Chapter 47
The Bargainer has been laughing at me on and off for the last twenty minutes.
I have to assume it’s because of how ridiculous I look straddling a very pissed off panther, one whom I’ve spelled to fly like he’s a glorified broom. Poor thing.
I hear the soft trill of the fairy’s laughter again from where he glides in the air above me.
“Whatever,” I say grumpily. “It’s not like you look all that noble flying either,” I lie.
I mean there is technically a strangeness to the fairy’s movements, considering the glamour he wears hides his wings from sight.
But he still looks cool as shit flying with seemingly nothing but air propelling him forward.
Add to that, that the sunset is giving the optical illusion that he’s dragging the night along at his back, and yeah, only one of us looks ridiculous.
I return my attention to Nero, who, while he hasn’t tried to scratch me or throw me off, has a look in his eyes that’s…pure mutiny.
I pet him gently. “I’m sorry,” I say.
In response, my familiar growls at me.
“You actually look very regal,” I say. “The fairy is just a hater.”
Another growl.
“And I promise when this is all over, I will buy you the best steak I can find,” I say. “I’ll even take you back to the jungle where you can harass some snakes.”
Nero goes quiet, and either he likes the deal or he’s too mad at me to respond.
It’s probably the latter.
We round a large mountain, and on the other side of it, the world seems to spread out. The forest to my right eventually gives way to rolling hills dotted with oaks, and beyond that, the greenest fields I’ve ever seen.
But it’s what’s up ahead that snags my attention.
“There it is,” the Bargainer points. “Gaya’s Hill.”
I suck in a breath.
Indeed, straight ahead is a rounded mountain, and some distance away from it, I catch a glimpse of a glittering palace of gray stone largely hidden by massive cedar trees.
That must be the seat of the Flora Kingdom.
My gaze returns to the mountain, and my eyes scour the hillside.
Like the land around it, this one is covered in foliage.
There are no obvious signs that it’s being used to house likely thousands of documents.
No external buildings, no posted signs, no landscaped sections of the grounds.
The only possible giveaways are the twinkling lights that lay scattered about the mountainside and what may or may not be a narrow path winding between the trees.
“Ready, sugar?” the Bargainer says, drawing my attention away from our destination.
Ready? For what?
Landing? Reuniting with my husband after he stopped my heart? Ruining Eislyn’s day?
I guess it really doesn’t matter because the answer remains the same.
No, I am not in fact ready.
I nod anyway, my hold tightening on Nero.
For better or worse, it’s time to save my soul mate.
Memnon has already been here.
It’s clear as day once the Bargainer and I finally discover the carved stone entranceway to the House of Scrolls tucked into the side of the mountain.
For one thing, there are still a few tattered remains of a prior enchantment clinging to the edges of the door—an enchantment likely meant to hide this entrance from prying eyes.
But the bigger reason Memnon’s obviously been here are the bodies. Over a dozen of them lay sprawled at various points along the stone pathway that leads to the door, a pathway which also appears to have been previously enchanted.
I glance at the two fae guards on the ground in front of me. Under the soft glow of the floating fairy lights above us the guards’ limbs appear stiff, their glassy eyes open. I would assume they were dead, except Memnon’s magic still clings to their forms.
The hairs along the back of my neck rise as I crouch in front of one and place two fingers along their jugular.
Beneath my fingers, I feel a rhythmic flutter.
“He still has a pulse.” I move to the other guard and check his neck as well. “So does this one.”
My heart beats fast as I rise to my feet.
“I think Memnon might still be here.” I think that’s precisely why these fae are still alive when my husband has a penchant for killing off those in his way.
He’s going to revive them, then alter their minds.
I’m sure of it, though Memnon has kept his thoughts carefully barred from mine.
The Bargainer looks unsurprised at my announcement, and I get the prickling sense he already gleaned this knowledge the same way he’s gleaned all of my secrets.
My gaze returns to the fallen guards. “Memnon shouldn’t have been able to do this,” I say softly.
The fairy across from me levels me with a look. “Sugar, I think it’s time we had a talk.”
My stomach drops at his tone and the serious look in his eyes.
Behind him, the door to the mountain looms, beckoning us.
The Bargainer continues. “Since time is of the essence, let’s walk and chat.”
The mountain opens into an opulent columned chamber, one that is held up at its center by a massive, flowering fae tree.
From its canopy pink petals rain down on the floor.
Several of the blooms have landed on yet more fallen guards that lie scattered about the room.
Memnon’s tell-tale magic still clings to them.
