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“I don’t think I’d have fit in the house.”
He laughed, and as usual, it made me jump. “No, I suppose not.”
I crawled back over and picked up my beer. “What does ‘consideration’ mean?” I asked, after draining the rest of it.
“I wouldn’t push it too far,” he warned, handing me the bowl. “And only with the dark fey. The light won’t honor th
eir marks, and in fact may make things worse for you if they find one. And any dark clans who are on the outs with the one who marked you . . . well, they probably wouldn’t hurt you, but they might try to ransom you back.”
Yeah, that would go well, considering Radella might not even have been born yet.
“But, on the other hand, it does give you free passage through the dark fey lands,” Pritkin added. “You have a right to be here. You’re known to be friendly. And you have protectors. It is not a small gift.”
Thank you, Radella, I thought fervently.
“Then why did I have a guard?” I asked.
“He was an honor guard, the brother of one of the trolls you helped. And a guide, in case you wanted to go anywhere.”
“Go? Then we can leave?”
Pritkin cocked an eyebrow. “Tomorrow.”
“What’s wrong with tonight?”
“The fact that it is night?” he said, filling his own bowl. “Travel along the dark fey border is not easy even in the day, when you can see what is about to eat you. And I, for one, am tired. Aren’t you?”
Hell yes, I was, but I had a job to do, and it wasn’t getting done sitting here. But it also wasn’t getting done without Pritkin, and he didn’t look interested in budging. And I kind of doubted my ability to carry him.
“Besides, you’d miss the celebration,” he added.
“What celebration? What are they doing?” I asked, craning my neck to look over the edge of the platform.
“What’s happening?” Pritkin asked, because he was too far back to see for himself.
“A bunch of old guys—old trolls—with white beards. They’re gathering near the ox. They’ve got two guards with them. I think they’re the ones that were on the boat with us.”
Pritkin grinned. “Sounds like the entertainment’s about to begin.”
“What entertainment?”
“You’ll see. Come eat.”
I crawled over with every intention of getting some answers to the questions crowding my brain. But the food looked enticing, and Pritkin wasn’t listening to me anyway. A band had struck up in a not-too-distant tree, and he was tapping his fingers and nodding his head and scarfing bread and beer and some weird roasted meat stuff that . . . that, well, that smelled really good, actually.
I stuck my nose in my own bowl. Really good. I started looking around for a spoon.
And ended up polishing off most of the not-small-sized bowl before I realized it. And damn, it was good, some kind of venison-y stew-y something with roasted veggies and a thick brown gravy. I licked the spoon.
And looked up to find Pritkin watching me, looking amused, I didn’t know why. Maybe because I was eating like Scarlett O’Hara at the barbecue instead of like a proper, dainty little woman. Fiddle dee dee, I thought, and ripped off another hunk of bread.
“I can go get more,” he told me, openly laughing now.
“You stay put!” I pointed the bread at him. “I have some questions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what would you have done if I hadn’t been there?”
