Chapter 43 A Will & A Way
Chapter forty-three
A Will & A Way
When we arrived in the Hollow by way of my magyk, the first sound I heard was Myrtle and Vale’s infectious laughter.
I grinned at Devil and we walked around his oak tree to see the two faun children splashing in rain puddles with their mother, while Larch watched from the den’s entrance with a smile on his face.
The sight of their sweet little family, now whole and happy again, almost made me forget all the guilt I’d been battling.
“May!” called Celia. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” She lifted the soaking wet hem of her skirt and jogged over to us, flicking water playfully at Larch as she went.
“Thank you for sending those flowers,” I told her as we crowded into the shelter of the oak, trying to stay out of the rain. “I’m feeling much better.”
“Oh, goodness, it’s the least I can do.” She pulled me into a tight hug.
“And thank you for helping with Helena. I’m sorry she’s been difficult.”
“I think I would be too, in her position,” Celia murmured. “She’s downstairs right now…still drinking.”
“And Jon?”
“Will asked to meet him at the falls,” Larch answered. “Are you sure you don’t want me there tonight?”
“No, my friend,” Devil said, putting a hand on the faun’s shoulder.
“You’re needed here.” With a wink, he took my hand and pulled me down into Jon’s den, where we found Helena sprawled out on top of the table.
She wore a simple but clean gray dress now, and her hair had been cut rather sloppily just above her chin.
“Did she do that to herself?” I whispered.
“You needn’t speak as if I’m not here,” Helena snapped without opening her eyes, “Marina of Locksley.” She pulled herself up and reached for one of the four wine bottles sitting beside her. After a long drink, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and belched, then giggled.
“I was only—” I began, but she cut me off.
“Have you come to deliver me back to my father?”
“No.” I folded my hands in front of me and tried to remain patient. “I am only here to take some of the gold. Your fate is up to you.”
“And what, pray tell, are my options?” she snorted. “Return to my loving family, or live the rest of my life in a tree, surrounded by freaks?”
“We can send you to Rykard,” said Devil, “in Messina.”
Helena’s eyes narrowed, then she laughed. “So…a punching bag, a slave to the Fair Folk, or a political pawn for an uncle I’ve never met? Those are my choices?”
“You would not be a slave here,” I told her. “Not under my protection.”
Helena hiccuped. “Who are you to offer such protection, hmm? Just a little orphaned Abbey girl…”
“She is heir to the Arden Court,” Devil snarled, “and you would do well to remember it.” I put a gentle hand on his arm, then motioned toward the chests of gold stacked at the foot of Jon’s bed.
Devil grumbled under his breath and pulled one out to count the coins.
I walked slowly toward the table while Helena just watched me with blank, gaunt eyes.
“I am not your enemy, Helena. If you and I can trust each other, maybe things could change…between the Arden and Nottingham.”
“Come back to me when you’ve stood in front of my father, and Osric Scarlett, and made it out alive,” Helena muttered before taking another long pull from her wine bottle and flopping back onto the table.
I opened my mouth to reply, but Jon came into the den, followed by Will, who looked much worse for wear than the last time he’d visited.
“Gods, May, what have you done?” he breathed, wrapping his arms around my shoulders when I approached him.
“What do you mean?”
“The Prince and my father have the entire city in a fucking uproar! They’re saying Helena’s been kidnapped by the faerie queen.”
I glanced at Devil, who slammed the chest shut. “That’s why she was in the damn wagon!”
“He also—” Will stopped and took a deep breath. “He’s also saying that some of his soldiers, the Iron Fist, that they were massacred in the Arden. May, tell me you didn’t…”
“It was Titania,” I groaned. “Mercy, this is a fucking mess. What are they planning to do?”
“He has men gathered, patrolling the edge of the forest,” Will murmured, “and the Iron Fist is out in the streets. People can barely leave their homes. Everyone’s afraid.”
“We have to take her back,” said Devil. At his words, Helena sat up again and began to cry, pulling her knees to her chest. “Johar is using her as an excuse to invade the Arden! If we don’t send her back, how many of our people will die?”
“I am not sending her back!” I snarled at him.
“I won’t be reduced to that. Besides, Johar is clearly looking for any excuse.
If we send her back, he’ll just claim she’s a changeling assassin, kill her, and invade the Arden anyway.
