Chapter 2
Sky
The shop was charming, and for a moment, I was distracted from my mortal peril, skimming my hand over a display of pendants on silver chains.
One flushed me warm from scalp to toes, like sinking into a hot tub, and the next hit me with a wave of relaxation so mellow it would have outsold every dispensary in San Jose. Were the pendants magical?
I picked up a little shell pendant, the smooth disc of it cool against my palm, and the sounds I’d been hearing since I landed in this strange world suddenly resolved into words, like a radio finding its frequency.
“—twenty silver for the standard enchantment, the necklace he chose has the premium translation. It runs forty but includes written comprehension.” The shopkeeper beamed up at him. “And he needs clothes?”
“Yes, he was set upon by highwaymen, and they seem to have stolen his every possession, including his clothes. Can you imagine?” The big guy, who I was pretty sure was some manner of bridge troll, looked my way and his eyebrows shot up. “He seems to like that one.”
“I can understand you?” I asked.
He nodded. “Aetherweaving magic. This is Thessaly. She makes enchanted objects.”
I lifted the necklace, holding it by the chain, and whatever Thessaly had been saying went soft-focus again, until she reached out and put the shell into my hand.
“You must touch the enchanted shell. When it’s not against your skin, you will not be able to understand.
” She turned to my kidnapper. “Moerrven, I’m going to go to the back and see if I can find some clothing in his size. ”
“Your name is Moerrven?” I asked, looking up at him.
He nodded. “Moerrven Mossren, at your service.”
“You’re not going to eat me for lunch, are you?”
Moerrven looked horrified, but before he could respond, Thessaly came bustling back with an armload of fabric. “My son is twelve and he’s about your size. Hopefully, these will suit.” She set them down on the table as Moerrven went stiff, his gaze fixed somewhere over my head.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re not… also twelve, are you? I took you to be an adult. My, erm. Never mind.”
“Fuck, do I look twelve? I’m twenty-five,” I said, laughing. Then I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you prefer your meat older?”
Thessaly shook her head. “My dear, most trolls are vegetarian, so you probably shouldn’t make any more meat jokes or he might start to feel ill.”
“It’s an alarming stereotype, really,” Moerrven muttered. “What next? I live under a bridge? Why people think such terrible things of trolls I’ll never know. We are a peaceful people.”
It was a good thing he hadn’t been able to understand me back at the bridge when I'd been asking him to solve riddles if he wanted to pass.
“And you are the kindest of the bunch, Moerrven.” Thessaly patted him on the shoulder before turning to me. “What is your name?”
“Sky. Sky Liang.” I held out my hand, and she shook it.
“Lovely to meet you, Sky. I’m sorry you came to be in our town in such unfortunate circumstances.”
“Oh, um. Yes,” I said, not entirely sure how to explain the circumstances. As I began to sort through her pile of clothing, my stomach growled, loudly.
“Will you need shoes?” Thessaly asked, eyeing my feet.
“I’m good. Mine are comfier than anything, promise.” I stuck out a foot to show off my bright blue Vans. She studied them like they might be cursed.
Moerrven pulled out a pouch full of coins, and waved me toward the back of the shop. “Put on some clothing and we’ll find you some sustenance.”
“You can change in my office,” Thessaly said, opening the door, and I walked in, frowning at a workbench full of strange odds and ends. “Do not touch anything on the workbench. Half-cast spells are dangerous,” she said before she closed the door.
Half-cast spells. Sure. Back home the most magical thing in my life was the club’s fog machine, and now I was getting hot-stove warnings about sorcery. I clasped my hands behind my back and kept them there.
The clothing was the most finely crafted I’d ever touched, made of soft fabric that felt like natural fiber, not the polyester crap I was used to.
I slipped out of my costume shorts and top, leaving my jockstrap on, and tugged an old-fashioned pair of trousers in a pretty light blue brocade over my hips.
My stomach protested as I tried to figure out how the strange arrangement of buttons worked.
The shirt was more straightforward, with strings that lashed it together like a pirate’s shirt, and the jacket fit perfectly.
I straightened it and glanced in a mirror, realizing I looked a bit like I was in a period film, dressed as a Regency lord.
A Chinese-American Regency lord about to go have lunch with an insanely sexy troll.
What was my life right now? When I’d followed Pip through the mirror I had never expected this.
