Chapter 3 Melusine Is Disgustingly Oblivious
Lem
“What about here?”
It takes me a moment to notice that Henry’s stopped his horse halfway up the mountain, but when I do, I give him a curious—nay, a suspicious—stare. “What?”
“I need to stretch my legs for a bit.” He slides off of his horse’s back with an inelegant thud.
I follow. “Now? But we’re almost there! At least, I think we are. All these trees look the same.”
“The party isn’t until this evening anyhow.” He leads his horse to a thick-limbed tree and loops the bridle over a low branch. “We might as well look around a bit. Lovely countryside, you know.”
My brow furrows as I make a show of scanning the landscape. “Yes, indeed. Trees and rocks. Just the sort of thing I like.”
Henry rolls his eyes. “We’re not going to be looking at trees, Lem. Do you want to find a godmother or not?”
“Oh.” I pat my pocket to find my handkerchief. “Yes. But I thought—well, I mean, how are we going to find one?” I dab a bit of sweat off my forehead.
Henry shrugs. “Looking, I guess. Come on.”
He doesn’t wait for me to finish tying my horse to the tree next to his, but plunges into the forest with a fearless energy.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I mutter, shoving the handkerchief back in my pocket. “I’m not staying here to be eaten by a Candori monster.” I follow him into the woods, eyeing the waving ferns and mossy tree trunks with suspicion. How will we recognize a fairy? Are they large? What if I step on one?
Henry leads the way with confidence, passing beneath old evergreens. The carpet of needles whispers beneath us as we walk and the air smells of secrets and—and I don’t know. I’m no poet.
I scowl. “I say, Henry, how on earth will we know—?”
He casts a quick glance over my shoulder without breaking stride. “I suppose we’ll just know it when we see it.” The trees are getting thicker, and he pushes through a spot of brush. I scramble through behind him.
“That doesn’t sound very—”
“Shh,” he says impatiently. I roll my eyes but obey. In the silence, I can make out the faint trickle of a mountain stream. “That way.”
“Am I allowed to comment now?” I duck beneath a branch.
“I thought you’d prefer a contemplative walk.”
I snort. “Nothing contemplative about being accosted by pine boughs every three steps.” Stepping around a tree, I see the stream before us, dancing its way down the mountainside. On the opposite bank, a narrow dirt path winds uphill into a copse of trees. Not the needly kind, I notice with thanks.
“I’m going to jump the stream,” Henry says. “You might want to stay here.”
“I’m not staying here!”
Henry turns around. I bristle at his paternal expression. “Lem, I’m sure I can find one and bring it back to you myself. You don’t need to—that is, everyone knows you’re not—”
“Yes, yes,” I say impatiently. “Everyone does, don’t they?” I clench my teeth and look away, unable to hold Henry’s gaze. My eyes wander up the rocky stream. Its gaiety mocks me. Even the trees, swaying in the wind, seem to rub their branches together in unsympathetic laughter.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lem,” Henry says quietly. “You’re good at other things. Just … let me do this adventuring-in-the-forest bit.”
Good at other things, he says, but we both know that’s a lie.
I’m as useless at politics as I am at adventuring, which is why he dragged me all the way to Candor.
But there’s no use arguing; Henry knows better than I do, so if he wants to jump the stream and leave me here, then so be it.
I’m sure he’s right. I open my mouth, ready to agree, when my attention is grabbed by a figure far upstream.
The banks grow higher further up, and must narrow, for a golden-haired woman is gliding across a mossy bridge. Or … or is it a woman?
“Henry,” I whisper, grabbing his elbow. “Up there.”
He follows my gaze, but she’s already vanished into the forest on the other side. “What?”
“I saw … something. Someone.”
He gives a low whistle, still searching the trees. “You think it was one of them?”
“Maybe?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Agatha
I feel almost fairy-like as I follow the silvery path toward Melusine’s glade, although my hem gathers pine needles and twigs. Real fairies aren’t quite corporeal enough to get dirty.
Despite the calm of the day and the reassuring twitters of the morning birds, my heart beats faster and faster as I near the glade. It’s bordered by a fast-moving stream with a slippery stone bridge that looks as if it’s grown out of the banks.
My slippered feet make no noise as I cross the little bridge, although I’m sure every creature for miles around must be able to hear my fast-beating heart.
I pause for a moment on the other side. A ring of willow trees marks the edge of the glade itself, and I take a fortifying breath before stepping through.
“Godmother?”
Melusine reclines on a couch made of ferns and lilies, but springs up when she hears my call.
