Page 3

Chapter Three

V aleria of the Wild Hunt had been saddled with a puppy.

Not her dog Daisy. No, Daisy was a mostly mannerly, somewhat trained, useful kind of dog.

No, the puppy trotting at her side was the far-too-pleasant, na?ve kind of puppy that made one rather sorry when one had to kick him. Not that she ever kicked actual dogs. But people puppies? She was a fae mercenary; she kicked those all the time. It was just part of the job, and she did her best not to feel too guilty about it. But occasionally there came along a puppy that made her just the tiniest bit sorry for what she had to do.

Val rested a hand on Daisy’s back as the two of them stepped into the faerie circle. The whirling disorientation of walking between the realms tore at Val, and she would have struggled far more to move, much less breathe, if she hadn’t been touching the fae dog. Animals had an easier time moving between the realms than people did.

Before she could drag in a breath, she and Daisy popped out onto the other side, the warmth and magic of the Fae Realm closing around her with a familiar weight after the strange, magicless feel of the Human Realm.

Here in the Fae Realm, the moon was only a sliver, and the night shrouded deep and dark around them. The stars overhead twinkled with a hint of blue she hadn’t seen in the fainter, less brilliant stars of the Human Realm. On this side, a circle of red-and-white toadstools formed the faerie circle while tiny red flowers dotted the moss. As they were in the Court of Dreams, one of the Spring Courts, the thick air was choked with the overwhelming scent of flowers and moonlit dew.

Val gave a yank on the cord still attached to her wrist, and the human puppy stumbled out of the faerie circle to land on his hands and knees on the thick, brilliant green moss.

The human gave a cough, then sucked in a shuddering breath. “That was…a mind-shattering experience.”

It was, but she wasn’t going to give him any sympathy over it. If he couldn’t even handle crossing between the realms, he wouldn’t last long in the Fae Realm.

“Get up. We need to keep moving.” Val spun away from the puppy. He would be forced to follow; the binding cord would ensure it .

“Where are we?” The puppy appeared in her peripheral vision, strolling at her side as he gaped at the sights around them. “Are these trees? No, they’re gigantic ferns! Are they huge or are we small?”

Val marched forward beneath the spreading leaves of the ferns stretching high over their heads and tried to ignore him. He couldn’t go away, but maybe he’d fall silent if she didn’t respond.

He paused for just a few footsteps, gaping at the scenery like an utter loon, before he spoke again. “Where are we going?”

“Queen Mab. The bargain won’t be complete until I hand you over to her.” Val spat the words between gritted teeth. She shouldn’t encourage his yammering, but she also didn’t want him getting any ideas about trying to escape from her. He wouldn’t succeed, but his resistance would be a hassle.

“I see.” The puppy’s expression turned contemplative for a moment before he looked at her again. “What should I call you?”

That did it. Val drew one of her knives, grabbed the cord to yank him forward, and shoved the point of her knife beneath the human’s chin. “Look. I’m not your friend. I’m not your tour guide. I’m merely delivering a package, and that package happens to be you. We have a short walk, then I’ll hand you over to your new mistress. We aren’t going to be stuck together long enough for names or chitchat or whatever. Got it?”

“Yes.” He started to nod, seemed to think better of it, and swallowed, his eyes flicking between her and the knife with all the wide-eyed innocence of someone who had never had a blade to his throat before. Such a hapless little pup. He was absolutely going to die here in the Fae Realm.

Oh, well. Not her problem.

Her problem was merely getting him from here to Queen Mab’s court. That was it.

It had been strange that Queen Mab hired a mercenary for such a mission. The walk between her throne and this faerie circle was not that long, nor was this section of the Fae Realm particularly monster-infested. The Human Realm on the other side wasn’t all that dangerous to the fae, not like trying to retrieve a human from the Greenwood where the foresters assiduously guarded the woods from fae incursions. She would have understood hiring a mercenary for that kind of mission.