“How has he done this?” I ask again as Nero and I skirt around a glassy-eyed female fae. “Mortal magic should not be able to affect fairies.”
My eyes meet the Bargainer’s.
He draws in a long breath, heading toward a marble staircase at the far end of the room that leads downward.
Judgment lies beneath the earth.
“How much do you know about lilac wine?” the fairy asks.
I glance sharply at him. I’ve never in my life heard of it, though the name immediately brings to mind the pale purple drink I had with Eislyn.
The drink that seemed to fizz and spark in my blood and dulled my connection to Memnon.
The same drink I then asked the Bargainer about—the one he never answered me on.
“What is it?” I ask softly as we skirt around yet another fallen fae, this one clearly going about his business when he ran into my husband.
“It’s an elixir, one that fae commonly use on humans they are…fond of,” the Bargainer explains.
I search his face as we get to the stairs. “And you think Eislyn gave it to Memnon?”
The fairy nods at the railing. “Safety first, sugar.”
I grab the stone banister while Nero pads on ahead of us down the curving stairs that seem to descend forever.
“I do,” the Bargainer says.
I glance sharply at him. “Why would Eislyn give it to my soul mate?” I ask. “What does it do?”
“If a supernatural drinks lilac wine,” the Bargainer says, “it will transform their mortal magic into fae magic.”
That’s why the fae guards had succumbed to Memnon’s power when they otherwise shouldn’t have.
Further realization slams into me. This is the missing piece of Eislyn’s scheme. Of course. She couldn’t use Memnon’s power for her own ends when he had mortal magic. But if it were to be transformed…
My breath catches when I think of the vast expanse of Memnon’s magic—from his ability to read and manipulate minds to the way he can kill entire armies in an instant. And now he’s bonded to Eislyn and fully under her control.
Fuck.
“That’s not all,” the Bargainer continues. “If a mortal is given lilac wine, it imbues them with the lifespan of a fae. It makes them, essentially, immortal.”
Maiden, Mother, Crone.
Now it makes sense why Memnon would rule by Eislyn’s side. It would be his power that would terrify and intimidate an entire kingdom, not hers.
It’s a brutal, awful plan. But if it worked, Eislyn’s hold on the Flora Kingdom would be absolute.
I’m still reeling from these revelations when the Bargainer says, “Ask me again what was in that purple drink Eislyn gave you.”
I pause on the stairs. I can feel myself paling as my eyes move to his.
“What do you mean?” I say.
“I think you know what I mean.” The look he’s giving me ratchets up my nerves.
“You think that Eislyn…?”
“Gave you lilac wine?” the Bargainer finishes for me. “Oh I do think that.”
“What?” I barely breathe the word.
“Sugar, when I first met you, you shouted Stop at me and put power behind the word. And it worked on me. Of course you drank lilac wine. How could you not know that?”
I balk at him. “I asked you about the drink,” I accuse. “You were the one who never told me about what it was.”
“Well I’m telling you now.”
I glare at him, even as my mind jogs over all the strange and recent idiosyncrasies of my magic.
Like the way the color of my power turned iridescent following the wine, and how mortal magic stopped working on me, and how my connection with Memnon became one-sided until…
until Eislyn captured him and made him drink lilac wine.
Fuck. Fuck.
“Why would Eislyn give it to me if she wanted to kill me?” I say. It makes no sense.
“Fae are immortal only in name. We can die by a blade just as easily as a human can,” the Bargainer says.
Still. “She wouldn’t knowingly give me any advantage over her,” I insist. “Eislyn hates me.”
“Maybe she wanted to be sure of what she was dealing with,” he argues.
Eislyn’s earlier words come back to me.
“I thought we might share a rare vintage together—one you might be familiar with.”
Could she have believed that I already drank the wine at some point in the past? It would explain why she thought I had been alive for all that time. Maybe she had simply been testing me to better understand who and what I was.
And under the logic, it wouldn’t have mattered that she fed me the wine, not when she intended to then have Memnon kill me.
Goddess, but this is a wretched situation.
From far below us comes a crash.
The fairy and I share a look, and in an instant, the conversation dies away.
Despite all of the Bargainer’s previous protests, he scoops me and Nero up and flies us straight down the middle of the curving staircase.
Well, flies is perhaps the wrong word. More like plunges us.
We’re essentially in free fall, floor after floor whizzing by.
I see more paralyzed fae and rooms that appear to house thousands of scrolls. All of it flashes by within seconds.
I can’t say how far we descend before I smell smoke.
Goblin’s tits.
The scrolls are burning.