21. If Looks Could Bitch-Slap a Grumpy Goblina Bossy Royal Advisor
21. IF LOOKS COULD BITCH-SLAP A GRUMPY GOBLIN OR A BOSSY ROYAL ADVISOR
ELOWYN
With a blur of translucent wings and a buzz like that of a bee, the little fairy zoomed out of range of Edsel’s meaty hand. When he didn’t lunge for her again, she hovered on the opposite side of my bed, where I might reach her but he wouldn’t.
Not even the size of a hummingbird, she jabbed her tiny hands akimbo and scowled at the goblin. Though her face was small, there was no mistaking the ferocity of her condemnation. If looks could bitch-slap a goblin, hers would have smacked him until his head spun.
“Whaddya think you’re doing, swatting at me like that? Like I’m some pest ?” she hissed.
Edsel shrugged. “Ye said it. Not me.”
The fairy sucked in a breath so sharp, so affronted, it was a high-pitched whistle. A hand smacked to her chest. Her eyes widened to their fullest grapeseed size. Her brows, thin as a pencil line, jumped up her forehead. “Did you just call me a pest ? ”
Edsel crossed his arms and leaned against the foot of my bed, disapproving stare pinned on her as if she were some dangerous ruffian he didn’t dare take his eyes off. “Well, ye surely are acting like one.”
“That’s only ‘cause you swatted at me!”
“Uh, she kinda has a point there,” I said neutrally, trying for diplomacy.
Edsel only tsked and flapped a dismissive hand. “Ach, all parvnits are pests. This one’ll be no different, ye’ll see.”
The parvnit ’s mouth dropped open, and for several seconds she did nothing but gape. Eventually she hmmphed with an air of haughtiness. “Goblins are mannerless brutes who are only good for doing what they’re told. Your opinion of me doesn’t matter one bit.” She added a final hmmph .
I was busy noticing how Edsel had gone still. Too still.
The cords of his forearms bulged. Also those along his squat neck. His nostrils widened in his big nose. When he scrunched his whole face, its many lines deepened into ravines.
His words were too calm, too even for the tempestuous granddoody: “Goblins are not brutes. And we surely ain’t made to take orders an’ do what we’re told. Do ye hear me?”
Moodily, the parvnit harrumphed. “Can’t help but. You’re loud as a rumbling ogre.”
“And just as deadly. Ye might wanna keep that in mind. ”
At last, the fairy had the sense to appraise the goblin who, while half my size, was like a hundred times hers.
“I’ll keep in mind what I wanna keep in mind, not what you tell me. I’m a parvnit ,” she said with more of that arrogance. “I do what I want, how I want, when I want.”
Edsel chuckled meanly. “Oh, is that why ye’re hiding away, unwilling to show yerself till now?”
“No,” she snapped. “I’m hiding away ‘cause my magic allows me to.” Her reply was too swift and too defensive.
With all the places in the Mirror World she could go, why in dragonfire would she be hiding in my room?
“And if I say I’m going with you,” she added, “I’m going with you.”
“No, y’ain’t,” Edsel said. “Ye shouldn’t have heard any o’ that. But since ye did, due to yer sneaky ways, well then … still nay. This quest we’ll be going on, it’s serious.”
The fairy tipped up her chin. “I know it’s serious. I heard all about it. And I’m coming.”
“Y’ain’t.”
“Am too.”
“No. Y’ain’t.”
“Yes I am!”
I drew in a deep inhale, searching for some patience … but didn’t find enough.
“Over my dead body will ye be coming with us on such an important mission,” Edsel said as he slapped his hands to my bed and leaned over it. “This is the fate o’ the entire Mirror World we’re talking about. Not silly little games for silly little girls.”
“Uh! I am not a silly little girl! I’ll have you know that I’m fourteen, going on fifteen, and I have plenty to contribute to this stupid quest of yours that I don’t even want to go on.”
Edsel arched his bare brow as if to say gotcha . “Good. Ye aren’t going.”
The fairy—parvnit—huffed. “I will too go. I’ll?—”
“Enough,” I growled, more loudly than I’d done anything since I’d found myself on the floor of a shack wondering if and how I might piece myself back together.
“Enough,” I repeated. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Of course it is,” Edsel said. “She ain’t coming and she needs to know that.”
“I am too coming,” the fairy said right away. “I’m going to?—”
“Be quiet,” I interjected with a sigh. “You’re going to be quiet. Both of you. Please.”
