Page 26 of Duncan

“Princess, did someone attack you?” one asked.

“If they tried, they now burn.” She gave the Cait Sith a gentle smile. “Find me another dwelling where I may rest in comfort, or you shall join them.” She went still as a small figure emerged from one of the upper floor windows.

“Och, didnae all the raiders die?” Dearg asked as she joined them, and stared at the burning inn with wide eyes.

A young boy bared pointed teeth as he climbed over the sill and jumped to the ground, where he collapsed. Smoke rose from his ragged, burning clothes, and one of the shifters tossed a bucket of sand over him to extinguish the flames.

“Oh, lad,” Speal muttered. “Why didnae you flee the place?”

The sharp-toothed thing grinned up at her, and then dissolved into a puddle of water.

“Search the town and assure he was the only one left,” Derdrui told Speal, and then beckoned to Dearg. “You, come with me.”

DUNCAN BARRED the door to the infirmary before he unlocked and opened the doors to his cabinet of Fae objects to see which had stirred to life, and why. Once placed inside, none of the debris he collected had ever come to life, although last month he’d neglected to close the cabinet once. When that had happened, an egg created by the melia had fallen out and hatched. The imp inside had been particularly vicious, even for a servant of the woodland Fae, but he and Nyall had managed to capture and end it before it attacked any mortals.

A sense of something gone amiss nagged at him as he surveyed the collection. It was as if he’d forgotten to place an object inside, but couldn’t remember failing to do so with any object brought to him. Nor did anything inside the cabinet explain the noise that had come from it; everything sat in its place. The red pendant had not reappeared, either. Then a broken chain spun from green garnets slithered out of one of the compartments, which he caught before it hit the floor. It glimmered briefly on his palm, and the smell of green things and spring filled the infirmary.

Where the chain had been kept a small gray mouse appeared, its whiskers trembling as it peered out with its little black eyes and sniffed the air. Another mouse, this one white, joined it, and then a third that had black and brown-spotted fur squeezed between the pair. All three looked down at Duncan as if they had never before beheld a man.

“How did you three sneak inside?” he muttered, placing the broken chain in a different compartment. When he inspected the one where he’d kept it before, he saw bits of metal scattered at the bottom, and a hole in the very back of the cabinet that the rodents had gnawed through the wood. “Och, couldnae you settle for some of the herbs on my tincture shelf?”

As he spoke all three mice leapt from the cabinet to his arm, and then began climbing from there to his belly. Their tiny claws seemed unusually sharp, and stabbed through the fabric. When they sniffed him their front teeth gleamed as if they meant to bite him.

“I’m no’ a mortal, you silly vermin,” he told them. “You shouldnae act so fearless.”

The three mice scurried down his legs and jumped to the floor, where they again looked at him as if unsure of what he was. They then ran toward the door, squeezing under it before he could block their escape.

“Och, well, they’ll no’ go far.” He closed the doors and locked them before he took down a packet of the herbs he’d promised Nicole.

I couldn’t sleep last night because I keep thinking about us, together, in my bed.

To keep from doing the same he walked out to see where the three little creatures lingered in the passage. Across the stones lining the hall, three glowing sets of tiny tracks gleamed in glowing green and brown.

Duncan knelt down to inspect the marks, which smelled of the same spring-garden scent that the broken chain’s enchantment had spilled into the air. He thought back, and recalled that when Shaw had brought the chain to him it had not been broken but whole. He stood and followed the tracks, which led through several halls but never once scattered; the three mice seemed to be marching together toward some agreed-upon destination.

The tracks abruptly turned and disappeared under the door to the guest chamber where Nicole had been staying.

He considered summoning some guards to aid him in retrieving the mice, but that would waste time. The scent of the spring garden was also now growing stronger in the passage, and from the gap beneath the door he could see green and brown lights sparkling.

“My lady?” he called out as he tried to open the door, but it had been barred from inside. Taking out his sturdiest dagger, he used it to lift the bar inside just enough to allow him to force the door open.

Green and brown lights nearly blinded him as he rushed inside, and saw the mice jumping up and down as if they were trying to reach something. Over them floated a disheveled-looking Lark, who held an armful of folded garments, and had several thin, bloody scratches on her face. As she looked at him she lifted a finger to her lips, but at the same time the door slammed shut behind him. The mice turned to glare at him with their little eyes, which now glowed like ruby embers.

Get out, son of Mar, a high-pitched voice squealed inside his head.

He drew another dagger and held them ready as the three rodents crept toward him, and backed up until he stood just in front of the hearth. “Did you eat other things you found in the cabinet? My pendant, ’tis in your bellies?”

We’re hungry, another, equally shrill voice complained as the white mouse went up on its hind legs, and tiny fangs shot out of its mouth.

The other two did the same and, just as they leapt at him, Duncan pivoted away. A trio of screeches echoed inside his mind as the three mice landed in the flames, which instantly flared up and engulfed them. The scent of burning fur rolled out of the hearth, and a moment later they dissolved into ash.

“’Tis safe now, my lady,” he told the seamstress.

“Thank you.” Lark slowly lowered herself to the floor and gingerly touched the cuts on her face. “I brought some more clothes for Ms. Fairburn. When I bent down to pick up a ribbon I dropped, those mice rushed at me and clawed my face. My power didn’t work on them, so I lifted myself up to avoid worse. I didn’t dare call anyone inside or open the door to leave in case they got out and attacked others. They were bespelled, right?”

“Aye, from eating an enchanted chain in my black cabinet, I reckon.” As he placed the packet of sleeping herbs on the bed side table, he frowned. The rodents attacking the seamstress made no sense to him. The fact that her boon had no effect on them also troubled him deeply. “Did you hear any voices in your mind?”

“Yes, from all three of them. Lark placed the garments on the end of Nicole’s bed. “They demanded to know where I hid their child. Maybe they believed they served one of the melia on the island, because images of our forests kept flashing through my thoughts. I’m not sure what they meant by child.”