Page 58 of Golden Queen
She turned to me as I processed the information that someone had removed her previously pointed ears, and then she answered the question in my mind.
"Indeed, my poor departed mother did hop into the bed with an elven prick. Though she always professed it was love, I never knew how. They are such dark and brooding bastards." She looked at Io, sucking her teeth as she seemed to regret her words. "No offense to you and your fae kind, of course."
"We are not the same people," Io supplied. "Though many would find it difficult to identify the distinction in many cases. But all that aside, I can heal the wound left behind. Your ears will be fine."
"Ah," Rae said with a grin. "He's a healer, is he? It's my lucky day." She pulled up her shirt and I gasped. Angry purple bruises covered her ribs from sternum to navel. "Can ya do anything about these?"
"Let's start with the ear," he said.
Io removed the barb, pocketing the mellitrium, and then healed the girl as I stood watching. I wondered what kind of power such a tiny person could have inside her, aside from her ability to know what I was thinking, of course.
She gave me a look of mirth every time I found myself thinking about her.
When my eyes were finally able to accurately assess her, I saw how lovely she was. She looked like what I imagined a fairy, a true pixie, might look like—some wide-eyed woodland creature living amongst the elderwood trees—communing with the sentient forest.
She gave me a grateful, surprised look at that assessment, and I realized how much she could actually read my thoughts. She didn't just get a sense of what I was thinking, she heard it.
"I do," she said with a wink. It strangely did not feel like an intrusion to have her in my head.
When Io moved on to her ribs, she looked at me, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “Does he know who you are?”her voice said in my mind as clearly as if she had spoken aloud. Only the lip still stuck between her teeth betrayed that the thoughts were not words.
"Can you not read his mind to know?"I asked her in my mind.
"Only a little and only what he projects. Some minds are harder to discern. It's rather dark in his—shadowy and confusing—lots of places for thoughts to hide."
"He knows who I am," I admitted. I should have been frightened that this stranger knew who I was and could tell anyone where she had seen me; what I had been wearing in this twisted place.
But I was not afraid, and her reassuring smile as Io leaned back and revealed the smooth unbruised skin of her ribs told me that I was right not to be.
It never occurred to me to be frightened of Io's mind being a place for thoughts to hide. I wasn't sure what that said about my naiveté, my willingness to accept him as trustworthy so easily—especially in the face of the violence and power I had already seen from him.
"Pass a message on to your friends," he said. "Tell them that the Lord of Darkwatch would like a word with them. Tell them that I think they will find our interests are aligned." I wondered if he'd shared words with Rae, mind to mind, as she and I had done.
The girl smiled, nodding her head, and then she seemed to fold in on herself in the blink of an eye until an impossibly tiny bird flitted in front of us. She hovered in the air for a heartbeat, and then flew past Elias, where he remained frozen. She made a neat little circle around his head, almost gloating, and then flew out the door and was gone.
A skinchanger, I realized with wonder. Not just a skinchanger, but a seer as well. I hoped I might see her again someday, but I had the sinking feeling that I never would. She seemed so small and fragile, in both bird and human form. I thought the world out there might just eat her alive.
"Not if I eat them first," came Rae's voice in my mind. I had a sudden, brief image of a large white cat, bright blue eyes flashing, and then I heard her melodic laugh.
I chastised myself for making the assumption about her strength based solely on her appearance after she'd just demonstrated to me what she was capable of.
"Good luck, Iris Rae,"I told her in my mind, hoping she could hear me.
When her reply came, it felt distant, as though from much farther away."Good luck, Aelia Seraphem."
The journey up and out of the basement of the manor with Elias Addison walking stiffly in front of us seemed to take all the wind from my sails.
Io used a mixture of threats and magic to hold his tongue while we picked our way through the crowds, past those gauzy silk curtains, where people were still in the throes of passion.
It no longer seemed interesting to me. Where I had earlier felt that pulse of desire and intrigue, on the way out, they just looked like foolish hedonists, the whole lot of them.
Elias shook his head when the servant at the door asked if he had a coat to retrieve, as if that was all he was able to do under the magic binding his tongue. It was fascinating to see the power that Io had over the man, even when his attention didn’t seem to be on him at all.
Indeed, Io’s attention seemed wholly on me as he kept his hand securely around my waist, fixing me to his side.
Elias looked as oily and foul as he sounded, especially in the brighter lights of the entryway. He had a slightly over-large head of blonde hair over a face that seemed unnaturally lined, weathered beyond his years. With the added red of the tinted lanterns, he looked as foul on the outside as I knew him to be on the inside.
It would not have mattered if he had been as beautiful as Io. After what Rae said about him, he would still have been the single ugliest creature I had ever seen.
