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“I don’t know. But I do know I never will if you don’t fill me in. Please, Gwynn.” She bit down on her hair, making a disturbing crunching sound.
“Okay. You can’t discuss this with anyone, and don’t take it as gospel truth because I don’t have much evidence to support my ideas. A lot of this is conjecture. And you shouldn’t chew on your hair like that—you’ll mess it up.”
Guiltily she dropped the hair and fidgeted with her pretty yellow dress instead. “I promise not to talk about it with anyone but you.”
Good enough. “What I think is that, yes, the Queen Bitch is running some kind of game. A competition, perhaps, where various fae—noble fae—have the opportunity to produce a child with someone from my world. For some reason, she wants this half-breed, firstborn child. So far, I think no one has succeeded in birthing the child with the quality she wants, so the game then moves to someone else.”
“Why do you think no one has succeeded? If this is right, then she has Brody.”
“Good point!” I said brightly, tucking away the image of Titania thoughtfully masticating doomed Cecily’s baby and pronouncing it insufficient. “Maybe she needs a lot of them.” Like bonbons.
“So you think Rogue is the one playing the game now. And you.”
I nodded, my throat a little tight to have it put so bluntly, though they were my own thoughts, echoed back to me.
Starling reached for the lock of hair, then deliberately folded her hands and sat up straight. “See, this is what I think. I serve you—and I like to think we’re friends too. If you’re caught up in this thing, this game, and it’s the same thing that wrecked my parents’ lives, then I figure it involves me too. I could choose to stay behind and pick apples and dance all night, but maybe I want to be someone better than that. Someone more like you.”
It took me by surprise, her bald statement. I couldn’t remember anyone wanting to be like me and it moved me in some deep way. Frightened me too.
“Oh, Starling. Wearefriends, but I don’t think you want to be like me. I’m stubborn and arrogant and not at all better in any way. Plus the magic is doing weird things to me. I don’t know who I am half the time anymore.”
“I know who you are,” she replied with staunch loyalty. I remembered Rogue saying the same thing to me, back when we made our first bargain.I know who you are, far better than you know who I am.“Give me the credit to recognize the truly admirable in you. I’m going with you, Gwynn. You can’t stop me.”
“Ican.”
“But you won’t because you know I won’t give up.”
“Well, you’ve got the stubborn part down all right.”
She squealed and clapped her hands. “Hooray—a quest! Now get dressed. They’re picking apples today.”
“They are?” I dragged myself out of the armchair, my body creaking with stiffness. Starling followed me to the bathing room. I poked my head into the bedroom along the way and saw Darling had abandoned the rumpled bed. Off hunting mice probably. A cheerful purr filled my mind, along with a vision of mouse guts. Just what I wanted to see.
“Yes.” Starling groaned theatrically. “Mother decided it has to happen before we go, so she’s rousting everybody out to get busy. You know how she is when she decides there’s a task to be done. So everybody will be coming to help pick, then there will be feasting and dancing afterward.”
“I think I would fall over dead of shock if therewasn’ta feast and dancing.”
“Ha-ha.”
Geez, she was even starting to sound like me.
“Why not just use magic to harvest the apples? Seems that it would be a lot faster.”
Starling was shaking her head, her blond hair swinging. “Can’t. They’re magic-resistant.”
“I thought they were poisonous.”
“That too.”
“So why grow them? What use is there for so many poisonous apples that require so much effort to harvest?”
She looked at me in surprise. “Well, what else would the dragons eat?”
Aha! Now I liked the logic of that. Which came first—did the dragons’ magic resistance come from the apples? And were the apples “poisonous” because they affected the inherent magic of the fae? Maybe Nancy and her son could eat them just fine.Must note that down.
After I dressed in a russet gown that seemed appropriate for an autumn harvest party and Starling fixed my hair into a simple, loose braid to keep it out of my face, we headed downstairs.
“There you girls are!” Blackbird called out. “I thought I would have to send someone after you, lest you sleep all day.” She frowned at me and clucked. “You look peaked, Lady Gwynn. Are you entirely all right?”
