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Chapter Forty-One
Ash
“The lovebirds finally emerge.” Gillie chuckled as he and Nua walked into the dining room that evening. “Are you both bowlegged?”
“Gillie,” Nua hissed, smacking his arm before coming over and giving me a hug. “Are you alright?”
I chuckled sheepishly, my eyes darting over to Lonan. “We’re all good, thanks. Are you both okay? Have they treated you well?”
“Excellently.” Gillie was already picking up a tankard of ale. “They all missed Nua. Jora admitted that he kept the Brid in check, and she became a complete monster after he was gone.”
Nua flushed, his face a mix of pleasure and guilt. “I feel bad that they suffered because I wasn’t here.”
“How was that your fault at all?” Gillie gave me a grim look. “Jora told us that the Brid started holding an event every year where she’d let her King of Boars loose in a field with seelie Folk, so he could chase them down and gore them on his tusks. For sport.”
I shuddered, remembering the agony of his cloven hoof crushing my chest. “One more reason to be glad she’s gone.”
“There are many reasons,” Nua said as we all took our seats. He smiled at me. “The staff don’t quite know what to make of you yet, but they seem hopeful. They can tell already that you’re nothing like her.”
It was my turn to flush with pleasure, and I tried to hide it by looking down as I fiddled with the napkin on my lap.
“So what’s for dinner?” Gillie asked cheerfully, upending his tankard to drain it already.
“I don’t know.” I cringed. “I think I made a mistake though. I asked Jora to bring us beef sandwiches the other day and she looked like I’d asked for human flesh.”
Gillie laughed as Nua gave a wry smile.
“Boars and cattle and serpents are revered by the seelie,” he said. “We never eat pork or beef or snake.”
I winced. “Oops.”
I tried not to let the anger rise at the memory of my dinner with the Carlin. She’d been taunting me then, serving pork and beef and snake. Asking gleefully if I was enjoying it.
Lonan reached over and took my hand under the table, giving it an apologetic squeeze. But it wasn’t his fault that his mother was a piece of shit. My birth mother had been a piece of shit too.
“Anyway, therearesome fae who eat human flesh,” Gillie noted, then shot me a grin. “Good job you’re not human anymore, eh, lad?”
I laughed nervously as several servers appeared through the door carrying trays and platters. They set down a huge dish with three roasted lamb legs dotted with rosemary and surrounded by carrots and green beans. There were whole grilled mackerel with lemon wedges on the side, a plate of roasted asparagus, a shallow bowl piled with roast potatoes, a thin sheet of sliced pastry with green filling that Nua said was nettle pie, individual bowls of pea and mint soup, and a big bowl of salad doused in vinaigrette dressing.
I was definitely taking back what I’d said about getting rid of all the staff. Not just because of the food, though. I was worried about what they would do if they didn’t have jobs here anymore. The seelie town was much bigger than the unseelie village, but I doubted that meant there was a surplus of jobs out there.
More staff appeared with jugs of water, carafes of sparkling seelie wine—which Nua favoured—and more ale, somehow knowing that Gillie had already finished his.
They didn’t plate the food up for each of us like the Carlin’s servers had. They bowed and left us in peace, which I was grateful for. Gillie was already piling food on his plate before they’d even left the room.
“Are you settling in alright, Lonan?” Nua asked in his gentle voice as he poured himself some wine and had a sip.
“Yes, very well,” Lonan answered, still holding my hand under the table until we had to let go to start piling food onto our plates.
His appetite was back to normal, which made me happier than I was willing to admit. And he seemed to enjoy seelie food, judging by the sheer amount he was loading onto his plate. He gave me a tiny, slightly shy smile when he noticed me watching, so I leaned over to kiss his cheek.
“Nua, we’ve decided we’re not going to move into the Brid’s old room,” I said before I started eating. “Do you want to go and look for anything you want to keep in there? Lonan mentioned there might be some… objects of power or something. But I don’t know what to look for.”
Nua nodded. “I’ll go and look.”
“Do you think shedoeshave anything of power in there?” I asked before stuffing a roast potato in my mouth.
“Maybe some of her books.” Nua’s tone was doubtful. “She was a powerful spellsmith, but that was about it. She wasn’t skilled in any other craft.”
