23. Chapter 23
Chapter 23
I t’s on horseback that we make our way down the forest path, the snow crunching beneath the horseshoes and the weak sunlight barely reaching the ground through the stripped tree canopies high above our heads.
While Lorcan is looking smug, Orpheus keeps glancing at me with obvious disapproval on his face. “There’s still time to turn around,” he says just as I spot the thinning in the tree line.
“I know, but that’s not what we’re doing,” I reply simply.
“You do realize the chances of this having anything to do with the Order are astronomically low?”
I crane my neck to quirk an eyebrow at him. “You do realize you’re starting to repeat yourself, Orpheus?”
His eyes narrow. “Oh so I’m irritating you now?”
“You’re starting to, yes,” I say as I turn back ahead, “so I’d appreciate it if you kept your thoughts to yourself”
There’s a moment of silence. “Has anyone ever told you you can be quite despotic?”
A smile tugs at my lips. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t still be listening to you talking, now would I?”
He doesn’t say anything. Keeping my eyes fixed on the clearing that’s starting to show through the trees, I give some more thought to his incessant complaints.
But every time I do, I come to the same conclusion. Sending anyone outside our circle on this mission is not an option for me, simply because the people in our circle are the only ones I trust.
And out of all the people in our circle — the raven, the prince, the bear shifter who’s already been seen at the inn, and me … I honestly think I’m the best choice.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m psyched about it. If there really is something shady going on at the Seven Dwarves, it’s the owner who’s behind it.
Ruvyn himself, who I’m told has always been known as the grumpiest of the seven.
Even if it turns out he’s not a criminal posing as the owner of a roadside inn, I can’t exactly count on him not getting pissed at me for wasting his time.
And if he is dangerous… then he’s dangerous — one of the oldest and most powerful living faes in the area.
*
It could all be called charming — the snow-covered clearing, the winding royal road cutting through it and the inn perched on one side — if it weren’t for the desperation on the faces of the people trudging along the road, leading their horses to water and peering through the soot-stained paneled windows.
It’s in silence that I tie my horse and approach the door. With any luck, Lorcan has managed to enter through the back unseen. I push the door open, stepping into the warmth of the inn, which seems to be all wood with metal studs. It’s fairly crowded, but with the corner of my eye, I spot Orpheus sitting at one of the tables to the back.
I breathe a sigh of relief. The hood seems to have kept him from being recognized. Getting into character, I look around with a helpless expression on my face, my eyes landing on the bar to my right, where I spot the biggest fae I’ve ever seen, wearing a beard, an apron and a frown while wiping down the counter in silence.
I take a deep breath and head straight towards him. “What can I get you, lady?” he asks without looking up.
“Maybe you could help me find someone. Have you seen any humans passing through?”
Now this makes the hand with the rag freeze in place. “Someone in particular,” he asks, “or would anyone do?” And he keeps wiping.
The question makes me frown, but I choose not to acknowledge the weirdness. “Someone in particular,” I reply innocently. “A young girl, a servant, she spent the night here.”
Throwing the rag over his shoulder, he looks up and locks eyes with me for the first time. “There have been no humans staying at the inn. Now, if you don’t want a drink—”
“Please. The girl is gone and this is the last place she was seen.”
He gives me this funny little squint. “And now you’re worried sick about her?” he asks mockingly.
“I am. ”
He keeps looking at me, silent and motionless.
It all happens so quickly, I barely register it. He moves to grab me, Orpheus appears to block him, the chatter suddenly dies down, the air around us gets filled with hovering metal studs all pointed straight at us, and the next thing I know, there’s no one in the inn except for Ruvyn, Orpheus and myself, all frozen mid movement.
“Who do we have here?” Ruvyn drawls. “A liar I’m seeing for the first time, a prince I’ve only ever seen from afar…”
With the corner of my eye, I spot some hired hand drag Lorcan over to the counter with us. “And a busybody I’m seeing for the second time in two days. What’s a colorful group like that doing in my humble inn?”
