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I remember his words at their conclave.
Her arrival is the best thing that has happened to us in a millennium.
Did he truly mean that? And if he did, then why is he here? He clearly chased me all the way here, fast, as he's the first to have caught up with me.
The first but not the last. If he could track me, others will soon do the same.
“Hungry?” he asks, opening the satchel across his shoulder.
I bite my lip, eyes flying between the weapon at his back and the bag.
If he wanted you dead, all he had to do was shoot you.
And while that’s true, I know better than to think there’s only one way to harm a woman. Our history there isn't in his favor.
“Starved,” I admit.
He nods like he expected that. “I heard you got shot with iron. It would have killed most folk, you know. You’ll need to feed your body and replenish your magic in order to heal.”
He removes a hefty leather pouch, and tosses it my way without crossing the distance between us, sensing I’m still tense.
I grab the pouch and open it.
An apple. A little covered pot. Something wrapped in paper—bread, by the smell—and something else, in green leaves.
“Why are you helping me?”
He watches me for a long moment. “You wouldn’t believe me if I said I think it’s the right thing to do, and we don’t have time for the full story. You should go through the arch. It will take you home.”
“Home?” I repeat, ridiculously hopeful. “Back to San Francisco, you mean?”
He shakes his head. “No, it doesn’t work across worlds. But there are several arches such as these in the Hollow. They take you to the place where your body physically belongs here on Ilvaris. If I crossed it, I’d reach the court of bone. In your case, it’s hard to say, but I suspect you’ll be in your mother’s castle. It’ll take a while for the lords to guess it’ll be unlocked. You’ll be safe, for a time.”
An empty castle where no one would think to look for me sounds a lot better than spending the night in the woods, especially if the temperature drops as low as it was last night.
But that's if I can trust him.
The fact that the fox wanted me to cross the arch too is reassuring, though.
“Eat,” he says. “And rest. I’ll guard the castle as well as I can until the end of the rites, at dawn. In the meantime, you need to find your mother’s crown and put it on your head. We're all sworn to obey it. Only then will you be safe. Do you understand, Darina?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t understand any of this. Why?—”
“Right now, you’re a child of Morrigan. The lords killed six of them when she fell, because no one wished to be ruled. But if that crown accepts you, they can’t deny your place. The unseelie agreed to bend to the will of their king, but all of the lords of Ilvaris have sworn to bow to the high queen. Wearing that crown, you cease to be prey.”
Said like that, he’s right; I should at least try to find it. And it’s a plan, which is far more than what I had moments ago.
Get to the castle. Find an old, dusty crown. Put it on my head.
Easy.
Except I’ve learned not to trust anything that sounds too easy.
“Seriously. Why are you helping me? I’m not going to trust you until you give me something.”
I have all the reasons in the world to be wary of Valdred. I know he doesn’t care much for me on a personal level; he treated me like a pretty object at his disposal before he learned my parentage. If all the lords think I should die, I doubt he’s overwhelmed by a deep-rooted sense of loyalty to a long-dead queen he never knew.
He sighs. “You’ve experienced the delights of being enslaved to one lord, have you not?”
