Chapter 32 Tea & Travels #2
She appeared a little chagrined, but sighed, “I do not think I am built that way. I hardly think about it though, and I am perfectly content with what I have: music and good friends.”
“Oh…” I sensed a profound sadness beneath her words, something I imagined had little to do with her lack of romantic companionship, and a great deal to do with Titania’s cold rejection of her humanness.
“Robin is certainly built that way though,” she continued, stirring her own tea and looking up at me expectantly. “For a long time, we just knew you as his ‘Abbey girl’, and gods above, he never stopped talking about you. Ever since that night you made your bargain with him.”
I cringed. “Really?”
“Of course, we had no idea who you really were. We thought you were just some poor human girl he’d happened to fixate on.
Jon and Larch teased him about it mercilessly, of course, because he always maintained that someday he’d bring you here and…
get you to fall in love with him.” She watched me closely as my jaw dropped open.
“The sheer audacity,” I laughed, but then I put a hand over my eyes and admitted, “I think…I might have ruined his plan though.” Quickly and quietly, I explained to Aliena what had happened the night before, and she listened with one eyebrow raised.
By the time I finished, she was clearly battling a smile.
“Well,” she said coolly, “I wouldn’t worry too much. He’ll never stay angry with you.”
“I think he just might,” I muttered.
Aliena gave me a strange look, then reached across the table and put a hand over mine.
“The thing you have to remember about Robin…Devil…is that he’s not…
a person. I know that sounds awful, but he was ‘born’ already a child, more or less.
Except, he was never given the courtesy of a childhood, or a real family, or anyone to teach him how to be.
Oberon certainly never tried, just set him loose in the forest to run with the wolves and called him up when he was needed.
All those lessons people learn from growing up, he never had them, and so there are still a lot of things he doesn’t understand. ”
“Oh, you don’t say?” I snorted.
“All I mean is that he truly does care for you, in his own way, which can be very intense. And, of course, it isn’t your responsibility to civilize him, but if he makes you uncomfortable, you can tell him. I know he would do anything to make you happy.”
“Thank you.”
“And if he misbehaves at all,” Aliena said with a grin, “Jon and I will beat him within an inch of his life.”
I just returned the grin and we continued to gossip about the Hollow’s other residents for nearly an hour over our tea. When I finally took my leave of the cottage, Aliena stepped outside with me and waved her hand at the trees.
“You have the entire Arden at your feet now, princess,” she said. “Where will you start?”
I knelt and pressed my hands down, digging my fingertips past the grass and into the cool, soft dirt.
The river of magyk wound beneath me, steady and slow, but overwhelming in its power.
It brought to mind a song that Tuck had taught me when I was a child—a tune he and his fellow friars often sang to keep up their spirits on long journeys, and to remind them of their vows.
I could hardly remember the notes, but spoke the lyrics like a poem anyway, hoping the Arden heard me.
“Where am I needed? Who needs my aid? Shall I go to the city, the field, or the glade? I’ll go where they call, I’ll do what I’m able—shoes for their feet or food on their table. I’ll go where I’m needed, find those who need aid, be they a boatman, a soldier, or maid.”
The squeezing sensation was brief and suddenly, I was no longer in the Hollow. Pinpricks of apprehension crawled across my skin as I wondered exactly what I’d done and where the forest had taken me.
“Am I needed here?” I whispered, putting my hand on the trunk of a beech tree.
“What’s the matter?” Then, I heard a soft noise, like an owl, and followed it until I saw someone curled up in the roots of a tree.
It was a tiny fay child with fluffy, white dandelion seeds for hair, and pale, yellow-ish skin.
One of their small, white butterfly wings was laid out beside them at an odd angle, a long tear in the delicate membrane.
“Hello,” I said softly. The child looked up and wiped tears from their enormous eyes, which had no pupil or iris to speak of, just a sea of swirling green and white, like a glass marble.
“Who are you?” they whispered.
“My name is Marina,” I said, trying a gentle smile, “and I think I can help you. I have a very special magyk gift.”
They buried their face in their hands. “Ma will be terribly angry with me! She told me to put my wings away before climbing trees. My sisters went to fetch her and told me to stay here.”
“What if,” I said, kneeling beside them and running my fingers over the gossamer wing, “I could make it good as new before they get back?”
The child’s eyes widened even more and they shifted, lifting their wing so I could place my hands on either side. Slowly, carefully, I spooled out my healing gift, praying it would be effective on a faerie body. The child sniffled and whimpered as I worked, so I tried to distract them.
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Oh…” They held up a hand, which had only three spindly fingers plus a thumb, then began to count slowly. “I always forget. Ma says we have too many sprouts in our family.”
I laughed. “How many is too many?”
“Three dozen,” they finally answered once they had finished calculating, “but only fourteen are sisters…I think.”
I finished repairing the wing and tested it with a gentle prod. “Goodness, that is a lot of…sprouts. Can you get home on your own?”
“I can now!” the child cried, leaping up and taking to the air. “Thank you, Miss Marina!” They fluttered away between the trees and I sat for a moment, still smiling, then put my hands into the grass again.
“Where else am I needed?” I asked the Arden.
She answered by pulling me to the very edge of the trees, where I had a clear view of Nottingham’s southern facade, and of Locksley Abbey.
My heart ached at the sound of the great, iron bell, but then I heard men’s voices too, and I tensed.
