Broken Dove (Fantasyland 4)

She ignored him.

“Love like you build with Miss Madeleine is as she is. It is not of this world. Not of her world. It is beyond the worlds. It is beyond anything.”

He was feeling that, he didn’t need a ladies maid, no matter her intelligence or power, to tell him so.

Apollo looked beyond her to the door, starting to say, “We will not dis—”

“She is in grave danger.”

He looked back to her.

“This I know,” he growled.

“I do not know why these powers wish to extinguish this love beyond worlds. But this is their wish. I sense it. They wish to extinguish it but they will wrest something from it.” Her head cocked to the side. “There are others.” It was a question and a statement.

“Three others,” he confirmed.

“They are in grave danger as well,” she informed him of something he knew.

“Woman, this is not something we don’t know,” he shared.

She didn’t move.

He grew more impatient but still, to learn what she might know, he waited.

Finally, she said, “The one with white hair we met tonight and Miss Maddie I see often surrounded in green. This green does not cause me dread. It means them no harm, in fact, the opposite. There is also one who is surrounded by gold. She, too, does not trouble me. You say there’s another?”

He drew in breath and told her, “Cora, the Gracious. Princess of the Vale.”

She nodded. “I will tell you if I see her.”

Brilliant.

Now she needed to bloody move.

He didn’t order this. He waited again, his patience waning.

“It is their love,” she said softly, her eyes going unfocused.

“Pardon?” he asked.

She lifted a finger. Closing her eyes, she rubbed it between.

Finally, she dropped her hand and looked to him.

“The men of these women, they are hard to love,” she declared and Apollo clenched his teeth. “All for different reasons. All, if they had not found these women, would have lived lonely, untouched by that emotion, the companionship they enjoy, the contentment their lover brings them.”

“I was touched by it,” he reminded her, his voice cold.

“You were, and yet it was lost. Worse for you, as you know how that feels.”

He wished she’d cease telling him things he knew and get out of his gods damned way.

“And because you lost it,” she continued, “this is why your love is not easy to win, and you not an easy man to love.”

He said nothing for she was again telling him something he knew.

“I will share if I see more,” she declared, finally moving out of the way.

“My gratitude,” he muttered, shifting toward the door. Hand on the doorknob, he turned back to her. “I wish you to stay with Loretta tonight. Lady Madeleine and I will be going back to my children. We travel with a guard and a witch.”

She nodded.

“You will be escorted back to her in the morning.”

She again nodded.

He jerked up his chin. “Sleep well, Meeta,” he muttered, turning from her, but before he could enter the room, she called, “Wolf.”

He turned back.

“You will not know,” she started quietly. “You will never know. I have lived a life in service. That forced on me or that necessary to put food in my belly, clothes on my back. In this world, all have their place. In her world,”—she inclined her head to the door—“I sense, they do not. In her world, I am her equal. Thus in this world, that is how she treats me. Even if I am in service to her, she never makes me feel this is the case. In this world, in my place, such as this is a gift more valuable than a hundred chests of gold. You can never understand this, but I do. And it is a treasure I wish to keep…for always.”

“Then you shall keep it,” he replied softly.

She dipped her chin.

When he regained her eyes, he said, “Thank you for what you did tonight, Meeta, and for all you do for my Madeleine.”

Her mouth grew soft.

He nodded to her, finally turned to the door and entered the room.

Madeleine was curled up in a chair pulled to the windows. The curtains were open, and she had her chin to her raised knees, gazing at the village of Brunskar.

“My dove,” he called gently and watched her body jerk, her head turning to him. “We must be away.”

“Away?” she asked.

“To the children,” he explained, walking toward her. When he got close to her chair, he crouched down at her side. “We will have a guard and a witch with us. The Keer parcel has been destroyed, the enchantments recast. We are safe to journey, poppy. But with what happened tonight, I do not wish to be far from you or my children.”

She drew in a deep breath but nodded while doing it and unfolded from the chair.

He looked around the room. “Has Melba offered you a cloak?” he asked.

“No,” she answered and when he looked back to her, she was again gazing out the window.

“Maddie,” he called and her eyes came to his. “We will be safe, dove,” he whispered.

Her teeth worried her lip but she nodded.

“Loretta is to stay here and rest, Meeta is with her. They will return tomorrow and we’ll be away to Karsvall.”

She nodded again.

He held his hand to her. “Let us find you a cloak and be on our way.”

She took his hand without a word and followed him out. Most of the servants were awake, seeing to the rush of activity that ended the night. Thus they acquired a cloak easily.

However, Maddie swayed to a halt at his side when they hit the top of the steps outside the front door.

He looked into her pale face, understood her terror and bent instantly. He swung her into his arms and walked her down the steps as she held tightly to his shoulders, her cheek pressed against his.

She only let him go when he put her atop Anguish. He mounted behind her, leaned them both into the steed and kicked in his heels.

His men, Remi with the witch on the back of his horse, fell in around them.

The ride to the village was less than half the time it took when they rode to the castle in their sleigh. Once they reached the inn, Apollo escorted Maddie to her room, Gaston moving to stand sentry beside her door as he pulled her loosely in his arms just inside it.

“I will be back very shortly, poppy. I wish to check on the children.”

She looked up at him, her face still pale, her eyes strange, but she nodded.

He would deal with her fears very soon.