Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
A Picnic
Something felt off when I woke up. I opened my eyes to a simple room of greens and yellows. My bed was warm, I had a water pitcher and a towel, my things were set on a chair, and in the mirror on the wall I could see my reflection. Nothing was wrong, and yet something was off.
“Puko.” I shot up in bed, my head swirling from last night’s wine.
I hadn’t seen Puko since we’d entered the city.
He always came and went as he pleased, but he usually woke me up each day.
Maybe he didn’t like the Spring Lands, or maybe he couldn’t get to me inside the palace.
I didn’t like it, but I decided to give him a couple days and see if I could find him outside.
I reached up to touch my hair and decided I needed a bath. I began gathering my things when a soft knock at my door startled me.
“Yes?” I shoved my fresh underthings into the towel in my arms.
“It’s me.” Schula’s voice came through the door. “Are you going to take a bath? I was thinking about going soon.”
I opened the door to find her with an armful of clothes and a comb in her other hand. “I was about to go myself.”
“Shall we then?” She eyed my armload and offered me her arm like the people from the Spring Court did. I shook my head and took her offer, lacing my arm through hers.
“Should we tell Eberon where we’re going?” I asked as we passed through the common room.
“I already told him I was going, I’m sure he’ll figure it out.
” We closed the door softly behind us and turned toward the main corridor.
Schula took us to the lion fountain and turned two lefts toward the baths.
Few other bleary-eyed fae were up, and when we reached the baths they were nearly empty.
Hot pools of water steamed and fogged the room. Ivy grew everywhere, but the ceiling was made of glass, and sunshine lit up the room. The sky was bright and cloudless overhead.
“I can’t believe how addicted to a hot bath I’ve become.” I tossed my clothes in a basket by the wall and made for the washing area.
“I can’t believe you took cold baths before now.” Schula took more time folding her clothes, but she soon joined me.
Schula scrubbed my back while I kept it facing the wall. I helped her wash her back in turn, and we finished quickly so as to get into the hot pools as soon as we could.
Schula sank in, melting off her glamour and returning to the icy-white fae I knew.
“So,” she began, innocence dripping from her words, “you spent the afternoon with Caldon?”
Sinking down into the water next to her, my back against the side of the pool, I eyed her. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing here?”
A wide grin spread across her lips. “What do you think of him?”
“Isn’t my job to reflect on Dwellonmar and not Caldon?” I asked.
She flicked water toward me. “You know what I mean! Don’t be stingy, tell me everything.”
“Hey!” I put an arm up, shielding my face from the assault. “Schula, are you telling me you’re a gossip now?”
She snorted. “That’s not new, ask Eb. Come on, tell me.”
Sighing, I rested my head against the stone edge of the pool. “Well, he has a lot of energy for prancing about the city, that’s for sure. He is thoughtful, and suspiciously kind.”
And that was probably what gave me the most pause. Kindness. When to accept it, and when to be suspicious of it. The way I’d interacted with kindness before could not be the way I interacted with it now, but there was still something about Caldon that was too much.
“I don’t know what to make of him,” I finished.
A long, white arm dragged through the water, sending ripples through an otherwise empty pool as Schula hummed, calculating a response.
“Caldon’s charming, and King Diamid knows that.
As a dignitary, he’s good at lowering one’s defenses around him and by extension the Spring Court.
His job here is indeed to lure you to Dwellonmar, but I’m also sure he’s enjoying it.
” She turned her head to me. “I don’t know what it’s like to go through what you’ve been through, but I’ll wager you haven’t been sought after by many in a romantic way. ”
“No.” I closed my eyes. “No one of sense wants to be with a half fae.”
“Well, I think Caldon does.” Schula scooted closer to me on the bench. “I’ve never met anyone who enjoys the company of the opposite sex as much as he does. I’m not saying you could expect anything permanent or lasting from him, but if you want to see him, it is an option.”
