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Falcon was shrieking for his servants. His pages bustled around him, slathering his arm with something, then wrapping it in silk. I stood, idly wandering the tent while they worked, keeping one ear on Falcon’s thoughts. Startled birds wheeling through the sky.
One strawberry-smoothie-pink fellow trotted up to me and offered a cloth and bowl of water to clean my arm. I thanked him but declined. The wound helped focus my thoughts. I raised my arm, watching the dark crimson drops well up and ooze down my arm in slow spirals. The wine might have been going to my head, but the sound of Falcon’s whimpers, my strength in the face of his crushed swagger, gave me a dizzying sense of power.
I strolled over to watch the first-aid efforts, enjoying Falcon’s cringe as I stood over him.
“You know, they always say that wild animals are more afraid of you than you are of them. And that may be true. But when people get attacked? That’s because the animal decides it has no choice but to fight. When destruction seems imminent from every direction, there is no disadvantage to giving every drop of life to the hope of survival, or at least mutual destruction.”
“I told Puck, that idiot, that you weren’t trained,” Falcon hissed, kicking one of the pages away.
“Not mindless, anyway.”
“I can still summon Marquise and Scourge to re-collar you. In slavery to silver you’ll find yourself less cocky, human monster.”
I put down my wineglass. “Try it. Just know this—I’ll fight. With everything I have. To the death, rather than go back to that. Which means I’ll take as much as I can with me—and you’re first in line, Birdboy.”
“You would be an oathbreaker!”
I looked around the lavish tent in mock surprise. “You know, I keep hearing about the dire consequences of breaking bargains, but I’m not seeing it.”
“You are a fool,” Falcon hissed.
“It seems to me,” I continued, “that you and I need to come to some agreements. To set the flavor of our future working relationship. I’ll serve out my time with you, but I decide what magic I do and how. You tell me what you want accomplished and I’ll decide how to do it. And this—” I gestured to the table. “No more of this. I’m no one’s pet. Not Rogue’s. Not yours.”
“Agreed, Lady Gwynn.” Falcon began unwinding the silk from his arm. The silk slipped apart, sliding easily, no blood or gore caking it together. “Do your magic as you see fit—I’m not interested to interfere.”
A buff golden color showed through the folds of the silk bandage, banded with browns and blacks, a hint of cream. Falcon stood, shaking the last of the wrapping away, flaring the wing his arm had become, feathers snapping to with a whoosh like a parachute grabbing wind. The candles on the table flickered and went out in the sudden draft.
My wounded arm suddenly throbbed in sympathy.
Falcon’s eyes had lost their pupils, gone to the clear cadmium yellow of the raptor. “As long as battle goes my way. Consider me duly cautious of awaking the beast within you.”
His face lengthened, sharpened beaklike, his voice growing oddly strident.
“But, Lady Gwynn, exercise caution yourself.” His clothing morphed into feathers. “See that you keep your word in the next battle, or you will have failed to serve me. Then you will see what it means to break your oath to the fae.”
With a clap of air rushing into a vacuum, he collapsed into a small falcon shape, then disappeared.
Chapter 30
In Which a Goddess Puts In an Unpleasant Appearance
‡
The next day,Starling started organizing me.
She made it easy for me, I must confess. Her mother’s daughter, Starling brought a polished level of organization to the carnival atmosphere of the war camp. At least, to our little corner of it. She marshaled the Brownie forces to set her up a tent next to mine, seeming to know without me telling her how much I valued my privacy. She set up a little area for Darling, too, with a place for him to keep the souvenirs he picked up around camp.
And I found myself following Starling’s schedule without her telling me.
She even arranged for regular meals, with actual nourishing food rather than the endless supply of pastries and fruit Dragonfly had provided. Pillow-making was proceeding apace. Everybody seemed cheerfully occupied.
Even those of us sublimating our emotions into work. I should have been pleased with my little victory over Falcon, but his closing warning had left me uneasy. I’d been very careful to follow the letter of my agreements with Rogue, but admittedly not much more than that. However, he was not my friend or my lover, but my enemy. How that all fell into my personal code of ethics, I wasn’t at all sure.
Then Starling had to bring up Dragonfly.
“It’s a good thing you dismissed her,” Starling said.
She had acquired a standing wardrobe for me and was hanging up dresses the Brownies had laundered. I hated to bother them about it, but Starling had just shaken her head at me. “You have to give them work to do or they wither away.” The images in her head showed me she meant that literally.
