I’ve just reached Limerick, a sleepy town on the outskirts of Ermengarde, when hues of pink begin to blot the horizon.
My legs ache from exhaustion. I’ve been pushing myself all night hoping to make it to Ermengarde by daybreak, but the sun has outwitted me.
It’s with a chest full of needles and regret that I stop at a worn-down inn on the border of the city.
I’d have picked it anyway because it’s close to the Serpentine, and because it looks like the type of place that knows better than to ask questions of its travelers.
But the entire edifice is lacking windows.
It hints more at the activities that take place within the inn’s walls, but it’s exactly what I need if I want to avoid crisping in the sunlight.
The shabby door creaks as I enter. The inn is small, and the foyer serves as both a tavern and a place to pay the innkeeper, who stands behind the counter.
When I ask him how much for a room, he jerks his head toward a sign hanging on the wall behind him, but the script is so crammed I don’t bother more than a glance at it. Instead I offer the stout faerie with fox ears a stout purse I snatched from the back pocket of one of Othian’s drunk guards in exchange for a quiet room away from the bustle downstairs.
It’s only then I remember that whatever had words darting off in all directions my entire life has been cured by my vampirism. Sure enough, when I take the time to look at the sign behind the counter, I decipher the rates with ease and quickly realize I’ve overpaid considerably.
I wonder how long it will take for the urge to distract others from my literacy difficulties to subside.
“You sure ya don’t want dinner before you settle down? Help settle your stomach?” the innkeeper asks, more pleasantly now that he’s yanked my coin behind the counter.
I can’t help the way my gaze immediately dips to the crevice in his neck, but it’s rather hairy and does nothing to stir my cravings.
Apparently Clarissa’s blood is the type that sticks with you, because my stomach has remained rather satisfied.
Still. I don’t want to risk spiraling into a frenzy that might further slow my progress to Ermengarde, so I order a steak as rare as the innkeeper is willing to make it.
The slab is practically raw when he slaps it on a platter in front of me at the bar, and blood forms a pool around the cut of meat, but I scarf it down.
This must not be unusual behavior of the innkeeper’s patrons, because he doesn’t shoot me any odd looks.
As I eat, I examine my surroundings, taking note of my fellow patrons. Less because I’m actually interested, and more because my mind keeps careening back to Nox. The spell the queen could be working on him this very moment.
But there’s nothing I can do to speed the sun along, so I people watch instead.
There’s a group of faeries in the corner, all bulked up in battle gear that gives them the shape of clean-cut muscles, though by the skin that sags around their necks—why do I pay so much attention to necks now?—I imagine the sculpting is both intentional and deceptive.
They’ve been arguing since I arrived, though the argument never seems to progress. From what I can tell, they’re discussing a woman who they’ve labeled The Red, who apparently steals away children from their homes in the middle of the night. Two of the faeries think she’s the worst sort of trafficker and should be punished as such, though their argument is based less on the fact that trafficking children is a moral wrong—after all, they’ve all done it from time to time when coin has been thin—and more that it’s against a woman’s nature. Another—a faerie with fins that fan at his neck—holds the opinion that the others give The Red too much credit, that there’s no way she’s working on her own, and that she must be a slave herself. Another thinks she’s dead, given the lack of missing children over the past several months. What they all seem to agree on is that, if the Red is alive, the bounty on her head makes her well worth tracking down.
I’ve pushed my plate away, tiring of their argument as it rounds back around to why the Red couldn’t possibly be the brains behind the operation, when a drink plops down on the counter beside me.
“From the man in the corner,” mummers the innkeeper.
I follow his gaze to the shadows, where a man sits partially obscured, only half of his face visible in the dim lantern light.
He’s handsome in the most traditional sense of the word. His skin is browned by the sun, his eyes a sparkling sage green, his face so symmetrical, I would have thought him fae if not for his rounded ears. His hair is dark and reminds me of Nox, though otherwise the two look nothing alike.
My heart gives a lurch.
When I glance at my goblet, I’m surprised that it’s not ale sloshing in my cup.
It’s wine as dark as blood.
Before I can leave for my rooms, the man approaches the bar where I’m seated and perches himself on a stool next to me.
“And what is your opinion?” he asks by way of introduction, as if he needs none.
The question catches me off guard, and it must show on my face because he laughs. “The Red,” he explains. “Whose opinion do you side with?”
“Is none an option?” I ask dryly, not in the mood for this stranger’s idle conversation.
“Most certainly,” he says, eyeing my untouched goblet. “But what if there was another opinion? Another take on The Red?”
“Then I suppose the opinion would be yours, therefore making it the most profound statement ever to grace my ears,” I say.
If he’s off-put by my lack of enthusiasm to be speaking with him, he doesn’t show it. “Why don’t I tell you, and then you can be the judge?”
I level him a bored look, and he continues. “They say the tunes she plays on her flute could lull the strongest of wills into her submission. That’s how she takes the children. I believe her talent is because she’s Gifted.”
I raise a brow. “Gifted?”
“Gifted. With the Old Magic.”
My mind goes back to Asha’s magic, to the revelation that Cinderella is its sibling. “Sounds like more of an infection to me,” I mutter, pretending to take a sip from my goblet, though only to keep from looking at him.
It’s the stranger’s turn to raise his brow. “And how would you know?”
His response has my neck craning. The dim lantern light is flickering in his sage green eyes, but there’s something else there too. Something I can’t quite place. But it’s as ominous as a storm cloud, and knowing too. It raises the hairs on my arms and has my heart pounding. “Just an assumption. I know everyone’s thrilled about the Queen of Naenden’s rise to power, talking about how it was her magic that saved her. But I don’t know—something about a creature who snatches a human body doesn’t sit right with me.”
