Chapter Ten Trouble Beyond Trouble #2
Saeldian didn’t miss a beat. “Lorzok befriended the almiraj, Timtim, immediately. As we were getting acquainted, someone else arrived. A witch, my lord.”
Osalor’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”
Only someone who hadn’t been there would have asked that.
“The feeling of her magic. Even the way it smelled,” Saeldian said.
They were right. Kell remembered it—wet and green and a touch of the grave, but something sweet enough to make you think it was your imagination.
Osalor leaned forward, finally interested. “The way it smelled.”
“It started when I arrived in the Feywild, my lord. I can smell magic. Our magic smells like tempting things,” Saeldian said. “Saer Lorzok’s smells like the rain and the underside of an owl’s wing, a bit of mushroom. She smelled like the odor of three magics at once.”
Kell didn’t notice the tiny magic Osalor used to maintain the floating, dreamy movements of his gossamer robes until it stopped, and every hem bent to gravity instead of him.
“You’re not saying this because she carried a staff and a pointy hat.”
“She did carry a staff and wear a pointy hat,” Saeldian said. “And her hair was white as clean old bones, though she was young. And she looked at me, Saer.”
Saeldian touched their breastbone, but they didn’t need to. Osalor’s expression was carefully attentive, but under those draping robes, his thighs were tense.
“So she scared you out of your wits. And in your terror, your first and only thought was to run straight to my door.”
Saeldian’s eyes went shiny with tears.
Osalor whirled back from the window, moving so fast Kell had to stop his reach for his daggers as Osalor towered over Saeldian, all the layers of his robes floating gracefully back down as he caught their face in long, elegant hands.
“Always run to me when you’re in danger, my protégé. Always turn to me when you don’t know where to turn. That’s why I’m here. That’s why you are my only, my chosen heir.”
The tears slipped free.
“Cry. It’s all right,” Osalor murmured. “You’ve had quite a day.”
Saeldian’s laugh covered for a sob. “I’m sorry. I must look awful.”
His smile looked so much like a proud mentor’s that almost anyone would believe it. He looked the way Saeldian did when they were whoever they were needed to be. He brushed Saeldian’s tears away with his fingers. “No chosen of mine could ever look awful when they cry. There, all finished?”
Saeldian sniffled. “Yes.”
“Tough as old roots,” Osalor said. “And you have to be, my dear, because I cannot shelter you or your friends if you wish to remain safe.”
“But Saeldian’s exhausted,” Jubilee burst out. “They need an hour, at the very least. That witch couldn’t take her eyes off Sheld. Not Sheld. But the—”
Jubilee stopped speaking as Osalor turned his gaze on her. His pale flower-petal robes became colder, like snow and sharp daggers of ice. “Go on.”
Saeldian looked straight forward, unmoving. Cold radiated from Osalor as he turned pale, slitted eyes on Jubilee.
“Saeldian has a pendant,” Jubilee said.
They still wore that old thing? Did they still wear it when they washed?
Osalor glanced at Saeldian for one heated second but nodded to Jubilee. “Continue.”
“They keep it tucked away, but they never take it off. Ever. And the witch was staring right at Saeldian’s chest. If she’d been a dog, she would have been licking her chops.”
“I’d thought of a cat,” Lorzok said. “She knew Saeldian was afraid. She liked that.”
“I’d bet your favorite button against a pocket of gold that Saeldian depleted their magic getting here,” Jubilee said, “and you’re going to toss us straight into the fire!”
Saeldian cringed like they expected a shout, a slap, something breaking.
Timtim thumped both paws on the gleaming floor and lowered his horn like he would charge an archfey’s ankles if it came to that.
But Osalor kept his temper, and he didn’t even have to try to look like Jubilee’s outburst didn’t bother him.
His robes warmed, taking on the subtle pink and gold in its tones that Kell hadn’t noticed until they were cold and blue.
He was a flower again instead of a dagger made from ice.
Now he was terrifying. If Osalor shifted that quickly all the time, Saeldian must do everything they could to keep his mood blossoming. His severe demeanor softened, and his charm was silk and honey once more.
“I’m tossing you to the edge of the fire,” Osalor corrected. “Jubilee of Righthoof Manor, is it?”
Jubilee nodded.
“If I extend you hospitality, and someone of the fey courts notices, that will be the middle of the fire. They will put you on the game board to be part of the struggling drama of the seelie and unseelie.”
“Why?” Kell said. “What part do you have in the fey courts’ eternal game of Light and Darkness?”
“And you must be the ex-apprentice. Kell?”