“Please,” I say, “we don’t mean any harm.”
Ruvyn’s lips curl into a smirk. “Oh but I do.”
*
“Don’t,” I whisper to Orpheus when I spot his Runes start glowing. For some reason, I don’t believe this man when he says he’s going to hurt us.
“Take all their weapons,” he tells his hired hand.
The man does as he’s told, presenting Ruvyn with the knife Orpheus gave me. “You don’t mean any harm, you say?” he asks with a smirk.
I shrug. “A girl has to protect herself.”
He squints at me. “I’ll ask again. Why have you come here?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lorcan vigorously shaking his head, motioning in the direction of a door opening onto a hallway.
Ruvyn laughs. “The busybody is trying to tell you about the tunnel leading from the room he was caught snooping in. But you can speak freely, you’ll all soon be dead anyway.”
“We’re only here because we’re worried about the girl,” I protest.
He quirks an eyebrow at me. “About the only child with no family or friends to speak of other than the father?” He walks around the counter to get in my face. “How long do you think I’ve been walking this earth, woman? You don’t care about any random human girl, you’re here to try to run my entire operation into the ground.” He lifts a warning finger at me. “Now, tell me who you’re connected to, and if I hear one more lie cross those plump lips—”
The next thing I know, my ears are filling with the echoing clang of the metal studs falling to the floor, Ruvyn getting restrained with Orpheus’s sand ropes.
He grits his teeth. “Don’t get yourself in trouble, boy,” he tells the hired hand who was moving to help him. Then he turns his eyes onto Orpheus, rage twisting his face. “Go ahead, I’ll rather die than tell you where they are, you sadistic royal asses. And if there’s more of you, you can tell them my brothers will find a way to continue the work long after I’m gone.”
It all gives me pause. Frowning, I ask. “What kind of operation do you run exactly?”
Ruvyn lets out a scoff. Then the rage in his eyes turns into suspicion, which turns into curiosity. “A refuge,” he finally says, a touch of confusion in his voice.
I signal to Orpheus to let him go.
For a moment, he only keeps standing there, staring at me while rubbing his wrists. Then he starts walking, jerking his head to the right. “Come with me.”
The three of us exchange a look and do as he says. He leads us into the hallway, gets us inside one of the rooms and stops in front of the wall. He pounds his fist against it, an opening into a tunnel appearing before our eyes.
With his permission, we all approach to peer inside, finding a dozen pairs of frightened eyes staring back at us. Until they spot Ruvyn, and relax. They all seem to be human.
“They’re waiting for their turn to be transported somewhere safe,” the fae tells us.
“Safe from what?” I turn to ask.
There’s bitterness in his voice when he says, “You think the Treaty made it better for humans? It only made it worse. Now there are just as many Originals looking for food and slaves, and even more of them looking for punching bags.”
“If that servant girl was in danger,” Lorcan cuts in, “why would you not let her father help her?”
Ruvyn turns to glare at him. “She was trying to escape the father just as much as she was trying to escape the Originals. He was a piece of dirt who treated her like a prisoner all her life.”
“How would you know that?” Lorcan snaps at him.
Goddamn him. Gritting my teeth, I motion for him to start following me out, throwing an apologetic glance at Ruvyn.
It’s once we’re back in the inn that I say, “Please accept my apologies for all this, Master Ruvyn. Before we leave, I only have one more question for you.” I signal to Lorcan to show him his pendant. “Does this look familiar to you? It’s the symbol of the so-called Order of the Dawn.”
Ruvyn just squints at it for a second, then shakes his head. “Never seen or heard of it.”
My shoulders slump with disappointment. “Thank you,” I say, “and good luck.”
Just as we step outside, I spot this weird look on Orpheus’s face. I follow his gaze to see a snake disappear into the snow.
“Ruvyn may not have recognized the symbol,” he tells me in a near whisper, “but the little snake most certainly did.”
The hired hand. Damn it, I think as my eyes sweep over our surroundings. “It doesn’t seem that that will do us any good.”