But this? This was well below Val’s caliber of skills.

Whatever. The sooner they hiked to the palace in the Court of Dreams, the sooner she could ditch this puppy and be on her way. Surely her Hunt Leader would have something more challenging for her by then. Even better if the mission needed multiple mercenaries, and she could set out with the close group of fellow mercenaries she’d formed within the larger Wild Hunt band.

Val sheathed her knife, stepped away from the human, and marched into the darkness beneath the foliage. Daisy ranged around them, sniffing the bushes and investigating all the animal trails.

After a few moments of blessed silence, the puppy felt the need to go back to yapping. “I’m not supposed to talk to you, but may I at least pet your dog?”

Perhaps he thought he’d survive longer if he made friends with her dog. But if he wanted to pet Daisy, she wasn’t going to stop him. That would count as entertainment rather than an annoyance.

“Sure.” Val gave a whistle.

Daisy froze, her head lifting as her floppy ears pricked. Then her ears went back, her mouth opened in a toothy grin, and she took off at a full tilt run toward Val and the human. Daisy only barely slowed before she flopped into a sit even as she rammed into Val’s leg. Only the fact that Val had braced herself kept her upright. Daisy peered up at her, tongue lolling, toothy grin on full display.

Val ran her fingers over Daisy’s short, sleek fur and soft ears. “You’re a good dog.”

“Hello, puppy. May I pet you?” The human held out one of his hands, bending as he did so. “What’s her name?”

Being the snuggly dog she was, Daisy didn’t even take the time to sniff his hand before she got to her feet, tail wagging so hard her butt wiggled along with it. She pressed against the human’s legs before sitting on his foot.

“Daisy.” Val crossed her arms and resisted the urge to tap her foot. This would be worth the few seconds’ delay.

“Daisy?” The human paused in petting the dog and glanced up at Val, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. What of it?” Val shifted her weight, her feet itching to get back to walking.

Daisy wiggled closer to the human, bumping his hand with her head as she insisted he go back to petting .

“Nothing. It’s just very…normal.” The human ran his hand over Daisy’s head and down her back. He smiled, scratching Daisy behind the ears. “You’re such a good dog. Yes, you are.”

Daisy’s grin grew, and she flopped onto her back, presenting her belly for a rub.

The human obliged, going down on one knee to better pet the dog.

Daisy wiggled and squirmed, her tongue lolling in happiness. Then, as Val had expected, two more heads, identical to the first, emerged out of her main head to join that one in grinning and tongue lolling.

“Aaah!” The human gave a cry as he fell back onto his rump, unbalanced thanks to that heavy pack he’d insisted on taking.

Daisy took that as a sign to tackle him, trying to wiggle onto his lap for some aggressive cuddling even as all three of her heads licked his face.

“Your dog—pft—three—blegh—heads.” The human tried to cover his face and fend off the heads, even as he was trampled by the squirming, overexcited dog.

“She’s a fae dog.” Val wasn’t going to coddle the human. A three-headed dog wasn’t the scariest thing he’d see here in the Fae Realm.

Overstimulated, Daisy’s eyes went wild as she leapt off the human and tore away into the forest, running in random circles before she raced back the other way. She spun a few more times before she flopped onto the ground, panting and teeth still flashing in her doggy grin. The two extra heads merged back into her main head, leaving her looking like a normal dog once again .

The human rolled into a sitting position, adjusting something up his left sleeve. A knife, probably. He likely thought she didn’t realize he had a knife tucked up his sleeve, as if she hadn’t noticed that highly suspicious exchange with his father and the way the fabric hung heavy.

But it wasn’t her business. She’d searched him for weapons as instructed, and she could truthfully say she hadn’t found any. She wasn’t obliged to confiscate any weapons he gained after her search as long as she didn’t see them.

“Daisy is way too normal of a name for that dog.” He swiped his sleeve over his face before he climbed to his feet, hefting the pack. He glanced from Daisy to her. “You enjoyed that.”

