Page 44

NEW TRENDS IN INTERIOR DECORATING

T hey raced down the corridors together, Mal’s silk robe flapping around his calves, her still in her nightdress. Farewell, any remaining illusions of propriety . The stray thought made her smile even as her ears strained towards the elsterfae’s cries.

The low-angled sunlight of afternoon streamed in through the windows, but the interior of the house remained darker than usual, the lamps even more sluggish to respond than they’d been last night.

Mal pulled up short at a large crack that had formed in the panelling of the main hallway, a lightning bolt travelling all the way up to the ceiling.

Oh no . Mal pressed a hand against it, stricken, and Gisele found herself echoing both his movement and the silent apology emanating from him.

She’d viewed Skymallow as a fortress, unassailable, and yet seeing it wounded felt like she had betrayed the trust of a defenceless animal in her care.

The screeching ratcheted up a notch in volume, and they left the crack behind them, hurrying on. As she descended the stairs, the floor began to sway as if they were at sea. Gisele flailed for the banister, holding on as the stairs pitched back and forth.

“It’s all right! We’ll sort it out!” she told the wave of skittish anxiety coming from Skymallow.

Mal had kept his balance, neat as a cat, and was offering his own litany of soothing nothings to the house. The stairs subsided sufficiently for them to proceed, but here, too, were signs of damage. All the gold leaf had been swallowed into fine cracks.

They found Apfela in the kitchen, sweeping a swarm of protesting elsterfae out with a broom. Mal came to such an abrupt halt that Gisele had to throw out a hand for balance. He caught her, the brief brush of skin rippling sensation through her fingers before he released the touch.

Apfela ignored the pair of them, firmly shutting the door behind the last of the magpie creatures. Gisele felt the house let out a sigh of relief.

Apfela turned back. “Afternoon, sleepyheads. Had a good lie-in, did we?”

Mal’s ears flattened, and he drew himself up, fire in his eyes. It would have been much more impressive if he’d been wearing more than a silk dressing-gown, or if Apfela hadn’t been taller than him. “Apfela Greenhame. What are you doing in my house?”

Apfela smirked. “ Our house, dear; can’t you feel it? An offer was made, and I accepted.” She went to the stove, where a kettle was boiling. “Tea?” This was directed rather obviously only to Gisele.

“Yes, please,” she said. Mal shot her an outraged look, which she ignored, sliding on to one of the kitchen stools. “What do you mean an offer was made and accepted?”

“You let her in,” Mal growled.

“To help save your sorry tail,” Apfela said cheerfully, setting out two mugs.

Gisele looked from one fae to the other. “I don’t understand.”

Mal was still standing stiffly in the doorframe, and she could tell he was debating whether to lean further into his ‘dread lord of the manor’ aspect. Eventually he reached the same conclusion as Gisele already had, that Apfela wouldn’t be at all impressed by it.

His shoulders came down, but he didn’t move, not taking his eyes off Apfela as he spoke.

“Skymallow recognised your authority here last night, Gisele. That means you can invite people to join the household. She isn’t from Faerie, Apfela Greenhame.

She doesn’t know our rituals or the oaths that should have accompanied such an offer. ”

Apfela remained unruffled. “I’ll swear the usual oaths so long as you don’t try to throw me out. And you should be grateful I came to your princess’s call. This house is starving, and you can’t renew its energies alone, can you? For all your airs, you don’t have the power.”

She threw the accusation like a whip, intent on Mal’s reaction. How much had she guessed?

Mal’s reaction was entirely internal, his expression remaining smooth and hard. But through the bond, Gisele felt his flinch, the scrabble of panic. “And you think I want your help? For Skymallow to end up as your old grove did?”

Apfela thumped the teapot down, sending a few stray drips across the table. “It wasn’t me who let evil wake in your orchard last night through poor judgement and arrogance, oh Malediction.”

The air between Apfela and Mal was thick enough to cut. Gisele spoke up. “Why did the solshant wake last night? You said it had been here the whole time, dormant?”

Apfela’s attention didn’t shift from Mal, her voice hard. “It woke because he’s the house’s only anchor—or he was—and he left .”

Worry rippled through the bond, though Mal’s expression remained unmoved. “I’ve left Skymallow before, for short periods. That can’t be what—” His gaze fell on Gisele and he broke off. The bond-emotion abruptly snapped off too as he shielded it.

“Don’t tell me it’s because of me,” Gisele said with some resignation.

“He’s just remembered that solshant develop only when alone and sufficiently supplied with gold and power, and he encouraged you to spread both liberally around the garden, where the house is too weak to defend itself.

” Apfela grimaced. “But really, it’s his fault for not noticing it and for underfeeding the siden for so long.

If I’d been properly let into the orchard?—”

“Mal?” Gisele asked before things could get sidetracked.

He hesitated. “Solshant are the solitary form of a hive creature. They have a long cocoon stage and a psychic defence to keep themselves from being discovered during it. It must have been here since before I woke Skymallow, which means it’s me who failed to realise it was there.

