“Lady Chrysanthe,” I called out to her as I got closer.
She curtsied. “Queen Leila.”
“I appreciated your help in the fight.” I was careful to phrase my thanks so she couldn’t construe it as a debt—just some more fun that came with living among fae!
Lady Chrysanthe lost her awkward stance and straightened, growing as stiff as a plank of wood. “It is the duty of a noble fae to protect their ruler.” She sniffed, looking dignified and beautiful in her floral print dress and her white hat that tilted fetchingly over the side of her head.
I cleared my throat to keep from laughing—not at her beauty, but her words. Before today I would have said Lady Chrysanthe was about as interested in saving me as she was in becoming a worm farmer. Duty wasnotan especially strong call to her.
But I managed to keep a straight face. “All the same, I still appreciated it. Kevin was in trouble, and I’m grateful you helped him.”
Lady Chrysanthe gave me a tiny nod.
I smiled at her and nodded a few times, expecting she’d leave.
She didn’t.
She kept standing there, her posture straight as she watched me.
Is she waiting for a reward or something?Except she said it was her duty, and I was pretty careful in my wording.
I inspected her clothes more carefully—I’d come to learn that fae clothes were all about choosing the narrative or act they wanted to impress upon the day.
Lady Chrysanthe’s floral dress was a lot simpler than anything I’d seen her in before, same to her sun hat.
And what is that supposed to say?
Deciding it was a lost cause, I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “I better go talk with Chase about…this.”
“Naturally,” Lady Chrysanthe said. Her voice was a scoff—but not the disgusted one she usually used around me. It sounded hollow—or like a motion with no thoughts behind it.
I shook my head slightly as I left her and headed for Chase.
Something weird is going on with her.
I strolled up to where Chase was speaking with a few of his men. “Any clues?”
Chase’s golden eyes glittered in the shadows—a striking comparison to his warm, sepia-brown skintone. “Not this soon into the investigation. The perpetrator did not conveniently leave bits of evidence out in obvious spots that are easy to collect.”
“Sorry, I know I’m impatient.” I glanced over at Kevin—who was now standing with his nose raised in the air.
Whiskers had rolled on to his back, baring his belly for the very hesitant dryad that was dribbling the blue healing potions into the gloom’s cuts.
“I’ve made arrangements for you to get home,” Chase said.
I frowned a little. “Isn’t Azure still here? She can drive me—unless you meant you were calling for back up security.”
“No,” Chase said. “I sent for transportation of a different kind.”
There was a metallic clang, and when I swung around again, a metal archway with a fancy iron gate stood in the middle of the parking lot. The gate swung open, and the archway was filled with misty black magic.
Six night mares, one sun stallion, and a donkey hee-hawing loudly enough to alert the entire market of his presence drifted through the door.
I ran to the night mares and flung myself at the closest one, hugging its thin, bony neck as a couple of muzzles nudged me.
The night mares—due to years of neglect under the rule of the previous queen—were all emaciated with scraggly manes and tails and coarse hair. They all looked sickly and rather…well…nightmarishsince they had glowing yellow eyes, nostrils that always flared red, and mouths filled with serrated teeth that weren’t natural on any sort of equine.
Their presence made the fae leery, though I’d noticed that since I’d won the race with the six of them—five of them going riderless—my peoples’ fear seemed tinged with respect. Now they nodded to the horses as if they were fellow fae.
