Chapter 26 Step Three
Step Three
Cha did her best to catch Azul’s weight as he went down.
Fortunately fae weighed much less than a human man of similar size and heft.
Hollow bones and different flesh or some such.
Not a lot was known about fae anatomy and physiology, and what little was known—and the less taught at the academy—hadn’t been something Cha had paid much attention to.
Fortunately, Dy had. And her theory had worked. Time to put phase three of their plan into motion. “All clear,” she called out to Dy as she arranged Azul’s wings and limbs into a more comfortable position. Or, at least, a less uncomfortable position.
“Good goddess, what are you wearing?” Dy said from behind her.
“Lenorae’s idea. Dress me up as literal human pet and sex slave to put me in my place. Joke’s on her. The outfit worked great to distract Prince Charming long enough to deploy your spell, which worked like a, well, a charm, huh?”
“Sometimes I impress myself,” Dy agreed, crouching to check Azul’s pulse or whatever fae had for that. They had bloodlike fluid and hearts, so they must have something like a pulse, right? Katu slid along her thigh, offering comfort, and she stroked his head.
“Will he be all right?” Cha asked, trying to sound casual, but hearing the anxiety in her own voice.
She didn’t fool Dy either. Dy gave her a sympathetic smile.
“I was very careful, and you administered it perfectly. Let’s get going on moving him out of here.
Unfortunately, we don’t have time for you to change out of that rig you’re wearing, but that won’t matter with the glamour I’ll apply.
Maybe take the collar off, at least. It’s a little unsettling. ”
Cha tugged at the collar, finding and fingering the clasp, while Dy fetched and prepared the cart for moving the inert Azul. The clasp didn’t seem to want to release. In fact, she couldn’t feel the seam of the lock.
“I’m ready for you to help lift,” Dy said, then gave her a long look. “It won’t come off, right? Figures. I’ll take the feet.”
“I’m sure we’ll find a way,” Cha declared with a confidence she didn’t fully feel, going to Azul’s head and sliding her hands between his shoulders and wings. “Just a fae magic thing. Prince Charming will fix it.”
“Uh huh. Ready? One, two, three!” On three, they hefted, grunting at the dead weight.
Fortunately, they were both strong and the cart was low.
They settled him on his side, Cha carefully freeing his wings so they folded around him, then tucked his long legs into a fetal position.
As satisfied as she could be, she helped Dy put the sides of the box into place, building the crate around Azul’s sleeping form.
They tucked their extra gear and her new bad-ass outfit around him for padding.
With a bit of a wistful sigh, she helped to set the lid in place, then stood back, strapping on her sword and wand belt, which probably looked ridiculous with the sex slave outfit, while Dy to performed her sorcery.
“He’ll be all right,” Dy said as her sorcery bent the air like heat waves off a black ley line. “The crate won’t be air tight and, besides, fae are far more resilient than we are. No need to worry.”
You mortals are distressingly fragile. “I’m not worried. Not about that,” she amended when Dy raised a dubious brow.
“Yes, well—I’ll worry with you about getting him out of the palace and into Betty. The relationship fallout after that is all in your lap. I’ll have enough of my own,” she added wryly. “I really hate that we have no idea how much time has elapsed in the human world.”
“Yeah, we could get back and Baby Six is a teenager and Phinny shacking up with the cute brunette neighbor.”
Dy straightened and leveled a flesh-melting glare at her. “You did not just say that out loud.”
Her and her big mouth. She tugged at the collar. “I’m sorry. My brains are scrambled and not connected to my mouth which is clearly on overdrive.”
Dy pointed a finger at her and sent a tiny blue fireball whizzing at Cha’s bare belly. It burned like hellfire and she yelped, clapping a hand to the spot, but there wasn’t even a mark. “I said I was sorry!”
“Now you’re extra sorry,” Dy returned smugly. “And you better hope you didn’t just curse me with that dire prediction of my life ruined. Now stand still.”
“You’re not going to fireball me again, are you?”
“I should, but no. Glamour time.”
Oh, right. Cha tried not to flinch, even though she didn’t have enough magic to sense the sorcery settling over her. “Who do I look like?”
Dy’s answering twist of a smile held just enough malicious glee to make Cha nervous. Automatically, she glanced in the mirror. She was the Gnome-Clerk. “Not funny,” she growled.
