Chapter 3 #2
The harder the boy pulled me, the more I blinked, and the more I focused on the people around me.
There was a fae man wearing a bright red apron while he leaned against the corner of a one-story building and wrote something on a small pad, humming a beautiful melody that the fruit in the carts to his side followed.
Several different kinds that had been put together were moving up and arranging themselves into separate carts on wheels, put on display in the front of the shop.
The apples went to one cart, the oranges to the other, and something that looked like orange bananas arranged themselves neatly to their side, too.
The fae boy pulled harder, and suddenly we were walking right through a game that seven fae children were playing—where they literally disappeared and appeared again as they jumped into the air to touch this glowing orb that hovered over their heads.
It was giggling. The fucking orb no bigger than a basketball was giggling as the kids tried to reach for it, and nobody even looked at it twice .
A little farther away, a woman was sitting near a building reading a book with a blindfold on, and a man was hanging these clothes on a piece of rope—except all he did was pick them up from his basket, shake them once, then throw them at the rope, and they filled in and became stiff, like a ghost had suddenly put them on.
So many things were going on around me, and the fae were just going about their lives, and this was all normal to them. They saw this every day, they lived like this their whole lives.
Most importantly, nobody even glanced my way.
Not a single fae, man or woman or child even looked my way as the boy led me between buildings, far away from where the carriage I’d been in had stopped—in front of a two-story building with dresses displayed in the front, dresses on dummies that moved, and posed and spun all around for people to see them at every angle.
Yes, they were made out of wood, and yes, they did not have faces.
And also, yes, they were most probably going to be starring in all my nightmares from now on.
But nobody cared. Not about the dummies or about a giggling orb of light or about me.
The boy pulled me to a halt, and the view in front of me tilted.
He’d stopped us at the edge of a building that could have been someone’s house judging by the big yard and the table for two set in the middle of the perfectly trimmed grass.
There, sitting across from one another were a man and a woman playing what looked like chess—except the pieces were alive, and they were moving on their own while the fae looked at them.
They were hissing at the air, even cheering.
Thank God I was far enough away that I didn’t see what they were exactly, if they had faces—but I heard them, and those sounds became part of my nightmare repertoire, too.
“This is Malina’s carriage, right over there,” the boy said, forcing me to focus on him for a change, and I did.
He looked even younger from closer up, possibly Fiona’s age, which made my heart squeeze into a fist. His skin was flawless, his ears so sharp they looked like they could cut my finger if I reached out to touch them.
I shook my head to clear it, blinked fast to focus on where he was pointing—a carriage half in size as the one I had been in, and the back of it was completely open, too.
“Who’s Malina?” I whispered, pulling the silk over my mouth, hiding my face as much as I could. Nobody was looking my way, true, but how long until guards showed up searching for me?
“She trades with the merfolk. She takes merchandise to the Mercove every Sunday, and she’ll let you ride in her carriage. I’ll talk to her,” the boy said.
There were a lot of things that made me uncomfortable about this situation, not just the fact that I was lying through my teeth.
So many questions and so many things that could go wrong—but it all went down the drain with a single thought: what other choice do I have ?
I either went with it, did whatever I needed to do to get out of this court and hide until Rune found me, or I could try to make a run for it now and ruin this little chance I had.
I swallowed hard. “What if she refuses?” I dared to ask, just so I could try to make another plan and move quickly if that was the case.
The boy looked confused of a moment. “Did the seer say that she will?”
Oh, hell … “No.”
“Then she won’t.” He nodded, like he knew it for a fact now. Because he thought the fucking seer had said so. “You will tell her about me, right?”
I cleared my throat. “Of course. As soon as I deliver this and come back.” I touched the silk around my shoulders for extra effect.
The boy smiled. “I’m Rikkin, by the way—of the Ores. In case she asks.”
I forced my lips to stretch, too, and felt like the biggest villain in the world. Never mind that I was running for my life here—I felt filthy for lying to this boy because he believed me.
“I’ll make sure to tell her that,” I said—and that was the last time I had to lie to him.