It is too soon.But the sensation now surrounding me proved this falseness of this assertion.
Glenna Baker was about to give birth.
And Malcolm about to die. If I did not treat him. And if any should enter here and disturb his slumber—nay, the very slumber of time itself—what would happen to me then?
I had given the Fool my word, which we of Faery never break.
“I will see him,” I told Gib. “But the lad is not to be disturbed. He needs his rest now.”
Twenty-Seven
Winds howled like a demonicwolf, battering at the heavy wood doors of the manor. Rain poured down in torrents. It slammed against the rubble-made walls and upon the stony path. I pulled my hood over my hair and clutched my cloak tighter around me as I made my way out into the cold.
’Twas nearly Samhain, the turning of the year. Winter was not far behind.
But in the manor house, I had given over one room to springtime. Mab grant no one should enter Malcolm’s chambers before I returned. Mortals would not understand what they saw. I’d left the boy frozen in place, in semblance not far from death. Was I deemed to be the cause of his chill, rigid state, what punishment might the baron devise? I pictured iron chains around my wrists, my skin flaking from my bones as it burned. No need to kill me on the gallows, for manacles alone would do the job.
Mayhap the shadow fae will help me. Watch over the bairn while I am gone.But would they, truly? Even if I was the liege they had named me, the manor house was no healthy place for fae of any ilk.
The Dark Fool had terrible timing. Glenna’s bairn had better be coming; should Amadan toy with me only, I would feed him his own hand.
No elfin swain awaited me outside the manor. Instead, a lad of around ten huddled in an alcove near the front gates, hair plastered to his forehead, rain dripping off the tip of his nose.
Glenna Baker’s brother.
“Young Master Baker, I...” I trailed off, catching something unearthly behind his childish visage. He held his nose high, and there was a slight arrogance in the tilt of his chin. I looked closer. In the gloom of the storm, his damp hair was iridescent, and his eyes flashed emerald bright.
This was no mortal lad.
He put a finger to his lips and gave me a secretive smile.
“Dark Fool,” I breathed.
He made a brief mockery of a bow. “G-g-good morrow, mistress,” he said in a childish voice, then added, low enough that only I could hear, “Would you betray my presence to the mortal scum?”
I glanced around us. Two guardsmen manned the gate, clinging tightly to the sheltering wall as they attempted to keep the rainwater out of their boots. They paid us no mind, and the rain fell sheets between us, obscuring their view.
“Why have you come?” My words were engulfed by the hard drumming of rain against the earth; I had to shout. “This place is lousy with iron. Doesn’t it bother you?”
He snorted. “I am the Dark Fool, and I will not be kept from my business.” How wrong he looked, with this face not his own, worse than when he had been the wolf. At least then he had not borrowed the semblance of an innocent child, someone I knew.
As you yourself wear the seeming of Bess Grieve?I shook it out of my head.
“My sister’s bairn is coming,” he said. “She said t-tuh send for you.”
“No.” My protest, spoken not from refusal but denial, was quickly swallowed by the storm. The babe could not be coming yet—the timing was unimaginably bad.
The Baker-boy-as-he-seemed clucked his tongue, and the Fool’s voice came out of his mouth. “Is that any way to speak when you’ve made a promise?” He played with his long fingers—far too long for a lad of ten years, oh, how ghastly long they were—and a sharp pain like a thousand tiny cuts pressed into my skin. My foot moved forward with no effort on my part, like a dog pulled by a leash.
“No!” I cried out, doubling forward with the pain. “You will not steal my will.” Even as my other foot stepped forward despite my intention.
The boy shook his head. “It is not I, but your promise. The vow of a fae is not easily broken.”
So my flesh told me, the stinging skin, my very body pulling me forward through no effort of my own. I resisted, yet Glenna truly did need me. “A human bearing a half-fae child...” I didn’t know what difficulties that might present, in the birth and after.
They say Mairi Grieve was midwife to the Queen of Faery herself.And even she was able to save neither mother nor child.
Amadan had put the rumor into Glenna’s head, I was certain of that now. And if he had, and this was why Glenna sought my assistance, why I had gathered pennyroyal and been cast out by Eamon Grieve... Amadan had orchestrated every move that led me to this place.