When I asked the dragonlings in Nightguard to be quiet, they never were. But to my surprise, the room grew silent.
I rubbed my temples before facing the parvnit. “He might not have said it in the nicest way”—I swiveled to quickly glare at Edsel before facing her again—“but he’s right. ”
She opened her mouth to protest. I held up a hand.
“It will be dangerous. Too dangerous for someone so young.”
After eyeing Edsel with blatant wariness, the parvnit alighted on my bed. She wore a vibrant red, bell-shaped flower as a skirt, and a violet flower as a top. What appeared to be the crown of an acorn served as a hat, concealing whatever hair she might have beneath it. Her feet were bare as she walked toward me, stopping so near I could touch her.
I didn’t.
Her head tilted all the way back to see my face. “You’re young too. And not just ‘cause you look it. I hear things. I know you’re young. A lot younger than the queen you’ll be going up against.”
“True,” I said, dragging out the admission. “But the queen’s already tried to kill me a million times. She’ll keep coming for me till she ends me—or I end her. You’re not in danger, and you should stay out of it.”
Those tiny hands slammed to her hips once more. “Oh should I? That sounds a lot like you telling me what to do. And you’re not the boss of me.”
“Of course I’m not. I’m just looking out for you.”
“I don’t need you to look out for me. I don’t need anyone to look out for me. I’ve been looking after myself for a long time, and everything’s gone just fine.”
“Then why ye hiding here of all places?” Edsel asked.
She whipped her head in his direction. Her hat wobbled and she brought a hand up to steady it. “‘Cause I felt like it, that’s why.”
She turned back to me. “I can take care of myself. Besides, I promised to hurt the queen for what she did to my family.”
Oh no . My stomach sank. Was there a single person or creature in this entire realm untouched by the queen’s brutality?
“Well, really my ma did,” she went on. “But I took on her promise for her.”
When she straightened her shoulders in what looked like pride, I didn’t have the heart to argue the wisdom of her position.
“If we take ye with us,” Edsel hedged, holding up a hand. “And I ain’t for a second saying we will. If something happens to ye, and it very well might, then we can’t risk having the parvnits hold it against us. Your kind’s vicious.”
“No more vicious than goblins,” she snapped. “We’re only vicious when we’ve got good reason to be. Goblins are vicious just ‘cause they’re grumpy all the time.”
“That ain’t so,” Edsel said.
I hurried to interrupt before the conversation could once again devolve into a heated back-and-forth.
“I know next to nothing about parvnits,” I said, testing out the unfamiliar word. “But we can’t risk having any more enemies. The queen’s more than enough challenge.”
Her shoulders drooped before she seemed to notice and hastened to straighten them. “No one will care what happens to me. There’s no risk the parvnits will come after you.”
“Surely someone cares,” I offered.
“Nope. It’s just me now.”
I flicked a quick look at Edsel. His face softened, some of its wrinkles smoothing out.
“Well,” I started, unsure what to say next. “I really don’t think it’s wise to take you into certain danger. It’d be better for you to remain behind,” I added gently. “That way you’ll have your whole life ahead of you.”
“Yeah,” she said with a snort. “What kind of life do you think I’ll have if the queen keeps doing what she’s been doing?”
A shitty one, if any at all.
“Still,” I said.
“I made a promise.”
By her own admission, it was her mother who had, but I understood regardless. Again I glanced at Edsel, searching for guidance.
Noticing our silent exchange, the parvnit drew closer still so that she had to plop down onto the bed and lean back into her arms to see me. Compared to her, I was a giant.
“I can help,” she insisted, tiny eyes wide and imploring. “I swear I can. I’m super useful. I can hide so that no one, not even the queen, can see me unless I want her to. And I can transpop, so long as it’s not too far a distance.”
“What’s transpopping?” I asked .
“I’ll be somewhere one moment…” A loud pop rang out as she vanished, then a second pop sounded when she reappeared—next to the door. With a proud grin, she zipped toward the bed with a blurring buzz of her wings, stopping to hover near my face. “…and then somewhere else the next.”
I shrugged at Edsel. “That seems handy.”
“I am handy,” she trilled. “ So handy!”
Then we both studied Edsel, waiting.
He frowned. His nostrils widened, shrank, widened again. Then he really scowled, his discontent all but spelled out in glowing letters across his downturned lips.
