Marny (25 page)

“That would be a no.” Nyx turned his back on
the creature and followed Marny.

The smell of crushed willows filled the air,
as behind him the water hag sobbed and pleaded. Marny reached back
and caught his hand, like she was worried he planned to turn
around. No chance of that—he’d seen the sharp tips of the
creature’s teeth and knew all she wanted him for was lunch.

Together, they plowed back under the
trees.

“It’s safe,” Marny said, stopping and sucking
in a breath. “Pretty sure the hag can’t come this far out of the
water.”

“If you say so.” He squeezed her hand, then
let go. “Are you all right? Sling holding up?”

“Well enough. Sorry about poking you back
there.”

“It had to be done.” He shivered at the
memory of how easily the water hag had cast her spell over him.
“How come you weren’t affected?”

“I have some protection against faerie
glamour.”

He opened his mouth to ask, and she shook her
head.

“It’s a long story.” She glanced around at
the quiet forest. “And not one I want overheard. When we get out of
here, I’ll tell you.”

“You better.”

There were a lot of things he wanted to hear
from Marny, and not all of them had to do with the obvious
adventures she’d had dealing with the fey folk. She was one of the
most interesting people he’d ever met.

“So much for following the stream,” she said.
“I guess we keep going through the woods.”

He was about to reply, then held up his hand.
Something deep in the forest crashed through the underbrush. The
ground vibrated with the sound of hoofbeats.

“Crap.” He glanced around, looking for a
hiding place. A nearby cluster of bushes had branches that swept
the ground. “We can take cover under there.”

Marny made a face, but hurried over to the
shrubbery. “I wish we were here as our in-game characters. Sure
would be nice to turn invisible about now.”

“We’ll have to do the best we can as
ourselves.” He pulled a few of the branches aside, careful not to
break them.

Marny got down on all fours—well, three,
since she couldn’t use one arm—and started wriggling into the small
hollow at the base of the bushes.

The sling and her pack made her awkward, and
he tried not to urge her to hurry up as the sound of approaching
riders grew near. Just when he was about to give her a push, she
pulled her legs in. A heartbeat later he slid in after her,
practically ending up in her lap.

Her body was softness laid over solidity. The
line of her thigh and hip and arm pressed against him, but he could
feel the strength under her curves. Her lips were full, and for a
second he wondered how it would feel to kiss her.

“Sorry it’s so tight in here,” she whispered,
holding his gaze.

He shot her a quick smile to
show it was fine, then pushed all thoughts of kissing out of his
mind. This was
so
not the time.

The sound of hooves pounded the earth outside
their hiding place, and they both stilled.

To his dismay, the hoofbeats slowed. The cold
chill on the back of his neck told him that he and Marny were about
to be discovered.

M
arny watched from between the overlapping leaves as the riders
approached. Through the foliage she glimpsed two horses bearing
armored figures. One wore silver mail, the other golden.

Her breath caught. Surely the Bright King
himself wouldn’t be out riding around the forest looking for them?
For the first time in a long while she wished she were smaller, so
that she could slip further back into the concealing shrubbery.

“The scent of humans is strong here,” a cold
voice said. “They must be nearby.”

With a chiming of bells, one of the riders
dismounted. His armor shone pale in the light, and the glimpse she
caught of his face showed high cheekbones and green eyes slitted
like a cat’s. His long, dark hair fell in a single braid down his
back, and a deadly looking sword hung at his side.

“There was a commotion by the water,” he
said. “Shall I investigate, Bright Lance?”

“Do so. I will search this portion of the
forest. Should you discover the humans, call out, and I shall do
the same. We will present these mortal pests to our liege lord in
good time.”

“As you say.” The silver-armored faerie
turned and led his mount toward the stream.

The remaining rider turned in a slow circle,
sunlight gleaming off his golden-hued armor. Then, excruciatingly
slowly, he urged his mount to walk directly toward their hiding
place.

Beside her, she felt Nyx tense. He wasn’t
planning to fight, was he? But what else could they do? She didn’t
think they could outrun a mounted faerie knight, especially when he
had magic at his disposal.

The horse halted in front of their bush, and
the rider dismounted. Marny swallowed, her spit sour with fear.

The Bright Lance’s gauntlets glinted as he
reached to pull aside the branches of their shelter. Nyx shifted
forward, his expression fierce.

Something pulled her from behind, a sudden
tug as the air gave way to emptiness. With a stifled yelp, she fell
backward. A confused blur of leaves and branches, the smell of
freshly turned soil, and then she landed with a thump on
hard-packed earth. Her backpack cushioned her fall, but her arm
twinged sharply and she gritted her teeth against the pain.

Nyx tumbled on top of her, and there was a
confused moment as they sorted themselves out. By the time they sat
facing each other in the dim light, her wound was hurting in
earnest.

“Where are we?” he asked. “And where’s that
faerie guy?”

Marny glanced around the earthen hollow,
which appeared to be a shallow cave. Daylight filtered in from an
opening between two raised stones, with a third laid across the
top, forming a small doorway. It looked big enough for her to
wriggle through. Probably.

“No idea about where,” she said. “And I don’t
think the knight followed us.”

“Yet. I have the feeling he’s not going to
give up.”

Marny had to agree—this was a temporary
reprieve. She was about to suggest they leave, when the far side of
their small shelter began to glow, a sphere of brightness forming
there. The strength of a candle flame at first, the light grew more
intense until she had to squint. Inside the sphere a fey creature
capered.

“Company,” Nyx said, rising to a
half-crouch.

Marny reached for her knife, setting her
fingers on the handle.

