“Cameron,” called that nasal voice again. “We are. With the mad sorcerer.”
I craned my neck until I found the source: Sir Regulus, gravy dripping down his fingers, and splashed liberally through his curling mustache. “Good God, man.” He laughed in a spray of meat. “Did you not know?”
“I only meant”—my face warmed, but my smile remained unwavering—“that I did not know whose squadron had been, ah, singled out for the honour.”
“No one knows.” He shrugged broadly. “But with Elders here, something must be going down. I hear your elf’s been walking about with them.”
“Glenda? She mentioned a meeting, but—”
“Then you don’t know anything?”
“No,” I started—but in confirming my ignorance, I lost their attention. Sir Regulus turned to shout at another arriving knight, and voices rose in an impenetrable wall.
I sliced the griffin-duck into smaller and smaller ribbons while I waited for the noise to subside. A battle . . . usually, I was more on top of those.
Granted, my best source of information had recently been slain in combat: Sir Hamlin, who’d put up a great show of ‘Oh but we can’t do that, we’re both men,’ only to stick his hand down my breeches behind the unicorn stable.
A bead of sweat trickled down the tip of my nose to splatter among the desecrated meat on my plate. I’d been sent here by my father with the expectation that I fall in combat, joining Sir Hamlin, and Sir Wilkin, and Sir Xiu, and . . . whoever else numbered among my dead comrades. Too many to have them memorized. God bless them, and all.
Point was, avoiding that particular fate had become a full-time job.
“Lads,” I said, standing with a screech of my chair, “it’s been a pleasure, but I do think that I, ah, have somewhere else to be.”
Sir Babbet leaned to look at my plate. “Did you even eat any of that?”
“What?”
“Your food.”
“What about it?” I tapped impatiently on the head of my chair. “Look, I’d love to chat, let’s catch up some other time, but for now I’ve got to go. Alright?”
His face screwed up in a sort of bafflement, but I was already on my way.
My first thought was Glenda—but no, she’d still be in her meeting. I sometimes bribed the outpost scribe for intel, but then, the Elders had commandeered him for notetaking, hadn’t they?
Paralyzed by my lack of options, I sprawled across a bench in the common room beneath the banner of the Vaillancourt lion. We’d eaten while the sun was still high in the sky, so the room remained muggy with warmth. Even as I plotted, even as stress ate at me like hunger—as a matter of fact, it probablywashunger—I couldn’t help but succumb to the heat. My eyelids grew heavy, and I yawned.
“Cameron.”
I nearly fell off the bench. “Glenda! You’re back! How was the meeting?”
The elf stood too close, her blue face twisted into a strange expression. “Pack your things,” she said. “We have to go. Now.”
CHAPTER 2
In Which Our Handsome Knight Is Very Confused as to Why We Had to Leave So Abruptly but Is Committed to Being Charming About It. In Which Charm Might Come Easier if I—I Mean, ifHe—Knew What the Fuck Was Going On.
The closer we got to the mad sorcerer’s territory, the more malevolent the trees looked. They crowded about us, roots bulging from the soil and daring us to trip.
Glenda walked in silence, avoiding any leaf or twig that might crunch underfoot. It was a wasted effort, as I stumbled over the uneven ground and caught myself on branches with apologetic grunts, but I tried not to fret over the noise. With Glenda at my side, the borderland woods felt relatively safe. The sorcerer’s constructs always fell easily to her flashing blade, and her condescension toward humans meant she thought nothing of me hunkering back while she fought.
Securing her friendship had kept me alive while other, better knights took their rest in the soil—so her current moodiness put me on edge. Since her meeting with the Elders and our hurried departure, Glenda had barely spoken twowords. Though when I’d walked out in a padded gambeson (secured with buttons of polished unicorn horn), she’d shaken her head, violently, and told me to change into something lighter.
Had I pissed her off? I always tried not to, elves being a class above even petty nobility such as myself. I peered at her as we marched beneath the bristling trees in the fading remains of daylight. She didn’t seem angry. She looked . . . sad. Loose hairs stuck out from her normally meticulous braid, and she chewed fretfully on her lip. Feeling my gaze, her eyes flicked up to meet mine. I reeled back, pretending to study the flight of a bird overhead.
I did consider, briefly, that her mood might have nothing to do with me; that she might have a life of her own, independent of my existence. Only briefly, though.
“Glenda,” I said, after we’d settled on a spot to spend the night. “I suppose the meeting went . . . ?” She looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, and I lost my nerve. “Ah. Never mind.”
