Chapter 21 Thyme & Truth
Chapter twenty-one
Thyme & Truth
Once they were out of earshot, Devil’s eyes shifted to me, once more filled with their usual mischief.
He sauntered over, wings tucked tight, but stopped just short of standing too close.
He had changed his clothes since the revelry and now wore brown trousers below a fitted, burgundy shirt with a high collar and barely any sleeves to speak of.
“What orders for your ‘pet demon’ this morning, Highness?” he asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
I fought back the rather depraved urge to leer at his exposed arms and answered dryly. “The first is to never call me that again. The second: you will now also answer to ‘pet demon’, as a sanction for continuing to refuse me your real name.”
He stayed still as I began to circle around him, letting my eyes glide over his back.
Unlike the shirts I’d seen him wear before, which were slitted to accommodate his wings, the back of this garment had been left wide open, with buttons on the collar and waist. The opening framed his wing joints, as well as the deep cuts and ripples of every solitary muscle from his shoulders to his belt.
The image of him stripping in the hot spring cave the day before flashed before my eyes, and I had to shake it away before he noticed.
“Hmmm,” he mused, watching me carefully as I came around to face him again, “if I am to follow that order, you ought to at least make it worth my while.”
“I am not obliged to soften my orders, but…what exactly might make it worth your while?” I asked warily.
“Allow me to make you breakfast.” He grinned, and I was so taken aback, my presence of mind fluttered away on a breeze, replaced by burning, crawling heat in my neck and cheeks.
“Surely, we should take this news to Oberon right away?”
“Surely, he will give me a far harsher punishment for allowing you to starve than he did for disobeying him last night,” Devil replied, raising an eyebrow.
“So, he did punish you for that?”
He walked past me, heading back up the hill toward his tree. “Wouldn’t you?”
“No…”
“Well, then it seems you’ve inherited your mother’s benevolent and fair nature.”
“Wait,” I called as I jogged to catch up with his long strides. “Devil, I’m sorry for asking you to bring me back here. I…I panicked, but I did not want you to suffer for my sake.”
“I am not a fragile creature,” he said, then tapped the spot on his chest where he’d branded himself with my medallion. “Besides, I showed what I am willing to endure for you, May. I was not just being dramatic.”
We walked in silence until we reached his home tree, which I now saw was an enormous oak, growing straight as an arrow. Back in the underground den, I stood at one end of the table and watched him take a covered clay bowl from a shelf above the sluice.
“What?” he asked, noting the skepticism on my face. “Did you think I only ate bark and berries and raw fish, like Jon?”
“Well, no, but I certainly did not imagine you…cooking.”
“I am a creature with many hidden talents,” he said with a wink, taking a jar of flour down next and sprinkling a handful on the end of the table opposite me.
“But don’t worry, you will not be required to compliment my skills, since I only know the one recipe, and it took me weeks to learn.
Aliena declared me a lost cause after nine days, but thankfully, Larch’s patience is infinite.
” He lifted a large ball of dough from the bowl and dropped it into the pile of flour.
I refilled my tea mug, then came to stand beside him.
“And what, pray tell, will I be eating this morning, cook?” I asked, if only to distract myself from watching the muscles in his forearms working as he kneaded the dough.
“Well, I would love to keep you in suspense, but I will likely need assistance sooner or later. I am, unfortunately, out of practice.”
“Perhaps you ought to kidnap more damsels. That way you can make more breakfasts.”
He threw his head back with a loud, cawing laugh. “You are the only prisoner worth having, Mayhem.”
It was a joke, but it reminded me of his words from the revelry: I was created for you. Overburdened as I was with heavy topics, I did not want to ruin this surprisingly peaceful, easy moment by bringing up another, and shuffled it to the back of my mind.
“Clean that pan, if you please,” said Devil, nodding to another shelf, where a dented copper pan sat.
I washed it in the sluice, then dried it with a rag.
The bottom still held just enough shine for me to see my reflection, and I stepped out of his line of sight to examine my ears.
The points were not as extreme as Devil’s, nor as elegant as Titania and Oberon’s, but they were there nonetheless—my very own faerie ears.
I became so lost in looking at them that I didn’t notice him watching me over his shoulder.
“They’re new,” I said with a embarrassed shrug, kneeling to place the pan on a nest of glowing embers in the hearth.
