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“I—” She cocked her head at me, robin-black eyes snapping with suspicion. “I don’t want to tell you.”
The women down the table began shrieking at one another. I decided to skip a few steps.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Blackbird. But I need to know what you can tell me. I think I know what he’s looking for. I need to know what clues he’s following. Where to find him.”
Blackbird’s gaze slid from my face to Rogue’s and back again. She pressed her lips together. The women’s escorts had gotten involved, one now standing up and poking a long finger at the other’s chest.
“I told her, Mom.” Starling broke in, leaning across the table, speaking fast and intensely. “All about little Brody.”
Blackbird paled and I thought she might faint. She seized a goblet and drank it empty, staring into it for a long space of time. One of the men down the table punched the other and their neighbors stood, protesting and cheering, depending on the person.
“How can you possibly know anything about that?” she demanded. “You weren’t even born when I gave him to—” Completely aghast, she whirled on me. “This is a horrible, nasty trick to play on me, Gwynn! I thought you might be a different sort than this ilk, but now you’ve become just likehim.” Blackbird clapped both hands over her mouth and moaned.
When I’d first arrived, Blackbird had been living in Rogue’s castle as his servant and I’d despised him for doing that to her, using his hold on her. She was right, I’d become the same.
“Rogue—lift the spell.”
“But you haven’t dredged up all of her secrets.”
“I don’t want to do it this way. She’s right. I’ll take what Blackbird is willing to tell me, all right?” I asked it of her and she, hands still over her mouth, hesitated, then nodded. “Starling, pour your mother some wine, would you? Or something stronger, if you know her preference.”
The room cleared with a ping that sizzled up my spine. It seemed I was growing more sensitive to Rogue’s magic all the time, as much a part of his allure as his gorgeous looks and enticing scent. Here was me, a fish flopping on a hook. Just waiting to be pan-seared and served up.
Blackbird beckoned to several pages and sent them scurrying to break up the fight and send the other guests on to the ballroom. She turned to us, all gracious hostess in place. “Shall we repair to the drawing room, then?”
She led the way and Rogue, Starling and I followed. Darling trotted off after the dancers, thinking happy thoughts about the tribute he’d receive for easing the sore feet of those determined to waltz all night. As a rare magical anesthetist, he was always popular at balls.
We entered a little parlor done entirely in aqua-blue velvet. To my surprise, several of my light-up pillows, in various shades of light blue, decorated the sofa. I should see if some could be sent to Mistress Nancy—as a thank-you, since I’d been too discombobulated at the time to think of it.
Blackbird folded her hands neatly and addressed us. “I’d like to apologize for the terrible, insulting and ungrateful things I said. In recompense, I—”
“Stop right there,” I cut her off. “It was my fault. I did play a nasty trick on you. It’s forgotten. It never happened.”
Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears and she nodded. Now I saw her, the young woman who’d been trapped in a tower countless years ago. Always a chess piece in someone else’s game. Starling edged up and handed her a tumbler of something and kissed her mother. Blackbird looked momentarily startled, then smiled and patted her daughter on the cheek.
“Look. I’m going to be straight with you, Blackbird. I think you understand why it’s important to me to understand what’s happening to firstborn children.”
Blackbird flicked a wary glance at Rogue.
“Rogue has agreed to help me as he can. I know you’re both—maybe every last one of you—restricted from discussing certain things.” It occurred to me that I didn’t seem to be. Was it that my foreign origin exempted me, or did I just fail to get the warning messages, as I missed all their hive-mind alerts?Never mind that now.“But I think your husband is looking for the same thing I am, more or less.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I tell him. Don’t go. Give it up. This is an endeavor that can lead only to disappointment, sorrow…and far, far worse.”
“He comes back here from time to time, you said. When was the last time he was here?”
She shrugged. “A while.”
Kill me now.
“It was the last blue moon,” Starling inserted. “Before the apple-picking.”
Blackbird glared at her. Not that the information was all that helpful to me, given that time and distance didn’t necessarily stay in proportion to each other.
“Did he say what he’d found out? Where he was going next?”
“Fergus and I don’t discussit.” Blackbird snapped. “We try to enjoy our time together, when and where we can, and then he takes off again driven by this stupid idea that our baby…”
Abruptly she dissolved into sobs. Looking stricken, Starling embraced her mother. Rogue put a warm hand on the small of my back.
