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“I know who brought you.” She smiled suddenly, but it was not very nice. There were some . . . very unusual teeth in that lovely mouth. “Yes, I know. Make them pay for it.”
Then she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dorina, Faerie
“That was interesting,” I said, back at camp.
I was wrapped in the blanket, which was the only dry thing we had. Ray had found me sprawled on the rocks, soaking wet, which was how I knew that what I’d experienced had not been an illusion. Or if it had, something had wet me, the shore and our camp, leaving everything soaked except for the blanket I had thrown off earlier, which had landed just outside of the tideline.
My tunic had been laid flat to dry once more, although that would likely take a while as our fire was also out. Ray was attempting to get it going, with the little dry wood he’d been able to find, and I was talking some more. Not for any real reason; it almost seemed as if my brain was trying to make up for five hundred years of silence, or perhaps it simply needed to babble for a while to process what I’d seen.
Ray did not seem to mind, or even appear to be listening. He was cursing under his breath, although whether that was at the new kindling, which did not seem to want to light, or at fate, or at . . . I realized that I did not even know her name.
“Nimue,” he said, scowling.
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Do you really think so?”
He paused to look at me over his shoulder. “Really?”
I decided he had a point.
“So that is the Lady of the Lake,” I mused. It seemed that the Arthurian legends had failed to do her justice. Had completely failed.
“She looks different on Earth,” Ray said, and then paused to blow on a spark. It went out. He snarled at it.
“Oh?” I asked. “How?”
“More toned down. So people don’t get overwhelmed,” he added, shooting me a look.
I failed to blush. “She is overwhelming,” I agreed, and snuggled further into the blanket as a chill wind swept over us.
The material was scratchy against my skin, but I didn’t mind. I would not have minded a flail in order to have seen that. “She is very beautiful,” I said, only to have Ray pause again and glare at me over his shoulder.
“She’s a goddamned menace, that’s what she is, and possibly nuts! The fact that she knows we’re here is Not Good, okay? The idea was to stay under the radar!”
I did not point out that we had not been doing so well at that before, because he seemed tense.
“She did not appear hostile,” I said instead.
“Oh, she’s hostile.” It was grim. “The villagers avoid her like the plague ‘cause she keeps stealing their babies, always wanting more soldiers for her stupid wars—”
“What wars?”
He shrugged and started over with the fire, having assembled some more moss. “Take your pick; she fights with everybody. Aeslinn, ‘cause he keeps raiding and taking her lands. Caedmon, ‘cause they used to be married and there’s a lot of bad blood there. The dark fey, ‘cause she keeps trying to steal lands from them, every time Aeslinn does it to her, which means she’s basically fighting all the time. Or she was, anyway.”
“She was?”
He nodded. “She up and disappeared a decade or so ago, just noped right out of her job, her capitol, all her responsibilities. Left her armies in the field with no leadership, her nobles with no idea when or if she was coming back, and enemies all around. It caused c
haos, but did she care? But that’s a demigod for you.”
“She is a demigod?”
That won me another look. “You sound surprised.”
“I am.” I thought back to the amazing creature I had been privileged to see. “I would have thought that she was the real thing.”
