Chapter Twenty-Nine
They gathered outside the burrow court only a few hours later.
It might have passed for a frivolous assembly at first glance.
Too many fairies. Too many packages. Too much purpose in the air.
Cooks in aprons and practical sleeves stood beside pages solemn with the importance of being allowed to carry things that mattered.
Servants from both the burrow and sky courts moved in brisk lines, checking straps, lids, folded cloths, and lists no one would ever see again once the carrying began.
The princes were there.
The queen was there.
Velor was there too.
Ina noticed him first. He looked recovered, or near enough for service, though a little thinner through the middle and somewhat paler than usual.
His posture had not altered. If anything, it had grown more exact, as if nearly being killed by a mirage fairy had only convinced him to stand straighter.
There was something harder in his face now, too. Not bitterness. Clarity.
Derran arrived with his own small procession from the sky court, all of them carrying enormous platters piled high with pastries.
Honey crisps. Cloudberry twists. Almond cakes dusted with sugar.
Little spiral rolls lacquered with fruit glaze.
Enough sweetness, Ina thought, to tame half the kingdom or ruin its teeth forever.
Karai had outdone himself in another direction.
What he had made looked at first like an overgrown serving frame, all long beams and fitted slats, but in looking closer it revealed itself as something much cleverer.
It was wooden, yes, but worked with hidden joinery and lined with thin threads of held heat that kept the food warm without scorching it.
It had handles along every side, enough for a hundred fairies at once, and when the servants began loading it with platters and covered dishes and baskets of bread and roasted roots and glazed vegetables and sugared nuts and pressed fruit cakes, it held the weight without so much as a creak.
Then, when everyone took a handle and lifted, it rose as lightly as foam, as weightless as the armor once it had molded itself to her body.
Ina looked at Karai in amazement. “You did that.”
He gave her the mildest of looks. “I was asked for transport.”
“You made a cloud out of lumber.”
“That’s an overstatement.”
Derran, hearing this, leaned around the edge of a pastry tray and of course had to argue, “No, I think that’s accurate.”
Then, with everything they needed between burrow and sky, they set off.
The journey was long, but the contraption behaved exactly as Karai had intended.
It floated with them rather than dragging behind, so that even burdened with a feast it seemed hardly heavier than air.
The fairy servants and pages held their handles and flew in order, shifting places when needed, while cooks fussed uselessly over covered platters mid-flight and then remembered there was nothing to be done.
By the time they reached the mountains, even the most practical among them had begun to look impressed by the thing, which had not bothered them at all during their long journey. Only as they climbed into thinner air did the work grow harder, and even then not by much.
At last they reached the ledge.
Ina went first to the sealed doorway in the mountain and laid her hand to the carved symbols. They lit quickly now, as if the cavern had learned her. Gold ran around the circle. Stone vanished. Darkness opened.
She stood in the threshold without entering, just as before, and reached down with her mind.
“I’m back,” she said softly aloud. “As I promised.”
The answer came at once.
Hissing. Layers and layers of it, all through the dark below the broken bridge. This time it held a clear note of pleasure. Not affection. Something older and more reptilian than that. Satisfaction that their prey had not lied.
Ina went on, “I’ve brought food. Lots of it. But you must promise to eat only the food we’ve brought, and not any of the fairy folk who have come to help me.”
The hissing changed, disappointment rippling through it like wind over grass. Then the single larger voice slid into her thoughts.
Yessssss. We promisssssse.
Ina sent them back the feeling of her own satisfaction at that. Mixed into it, deliberately, she put a warning. Not words exactly. A clear enough impression – betray me and I will destroy you all entirely.
The hissing answered in understanding.
At her direction the fairies began carrying the great wooden frame into the cavern.
It was only then that Ina realized how much forethought Karai had put into every measurement.
The thing fit through the doorway exactly.
Not with room to spare, but enough space to let it and the fairies through in a tight line.
And once inside, with a little coaxing and a great many careful hands, it stretched perfectly from one ledge to the other, taking the place of the old stone bridge that had broken under battle.
Karai anchored it with metal magic on either side so it could not slide as the snakes fed.
