Page 16 of The Crimson Throne
This bean-nighe seems eager to convey something to me, and the fae are masters at never outright stating what they want to. They’re very keenon testing a person, making sure the recipient of information is worth the effort. So she’ll tempt me to lift the lid of her basket and see what other washing she has to do, laugh at me as I try to figure out if anyone I care about is in danger. Some of the legends even say that if I manage to steal a garment and clean it before her, that death could be avoided.
But those legends are foolish. I stay silent. And I mind my own business. I can wait.
“That one’s next,” she says, drawing my focus as she lifts the lid on her basket.
I take a tentative step closer.
“Been waiting on you,” the bean-nighe says. She scowls. “Don’t like that castle of yours.”
Stirling Castle is decidedly not mine. But the fae don’t care about human politics. To them, I’m the daughter of my father, one of the princes of the Seelie Court, and despite my human blood, I’m respected among the wild ones because of that. A little anyway.
But that respect comes with a price.
If I fail to keep the Red Caps out of Scotland… Well. The fae know who to blame.
And theyneverforgive.
It’s true that some fae hate me. After all, as a Leth, I help enforce the barrier that protects us all but keeps anyone with strong magical blood trapped inside. Someone with just a few drops of magic, like Darnley or Lady Reres, can easily pass through the border, whereas I, a true half blood, cannot. And nor can any full fae, like the bean-nighe. I doubt she cares too much, but there are some fae who would like to see me dead and the barrier gone, regardless of the risk.
Wild things hate walls, even protective ones.
The wall was designed, all those centuries ago, specifically to protectboth the fae realm and the human, with Leths as the guardians. We are the ultimate mediators between the worlds, with ties to both, and while we are far weaker than full fae in terms of magic, we are the ones who control the wall.
I eye the washerwoman’s laundry basket. At the top, I can make out a white shirt made of fine linen—something much more expensive than the tunic the bean-nighe is currently working on. There are black stains on the cloth, maybe from soot. Perhaps the poor sod who’s going to die will perish in a fire. Had there been bloodstains, a duel or battle would have been more likely.
The shirt is long; the hem of it would come to my knees, and the shoulder stitches would touch my elbows. Probably a tall man. A tall, doomed man.
The bean-nighe glares at the shirt. “It will be a difficult stain to remove.”
“Oh?” I ask, not quite rising to the bait.
If I ask her for something she suspects is significant to me, even just information, I will owe her something in return. That is the way of life among the fair folk.
Everything is a transaction. And a debt owed is a blade to your neck.
The bean-nighe grunts, somehow both pleased and disappointed in my restraint. Her cloudy eyes meet mine, and even if she looks as if she is blinded by cataracts, I know she sees far, far more than I do. “It’ll be hard to wash that shirt,” she says, jerking her chin to the soot-covered one in the basket, “because it’s hard to clean any stain caused by a Red Cap.”
My blood goes cold.
The bean-nighe washes clothes wornonlyby someone who dieswithinthe magical boundary.
“The shirt belongs to someone killed by a Red Cap weapon?” I ask, knowing I tread a dangerous line. But the bean-nighe is trying to give me information, even if it’s in a roundabout way.
She shakes her head. “Didn’t say that. Don’t you be putting words in my mouth, bastard creature. I said the stain was caused by a Red Cap.”
Shite.
Not a Red Cap weapon. A Red Cap fae.
They’re going to breach the wall.
“When?” I choke out, my eyes going frantically from the basket to the bean-nighe and back again. “When are they invading? Are they already here?” I just checked the wall, but what if I missed something?
The bean-nighe shrugs. “I’ll finish this one soon, very soon.” She whips the wet cloth of the tunic she’d been scrubbing out, and I’m reminded—when she’s done with that shirt, I’ll have committed my first murder.
“Then I start that one.” She hooks a thumb at the linen shirt, belonging to a man who will be murdered by a Red Cap within the boundaries I’m supposed to be protecting.
She eyes the shirt. “Probably take me, oh, a few weeks to clean it proper.”
