She doesn’t even blink. Something tells me that, like the strange little man, she already knew that.
“And you say that you’re to meet him here?”
“That’s what he said.”
Hildy glances around the crowded room. The noise level has picked up, but she eyes the crowd as if she’s just as suspicious as I suddenly am. “It’s not a good idea for you to wait down here. Rys would’ve known that. Come. Let me get you a room.”
I shake my head. “I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t you worry about that. You belong to Rys. He’ll be coming for you and, when he does, I’ll put it on his tab.”
I don’t know what’s worse: that she assumes I belong to anyone, including Rys, or that he frequents this place enough that he actually has a tab.
Before I can try to argue with her, she steps away from the edge of her bar. Hildy flags down a brownie from somewhere behind me and immediately instructs the creature to show me to my room.
And, well, I let her.
I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m worried that something happened to Rys, and I really, really don’t like all these eyes on me.
Besides, Siúcra guards have a habit of visiting this place. Do I really want to hang out down here and hope that none of them recognize me?
Not even a little.
17
I might’ve gaped at how gorgeous she was, but I barely bat an eye at the brownie as she scurries over to me and tells me in her high-pitched voice to follow her upstairs. From my time locked away in Lord Veron’s manor, I grew familiar with this type of domestic fairy. He had a whole bunch of the females working for him, cleaning my room, and tending to me while he was still trying to convince me to sleep with him.
She leads me up a set of stone steps, so worn and so old, there’s a dip in the middle of each stair. I can feel the history, the years that have passed, the countless visitors that must’ve stayed the night in this inn.
Faerie is such an alien place. On the one hand, it feels like you’ve been thrown back in time. Between the tents and the small wooden inns with the thatched roofs, candlelight, and the fashion when it comes to some of the creatures, I feel like I’m in Medieval Times. The weapons, too. The fae guards and soldiers all carry swords, not guns, and the idea that a queen—now a king—rules this place is so… so feudal.
But then there’s the magic.
In so many ways, the magic inherent to Faerie makes this place so much more advanced than back home. No electricity, no iron, but the portals? It’s not like vacuum tube-travel out of the Jetsons of Futurama or something, but it’s close. Of course, it’s not a given. Only the most powerful fae—like Rys—can whip them up at will.
It’s the same thing as a Seelie’s faerie fire. No wonder Captain Helix was so shocked and angry when I used it against Dusk. It’s supposed to be impossible for a human to wield at all, but not too many fae can conjure it in the first place.
Rys can.
It’s so funny. The guards thought they were taunting Rys by putting me in the cell across from his. Maybe they were, but it was the best possible thing they could’ve done for me.
Ha. Those dicks deserve whatever’s gonna happen to them when the captain realizes there’s been a breakout.
Too bad I won’t be there to see the looks on their faces. Especially when Helix comes down on them for being traitors.
It would almost be worth it.
“Mum Hildy wants you in this room,” chirps the brownie, stopping outside of the first door at the top of the stairs. “If you need anything else, come down and ask.”
“I will.”
She curtsies low, then scurries back down again. I feel a teeny twinge of guilt for not thanking her but, after the way the gnarled, little man reacted earlier, it’s better to just take the help.
I don’t know what to expect when I push in the door to my room. The first thing I see is a roaring fire set deep in a fireplace. The air in Faerie is always suffocatingly warm, but there’s something about these flickering flames. The tips are orange, the body of the flame a rich, forest green, with the embers glowing a dark, midnight blue. It lends a soft light to the cozy room, and the temperature is perfect.
The bed is about three times the size as the cot in my jail cell. The frame is wooden, the accents—four bedposts and a headboard—made of a shiny metal that might possibly be gold. A burgundy quilt lays stretched across the mattress top.
I run my hand across the top. It’s incredibly soft.