Loudly, he harrumphed. Grunted. Harrumphed again. Another grunt. Next, on an exaggerated scowl, “Fine. Ye can come.”
The parvnit squealed and clapped.
“Nothing to celebrate, girly,” Edsel grumbled. “Yer life will be in constant danger once we…”
He trailed off. The little parvnit was twisting her arms and hips, shimmying her shoulders, in what looked very much like a celebratory dance. Her wings buzzed behind her the entire time. When her hat almost tipped, she pushed it back in place.
I tugged my lips back and forth. “You do understand we’re talking about going to war , right? Against the most fearsome woman in all existence?” I couldn’t very well call her a cunt anymore now that I knew there was a child present. “Who now thinks she’s immortal, which is absolutely terrifying? ”
The little parvnit continued her grinning and elated dancing.
Edsel shook his head. “I’m regretting agreeing to her coming along already.” He frowned. “Nothing says I can’t change my mind…”
As if Edsel held the strings that operated her limbs, she stopped at once.
Her hands clasped in front of her in supplication. “You won’t regret it, I promise.”
“Ye shouldn’t be so loose with them promises,” Edsel muttered.
I couldn’t help but agree.
She went on as if he hadn’t said a word. Her tiny eyes took on a dreamy cast as she continued to clutch her hands to her chest. “I’ve got a purpose, and a big one too. Finally they’ll see I mean something.”
Edsel and I were in the middle of exchanging another loaded look when footsteps hurried along the hallway beyond my door. I hadn’t yet walked through it; I’d been deep under the effects of the olvidian when they transported me here.
An unintelligible bark—a command, by its tone—was answered by a deep … wawaa , wawaaa … croak? What in dragonfire…?
The door crashed open and into the adjacent wall. Dashiell stalked in. The many small braids that adorned his head stood on end more than usual, their bells vibrating with his intensity. His eyes were piercing and determined, the blue and brown equally bright .
“Get up,” he ordered with a snap of his fingers.
It was then I noticed the parvnit—whose name I realized I hadn’t asked—was gone. Without the pop that signaled her transpopping, I guessed she was still in the room, just invisible. A mighty handy skill indeed…
“Well?” Dashiell pressed when I didn’t jump out of bed to do his bidding. “I said, get up.” He snapped his fingers another time.
I remained right where I was—of course I did.
He looked at Edsel, who was standing, hands flinching, and asked, “Is something wrong with her hearing now? I told her to get up and she’s still lying there.”
“ She can hear you just fine,” I said. “But she is still recovering from practically certain death and not about to hop about just ‘cause you tell her to.”
Dashiell tsked and frowned to the tune of his bells chiming. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. His Majesty hasn’t been able to shield you from the queen anymore.”
My heartbeat sped up in anticipation of what he’d say next.
“She’ll find you soon if she hasn’t already. And now that she’s declared the Fae Heir Trials over, there’s no magic keeping her at the palace. You need to get up right this instant. Odelia must remain safe. So long as you’re here with her, she isn’t.”
Nodding numbly, I scooted to the edge of the bed and gingerly lowered my feet to the floor. Torn muscles, mending cuts, and tender, taut, abused flesh all protested at once. I winced.
“She’s not ready,” Edsel protested, hands stretched out to assist me.
“Too bad,” Dashiell said shortly. “I won’t risk Odelia.” He amended, “His Majesty won’t. She needs to leave right now.”
My body had automatically hunched forward to avoid the pull on painful injuries. I forced myself to straighten some. “Leave?” I could feel myself warring between righteous anger at being treated as a pawn without value—yet again—and a profound hurt that my father’s closest advisor, who supposedly understood his will as if it were his own, didn’t give a flying fuck about me—also yet again.
“Where do you expect me to go?” I asked.
“I don’t care, so long as you leave now,” Dashiell said.
He scanned the room in all directions as if anticipating an attack at any moment.
When Edsel verified I was leaning against the bed and at no risk of falling, he scurried away and quickly returned with fighting leathers—and none of my treasured weapons, still at the palace.
I steeled myself. In time I’d surely be grateful for the protection of the leathers. But regardless of all the healing I’d done, I was still a haphazard array of slices, gaping flesh, and fusing bones. Getting into the leathers would be an ordeal.
Dashiell threw up his hands in a flash of silver rings. “What are you waiting for? We don’t have a second to spare. You need to do as I say right now.”