“It just makes sense,” Dy replied, now appearing like one of the clerk’s many soft-butter assistants.
Katu looked like one, too, but with a decidedly feline cast. “They’re the ones who brought this the crate in while you were seducing Prince Charming.
The guards shouldn’t question us leaving with it again.
This is our standard approach for the Cargo Swap Heist.”
“I know, I know,” Cha grumbled. She nearly grouched about why she had to be the Gnome-Clerk. Katu was the right size for the cricketish fae. She quickly thought better of saying anything more, however. Dy was right that she deserved it. “Let’s get this over with already.”
“Showtime,” Dy agreed, maneuvering the cart across the thick carpet, Katu strolling beside. He’d played this role before and knew what to do.
Cha went ahead and opened the doors, doing her best to behave like the officious clerk.
Most fae—especially higher fae—could see through glamour, but it took effort.
The lower ranked the fae, the more work it took.
Guards tended to be low rank and rarely put in the effort, especially if they didn’t expect glamour to be employed.
So a huge part of escaping notice while glamoured was selling the performance.
“Move it here, move it there,” she bitched out loud, imitating the clerk’s cadence. She made a gesture at the near guard. “These royal fae think we got nothing better to do that shove stuff around.”
“Yeah,” the fae guard grunted. “His Highness ready for the wedding?”
Both guards snickered. Cha shrugged. She didn’t really want to know the source of their amusement and, besides, she didn’t think Cricket Clerk would spend much time speculating on royal romance or lack thereof. “I don’t know,” she answered sourly. “I’m in charge of inventory, not parties.”
“Well, he’d better be ready because Her Highness will drag him to the altar kicking and screaming if she has to,” the other guard said, eyeing the crate as Dy pushed it down the hall.
It took some effort to move it on the thick rugs scattered down the dandelion yellow polished floors.
As Cha watched, the cart snagged on a rug. Katu was very obviously not helping.
“You there,” the guard called to Katu. “Don’t just stand around. Put your back into moving that crate or I’ll have you sent for kitchen duty.”
“Good idea,” Cha said, hastening to catch up to the crate crew and pretending to be ready to berate Katu.
The jaguar was good at playing along to an extent, but he didn’t care for being yelled at, and they couldn’t afford an apparent fae assistant losing his shit and clawing people.
She caught up and helped Dy free the snagged cart, pretending to quietly chew on Katu while under her breath telling him what a good little katukame he was.
Another advantage of this particular subterfuge was they could quickly divert into the servants’ passages, giving them the additional cover of being out from scrutiny by higher and more powerful fae.
Besides which, servants fell beneath notice in general.
Also, bonus: no thick ornamental rugs scattered about to hinder the frantic scurrying of the immense staff.
They were rolling along at a good clip, when they rounded a corner and came face-to-face with Gnome-Clerk, himself. They screeched to a halt. He gaped at them in almost comic shock and horror.
It would’ve been funny if the stakes weren’t so high.
“Hello, twin,” Cha drawled, giving him a lazy wave and moving subtly to block him.
Dy kept going, head down, employing a sideways shuffling gait to seem innocuous.
Cricket Clerk kicked out a hairy hind leg to stick to the crate, bringing and her to an abrupt halt.
His bulging eyes arrowed in on Cha, then to Dy. Seeing through the glamour.
Well, shit.
“Humans,” Gnome-Clerk said in a tone so dripping with disgust that it might as well have been calling them stinking swamp slime. “Stinking swamp slime mortals befouling our beautiful realm.”
Wow, was she turning psychic?
“We’re just bringing the crate back down to your stores,” she explained, drawing the clerk’s attention back to her. “His Highness wasn’t interested right now. Something about a wedding to prepare for.”
“Then why are you glamoured to look like me and my staff?” he demanded cagily, clearly not believing a word of it.
Cha moved a little to the side away from Dy and the crate, and closer to him, forcing him to turn more toward her and away from them, his extended leg losing a bit of purchase.
Dy didn’t push yet, but she’d clocked Cha’s strategy and was ready to move.
Cha looked down at herself. To her eye, she still wore the sex-slave outfit.
“Would you walk around dressed like this?” she asked, very reasonably.
“Of course you wear your master’s collar, but—”