Page 14 of Arise the Queen

Gwendolyn wasnotbound. “We? Who are we?”

“Allwho love the Lady.”

But Gwendolyn didnotlove the lady. She didn’t even know the lady! How could she love a person she did not know? “Well,” she said, hoping to establish some authority. If he was finally calling her Queen of Men, she should begin acting like one. “I must insist. What if our lives depend upon this meeting? Shouldn’t you tell me all you know?”

“Make no mistake,” allowed the Púca. “Our livesdodepend upon it.”

“Yours, as well?”

“Mine, as well.”

“And still you will not speak of it?”

“I cannot,” the Púca persisted, and Gwendolyn’s confusion deepened.

“Cannot or will not?”

The Púca shrugged, as though the two were the same, and Gwendolyn was on the verge of giving up entirely, though perhaps she could learn something if she took another tack. “Perhaps you could explain to me the difference between being bound and compelled?”

“They are hardly the same. One is an agreement, offered willingly, the other is a thing perpetrated upon oneself, whether one agrees to it or not.”

“So I see,” Gwendolyn allowed. And perhaps she did. But it was still quite confusing. “So…youhave promised someone—perhaps this Lady?—that you will not speak her name, and now you are governed by your word?”

“Yes.”

“But you were not compelled?”

“Not in this matter, or any. A Púca may not be compelled because a Púca is many,” he explained, speaking of himself again as a person removed.

Gwendolyn considered his answer, and it sort of made sense. If one of his forms were compelled, he could easily alter himself to another form in order to avoid any restrictions. “So then… to be compelled… this is more like a curse?”

“Yes,” the Púca said. “But you must recall, this world is not your world,banríon. Here, words are insoluble. Humans lie, we do not lie.”

But you do!Gwendolyn wished to argue. What was it to say there were nosprigganshere when there were?

Only because they existed in another realm?

Málik had twisted his words with the precise intent to deceive her to lead Gwendolyn into believing what she wished to believe. Wasn’t that the very essence of a lie? No matter what the Fae wished to believe, it was.

How dreadful to study words so meticulously with the sole purpose of talking betwixt one’s teeth.

“As to my name,” said the Púca. “We are not free to refuse any request made of our given names, and this is why we do not share our names. I am proud to say no one in this land or the next knows mine—nor will you.”

Well, that was a new twist on it. “The Lady does not know?”

“Nay.”

“And you’ll never reveal your true name so you cannot be compelled?”

“Indeed.”

“Because even if you are not compelled, you may still be compelled by the use of your name?”

“Correct.”

“So, cursed or not, you are obliged one way or the other?”

“Yes.”