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“I am not without my own gifts, Lady Gwynn.” She tapped her temple. “Understanding people’s motivations goes a long way toward keeping them organized and happy.”
It explained a great deal.
“I’ve told Starling to leave you alone about it, but I don’t know that she will. Stubborn child.” The exasperated affection in her voice touched me.
“She’s no longer a child, Blackbird.”
“No.” She shook her head at herself. “But neither is she a woman-grown yet. I worry that what lies ahead for her will be painful.”
“A philosopher where I come from said ‘that which does not kill me makes me stronger.’”
Blackbird stopped and faced me. “Wise. And yet—of little comfort to a mother with a mortal child. That’s not an easy thing to shoulder.”
“The man who said that came from a world where all children are mortal, as was he.”
She tipped her head a little. “Fair enough. I won’t send her home. I considered asking you to do it, as a special favor.”
“I can’t. I promised.”
“Fair enough,” she repeated, more to herself. “As far as Fafnir goes—he remembers no more than I do. I feel quite sure of that. Your rage for whatever role he played is clear to me, so I won’t ask you to go easy on him, either. Just…”
“I get what you’re saying.”
“But will keep your own counsel.” She dusted off her hands and resumed her brisk march. “Just in this next tower here.”
“No advice on handling Walter?”
She shook her head, completely neutral. “You, more than any other, know what he has faced in this world as opposed to your own. The laws you both understand likely will serve both of you best. I doubt he could face a more fitting judge.”
“In our world, the person he offended would never be in a position to pass judgment.” Mostly. Except maybe in politics. And the military. Reality TV shows too. “Never mind.”
“Would you have Fafnir and the others pass sentence? You know what they would likely choose for him.” A bristling squad of spear-laden gremlins guarded a pair of iron-braced wooden doors, stacked up an arm’s length deep. I raised an eyebrow at Blackbird who looked amused. “Not my idea.”
They parted for us, a spiky green sea, pulling the doors open as they did. Blackbird fell back, making me precede her into the rooms. Walter, wearing a silver collar and cuffs, sat in a mournful pile in a leather recliner. A platter of the same snack food he’d given us sat next to him and he drank from a hose attached to a silver samovar of yet more hot chocolate.
He glared at me. “You totally cheated.”
I lifted my shoulders in a little mea culpa shrug. “I like to see it as thinking outside the box.”
“I always hated that phrase. Success mumbo jumbo.”
I realized he’d shifted into American English. “Yeah. What are we going to do with you, Walter?”
He fiddled with the cocoa hose. “I don’t suppose you know how to get back? I mean, I wasn’t much back home, but I had a decent job. Clearly my magic sucks here, compared to yours.”
“Did you come right to this castle—when you fell through?”
His cheeks puffed out as he sucked on the hose, collapsed as he swallowed. “Came through a video game. I was playing Skyrim, you know?”
“I don’t. Sorry.”
“Heh. N00b. Anyway I’d Fus Ro Dah’d the thing and it, like, sucked me in and boom! Here I was, facing a real dragon.”
“That had to be something.”
“No freaking kidding! Fortunately the thing seemed to take a liking to me and the rest is history. Until you came along.”
I cleared a pile of soiled robes off a coffee table and sat, not pointing out that I wouldn’t have come along if he hadn’t kidnapped me. “That’s really interesting. You must have a natural affinity for dragons. Were you by chance bleeding?”