” I put my hands on either side of my head and turned away, trying to think through the sound of Helena’s desperate sobs.
“Then we have no choice but to involve Oberon,” Devil muttered. “It’s likely he already knows about some of this, but we have to tell him about Helena too. If Titania finds out about this escalation, we all know what happens…”
“War,” said Jon quietly. Helena began to rock back and forth on the table and Will went to try and comfort her.
“Devil will come with me to deliver the gold to Locksley,” I said, turning back around. “Let me speak to Tuck before we do something we cannot take back. If anyone will have the answer, it will be him.”
“Oh, I cannot wait to see you explain all this to an old man of the Church,” Devil laughed derisively. I just shot him a glare.
“That’s the other thing,” said Will. “They have the Iron Fist posted outside Locksley now too. Archbishop Piers isn’t going to last much longer, and I don’t know what will happen when he goes. They haven’t named a replacement yet, which makes me nervous.”
“They’ll probably just install your fucking father in his place,” I grumbled. “Are you sure Johar hasn’t been poisoning Piers or something like that?”
Will’s face went taut. “At this point, nothing would shock me. The Prince and my father both have it out for Locksley. I just wish I knew why.”
“Gods be damned,” I groaned, sitting down on top of a chest.
“Nothing’s broken here that can’t be fixed,” Will said, crouching beside me and gently pulling my hands away from my face.
“Alright? We’ll get through this. I promise.
Now, before you take any of this gold, we should check it.
If Johar did send that caravan through the Arden on purpose, I wouldn’t put it past him to have marked the coins somehow, to trace them back. ”
“Good idea,” I said, sliding off the chest and opening the lid.
Devil gave me a look, then beckoned to Jon, and the two of them vanished upstairs.
Will and I worked in relative silence, checking each coin for anything that looked suspicious, until finally I looked up at his haggard face and was compelled to speak.
“You look awful, Will. Is your father—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, then heaved a long sigh.
“I’m sorry. I swear, I’m alright. He’s not…
he’s not hurting me. Just keeping me busy, running messages and things.
I hate it, but it’s the only way I can help right now.
He still trusts me, so I’ve been able to feed some useful information to Tuck, at least.”
“And what about Jon?”
“He’s desperate for me to just stay in the Arden. He can’t understand why I keep going back.”
“You’re trying to save people.”
Will’s answer was stiff. “He’s such a good man, May, but…sometimes I think there’s a reason he hasn’t broken that curse yet.”
“You and I were raised to give everything to others,” I said gently.
“It’s different here. Jon and Devil and the rest of them, they have to look out for themselves, because no one else does.
Don’t be too angry with him for wanting to spare you from martyrdom.
I think he loves you.” I leaned in to kiss him on the cheek just as Devil came back down the stairs, armed with his longbow and a quiver of arrows, with Jon behind him looking sour.
Deciding that the coins were likely safe, I closed the chest and pulled Will into a tight embrace.
A few minutes later, both wearing thick, hooded cloaks and carrying the gold between us, Devil and I left the den.
I waited until we were uphill from his oak tree before saying, “I don’t want Oberon involved yet. Can you not trust me to figure this out on my own?”
He scowled. “I do trust you, May, but you command no army, nor do you employ any spies, besides maybe Prim. Oberon has a network. He has informants, and he has soldiers. We might need them to help fix the mistake we made.”
“But Oberon’s only concern is for the Arden,” I said, “and I will not sacrifice one of my homes to spare the other. There must be another way…”
“Sometimes, there is no other way,” Devil replied quietly.
My magyk only got us as far as the edge of the trees, so Devil’s Lightweaving had to conceal us both as we walked toward Locksley’s eastern wall, where the Iron Fist was not posted.
Since he needed both his hands to maintain the mobile cover, I carried the chest of gold alone, trying not to betray the fact that I was struggling with the weight of it, especially since a light rain was still falling and causing my hands to slip.
Normally, the small back gate was always kept locked, but I had long ago stolen a spare key and left it behind a loose stone in the wall in order to facilitate secret meetings with Will.
Holding our light-shield steady with one hand, Devil dug it out and unlocked the door, which required him to duck to fit through, even without his wings on display.
Inside the Abbey walls, I set the chest of gold down hard, then paused to look around.
But I was overcome by unexpected emotion, and stayed rooted to the spot even as Devil moved past me.
“May? What is it?” he asked.