Chapter Twenty-One
Robin
“There’s a lot of hills I’m not willing to die on,” Robin said, his voice swallowed by the crowded foyer, “But I will absolutely kill and bleed on the Fae Are Fucking Extra knoll.”
It was an amazingly stupid thing to say while stepping into an ancient unseelie’s home.
Nahem had brought it on herself, though.
A towering hallway stretched before them, two-thirds of the width taken up by dark, heavy shelves full of scrolls and books with spines as thick as his fist. On and on, seemingly with no end.
Beneath their feet, well-worn rugs with intricate patterns flickering in and out of the shadow cast by the massive chandeliers that swung overhead, with hundreds of tiny flames and no heat.
“I believe I live in too transparent a home to begin picking up stones myself,” Zyr replied, sotto voce, his tail brushing against Robin’s ankle.
“Second room to the right,” someone called out, their voice throaty. Hoarse.
Robin didn’t want to go to the second room on the right.
He would much rather loiter in the hallway, wandering up and down, staring at the various magical trinkets tucked away in the shelves.
In part, because he admired the organizational structure, but mostly from a severe lack of desire to talk about the end of the world.
He was pretty sure Zyr’s missing books were an attempt at the end of the world.
The second room on the right turned out to be an oversized study, walled with more shelves, leather spines and gilt everywhere Robin looked.
Every surface had some book or bit of paper on it.
Even the sectional in the center of the room had notebooks taking up more than they didn’t, one open with tidy, flowing handwriting half filling the page.
Nahem sat at the far corner of the couch, curled up with a pad and quill.
She looked Greek the same way Aultyr did South Asian or Zyr white; utterly fae but like her glamour wouldn’t need to change anything but the strictly paranormal attachments to fit in.
Warm olive skin and strong features, pitch black hair spread around her in a riot of curls.
There were fae features though. A snake tail, red as the cape draped over her shoulders, standing out in start contrast to her crisp white wrap, which showed off more cleavage than Robin usually saw outside of his local dungeon.
Her cleavage was still small potatoes in the skin department, given the blond, white guy shelving books behind her. Bare-ass naked, his back to them.
A bare-ass naked human guy.
Possible ick. Possibly a strong, gut-deep ick.
“You appear unscathed,” Nahem said, without looking up from the papers in her lap. “Fascinating.”
“Robin,” Zyr said, instead of answering her. “This is Nahem. The human and I haven’t been introduced.”
“Such mannered visitors I have.” Nahem sucked at hiding her smirk, there and gone before she added, over her shoulder, “Did you hear that, Kaddae? You would have been introduced to the visiting princeling, had the dragon known your name.”
Kaddae turned, still naked, and offered her a small smile. No words, just a smile, his eyes vacant, the distant dreaming stare of something untethered.
(Definite, 100%, horribly ick.)
“We drank your potion yesterday,” Robin said, stepping in closer to Zyr, hand at the man’s lower back. It was that, or spit tacks. “Saiath didn’t say you wanted a repeat with a third while we were here.”
“Such manners.” Nahem smiled at Kaddae as she spoke, flashing delicate, vampiric fangs. Her eyes were far from hazy, fire glinting in dark pupils. “If all you’re going to do is pout, leave. Temper tantrums bore me.”
Zyr’s tail lashed behind them. No tell-tale drag of barb on floor, thankfully, and the crack of electricity settled to a constant thrum under Robin’s hand.
“I fear I’m unversed in the correct Protocol for addressing a poisoner. Enlighten me.” Zyr offered his words through gritted teeth. “Though, while we’re on the subject of Protocol, the brother of a Summer King doesn’t take the title prince, as it isn’t a lineage. I’m surprised you’re unaware.”
Nahem didn’t seem to appreciate Zyr’s ability to be a little shit the way Robin did. Her eyes went flinty and her already unsmiling lips thinned.
“Go away, Kaddae.” Nahem’s flat order was met with another vacant smile and a trail of fingers over her shoulder before Kaddae ambled past Robin and Zyr and out of the room. Her gaze remained on Zyr all the while, silent while the soft sounds of bare feet on carpet died away.
“What you call poison, beithir, was a Winter Court party favor. Watered down for untried, delicate stomachs.”
“May I ask why?” Robin asked. That got her attention. Robin found himself caught in her steely stare, flames licking at the red of her scaled tail and feathered robe, lips peeled back to reveal those canines. “Why the consideration? You’re obviously not a fan of ours.”
