Page 34

TALKING TO DRUNKEN STRANGERS

M al’s tail whipped like an agitated snake as he led them onwards, up a winding staircase that transformed between levels from inside to outside with no concern for architectural impossibilities. Roses wound around the stones, their perfume thick in the night air.

Neither of them spoke, but the warm dusk nonetheless felt heavy with the weight of dream memories. She kept half-opening her mouth to say something and then closing it again. The last shards of sunlight reflected off the stones as they reached the top of the round tower.

“Stand here, please,” he told her, retreating to the opposite side. His body fell into neat lines as he pivoted, tail a graceful extension of his form, and she flashed to how she’d wrapped her hand around it and then shoved the memory away.

Her emotions swirled in sharp chaos fragments. Her entire understanding of who Mal was—and who she was—had been overturned by the knowledge that there weren’t two versions of him at all. He hadn’t been merely her own shameful fantasies, come to life in dreams. He had been himself .

He didn’t meet her eyes, taking a deep breath and focusing inwards.

The vanilla of old books thickened in the air, shot through with that hot, metallic scent that was distinctly his.

Dancing lights gathered at his feet in glowing dust motes and rose up his body, making his form shift and glitter and then…

with a soft, soundless thunder, he changed.

In terms of subject changes, this was a rather magnificent one. “Forgive me, but how can you change into a gryphon? You claimed you were only possibly part gryphon, but you look awfully like a whole gryphon right now. Additionally, how does this not qualify as ‘greater magic’?”

“The gryphons taught me how to draw out this shape when I was very young. It’s not greater magic when it comes from the blood; that’s why I told you I probably had some gryphon in my lineage somewhere.

If I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be able to take this form,” His voice was a little rougher than usual, coming from the beast’s mouth. He raised a wing. “We should go.”

Gisele didn’t move. “Are you suggesting that I ride you?” Her cheeks flushed. Bad word choice.

There was a ripple of emotion through the bond that suggested he’d had the same thought. How fortunate they were both excellent actors.

“Well,” he said. “I certainly didn’t change into this form for entertainment.”

She wrinkled her nose, extremely dubious.

“I won’t let you fall off. Give me some credit. You managed easily enough before.”

“Dreams are different. I didn’t have to figure out how to get on , for one thing.”

He sank to the ground. “Sit behind my wings— Ow! Don’t kick me in the ribs, mortal menace. You may hold on to my mane,” he allowed magnanimously.

Gisele couldn’t help a startled yelp as he rose back up to his feet.

“Ready?” He didn’t give her time to answer, launching straight off the tower.

She squeaked, eyes squeezing shut, holding on to his mane for dear life.

It wasn’t at all like the dream, which had been beautifully smooth and untroubled by gravity.

It also wasn’t like riding a horse, but that was the closest experience she had to compare it to.

You’re an accomplished rider; you can accomplish this too , she told herself firmly.

Eventually, she got the hang of the rhythm, the up-down of wingbeats. The wind wasn’t as extreme as she’d feared—and there was clearly some magic to that—but she resigned herself to taking on the appearance of a wind-blown dandelion.

It’ll be worth it, though , she decided, watching the world pass below them. Wonder abruptly lit through her, a child’s delight. Time enough to revisit more fraught emotions later. For now, she was going to enjoy flying, like something out of a fairytale. Literally , she thought with a smile.

Mal spoke occasionally, pointing out landmarks as they flew.

The landscape was wild for the most part, with occasional settlements, though they bore little resemblance to the villages of her homeland.

Instead, there were houses built into trees, a glittering glass web with hanging cocoons the size of huts, and a floating platform of circular dwellings woven among river reeds.

A yearning curiosity filled her to explore them all properly.

Night deepened around them, the stars unravelling across the dark canvas of the sky. The world below morphed into shadows pricked with glowing lights.

Eventually, they reached King Tāwhiri’s castle, though they were nearly on top of it before she realised there was an actual building set amidst the forest giants.

The towers of the Golden Hall blended into the trees so that the whole thing appeared as something grown rather than built.

