Chapter Seventeen #3
“But I’m a princess.” Blurted out, darting a fearful glance back at Mebhuranon. “She says I am, she says I can be. But I have to stay. Then I can be a princess and Mummy won’t cry anymore because she doesn’t have enough money for my shoes, and my feet won’t hurt.”
“She said that, did she?” Duncan turned a withering stare on the Huldu queen. Got nothing back but the blank musing smile. “Well, see, princess, the problem is—Mummy’s been crying every night since you’ve been gone anyway. She misses you so much.”
Miriam looked stricken. She looked at the rag doll in her hands. Her fingers worked at it. Her lip trembled.
“But she has another me to care for. Like a doll. They told me that.”
Fresh pulse of rage in his guts. “They lied, Mimi. She’s on her own. She wants you back. It’s why she sent me.”
The tears already clotted along Mimi’s lower lashes spilled over in earnest now, ran down her cheeks.
Duncan reached up and cupped her face with his hand, wiped the tears with his thumb.
It left a grubby smear, not unlike the dried streaks of Stordalen’s blood he’d put across his own cheekbones the night before.
“Don’t cry, Mimi,” he said softly. “You don’t have to stay here. You can come home.”
“But…shoes,” she wailed.
“Get you a brand-new pair as soon as we’re back. That’s a promise.” He chucked her under the chin. “All right?”
Tearful nod. She gulped. Duncan breathed deep.
“All right, then.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “See this big train? How’d you like to sit on the driver’s seat, look out the window, and maybe hoot the whistle, like a real driver?”
A tiny brightening in her at this, as if the hurricane lamp at her core had just had the flame turned up half an inch. She sniffed and wiped forlornly at her tears, but when she nodded this time it was firmer. Duncan built her another smile.
“Go on, get in there and have a look. I’m just going to talk to the lady here for a moment, and then we’re done.”
She went, one hesitant step at a time. Duncan heard her feet on the steel plate, gave his full attention back to Mebhuranon.
“Fucking princess, aye? That’s new.”
The Fae queen shrugged. “As I have told you—the world is made anew.”
“Should have told me I was a prince. Maybe I’d have stayed.”
“That sounds like regret, Duncan.” Her mouth split in a fresh predator grin. “Is it? Do you wish you had stayed with me when you had the chance?”
Quiet. Soft crackle of the fire. The question hung between them in the twisted air.
“Would you have fucked me?” he asked harshly.
“Oh, yes. Sucked and fucked and brought you into manhood, yes. It would have won my bet with Svalenkari. It would have held you in place where he could not. And you were so…fresh, Duncan. So untasted.” Her tongue flickered briefly, touched her upper teeth.
“You would have had attention from others soon enough, I’m sure—there’s a reason mortals choose to dwell among us, after all, and it’s not because of our singing. But yes, I would have been your first.”
“You talk of choosing. I had no choice.”
“But you did. There and then, Duncan—you made your choice. You ran from me, you ran from the Forest and all its smoldering joys. Am I to blame if now your curdled remorse seeps into the confines of the drab mortal life you chose over us?”
The fire popped and murmured to itself, stories it knew, as old as time. A stray gust of wind grabbed at the flames, dragged dead leaves rasping along the darkened platform.
“Well, then, I guess we’re done,” Duncan said into the quiet.
Mebhuranon inclined her head. “For now, yes. But we will be watching, Duncan. Wherever you go with the girl, whatever you try to do, our eye is on you now.”
“Funny. That’s exactly what Stordalen said to me, back in the spring. See how that worked out? You’ll not want to follow his example.”
“I have already said I will not contest this, Duncan. The word of the Final Isles is my bond, as it will be for all who honor the old paths. But I cannot speak for younger hearts than mine, nor those steeped in hate.”
“Not much of a queen, then, are you?”
“This is not my range, Duncan. I am of the south. You will remember that much, at least. I hold ceremonial title here, but little more. I offer counsel, I advise. But my word, even the word of the Final Isles—these usages belong to older times than now. The world is made anew and there is a storm coming. I cannot command it, nor see how it will end.”
He stared at her. “You send any of your young hotheads after me, I can see exactly how it’ll end. I’ll leave them for you in screaming pieces right across the Forest floor.”
He levered himself up from the fire, stiffened wounds protesting a little.
Cold joints, aching muscles. Mebhuranon had not aged a day since he’d seen her last. But he had, and in that instant all those days seemed to hang off him like weights from a butcher’s scales.
He straightened his back against the combined pull of the years, the time gone away, and he held the McCulloch across his body like a ward.
“You warn them, Meb,” he said evenly. “You clear a fucking path. The word of the Final Isles can hold fast or crumble and rot, I don’t care. But Miriam Rush is going home.”