Wander The Night, page 6
On the one hand, that means I can’t cross it. On the other—
“Go knock on the door.”
Kavi whips around. “What? Why?”
“Our friend seems to like her privacy, and seeing as I can’t reach the door from here,” I say, extending my arms out to the house, “the honor is all yours.”
Kavi looks back to the porch and sees my problem. He deflates a little in defeat. “Fine.”
He crosses over the steps without issue and raps on the door a few times. There’s no answer from inside the house. From the corner of my eye, I see the curtains shift. Kavi glances back at me before knocking again.
The door opens a crack, a tiny sliver.
“Open up, Isobel,” I say in English from the front lawn. “I’m calling in that favor.”
I hear a small noise of displeasure, but the door opens the rest of the way.
Isobel is a slight girl with floaty, moonbeam hair and amber eyes. Her ears arc into slightly dulled edges. Her upturned nose is crinkled in distaste.
“The hell do you want?” is all the greeting we get.
I grin. The half of her that’s fey is Grey. She’s a sullen sort, but she’s not so bad under the layers of mistrust her human parents accidentally instilled in her. I told her when I helped her that I wouldn’t ask anything unreasonable of her. Naturally, she hadn’t believed me. After all, we fey can have rather varying connotations of the word ‘unreasonable.’
“I told you. I’m calling in that favor you owe me.”
Her eyes narrow. “I know that. I meant what is it?”
“Step outside so we can talk about it without yelling, perhaps?” I say, stretching an arm out to the lawn in invitation.
Isobel gives a sideways glance toward Kavi and sighs the sigh of the majorly put-upon. She shoos him forward down the steps and follows him onto the lawn. He either looks devious enough that she wants to keep an eye on him, or he’s guilty by association. Maybe she doesn’t trust anyone that keeps company with faeries, in general.
Maybe she just doesn’t trust me.
“Okay,” she says when she’s standing in front of me. “What is it?”
“I need you to babysit.”
Kavi makes an indignant noise beside me. Isobel arches a brow.
I toss my hands out in a dismissive gesture. “Okay, so he’s not a baby. I need you to host a sleepover then.”
“Say it plainly, Goodfellow,” Isobel says, voice flat. “If you can.”
Fun sucker. “Kavi needs a place to crash until further notice. Happy?”
“Not really.” She gives a one-shouldered shrug. “But it’s not the worst thing I can imagine.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” I agree. “You do tend toward depressing and gloomy outcomes.”
She grins a little at that. Not a nice grin, by any stretch of the word, but amused nonetheless. “You’d better be pleasant in my company, else I decide to turn you away.”
She’s joking. We both know she is, but neither of us says it aloud. She can’t very well deny my request, no matter how much she may or may not want to. I’ve got her word, in return for the favor I did for her. There is magic in deals made with the fey. Magic claims what it’s promised, and to break such a promise courts disaster. But I don’t remind her of that. I just smile.
“Well, don’t worry,” I tell her. “I won’t be hanging around, so you shouldn’t be too greatly annoyed. Kavi’s fairly calm and innocuous.”
“Wait, what?” Kavi says in a low voice. “Where are you going?”
“Back to court, running damage control.” I shrug, a little helplessly. “You’ll be safer here than anywhere in Faerie. Too many eyes and agendas there.”
He stares and then nods, but I can see he’s not sold on the idea.
Isobel isn’t convinced either, unfortunately. “Safer here?” she grits, eyes sharp. “What exactly are you pulling me into, Goodfellow?”
I glance around, unsure of whether I’m searching for threats or just avoiding Isobel’s eyes. “I can’t really say.”
“Can’t?” she challenges. “Or won’t?”
“Shouldn’t.”
“Always a third option for you, isn’t there?” It’s hard to tell if she’s angry or impressed.
“I try to keep an open mind. Can I count on you to fulfill the favor, or can’t I?”