“Yes.” Val turned and headed into the nighttime fern forest once again. They’d already delayed enough.

The human finally lapsed into a longer silence as they hiked over the moss and flowers, Daisy racing back and forth through the darkness.

After about an hour of walking, the fern forest brightened ahead of them, lit by thousands of faerie lights. Figures moved through the shadows headed in the same direction, from a tree nymph with her hair of leaves trailing down her back to the flitting pixies shedding glitters of dust behind them as they flew on their buzzing dragonfly wings.

The human had gone back to gawking. Fine by Val. If he was gawking, he wasn’t talking.

Val led the way as the ferns opened into a field of moss with humongous flowers growing from it. Some of the flowers loomed high above them on tree-thick stems. But others were simply buds growing right up from the earth. Occasionally, one of the petals on the buds flopped aside, and a fae would step out of the flower-house.

As they headed for the center of the flower field, the buds grew closer together while ten-foot-tall stands of grass formed something almost like walls, hedging them in.

Music drifted on a sweetly scented breeze, coming from a building formed of various rose- and ivy-covered arbors. Elaborate gardens of hedges, fountains, and flowerbeds with non-ginormous blooms extended around the building in a chaotic, meandering manner.

Fae dressed in everything from swirling silk dresses in vibrant colors to outfits of leaves and flower petals drifted through the gardens and beneath the arbors.

As Val, her charge, and her dog approached, the fae halted their conversations, turning to stare at her. They whispered to their companions, sneering expressions twisting their lips and narrowing their eyes.

Whatever. Val didn’t care how much they scorned her for being a courtless mercenary. She would much rather be a member of a Wild Hunt band than bound to a court and the whims of its often fickle ruler. She knew firsthand what those in power did to those who couldn’t fight back.

Beneath an arbor festooned with trailing ivy, Queen Mab’s throne of flowers and thorns perched, as sweet and spiky as the faerie queen. Her sycophants buzzed around her, attempting to win her favor, while the rest of her court swirled around the room-like space formed of the various flower-covered arbors.

To one side, a cluster of humans played various instruments, blood dripping from torn fingers. Their faces were blank-eyed and hazy, too dazed with faerie fruit to know their own names, much less what they were doing.

Her package’s gaze lingered on the other captive humans, his blue eyes as wide as the plate she’d found tucked in his pack.

The crowd parted for her, and Val strode through them without meeting anyone’s gaze. She halted in front of Queen Mab’s throne, not bothering to bow. After all, Mab wasn’t her queen.

Daisy sat behind Val’s legs. Relaxed, but still guarding Val’s back.

Queen Mab, an over-dressed pink-haired pixie, sprawled on her throne, her tiny heart-shaped face barely peeking above the layers of frothing lace piling around her neck. “Is this the human you were sent to fetch?”

“Yes. Here’s the human for which your emissary to the Human Realm bargained.” Val gestured to the human puppy. All Mab would have to do was claim the human as hers, and Val’s job would be complete.

Her long lashes sparkling with pixie dust, Mab swept a greedy glance over the human. “He’s a handsome specimen, isn’t he?”

The human straightened his shoulders, his jaw working, as he faced the pixie queen. A good show of bravado, but all that bravery would be nothing but dandelion fluff once he was faced with the cruelties this realm enacted on captive humans.

“Whatever. Just claim him as yours, and I’ll be on my way.” Val resisted the urge to fiddle with the end of the cord looped around her wrist. The binding rope—and that loss of freedom that felt too much like moments from her past—was her most hated part of retrieval missions. Well, that and being stuck with whatever whining, pathetic puppy she’d been sent to retrieve.

“That fae had been quite correct when he said I would procure a delicious morsel for my collection if I did what he said.” Queen Mab’s gaze remained latched on the human, as if he were a piece of fudge she wished to devour. Or perhaps more like a dog with a bone she wished to chew to splinters.

