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“Do you think Nimue was attacked?” I asked. “That perhaps that is why she left?”
But Ray only laughed.
“In water? Not unless somebody’s got a death wish!”
“Or help,” I pointed out. “You said her courtiers are fighting over her throne—”
“Yeah, because she’s AWOL. They toed the line as long as she was there, believe me.”
“But perhaps they resented it?”
He rolled his eyes. “You want this to be some epic story, like the ones the fey tell, but the truth is usually simpler and grubbier.”
“Such as?”
“Such as an already unstable queen goes nuts and fucks off to play with seashells.” He had laid down, and now he moved around, as if trying to get comfortable on the bare rocks. It did not seem to be working.
“Instead of a fishtail, she coulda offered you a damned tent!” he said.
“We have shelter,” I pointed out, looking up at the fingers, which were starting to glow once more. But he shook his head.
“I didn’t mean a regular tent. Fey nobles, when they travel, use a special kind.”
“How special?”
“Very. It seems tiny, just a regular old thing on the outside, but when you go in . . .”
“Yes?”
He grinned, probably because he knew he had me. I was quickly becoming fascinated with Faerie. I wanted to know about everything, even their tents.
“It’s like back at Dory’s house. You ever been in one of those little two-man things the fey parked in the garden? The ones they act like such martyrs over—oh, no, how could anybody be so cruel as to make us sleep outside?”
I shook my head. I assumed he was talking about Claire’s fey bodyguards, who had indeed been banished to the garden, because the house did not have room for them and they were messy. They had pitched small tents back there, bivouacking in in the backyard.
“Well, I have,” Ray said. “Not that I needed to; I recognized the type. I knew this orc chieftain once, and he’d taken one off some Green Fey idiot who’d ventured into his lands. The boy had a bet with some friends that he’d bring back an ogre’s tusks. Instead, he didn’t come back at all and the ogre ended up with his tent. I was there to trade and I guess the chief wanted to impress me, so I got the grand tour.”
“What was it like?” I asked eagerly.
“It was freaking awesome,” Ray said, his eyes shining in the firelight. “First, ‘cause they’re not really tents at all. They’re the entrances to portals—”
“That go where?”
“Nowhere. That’s the point. They fold back on themselves, creating a stable little pocket in non-space. The same kind that supernatural Hong Kong exists in, you know? They phased that thing so they could park it in the same space as regular old Hong Kong. But the two never touch—well, almost never—cause one is in real space and one in non-space, like the ley lines.”
“Or Louis-Cesare’s Veil.”
“Yeah. Or a fey tent.”
“So, what do they put in there?” I asked curiously, lying down beside him.
“Anything they want. Most of the time, its just to give ‘em more space, like a lot more. But some really slut ‘em up. The ogre had lucked out and ended up with a mansion with a couple dozen rooms, all of them filled with gorgeous fabrics, finely made furniture, crystal stemware, and opulent dishes . . . you name it. He even got the kid’s wardrobe. Of course, none of it fit . . .”
I laughed.
“But he paraded around in it anyway, until the predictable happened.”
“His trousers split?” I asked.