“Foolish mortals,” a high-pitched, familiar
voice said. “You are safe for the moment, but do you truly think
you can stumble undetected about the Realm?”

“Puck?” Marny raised her hand to shade her
eyes.

The glowing sphere faded, leaving behind a
grinning sprite sitting cross-legged in the air. His tattered tunic
was stitched with leaves, and he had feathers woven into his
hair.

“Indeed, Mistress Marny.” Puck bounced up and
made her an elaborate bow. “Pray, introduce me to your
companion.”

She hesitated. Jennet had told her that names
held power in the Realm of Faerie. But Puck already knew all the
Feyguard by name, and besides, “Nyx” wasn’t an actual birth name,
but a nickname. It was probably safe enough to make the
introduction.

“Puck, this is my friend, Nyx,” she said.

“Indeed.” By the twinkle in his eye, she
suspected the sprite had known that, and had tested her in some
way. “Well met, Master Nyx. Tell me, what brings you two mortals
faring so far?”

“We’re looking for my sister,” Nyx said, a
challenge in his voice. “Have you seen her? And how come you know
Marny?”

“Questions upon questions.” Puck turned a
lazy somersault in the middle of the air. “What will you give for
the answers, I wonder?”

Right—there was always a catch where the fey
folk were concerned. However, since she and Nyx had actually come
into the Realm as their physical selves, with items from the real
world, maybe they had something to bargain with.

She dug in her jeans pocket. A tissue, a mint
wrapper, some lint. Ah, a dollar coin. They weren’t made with iron,
were they? She pulled it out.

The metal gleamed softly in the palm of her
hand, the embossed symbol and numbers on it looking suddenly
strange and foreign.

“How about this?” she asked.

Nyx shot her a glance, as if he thought info
about his sister was worth way more than a dollar. Which, of
course, it was—except that anything from the mortal world was
special here.

“It’s like your crossover leaves,” she said
to him.

She hoped that any power the coin had in the
Realm wouldn’t ultimately prove dangerous to humans.

His expression cleared. “How about it, Puck?
What can you tell us?”

The sprite flew over and flicked the coin
with his fingernail. It let out a ping, and Puck nodded, apparently
satisfied.

“You shall find what you seek in the Bright
Court,” he said, plucking the dollar from Marny’s hand.

“Hey, not so fast.” She swiped at it, but
Puck swooped away, laughing.

She’d look dumb trying to chase him around in
the little cave, so she settled for scowling and settling back onto
the dirt floor.

“The Bright Court,” Nyx said. “How do we get
there?”

“You are well on the way,” Puck said. “Your
intent aligns with the wishes of the Bright King, allowing me to
transport you to this passage.”

“Why help us?” Marny asked. She knew better
than to take the sprite’s assistance at face value. The fey folk
always had an ulterior motive. If only she knew what Puck’s was. “I
mean, those guys after us were the king’s guards or something,
right? Maybe we should have let them capture us and take us to the
court, if that’s where Nyx’s sister is.”

“We didn’t know that at the time,” Nyx
pointed out.

“Yeah, but why not let us get taken?” She
gave the sprite a narrow-eyed look. Maybe Nyx had missed the fact
that Puck hadn’t actually said Emmie was in the Bright Court, but
she hadn’t.

“Should you hope to be successful, you must
bargain with the king from a position of strength,” the sprite
said. “Captives in his court have little recourse.”

“So, you want us to rescue her?” Marny
asked.

“The balance must be restored,” the sprite
said.

Which was another of his maddening
non-answers.

“We appreciate the help,” Nyx said. “But it
would be nice to have a little more to go on.”

“You are fortunate to have even this much
assistance,” Puck said, cocking his head to one side. “I have told
you everything you need to know, and more.”

“Fine,” Marny said, shifting to find a more
comfortable position on the packed dirt floor. “We get to the
Bright Court, find what we’re looking for, and make a bargain with
the king. Do I have that right?”

Puck waved one had through the air, leaving a
glittering trail. When he smiled, his teeth glowed in the light.
“Indeed, Mistress Marny, you do.”

Unfortunate. Bargaining with the fey folk was
always a bad idea—but how else could they get Emmie out of the
Realm of Faerie?

Speaking of which…

“Do you happen to know a quick escape spell
we could use?” she asked Puck. “We’ll pay you for it.”

Nyx nodded, clearly sharing her thought that
once they got his sister they’d need to leave immediately. It
wasn’t a good idea for humans to hang around in the courts of the
fey.

Puck tilted his head and screwed up his face,
making his chin look even more pointed.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But no mortal escapes
unscathed from the Realm of Faerie. Are you willing to pay the
price?”

“If that’s our only ticket out of here, then
yes,” Nyx said.

Marny frowned—but really, what choice did
they have?

“Mistress Marny?” Puck turned his bright eyes
on her.

“What kind of price are we talking
about?”

She thought of her friends, who bore their
own scars from the realm. Jennet had nearly died. Tam had been
willing to sacrifice himself to save her, and had almost lost his
brother to the Dark Court, too. Roy’s heart had been broken and she
still wasn’t sure he’d recover fully, despite the fact that he
could see Brea, the girl he’d fallen in love with, once a
month.

But it was far too late to choose any other
path. Marny was here with Nyx because his sister needed rescuing.
Even though she wasn’t a Feyguard, she knew what was right. What
had to be done.

Puck nodded, as if he could hear her
thoughts. “You have a brave soul, Mistress Marny. Sometimes, the
price is not something taken away, but accepting a new burden. I
cannot tell you what it might be.”

“Why not?” Nyx demanded. “I’m not a fan of
all this vague talk.”