Page 49 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
Nodding to the sword strapped to my side, he says, “Don’t let the first blood that needle draws be your own.”
I scoff. “Can’t you summon the carriage again?”
“One taste of luxury and you’ve got lazy. Habren Faire, you’re as bad as me.” I make a noise of protest that he ignores. “I won’t summon the carriage, as I don’t know precisely how far the infection has spread. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize my valet, would you?”
I hadn’t even considered the danger we could have put the bwbach in. All I could see was the ease of the carriage.
So, we leave the cyhyraeth and the rain behind, and the pass gives way to marshland. The very ground seems to breathe through the patches of water, shifting and roiling against us. High grass tangles around our legs. Neirin links our arms, and we move as one. Here it is as hot as summer, the sun bright as a lighthouse beam.
Crisp air finds us on the edge of the muggy marsh, and trees welcome us once more. Their canopies fade golden and become burnished with apples. Autumn, in this one corner of the world. Maybe we’ll stumble into winter if we just keep walking.
“Where have you gone?” Neirin asks.
Sprites dance and dive about our feet, and when my attention returns to Neirin, he is staring at me with one of those silly smiles on his face. My stomach flutters in time with the dragonflies’ wings, rebelling against the common sense I’m reciting like a ward against him in my head.
I step away from Neirin, toward a small grove of apple trees. We have no reason to touch each other, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting. Even hitting him would be better than nothing. I pluck an apple from a tree.
Neirin turns, and I lob it at him without warning. He catches it.
“Nowhere I haven’t been before.” I take my own apple, rub it on my sleeve. Prepare to lift it to my mouth.
His hand shoots out and catches my wrist. It’s a feather manacle, one I could break easily, but I don’t.
“Maybe you’ll be stuck with us forever in exchange for one bite.”
I smile wryly. “No one owns the forest. Who would keep me?”
“I would.” Neirin’s eyes find mine.
I swallow a lump in my throat and tell him, “I’d find a way out.”
I raise my arm. His hand doesn’t fall away, but he doesn’t stop me, either. I take a bite, leaving an uneven mark in the shape of my crooked teeth on the hard flesh. His eyes dip to my lips and stay there all the while.
“Now,thatI don’t doubt,” he says.
There’s a furnace beneath my skin. I snatch my arm back to douse it, and I overtake him, though I don’t know the way. The air here is crisp as fresh paper. Red and gold blanket our steps, every leaf crisp underfoot. Rain never rots them, and no more leaves will fall. Thisforest is artifice, but I kick up the carpet with my boots and jump on piles of leaves, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t at least a beautiful fantasy.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a russet doe passing between the trees. I still and watch her with interest: her head is high, certain. She knows that she is safe here. At her heel is a baby—pale white, stumbling. An albino with even whiter spots. If the fawn lived in my half of the world, it would be hunted. Mounted on a wall by an aristocrat or stuffed and studied by a scientist.
The fawn looks at me and I at him. He only blinks and follows his mother, as if I were never there. Maybe I never truly was.
Neirin nudges me. “What do your thoughts cost?”
“Far more than you can afford.”
“Then will you share with a friend?”
“Are we friends now?”
Neirin gives a flat smile, as if I’m the daftest person he’s ever met. I probably am, in my way.
I finally look up at him and grin, feeling like someone I’ve never had the chance to be before. Someone I’m not embarrassed by. “I’m thinking only how wonderful it is that all this exists just beyond my garden wall.”
“Isn’t that a bit saccharine for you?” Neirin says as he takes a light step away.
Even that delicate motion is enough to scare the fawn and its mother. They bolt, leaving us alone in the woods once more. I tut as I follow Neirin, but it’s feigned irritation. I’m enjoying myself—enjoying his company—far more than I should. I’m supposed to be afraid, worried for my sister. Guilt scratches at the back of my mind, but I soothe it quickly, telling myself that I haven’t forgotten my purpose—and, besides, who can fault me for having a little fun along the way? Ceridwen’s been enjoying herself all these years in secret.
That joy doesn’t last long. Neirin pauses at the tree line and points to something ahead.
