Chapter Thirty-Seven Kion #2
As King Puck mutters something under his breath, Queen Pike shrugs.
“I have a subscription; I like the perfume samples. And as they say…know thy enemy. I have built war plans around what I learn in Wily Witch.” She beams with those disturbing teeth.
“So: I won’t hang you by your entrails. You won the race, and something tells me you know about the boon from your púca. ”
“Wait. Which one of us won?” Taissa demands again. Below her, Banes seems perfectly fine with Taissa’s continued perch on her shoulders. Almost like she’s sporting a new hat.
Pike glances between them. “Why, you did, Pink-Thong Girl. By a hairsbreadth.”
Kion’s face breaks into a smile. It hurts—he’s not accustomed to smiling like this—but he can’t help it. She did it. Cho fucking did it. She’s saved them all.
He’s never adored her more than in this moment.
“I can confirm that,” adds Banes, looking up at her. “So. What’s your wish, Taissa Cho?”
Taissa’s eyes shine. “I…I…” She takes a deep breath.
“I wish for the two curses pertaining to carriwitchet—cursing my team and cursing the Wingeds with the Sleeping Death—to be reversed, without any, er, funny business, on the part of the púcas,” she says breathlessly, and Kion admires how carefully she chooses her words.
He wishes James had done the same.
Banes gives a sharp nod. “Easy enough. I don’t even need to dip into the Dark Well for it,” the púca says, and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, they glow golden, and wisps of shadow uncoil from her skin. “It is done,” says Banes. “Now, get the hells off me.”
As she hops to the ground, Kion finally lunges forward, unable to stop himself from enveloping Taissa in a bone-crushing hug.
He lifts her from the ground, breathing in the honey and thyme scent of her, joy bleeding out of him like divine gold.
“You won, Taissa,” he breathes, spinning her round. “You fucking won.”
Her laughter rings in his ears like chiming bells. “Put me down, you great numpty,” she gasps, smacking his back with a hand. “I can barely breathe.”
Kion sets her down reluctantly, and she grins up at him, unsteady on her feet. “Only a hairsbreadth, Locke.”
“Damned if I care,” he replies, before glancing at Banes. “The curses are really gone?” he asks, hardly daring to believe it. The Unseelie gives him an are you daft look, her good mood—apparently from winning the race—having worn off.
“That is literally what I just said.”
Kion exhales, shuddering, as Taissa tucks herself into his side. It’s almost over. After so long, this nightmare—it’s almost over.
But only almost.
Because James should be here, with him. But he’s not. He’s unconscious in the infirmary, paying the price for a fool’s bargain.
It’s like Pike has read his mind. Maybe she has: Nobody knows the extent of the Unseelie queen’s powers. “There is also a reward from us,” she says, with a gesture to her annoyed-looking husband, “for winning the race. Would you like your gift, Pink-Thong Girl?”
“Uh,” rasps Taissa, “maybe? Depending?”
Pike smiles again. Each time she does, Kion knows the image will haunt his nightmares for weeks. “Don’t be silly. Of course you do. You will receive one as well, Orla Banes. But first, Pink-Thong Girl, for you: I give you the gift of what you need most. I give you the gift of knowledge.”
“Excuse me?” says Taissa, looking slightly stung. Kion’s offended on her behalf. Did Pike just call her, the smartest woman he knows, stupid? But then Pike is taking Taissa’s face in her pale blue hands, magic crackling through the air like electricity, and Taissa’s eyes are flaring wide.
“No,” she chokes out. “Really?”
Pike dips her head. “I’m afraid so.”
Kion watches in buzzing concern as Taissa swallows hard and takes one of Pike’s hands in her own.
“Thank you, Queen,” she whispers. A surprised expression crosses Pike’s face, almost like she hadn’t expected a Seelie to want to touch her.
Kion watches as Pike blinks, smiles unsteadily, and then squeezes Taissa’s hand.
He wonders if “knowing thy enemy” is really the only reason the queen reads Wily Witch.
If, maybe, she wants to belong just as much as the next dark elf.
Atop his horse, Puck’s face softens, like Taissa’s simple act of basic human decency toward his wife made him hate her and Kion much less.
Depressing, he thinks, that this is what it’s come to between the Unseelie and Seelie.
“It’s nothing, Pink-Thong Girl,” says Pike, shrugging shyly and suddenly looking very young.
In Unseelie standards, she is, Kion remembers.
“But if you’d like to repay me, perhaps you and Groping Boy can…
can come by for tea? I promise not to eat you, even if I’m hungry, and Puck shan’t feed you to Glutvoxxas, either. ”
Ah, bloody hells. Why the fuck not?
