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I nodded. “Though they’re creepy. Did you make them?”
“Yes. I anticipated you would not care for them.” His mouth twisted in a self-deprecating smile. “See? I begin to know you.”
Oh yes, he did. Possibly better than anyone ever had. How that could be when we weren’t even the same species and came from such wildly different worlds, I didn’t know.
“Because some connections go deeper than the limits of flesh,” he murmured for my ears only. “And here comes our ride.”
A whoosh of air made the grasses wave wildly and sent another chill through me. I ducked reflexively, then opened my astounded eyes to the extraordinary giant white bird with trailing wings now standing before us, regarding me with dove-gray eyes that sparkled with intelligence.
“Is that…” I trailed off in the face of the impossibility.
“A Liralen. She’ll take us there.”
The surreality of it all welled up. Perhaps I was hallucinating, trapped in a fever dream. “It can’t be a Liralen. That was in a book. Not real.”
“It’s only the name you give it, my Gwynn. Nothing more.”
Oh yes. If I concentrated, I knew the sounds that came out of his mouth were different. Not really a Liralen. Just to me. Which was enough.
“What is her price?” I asked. In the book, the Liralen’s price had been very high—fearlessness—something I could not offer. Especially now. Fear riddled me, maggots chewing holes and leaving me a fragile creation of lace that could shatter with careless handling.
“I will pay it.” Rogue sounded grim. Could he afford it either?
“No, I don’t want you to—”
“Let me do this for you.” He glared down at me, demanding and maybe a little angry. Under it, that wild regret seethed. “I owe you this much, at least. You asked me to help you—something you’ve never done, I might point out—let me do it.”
A little shocked, I agreed. Had I really never asked for his help before? Possibly not, because it always came with a price. And I never liked to ask for help from anyone. It just figured that it would take fear of my imminent death to bring me to it.
“I’ve lost track of what I owe you and what you owe me.” I registered vaguely somewhere in my addled brain that I shouldn’t have told him that.
“Your thoughts are quite porous at the moment. I would have known it anyway. Don’t worry. Rest and let me take care of you.”
The Liralen arched her wings and bent down. Rogue, with the same lithe strength, held me tight as he mounted her like a horse but under the vast expanse of her trailing wings. Darling Hercules Goliath leaped onto my lap, laying his soft and purring self over my hands, taking the pain away.
The great bird surged up into the bright autumn blue, making my stomach drop. We rose into the sky, the jeweled Technicolor landscape of Faerie spreading below us. Craning my neck, I took in as much as I could, plotting in my head the location of the Glass Mountains, glittering black and filling the horizon behind us. Beneath us, forest unrolled, tossing like a sea of gnarled branches that seemed to move of their own accord.
I wanted my grimoire, where I kept all my notes, to sketch the map of what I could see, since the fae had no concept of such things. But then, I couldn’t write, could I? The thought filled me with black despair. This part of my old self that I’d clung to could also be lost. Athena had no idea what she’d asked me, thinking I’d want to keep the claws that destroyed my first and best tool, my hands.
Rogue slipped a comforting thought into my mind, like lacing his fingers with mine, and the simple gesture held me steady. I needed it, because this was one battle I would not lose. I might be pregnant with Rogue’s baby, but I refused to be dependent on him.
I’d die first.
Chapter 3
In Which I Return to the Castle of the Dark Gods
‡
The landscape of Faerie seems barely more fixed than its denizens or the flow of time. Sometimes I think there are no maps because they would be obsolete in aday.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules ofMagic”
We arrived indarkness.
Which just figured because I’d really wanted a good look at the Castle of the Dark Gods, my new home for…perhaps indefinitely. Not a pleasing thought as I had no good memories of the place. Last time I’d arrived and left unconscious—and in between the windows had all looked out on a formless shimmering gray mist. Not something I could live with.
There were good reasons I’d taken a job in sunny Wyoming and not, say, Seattle.