The lamps glittered with different but complementary colours, arranged with not simply an artist’s eye but a bird artist’s eye, because from above, the lanterns formed the shapes of flowers.

Mal steered them towards an area set aside for winged arrivals, a flat, raised clearing amidst the trees, ringed with green lanterns.

There was a signalling system going on, where uniformed fae holding glowing gold batons directed each arrival.

Mal landed in front of their individual director, folding his wings.

Gisele slid off his back and then had to put a hand on his side to steady herself, her legs wobbling as they readjusted to gravity.

Other winged fae of many different kinds were landing around them.

Gisele stared as a tiny dark-skinned woman with antennae and enormous golden butterfly wings touched down daintily nearby.

She was dressed only in flowers, strung together rather precariously, in Gisele’s opinion, so that flashes of breast appeared between each wingbeat.

The woman gave Gisele a contemptuous look and fluttered away.

Gisele blinked and then had to hide a smile, tickled at the idea that she was the one being judged and found wanting. In Isshia, that woman’s outfit would have had the court in hysterics. Faerie really isn’t like the mortal world at all.

The scent of books and metal washed over her again as Mal transformed back to himself. Her hand rested on his chest, hard muscle beneath the layers of fabric. She hastily removed it.

He cocked his head at her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Flying is actually rather wonderful.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Mal smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His posture stiffened as the person who’d directed their landing approached, a grey-skinned boulder of a fae, draped in moss.

“This way, please,” the fae said, ushering the pair of them down a wide ramp to a smaller area below, where privacy screens were wound into the trees, creating partitions where mirrors, basins, and a selection of combs and unfamiliar grooming implements were laid out.

For wings, maybe? “Please refresh yourselves here if you wish. That path will take you to the main court when you are ready,” the servant informed them before hurrying back to the landing platform.

Gisele considered the set-up with mixed approval and amusement. Fairy powder rooms . She was glad of the chance to fix her hair, but she somehow hadn’t expected something so prosaic.

There was no segregation between ladies and gentlemen, which was only a little disconcerting; she’d already suspected from the way Mal interacted with her that Faerie didn’t have the same rules for proper behaviour.

And thank the good Lady for that, since you’ve behaved so thoroughly improperly with him.

Her cheeks flushed, and she busied herself putting her hair to rights.

Thus fortified, she looked around for Mal and found him fussing with the folds of his sash. “Ready?” she asked.

He sucked in a breath and nodded, offering her his arm and then hesitating and half-withdrawing it. There was too much shared knowledge of intimacy between them now for any touch to be casual, but this wasn’t the time or place.

She straightened her shoulders and took his arm. “It’s fine. Can we focus on finding the diviner? We’ll talk about… everything else later, when we’re not at a strange fairy ball. Right now we need to be uncomplicated allies.”

His ears lifted as he nodded. “Agreed.”

The line of tension between them eased a little with the acknowledgement of its existence.

They took the path towards the Golden Hall, the buzz of conversation and strains of music growing louder.

Mal stiffened further with every step. He was nervous, she realised sharply, in a more mundane way than nebulous concerns about the diviner.

When was the last time he’d been to a social event?

Before she was born? It was strange to think that, despite this being a fae ball, she was likely much more at home here than him.

She patted his arm. “It’s a ballroom, not a battlefield. You’ll be fine.”

“Are you insulting my battlefield prowess?” he asked with one eyebrow raised.

She gave an exaggerated double-take. “Oh, you have some? Forgive me—I assumed you lacked that skill, based on your leaping onto a dagger within thirty seconds of me meeting you.”

His mouth twitched but only for a moment, thinning once more in the face of the glittering lights ahead. “I used to be considered a weapon.” His words were so soft she had to lean closer to hear them.

How could turning straw into gold be a weapon? She waited to see if he would expand on this rather alarming statement, but he didn’t, and then they were before a vast archway created by two trees intertwining. Mal swallowed and presented their invitation to the guards, who waved them through.

The reason for the Golden Hall’s name was immediately apparent, and it delighted her. Small, gnarled trees framed the open-air ballroom, and they were bursting with a profusion of yellow flowers.