“I’d love to,” Kion says gruffly.
Taissa returns the Unseelie queen’s smile. “I would like that,” she agrees. “Very much. In fact, I think we all would.”
“ ‘We all’?” demands King Puck, beginning to look suspicious, just as the rest of the NCL Stymphs crowd them.
Kion’s teammates are looking a bit worse for the wear: Troll óríon is soaked through with mud, and Bronte is sporting a lump on her head the size of England, while Adriel is blinking dazedly, supported by Mahina.
As for Knox and Isla, the two of them are covered in scratches, but grinning exuberantly.
“Yeah…We’re sort of a package deal,” Kion informs the arched-brow king as Queen Pike claps her hands in delight.
By the time the team and Magis Elder make their way to the Ballyford train station the next morning, somebody has tipped off various mags that the NCL Stymphs are the “team that saved carriwitchet.”
Kion shields his face from the flashes of dozens of cameras, his ears ringing from the excited chatter of reporters.
Literally overnight, all Wingeds afflicted by the Sleeping Death made a full recovery.
Once this was confirmed by a phone call between a jubilant-sounding Vance and a weary-looking Elder, the team was too tired to do anything but draw some much-needed Panaceas and flop into bed.
Kion had gladly fallen into their bed. Taissa came up a little later; she’d been speaking to Magis Elder, she mentioned, and—with difficulty—with Sansa through the wisp of their remaining bond.
They hadn’t been able to say or hear much, she’d admitted with glistening eyes, but her little wyvern was alive and well.
Kion had been dozing off, with his arms wrapped around Taissa, when he remembered the strange “second gift” Queen Pike had given her. “What ‘knowledge’ did she give you, then?” he murmured into her hair.
Taissa sighed sleepily, turning around to face him. “It might be too much for tonight,” she said hesitantly. “You look knackered.”
He’d brushed a knuckle across her cheek. “Tell me, sweetheart. Tell me what she told you.”
So she had.
And she was right. It was too much for that night.
He barely slept at all, tossing and turning.
Which is why now, even as the reporters sing their praises, Kion has a snarl on his face.
He only relaxes when he’s in the compartment with Taissa and Elder, the latter going over what will need to happen upon their return.
Kion nods curtly, exchanging grim looks with Taissa. The storm isn’t over yet.
When the train finally lands in Pinion-upon-Keat, Kion takes a deep breath, trying to relax.
It’s good to be home. The early afternoon sun glows golden as they make their way back to the Nexitory, where a crowd cheers and hollers, waving excitedly and decked out in Stymph purple and silver.
As Kion exits the car, he blinks in disorientation as fans—their fans—cry out his name, eyes bright with excitement and…
gratefulness. Word travels fast in the UKHC. Kion fights a small smile.
They’ve come back, these fans. And that means something.
Maybe now, they can give them a season worth their time.
His teammates are staring in shock at the crowd of well-wishers.
Knox recovers first, signing a dryad’s forehead with a flourish and a wink.
The others, spurred on by this, break into grins.
Kion meets Magis Elder’s eye, and as the geancánach tips his head toward the Nexitory, he gives him back a curt nod.
“Come on,” he says to Taissa, grabbing her hand, and weaving out of the mayhem after Elder.
Compared to outside, the Nexitory’s interior is chilly. Or maybe that’s just Kion as he, Taissa, and Elder step into a lift, Elder curtly punching the button.
Taissa squeezes Kion’s hand. He squeezes back.
As they step out of the lift, right outside the infirmary, Elder gestures for them to go on. Exchanging grim looks, Taissa and Kion step inside.
James is right where he’s always been, on the cot, still and silent, but breathing.
That’s something, he guesses. Edward is hovering over him, checking his diagnostics.
Just like the rest of the Nexitory, the infirmary seems colder than usual.
The white walls, pristine tiled floors, and the smell of antiseptics are giving Kion a headache.
Edward looks up as they enter, and his eyes brighten at the sight of Taissa.
“You’re back!” he exclaims. “Thank Merlin.” When he rushes to embrace Taissa, she lets him, allowing Kion to slip toward Edward’s small desk in the back of the infirmary, right underneath a framed illustration of stymphalian anatomy.
He feels strangely detached as he opens the desk’s third drawer, like Queen Pike had urged Taissa to. There, hidden underneath the paper he brushes aside, is a pair of crumpled lavender knickers. The proof Elder needs to make an arrest.
“Magis!” Kion calls, his voice harsh and unforgiving. Elder strides in, eyes flashing, just as Taissa breaks out of Edward’s embrace with a look of sheer disgust.