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“Too bad it missed.”
He nodded agreement. “After which it ran off, and they didn’t bother to chase it, despite the fact that it supposedly held all their goods. And I became . . . curious.”
“You’re always curious.”
“How would you know?”
“You . . . come across that way.”
“That’s strange. I can’t figure you out at all.”
“Don’t try.”
“But I want to try. A woman who wears peasant garb but carries a fortune in magic. Who travels alone, without guards, which many men would hesitate to do these days. Who knows about portals and recognizes faerie, but doesn’t know who the Green Fey are.”
Damn it.
“Who calls me by a name that isn’t mine, but who seems to know me . . . and to care what happens to me.”
I always forgot how smart Pritkin was, and it always bit me on the ass. “Tell me about the fey,” I persisted. “You said they came to your house?”
He regarded me solemnly for a moment, and for the first time, I thought he might not answer. I wasn’t exactly being forthcoming myself. But he surprised me again.
“They showed up one morning, out of the blue. The old people were cowering inside, afraid to even speak to them, just praying they’d go away. I doubt they’d seen any fey before, but they’d heard the stories; they thought they were going to be abducted. And I . . . hoped to be.”
“What did the fey want?”
“To ask about my mother, my father, what I remembered. But I couldn’t tell them anything. I’d been too young when I came to the farm. It was all I’d ever known.
“Then they wanted me to do some magic for them, but I barely even knew what it was. Magic was something out of the fables, and far less interesting than the monsters and the heroes who slayed them. Or the cauldrons that gave unlimited food. Or the great battles fought with mythical weapons. Magic was something for potty old wizards; I wasn’t interested in magic.”
I smiled.
“But they insisted, and seemed annoyed by my confusion. Finally, one of them showed me something.” Pritkin’s eyes grew distant. “He was blond, not dark like the others. And wearing plain gray instead of green. He raised a leaf from the ground without touching it, asked me to do the same. I didn’t know what he meant at first; I kept picking it up and handing it to him.”
I bit my lip in sympathy.
“I was only seven, and they were so tall, and they were all looking at me. One of the others smirked and said something I didn’t understand. But the one in gray was patient. He told me not to
think of the leaf but of the breeze. To call it to me.”
“And did you?”
“I didn’t know how. I just remember getting angry. I’d wanted the fey to come for so long, so very long, and now they were there, but instead of taking me away, they were asking me to do this impossible thing. This thing that no one could do, but that I wished I could. I wished the leaves would rise up and swallow us, so I wouldn’t have to see their smug faces anymore . . .
“And then they did.
“A little breeze blew up, all of a sudden. And the leaves—it was autumn, and they were everywhere—whirled up all around us, like a miniature storm. First a few and then more and more, until I couldn’t see the fey anymore, until I couldn’t see anything.”
There was still wonder in his face.
“I take it they were impressed?” I asked.
“No.”
“No?”
“If anything, they seemed . . . unhappy. There was a discussion. I don’t know what was said; I couldn’t understand them. But there was a woman there, beautiful but cold, and she kept scowling at me. Looking back, I was probably ragged and dirty and ill-mannered, just a worthless urchin in her eyes, but at the time, I didn’t understand that. I just knew she didn’t like me, and in the end, they went away.”
