“Bauchan owes me money,” the Human said. How like a Human, to be unconcerned with anything but monetary gain. “Is this a trick?”
“You will be paid,” the green Faery spat. “Do not trouble yourself with that worry.”
The Human’s gaze moved over Cedric and Cerridwen again, and he flicked nervous eyes back to the green Faery’s face. “I can’t have any nastiness aboard my ship, you understand? What’s to stop their people from coming after me if they die here?”
“They have no ‘people.’” The green Faery sneered down at Cedric. “They will not be missed.”
The cold efficiency in her voice told Cedric that she truly believed this, and he could no longer idly watch. “You can explain to your Queene, then, why she has been denied her prize.”
The green Faery turned flashing eyes toward him. “Have I asked you to speak?”
“You know that Danae would not permit the death of the Faery Queene. Not when she could parade her in chains for her own pleasure.”
The Faery’s eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. She said nothing.
“Queene?” The Human frowned. He’d lost control of the situation when he’d lost the green Faery’s attention, and he aimed to get it back. “This one here is a Queene?”
“A Pretender Queene,” the green Faery snapped.
“Queene of the Faery Court, descended from the line of Queene Mabb.” This would mean nothing to the Human, Cedric realized. A bolt of inspiration struck him. “One of your Human poets told of her. Shakespeare? Do you know what I speak of?”
The man made a noise, which was neither an affirmation or denial. It did not matter to Cedric which it was, because now the Human’s focus was trained on him. “She killed Bauchan?”
Cedric nodded gravely. “She did. He committed a great offense against her, and it was her royal right.”
“Liar!” The green Faery struck his cheek with a stinging slap.
Moving faster than Cedric had ever seen another Human move, the man stepped between them and grabbed the green Faery’s arm. She hissed and thrashed and spat, but he kept ahold of her. “There’s going to be none of that!” he roared, pushing her backward. She stumbled against the rail of the stairs and glared up at him. “This is my ship, and if anyone’s going to be dealt with, it’ll be me doing the dealing. Understand?”
The man considered Cedric for a moment, then turned his attention to Cerridwen. “She hurt?”
“I do not know,” Cedric answered truthfully. If she was, he would make those who had done it pay.
The Human nodded to his crew. “Get her up. Check her over. Then throw her in the brig.”
Cedric did not know what a brig was. “She cannot be separated from me.”
“Fine. You go, too.” The Human gestured to another man. “Take him, too.”
“And when we arrive at our destination?” The green Faery climbed to her feet, still seething. “Will they be returned to our custody?”
“Once you are off my ship, I don’t care what you plan on doing with them. So long as I get my money.” He nodded to Cedric and Cerridwen. “Get them out of here. And the rest of you, clear off.”
Cedric locked eyes with the green Faery. Hatred and malice blazed in her eyes.
If they were friendless before, he realized, things had become far worse for them.
Five
Clouds covered the sun, made the world a gray-white that was neither night nor day, but a perpetual in-between time that pricked the edges of consciousness as though in warning. Mist shrouded the floor of the clearing, as if the forest had come to life and exhaled too-warm breath into the chill air.
Blinking as she strained to see through the sinuous vapor, Cerridwen rose from the grass, felt the cool, wet air envelope her as though she’d dived into a pool.
A dark shape materialized in the mist, growing more distinct as it moved toward her. It was a female, a Human female, or so Cerridwen thought until she saw its face, flanked by two identical ones on either side of its head. The thing that was not a woman, but three in one body. It wore a long cloak of black feathers that rustled in a breeze Cerridwen could not feel. Beneath the blanket of feathers, metal armor glinted. Tall, armored boots rose past the woman’s knees. In her hand, she carried a spear tall enough to touch the ground at her feet and rise above her head, the gleaming silver of it stained with rust-colored rivulets of dried blood. Under her arm, she carried a helmet of silver, shaped like the head of a raven and so finely detailed that it must have come from the Court of the Gnomes. A strip of feathers rose from the crown of the helmet and spilled down its back in a mimic of the hair on the woman’s head, which was shaved but for a knot of ebony in the center that fell in a gleaming tail behind her.
It spoke with all of its mouths at once. “Do you enjoy killing?”
An aura of menace surrounded the thrice-faced woman, but it did not touch Cerridwen, and she spoke without fear. “I do not enjoy it. But it was necessary.”
The head nodded, all six eyes closing in slow appreciation. “This is a lesson many warriors take time to learn.”
“I am no warrior.” It embarrassed her to be called such, after seeing the bravery displayed by the Guild members in the fight at the Elven quarter.
“You are a warrior.” The answer brooked no quarrel. “You have blood on your hands, three times, blood on your hands.”
More than three times. This woman with three faces did not know that she stood before the Faery who had destroyed her own kind, killed her own mother and father through her foolishness. She did not need a blade to kill.
The three mouths continued to speak in unison. “The blood of your enemies. The dark one. The traitor. The deceiver.”
The Elf, and Flidais, and Bauchan. “They all had to die.”
“I will grant you a boon.” The woman dropped her spear and used a finger to trace the symbol of three spirals, connected in a triangle, the same as Cerridwen had seen in her dreams, in the air. Mist conformed to the shape, twisted into something more tangible. It turned to fire and steel, cooled to a stone and dropped into the woman’s open palm. She held it out, as if offering it, but when Cerridwen reached for it, she turned with sudden violence and threw it into the trees. It was lost in the mist and the darkness on the forest floor.
“Why did you do that?” Cerridwen cried, feeling entitled to the thing that had not been hers a moment before, had not even existed.
The woman shrugged, three bland expressions on her faces. “You will find it when you need my aid, and I will come.” She turned and walked toward the darkness of the trees, the fog clearing like courtiers bowing out of the way for their ruler to pass. She halted and cocked her head so that one face looked back, shrewd eyes looking Cerridwen up and down. “Wake up, Sister. Wake up.”
Cerridwen woke to darkness. There was a disconcerting moment in which she did not remember what had happened, and then the memory returned, horrible in its clarity.
She had killed Bauchan. She had done the right thing. No one would convince her otherwise. But when they’d seized her…when they’d hit her, the last thing she’d heard was Cedric, shouting her name.
Her hands were bound, but she tried to grope through the darkness, her breath coming faster and faster as she remembered the words that had drifted to her through her semiconscious fog. They had wanted to execute her, and Cedric; and the Humans had been concerned only with money.
“Cedric!” The panic she felt overrode any thought to what dangers might befall her if they discovered her awake and alive. If they had killed him—