Chapter 3 In Which We Meet the Obligatory Climate Protester #2
I wasn’t an expert in faerie politics, but this altercation appeared not to have gone his way.
“Jeff, your presence at this meal has illuminated for me many things. I excuse you.”
The nymph, message delivered, turned and sauntered back into the darkness.
Next to me the Gray Knight stood. I stood as well.
“Not you, Miriam Geld.”
“I—what?” I put my hands on the table. Glanced at Sahir, who was staring at the Princeling. “I thank you for your hospitality, my lord, but I must leave with Jeff.”
Two horses appeared over a ridge, their hooves clacking on the stone embedded in the hill. Neither was Sparkles.
The Princeling shrugged, still slouched across the arm of his chair, his wings dangling beneath him. “You partook of our food and will remain in our lands.”
“Sorry?” I asked, my hands convulsing on the wood. I could feel twelve sets of eyes on me, strange alien eyes. My heart began to thump rapidly.
“You consumed faerie food, Lady of the True Dreams. You are ours.”
My body locked up, and I took stock of myself: no new sensations, nothing out of the ordinary beyond a panicked emptiness growing in my stomach.
“No I didn’t! I had a grain bowl, for fuck’s sake,” I said. This was perhaps not my proudest moment. I looked at Jeff, my eyes watering. “Jeff, tell him—”
I couldn’t believe I’d eaten the food—I’d known better. There was a subway educational campaign.
“Look,” Jeff said, turning to the Princeling, “you can’t take her, she’s the only junior on our deal team.”
The Princeling raised an eyebrow. “You will fulfill the terms of our bargain, Jeff. You will complete our transaction.” He didn’t move otherwise. A small part of my brain felt immense envy at the menacing way he lounged.
Jeff held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Yes, but it would be easier with Miri.”
This was his argument?
“She is ours.”
Faeries couldn’t lie.
I stared around the table and saw a dozen strange faces grinning back at me. So this was the play, then. This was the power move, and I was the pawn.
“Jeff, please,” I said, and my voice cracked.
“Miri didn’t eat your food,” Jeff said, staring at the Princeling. “She had a, what was it, a grain bowl. You didn’t eat anything else, right, Miri?” He sounded bored and annoyed.
“What? No, of course not.”
Jeff shrugged. “I don’t know. You like snacks. You eat a lot of those—what are they called? The corn chips.”
I gaped at him.
“Tortillas?” one of the faeries at the table asked, a man with wings so white they glowed against the night sky.
Everyone turned to stare at him, and he shrank in on himself.
“They’re called tortilla chips,” he said, doubling down even as his chin dipped.
“Do you like go-hawk-a-molo?” he continued, directing this question at me.
The emotion I felt at this moment has no name.
“Do you mean guacamole?” the guy next to him asked. The guy next to him had a ridge of horns on the sides of his face, like a triceratops.
“I know not. It is made with avocado.” Perhaps feeling that his audience required more context, he added: “My uncle who works at the Bronx Zoo showed it to me. You mash it up with a lemon and some pepper flakes.”
Even the night had gone silent.
“Everyone likes guacamole,” the guy next to him said.
I had the strangest sensation, like my entire body was ossifying where I stood. I could do nothing but stare.
“She partook of our food,” the Princeling said, implacable as the tide. “My people sowed the seeds and harvested the grain.”
Jeff threw his hands up. “So what? You know she didn’t mean to!”
“I did not make this rule,” the Princeling replied. “It is an old magic. If she tries to leave, it will not end well for her.”
For the first time, Jeff looked around the table and saw the sharp faces of the inhuman strangers he’d eaten with. “Well, what do you want from her?”
The Princeling pointedly ignored this question. My heart beat wildly.
Through the roaring in my ears, I managed to form a coherent thought: What does he want from me?
“It is what the old magic requires. The lady stays,” the Princeling said, serene.
Jeff frowned at me, taking me in.
“You have Wi-Fi here, right?” he said to the Princeling.
My jaw snapped shut.
“Of course,” the Princeling said, in a tone that conveyed How did you think we had been communicating with you?
“Miri, I’ll see you on the call tomorrow,” Jeff said. He turned to the Princeling. “She needs to be on the call, okay?”
“She will continue to work on our deal, and I shall not harm her,” the Princeling said, which was:
A. horrifying,
B. more than Jeff had asked for, and
C. too specific for my liking.
The Princeling looked at Sahir. “There is a room for her in the Court, in the central corridor. You will find her name upon the door.”
“But I can’t stay! I don’t belong here! And… and I have a cat,” I said, crying in earnest now.
Everyone ignored me. The Gray Knight had approached Jeff and held a hand out to him. He took it without looking at me again, and she hoisted him onto his horse.
