I still stood clinging to Mistral as I asked, “Goblins don’t much care for home updates, do they?”
“Why should we, when we do things right the first time?”
With a scoff, Sebastian dropped my arm then approached the gates, his attention on the shrubbery shaped into wolves, or maybe dogs. Beyond the shrubs and trimmed grass was a gatehouse, its windows glowing yellow.
“At least someone is still here,” Mistral said, his tone different this time.
“Did you think your uncle might have left?” I asked.
“Goblins die, Eva. Even the most powerful amongst us.”
His shifting moods were giving me whiplash, but I decided to give him a pass until we saw what we found. If he didn’t actually know any of the goblins at the estate, they might not help us.
Sebastian was fiddling with the gates, there was a loud clank, then he stepped back, opening one side for us to pass.
Mistral took my hand and walked us over. “There was a lock on that gate,” he observed.
“Was,” Sebastian said. “The security seems rather lacking.”
“Goblins rule with the support of the land. We do not need… security.” Mistral tugged me along without another word.
Gabriel and Crispin followed silently. My, weren’t we a cheery bunch? At least Ringo still seemed excited. He was a bouncing ball of energy on my shoulder. Or maybe he just hoped dinner was nearby, and we wouldn’t be stuck with the rations that were nowhere near as good as the lunch we’d missed out on.
The door to the gatehouse creaked open before we could reach it, and out hobbled an absolutely ancient female goblin. Her silver hair was a poofy, curly halo around her wizened skull, her skin stony gray like Mistral’s. Skin color was the only similarity though. She was tiny, hunched, and staring at us like she’d seen a ghost. Her nose hooked so low it obscured her upper lip.
Her eyes darted between us, then she spoke to us in Mistral’s native tongue, a language I only understood a few words of, and none of those words did she use. Mistral was smiling though, so it was probably a good sign. He answered her in the goblin tongue, then gave a deep bow.
Hopping up and down, she beamed at each of us, then raced off into the darkness like a hare.
Crispin moved to my side as we stared after her. “How the hells did she move so fast?”
Ignoring Crispin’s question, Mistral said, “She’ll alert my uncle that we are here. We can plan on a warm welcome.”
I blinked at him. “So he’s alive?”
He fought his smile, but it broke through. “Yes. That part, at least, has gone to plan.”
It was a warm welcome indeed.I wasn’t sure how Mistral’s uncle, Avery, had bedecked the massive table so quickly in the middle of the night, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Gabriel had performed the same feat more than once. He now sat beside me, hand comfortably resting on my thigh as Mistral and his uncle spoke rapidly in their native tongue.
No one seemed to mind Ringo hopping around the table sampling desserts and roast vegetables alike. Well, Gabriel glared at him from time to time, but he didn’t try to stop him. Not when Crispin was just as bad, heaping his plate with everything in sight, mixing the sweets and savories all together. Sebastian sat with only a cup of tea and a slice of cake with pale purple frosting.
Thinking the brown and hopefully chocolate cake was more to my liking, I started to reach for a piece, then realized Avery was speaking to me. I glanced between Mistral and Avery, and it was a little unnerving because they shared so many similarities. Far more than with Una, the wizened keeper of the gatehouse, who grinned as she watched Ringo enjoying himself.
Avery’s hair, the same perfect white as Mistral’s, was shorter, but just as silken, his eyes the same gray, his features both elegant and sharp. He even wore a cream linen shirt similar to Mistral’s other than the blue embroidery at the collar. He repeated what he had said, which sounded like a question.
Mistral winced behind his uncle’s back. “He’s asking about why the pathways were severed.”
It made sense, I supposed. My mom had basically cut and run, leaving most everyone on earth, save a few allies,questioning. Those who had known about the darkness had agreed it was better to leave everyone else in, well, the dark.
“Maybe we can tell him, but leave out the part about my mom being the one who did it?” I asked hopefully.
Mistral winced again. “He does speak some English. Most of the nobility learned when the celestials were still amongst us. Though I cannot say how much he remembers?” He turned toward his uncle.
“Her mother?” Avery replied, and I slumped in my seat.
Mistral launched into an explanation, once again not in English, before his uncle could fully react. Gabriel patted my leg and put a slice of cake on my plate.
Now that I looked closer, it wasn’t quite brown, but very dark red. At least if it wasn’t chocolate, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that had happened to me all day.
