Fallon.Morrgot’s growl snaps me out of this decidedly ludicrous conversation.Just tell them you will get them their hundred and fifty pieces of gold, and let us be on our way.
One hundred and fifty . . .I daydream of all the things I could buy for one hundred and fifty, all the wares that would make Nonna and Mamma’s lives more comfortable, all the ways I could help out the Amaris. MoveBottom of the Jugto Tarecuori. And rebrand it with silver calligraphy instead of chipped black paint. Maybe they’d call it,Top of the JugorThe Silver Carafe.
“Since your friends are so rich, we want two hundred.” Lyrial’s head is tipped to the side. “And we want it immediately.” There’s a taunt to his voice, as though he doesn’t believe I can actually procure it.
Will you please get rid of them, Fallon? Say yes and move on.
Yes to two hundred?The fact that he’s willing to part with so much money makes me regret not having negotiated a treasure-hunting fee, or at the very least a severance package if the going gets too tough and I have to bow out.
“Fine, but not a cent more!” I cry out because the hubbub around me has grown to dizzying levels. There’s so much clucking of tongues that it sounds like every tree on this side of Monteluce is crawling with chickens.
Lyrial tips his head. The air whooshes behind me, and then arms come around my waist and seize the reins, caging me.
“No move,” the skinny boy from earlier says, his breath so rank it makes my eyes water.
I hope they use some of Morrgot’s gold to do something about those rotted teeth of theirs. “What do you think you’re—”
He snaps my satchel from around my shoulders with a blade he then drags up to the underside of my jaw. The satchel lands at Lyrial’s bare feet. The male crouches and digs through it, pulling out my filled canteen and my brassiere. He tosses both aside, then upends my bag. To his disappointment, however hard he shakes, nothing else falls out.
“No coins. Check the saddle!”
Two others press around me and run their hands over the saddle, and in turn over my legs. I’m very tempted to kick them, but that wouldn’t end too well for me, what with a rusted blade digging into my neck and having only that one neck.
When they report back with a cluck of tongue that no gold is sewn into Furia’s saddle, Lyrial lifts his head up, and from his dreads, ears poke out.
Very pointed ears.
As pointed as the rest of his features.
As pointed as the pureling commander who sparked this whole Fallon-hullaballoo.
“You’re a pure-blood.” I sweep my gaze around the ones I can see. “You’re all pure-bloods!” Their hair is so long that I should’ve put two and two together, but was misled by their blackened teeth and habitat.
Unless they do live in a mansion in Tarespagia, and only dress like doxies with horrid dental hygiene to scare passersby out of their purses.
“You’re Fae—way higher up than halflings on the Lucin pyramid of wealth—so how come you’re hanging out in the jungle with the likes of me? Aren’t purelings treated as demigods on this side of the kingdom?”
“Where’s that money, girl?” Lyrial asks.
They’re obviously not your typical purelings, Fallon.
Obviously.Eye twitching from a spike of adrenaline, I take in the darkening shadows around me for the shape of a bird.
I fathom they’ve been ban— Is that a fucking knife at your throat?
Through barely parted lips, I grit out, “Certainly feels like one.”
So he was absent when the boy dropped onto the saddle . . .
The temptation to demand he not leave me alone again withers as the metal nicks my skin and a bead of blood rolls down my neck like a rogue pearl.
Morrgot lets out a slew of foreign words. Each sounds worse than the nickname he’s scrounged up for me.
A clinking jangle followed by a lowoompfsounds right behind me. The boy, who dropped by uninvited, goes as limp as an overcooked noodle and lists to the side. A slight shift of my hips, and he topples off Furia along with a fat coin purse.
Hisses erupt, along with the straightening of vertebrae as all tree Fae stare between the purse, which clocked their fellow heathen, and the patches of purpling sky.
“Nice aim,” I grumble.