“Give me the entire arrangement—no double-wording, no loopholes, no flowery language.” She stares me in the eye. “No tricks.”
Making me lay it out is mostly to her benefit. Whatever I say, if she agrees to it, will hold me to my exact words. I’ll be fully bound to it. She’s half-human though. If she forces hard enough, she will still have the power to break her word to an extent. I have to trust that she knows just how terrible that could make things for her.
“You will house Kavi for as long as needed and provide anything he requires. He will be allowed full freedom to come and go as he pleases, but you are not to willingly let anyone else inside the house while he is present. You will not willingly tell anyone he is staying in the house. You are not allowed to harm each other.” I take a breath, deciding if I’ve left anything out. “Agreed?”
“Will you count your favor returned?”
I hate negotiating.
“If you agree to and carry out the terms of the bargain, I will count the favor returned and fulfilled. You won’t owe me anything else.”
She gives me a sidelong look, doubtlessly filtering through my wording before she gives her answer. “Fair enough,” she says. “Agreed.”
I feel the bargain take root, a pins-and-needles sensation in my chest, and the slight tightening of her eyes tells me she feels the same.
She tosses her hair and turns back up the porch. At the door, she glances back. “You’re both welcome to follow,” she says in Elvish with the lingering accent of a differing first language. Then she disappears inside with a feral grin.
I glance over at the iron embedded in her porch. “Yeah, I’ll pass.”
“Where’d she learn to speak that?” Kavi asks in the same language.
“When she was on her own, she tried to go back to Faerie. She learned the speech, but she never quite fit in like she expected. You know how the courts are.”
I turn to Kavi. He’s staring at the porch and looking a bit shell-shocked. I put a hand on his arm, and he turns to face me.
“I don’t like this,” he says in a small voice.
“I know,” I sigh. “I’m sorry. It’s not on my ‘top ten’ list either, but we don’t have a lot of other options right now.” I place a hand on each shoulder and smile at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll try to get this smoothed over as quickly as possible. I’ll be back to get you. I’m aiming, eh, less than a week. Sound good?”
He takes a deep breath and then smiles. It’s hesitant but hopeful. He trusts I can get this mess cleaned up. No pressure. Oberon probably thinks the same of me. No pressure at all.
“Stay inside as much as you can. Be good.” I let go and step back.
“I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do,” he says.
“That is the exact opposite of the instructions I just gave you, and you should go inside now.”
He grins and hurries up the porch and through the door.
I would say I’m not worried about him, except it would be a lie. Then again, my personal theory on worrying is that it doesn’t make much of a difference in the end. Whatever happens will happen, whether you spend time worrying over it or not. So I give the house one last glance and turn away.
When I’ve made it back though the gate and into Faerie, I shift into a dog. The mind of a dog is a generally stress-free place. If I have to deal with a political mess, I’ll enjoy the quiet while I can.
Another upside of being a dog is having four legs. The trip back home seems to take less time at a floppy, dog canter, and I arrive back at the Hill to a flurry of activity. Instead of the lone guard at the glamoured back entrance, there are four guards, all posted at locations far enough apart that one wouldn’t know what they were guarding without prior knowledge of the door. I intend to slip by without bothering them.
Except I’m still a dog, and dogs, in Faerie at least, are not usually what they seem at first glance. There’s a shout, and then three swords and a drawn bow are in my face.
“Show your true form,” the one with the bow barks at me.
I’m tempted to test out my best sad-puppy-dog eyes, but she looks like she’d put an arrow between them if I tried. Besides, brown eyes are far better suited for that than my own moss green. I sit—I am highly trained after all—and shift back into my normal shape.
“I should warn you, I haven’t had my shots,” I say, sitting cross-legged on the ground. “But I’m generally well-mannered and lovable if it’s all the same.”
Four pairs of eyes roll, and a set of sighs answers me. Good to know I haven’t lost my touch in the face of adversity.
