Chapter 18 #2
Well, that was the opposite of comforting.
The dragon patted her shoulder. “The surly human would make a fine protector and provider, and he has strong financial resources. You could have made a far stupider choice to be the father of your offspring.”
“It is so obvious that dragons have arranged marriages,” she muttered. “Please stop.”
“Matings is more accurate.” Cadell looked back at Duncan. “He is physically fit as well. And you are in your prime reproductive years. The more I think about this, the more I think it was a good decision.”
“Nothing was decided!” Carys hissed. “Please be quiet.”
“I see the van!” Duncan shouted from behind them on the path. “Good job, Jack—it’s still there.”
Jack laughed. “I told you it would be.”
Duncan trotted ahead, clearly delighted to be back to his vehicle and back in the driver’s seat where he could control the world at least a little bit until they ran into the next random god or goddess.
Carys stared at her boyfriend as he leaped over the stile and opened the van, walking around the vehicle, patting the hood, checking the tires.
It was exactly the way her father always checked his truck before she and her mother got inside.
“Yes.” Cadell nodded. “The more I consider this, the more I am pleased with the idea.”
Carys spun toward Cadell and grabbed his arm. “I’m going to need you to shut up so much, especially when we are in that van that’s going to be very crowded now with my very new boyfriend and yet another magical creature with supernatural hearing.”
“Very well,” Cadell said. “But understand that my protective instincts will likely become even more pronounced if you are with child.”
She was dying. Cadell was going to kill her, and then he’d have to find another nêrys.
The dragon was beaming. “It will be delightful to be in the presence of small children again. Babies love me.”
Maybe Cadell’s next nêrys would be more immune to death-by-embarrassment.
Their drive to the next druid would take them past Birmingham and toward a place called Wyre Forest. It was only four hours, but it felt longer with rowdy Jack poking fun at everyone in the van and shouting random recommendations for pubs and restaurants in every town they passed.
“That one!” he’d shout as they passed an exit. “Crown and Barrel Pub. Excellent fish pie.”
“The most beautiful girls I’ve seen in a hundred years in that town. There’s something in the water.”
“You like beer?” He elbowed Angus. “You want the Three Friars Restaurant. I’m telling you, you can’t go wrong.”
It was like road-tripping with a slightly inebriated college kid with the voice of a radio DJ.
Duncan was whistling as they drove, clearly happy to be back on the road and headed toward something more familiar than a tiny alternate universe popped in the middle of an old forest.
“We should take a weekend in Birmingham sometime,” he told Carys. “I had a restoration job down there a few years ago. Excellent town. Great music scene.”
She smiled. “You’re sounding like Jack a little.”
“I mean…” He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “He’s better than a brooding prince and a stoic dragon glaring at cars and sunshine, isn’t he?”
“I cannot disagree.” Carys glanced at Lachlan again, wondering if his victory over Jack—though symbolic—had put him in a better mood.
He was staring out the window with his arms crossed over his chest.
Carys wanted to have a conversation with the man, maybe tell him about her dream with Seren, but she didn’t know if that would help him or hurt him. Duncan had told her not to say anything but…
Maybe she should ask Cadell.
“Turn off in forty miles,” Jack said. “You’re an excellent driver, Laird Duncan!”
“Thank you.”
“With the most beautiful copilot, eh?”
Carys saw his reflection in the window and caught Jack winking at her.
“I’m the luckiest of men.” Duncan grabbed her hand. “Now if I can just keep her from starting another magical war, life will be easy sailing.”
That led Jack to let out another raucous laugh, and Carys decided it was time to take a nap or at least close her eyes.
What seemed like moments later, she felt the van exit the highway, but she kept her eyes closed as they twisted and turned on city streets.
They’d reached Birmingham in the middle of the day, and Carys wouldn’t have expected much traffic, but the roads were clogged and she saw two vehicles pulled over to the side of the road. The drivers were out of their cars and shouting at each other, fingers in each other’s chests.
“Whoa.” Laura followed the fighting men with her eyes. “I guess I assumed the States had more road rage than England.”
Cadell frowned. “These days, it does not.”
“That’s intense for a fender bender.”
Another few miles and they passed another accident and a man and a woman yelling from across the hood of a small sedan.
After the third accident in a few miles, Carys sat up straight and opened her eyes. “What the heck is going on in this town?”
Jack’s smile had fallen. “She loves a good fight, that Macha.”
“Why provoke humans to violence?” Naida asked in a small voice. “What purpose does it serve?”
“She feeds on it,” Jack said. “You’d never understand, dear one. Your people fled from the Brightlands epochs ago to avoid this.”
“Fae can be violent too,” Lachlan said.
“Yes, but it’s a different, quiet sort of war they have perfected,” Jack murmured, watching another two cars collide and pull to the side of the motorway. “They sneak, they don’t shout their intentions for anyone to hear them.” Jack sat back in his seat. “Jibril will know what’s going on.”
“Jibril is the druid we’re going to visit?” Carys asked.
“Jibril is many things, but you can call him a druid,” Jack said. “His bees will have told him everything that’s happening in this part of Briton.”
“Bees are the worst gossips,” Angus concurred. “If you need to know the news, always ask the bees.”
Eventually the city turned to country again, the roads grew narrower, and buildings gave way to trees, orchards, and a distant dark forest that appeared as old and venerable as Sherwood.
“The Wyre is an old wood,” Jack said. “But we’re going to the village on the edge of it where Jibril lives. He doesn’t like to live alone.”
The sun was slanting, casting afternoon light from behind the trees as they turned onto a narrow lane where neat cottages lined a small road and a few grey-haired neighbors chatted in front gardens.
“That house.” Jack pointed ahead. “That’s his place.” The old god looked around, shaking his head. “Never understood why he wants to live in such a busy place, but there you go.”
“Busy place?” Laura shook her head. “You remind me of my grandmother. If there’s not at least five acres around her, she feels like she’s living in someone’s backyard.”
“She’s exactly right,” Jack said. “Wise woman.”
Duncan pulled the van in front of a beautiful little thatch-roofed cottage with a bright blue door. The door had a moon-shaped window cut into it, and there was an abundant vegetable garden in front of the house within a border of apple trees.
The moment they parked, the door opened and a slim man with long dark hair walked out. His hair and beard were longer than Jack’s, his clothing was immaculate white—a beekeeper’s jumpsuit—and his face gleamed in the sunlight.
His entire bearing was radiant and warm. Carys wondered what kind of god he was if he worked with bees.
Almost all folk traditions had unique mythology about bees, dating back to the ancient Egyptians, who were the first to build hives to collect honey. The San people of the Kalahari had creation myths about bees, and the Greeks believed they could move between worlds.
“Jack Green.” Jibril walked over and shook Jack’s hand. “My bees told me you were coming today.”
Jack glanced at Carys. “Did they tell you I was bringing a hero in need of help?”
The slim man frowned. “They told me you were bringing a hero, but I assumed that she was here about my bees.”
Carys looked at Cadell, who looked as confused as she was. “Your bees?”
“Yes,” Jibril said. “Something in the forest is bothering my hives.”