I whipped his way. Pain shot along my back, nape, and collarbone. I funneled it into my glower. “If you think I’m leaving my mother behind without ever getting to actually lay eyes on her face, then you’ve got a shock coming.”
“There’s no time for that nonsense.”
“Nonsense?” I repeated, as dangerous as a dragon about to launch fire from its mouth. “ Nonsense? I’ve never met my own mother, even when I shared the same room with her. Clearly none of you pricks think my getting to meet her is a priority. If I leave without seeing her now, odds are I’ll never get to see her. So, you want me to go … wherever, somewhere, any-fucking-where, since you couldn’t care less about me? Then you’d better get to arranging our meeting. Am I clear?”
Dashiell stared at me hard for several long moments. “You’d endanger your own mother like this?”
His lips puckered with distaste, as if I were the despicable, uncaring bitch here, not any of them—certainly not my absent father.
“Well, would you?” Dashiell pressed.
No, I wouldn’t, and the thought that I might never see the woman again smarted.
“I will see her,” I insisted regardless. “And I’ll also have the story of how the king impregnated a woman, who by all accounts had lost her mind and had no agency of her own.”
“There’s no time for that,” he snarled .
“No, there isn’t. But I have to dress before I’m thrown out to go dragons know where, and since I’m still torn up to hell and back—not that you or His Majesty give a single fuck—you have just enough time to tell me if you do it fast. And if you don’t, I’ll just wait till you’re finished. So get to it.”
“A spoiled brat in the end, aren’t you? It doesn’t matter whom you risk, you’ll do as you please.”
Edsel stiffened beside me as I boiled inside. That was mighty rich of Dashiell, when all I’d ever been was a tool for his precious king’s will.
I swallowed down my defense. What would it change, anyway?
“Speak,” I ordered, then turned toward Edsel, partly so I wouldn’t have to look at Dashiell anymore, and partly because there was no way I’d be able to dress without the goblin’s help.
At least the past couple of weeks with him had helped me overcome any modesty that had survived a life with the continually shifting—and clothes shedding—dragon protectors. When the goblin stripped me of my nightgown, I didn’t even care that Dashiell was there to see me naked.
Edsel set about hurriedly wrapping additional gauze around the worst of my wounds. When I glanced up at Dashiell, his face was slack.
“What?” I asked around a scoff. “You thought I was exaggerating? A spoiled brat , perhaps?” I added with a sneer. That one still rankled .
“I didn’t realize your injuries were quite this severe,” Dashiell admitted, more gently now.
Well, fuck him .
I glanced away, toward the dark of night beyond the windows.
Without my prodding, Dashiell finally began, and it was a fine distraction for how Edsel’s fingers brushed against all my sore spots.
“When it could no longer be concealed that Odelia was succumbing to the sickness of her ancestors and going mad,” Dashiell said, “Erasmus was stricken. At first he ordered her hidden from sight out of hope that she’d recover and all the effort he’d put into guiding her to become his successor would prove worthwhile. But she didn’t recover. She only grew worse. And so she was kept within the palace, but where no one but the royal family and closest advisors, such as myself, were allowed to go.
“Oren was … heartbroken. He visited her every day, at all hours. Unless he was required to perform the duties of the future ruler of Embermere, now as Talisa’s consort, he was at Odelia’s bedside.
“She had moments of lucidity, but they grew farther and farther apart. During one of them”—Dashiell’s stare landed on me, and I faced him as I stepped into my pants—“they consummated the love between them. That was the last time. After that, the madness truly consumed her. Months later it became apparent to Oren that she was with child. He worried you’d be killed so as to prevent the madness from passing on. He hid the pregnancy as long as he could, but Talisa discovered it. She told their father.”
Dashiell’s stare traveled again from the past to me. “King Erasmus ordered you to be killed as soon as you were free of his daughter’s body. He wouldn’t harm Odelia. At least, not then.
“Erasmus ordered Oren’s visits restricted. Odelia was gone, and Oren was to give his attentions to Talisa, the new crown princess now that Odelia was no longer able to rule.
“So Oren had Zako watch Odelia.”
My breath hitched, and not just because Edsel was strapping my side and breasts with more gauze, trying to keep the gash along my ribs from being strained.