Pip. My heart sank, and I wondered if he had been lucky enough to find himself a vegetarian troll to buy him a translation necklace, or if he was alone and scared as I had been at the highwaymen’s camp. But I would find him. I would.
I could speak to people now, and perhaps I had an ally. So long as he didn’t find out I’d taken him for a bridge troll. I put the necklace on last, latching it securely around my throat and tucking the pendant beneath my shirt, against my skin, and pocketing my costume.
Then I stepped out of Thessaly’s office and greeted my new troll friend, who, if I wasn’t completely mistaken, was considering fucking me.
He walked me to a tavern that looked like a Swiss chalet had reproduced with a medieval blacksmith’s shop.
It was open on one side, with benches, single slabs of timber, set along long tables filled with trolls and other creatures.
Four wood-fired brick ovens, which reminded me a bit of the fancy pizza place in San Jose, with heavy iron doors and a lively fire burning beneath, were built into the back wall, breathing out heat and the smell of baking pastry.
A cheerful but gigantic troll bustled out with a tray, greeting Moerrven with a back-slapping hug and a massive plate of pastries.
“Your favorite hand pies, Mossren! Need anything else?” he asked, smiling.
“Just water, Glog, my companion has been through a trial.” Moerrven slid the plate of pies across to me, and I lunged for one.
“Thank you!” I said, beaming at Moerrven, who looked slightly more like he wanted to fuck me. Progress.
The veggie hand pie was, without exaggeration, the single greatest thing I had ever put in my mouth. And I had put some impressive things in my mouth.
It was flaky, golden, stuffed with something savory and herbed that I couldn’t identify but wanted to marry.
There were roasted root vegetables in there, some kind of soft cheese, and a seasoning that tasted like rosemary had a hotter, more interesting cousin.
I was eating it with both hands, hunched over the giant slab table like a gremlin, making sounds that were probably not appropriate for public.
Moerrven rubbed his ear.
“Sorry about that. I really did think you were going to eat me,” I said. “Biting was my only defense!”
“Why would a person eat another person?”
“I don’t know! You’re quite intimidating. And you were carrying me off, like you intended to eat me.”
“I rescued you! I cut you free of the ropes.”
“But then you hauled me up and sprinted off with me.”
His jaw ticked. “That was because—” Then he stopped himself short. “Never mind.”
“Anyway, I do appreciate all you’ve done. And now that I realize you were just trying to be nice, I feel a little guilty about kneeing you in the face. Sorry in advance if that turns into a black eye.”
He picked up a spoon and frowned at his reflection in it. His eye, which I was pretty sure had taken a knee, was a little puffy underneath.
“I mean, you’re kind of a nice gray color anyway, do bruises really show?”
“Maybe you should give people the benefit of the doubt instead of fighting them like a pesky mosquito.”
“Tried that with the highwaymen. None of them could understand me, and none of them wanted to fuck me. Also, though they looked hot from a distance, they had really gross teeth.”
He took another slow bite of his hand pie, one that was surely designed to highlight how big his mouth was, how firm his lips were. Now that I was sure he wasn’t going to eat me, my brain had turned to other uses for his mouth. Hornier uses.
I bet he could take all of me in his mouth without any kind of effort. And my cock wasn’t small.
His eyes flicked across the square, where two troll women were badly pretending to browse a flower vendor’s cart. It took me a minute to realize they were the same women from earlier, on the ox cart, the ones who’d been beaming at me like I was the cutest puppy they’d ever seen.
I had no idea who they were or why they kept staring at us, but they were watching us like we were a streaming show with an insane cliffhanger, and one of them kept clutching the other one’s arm and looking like she might cry from happiness.
Maybe trolls were just really emotional about flower arrangements.
“Who are they?” I asked, jerking my chin toward the cart.
Moerrven’s jaw tightened. He didn’t look. “No one.”
“They keep staring at us.”
“Many people stare. It’s a small town. You’re a newcomer.” He paused. “Also, in Thessaly’s son’s clothes, you look… noticeable.”
“I do feel elegant. They might be the nicest clothes I’ve ever worn.” I looked down at the blue trousers, examining the beautiful silk brocade fabric. “They are quite incredibly made.”
He looked down, too. The faintest blue flush crept up from under his collar, and I filed that away. Trolls blushed blue.