“Howdidwe get stuck with him?”
“I don’t know. Someone should kill him; then we might get someone more handsome.”
The two would continue chattering amongst themselves all day, if she let them.
“I’m looking for-for Autumn’s princeling.” The words felt clumsy on her tongue, a silly thing to call him when he was just Tate, her Tate.He’s a workaholic, and he loves tidiness and order, golden tea and peanut butter straight from the jar. He had a family that loved him before your kind stole him away. Hestillhas people who love him, and I want him back. She was careful, again. A declaration, not an ask for help.
The two women on the other side of the table exchanged another loaded look.
“That onehassurvived the hunt. I’ve heard he’s very good at hiding, dearie. Good at finding the pockets that lead out. You won’t find him easily. He’s also very pretty.” Her icy blue eyes darted around before she continued. “He’s partorc.Veryhandsome, in a strange way.”
“You shouldn’t go looking. He belongs to the Queen.”
“He doesn’t.” The older fae turned to the blonde girl with a frown. “He belongs to the consort. If he belonged to their Lady, she would never let him leave her side.”
“Wouldn’t let him leave her bed, is more like it.”
“Well, heispart orc. Can you blame her?”
They both erupted in tinkling, golden laughter, as Silva’s guts churned. She hunched when a violent kick came from inside her, nearly taking her breath away.I know. I don’t like it either. But whatever he has to do to survive. We understand that, too.
“Anyway, you shouldn’t go to Autumn. This has been so fun!” the girl squealed, nuzzling her hideous rabbit once more. “You should stay here with us, beloved. We can have tea and gossip all morning! That’s what lovely mornings were made for.”
“You should,” the other agreed, pushing to her feet to return to her table. “We can tell you everything we know about all the courts if you stay.”
“But how would I get there if I tried?” Silva fisted her dress in aggravation. Her question had never been answered. Her head ached, and so did her feet. None of this had been particularly helpful, only serving to make the task of finding him seem even more impossible.
The two fae exchanged a look again, the younger girl shrugging. “Just make a wish, beloved. Make a wish at a wishing well. If there’s someone listening, it will come true.”
“Humans are so stupid,” the taller woman grumbled, already stepping back around the canvas to her own side. “They think wishes are granted by Summer. As if they would stop their orgies long enough to take a shift at the well.”
“Wishes are granted here, in Spring,” the pigtailed girl continued, once more nuzzling her rabbit. “Or by Autumn, if they need time to grow. But it makes no matter who fulfills the contract. The Bonfire Court collects the balance for all. Youshouldn’t go to Autumn, sweetling. You should stay here with us.”
Silva felt a clawing pressure at her throat, warring with the exterior pressure of the market, seeping in from all sides. She could still hear the faint echo of that scream in her head, muffled and locked away. She felt impossibly weary, but she needed to keep moving.
“I enjoyed trading with you,” she told the girl, giving each of the two fae women her sweetest smile. “But I’m only browsing today.”
As she continued to walk, Silva realized she was once more being directed. That leading pressure on the back of her neck had dissipated, the market itself seeming to change its tactics as she moved through it now. Pausing, it seemed, had come at a cost.
When she’d first entered, the pathways were straight, crisscrossing in predictable grids, but the path her feet followed now — the same she had been on from the start — curved inward, pushing her to the center of the market. Paths opened where she expected them to narrow, the bodies of the other shoppers parting before her like a stream, allowing her to be pushed along the current. At a junction where a painted spiral curved inward, Silva paused.You’re letting them lead you. Nothing here is free, including the time you spend.
The inward path was brighter, the stalls more colorful, the flowers more fragrant. The lights strung up against the awnings seemed to twinkle in the still golden-lit sky.
By contrast, the pathway along the side of the market — straight and even, what the whole place had been like when she’d first entered — seemed dimmer. The canvas awnings were washed out, the flowers on the tables seemed a bit more limp, and bulbs were missing in the line of twinkle lights. Silvaforced her feet away from the spiral, pushing herself to continue straight along that dimmer edge.
The resistance was immediate, like walking into a headwind, one created for her alone. Suddenly, a throng of those indistinct shoppers flooded the aisle before her. A vendor unapologetically dragged a crate directly into her path, never bothering to lift their head to acknowledge her at all.
Silva stopped. Her heart thudded in her chest, the echoing thump of her little wing coming a beat later, like a drum line within her. Her hands shook, the sharp clarity of confirmation prickling down her neck.
Winter would have killed her with its duration. Spring was kinder in its presentation, but it would seek the same end, she understood.You’ll want to stay, and it will let you. The florist’s words were to the point and worth remembering.But if you leave now, this was all for nothing.
She tentatively pointed her toe back toward that painted spiral, pivoting slowly and taking a single step back to the center. Immediately, the market opened up again like an exhaled breath. The path before her cleared, and the pale morning sun warmed her face. The air was perfumed with flowers and something sweet, like spun sugar.
Silva was acutely aware of how heavy she felt, how tired she was, realizing she had no idea how long she had been walking.She promised you wouldn’t lose time. On the other side of that cooler, perhaps, but that did not account for timehere, in this liminal space. Her back ached, as did her feet, and as she followed the painted turn, it appeared before her — a stone bench beside a stall overflowing with pale blue flowers, climbing up the side of a trellis and dripping delicately down. She desperately wanted to sit and rest her aching feet for only a moment.And what willthatcost?
“You look like you could use a rest.” The words came from the vendor within the stall, standing at the side of the trellis, pruning the green vines from which the blue flowers bloomed. Her dark hair was braided into a fat plait down her back, threaded with the same cornflower blue blossoms. “Come, beloved. Sit.”
The order wasn’t given with the same sharpness as Winter’s Queen had delivered the word, but Silva felt the difference.Thathad been an edict absent of ulterior motives. This sweet invitation, by contrast, dripped with hidden malice.A beautiful bloom to conceal the thorns.
