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When I finally fell asleep—alone, since Darling had gone off hunting—I found myself searching in my dreams. I walked along the beach. The sand shifted under my bare feet, sliding away so I sank into it up to my knees, my skirts snarling around my thighs and dragging wet. I tried wishing them away, but nothing happened.
In frustration, I yanked at them, trying to climb out of the sand, but only sinking deeper in. The surf pounded up and a mermaid missing a piece of her tail pointed and laughed. I begged her for help, but she flipped her long powder-blue ringlets over her shoulder, giggling like a madwoman. The waves reached me and poured, icy cold into the sandy hole around me. I’d sunk up to my waist now, but I kept trying to struggle forward.
Down the coast, a sailing ship waited, flags flying. Rogue waited for me on that ship. I needed to get to him, but the water and sand filled my nose, suffocating me, drowning me.
“Rogue!” I cried, though the ship was too impossibly far. He’d never hear me, even without sand pouring down my throat. Yet I kept calling for him.
The ship set sail without me, serenely cutting through the waves, leaving me behind as the sand closed over my head.
I woke with a choking sound to the still-dark tent. Outside firelight glowed while the fae sang and danced. Some never seemed to sleep, like sharks that swam in endless circles to keep oxygen moving through their bodies. Thumbelina might be crawling through the tribute wagons even now, her restless mind and magical gift recording it all. A whiff of sandalwood and Stargazer lilies drifted past.
“Rogue?” I whispered, afraid to hope. My throat felt raw and I wondered if I had been screaming aloud.
“Stop looking for me.”
The thought ran weak and pale in the back of my mind. I stilled, listening. Was that him and not me? Nothing more.
“I’m not looking,”I thought back. “I got your message.”
“Stop looking for me. Save yourself.”
“I can’t not dream.”
But the voice—Rogue—did not reply.
When I dreamed again, there sat the sailing ship at the dock in the distance. The soft sand sucked at my bare feet. With renewed determination, I started walking. Maybe this time, I’d get there before it sailed.
*
In the morning,I asked Blackbird to ride in the carriage with us, so I could quiz her on the people and politics. With the barest hesitation, she agreed.
Thumbelina and Starling waited in the carriage, arguing with each other about something. They snapped their mouths closed when we approached and I decided I didn’t want to know. Blackbird raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at me, sizing Thumbelina up and down.
“Really, Lady Gwynn?” She asked softly.
“She’s helping me with a project.”
“It’s not seemly to have such as she in your company.”
I turned so my back was to the carriage, speaking only for Blackbird’s ears. “‘Such as she’—all the dragonfly girls or what? And why not?”
“Her kind are for service. Not companionship. Surely you’ve noticed they’re not much for conversation.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not people too.”
“Well, dear—actually they’re not. They’re more like…barely intelligent fruit.”
I laughed, but her serious expression didn’t change. Here I’d wondered if Rogue had grown on a vine. “Give Thumbelina a chance. You’ll see. She’s special.”
Once we got rolling, Thumbelina got over her reticence at having Blackbird present, and regaled us with the list of her overnight findings. Feeling flirtatious, Darling decided to join us inside the carriage, making a nuisance of himself playing with Thumbelina’s ringlets. She fussed over him, calling him a handsome young man, which he loved. He finally abandoned himself to a nap, completely overflowing her tiny lap while she scratched his furry belly and I took notes.
Despite herself, Blackbird became fascinated by the list of tributes and the people who’d given them to me—and in the magic of me recording the information into the grimoire. I caught her more than once eyeing Thumbelina with speculation. Intelligent fruit, indeed. She added in bits of information here and there, but was unable to tell me as much as I’d hoped.
The fae upper echelons seemed to be more or less flat. The nobles—and so far I’d recorded about a hundred names—all held equivalent titles. Tributes came from more than those people, however. I’d received gifts from Brownie tribes other than Larch’s and from heads of various fae groups. There also seemed to be a group of second-tier lordlings, to which Blackbird belonged, for reasons that escaped me.
“Aren’t you a princess?” I interrupted one of her explanations.
“Not anymore, dear. Not since I married my Fergus.”
