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“I must make haste,” she said and picked up her pace along the dirt path.
“And so I shall hurry alongside you, Faery Not.”
They walked onward, Ulrich leading Fancy as he ventured first. His strides were light, jumping to kick a stone in the path, as free as the air made Gossamyr feel. When he finally spoke, though, he sounded suspicious. “You are quite skilled in defense and attack.”
She smirked. “And you are adept at getting in the way.”
“Why, thank you, fair lady. It is a skill. Pity ’twas my last quarrel. Though, rest assured, I can hold steel to the enemy should the need arise. That is…if I had steel.” He patted his hips and scanned the ground. “I seem to have misplaced my dagger a few leagues back.”
“Would that be when you won the prize dripping down your forehead?”
“Do you think it will leave a mark?” He touched the wound.
Ever changing, the man’s moods. From suspicion, to anger, to a teasing charm. Despite the danger his learning of her origins could pose, Gossamyr found it difficult to dislike the man. For he tread the earth as if he had wings. To have him accompany her even a short distance could prove a boon. She would study him, prepare for future contact with mortals. They weren’t so different from the fée. Even his deep voice she had grown accustomed to.
“So, Gossamyr who isn’t from Faery, I did notice you were particularly surprised at your success over the beast.”
Gossamyr tripped ahead, enjoying the warm air skim her bared flesh. Right, was the only feeling she could summon. She spun in a dancer’s twirl and rejoined Ulrich’s side. “It is the first time I have engaged in hand-to-hand combat.”
“Ah. Well then, good show, Faery Not.”
“Don’t name me that—achoo!” Halted in her tracks, Gossamyr grasped her head.
“Touché!” Turning to walk backward Ulrich smiled at her. The gap in his teeth distorted his mirth. “So you like to dance?”
Skipping, Gossamyr shrugged and offered an unexpected “I think so!”
“You take marvel at your own wonder.”
“It is just, the air…I feel light.”
“Pray tell what the air is like whence you hail?”
“Not like here,” she called out and jumped to the grass to skip through the cool blades.
Flight had ever alluded her, no matter how often she had attempted it. Which had been often in the rose garden behind the castle buttery. Mince had once witnessed her fruitless attempts and had laughingly joined in. The matron’s small wings, attached to a generously rounded body, had served little more than to lift her shoulders. She could not leave the ground, either. It had bonded them in laughter, and a smirking confession from Gossamyr, which revealed her jealousy of the winged ones.
“You are the daughter of Lord de Wintershinn,” Mince had stated simply. “You needn’t envy; you are envied.”
Mayhap. But Gossamyr had not missed a single averted gaze or cruel stare in her lifetime. Envy hurt. And the only way to overcome was to prove herself. She needn’t the Wintershinn name to stand proud; to defeat the Red Lady would prove her worth and perhaps put to rest the suspicious whispers.
She spun now, and leaped into the path immediately before Ulrich. He had no wings, and yet, he took to the air in his strides. And that made him all the more appealing.
“The dirt from the fight,” Ulrich commented as he angled forward to study her. “It covers your face.”
Gossamyr wiggled her nose. Another sneeze tormented.
“It is bone,” he said of her dirty covering. “It hides your glimmer.”
“Bone?”
“That means good.”
“Then why not say good?”
“For the same reason you say mortal. We have our own slangs, do we not?” A click of his tongue beckoned Fancy onward.
Gossamyr paralleled him but a leap to his left. He suspected; she knew that he did.
“I wager you are safe from wonder so long as you do not favor bathing. Though your clothing—”
“Will be changed anon. I need only locate a seamstress. Mayhap something bright, like yours.” She glanced over Ulrich’s attire. The cloak swung merrily with his strides, intermittently revealing the tight striped hose he wore.
“I’m afraid a change of costume won’t be so easy in Aparjon,” he said. “’Tis a very small village, as most villages are. It is not fortified, which will prove bone. Our entry will not be questioned. If I recall from my travels there is a stable behind the one lone tavern that rents out to riders. Plead to Luck to find a horse for purchase, especially a swift one. As well, it may be difficult to get a room for the night.” He turned and scanned back down the road.