“Puck,” one of them groans, and the sharp, threatening objects are all lowered away from me.
“Don’t act so sad to see me.” I stand and brush imaginary dust from my sleeves. “You might hurt my feelings.”
“If you had any,” one remarks. He seems to be holding in his amusement. Then all four of them stalk back to their posts.
Usually, I’m easily recognized in my other forms, at least by those who know me. Still, I can understand the tension. The entire Green Court just went to hell in a royal handbasket, and the real fallout has yet to come. They could’ve refrained from sticking their swords in my face though. I’ll be sure to get them back once I think they’ve forgotten about it.
I slip back into the Hill through the glamoured entrance and follow the hallways back to Oberon’s rooms. Guards are stationed sporadically—or possibly strategically, I’m not really a soldiery kind of person—throughout the halls and at certain doorways. I don’t see as many servants as I did earlier, but that’s probably due to it being late in the day. They’ll doubtless reappear when the sun goes down.
I make my way to Oberon’s door. The same two guards are outside his room, but they don’t open the door this time. I step up and knock, but no answer comes from within. I glance at one of the guards.
“Is he not in?” I ask.
The guard answers without looking at me. How stoic. “He hasn’t left his rooms all day.”
I nod. Hopefully, I won’t be overstepping any boundaries. I turn the knob and push the door open.
Oberon’s work chambers are lit only by dim floating fires. I don’t see him in the shadows.
“My lord?” My voice comes out soft in the gloom, as though my subconscious wants me quiet.
There’s no answer, and I turn to leave. Before I back out into the hallway, I glance in the direction of the bedroom door. It stands open a crack. Stifling curiosity has never been a strong point of mine, so I close the door to the hall and creep over. I push the bedroom door open wider and peek inside. The room is dark, but I am a nocturnal creature. My night vision is more than sufficient.
Oberon’s bedroom looks as though it’s been recently trashed. The bedclothes are halfway on the floor, rugs are kicked into hills of fabric, and a tapestry—one which depicts his and Titania’s wedding celebration, unsurprisingly—lies heaped in a corner. Glamour hangs in the air, heavy and cloying. Oberon himself is passed out across a divan, his jacket missing and shirt rumpled.
I can picture the tantrum. It seems to have been spectacular. I don’t pity him, though. He dug this hole himself by not coming clean a long time ago. To be such an ancient, regal creature, the King of the Green Court can be awfully childish at times.
With a sigh, I snag a stray blanket from the pile on the floor and lay it over him, taking care not to disturb him. A glint catches my eye, and I notice a bottle pressed between his body and the back of the divan. It looks relatively full, so perhaps tomorrow won’t herald a raging hangover on top of everything else I have to deal with.
I feel a sudden wave of exhaustion as I stop to think about how much of a mess everything is at the moment, and I realize I don’t even want to expend the necessary energy to walk to my room to sleep.
Another good thing about dogs: they can sleep anywhere. Except for the bed, of course. Even I’m not bold enough to make myself comfortable in the Green King’s bed. So I make a nest of blankets and rugs on the floor and shift back into a dog.
I hope Oberon sleeps late tonight. He owes me at least that much.
SCENE 7
When I wake, the floating fires are lit and illuminate the room in a soft, pearlescent glow. I look around, but Oberon is gone. I’m not sure whether it’s day or night.
I stretch and then shift out of dog form. When I open the door to Oberon’s workroom, I stop just in time to avoid running into Oberon himself. He has changed out of his rumpled clothes and into a dashing blue jacket that has been stitched with pearls.
“Ah,” he says, stepping back. “You’re awake. There had better not be dog hair all over everything. You know how I feel about that.”
Does he really want to start with this? Has he seen his room?
“I found the bottle last night,” I point out, lifting an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’re not drunk or hungover.”
His eyes widen a little before he smooths his expression. “That sounds exceedingly like something I would ask you, does it not?” When I don’t respond, he gives a slight smile. “No, I am not. Though I’ll not say the thought didn’t cross my mind once or twice.”