Ina could already feel them stirring below. Heads lifting. Hunger waking.
Better safe than sorry, she thought, and turned swiftly to the others.
“Out,” she ordered. “All of you but us.”
No one argued. The servants, pages, and cooks withdrew quickly, leaving only Ina, Derran, and Karai inside the cavern.
Then Karai raised one hand.
The top of the long wooden frame unfolded under his magic like a box opening itself, its slats shifting back and down until the feast within lay revealed.
The snakes rose.
Many, many snakes. Far more than Ina had thought could possibly fit at the bottom of the pit.
At least fifty heads pushed up through the darkness, thick and shining and terrible.
Their tongues flickered through the air.
Their eyes fixed on the food. For one uneasy instant Ina wondered whether even this much would be enough.
Then they began to eat.
Ravenously.
Heads plunged and lifted and returned again, great jaws closing over pastries and breads and roasted dishes with hideous enthusiasm. The sound was grotesque and oddly domestic at once. Crunching. Wet swallowing. Satisfied hissing between bites.
And still the food did not seem to diminish as quickly as it ought.
Ina turned her head toward Karai, who was standing very still indeed.
He did not look back at her. He only murmured, “I may have been studying some mirage magic.”
Ina stared.
“If it works,” he added, “they’ll feel full sooner. And think there is more left than there is.”
A smile broke across her face.
Even Derran raised his brows, which for him was nearly an open admission of admiration. “You’ve been busy.”
Karai looked faintly embarrassed and a little pleased by being caught at it. “I dislike being unprepared.”
As if on cue, the snake heads began to slow.
One by one they pulled back from the container, their movements growing lazier.
There was still more than enough food left within for another round and perhaps two after that, though Ina suspected Karai’s magic had done as much work there as the kitchens had.
The cavern filled with softer hisses now, lower and pleased.
Then came a sound so ridiculous Ina could not help a soft giggle. One of the snakes let out what was, unmistakably, a burp.
The hissing quieted further. The great heads sank lower. Not asleep exactly, but near enough that the whole pit had taken on the drowsy contentment of creatures with full bellies and warm stones.
The main voice came to her again. You kept your promisssssse well. We give you our thankssssss.
Ina inclined her head toward the darkness below.
“I’ll send more,” she said. “But you must promise not to eat the fairies who come here. It may not always be me, but it will always be my people, and I will be very upset if they do not return.”
That earned a murmur of quiet hissing agreement.
She smiled. “Good.”
They left then. There was no point in pushing their welcome with well-fed monsters.
Outside, the other fairies had already begun the return journey with the empty trays and lighter burdens, and were far ahead. Soon it was only the three of them flying back together toward the burrow court, the mountain evening cool around them and a strange satisfaction settling in their bones.
Whether it was relief or triumph or some faint residue of Karai’s mirage fullness, Ina could not have said. Whatever it was, it left them lighter than when they had come.
They flew more slowly now, with less urgency and more room for foolishness.
Derran reached for Ina’s arm mid-flight and spun her once in a little turn so sudden she laughed aloud.
Karai, perhaps wanting not to be outdone in levity and being wholly unsuited to casual showmanship, performed a backflip in the air.
His crown flew off.
It dropped away below them in a flash of silver and twilight stones.
For one suspended beat Karai looked after it in offended astonishment, then dove after it with such speed that Ina laughed soundlessly, shoulders shaking in the air.
Even Karai was laughing by the time he returned, not the quiet dry laugh he usually gave, but a proper loud one that surprised her almost as much as the backflip had.
Derran, delighted by this new weakness, sidled in close and knocked the crown off his head again.
Karai swore at him, then laughed harder.
That led to a stretch of entirely undignified chasing, a little tussling in the air, and more laughter still. It was the first time in days, perhaps longer, that all three of them had been simply happy with no knife hidden under it.
By the time the burrow court came into view, dusk was settling low and blue over the hills.
Neither prince seemed to notice at first where Ina was leading them as they went in through one of the side tunnels and crossed into the palace grounds. Or perhaps they noticed and willingly said nothing.
In either case, they followed her down the familiar corridor toward her room.