Libba noted he did indeed swerve left to avoid a ring of colorful sprouting fungi a few moments later. She’d bring that up sometime soon.
When it served her.
“What happens if we step in them?” a worker asked Rhys. “Something Welsh?”
“Aye,” said Rhys ominously. “Something very Welsh.”
“It’s a doorway, they say,” Monica added sweetly. “To the realm of the fair folk. Rhys, tell them! He’s very good at these stories.”
“They aren’t stories,” Rhys told her sternly. “Well, they are the way historical events are… You know what, just avoid them. We’ll have an educational hour once we’re at the top.”
“If I find a single thimble of cream in the hallway tonight, I’m going to set your bed on fire,” Malcolm told Rhys without turning around. “We’re grown now. Past this.”
“Past what?” Rhys called back, wrinkling up his nose at the jab. “Sense?”
“Well past sense,” Libba muttered, getting a low, soft chuckle from Jasper at her side. It made every hair on her arms stand straight up.
She turned her head to look at him, haloed by the mid-morning sun, glowing like a damned forge.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” she said, softly enough for him to hear. “We’re well past sense.”
He blinked, flicking his gaze to her in his periphery as they reached the second set of stairs. “Yes, I’d say so,” he replied, just as softly. “So, what do we do about it now?”
“We go stand and stare into a quarry,” she said with a sigh. “And then you find a reason to stay at the Rest tonight.”
“Why?” he asked, his brows high and his lips fighting a smile. “Why would I do that?”
“Because,” she said, pushing him out of the way so she could ascend first, without the torment of his backside in her view. “We have business to conclude.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Despite himself, Jasperhad become summarily distracted by the scale and grandeur of the quarry production, even as his lungs filled with an odd, chalky mélange of dust and sea mist.
Malcolm tried, quite hard, actually, to lead a structured and efficient tour of the place, but it went off the rails fairly quickly. Surprisingly, it was not Rhys who did the derailing, but Errol, the ever-steady animal and plant enthusiast whose presence had been odd from the outset.
“This ox has an infected hoof,” he’d announced, four seconds into the entryway, making everyone turn around and marvel at how he’d so quickly diagnosed such a thing or how he’d made his way to a quartet of oxen and gotten one’s foot tilted up and backward in his callused hand without a single sound of protest from the bovine collective. “Malcolm, this is shoddy.”
“Un-shod, surely,” Rhys had put in with a snicker, getting him glares from both of his foster brothers.
“I’ll check the others before I move him,” Errol announced, holding up a hand before Malcolm could utter a single argument. “Do you want to lose the whole ox? Because you will if I don’t.”
“Oh, Elias will be displeased,” Monica said softly to Libba and Jasper from their rear. “He’s already in a strop about the hothouse.”
“He can strop all he likes,” Libba replied with a sniff and then a rueful cough of dust. “Errol owns the kennels and outbuildings, remember? Willa sequestered them in her estate.”
“That is true,” Monica allowed. “And the baron did adopt Peach on sight. Maybe he’ll take a liking to oxen.”
Jasper did not comment.
But now, at least, he knew the name of the dwarf pig that wandered the halls of Starling’s Rest.
“Is the ox still a ‘him,’” Rhys wondered as they turned and continued down the ladder, leaving Errol behind, “after what you’ve done to the poor jewels?”
“Yes,” Malcolm snapped. “Still a ‘him,’ just with more sense and clarity of mind.”
“Oh, you mean he’s been…” Monica said, glancing over her shoulder with a shudder. “Are any of them girls?”
“No,” said Malcolm. “Watch your step. Lib, the bushel of quartz is coming up. You’ll be pleased.”