She’s shorter than me, with a round, ageless face and eyes that are sometimes a twinkling violet and sometimes jet black, and her glossy brown hair fans out behind her as though it has its own personal breeze.
She opens her arms wide. “Agatha! Can it be your birthday so soon? What is this, fifteen?”
“Twenty-one, Godmother.” I submit to her squeezing. Somehow, I always forget that a not-quite-corporeal being can have such a grip.
“No,” she gasps, ever dramatic. “Already? All grown and ready to leave me?”
“I’m afraid so.” I clasp my hands in front of my skirt. “Unless you have a way to extend the program.”
She laughs, a rich yet bright sound. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?
I don’t know which of the ancients decided twenty-one of your human years was enough to set you up completely, but I’d like to have some words with them.
” She motions for me to sit and sighs dramatically. “I have so many more ideas for you!”
If I hadn’t been here before, I’d probably hesitate before sinking into an armchair constructed entirely of rose petals. It looks as if I could easily blow it away. Since I have been here before, however, I know Melusine’s magic will hold it together, and I relax into its velvety embrace.
“Food? Drink?” Melusine starts to fetch a box of biscuits from a door set into a toadstool, but stops herself with another deep laugh.
“Silly of me.” She sinks back onto her couch.
“You’d think I’d remember by now that you can’t eat that!
Well, so tell me about your year! What have you been doing since I saw you last? ”
“Nothing unusual,” I say with a smile. “Practicing the harp, embroidering cushions. That sort of thing.” And trying to get Father to understand forestry, and minding Phildan and Pudan, and bothering with the menu, and never getting quite enough tea.
“And drinking lots of tea, I’m sure. I do remember that much, at least.”
My smile widens. “Of course! Lots of tea.”
Melusine’s gaze narrows as she searches my face. “And have you been … happy?”
“Happy?” My eyebrows raise. “Oh, yes. Overwhelmingly so.”
“Hmm.” Melusine’s eyes darken. “And how do you celebrate your birthday today?”
“Father and Stepmother have planned a lovely party,” I say. “The ballroom hasn’t seen so many people since the days of my great-grandparents! Isn’t that kind of them?”
“Hmm,” she repeats. “I suppose so.” She doesn’t sound convinced.
“The duke of Glen Violet is coming,” I offer. I twist my fingers together modestly.
“The duke of Glen Violet!” Melusine stands and props her hands on her hips. “And why should we care about that?”
“Father hopes he’s … interested in me.” I brush a stray curl off my forehead. They don’t normally do that; perhaps Melusine’s breeze has wafted over my way.
“Interested?” She sniffs. “Interested! Of course he’s interested!” I thought she’d be happy that her creation was about to enjoy such success, but she sounds offended instead.
“Is something wrong?” I begin, but Melusine cuts me off with a wave of her hand.
“Oh, don’t use that charming tone on me, missy. Don’t forget who gave it to you!” She begins pacing back and forth between two holly bushes laden with bright pink berries. “Now, listen here.” She stops her pacing to point a too-long finger at me. “Are you interested in him?”
I offer a maidenly smile. “It would hardly be decorous for me to admit anything before he’s made an offer …”
Melusine snorts. Her pointing finger grows another inch. “You,” she says severely, “are still trying to use that tone on me, and I already told you not to. Now.” She plops back down on her ferny couch. “The truth. This duke—do you like him?”
My Poise, normally so reliable, wavers in the face of Melusine’s glare. “Why, Godmother,” I begin uncomfortably, “I—”
“Do you like him?”
I take a breath. “Ever so much. He’s—he’s quite wonderful.”
Her eyes shift from violet to midnight black. “Is he.”
“Quite,” I say, my Poise recovered, and smile. “So thoughtful. And very handsome.”
The duke is, for the record, neither wonderful nor thoughtful, and I’ve already mentioned that he is not handsome, either. In fact, he is the sort of person I’d pay no mind to if he wasn’t quite rich and important.
“I think,” I continue, lowering my eyes so my dark lashes fan prettily over my rosy cheeks, “that I am already in love with—”
Melusine interrupts this faux confession with another snort, louder than the first. “Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies!” She jabs that unnerving finger at me with each repetition. The ferns that make up her couch grow taller until she’s looming over me. “Lies!”
My eyebrows inch up my forehead as unease pools in my gut. “What do you mean, Godmother?”
“You reek of insincerity.” Melusine crosses her arms and stares down at me, hair billowing more wildly than ever. “I should have known something like this would happen when I invented the Poise.”
It’s my turn to stare, although my Gifts soften it from a real gape into something mildly curious. “I don’t think I understand.”