Zelda sighed, turning back to the counter. “Well, if she is here, I am sure you have your reasons for keeping her.”
“She was banished by a wizard. Or so she claims.”
Zelda began to chop the vegetables. “If that’s true, then she may be stuck here. Does she realize that? Odd that she would be able to even get here alone.”
“My thoughts exactly. A wizard should not have had access to our portals. That I must look into, assuming it’s true.”
“You think she’s lying.”
I took a sip of tea, pondering her question. I had stayed up half the night wondering if she was telling the truth. My gut reaction on deceit was typically strong. The fact that Lila was a mage made her more likely to trick me with her lies. Either that, or she had an impressively convincing performance.
I heard my front door open, then Xander’s familiar whistle as he strolled down the hall, past my study and dining room, to my open kitchen off to the right, opposite the living room.
I eyed the many bags in his hands before responding to Zelda. “I’m not certain if she’s lying about how she got here. Ultimately, if she was here to bring down our court, my keeping her detained would prevent it. We can use our truth seeker to tell us, assuming her deception magic isn’t stronger.”
Xander grinned as he put down the bags on my wooden floor. Had Lila really requested that many things? Perhaps she really did have an understanding of her predicament.
“As your resident truth seeker, I can feel that she is honest,” Xander stated, no doubt in his silver eyes.
I tightened my lips, putting my teacup down. I already knew that if he had dug into her mind, she was more than drained from that action. Xander was good at digging out the truth, but it was a painful experience for the one subjected to his seeking. Usually, it resulted in the subject falling unconscious. “I didn’t hear any screaming. Did she not feel pain when you went searching?”
Xander gave a bored shrug, looking away. “I entered her mind when she was asleep.”
Zelda turned to him, giving stern eyes, her kitchen knife pointed at him. He raised a hand before she could speak, lips twisted to the side. “Don’t look at me like that, Mrs. Zelda. I did not violate her body. Although, I really did want to cut her skin and mark her as mine. She was so peaceful in her sleep, like a beautiful corpse. But I only went into her mind. There were many interesting things there.”
He went quiet, a wistful look on his face. This was new. Xander only had that look when he was remembering his favorite kills and fights. He didn’t even have fond memories of his sexual encounters. What could he have seen in her mind that made him so happy? It couldn’t have been pleasant if Xander liked it. Did I want to know?
I sighed, growing impatient with Xander’s pausing. “What did you find?”
“Our pretty lady is a fighter, indeed. However, her life is now as dull as she says. She likes to make sweets. She has interesting friends. And a wizard I did not recognize did send her here after an impressive fight in which she refused to join a cause that I could not understand. He was losing, and like a coward, he banished her. However, she did manage to remove from him an arm before that time. I would imagine he had plans to collect her at some point or send someone for her. If he had the ability to banish her here, he must have a fae associate.”
Zelda tsk-tsked. “Poor thing. I’ve seen a few innocent humans brought here. Their fate is no easier than the ones who deserved it.”
I thrummed my fingers on the table. An uncomfortable annoyance twisted my insides. Not all humans were evil. I knew that well. However, was I willing to sacrifice my position or my soldiers to hide a human? Still, the very thought of giving her to the royal court made me uneasy. My usually very logical gut rebelled at the idea. I needed time to think. I did not want to be swayed by some human, no matter how innocent she might be. Her fight with this wizard was not our own, although I did not like the idea of his fae connection. Perhaps, at the very least, I could make a request upon the court to allow me to keep her as a servant. It had been done before, and I prided myself on being a fair leader and compassionate, if deserving. She would be much better off with me.
I looked over to Xander, who was studying me, head to the side. His eyebrows were raised, and he appeared as if he were waiting for a command. I could already see he was growing as sympathetic to her plight as Zelda. He was never a fan of humans. His unique past had left him scarred by them. Yet, he had allowed himself to feel something for this one. How strange.
A question popped into my head at that thought. “Why did you wait until she slept to seek the truth? You usually like to hear the screams.”
Xander leaned against the entrance frame, crossing his arms. “Because I knew it would hurt her if she were conscious. I can get my truth both ways. The screams I want to elicit from her should be laced with not just pain but pleasure.”
Zelda muttered something unintelligible under her breath, her back still toward us. I chuckled before sipping my tea again. Yes, he certainly was taken with her.
Xander gave a toothy grin. “I can’t help it. She excites me. She was so fearless last night, for the most part. And the feel of her cold hand on my co-”
Zelda spun around and glared at him. “Master Xander, I realize that we are close, but please still think of me as a lady and save your intimate discussions for times when I am not in your presence. Are we understood?”
Xander, keeping his smile, bowed to his waist. “Apologies, madam.”
She humphed and turned back to her cooking.
He winked at me, straightening up. “I meant to say, I think we should keep her, especially if she has no ulterior motives. Also, she is a mage, and in her mind, I found she has the ability to do location magic. With her magic, perhaps we could even get Luca back.”
Luca had infiltrated the Nodoors under the orders of our king. While he had been feeding us intelligence for six months, we’d not heard from him in over a month. I had been able to communicate with him, but that stopped. We were not certain if he was alive or dead, and the Nodoors had gone dark to outsiders, so there were no new ways of sneaking in. Our greatest hope was that he was simply trapped with the other citizens as the paranoid court had barricaded themselves away from the rest of the realm.
None of our magic would allow us to reach him. The only other option would be to invade the land, but they had migrated and were now cloaked in invisibility to a location we did not know.
“Let’s use this new opportunity to see if we can get him. It’s possible that her magic might be strong enough to get through to find him since it is foreign. Perhaps our human will be more useful than we thought.”
