4
Emerlyn gave orders, and the fae woman called Vivyan set off.
Emerlyn turned in a different direction as Vivyan led Braithe and Morgana along the pebbled path to a broad cobblestone boulevard.
Idhri trailed behind, laden with Morgana’s ubiquitous basket as well as their other things.
Braithe made herself dizzy trying to take in the details of the city even as she eyed Idhri, wondering if it was true he was a half-blood, worrying he might fall too far behind.
She saw him twist around twice to watch their boat depart.
His master waved to him, anxiety written across his plain face.
Hugh had tried to protest, but weakly. Like Idhri—like herself, in truth—the boatman was afraid of the fae.
He had not heard Dama Vivyan’s accusation of Idhri, but he was fearful for him just the same.
It was hard to accept that Idhri was a half-blood. Braithe didn’t know anything about him except what she could see, that he was young, self-conscious and awkward, just coming out of his boyhood. His voice had not even settled yet. Dama Vivyan had spoken of him with such venom. Why should that be?
Priestess Morgana had feared, when the Blackbird first revealed her true ancestry, that she herself might be a half-blood.
Somehow that had been far less desirable than being fully fae, placing her between two worlds, not properly belonging to either.
Morgana had been relieved when the Blackbird declared that was not the case.
Braithe had never really understood why it mattered.
Idhri stumbled once or twice, as if he wasn’t familiar with his own feet, and Braithe’s heart ached for him.
She had seen how his narrow face paled when the councillor so casually called him half-blood.
He didn’t even know the meaning of the word, but Vivyan’s tone made her disgust all too obvious.
Braithe yearned to comfort the lad as she might have soothed one of her little brothers.
All her brothers would be grown by now, but she still thought of them as the boys they had been.
She sometimes wondered about them. She had heard no news of her family since coming to the Isle, and she had no way of knowing if they ever thought of her.
What she did know, without the slightest doubt, was that if her mam knew she was voluntarily walking into fae country, she would be beside herself.
Braithe’s anxiety had eased somewhat after watching Priestess Morgana negotiate with Councillor Emerlyn.
Emerlyn was clearly a person accustomed to having her orders followed.
There must be a reason she had acceded to Morgana’s wishes.
One thing Braithe had learned as she and Morgana had dwelt so long at Camulod was that people in power always had reasons.
She hoped the councillor’s were good ones.
They moved swiftly on into the city, their way easy on the smooth cobblestones.
The buildings were all built of white stone, with accents in gray granite here and there around windows and doors.
The setting sun made the walls shimmer with faint, reflected rainbow colors.
The pale stone seemed to collect the day’s heat, preserving it and warming the entire city.
They passed a park planted with shrubs Braithe didn’t recognize and beds of tiny flowers in neutral shades of white, pale pink, one or two in a faded gold.
A fountain gurgled in a little square, and though the street was mostly empty, here and there in the distance tall figures moved, wearing robes in muted shades of gray.
Braithe began to search for a touch of red, or blue, or yellow, but she found none.
The deeper they went into the city, the more her bones began to tingle. The air was full of magic, and it soaked into her as if it were rain. Soon her bones ached with it. Pools of magic seemed to gather in places like fog, making her glance uneasily at the buildings overhead.
She felt the sidelong glance the priestess cast her. Morgana murmured, “All well, brat?”
Braithe rubbed her arms and gave a rueful smile. “Magic,” she whispered, hoping Vivyan wouldn’t hear.
“Oh, yes. I feel it, too.”
It was a blessing to be with someone who understood.
Braithe breathed in the feeling as if it were a familiar perfume.
It had been an unexpected grace for an ordinary human like herself to be allied with the priestess Morgana and to be treated with respect and affection, as if they were of equal status.
It was a way of life she could never have imagined, and she was grateful for it.
A little anxiety, a little throbbing in her bones, was no matter in the presence of such good fortune.
At the top of a modest hill, Vivyan turned up a lane that took them to a small walled courtyard.
A modest guesthouse stood in the center.
Like the other buildings, it was white, though its door was painted a clear, crystalline blue, the first bright color Braithe had seen.
