Page 53

“Oh, sure, a few. But the spiders love the fruit and the . . . creatures it lures. There’s more than a few out in the darker parts of the orchards.” She pushed aside her book and then the picnic basket, patting the furthest part of her blanket-like skirt. “Come, sit awhile in the sun with me. I have cheese, some cold water, and I managed to convince the Bandrui to let me take some of her loaves this morning. It’s not palace fare, but her bread is the best in the land. I swear she uses magic to bake it. And the cheese is from the lower larder so not too rich and the salt crystals in it are Feidlimid’s own blessing.”

She stopped herself and blushed behind her hand. “I’m so sorry. That was rude of me. Please, come sit down and keep me company? It’s not an order, by the by. Please choose whatever you wish. It’s only that I don’t want to go in there after you. I don’t like spiders. They make my skin crawl—pardon the pun. Oh, gosh, look at me jabbering on and on . . . I’m sorry I’m Oaken Rose, and you are?”

She tittered on like a nervous bird, and I hated to admit it, but it was endearing. I nervously toed a stone stuck in the damp ground before deciding, Fuck it. I wasn’t into fist fighting a creature with eight fists today.

“Cricket,” I mumbled as I crept closer to the Fae woman, caution giving me pause to watch her as I did so. The gentle smile seemed natural on her pale face, the soft dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose making it seem as at home as the sun was in the sky.

“Like the bug?”

“Everyone asks that. Yes, like the bug.”

“I read once, in some cultures in Human, they are considered lucky. Is that true?” She poured me a glass of the cool water and passed it to me as I sat.

“I think so? I’m not entirely sure, to be honest.”

I was caging and didn’t want to tell her that the reason I had named my snake that and subsequently myself was because when I got Cricket, I felt a bit like Pinocchio. I hadn’t felt like a real girl at the time. I was lost and alone and in a strange world. Cricket was my lifeline to stability, just like Pinocchio’s cricket.

“It’s a lovely name, Cricket, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. I was there when The Raven brought you in, you know.” She was busying her hands by slicing cheese from the basket and setting it on a small rustic-looking wooden saucer. I winced at the memory of the throne room, and she noted it softening further. Her hand stilled on the cheese and came to rest on mine. Her pale-blue gaze met mine, and her voice dropped with sincerity. “I’m so sorry, Cricket. Genuinely, I am. This business with how some of the younger Fae treat humans is abominable. And what happened that day, all of it, should have never happened. I am deeply sorry for all the pain and terror you have been put through.”

I squirmed under her regard. It felt invasive for a woman I didn’t know to be apologizing for something that she should not know about let alone be sorry for. She was not the one that had harmed me. She was not the one that kept me captive here. She was just another Fae in the court but her apology had hooks none the less, and it sank deep into my heart and wriggled between my barriers. “It’s fine.”

She went quiet, simply watching me for a long time. I felt like she wanted to push on, to make it a point to say that it wasn’t fine, but she was keen enough to the cautious air about me not to do so.

“I hear you had the displeasure of meeting Lady White Dove.” Oaken Rose offered as a means to exit the awkward silence that hung about us. She sipped her water, a cat’s grin playing on her lips.

I knew that look. That was the look of a gossip getting ready to have a full session. It was one I didn’t often get included in, and I was intrigued. I let myself slowly lower my plush body down onto her skirt, prepared at a moment’s notice to leap up and scatter if she turned on me.

“I did . . .” I left the road open for her, eager to see where she would drive this vehicle.

“She is the absolute worst. She’s new to court, you know. She’s been here maybe a week or two longer than you have and thinks she runs the place. Walks around with her nose held high and boasting about how her gifts are so incredibly strong and how she is almost assured to be selected to ascend.”

She passed me the water, and I accepted. “She wants to be a god? Is that . . . I don’t know, is that a common ambition for you guys?”

“Common? No, not especially. There are only nine gods, after all. And despite the recent events, they rarely chose to return to magic. It’s incredibly rare. To even say it’s a once in a lifetime event would be too common. It’s a once in an epoch event. Most of us have never even seen an ascension ceremony, let alone the two that we should be facing. So, for Lady White Dove of all people, daughter of a minor lordling from the Árus Adaig court, whose mother escaped the purge of Dawn only by virtue of her marriage, to consider herself worthy of ascending let alone becoming a chosen heir is . . .” She paused, trying to find some analogy that seemed to elude her. “Well. It’s the height of arrogance. Which I’m sure you can guess, is not exactly a shock.”

I smirked. “So, there’s no god of arrogance? She might have a shot, then. Sounds like there’s a hole to be filled.”

She laughed with me, the sound like water rushing over rounded pebbles in a creek.

“You have a beautiful laugh, Cricket,” she said with a smile as the laughter petered off. “I’m glad that this place has not taken it from you. Please, don’t lose it.”

A wan, watery smile was given to her as she passed me a round of the Bandrui’s bread. My mouth watered to taste that luscious crunchy heel again. “I’ll try.”

She pulled a piece from her own round, nibbling on it in silence for a while. “Cricket . . . can . . . Can I ask what you are doing out here?”

Alarm bells were ringing in my head.

She caught the shift in my demeanor, quickly trying to course correct. “No, no, it’s only . . . It’s only that I know humans are not allowed out of the palace. And the court is all off on the hunt . . .”

“I’m looking for a way out.”

I took a gamble. It was foolish, and I knew the moment it left my lips I should not have, but it felt good to be unburdened to try and trust.

“In the orchards?” She squeaked in fear. “Cricket, unless you’re courting the final way out, the orchard is not the way at all.”

I shrugged casually, brushing off the idea that I had almost walked into the jaws of my own doom. “Well, it’s not exactly like I know where I’m going. I don’t even know where the front of the palace is versus where the entryway is.”

She mumbled a long mmm around an especially crunchy bit of bread. “That’s by design. All the exits are woven with magic to prevent humans from being able to see them let alone find them. You could walk the entire palace for three hundred years and never see a single door that would lead you off the grounds. Even if you go through the orchards and somehow manage to not run afoul of the spiders and other beasties, you’ll walk until you fall down and die and never find an exit or a wall to climb.”