Sahir grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the table. I tried to fight free, but his hand was iron around my biceps.
“What did you do?” I sobbed. There was already snot running along my upper lip. I could feel it cooling in the night air.
“Don’t speak,” he said. “And stop crying, now.”
Whether it was magic, or just shock, I did.
“What did you do?” I repeated, stumbling over my feet as he dragged me away. His face was frozen in something between terror and determination.
“I have done many things, Miriam,” he said, walking faster. I twisted my shoulder but he didn’t loosen his hand. “Chin up, eyes forward,” he added.
“Where are you taking me?” I scrabbled against his fingers with my free hand. He grabbed it and held it in front of us. We probably looked like the worst dance partners in a tango competition.
“The Court. Stop talking.”
I tried to open my mouth, but this time he’d clearly bound me with a spell.
I jerked against his hand but couldn’t pull loose.
So I looked around as he half led, half carried me along a narrow stony path.
I didn’t recognize the topography of Central Park; we should have been heading directly into the reservoir, but instead we were walking toward a hill, probably no taller than one of the brownstones bordering the park, and dotted with gaping holes.
Sahir went straight toward the largest hole, a wide arch set into the middle of the hill.
The arch was made of unsupported dirt, and clumps of grass clung to the sides.
We passed through into a long brown tunnel, dotted with rough-hewn wooden doors. I tried to speak again and managed a low croak. I felt the words building between my lips, like a carbonated drink.
He glanced at me, an expression like surprise flitting across his face. He wrinkled his long hooked nose. “That is a powerful spell. You have some gift, at least,” he said, sounding irritated. Then he looked away, his gaze flicking from door to door.
Without warning, he flung open a door on his left and spun me into a large, low room. The room was lit by glowing orbs that seemed to dance along the ceiling. There was a wide bed against the left wall and a desk beneath the window.
Sahir shut the door while I looked around. Along the far wall stood a stone basin, a cascading waterfall, and what (thank god) looked like a fully functioning porcelain toilet.
“What is this?” I rasped, my voice suddenly mine again.
“This is your room.” Sahir leaned against the shut door and crossed his arms over his chest. I stared at his implacable face. He’d left his hair loose, and it tumbled around his ears and cheeks, dangling at shoulder height.
He stared back at me.
“Why do I have a room here, Sahir?” I tried to modulate my voice, but I could hear it rising. “How long have you planned this?”
“You have a room here because you are a guest. I had no hand in the planning.”
“Guest? Guest? I’m a prisoner!” I snapped, and put my face in my hands.
There were several moments of silence. I wondered if he’d left.
He sighed, like he’d been holding his breath for as long as he could. “You are not a prisoner, Miriam.” Which meant he didn’t think I was, at least. “And I am sure the Princeling has made you his guest for a reason.” Which meant he didn’t know anything.
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
When I looked up, he was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It is probably not the dumbest thing you have ever heard, and if you were unable to lie, as I am, perhaps you would speak less.”
Rude.
“Sahir, what is going on? I’m very tired and I need to feed my cat, and I don’t know what the Gray Knight did with my computer.”
As soon as I said that I patted my pocket, frantic, and found my phone still there. “Do you get cell service here?”
He growled. “Humans,” he said.
“Humans? You guys kidnapped me, Sahir! I would get off my high horse if I were you!” I shoved the panic down and yanked my phone out, staring at the screen. One text from my mom, two from Thea, and sixteen messages in Games Games Games, the group chat.
Would I never play a board game with my friends again? I dropped the phone to the bed and then sat down, heavily.
“I did not kidnap you.”
“Please take me home,” I said.
“You are home.”
At that, I screamed at him wordlessly and chucked the nearest object—a small throw pillow covered in a sandy knit pattern—at his head.
He ducked and groped for the doorknob. I hurled myself upright, off-balance and hurtling toward him with my hands outstretched in claws.
Sahir slipped out the door and slammed it shut behind him.
I didn’t stop and flung myself at it. The door didn’t open, but it did knock the wind out of me as I slammed into it.
“Sahir!” I screamed, banging my fists against the wood. Silence.
I slid to the floor and crawled back toward the bed, sobbing so hard that each ragged breath sent me lurching to the side.
When I got there, I pulled the blankets down onto the floor with me, and lay on my side, my face buried in the crook of my arm.
The waterfall shower—was it just always running?
—poured in a soothing cascade. I drowned it out with my heaving sobs.
I cried until I couldn’t breathe, until my throat and eyes and cheeks all hurt.
The tears wouldn’t stop. I reached for my phone, which had fallen to the floor beside me, but no one I called would be able to help me.
And beneath all of it the rage was building—I had trusted them and I shouldn’t have.
I had trusted Jeff, and Jeff hadn’t protected me.