Page 142 of Caging Darling

Lady Whittaker glances up from her desk, clearly confused, as the guard pushes my head down, and I feel the whir of a blade cutting through the air.

CHAPTER 51

Iawait the end, but it never comes.

Something thuds, and the guard grunts in surprise. When I open my eyes, I find bright blue eyes before me, blinking back tears. Tink’s face is stretched with the strain of holding up the guard’s axe. He’s burly, but after a brief struggle, her faerie strength overcomes, and she manages to rip it from his hands.

Tink then rushes over to Lady Whittaker’s desk, discarding the axe behind it, and grabs one of the lady’s blank pieces of parchment as she snatches the quill from Lady Whittaker’s hand.

The lady recoils in offense, but doesn’t scold her.

Tink’s leaning over the side of the desk, so I can see her profile, the urgency in her expression as she scribbles frantically on the parchment. When she’s done, she shoves it in front of Lady Whittaker. The woman’s eyes scan the parchment, offset by her spectacles. She frowns multiple times as she reads through the note. Then appears to read it again as her eyes drift back to the top.

“You can’t be serious,” she says once she’s finally decided she hasn’t mistranslated the old language of the fae, preposterous as Tink’s message must be given the lady’s reaction.

Tink nods her head once. Succinctly.

The lady groans, but there’s less frustration there, and more a type of sorrow she can’t seem to express with tears.

“You have suffered too much already,” she says, taking Tink’s cheek in her wrinkled hand. For the first time, I realize I’m witnessing what’s become, at least for the lady, the relationship she might have shared with a daughter.

Tink stares at her, but she’s not ignoring the woman. Just offering her a fierce acknowledgment. The older woman sighs and closes her eyes, pinching her brow as if to stave off a headache.

“Alred,” she finally says, “let the girl go.”

The foot on my back releases me, but I’m hesitant to stand up.

“Get up,” says the lady, sounding frustrated.

I do as she says, brushing myself off. When I glance at Tink, her face is impassive. I can’t read it.

“Tink informs me that you’re compelled by a fae bargain to turn her in,” says Lady Whittaker.

I glance at Tink, shame filling my cheeks, but she’s not looking at me. I wish she would, that there were some way to communicate that I did this for her. That I knew Lady Whittaker would never turn her over, and that she’d also ensure my compulsion was no longer a problem.

“She thinks you were trying to use me just now,” says the Lady. “Thinks you were manipulating me into killing you, so you wouldn’t have to go through with a bargain you’d made. Is that the case?”

My heart lifts, and I catch the smallest twitch on Tink’s lips. It’s enough.

“I couldn’t admit to that even if it were the case,” I say.

Tink scribbles something on a sheet of paper.

“She’s asking how much time you have left,” says Lady Whittaker.

This will escape from my tongue. “Tonight’s it.”

Tink’s exertion-flushed cheeks drain of color. She snatches the parchment and scribbles so hard the parchment tears and she has to grab a new one to start.

The lady’s face falls as she reads it. “Are you sure, my dear?”

Tink nods, then writes something else.

“I don’t take well to be ordered about in my own home,” says the lady, but Tink grabs a tile from her pocket and pushes it her way. “Well, now that you’ve said please…” The lady pushes herself from her desk. “Alred,” she says, “leave these two be.”

The guard startles. “But, my lady.”

“Enough,” she says, to which the guard sheepishly follows her out the door.

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