Ex-apprentice? Osalor was trying to needle him. “I am as you’ve named me, but the question remains.”
“I have no part,” Osalor said. “I’ve stood outside that struggle for a long time, and that makes each side certain I’m an agent of the other. I can’t drop you into that, not while you have a sworn mission to carry out. So I must put you out, but I might have advice. Where are you going?”
Kell bit back his first impulse and answered, “It’s a domain called Hearthaven’s Repose.”
Osalor maintained a cordial curiosity Kell didn’t believe was real.
Everything Kell knew about the mask of acting slid over his body while he adjusted his assumptions.
Saeldian didn’t talk about their patron often, but to hear them tell it, Osalor was everything Saeldian strived to be—beautiful, irresistible, charming, refined.
They spoke of a mentor who believed in Saeldian’s potential more than they did.
They had always been grateful and awed where he was concerned.
Meeting him now, Kell didn’t want Osalor knowing about his family, or Essanderon’s Rest, or anything he could turn into a knife.
“Hearthaven’s Repose. Yes.” Osalor sorted through memories while he drifted away to refresh a silver vase of cut orchids.
“I’ve heard of it. But I only remember the name.
I don’t get a lot of gossip while I’m tucked away in here.
But you should go to Eightbridge, like I said. If anyone knows, they’ll be there.”
“Is Eightbridge a seelie court?” Lorzok asked.
“Partially. Eightbridge is the domain that other smaller domains border. There’s more than eight, but—I can’t tell you the story.
You’ll be here too long. The point is that they have guides there.
Did Saeldian tell you to look for a sign of a walking figure carrying a star on their lantern?
They’ll be on inns close to the gates. A lot of refugees from the Hungry War wound up in Eightbridge, or a neighboring domain. ”
He looked pointedly at Kell for that last bit. “It’s so sad to lose those you love. Unbearable pain, I imagine.”
Kell added one more entry to the list of reasons he should not punch an archfey. He did not want Osalor thinking about his family as a way to settle any offense on Kell’s part. “But you’re saying if anyone survived it, they fled to Eightbridge.”
“Correct. The refugees needed to go somewhere, and the place that’s on the way to everywhere else tends to collect people. Saeldian arrived here because they needed to. I expect you can do the same,” Osalor said.
Kell didn’t like the possibility of Osalor being right about anything. But he had to listen. “How do we find it, then?”
“Listen carefully. Just outside my domain, you’ll find a stone bridge in the middle of the wood. Whatever water it crossed is gone. But any bridge can lead to Eightbridge, if you need it to badly enough. If you do find water, bathe in it. Leave no trace of your coming here. Saeldian, to me.”
Osalor reached out his hand, then dodged Saeldian’s attempt to take it. “The amulet. No, don’t take it off.”
Saeldian let the high, forbidding gorget melt away so they could lift the pendant from under their jerkin. Osalor held it in his hand.
“That’s a new chain.”
“The old one was broken,” Saeldian said. “I made sure the next one was sturdier.”
“Clever. Hold still.”
Osalor concentrated. Saeldian closed their eyes. Beside him, Lorzok leaned forward a little.
“This is an obscuring charm. It won’t last long, but it will hide you long enough to get to Eightbridge, and perhaps a day more.”
“I’ll be careful,” Saeldian promised.
“My protégé.” Now he offered his hand for Saeldian to take. He squeezed once and let it fall before opening glass doors to the moonlit garden just outside the windows.
“Nobble will show you out.”
Osalor seemed to forget his visitors as soon as he started wandering around his impossible garden.
He didn’t look back as Kell and the others walked out of his realm, with no rest or welcome or even an offer of food for the road.
Three steps away from the twinned trees and the path between and the way to Osalor’s domain had vanished, leaving only the truewild around them.
Kell retraced their steps just to see if it was an illusion, but he met only peaceful, gently blooming forest. Evicted, just like that.
When he turned back, Jubilee and Lorzok watched him. Saeldian faced his direction, standing the way Osalor had critiqued them into, but they looked anywhere but where they’d come from.
“Sheld.” Jubilee lifted her hand but put it down without touching Saeldian’s shoulder. “Do you need anything? Are you all right?”
Saeldian shook their head. “I think asking was very kind. I understand my patron’s concerns. I am well.”
The tiny starflowers around their feet wilted. Timtim hopped over and lifted to his hind legs, using Saeldian’s shin for balance.
They bent, looking Timtim in the face. “Do you want me to carry you? Up you come.”
Saeldian cradled the almiraj in the crook of one arm. Timtim stretched over their leaf-scale breastplate and set his head right where the tips of his ears would swish along their jaw.