“May the Etherlands bless his essence, Zako didn’t leave Odelia’s side until the birthing pangs began. She didn’t understand what was happening. But Zako didn’t inform anyone, not even Oren, not until he delivered you. Even after he held you in his hands, he didn’t tell anyone.”
I couldn’t decide if my heart still beat as I anticipated more.
“He brought you to me and I hid you away.”
I gasped.
Dashiell only droned on as if lost to the memories. “Zako … procured another fae baby.” He glanced at me, then away again. “Then he placed that stillborn baby in Odelia’s arms and called for King Erasmus. Oren came with him. The dead infant was disposed of. Oren didn’t realize then that you lived, and his devastation was co nvincing. Erasmus punished him for having visited his daughter when he’d forbidden it, and then Erasmus had Odelia relocated in secret. We never knew where to until…”
He glanced at Edsel and me. “Until we found her, completely by chance. Erasmus told Oren she’d died long ago. King Erasmus has been dead himself for twenty years.”
“And what of me?” I asked softly though I was fully dressed. I ached all over, but nothing could pull me away from Dashiell now. “What happened to me?”
Dashiell sighed. “With my help, Zako hid you away for most of your first year. But Oren didn’t trust that Talisa wouldn’t discover your existence. No matter how secretive we were, she always seemed to find out what we were up to. We’d already been blessed with the fortune of dragons that she hadn’t learned you survived. So I said my farewells to Zako”—his eyes welled with tears so briefly that I wondered if I’d been mistaken as he blinked and they were gone—“and he left with you for Nightguard, where Oren had learned Prince Lohan went. He thought you’d be safe there, beyond the Mirror World.”
“Until Saturn died and he wanted me to become heir,” I said, still bitter about the fact that I’d been nothing but a power play to my father … but maybe just a bit less so now.
Dashiell nodded, absently once more. “To think Odelia has been alive all this time, hidden from us. ”
His head snapped up. His lips contorted into a vicious snarl. “With Talisa draining her of her power.”
“I’d bet Talisa’s the one who made her go crazy in the first place,” I said. What harm wasn’t the queen behind?
Dashiell shook his head; the bells tinkled. “No. The madness has infected the royal bloodline for centuries. A punishment from King Spiro. Just not for his beloved Prince Borromeo.”
“What, is it not possible for magic or one of Braque’s many wicked potions to cause the same kind of madness? Or one that imitates the hereditary sickness?”
“No, it’s not possible.” But Dashiell was blinking rapidly.
“You’re not sure, though.”
His head kept shaking. “It can’t be… That would be…”
“Awful. Avoidable. Devastating,” I supplied. “And exactly the kind of thing the queen would do. My mother was all that stood in the way of her rule, correct?”
The shock slackening Dashiell’s features told me all he wouldn’t.
“By the Ethers,” he finally whispered. “How could we have all missed that?”
“Maybe you knew Talisa before she was evil.”
“She was always evil,” Edsel snarled.
“ Wawaa . Waawaaa . ”
Dashiell and Edsel spun to face the door and the hallway beyond.
“ Wawaa, wawaaa, wawaaa ,” came the croaks.
I didn’t need to ask what they meant.
Edsel shoved medicines into a satchel with such haste there could be no doubt it was a warning.
“ Wawa, wawa, wawa, wawa .” The croaking arrived nonstop.
“Promise me I’ll get to meet her someday,” I urgently told Dashiell.
He didn’t.
“Promise me.”
“Go now,” he said.
My heart squeezed, plummeted, and thudded, all at once, making me a bit lightheaded. “Then tell her I love her,” I breathed, thready. “Tell the mother I never met that I wish I had, more than anything, and that I love her anyway.”
Edsel didn’t wait for Dashiell’s reply. He grabbed me by the hand and led me too quickly to the door. He pulled it open, jostled me through it, straight into a giant frog.
Just like the huge ones from the arena. I gaped at it.
Apparently beyond words, Edsel guided me roughly onto its back. Startled, I could do nothing but hang on as the gargantuan frog bounded away, out the open-air hall and into a courtyard.
“Wait,” I cried.
Neither the frog nor Edsel did.
“The parvnit. ”
“I’m here,” she said from somewhere in front of me.
Though I searched, I couldn’t spot a single sign of her.
And then the jostling made doing anything beyond holding on and keeping myself from puking all over the frog’s back my only possible focus.
The night closed in on us as we hopped, ran, and flew through an archway, exited the courtyard, and slipped into the forest and the darkness of night.