Chapter 17 The Moth & Her Flame
Chapter seventeen
The Moth and the sharp, clever blue eye of a trouble-making jackdaw.
The red hawk’s wings behind him glimmered in the autumn light, making a soft rushing noise with every turn we took around the dancefloor, lulling me into something akin to a trance.
A smile played on his lips, and once the feeling came back into my limbs, I mirrored it.
“I suppose you find this terribly amusing, don’t you?” I asked. “Humiliating me in front of all these folk?”
“I do not,” he replied, spinning me away and then allowing our bodies to press together when I returned to him, “but refusing my master is far more painful.”
“And here I actually believed it when you said you were at my command. The more fool I.”
“Perhaps you should have commanded me to deny him.”
I laughed. “Are you saying you would have obeyed me over your king? Your maker?”
“Shall I tell you the true secret of my making?” Devil murmured, eyes now glittering in the swarm of magyk lights surrounding us. “The reason for my very existence?”
“Tell me,” I said breathlessly, my voice drowned in the resonant crescendo of the music.
Devil put his hands on my waist and lifted me above his head, holding me aloft as the song reached its peak.
Impossibly slow and controlled, using every one of the archer’s muscles in his back and arms, he lowered me as I gripped his shoulders.
When my face hovered only inches above his, he looked up and whispered, “I was created for you, May.”
Before I could question his ridiculous claim, the song ended and we stopped directly in front of the stone circle.
I wrenched my eyes away from his satisfied smile and found myself face-to-face with Titania, who stood on the edge of the dancefloor with Hippolyta.
Hovering in the air behind her were five tiny faeries, one of which I recognized as Primrose.
But all my limbs were frozen, stiff and solid, by the fury on the faerie queen’s face.
For a moment, the only thing that moved was my heaving chest and pounding heart.
“What have you done now, imp?” she hissed at Devil, fists balling at her sides.
Oberon was there immediately, not daring to lay a comforting hand on his queen, but instead standing beside me.
Awash in confusion and terror, I managed to look up at Devil, but his eyes were fixed on Titania as he answered.
“I have done what I was ordered. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Titania’s ire immediately shifted to Oberon. “What is the meaning of this? Do you now seek to drive me out of the forest altogether?”
“Of course not,” her husband answered calmly, “but there are things…that can no longer stay buried, Titania. Not if the Arden is to survive.”
Devil’s grip on my hand tightened as Titania’s gaze moved rapidly between all three of us.
She settled on me, and raised her hand, waving it in front of my face, as if wiping away the condensation on a glass pane.
I guessed she was using her own magyk to remove Devil’s glamour, but was not prepared for her reaction.
Her face contorted with so many different emotions I could not mark them all, but after a full minute, she settled back on rage.
“How dare you?” she hissed at Oberon. “You deceived me, all these years! How dare you think to bring her here, as if it might fix something? As if it might—” She turned away suddenly and I thought I heard a choked sob as Hippolyta reached out to put a hand on her shoulder.
The commander was glaring at Oberon too, but her expression changed to something like pity when she looked at me.
Finally, Titania turned back and spoke to her husband.
“You are a fool for this, Oberon. Nothing you do will hold back the darkness now, and it will not return what has been lost.” Her amber eyes shifted to Devil.
“If you’d like your head to remain attached to your neck, Puck, keep this girl away from me.
” She took a few steps back into the stone circle, then raised her arms and flung them out, vanishing in a burst of golden leaves.
Everything and everyone beneath the Bower was silent.
Not even a breeze dared to rustle the tree limbs above us, and I certainly did not dare to breathe.
Finally, Oberon turned wearily to face the crowd.
“Please, I would not deprive you of your celebration.”
The children of the Arden were apparently used to such altercations, because, at Oberon’s behest, they quickly resumed their dancing and drinking and merry chatting.
Hippolyta let out a low growl and exchanged a brief, heated conversation with Oberon in the fay language before storming away through the back of the stone circle.
Primrose and the four other tiny faerie attendants buzzed after her.
“Come,” Oberon said in a heavy voice, beckoning to us.
“May…” said Devil, putting his hands on my upper arms. “Are you alright?”
“I-I…suppose so…”
“We must go now.”
“Go,” I whispered, my body stiff as a statue with shock and confusion.
“Yes…we must go.” Devil propelled me forward gently and we followed Oberon around the dais.
As we passed the weeping willow, I realized that what I had imagined to be diamonds were actually water droplets, which fell down the curtain of thin branches and leaves, almost like a fountain, and hit the grassy forest floor, then were quickly reabsorbed.
“The willow…” I whispered to Devil, “it actually weeps…” The absurdity of it all made me laugh, even as my legs trembled and my stomach twisted into knots of fear that I was sure would make me sick.
I stumbled over a tree root, but Devil caught my arms and released a dozen fireflies to light a path ahead of my feet.
He spoke no words of comfort, however, as we followed Oberon into the pressing darkness of the Arden.