change. “We have tarried here long enough, and we still need to find a place to stay.”
“And pizza,” Isobel adds. “I’m ordering pizza.”
Moth cocks her head. “What is that?”
“All the food groups put together. You’ll love it,” I say, motioning toward town before starting off in that direction. “Come on. Mortal civilization’s through here.”
I take the lead through the trees and down the same path I took Kavi, past the run-down park and toward the center of town. An hour, give or take, passes with no luck before we stumble across a single-story roadside motel. Its neon sign boasts its name, Motel 6½, and ‘vacancy’ in bright, flashing letters against the sky. There is a grand total of three cars in the parking lot. I have no doubt this place has hourly rentals available.
Ever succinct, Isobel blurts out, “What a shithole.”
I make a face, fully in agreement.
Ever the optimist, Moth says, “I’m sure it’s not all so bad.”
And ever the queen of snark, Mustardseed deadpans, “Yeah, maybe it’s nicer on the inside.”
Moth nods in blissful enthusiasm. Isobel cuts a questioning glance my way.
“She doesn’t get out much,” I say, lifting one shoulder.
“At least we can glamour it,” Mustardseed mutters. “Come on.”
She takes the lead toward the office, which, upon our entrance, is revealed to be little more than a glorified storage room. Towels and cleaning supplies are stacked in one corner, a tower of boxes in the other. A small round table is pushed into a third, a coffee maker atop it as if that alone turns the space into a breakroom. The front counter is pockmarked with cigarette burns, as though someone has been using it as a makeshift ashtray.
The woman behind the counter clicks away at a computer that probably hasn’t seen an update in the last twenty years. Though to be fair, she probably hasn’t either. She looks like the kind of person who gets regularly mistaken for being fifteen years older than she really is, with her frizzy, up-pinned hair and her weatherworn face. She is wearing red lipstick that has been smudged away until all that’s left is a faded red ring around her mouth. Her chipped nail polish is the same shade.
“Can I help y’all?” she asks around the cigarette in her mouth, not even bothering to look up.
“We’d like to rent a room,” Isobel says in English, polite despite the wrinkle between her brows at her distaste of the smell of cigarettes.
The woman blows smoke from her nose. “Just a sec,” she says and continues typing for a moment. When she finishes, she plucks the cigarette from between her lips and looks us over. “Y’all said ya need a room?”
“Um, yes, ma’am,” Isobel says, uncertainty in her voice.
“All right then,” the woman says, clicking something on the computer. “Two beds, I assume? That’s the largest room we got.”
Isobel nods, and the woman types a bit more before standing and moving over to a rack of keys. She selects one from its peg and returns to the counter.
“How long are y’all planning to stay?”
Isobel and I trade glances with each other, unsure. This wasn’t something we’d discussed, and we can’t very well ask Moth or Mustardseed their opinion, not without asking it in Elvish.
“Let’s say three days?” Isobel ventures. “Or nights? However you want to say it.” She turns to me in question, looking for confirmation.
“Sure. We can always add more if we need it, right?”
“Sure you can,” the woman says, once again at her computer. “I’m afraid you’ll need to pay in advance. Too many people skipping out without paying, see.”
To her credit, she truly seems to hate to ask.
“It’s fine,” Isobel says.
When the woman announces the forty-nine-dollar-a-night fee, Isobel hands her enough glamoured money to cover three days and tax.
“Here you go, hun.” The woman hands the key to Isobel, who hands it to Moth. “You kids have a good night, and don’t hesitate to come ask me if you need anything. Your room is number five.”
Key now in our possession, we leave the office and walk along the row of doors until we reach the one with a tin ‘5’ nailed to the outside. Moth unlocks the door and pushes it open. We file inside, and Isobel flicks the light switch on.
The room is… less than stately. It’s an average set-up, with two queen beds, an aging TV set atop a dresser with chipped enamel, and a small bathroom in the back of the room. The window, if the curtains are open, has a lovely view of the asphalt lot. The walls are covered floor to ceiling in wood paneling. The maroon-ish carpet is stained darker in several spots. There’s a strange smell in the air that has nothing to do with iron. If this place had a theme song, it would be “La Cucaracha.”
“I shudder to think of a blacklight in here,” Isobel says in Elvish, disdain obvious.
I laugh, caught off guard by the thought, though I fully agree with her statement. I hear Moth’s mumbled, “I don’t get it,” followed by Mustardseed’s assent, and I start laughing even harder.
“You don’t want to know,” I tell them, pressing a hand to ribs I’ve caused to ache anew. “Trust me.”
“I’d glamour it, but I’d rather be aware of where not to sit,” Isobel continues. She locks the door behind us.
I strip the bedspread from the nearest bed. I feel at least partially confident the sheets are semi-recently washed, while I possess some doubt that the bedspread has ever been clean. But I’m exhausted enough that even the floor would currently serve.
A hand grabs my arm.
“You said you had secrets to share,” Isobel says from behind me. “So spill.”
I turn around to face her. “So I did, and so I will. But does it have to be now?”
“He has a point, Bel,” Moth says. “Maybe we should postpone for a few hours, give everyone some time to rest.”
I hate the way she’s looking at me like I’m something fragile.
“No,” Isobel says, not turning away from me. “We need to talk now so that we know what we’re up against.”
“She’s right,” Mustardseed says. “The sooner we’re in the loop, the quicker we may have some sort of plan.”
I sigh and run a hand over my face. “Okay.”
They gather around me, all of us seated on one bed like we’re at a slumber party. And I tell them everything. I start at the beginning, about Oberon being my father. I tell about Kavi’s origins and my role in the cover-up. I explain that we’re brothers, but he doesn’t know. That no one does, except the people in this room, Ariel, Eira, and Oberon, of course. Isobel doesn’t know who Eira and Ariel are, so I explain that too. By the time I’m done, I feel wrung out and empty, but it’s a good kind of empty, I think. Lighter, maybe.
