“Back out to hunt, most probably.” Ardruna settles down on her haunches. “Unless he went to the cave lake.”
“To think deep thoughts? Brood and let you worry?”
“Laugh all you want,” she says. “Something is off, I’m telling you. You saw that. He wasn’t steady on his feet.”
“It was only a stumble,” I mutter, refusing to be concerned about him.
“Roane doesn’t stumble.”
“Really? Nobody is that perfect.”
“Roane doesn’t keep stumbling,” she goes on. “He stumbled three times today already. It’s not normal.”
“So you’re saying he’s sick?”
“Sick? Roane? He’s never been sick a day in his life. At least, not since we met him. Though he’s often in pain.”
“He is? Why?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Talton says. “I bet you he got worse because he’s lovestruck. Being in love is agony.”
I laugh, I can’t help it. “Very funny.”
“I am a funny bird. Mark my words.” He says it seriously, though, no croaking laughter following his words, and then he takes off. “Ro, wait!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
PURE DELIGHT
ADELINE
“I’m going out,” I say.
“Don’t be stupid. You’ll get killed out there,” Ardruna growls.
“If I’m stuck here, I’m not going to sit on my hands. I know my herbs. I’ll gather what is edible.”
“You don’t even know they’re the same herbs you know from your world,” she counters.
“Not everything is different. You and I, we speak the common tongue. We obviously grew up with similar concepts and therefore can communicate. I’m sure I’ll find herbs I recognize.”
“And the monsters?” she reminds me.
“I’ll be careful. I just need to dress in something sturdier and warmer.” I kneel by the heap of clothes. “Talton found and carried all this from an abandoned house?”
“Roane must have lent him a hand.”
The thought of Roane getting these clothes for me sends an unwanted flash of warmth through me. “And where did he find a trunk full of women’s clothes if no women live here? Human or fae women. It makes no sense. Unless there are or have been human or fae women here before?”
“Not as far as I know.” Ardruna lifts a paw and starts licking her toes. “And it doesn’t have to make sense in the way it does in your world.”
She’s right. I keep forgetting this simple fact. It’s not only the monsters and nasty creatures escaping books, but it’s also parts of stories floating about, merging here and there, creating new combinations and new directions. This world is a bubbling cauldron of creation. Such a pity that it’s cut off from the outside world.
I lift a long white dress, the bust stitched up with delicate blue flowers, the silken skirt covered in fine lace. My heart starts pounding. This is the sort of gown princesses wear in the fairytales Naida used to tell me. Expensive. Finely tailored. Romantic.
Not the sort of clothes one wears to explore a dangerous world.
Regretfully putting it aside, I select a pair of leather pants and a leather tunic, as well as a black undershirt and underpants. Frowning, I give them an experimental sniff. Are these clean? All I get is the scent of astringent herbs, much like the ones we use at home to preserve clothes—rosemary, mint and thyme.
