Page 31 of The Faerie Handmaid

He didn’t think he needed to confess everything, and he wanted more than anything to appear strong for her. “I slept fine,” he said. He wasn’t telling her an untruth. In the end, after he knew someone was awake and aware, he had slept fairly well. “I’m sorry you had trouble.”

“We have lost valuable time,” Braithe said. “Two days here already, and we are no closer to our solution. Every delay harms our people.”

“What can we do?”

“Priestess Morgana wants to go to the woods,” Braithe said. “Fields and grass and running water.”

“That will make her feel better?”

“That will make her feel like herself. She needs that.”

“That means going out of the city.” The idea of escaping these bland white walls and monotonous streets pleased Idhri. He wouldn’t mind woods and grass, either. The city, though beautiful, was oppressive. He wouldn’t presume to compare himself to the priestess, but he could understand how it depleted her energy.

“We’re going to go now, before the meal arrives. Do you mind?”

“I’m going with you?”

Her dimples flashed. Idhri loved her dimples. “Of course you are,” she said. “We would not leave you behind.”

“Thank you.”

“You wouldn’t care to stay here on your own.” Her smile vanished. “I wouldn’t, either. Be sure you’re wearing your charm.”

He lifted it in his fingers to show her, then went back to his little room to tie on his sandals. When he returned to the kitchen, the priestess was there, dressed in her usual black robe, but this time with her hair plaited into a thick braid. Braithe had done her own hair, too, although curling wisps escaped the plaits. She had added a bright blue ribbon, and it was nice to see the color. Perhaps, Idhri thought, if the fae would paint the buildings or grow brighter flowers, they would remember what joy felt like. He could contemplate that on their walk. He would never presume to speak it aloud.

It wasn’t far to the outskirts of the city. The priestess seemed to know exactly where to go, and they soon left the buildings behind, having seen no one except three servants in brown tunics sweeping streets. The sun was a handsbreadth above the eastern horizon when the three of them reached a road of packed dirt and gravel that led to well-tended fields. Many laborers, in the drab brown servants’ clothes, were already working.

It was more people than they had seen in one place since their arrival. There were dozens of them, bending and digging and hauling. In the gardens around Camulod, people chatted and sang and laughed as they labored. Here the servants worked in silence as they pulled weeds, tilled the soil around corn stalks and potato plants and what Idhri thought must be squashes. Berry thickets stretched beyond the cultivated fields. Idhri took all of this in, realizing the food for the city was grown and harvested here, by servants. There were no fae that he could see.

He eyed the laborers as he passed them, wondering who they were and why they were here. As far as he could tell, they were all human but one. He was apparently some sort of overseer, a tall, lean man, a half-blood. He didn’t dig or weed but paced among the workers, pausing now and again to speak to someone. Something about the scene gave Idhri a fresh rush of anxiety, and he averted his gaze.

Priestess Morgana, with the woods in sight beyond the tilled fields, walked faster and faster on her long legs. Braithe began to fall behind, and Idhri, though he could have kept pace with the priestess, slowed to stay beside Braithe. She glanced up at him and with a little breathless laugh said, “You don’t have to.”

“You shouldn’t walk by yourself. I don’t think it’s safe.”

“Do you not?” Sometimes she sounded so much like the priestess she startled him.

“I don’t.”

“Well. You could be right. Who knows what these people think of us?”

“I like working in Emma’s garden, helping her with the hoeing and watering, but this…” He waved a hand at the fields and the workers. “There is so much to do, and it’s going to be hot in an hour.”

Braithe tilted her head to gaze up at him. They had fallen even farther behind the priestess. “What do you think of all this?” Braithe asked. “Of course you never meant to come, but now you’ve seen the White City, the fae council, and so many things that are strange.”

“I do think it’s strange,” he said. “But it’s also sort of—sort of familiar.”

“Familiar! Really?”

“I had this feeling, when we first went into the guesthouse, that I knew where everything was. Then, in the council chamber—it was as if I had been stared at like that before. Emma never does that. Master Hugh doesn’t, either, nor do any of the people who come out from Camulod to hire the boat or to buy eggs from Emma.”

“You like your life with them, I think,” Braithe said. Her eyes were very blue in the morning sun.

“I do,” he replied. “But I don’t think they’ll like finding out I’m a half-blood.”

“Surely they will not care!” Braithe declared. “Why should they?”

“Everyone here seems to hate it.”