These rituals…
Theseoddities…
I could not stand to look at them. I could not bear to acknowledge their existence—neither in this chamber nor within my memories.
A bold knock rattled the smaller of the two doors. I suspected, with a bite of dread, that I knew who waited on its other side. Still, I asked, “Who’s there?”
We learned from the cradle always to ask, lest we mistakenly invite a faerie inside. Even my father, with his liquor-dumbed mind, had remembered such customs: He’d taken the lordling’s coin through the cracked-open door before he shoved me over the threshold, and in all these summers he’d never once invited the lordling inside.
Adrik’s tone dripped with ill-concealed amusement as he said, “Justhalfof a wicked faerie.”
“Come in,” I said in a thin, irritated voice.
I loathed its timid sound. I’d never had much chance to exercise it. Not when I was little, for the villagers would not let their children near me, nor when I was older and bloodying my hands for the lordling, and not in recent times either. I’d accepted my lonesome fate.
Adrik, of course, had no such troubles. He swept with effortless grace inside, bowing to fit his golden-curled head through the door, and regaled me with a blinding smile. I shivered as his gaze twined with mine; moss-green vines pulling me in, choking me, tearing me open—
“Good afternoon,” he trilled. “You must be starving.”
I snapped, like a taut string cut loose, free from his gaze. He was holding a platter, laden with a steaming bowl and a chaliceof wildberry juice. I eyed the meal cautiously. It was a thick, fragrant stew of pork, pearl onions, glazed carrots, and dried apricots in a sauce of red wine—a feast even the richest families in the Ravenwoods could afford only on the solstice. There was a basket of bread as well, baked with herbs and cheese, and fruit preserves garnished with wildflowers.
“You need not look so suspicious. I am an excellent cook.”
I suspected this was his arrogance speaking, but I dared not challenge him. He had, after all, saved me; and worse, he was half of a wicked faerie. I was dead if I roused his ire or his suspicion. I reached warily for the spoon, like a deer approaching a feeding hand. Adrik was too cheerful and entirely too charming. I knew men like him. I’d spent nights tangled in their sheets, gone before they awoke. Behind their handsome faces, smirks and rich clothes lurkedalwaysan ugliness.
I took a small taste of the stew and forgot for a moment that I was not to fuel Adrik’s pride. It was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted, flooding me with warmth. A soft, contented sound slipped from me. From the armoire came a high-pitched chortle.
I nearly dropped the spoon in fright. The doors rattled and creaked. A knock came from within. Adrik went to investigate, unfazed. He did not open the armoire, as I’d fearfully expected. Perhaps he did not wish to disturb whatever horrid faerie lived within. Instead, he took the broom that leaned in the furthest corner of the chamber and turned the dust-riddled thing upside down.
As strange as a hag and—
The clatter ceased.
I drew breath to calm the tremor of my hands. There lived no spirits in the hearth, none beneath the threshold, none in old armoires either. A coincidence. A trick of the mind, or that of a wicked half-faerie.
“Better leave a bite if you wish to sleep in peace,” Adrik said with a glance at the bowl I still clutched. I said nothing as I ate the stew, careful not to let another sound of pleasure slip out. “How cruel to keep me in suspense,” he said with a grin when my spoon scraped the bottom. “I’m still awaiting your verdict.”
The warm meal must have softened my heart, or perhaps he’d lulled me with a glamour. I said quietly and almost a little teasingly, “It is quite delectable.”
“Ah, such glowing praise.” How I loathed that self-satisfied smile. “Now, can I interest you in dessert?”
He drew a handknife from his gold-stitched sash. I shrieked as he twirled it between his long fingers. Terror froze me as I awaited the blade’s touch.
“Calm,” Adrik murmured, that haunting green of his gaze bright with alarm. “I meant only to offer you a taste of my blood.” I could not tell whether he looked concerned or offended—neither boded well for me. He said tersely, “I do not wish to be feared. I do not wish to be mistrusted. Do me this favor, please. A drop is all I ask.”
How strange that a faerie should be so eager to relinquish his power. How strange that he was the one to make this offer, and I the one to hesitate. If he wished to prove that I needed not mistrust him, his plan had gone awfully awry. I was now certain something foul was afoot.
Justhalfof a wicked faerie.
I would have much preferred a whole one—those were predictable. I did not know whether Adrik could lie, if he possessed glamour magic, or if doors kept him out at all.
Adrik sighed, gaze tangling with mine as he brought the knife lightly to his palm. A slender line of crimson speckled with gold welled at the blade’s tip; proof that he possessed the blood of humans and faeries. He held his fist wordlessly over the chalice and looked firmly at me as one, two, three drops trickled intothe juice. He brought the chalice to his mouth, licking a dark-red droplet from his lip.
“No poison,” he said with a hollow smile. “Please.”
I laughed humorlessly. His eagerness felt like a trap, but to deny his offer was madness. “I assume if you wanted me dead you’d have left me in the wastes.”
“Or skewered you with my sword.”