“It sounds like you know him well.” Peeling one eye open, I watched Schula’s reaction.
“You could say that,” she admitted with a sly grin.
“Our situations may not be the same, but similarly I grew up restricted in some ways. When I left home, I wandered a lot. Not only was I not sure where I could possibly find a home, I didn’t know enough about myself or what I wanted.
I met Caldon here in Dwellonmar, and it was rather perspective-shifting. ”
There were so many more pieces to Schula than I had realized before.
So open and comfortable with herself, I had thought she was an entirely new species of person when we’d first met.
Whatever she had been through was probably why she’d seen through me at first sight.
For her kindness in my darkest days, I would forever be thankful to her.
“And if I don’t want to develop feelings of any kind?” I asked.
Schula heaved a dramatic sigh, throwing an arm over her forehead. “How utterly dull!” She let her arm fall, then dropped her expression for an easy smile. “It’s your decision. Don’t ever think I’m pushing you into something you don’t want to do. I only ask because Caldon asked for my blessing.”
My head jerked back. “He did? Why?”
She shrugged. “His way of being a gentleman, I think. He doesn’t court a fae who would take a lover for life, but he does consider all parties around him before he makes a move.
Maybe he asked because he and I had a past, but there’s nothing there now.
Mostly, I wanted to see where your thoughts drifted, but I’m a busybody after all. ”
That almost pulled a laugh out of me. “You are, aren’t you?”
She closed her eyes and shrugged. “So the Stars created me with the virtue of curiosity.”
It was my turn to flick water at her as she cackled. “Isn’t it, I don’t know, shameful?”
I had caught teenagers in the mountains tumbling naked in the woods. You didn’t bed a girl you didn’t want to marry, or at least you didn’t get caught doing it. Not when you were human.
“This isn’t the land of men, Wren.” She looked at me with those pale, gentle eyes.
“It’s rare to find someone who would choose to mate for life.
There is a bonding ceremony, like a human marriage, but our population survives on lovers.
When you’re talking hundreds or thousands of years of life, a mate is a difficult commitment to swallow.
Taking a lover is perfectly acceptable here. It’s good for the soul, anyway.”
Mulling it over, I recognized that I was still trying to shift my perspective to an entirely different culture. “That makes sense. But, it’s still not for me. Not right now.”
“Look, all I’m saying is follow your heart. You aren’t with the humans anymore. This is what the fae do: we live, we love, we cry, we fight. Why live life bottling yourself up when you might experience something instead?”
Bottling myself up. Was that what I’d been doing? I had kept myself closed off. It was a way to protect myself. But here, everything was so frustratingly different. It would come down to taking Wren of the Southern Mountains and Wren of the Wyldes and separating them.
“I’ll try to open up more,” I said.
“You don’t have to open up if you aren’t ready.” She reached out and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. “Just remember, you have all the same options as the rest of us here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
With that lull in conversation, we agreed to get out of the water before more people woke up and came to clean themselves. Schula went looking for her comb while I was drying my hair.
Caldon. Could I do it? Could I take a lover just like that? The witches did it; they wouldn’t take a husband, but they took lovers to make children. Even Bryn would go out at night to tumble some woman or other when we made our trips to Sulls.
Is that what the necklace means? Is it some kind of signal from Caldon? I needed to clear things up with him, just to be certain. Besides, if I was interested in anyone, it was . . .
I pushed the thoughts away for now. First things first, I was expected to see the king at lunch, and I needed to get ready for that. The Mother Herself could see my nerves rattling over it.
“Wren, you know I care about you, right?” Schula asked, drawing me from my thoughts.
I offered a quick smile between detangling knots. “Yes, I care for you too, Schula.”
She grinned. “Wonderful, because after this we’re stretching!”
Caldon came for me just before midday, as he’d said he would. Schula and Eberon hadn’t specifically been invited to the picnic. They could have come anyway, but Eberon insisted he and Schula had things to discuss. Schula, the fiend, saw me off with a wink.