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He gave me a crooked smile. “Are you saying that the training you survived did not put you through painful and distracting trials?”
I shuddered. Pushed those memories back down. “Right. Can childbirth be any worse?”
“Exactly. I shall assist Fafnir and be back directly. You’ll hardly know I was gone.”
I hated that his words sounded like an omen.
*
Rogue’s absence, however,brought me a visitor.
“Yoo-hoo, Lady Gwynn.” Puck popped his head through the doorway. “Are you decent? Please say you’re not.”
“I am,” I replied, “and not someone you’d want to see indecent in my current state anyway.”
He waltzed in, wearing an eye-jarring shade of cherry, with a train of ribbons that had clearly been co-opted from the wedding decorations. With a dramatic pause, he surveyed me. “Good Titania—whatever have you eaten? You’re positivelyengorged.”
“Gee, thanks. And it’s the kid. This is how it works.”
“Reeeallly.” He drew out the word in musical astonishment. “I’ve only ever seen them after they’ve hatched. It seems so…bestial.”
Oddly, I laughed. Maybe it was Puck’s solid good spirits. I smoothed my hands over my straining belly. “That’s not a bad word for it—pretty close to how I feel.”
“You always did feel more than the rest of us,” he observed, prancing closer, his fascinated gaze following my hands. “May I do that?”
“What—touch my belly? Sure.”
He held out his hands but didn’t quite close, as if afraid to touch a flame. Taking his wrists, I pressed his palms against me. His eyes—one grass-green, one sky-blue—opened wide. “It’s…moving,” he whispered.
“Yes.” I couldn’t help myself. I added in a creepy tone, “It’s aliiive.”
He laughed and booped the tip of my nose. “I told you so, Sorceress Gwynn.”
“Told me what?”
“That it would be grand fun. Didn’t I say so? And ithas.” He spun off, dancing around the room in an abandoned jig.
Bemused, I shook my head at his antics. “Why are you here, Puck?”
“Instead of there? Now that’s a very good question to ask. One you should consider.” He picked up the rubber ducky off my workbench. “Do you like it? I always liked the toys best. Your world comes up with the most delightfully absurd ideas. Or absurdly delightful ones—whichever way you prefer it.”
“You’ve been there.” Well, boy howdy. This explained so damn much.
“But you knew that. You recognize me.”
“I feel sure I would have remembered you.” I swept a hand at his outrageous appearance. Nothing like an inhumanly tall, gangly and fundamentally clashing fae to draw attention in the human world.
“I am that merry wanderer of the night.” Puck singsonged the line. “Now do you remember?”
Oh, he meant not personally, but in the way he surfaced in the plays and stories. “But you brought me this rubber ducky.”
“You were so sad. I thought it would please you. People like to have things to remind them of where they were born. And where they grew up. Which aren’t always the same place.”
“It did. It does. How can you go back and forth, though? Can you do it at will? What’s the mechanism?” I looked for my grimoire, wanting to get the details on this. Puck laid his hand, festooned with glittering rings, on the book. Holding it closed.
“It’s who I am. It’s what I do.” He sounded uncharacteristically serious. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“No.” I had no compunction admitting that. “Can you explain?”
