Saeldian laughed. It was a bit shaky. “I’m not sure Osalor cared.”
“Nor I,” Lorzok agreed. “This is a garden made by the desire of its maker. Oh, good morning.”
Someone came, their gait bobbing, tall ears upright, like a—
Kell remembered. A harengon. They looked like rabbits, but they were tall as young humans and walked upright on two legs, and this harengon looked appalled. She—maybe she?—gripped a broom that was ready to sweep them out like leaf litter. She barreled up to Saeldian, livid as a storm cloud.
“What have you done?”
Saeldian bowed to the harengon, and Kell blinked. It was an appropriate bow to give to the head servant as a visiting guest, but dislike radiated from Saeldian as they performed it.
“Good morning, Nobble,” Saeldian said. “Please tell Osalor that it’s trouble beyond trouble, I’m afraid.”
Chapter Ten
Trouble Beyond Trouble
Where Any Bridge Will Do
“Trouble? Trouble beyond trouble, and you brought it here, to Master Beguiling? Oh!” The harengon servant fairly quivered with indignation. Saeldian didn’t shrink or cringe, but Kell knew it was taking everything they had to stand firm.
They were afraid.
It wasn’t like the terror that froze them when they encountered the wandering witch. They were afraid to be here, asking for help. From their patron? And that fear was powerful enough that Saeldian Charmhand was fighting not to cower before an annoyed servant—
He stood beside Saeldian suddenly. “Naturally, we would be grateful for Master Beguiling’s cleverness and wisdom. This is a situation that baffles us, but Saeldian has always spoken so highly of him and his understanding of complex situations. He may be the only one who can see into the heart of the tangle we’re in.”
Saeldian didn’t miss a beat. They never did. They could pick up whatever Kell was spinning and follow like they were dancing together. “Kell’s right. Osalor told me I should come to him if I needed him.”
“That’s the problem,” the servant—Nobble?—said. “The webs and the weaves, you don’t know what you’ve done, coming here after Master Beguiling said not to—”
“Unless there was trouble beyond trouble,” Kell said. Smooth and polished, but unyielding stone. “And it was trouble indeed.”
“What was it?”
Saeldian had steeled their nerve. “Why don’t you ask Master Beguiling if you may stay to hear the story? I have no reason to deny your interest.”
Nobble’s ears shot straight up, offended. “Come and tell Master Beguiling what you’ve done, then.”
Nobble turned with a sniff and led them over the flat stones that made the floor of an outdoor dining room, then over a little bridge that crossed a sparkling stream.
“The webs and the weaves are layered just so, and the crossing has been passed through by the one person who could walk through them like cobweb,” Nobble grumbled to herself. “Oh! All those strands, broken.”
“Strands?” Kell asked.
“Protection,” Saeldian said. “Osalor keeps his domain hidden.”
Nobble groaned in horrified ecstasy. “All those connections, broken, shivered apart, clicking like beads—who was in the place to hear them? What whispers beyond the garden Master Beguiling has tended so long? Who has heard his voice and remembered him? Who wonders why they remembered, after all this time—”
It clicked. Saeldian’s archfey patron had enemies. Saeldian, terrified and running for their life, had crashed through the protections on Osalor’s domain and made him vulnerable.
The witch didn’t follow them. Maybe because their spell barrage had kept her trapped, or maybe she hadn’t meant any harm. But Saeldian wouldn’t flee like that for no reason. And Saeldian’s fear would hang in the air. It would seep into the land. That changing would be an easy trail to follow until it faded.
“We might have made a mistake. Saeldian just ran for it—”
“I handled it,” Lorzok said. “The land was happy to erase our trail.”
Kell sighed in relief. “I’m so glad someone around here is thinking.”