“They’re not, actually. You’ve had them your entire life. Titania accidentally removed part of another glamour when she did away with the one I gave you at the revelry.”
I pushed some of the embers around with a poker and thought hard. “Was I glamoured as a baby? So I could pass for human?”
Devil came over to inspect my very tiny, weak fire. “I’m afraid I’m not privy to every detail,” he said with a frown. “You will have to ask Oberon. But first, I’ll need you to stand aside.”
“Why?”
“Because your fire-stoking skills are subpar at best, princess,” he laughed, flicking his fingers and covering my face in flour.
“Oh, you absolute bastard!” I coughed. Without my copper-pan-mirror, I couldn’t see how much was actually coating my face and I tried to brush it away. Once my eyes were clear, however, I went straight for the pile of flour on the table.
“May, don’t you—” But he had nowhere to run, and I covered him from forehead to chest.
“Now whose skills are subpar?” I asked, with a giggle that hardly even felt like it came from me. Devil got a mad gleam in his eye as he planted both hands in the flour pile and began backing me toward the opposite wall of the den.
“No, Devil, don’t! I’m sorry! This dress…
Arachne will not be—” I let out a shriek and tried to dodge past him, but he grabbed my waist, pushing me up against the edge of the table so he could dump flour along my entire back and into my hair.
With a growling laugh, he also reached around and smeared more across my face.
I threw an elbow, catching him in the ribs, but that only made his grip on my waist tighten.
He leaned forward, both of us still laughing and gasping, and tried to pull my arm back so I could not take another handful of flour.
But we were suddenly interrupted by a furious shout. “Puck!”
We both stopped at the sight of a shadowy figure standing by the stairs, blocking most of the light with a pair of enormous wings.
To my absolute horror, I realized what a compromising position we were in: Devil standing at my back, bending me forward over the table, pinning my wrist down.
Anyone walking in would certainly think there was something untoward going on.
I wrenched myself away and stood behind Devil just as Antenor took a step forward.
The heat of embarrassment turned icy cold when I realized he had his sword drawn.
“You filthy animal!” he roared at Devil, who stood back, smiling and brushing flour off himself casually. “I told Lord Oberon you weren’t to be trusted!”
“Captain,” I said, in what I hoped was an authoritative voice. “It is absolutely not what you think, please. We were just—”
“Playing,” Devil finished with a malicious smile.
“Something you might understand, if women allowed you to be anywhere near them.” With a snarl, Antenor actually lunged at him, but Devil side-stepped and threw out his wing.
It caught Antenor hard on the arm, knocking his sword to the ground, where Devil slipped his foot beneath the lower part of the blade and kicked it into the air.
When he caught it by the hilt, he leveled it at Antenor and placed the tip on his throat.
“Now,” he said calmly, “care to explain what you are doing in my home uninvited, Captain Cockroach?”
“Lord Oberon sent me for Marina,” Antenor breathed, “since you have decided to flout his orders so many times…it was unclear if your loyalties had shifted.”
Devil let out another barking laugh and tossed the sword onto the sandy dirt floor.
“A half-decent attempt to rattle me, you spineless twat. I spoke to Oberon only this morning and he has been assured of my loyalty, which does extend to him and his family.” He stepped to the side and held an arm out, clearly indicating me.
Antenor’s gaze shifted, then widened in recognition when he saw my real face for the first time.
“So, it is true,” he whispered, dropping dramatically onto his knees. “Lyric’s child survived…Oberon said, but…I did not want to believe…” I was shocked to see tears gathering in his eyes, and glanced at Devil, who gave a tiny shake of his head.
“You knew my mother?” I asked softly. Antenor’s hands folded in his lap, while his head and wings drooped.
“My sweet cousin,” he murmured. “She was more like a sister to me than my own sisters ever were.” He pushed himself up, then gathered his sword and wiped it on his trousers while Devil just rolled his eyes.
I sucked in a breath to reply, but flour shot up my nose, making me sneeze and cough violently.
When I finally regained some composure, Devil was standing beside me, holding out a cup of water.
“You are welcome to leave at your earliest convenience,” he snapped at Antenor. “I think May can manage feeding and dressing herself without supervision. Tell Lord Oberon I will bring her when she is ready.”