“Oh, andthiswon’t make it worse?” I laughed derisively, waving at the broken cart.
“We don’t use visible magyk on these jobs,” Briony reminded me. She looked odd without her red, tufted squirrel ears and bottle-brush tail, which Devil had glamoured away when he and Jon had left us here an hour earlier.
“I know,” I grumbled, “but surely, we aren’t doing the Arden Court any favors right now.”
“By the time the caravan is marked as late in Achaia, and a message gets back to Nottingham by boat, we’ll have been able to start rumors and plant evidence pointing toward human bandits,” Briony explained. “No onewantsto blame the Fair Folk for things like this, because it doesn’t make any sense for us to steal human gold, so they just end up looking like a lunatic. The Prince will be more likely to suspect his absent brother than us.”
I fell silent, pressing the dart’s point hard into my thumb. Just as I was on the verge of breaking skin, I heard the unmistakable sound of horses and men. I sat up straighter and pulled on a long, duster jacket to hide the bracers. Briony wandered over and leaned on the back of our cart, flipping her mess of red curls over her shoulder and jutting out her hip. Aliena didn’t move an inch, just continued plucking her lute, but switched from a slow ballad to a slightly merrier tune—a signal to our comrades hiding in the trees.
As the caravan came into view between the brambles and trunks, and the lead rider spotted us, they slowed. I stood up, forced my shoulders to relax, and swept my eyes over the men, horses, and carts, trying to see if Will’s information had been accurate. There were two massive wagons covered with black tarps, each pulled by four big draft horses. Each wagon was escorted by at least a dozen guards in scarlet tunics and black cuirasses. The Iron Fist. At the head of the column rode an officer on a black palfrey, who held a compass in one hand and a map in the other.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen!” Briony called out to him. Just as we’d predicted, he slowed his mount and smiled at her. Behind him, both wagons came to a halt.
“Trouble on the road, ladies?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing we can’t handle,” Briony chirped, walking over to stand beside his horse and give him a direct view down her low-cut bodice. A few other men gathered nearby and I did my best impression of a flirtatious young girl, smiling and batting my eyelashes at the nearest one, even as my stomach flipped at the sight of their red uniforms. While Briony chatted with the officer, telling him howour wheel had broken and our uncle had taken the mule on ahead to get help, I held my hand parallel to the ground and sent a creeping shadow out. Keeping it hidden by breaking it up into the same pattern that the leaves created naturally, I sent it zig-zagging across the ground directly in front of the two lead draft horses. One just snorted and flinched, but the one I’d marked as being the jumpiest actually reared, causing the entire wagon to lurch violently backwards. At the same moment, I sent another shadow flying out to tangle around the spokes of one rear wheel. The men were so preoccupied trying to calm their horses that they didn’t even notice it until the snap of breaking wood and the screech of bending metal echoed off the trees.
“Damn the Son!” cried the officer when he saw what had happened. “Markum, bring up the spare. We’ll have to switch them out.” A young guard with a splotchy, red face was visibly overcome with terror and stammered something about having forgotten the spare wheel. He earned a cuff on the back of his head from the officer, who had dismounted his palfrey. He calmed himself, pushed his hair back, then approached Briony with a smooth smile.
“Miss, it seems we might be able to help one another,” he said, nodding toward our cart. “If we might replace our broken wheel with one of your whole ones, we could bring you along with us to Achaia, so you are not waiting so long for your uncle to return.”
“Oh, how generous!” Briony sang, clapping her hands together. “Aliena, come out of the cart now. These fine men are going to rescue us.” Several of the guards leaned their pikes against the wagons or trees and moved toward our cart, rolling their sleeves up.
I stepped aside with a kind smile, then asked the man standing in front of me, “Do you think the work would go easier with some music?” He and several others called out song requests, but Aliena sat on the log and grinned as she plucked a few notes.
“Well, since we’ve all found ourselves in the Arden Wood this fine, sunny day, perhaps a song about its most infamous resident?”
“The Faerie Queen?” one man laughed. “She ain’t real! Just a story Johar uses to explain how he lost half a damn army in here.” The joke earned him a glare from several of his fellows.
“Oh, she’s real…” Aliena said with grin, then she began to sing before anyone else could protest.
“In the soft, hidden heart of the weeping wildwood,
lived a girl with a soul made of flame.
She danced with the bees, and she slept in the trees,
and she knew all the Fair Folk by name.
But more often than not, this girl could be found
bringing light to those in the dark.
Held the sun in her hands, and wove beams into bands,
she gave them the gift of a spark.
So when the time came for the wildwood to crown
a queen who was clever and kind,
the Arden chose she, to evermore be
with the heart of the forest, entwined.”
There was a smattering of applause from a few guards, but most of them were giving Aliena a strange look, and I leaned in to whisper urgently in her ear.
“Time to work your magyk, song spinner.”