It doesn’t mean that the timing of its emergence had anything to do with you. ”

Gisele turned her cup. The problem was that she knew Mal quite well at this point and could recognise when he was obfuscating. She appreciated that he’d made the effort not to blame her, nonetheless. “At least I killed it, if it was my fault it woke in the first place.”

“It was not your fault?—”

“Don’t blame yourself, love?—”

Mal and Apfela both piped up in her defence at the same time and then scowled at each other.

Gisele held up a hand to forestall further argument. “Go and get dressed, Mal, if you’re not going to drink tea. Apfela has helpfully seen off the elsterfae, so presumably we have a moment of breathing room before the next crisis? The house isn’t going to fall down in the next ten minutes, is it?”

Mal’s face softened, accurately reading her concern for Skymallow. “No. It’s wounded, but its roots go deep. We’ll make it right.” He gave Apfela a long, hard stare. “We will discuss your presence further. The subject is not closed.”

“Can’t wait.”

Mal exited with his head held high, silk robe trailing behind him.

Apfela watched him go with a thoughtful expression. “I see even you haven’t been able to fuck the stick out of his arse, then.”

Gisele had unfortunately just taken a sip of tea and thus sprayed liquid across the table in a deeply inelegant fashion. When she’d finished spluttering, Apfela was grinning at her, devils dancing in her eyes.

“We’re not— It’s none of your business, Apfela.” She failed to sound as sharp as she wanted, still hoarse from coughing up tea.

“No wonder he’s so high-strung then, lovely, if you’re not .”

Gisele was not having this conversation. She pushed Apfela’s teacup towards her. “What happened to your grove, Apfela?”

A mixture of surprise and consternation flickered in Apfela’s expression. “He didn’t tell you, then?”

“He said it wasn’t his story to tell.”

Apfela’s gaze went to the door Mal had so recently exited by. “Never could work out how he found out about it.”

Gisele said nothing, but in her mind’s eye she saw the way Mal had read the faun’s heart at the ball.

Apfela sighed and stood. “Don’t suppose you know where your Malediction keeps his liquor?”

“There’s apricot brandy in the high cupboard.”

Apfela got it down and poured herself a measure. Gisele shook her head when Apfela offered it to her. Despite the hour, it felt like morning.

Apfela took a long draft. “Surprised you didn’t ask sooner, with all his cryptic mutterings,” she admitted, sitting down again. “I thought you knew; I thought he’d told you.”

Gisele curled her hands around her mug. “I didn’t want to pry. I know what it’s like to have a past full of regrets.”

Apfela swilled the brandy, making the light dance in the golden liquid.

“It’s not a terribly long or exciting story, all told; I simply don’t relish telling people about my own stupidity.

The gist of it is that I fell in love with a dark sorceress.

I didn’t know she was a dark sorceress at the time, of course, but it hardly matters.

I didn’t heed the warning signs, and I wouldn’t listen to anyone else’s cautionary advice.

By the time I’d realised what was going on, she’d got her hooks into not only me but my kin-group’s grove.

Blood magic. I got everyone out alive, but that was all.

The grove was naught but ash, sucked dry by the time T—she”—a slight quaver where Apfela hastily substituted pronoun for name—“was done with it. Generations’ worth of magic, gone in one night.

So my kin-group exiled me, quite rightly.

Can’t have a weak branch bringing down the whole tree. ”

Apfela told the story calmly. The only hint of emotion had been when she’d nearly said her lover’s name. Yet she looked older than she usually did, and her knuckles had whitened where they wrapped around her glass.

Driven by rusty, uncertain impulse, Gisele reached out and squeezed Apfela’s hand, half-expecting her to flinch. “I’m sorry.”

Apfela squeezed back and withdrew her hand with a shake of her head.

“It isn’t yours to be sorry for. But there, now you know.

Will you exile a poor old woman once again?

” She batted her eyelids, light-hearted once more, but Gisele didn’t make the mistake of thinking the question had been asked casually.

Gisele raised an eyebrow. “I hardly could after you put it in those terms, could I? Although, I don’t know who this ‘old woman’ is supposed to refer to?”

Apfela gave a throaty laugh, and the air of ancient weariness vanished. “You’re a charmer, right enough. Don’t suppose you want to throw over cat-boy for me?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“What would your nymph down at the village say?” Apfela had been free enough with the details of her latest flirtation.

“Very generous woman; she’ll like you too,” Apfela said airily.

Gisele attempted reproof, trying and failing not to smile. “It would serve you right if I took you up on the offer.”

“Are you, then?”

“No,” she said, still amused.

Apfela shook her head sadly. “No accounting for taste.”

“You have more in common with Mal than you realise, you know.” Mal had to have recognised that too, if he’d seen inside Apfela’s worst fears. Was that why he bristled so much at her? The tale of betrayed love and exile cut too close to the bone?

Apfela raised an eyebrow, expressing polite doubt. “Perhaps you should tell him that.”