I sigh in relief. “Good. I didn’t want to deal with that today.” I shrug placatingly. “No offense.”
His smile widens. “That’s hardly the most offensive thing you’ve said to me over the years.”
I grin back at him, and then he pops the happy-bubble by adding, “But we do need to discuss what is to be done about our current fiasco.”
I can’t help the groan that escapes me. “Food first, please. I’m not mentally prepared to handle this on an empty stomach.”
Oberon chuckles and gestures with a hand for me to follow him into the hallway. We open the door, and the guards step away to make room.
I trail Oberon not to the dining room, but to the kitchens. The servants in the room all but freeze in place for a moment before they gather their wits back and move on with their tasks. Oberon rarely makes himself seen in areas where the average servant hangs out.
Average servant, mind you, I am not that.
I look around the kitchen for Peaseblossom or Mustardseed or Moth, but none of them are anywhere in the room that I can see. I wonder if Titania has taken any of them with her to the Grey Court. I hope she has taken Cobweb at least.
Oberon stands still and silent in the bustling room while I gather a bit of breakfast—bread, honey, some berries, and a few hard-boiled sparrow eggs. I’m not sure if Oberon has eaten yet or not, so I grab enough for both of us and wrap it all in a cheesecloth.
“I assume you don’t want to sit in here?” I ask when I’ve finished.
Oberon shakes his head and grins a little. “I should think not. Come. We’ll find somewhere more suited to conversation.”
He turns and leads the way out of the kitchens. Right before I step out the door after him, I catch a glimpse of silver-white hair and pale eyes from the corner of my vision. I twist to glance back, and Moth gazes back at me with an expression filled with concern. Who knows what rumors she’s heard about Kavi by now?
“Later,” I mouth to her.
She gives a small nod in response and disappears back to her chores.
Oberon leads me to the dining room. In the center of the room is a long table made of rowan and inlaid with silver. The chairs are carved from the purple heartwood of a walnut tree. The chairs at the head of the table and just to the right—Oberon’s and Titania’s, respectively—are tall and gilded. Oberon sits in his chair. I hang back a moment and then move to sit next to him on the floor.
“No, no.” He waves me away and, from under the table, kicks the leg of Titania’s chair to push it away from the table. “It’s not as though she’ll be sitting in it anytime in the near future, I’m sure.”
I’m torn between being shocked at the lack of decorum and being entertained at the thought of Titania’s reaction if she found out. Entertainment wins out.
I snort a laugh as I sit down in the queen’s chair. “She would be so pissed if she walked in right now.”
Oberon chuckles. “I believe she’s quite pissed, as you say, even without the knowledge of your sitting in her chair.”
“Ah, but not at me this time.”
“Too true.”
I’m not looking, but I can feel his eyes on me as I unwrap my gains from the kitchens. I slide half onto the table in front of me. Then I slide the other half, still on the cheesecloth, over to Oberon. He nods his appreciation but doesn’t eat.
I spread honey across a slice of bread. “So. What’s the plan for dealing with our little queen problem? Do we have a plan?”
Oberon grimaces. I take that as a no.
“Well, no time like the present then, eh?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “If you have an idea, I would certainly love to hear it.” He hasn’t touched his food.
I swallow an egg before answering. “The way I see it, we really only have two options: we can sit and wait for Mab and Titania to make demands, or we can send an emissary to offer a formal apology and ask their terms. At least if we make an attempt at repentance, they might be more forgiving.”
Oberon hums thoughtfully. “It’s certainly worth trying.” He leans back in his chair. “Though it’s also very possible it won’t prevent war in the end.”
“If they want war, we’ll give it to them. But they’re not getting Kavi.”
Oberon eyes me without turning. “You know that is what they’ll likely ask.”
I meet his gaze. “They can ask all they want.”