“Dead as a doornail,” Gossamyr reassured. And who decided when a doornail was dead? “What lends you to believe I wish to stay the night in the next village?”
“You said you were tired?”
“Yes, but a rest and some hearty fare will serve. I am off to Paris.”
“Indeed?”
Ulrich handed Gossamyr Fancy’s reins and skipped ahead, turning to walk widdershins in front of her. His cloak billowed as he gestured and filled the air with the rumbling tones Gossamyr found she favored more and more.
“I cannot resist questioning when there is so much of interest about you, fair lady. Whence do you hail? And, skill aside, what finds a lone woman trekking to Paris with so little fear of danger?”
“I am in search of a…woman. She goes by the moniker of the Red Lady.”
She picked up her pace in hopes of the man stumbling, but he tread backward with ease. His arms pumping, his robe splayed open with each stride, to reveal long legs and ankle-high suede boots with pointed toes.
“And where in Paris does she reside?”
“I know naught.”
“Paris is a big city. Mayhap I can help you locate her?”
“How might you discover a woman you’ve never met?”
“I found you.”
“But you weren’t—”
“I’ve a location spell that may be of use.”
A spell? Caution fired. “You said you are not a wizard.”
“That I am not.”
The last thing Gossamyr needed was to align herself with a practicer of magic. She had come to stop the damaging effects done to Enchantment, not contribute.
“But I did pay attention when His Most Magical—er, my former patron—needed to locate a lost dream or dragon.”
“You practice magic?”
“Not enough to make it real.”
But did his attempts tap Enchantment? And with the rift, the damage caused was increased immeasurably. Mayhap choosing to share the road with this man had been a mistake. Where was the fetch? If Ulrich proved a threat, would Shinn intervene?
Quickening her footsteps, she commented, “I fear the woman I seek be more dangerous than a fire-breathing dragon.”
“You say so?”
“I’ve said enough. We must keep to ourselves. We’ve only to accompany one another to the next village.”
“You’re not keen on friendship, eh?”
Gossamyr shrugged. Not with a man who practiced magic.
Mince was the only friend she had ever known. Not even a good friend if one considered Shinn paid her as nursemaid. Gossamyr had been schooled and trained exclusively by her father, and kept from most situations that would see her surrounded by vindictive fée. The few times she went to market or escaped to participate in a tournament were such wonders. There were food stands offering honeyed petals and toadstools carved like miniature castles. Lavender creams and smoky beetles enticed. Children were rare, but few ran about laughing and playing challenging games. Women dressed gaily and men ogled them with soused grins. Brownies socialized with hobs and the curiously tall dryad would draw a lingering stare. Who could be bothered to look for a friend?
Besides, Gossamyr was ever studied from afar—like a curious bug—but rarely approached with a smile.
You are half-blooded, and that is fine. You are the daughter of Lord de Wintershinn. They know you will ascend to the throne one day, and they respect you, for you are of Shinn’s bloodline. Still, the fée will never completely accept you. It is best you avoid the central markets in Glamoursiège. Half bloods, while rare, are cruelly teased.
Unless a fée was attracted to her because of her mixed blood.
You are exotic, Gossamyr.
He is a Rougethorn. They dabble in magic….
“I say—” Ulrich turned and rejoined her at her side “—that a man can never have too many friends.”
“I am not a man.”
“You fight like one.”
“Bespell your tongue to silence,” she hissed and then under her breath murmured, “Or I shall do it for you.”
“I’ve rudimentary knowledge of magic. Would that I could bespell myself!” he called out grandly. “’Twould be akin to smiling myself into a swoon!”