Its front windows were glazed and shone like gemstones in the waning light.
The fae woman spoke some words at the door, a silly little rhyme:
One and two and three and four
Now and then and not before
Passage through needs nothing more.
The door swung open, and Vivyan glanced over her shoulder at Morgana. “I’ll give you the cantrip.”
“I heard you. I will remember.” Braithe hid a smile. Morgana’s unerring memory was one of her many gifts.
Vivyan said only, “Ah,” then led them over the sill and into the house.
It was a pretty place, but its atmosphere was one of austerity.
It was cooler inside, which was a relief.
The floor was fashioned of some kind of pale wood, and the walls were of wood as well, painted achingly white.
There were two bedchambers to the left, and a door at the far end of the hallway, which stood open to reveal a small privy.
An arched entryway gave onto a narrow kitchen with a long table and several chairs.
Two small, high windows, unglazed, were set above a stone sink with a small pump handle.
There was no decoration Braithe could see, nor did she see any cooking implements in the kitchen beyond a kettle on the hob of the fireplace.
The place had the air of long disuse, and she wondered how long it had been since anyone lived there.
Vivyan walked down the hallway, pointing out the two bedchambers to Morgana and Braithe. Morgana went into the larger one and stood with her hands on her hips, assessing it. She said to Braithe, “This is fine. There is a worktable.”
Braithe glanced into the smaller bedchamber, which held a bed and a nightstand. A small window, glazed like the ones in the front of the house, let in the fading sunlight to reveal a washstand with a pottery ewer and a matching basin. It would do.
She turned back to retrieve the priestess’s basket from Idhri, and as she took it into her hands, she saw Vivyan point into the kitchen on the opposite side of the hall, where a niche held a cot and a tiny washstand.
Vivyan said, “You can sleep there, boy.” She put her hand on him, the fingers gripping his narrow shoulder. “But not now.”
An instant later she and Idhri disappeared.
Braithe gaped at the open front door. She cried, “Priestess! She took him!”
Morgana came to her bedroom door, her eyebrows raised. “What?”
“Idhri’s gone! Vivyan put her hand on his shoulder, and then they were—they were just gone, as if—I couldn’t see them leave! They were there, and then—they weren’t!”
“These cursed fae,” Morgana muttered. The irony of referring to her own kind in that way seemed to escape her. “She used a glamour. You weren’t holding your charm, were you? No, you would have no reason to be. So of course you could not see them leave.”
“But why? Why would she take him?”
“I do not know, but I will find out.” Morgana stalked toward the front door, her expression like a thundercloud. “We have no time for such complications!”
Idhri had found himself reluctant to go into the faerie house, although it was so pretty.
He had to force his feet to carry him inside.
He wanted to turn and flee back to the dock, but Master Hugh was already gone.
His master had begged to be able to carry Idhri back with him, but no one had paid him the slightest attention.
In the end, he had been forced to row away into the mist as Idhri and the others started toward the city.
Idhri had looked back more than once, but after the boat disappeared into the mist, he knew he was trapped.
And now, though he wished he were anywhere but here, there was nowhere he could go.
The fae woman named Vivyan had called him a half-blood.
Idhri had never heard the term before and had no idea what it meant, but it sounded awful.
It made him think of someone describing a mongrel dog.
She had tossed it off with such disdain that there could be no doubt it was a bad thing, and she had glared at him as if he were to blame for whatever it was.
It made no sense to Idhri, and the mystery of it intensified his fears.
He felt a shameful stab of homesickness for Emma, for the cottage, even for the dogs that ran in and out of the cottage and through Emma’s garden, keeping rabbits and squirrels from her vegetable beds.
He set his burdens down in the hallway and stood as close to the open door as he could while Vivyan showed the priestess and her handmaid the two bedchambers. Priestess Morgana went into one, but Braithe merely peeked into the second and came back to Idhri for the priestess’s basket.
As he handed it over, a strange sensation gripped him. He had the distinct impression he had been here before, had stood in this doorway, on this wooden floor, had seen the doors to the bedchambers. And he knew what he would see when he turned to his right.