I turn to glare at him. “What did you do?”
He meets my gaze without flinching, almost as if he expected this question. “I have done a great deal.” His mouth crimps beneath that large, crooked nose. “I, too, have regrets.”
I grow weary of his evasiveness. While others plant their feet, Zephyrus flits from hill to knoll, each landing brief.
Facing forward, I demand, “What will happen if Harper is beyond help?”
“She will not die, but who is to say she will not be changed in irreversible ways? No one can know what the long-lasting effects will be.”
Irreversible change? I sincerely hope she will recover. I can’t return to Thornbrook with a senseless companion, but I can’t return without her either. The decision to enter Under was shared, yet I can’t help but feel responsible for Harper’s misfortune. My involvement with Zephyrus led us here. Then again, we would not have been able to enter Under without his help.
Something squeals in the distance, cutting through the silence of the cave. I clench the roselight tighter, watch the pink light seep through the spaces between my fingers.
“We’re close,” Zephyrus murmurs.
I pray there is a fire, or at least an extra set of warm clothes.
“Do the fair folk who live in the wilds participate in the tithe?” I wonder.
Zephyrus slows our passage through the water. When I sense his gaze on my back, I shift on the bench to face him. “Have you ever attended the tithe?” he asks curiously. But there is something else in his voice, too. Shame?
“No. I was ill the last occurrence.”
I’d hoped Mother Mabel would select me as one of the twenty-one participants, but I’d barely had the strength to walk, much less make the journey belowground. Fourteen years old, and already my dreams had been dashed.
He appears relieved by this. “Those in the wilds typically do not participate. They do not agree with the Orchid King’s rule in these parts. You can understand why their presence would irritate Pierus.”
“He cannot govern those whom he cannot control.”
“Exactly.”
I think of what Zephyrus said, and then I think of what he has not said. “What would you change, if you were in the Orchid King’s position?”
Hushed is the underground, the long, coiling gullet through which the channel courses. Zephyrus’ silence says much, and yet—
“Everything,” he says. “I would change everything.”
As the conversation tapers off, we ease around a bend, and the tunnel widens, the River Mur stretching outward. A rocky shelf juts out over the river, a village perched on top of it.
I study the fair folk from the safety of the boat as we drift nearer to shore. These creatures are lean, but wide in the belly. They dwell in squat grass huts whose roofs rise to blunt points. The men wear trousers shorn at the ankle, their torsos bare. Fish-pale skin and milky eyes give them the appearance of long-limbed salamanders.
“What’s wrong with their eyes?”
“The sea-nymphs are among the most ancient of the fair folk and have dwelt in Under’s deepest grottos for centuries, seldom exposed to sunlight. They have adapted over time to make do without their eyesight, sheltering in caves and deep water when traveling toward the sea. Though I should warn you,” he murmurs, “their sense of smell is keen as a bloodhound’s.”
A group of sea-nymphs busy their hands winding twine into fishing nets. One angles its head toward the river, its wide, slitted nostrils flaring with each inhalation. The group follows suit, abandoning the nets at our approach, straightening their long, reedy bodies. Zephyrus calmly docks and gestures for me to remain seated.
He disembarks, his movements so smooth the vessel does not rock from his departure. Harper stirs, her gaze flicking from creature to creature. Though my hand drifts to the dagger at my waist, I do not draw the blade.
A woman—or at least I believe it is a woman, judging by her garb—steps forward. “Bringer of Spring. It has been some time.” Her voice emerges reed thin, the words choked as if by fluid in the lungs. A blue tinge coats her rheumy eyes, which shift without sight.
Zephyrus eases along the outcropping, though I sense his desire to put space between himself and those congregating. “Annag.”
The woman I assume is this clan’s matriarch holds out a waiting hand, palm up. A long, grimy dress hangs in strips around her shins, clinging to a body more skeletal than not. From her shoulders sprout small protrusions akin to broken coral.
Zephyrus sighs and draws his dagger. A prick at his fingertip produces a drop of blood, which he lets fall into her outstretched palm.
The sea-nymph brings it to her nose with a deep inhalation. “Such strength,” she whispers, before lapping her skin clean. “How have you fared since our last encounter?”