But Gossamyr wasn’t listening. Evening traced the atmosphere with an orange line on the horizon. Surrounding gray illumination loomed. An eyelash moon slit the sky. Soon the countryside would be black. A unique experience, for the light bugs that populated the Spiral forest produced such illumination Gossamyr had never found herself to fright because of darkness. She sensed mortals viewed the world in a darker shade. Were there light bugs in this realm? The compulsion to cling to this final moment of sparse light, to see all—and remember—overwhelmed. For soon she would see that darker shade, as well.
That is why you must be of haste! No time to rest this night. Leave the mortal to his foul magic and be off.
A line of fire-ravaged treetops frosted the western horizon with a macabre lace. To the right, a creaking windmill chomped on the silence, wood bearing against wood, commanded by the wind. Crickets chirred and long grasses schussed. Evening sounded much the same, and that was, as Ulrich might say, bone.
“Achoo!”
“Sneeze on Tuesday—”
“clobber a stranger,” Gossamyr finished the childhood rhyme.
“So touchy, my lady. I’d fare to wager we are strangers no longer.”
“What happens when one sneezes on the morrow?”
“Sneeze for a letter. And Thursday sneeze for something better. Mayhap by Thursday you’ll have shed your sparkle?”
“Or even better, I’ll have shed one mule and its jabbering passenger.”
Jabbery? Indeed! Why the nerve of the…the…well, Ulrich wasn’t exactly sure what Gossamyr was.
Feisty, fine and female. Mayhap a faery?
The woman who strode in skipping steps ahead of him by ten paces was like no woman he had ever before known. Or seen. Or dreamed of. Well, mayhap he had dreamed a tempting siren once or twice—hell, dozens of times. But never had she been so skilled in the martial arts. Killing bogies? She had moved without thought, swinging that beautiful carved stick of hers and taking out the bogie with but one stroke. Masterful.
His rusted crossbow had been less than splendid when matched against the woman’s mettle. Made him feel a bit lacking.
On the other hand, with a traveling mate of such skill, he could pay heed to that which required attention. Ulrich patted Fancy’s withers and slid his hand back to smooth over the saddlebag. A certain hum, much like the throat of a purring cat, vibrated against his palm. Safe. But for how long? Would his quest be ended most violently before he had opportunity to save the damsel?
Or was it already too late? So little remained the same. It had all changed. Everything. Twenty years had been stolen!
He should have been there to save her, his sweet Rhiana. Instead, he had been…dancing. That hellacious toadstool ring!
Ah, but he would have Rhiana back. And he would die trying.
But he mustn’t think overmuch of his quest. For one brief thought—just back the road a ways—had called up the bogie. Myriad strange and malevolent evils could sense him, even—he suspected—hear his thoughts.
What should happen if he were to dip into the saddlebag and draw the thing out into view? He’d barely avoided death last eve when the wailing white ladies had followed him through the mist-fogged swamp. Not being corporeal they could not touch him, but such hadn’t prevented them from flinging sticks and stones and the like at him. And finding target with each attack. Recall prickled the hairs all over his body to alert. And the realization this quest was insane.
How to locate what he sought? Was this feeling—a calling that led him toward Paris—sure?
What a task, what a task.
An ally from Faery would make all the difference.
Ulrich eyed the sure, muscular form striding ahead of Fancy. She was as a man in strength and prowess but with the curves and beauty of a siren. Those double plaits of summer-wheat hair tipped in delicate bone clasps beat at her back with each lilting stride. And the clothing! Braies and pourpoint? Leaves? No mortal man or woman could fashion such. And that glimmer, it almost seemed to form a pattern under her jaw and down her neck. Did it spread across her chest?
She was a faery; he sensed it. For he could lately see the damned things. A gift of the dance. How to give it back?
A man should like to have a confident fighter at his side if he had set to an insane quest that would surely bring about many more a challenge.
As well, a faery would attract the one thing he most needed to find.
FIVE
The iridescent fetch was not to be seen against the dull flatness of night. Must have twinclianed to Faery. The quiet warmth of protection Gossamyr felt whenever she sighted the dragon fly tremored for reignition. Sure, she could stand off a bogie, but…
