Chapter Ten Trouble Beyond Trouble #4
He’d meant to whisper it. But Jubilee made a noise rich with sympathy, and Saeldian’s teeth clicked together to keep from saying anything. You haven’t even tried, they had said before they had fled to Osalor’s domain, and they were right. He hadn’t.
Because then he would know.
Lorzok spoke again. “If you fear that too much, take us to Eightbridge, who welcomed those needing refuge from the Hungry War.”
Kell fought to stop trembling. “I never should have stopped walking. I was on the way, and I stopped—”
“Eightbridge,” Lorzok said. “Think of Eightbridge. You know what the spire looks like. Think of it, and step.”
Kell shut his eyes and stepped.
He could feel it. Something changed, but what?
Saeldian let out a gusty sigh.
“The audience’s input was not requested.”
“I’m going to applaud you anyway,” Saeldian said. “Open your eyes. You already did it. Can’t you hear it?”
Hear what?
Water. Watersong, slow and lazy, and the smell of water and lilies on stones rising from under their feet—
Kell opened his eyes.
The bridge was the same stone arch, but now it crossed a ditch where cattails nodded as flying sprites landed and took off, chasing one another.
“How—”
The wood remained behind them. Ahead of them, a slate-slab road wide enough that two wagons could pass freely divided the wild wood on one side and the deliberately tended forest on the other.
And in the distance, a call of horns sang the hour, joined by bells and drums. They were close. A quarter hour at most. Kell held out the bag of yolk mushrooms, and it shifted ever so slightly in the direction of the horns.
He nearly dropped them. They were pulling toward the person he’d picked them for. Verandil was alive.
Kell whooped and dashed off the bridge and onto the road, but when he did, everything changed again. The road was shell and stone, crunching a little under his boots. The forest became an orchard, green boughs heavy with green fruit, and the hoursong finally ended with three held notes.
Behind him, Saeldian huffed out a relieved sigh.
Kell turned around in time to see the wood they emerged from melt away to reveal more orchard. The stone bridge vanished, leaving a split log bridge in its place. Wild rose blossoms and sun-warmed grasses scented the air, nearly covering the smell of a cart horse that had recently passed by.
Nothing looked like it had a moment before. This wasn’t what it looked like at all! How was it all so different—
“Oh, good show, Sheld,” Jubilee said.
“I’m happy with the results myself.”
He spun to glare at Saeldian’s pleased, infuriating smile. A tuft of clean, unspun wool peeked out of one of their clever leaf pockets.
It hadn’t been real.
Saeldian had woven one of their illusions. The water under the bridge, the finely paved road, and the forest to limit the range he could see—it felt so real. It even smelled right, and it had been a trick.
Saeldian made a face. “Don’t look at me like that.”
He knew better than to trust Saeldian about anything.
Anything, even the color of the sky. And he fell for it again.
Nothing was real around Saeldian. Nothing was certain, and they would drop the perfect dream world and walk away like it never happened at all. “Do you tell the truth about anything?”
“Fuck you, Kell Redsong. It worked.”
“I didn’t sign up for having hallucinations forced on me unknowingly.”
They blinked, disbelieving. “How was it supposed to work if you knew it was fake?”
Saeldian had a point, and he hated it. “Well, pardon me for feeling manipulated.”
“That was the point, you absolute mudboot. You needed manipulating. We made it, and the only person who cares how it got done is you.”
“I didn’t ask for your help!”
“Because you’d never ask for my help. I know. Believe me, I know.” They turned their back. Kell opened his mouth to complain, but they tilted their head to regard the sky and shouted, “Hi!”
Saeldian waved at the sky, where a troop of brightly winged pixies played in the air. They dove straight for them, halting just before they would have collided.
Saeldian held out their hand. Five tiny strawberries rested on it. “Is this the road to Eightbridge?”
“You were lost in the wildlands, elf,” one of the pixies said.
“Indeed, I was.” Saeldian remained genial. “It’s where I found these berries. Which will be your berries. If you trade. Is this the road to Eightbridge?”
Another pixie laughed. “If you’d walked twenty more steps you’d have seen it yourself.”
Five tiny hands shot out. The strawberries disappeared. Saeldian did not thank them. They turned toward where the horns and bells sounded and started marching, like Kell didn’t exist. Jubilee dashed to catch up.
Beside him, Lorzok shrugged. “They did help you, Kell.”
“I don’t nee—”
He slammed his mouth shut before he could speak a lie where the pixies could hear him. They all turned toward him, suddenly very interested.
“I don’t like their help,” he said.
“You may be sour about it, but they did what I couldn’t.”
Saeldian and Jubilee ambled along, in no hurry to outpace them. Only Jubilee looked back.
“No, you couldn’t have done it. Saeldian does one thing better than anyone else I ever met,” Kell said, as Jubilee and his former partner hooked arms and pranced, giggling.
“Illusions?”
“Lies.”