But when she saw herself, she knew. The almond eyes sat oddly against the mop of blond hair, making the child look fey despite her chubby body and round ears. Asian and blond. Kaye could manage nothing more than staring as the girl—far, far too young to be Kaye in any reasonable world—picked a weed and, wrapping the stem carefully, flung the head in the direction of a pretty faerie lady who laughed.
All the questions Kaye wanted to ask choked her. She turned on her heel and stomped back to Roiben and Ethine, grabbing his arm hard.
"We have to go now," she shouted, furious and trembling. "Corny could be dead."
Ethine was wide-eyed as Roiben swallowed whatever he might have said and nodded. Kaye turned on her heel, stalking back to the car, leaving Roiben to follow her.
Chapter 14
"In the hills giant oaks fall upon their knees
You can touch parts
You have no right to—"
—Kay Ryan, "Crown"
She didn't make it to the car.
"Kaye, stop. Just stop." Roiben's voice came from close behind her.
She paused, looking through the trees at the minivans and the highway beyond. Anything to not look backward at the Seelie Court and the ageless children and Roiben.
"You're shaking."
"I'm angry. You're screwing around while we have stuff to do." His calm was only making her angrier.
"Well, I'm sorry for that." He didn't sound sorry exactly, his voice hovering on the edge of sarcasm.
Her face was hot. "Why are you here?"
There was a pause. "Because you just wrested me from a conversation with a none-too-polite scolding."
"No… why are you still here? Why are you here at all?"
His voice was quiet. She could not see his lace unless she turned and she would not turn. "Shall I go, then?"
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. She simply felt overloaded.
"Everything I do…" she started and her voice hitched. "Shit, we don't have time for this."
"Kaye—"
"No." She started pacing. "We have to go. Right now."
"If you cannot becalm yourself, you'll do Cornelius little good."
She stopped pacing and held up her hands, fingers splayed wide. "I can't! I'm not like you!">Nearby, at the edges of the gathering, a treewoman with skin like bark and fingers that turned to leaves at the nails was whispering to a mute apple tree, every so often turning her head slowly to glare at seven little men who were standing on each other's shoulders. They formed a faerie ladder that wove back and forth from base to top, where one little man was grasping desperately for a fat apple.
A winged girl ran by with a very little boy toddling after her, his hair braided with flowers. A human boy. Kaye shuddered.
Looking around again, she noticed more human children, none older than perhaps six. They were being brushed and petted, their eyes half-lidded and dreamy. One sat with a blue-skinned woman, head on the faerie's knees. A group of three children, all crowned with daisies, clumsily danced with three little men in mushroom caps. Faerie ladies and gentlemen clapped.
Kaye sped up her pace, meaning to stop Roiben and ask him about the children. But then she saw where he was looking, and she forgot all her questions.
Next to trees thick with spring blossoms even in fall, there was an auburn-haired faerie dressed in a deep emerald-green coat that flared like a gown. Kaye stopped walking when she saw the woman; she could scarcely remember to breathe. She was the most beautiful thing Kaye had ever seen. Her skin was flawless, her hair shone bright as copper in the sun under a woven circlet of ivy and dogwood blossoms, her eyes were as bright as the green apples that hung near them. Kaye could not just glance at the faerie woman; her eyes were drawn to look until the faerie took up the totality of her vision, rendering all else dull and faded.
Roiben did not need to tell her that this was the Queen of the Seelie Court.