Page 26 of The Blood Queen

“Alyth?” I reach for her, remember her wounds again—my stomach lurches—and she turns, her face a hurricane mix of determination and anger and fatigue.

“Someone will come soon,” she says. Hopes? She sounds a bit like she’s fraying too. “Someone will—”

A brownie scurries over.

Not bigger than a cat standing on its legs, he’s got fine brown fur and beady black eyes like the ones at Mary’s castle. He’s in a uniform of his own, green and silver, and I see now that the design is some version of the guards’ leaf insignia, thin branches swirling out. All around the brownie’s head, he’s got feathers sticking out. Chicken feathers, maybe? They contrast oddly with his sleek uniform. His bearing is self-important; he’s clearly trying to scurry in a dignified manner, his shoulders back and his chin lifted.

“Ahem, Miss Alyth.” He intercepts her. “You do not wander here, hm?”

“It’s an emergency.” She stops walking, panting, her shoulders jerking with the motion. “I need to speak to my father.”

I step up beside her, and the brownie flinches, noting the bits of dried blood still smeared on my neck and face. Then he looks back at Alyth and seems to realize she has wounds as well.

“Goodness me.” A small hand presses to his chest. I can’t tell whether he’s appalled at our wounds or appalled that we’d bring our wounded selves here. “Whatever happened?”

“I need to speak to my father,” she repeats, irritation inching into her tone.

The brownie sniffs imperiously. “He is—”

“Occupied. I know.” Alyth’s hands ball into fists. “But maybe he won’t be so occupied when he learns that the High Blade has returned and is marching on the Caiy Stone portal as we speak.”

Caiy Stone portal?

My eyes flick to the guarded stone at the other side of the courtyard. It’s exactly where it was when we entered; we haven’t moved at all, despite all the walking we did. I really, really did not miss being in the fae realm.

But surely that’s the other end of the Caiy Stone portal she mentioned.

The brownie makes a squeak of disgust and shushes Alyth. “Quiet, girl! Quiet! You mustn’t—”

I lurch forward. “You wanna try speaking to her again? She’s risking her neck to save yours.”

Alyth touches my wrist, an unspoken reminder to calm down, but I’m setting a precedent for our visit here. No one’s talking to her like that.

The brownie sputters and straightens his doublet. “What I meant to say is that your father is out on a Wild Hunt with the court. He isn’t here.”

Alyth’s jaw clenches, and I hear a barely restrained sigh. “When will he return?”

“Tomorrow.” The brownie shrugs. “The next day perhaps. They go as they please, the princes, you know.”

A day or two. That’s just fine by me. We’ve got more pressing matters right now.

I gotta get Alyth fixed up.

“We’ll wait here for him, then.” I fold my arms over my chest. “I assume you’ve got rooms we can use? Lead us to them.” I pause. Glance back at Alyth. “That is a real palace, yeah? We can stay there?”

Her eyes are bugged out. “Yes. But you can’t—”

I turn back to the brownie. “Get us some rooms. Now.”

The brownie’s jaw drops.

Alyth hisses at me. “You can’t just demand a room at—”

“Show us to a room fit for Princess Alyth,” I order the brownie. “We will stay there, free to come and go, and we will speak to Alyth’s father when he returns. You will show us hospitality. We need food and drink suitable for folks from the mortal realm, and we need healing supplies as well.”

There, that’s nothing a fae can manipulate, is it? And I didn’t bargain at all, just demanded.

The brownie seems entirely stunned. Like no one’s ever dared speak to him like that. And maybe they haven’t. Here, everything’s probably cloaked in seven layers of subterfuge. No one’s direct. And Alyth’s been forced to play that game, so familiar with how things are done that she’s gawking at me in mixed horror and shock.