Staying hidden and walking west, it did not take me long to find the source—a small encampment, just beyond the treeline, which appeared to be occupied by the Iron Fist. Around a dozen men milled about between the tents, Sheriff Osric Scarlett amongst them.
Shadows crept out of my fingers and snaked along the grass, but I pulled them back.
“What are you doing here?” I murmured, skirting behind trees to try and get closer.
Just as I found a good position to observe from, however, something small and hard hit me between the shoulder blades.
I whirled around, half expecting Devil to be there, but instead, all I spied was a pair of black boots dangling from the low branch of an apple tree nearby.
I approached slowly and found Antenor’s handsome, brown face grinning down at me.
“Playing spy, cousin?” he asked quietly, offering me a hand.
I frowned. “No more than you are.”
“I am not spying,” he said, holding up an apple.
“I am eating my lunch.” He leaned down further, his empty hand still outstretched, and I took it.
With a shocking amount of strength, he hauled me straight up onto the branch beside him and offered me a second shiny, red apple. “Where is your pet demon today?”
“Haven’t the faintest idea,” I said with a too-casual shrug. “Is this part of your investigation?”
Antenor narrowed his eyes at me before answering. “It wasn’t originally, no. But they started setting up this camp a few days ago, so I have been…observing.”
“And what have you learned?”
“That humans are a brutish species.”
“And the Fair Folk are not?”
“Not the children of the Arden,” Antenor laughed.
“Hippolyta told me something about you,” I said, and he raised a perfect eyebrow. “You’re a prince. You failed to mention that before, Captain.”
“I do not like to bandy it about,” Antenor sighed, appearing rather displeased with the topic. “My father, Mariaat, and Lord Oberon shared a great-grandfather. Their grandfathers were the heir and the spare, respectively, and so my father is now King of the Pallasian Court.”
“And the title of Royal Spare has now fallen to you?” I asked with a smirk, which he returned.
“I am the first of many spares, who will only be noticed if our precious big brother ever decides to drop dead.”
I couldn’t help but notice the bitterness in his voice, and gently asked, “Is that why you spend so much time in the Arden?”
“The food is better here,” he said with a strained smile. “And the company.”
“Surely, your mother notices your absences though?”
Antenor gave me an odd look. “Two fathers,” he corrected. “Two fathers, who raised me, and a woman who was paid handsomely for the use of her womb.”
“Oh…” It was clear he did not want to elaborate, so I attempted a change in tack. “You said…that you and my mother were quite close…”
“Very.” He grinned again. “We used to get into far too much mischief when I visited. Oberon always sent me home early because he got so tired of our antics. Once, we nearly brought down the entire Bower with stolen human fireworks.”
I stifled a laugh in my hand. “I shudder to imagine Titania’s rage.”
“She was…different back then,” he said softly. “Before. I heard about your encounter with her, and with the Rot. I am glad you’re safe.” His brow knit together, and it felt as though there was something else he wanted to say—something he swallowed instead.
“Where do you believe it came from?” I asked.
Antenor let out a long sigh. “I cannot say for certain. Lyric’s death devastated the Arden, of course, but I have seen the Unseelie creatures the Rot makes.
I cannot help but wonder if it came upon us because of what Titania did to those human soldiers…
her anger and cruelty. It turns our own people against us.
But what do I know?” He stretched out his great wings and his arms at the same time.
“I am only a soldier, not even blessed with a magyk gift.”
I let a few of my shadows out, twisting them around my wrist like a bracelet. “I think I’d trade all my magyk for your wings.”
“You’d be out of luck,” Antenor chuckled. “I would not trade my wings for anything, not even a gift like Shadowspinning.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, eating our apples, before he began gently questioning me about the Iron Fist, the Sheriff, and the goings-on in Nottingham.
I told him everything I could, while trying to afford Will some anonymity, and in exchange, he told me stories of my mother.
In spite of all the time Oberon and I had spent together, it was clear that talking about Lyric was painful for him, so I had not asked.
But Antenor seemed eager to recount every memory he had, and I listened greedily.
He told me of her gentle kindness and generosity, but also of her shrewd intelligence and willingness to stand up for others.
By the time I realized how long I’d been away from the Bower, the bottom of the sun was kissing the tips of Nottingham Keep’s towers.
“Meet me here tomorrow?” Antenor asked. “Same time? There’s so many more stories I want to tell you.”
“If I can sneak away,” I laughed, dropping off the branch and using my shadows to cushion the fall. Antenor slid down too and landed beside me. “Thank you for telling me about her. I…I can’t tell you what it means.”
“No, thank you,” he said quietly. “It’s been too long since I was able to remember her this way. And you, more than anyone, deserve to hear her stories. Be good, little cousin.”
“No promises,” I told him as I knelt and put my hands in the grass again.
Back at the hot springs, I found Sir Toby laying on my blanket, surrounded by the wreckage of my picnic basket.
“Oh, you absolute monster!” I cried. “Is this my punishment for leaving you alone so long?”
The incorrigible hound just pulled himself up and stretched, then each of his heads yawned in turn.
He began trotting back toward the Bower as I sighed in defeat and began collecting shredded pieces of wicker.
Luckily, Ceres was not upset, having lost quite a few good baskets to Sir Toby over the years already, but she did seem a bit suspicious at how long I’d been ‘at the hot springs’.
My excuse was that I’d been practicing with my magyk, which was not a lie.
However, in order to make up for my dishonesty, and secure myself an ally, I knew I’d need to surprise her with a trip to the Hollow sooner rather than later.