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I tensed, though I tried not to show it. “What do you know of it?”
He went back to stroking the globe, peering into it with affection. “I know all kinds of things. I am so much more powerful than you are. I really can’t believe the press you get. It’s so not fair.”
“Maybe living out in the middle of the ocean has something to do with that.”
He scowled. “I’m a hermit! It’s meant to be glamorous and mysterious.”
Thumbelina snickered and he pointed the staff at her. “Shut your face, little fairy girl. Or I’ll make you be the prize for the duel.”
“So, this duel,” I prompted him, shifting Darling in my arms. “What’s the plan for that? You and me, I take it?”
Walter continued to glower at Thumbelina, who was twirling her dagger and smiling sweetly. “I don’t like her.”
“Then she won’t be the prize. We’ll pick something else.”
He stroked the globe. “I choose. It’s my prize.”
“Not unless you win.”
“Oh,” he chuckled. “I’ll win all right. And then, when you’re dead, all of Faerie will know that I am the most powerful sorcerer!”
The group went still around me and Starling edged closer. But it was Blackbird who spoke up. “There are many with vested interests in Lady Gwynn’s continued good health who would take it much amiss if she were to die.”
“Who? I don’t give a rat’s ass about Falcon. Puck is a puppet. And—as little Gwynnie knows, even if the rest of you don’t—Rogue is quite out of the equation at the moment.”
“I would be interested in your information about Lord Rogue,” I told him. “Enough to engage in a duel for it.”
“What is this? You’re in no position to bargain. I brought you here to duel to the death and that’s exactly what you’re going to do. I’ve invited people!”
I shrugged, deliberately nonchalant. “Why bother? You’ve already said I’m going to die and you want to keep my companions. I have no incentive to fight.”
“But you have to,” he whined. “It won’t work if I just assassinate you. There has to be a lot more juice to it or it won’t make a good story.”
He absolutely reminded me of a guy from my era, a computer nerd type. But Blackbird said the war had been going on for a long time—whatever that meant to her.
“How long have you been in Faerie?”
Walter gave me a canny look. “Long time, honey pie. Not everyone comes through at the same point in the time continuum. Yeah, I’ve been here, I’m guessing, something like a couple hundred years. It gets hard to keep track, you know?”
“I do know.” Abruptly and absurdly, I felt sorry for the guy. At least I’d found more of a place here. He lived out this extended, isolated life while the magic worked to unbalance him more and more. “Who trained you?”
Squinching his face in suspicion, he glowered at me, tapping his fingers on the globe. “I didn’t need training. Entirely self-taught.”
As I’d suspected, which I felt sure meant he wasn’t truly more powerful or the fae would never have let him roam about unsupervised. He’d developed some neat tricks, but that was all they were. It would be nice to see past that gray barrier in his mind. Getting that staff away from him would show me a great deal.
“Which is why I’ll defeat you,” he continued. “See—you’re stuck in your ivory-tower interpretation of magic and I’m an entrepreneur. Innovate or die, Gwynnie!” He chortled over his joke, the sloppy sound combining with the squeaking of wheels. “Aha—the cocoa is here!”
A team of gremlins, hotfooting it over the floor, dragged a wagon with a great silver samovar on it. I flinched at the sight of so much silver and Thumbelina edged away. Steam hissed out of the top of it, bringing the delicious aroma of heated chocolate, rich, warm and enveloping.
Walter rubbed his hands together and raised his unkempt eyebrows at me. “At least the food is good, huh?”
The gremlins skittered off and Walter climbed—literally—down from his throne and grabbed a flagon, filling it from a spigot on the side of the samovar. “Help yourselves! I would offer you chairs, but ha! I have the only one.”
He hefted himself back onto the throne by dint of crawling up the front, not easy with the staff in one hand and the overfull flagon spilling cocoa in the other. And not a pleasant sight with his robes hefting up over his wide behind to reveal his chubby thighs. I quickly averted my eyes to find Starling giving me such a horrified look that I nearly started giggling.
“Is it safe to drink from the silver?” I whispered and Blackbird caught my eye, giving me a small shake of her head.
“Okay, Walt. Let’s talk about the terms of this duel.”
