Page 61 of Lord of the Hollow Court
Katty took a step back, trembling a little. Were the fae as free as that? Then again, she’d spent part of her wedding night in a grove doing—thatwith a man she barely knew. One who proposed to her in order to disgust a High Fae Lady.
Perhaps she shouldn’t talk.
A loud knock broke the surprised silence on Katty’s end, wrenching a yelp out of her yet again. When did she get so jumpy? Perhaps when the High Fae were hunting her, and she’d discovered fairy tales were real.
“Behind the screen,” Rineke urged her, flapping her wings to set herself on the floor. She strode to the door while Katty slipped into her discarded dress.
The knock came again. This most certainly wasn’t for supper.
As Rineke opened one of the doors to the Court’s Lady’s suite, Katty stood on her toes to peer over the screen. Hugo faced Rineke, both of them blushing and fumbling for simple greetings. Evidently, that licentious book hadn’t taught Rineke anything about engaging with the opposite sex.
“It’s Misman,” Hugo said, eyes downcast. “He was absent all day—and now he’s back but—”
“What is it?” Katty asked, stepping from behind the screen and hoping he wouldn’t guess the back of her dress was open. Something in his tone made her forget her appearance for a moment. This sounded like something dire had come to her door.
“It’s Misman, your ladyship,” Hugo repeated as if she hadn’t heard, still in mid-bow to her. “He has the Fae Wasting.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Plague
“We thought he’d be immune, milady,” Hugo explained as they walked. “All those years of training with the Valkyrie—I guess we all thought of him as indestructible.”
Katty arched her back, sure they’d misaligned the clasps of her red dress in their haste to get her downstairs. She saw Bibi racing toward them at the end of the hall and felt relief flooding her chest. Having her friends beside her made her far more confident she wouldn’t destroy everything she touched.
And this was going to need a very firm touch indeed.
“How many came close to him?” Katty asked.
“A few from the kitchens. One of the footmen—”
“They need to be found and kept apart from the rest,” Katty said, thinking of Sleepy Hollow’s outbreak of scarlet fever. And that terrible bronchitis that spread through town last winter—"The only way to be certain it doesn’t spread is to keep them apart."
“Will that work?” Rineke asked, face full of concern.
Katty shook her head. “It won’t help Misman and the others if they contract it. But everyone who hasn’t been close—their chances will be better.”
“And this is a human remedy?” Hugo asked, brow furrowed.
“One as old as the Black Death.”
He sighed. “It’s worth a try.”
“Of course it’s worth a try, I’m ordering it,” she snapped.
Hugo straightened suddenly, eyes wide in alarm. The poor boy had actually forgotten she was his Lady now.
“Run ahead,” she urged him more softly, though she knew how much time mattered. It wouldn’t do to appear flustered. That she must act as though nothing was awry while sowing chaos and bringing difficult news was an irony too terrible to think on long.
Hugo inclined his head and pivoted, running as she’d ordered. A second later, she heard his heavy steps descending the stairs.
“What’s happening?” Bibi asked, catching up to them at last.
“Plague,” Katty said dryly. “We’re going to do the best we can. But right now, I need to see Misman.”
Rineke yanked at her arm. “You just said we had to keep away from him!”
Katty glanced at her, meeting her eyes quickly, then kept walking. It was a gamble—of a sort she was not accustomed to making—but if Misman knew where Braam was, or what could be done to ease the sickness...she had not been at the Hollow Court for very long, but it felt like ages. If she’d learned anything thus far, it was that the place would collapse like rotten barn wood if Misman were not there.
