The queen I was meant to be.Amadan’s words were a far cry from what Thomas had told me long ago: that I could become anyone I want. Queens do not have such freedom, after all.
Amadan lowered his voice to a timbre best suited for the bedroom. “Sheis only an identity you once assumed.” He did not need to explain that “she” was Bess Grieve.
No, she isn’t.Bess Grieve was a stolen life, loved and lost by the woman I in turn had loved and lost. We were strangers, yet she was everything to me.
I cocked my head. “Could you wear the face of another almost your entire life and not be curious what they were like?”
“Who’s to say I haven’t?” He chuckled at my look of horror, and there was a bite to it like the edge of a sharpened blade. “No one’sappearance should be trusted here. The sooner you learn that, the better.”
I thought of Lord Elidor, so fair of face and foul of speech. Of Amadan himself, who was a handsome swain most times, but sometimes a wolf, a Huntsman, or a walking corpse. Yet it was his advice I took now.
I stared straight forward, silent for a moment. “Well,” I said finally, “perhaps this is how I shall say goodbye to my former self. Face to face.”
“Indeed.” He did not sound convinced.
We continued along the path from the palace. At times it seemed we rode into the winter: frost coated the still-blooming primrose and columbine, and the trees were in full leaf, though dusted with snow.
This cannot be my doing. I have my emotions well in hand.
But while I rode with the Dark Fool, I could not trust I hadanythingwell in hand.
Soon we came upon a fenced garden, blanketed with snow. A cottage stood behind, like the dream of a crofter’s house, if it were newly built and never suffered the wear of weather and rain. The sun hung overhead in a sky cerulean, not the deep blue of twilight. My face turned towards it, and felt no warmth, even while I shuttered my eyes against its brightness. That was not right, was it? I had not seen the sun in ages; I could not recall.
The little garden was filled with children, from wee bairns scarce able to walk, to those around seven or eight years old. The older children tossed snowballs at one another, ran, and slid upon the snow. The little ones made snow angels—or was it snow faeries here?—and toddled about, giggling when they fell on their rears.
This is where I sent Jamie, this place of pleasure and delight. Naught but playtime, with no one to beat on or scold him at all.
If I felt a bit of wistful envy that I had not grown up in this beautiful place, but under the iron rod of Eamon Grieve, I do not think anyone could fault me.
Among the playing children stood taller figures, young women they appeared, mostly, in peasant kirtles or older garments, the costumes of days gone by. They were pale, with a greenish cast to their skin and hair; it almost seemed I could see through them to the trees and bushes standing behind.
“Good morrow,” I said to the nearest of these.
She shrank from me in alarm. Hurt, I turned my puzzled gaze to the Dark Fool.
He swung himself down from his horse, then put his hands on my waist to help me dismount as well. “The minders are shy among adults. The living in general, for that matter, though they love the children.”
I brushed his fingers away as soon as it was safe to do so. “What do you mean, ‘the living’?” I stared at the woman I had attempted to greet. No light of intelligence shone in her eyes.
“Well, they are not, you see,” Amadan explained. “At least, in the mortal realm they come from, they are not.” He wrinkled his nose. “Mayhap they smell the stench of it upon you yet, my liege.”
I ignored the insult. “What are they doing here?”Why is Faery littered with human ghosts?
“They have lost their children. Not to us, but it does not appear to matter.” He shrugged. “In their despair, they wandered into Carterhaugh and passed through the Veil.” His nose wrinkled. “They are not as entertaining as our usual mortal guests, but they perform a task no one else wishes to do.”
Looking after the changelings. “But it is awful!” My heart clenched inside my breast.
“You can send them away, Your Majesty.” Amadan scratched his chin thoughtfully. “To Heaven or Hell if your Christians are right. Or mayhap to nowhere at all. At least here they have some semblance of life.”
A half-life among the fae or death and whatever might follow. What a miserable choice to have to make.
I would not make it for them.
Amadan quirked an eyebrow. “Are you still glad you came?”
I turned my attention towards happier matters, the children playing delightedly in the snow. Some made a snowman, with but one hand, one foot, and a single eye in the middle of its forehead. “A snow-fachan, as I live and breathe.”
“The snow entertains them,” Amadan said. “A kindness, given what is to come.”