“Curiosity.” A hiss there in the center, the it bitten off, swallowed by the y. She smiled, without teeth and full of threat, her attention trailing back to Zyr. “Easier to satisfy now, before only the sluagh can speak with you.”
“I suspect they’ll know better than attempt it,” Zyr replied. “If I’d wished to play Winter Court games, I would have asked directly. My interest is in the history, not the lived experience.”
Nahem laughed, the sound as unkind as it was coarsely pretty. And scornful. Like an asshole.
“I paid you the courtesy of not subjecting you and your companion to the full weight of those ‘games,’ child. The least you can do is to not treat me as a fool.”
“He isn’t,” Robin said, then kept talking before she could. “We aren’t. What about Zyr strikes you as a fuck-or-burn potion fiend?”
Nahem stood. Her robe didn’t so much fall away as it unfolded, draped loose around her shoulders in the form of heavy, mottled wings.
She stood no taller than his shoulder, hair and tail and wings all longer than her from top to toe.
Flames licked her scales, the twisted necklace of scarring around her throat, and the depths of her eyes.
“Very well, then. Niceties it is.” Nahem sounded the way one of Declan’s slow, pointed smiles looked, rich with threat. “Which of my once-collection has so piqued your interest in the Winter Court that you, of all unseelie, wish a face-to-face meeting for ‘further insight’?”
Zyr’s tail curled around Robin’s ankle, secure and familiar in a place that was neither.
It gave him enough comfort that he could watch, instead of freezing up the way he had with Kesk and Veroni talking about training him.
You had to watch closely, with fae. They were better than humans at keeping their thoughts and expressions under lock.
“The court records,” Zyr answered, squeezing Robin’s ankle.
“I admit, I considered them a lesser part of my acquisition. Old notes. But they’ve attracted interest of late that seems disproportionate to their value.
So much so that it concerns me. I wouldn’t wish to share them if they’re somehow dangerous. ”
Nahem’s expression shuttered as Zyr spoke. Old notes earned a twitch of her cheek. Her chin tipped up with disproportionate to their value. And she smiled. It was what Jan would call a debutante smile, just there, cheek twitch and chin up and all.
She had longer canines than Aultyr. Proportionately, anyway. They poked out from under her lips.
“Old notes,” Nahem repeated, slow, on a hissing sigh. “A century worth of court proceedings, dismissed as lesser scribblings, rather than the reason I set the cost so high.”
“I’ve discovered fae aren’t exactly interested in meeting minutes.” Robin didn’t bother hiding his irritation, fingers tapping at the base of Zyr’s tail. “Because god forbid someone wants a play-by-play written in the moment for maximum accuracy.”
Nahem eyed him, her sneer fading slightly. “What would you know of it, human?”
“Robin,” he said. “My name is Robin. And I know I don’t trust historians with neutrality, or people not to misremember something in their favor, and that sometimes you need to cover your ass with dated proof. Did it go out of style with the convergence?”
“Yes,” Nahem said after a beat, “It did, Robin. And it was quite disappointing.” She nodded to him once, then dismissed him in favor for turning that black hole stare on Zyr.
“Did you even bother to read far enough to know what those “old notes” described? Or were there too few pictures to hold your attention? Too many multi-syllabic words, perhaps.”
Zyr met her insult with a look of bored superiority. (Hot.)
“The curse of being born post-convergence. Reading wasn’t high on the Monarchs’ beithir education plan.
” Beneath the dry words was an electric spark of resentment.
“I recall the Monarchs at the time were gifted a truly substantial number of human musicians. A shortage of kinnara in the court, perhaps? Also various magical trivialities and a very meticulously detailed spoon.”
“A spoon?” Robin asked, amused.
Nahem scoffed, lips curled again in that mask of disgust. Robin took that as yes, there was a meticulously detailed spoon described in her flowing, precise script, and he was suddenly painfully curious as to why.
He might’ve asked, if the world hadn’t disappeared, dropping them into the pitch of Zyr’s darkness.
Nothingness.
Then a sprawling, glittering room of marble and jewels and glass.
Sparkling, beautiful fae in flowing clothes, unlike anything Robin has seen in his own world.
Twinkling laughter and, down the expanse of thick rugs and polished stone, a toddler with butterfly wings, hooves, and scales offered a crudely made clay spoon to a fae with matching features, who sat on the throne.
Robin felt Zyr under his hand, but his head wouldn’t turn. He could only move his eyes, enough to take in the wealth of fae, all sizes and ages, all excruciatingly seelie save for a handful off in the wings … and Nahem.