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Nicu’s wide eyes flashed with doubt as he whimpered, “Are you lying to me?”
“Not in the least.”
He sniffled, then fiddled with my hair and listened as I described a time when I’d been practicing dance steps for a grand ball, only to topple into an Autumn tumbleweed. I made it sound funnier than it had been.
“I’m afraid to dance now,” I confessed.
“Why?” Nicu asked.
“I don’t want to fall again and be embarrassed. But you?” I poked his belly. “You’re brave. You’ll get right back up and try again. It would be a shame not to, because even the birds must risk crashing before they can fly. Your father has fallen, too. He just won’t admit it.”
“Old Jinny will tell us about that, if we ask her,” Nicu whispered, cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Then we shall,” I whispered back.
The boy’s teary, lopsided grin undid me. I had thought rendering Poet speechless had been a triumph, but I hadn’t known the half of it until I’d made Nicu smile.
“No conspiring, you two.” Poet approached us, playing along. “Just because I can’t fall as brilliantly, ’tis unfair to rib me about it.”
The boy giggled. “The Briar Patch told on you, Papa. You can’t walk straaaaaaight.”
“Ouch. Take pity on my shortcomings, I beg of you.”
“Nope.”
“Well said, my love.” Poet held out his hand to Nicu. “’Tis the hour for your pillow.”
Enticed by the added promise of a bedtime story, Nicu peeled himself from me. I started to follow them as they headed inside but halted when Poet’s gaze cut my way—and he tossed me a violent look over his shoulder.
Stay here, he mouthed.
The words stung like incisions across my skin, so that I wavered in place.
The coddling must have vexed Poet. The fall hadn’t been that bad, so Nicu might not have cried if I hadn’t encouraged him to.
Or this had to do with his condition. Perhaps I’d said something wrong.
Eons later, Poet returned. He shut the front door and strode from the house, his eyes leveled on me like a target.
I steeled myself for a lecture as he stalked toward me. Then I yelped as the jester seized my wrist. “What—”
Without a word, he charged across the grass while lugging me with him. Not forcefully. Not gently. He dragged us past the cottage, through the crochet of trees, and into a dense passage out of range.
“Now see here,” I blustered, jerking my hand back to no avail. “I am not a beast of burden. Let go!”
Without glancing back, Poet blithely flicked my arm out to the side. I tugged on my sleeve to straighten the material, then rolled my shoulders and marched after him.
We cleared the woods again and emerged into a compact meadow that dipped into a slight incline and cupped us in its palm. Bordering tree branches quavered and stretched overhead, the boughs shingled in jade foliage. Budding darkness leaked into the atmosphere, dousing the wild in a cobalt sheen. Another ten minutes or so, and we wouldn’t be able to see.
Trepidation slowed my steps. Since the leenix attack, I had overlooked this forest’s capabilities, what the lore said about hidden hollows eliciting reckless impulses. This could be one of those places.
Poet prowled ahead, as though he might trample anything that got in his way, innocent or not. He put several leagues between us, then halted.
Because I’d forgotten my boots at the stream, mud streaked my unshod feet and stained the hem of Jinny’s dress. I paused, uncertain. “Where are we?”
Poet expelled a dry puff of air. “I’m a wicked one, but I’m not a lecher, Princess. You think I’d take you someplace that compromised your senses?”
Days ago when I found that ribbon on my pillow, my answer would have been different.