The human blinked, then lunged forward so quickly that Val barely managed to snatch the cord and hold him back before he reached the faerie queen. “What fae? What did he tell you to do?”

“Hush, pup. Heel.” Val yanked on the cord, forcing the human to stumble back to her side. The human didn’t realize the perilous position they were in. Technically, Val was still under Mab’s employ until the retrieval was complete. Still, Val stood on shaky ground when it came to operating in the Fae Realm, unbound to a court as she was.

“Mouthy thing, isn’t he?” Queen Mab waved a delicate hand bedecked with rings formed of flowers.

“Please. I need to know what that fae said.” Undeterred by Val’s reprimand, the human brushed at his coat and faced the faerie queen again .

Queen Mab’s gaze sharpened. “What will you give me, human? Information isn’t free.”

Val yanked on the cord again. “Wait to make bargains until after I hand you over.”

If he made an unwise bargain now, he’d drag Val into it as well, unless she could extract herself from this situation first.

“Let him speak, mercenary. I’d like to hear what he has to say.” Queen Mab’s smile smeared too slick for her petite face.

Val sucked in a breath to protest, but the human was already stepping forward, his shoulders squared. “I would request that you tell me who this fae was and what precisely he told you when it came to me, my family, my duchy, and my father’s bargain, and how that led to my present predicament.”

“What would you give me in exchange?” Queen Mab’s rosebud mouth pursed, as if she was looking forward to pouncing on whatever the human offered.

Val braced herself with an internal sigh. The binding magic of a bargain already hung heavy in the air. There was nothing for it now but to plot her way out of it when it went wrong. For it would go wrong. An innocent pup like this would no doubt stumble into something terrible.

He swung his pack off his back, knelt, opened it, and reached inside. He paused for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling as if he was preparing himself for something difficult.

Then he straightened, presenting one of the blue-and-white plates from his pack. This one had a depiction of a tulip field with a windmill in the background. “This pottery has been incredibly precious to me and my forebears. It was cherished by my grandmother, and I…” The human’s voice grew rough, almost choked. “This is one of the last things I have to remind me of her.”

Val worked to keep her face blank, even as she all but gawked at the human. He had a whole stack of that pottery in his pack—including everything from plates to teacups—and he hadn’t acted at all sentimental about them when she’d come across them.

But he had mentioned using them as trade goods. She’d brushed it off as wishful thinking on the part of a na?ve puppy, but was it possible she’d underestimated him?

With each word, Queen Mab leaned forward, the greed in her eyes so rampant she was nearly drooling. She’d drink up all the implications that taking that plate was robbing this human of something precious to him.

“And…” The human paused, as if he hesitated to go on. When he spoke, his voice was lowered, as if he were imparting a great secret. “It is a source of our wealth and power in the Human Realm. I will give it to you once I have heard the information I requested.”

Queen Mab held out her hands and flexed her fingers, as if she wanted to snatch the plate from the human’s hands. “Very well. I agree to your bargain.”

Magic snapped into place, sealing the bargain.

The human held the plate away from Mab’s grasping fingers. “The information?”

The faerie queen slouched on her throne, all but disappearing in the mound of her swathing garments. “Fine. A fae came here. I don’t know his name, so don’t ask. He said that a prince in a human kingdom connected to my court was sick and that his father would soon attempt to bargain for a cure. I was to send one of my people to wait in the faerie circle to make the bargain when the king came. The bargain needed to be a life for a life, and the older prince’s life was the one that must be demanded. I was to use a mercenary from the Wild Hunt to fetch my prize.”

Val flexed her hand on the knife. A curious tale, indeed. One she would’ve brushed aside as not her business, except that whoever this fae was, he’d roped her into the deal by including that tidbit about using a mercenary from the Wild Hunt. That had made it Val’s business.

Why would this fae go through all this trouble of meddling if he wasn’t even going to stick around or get a prize of his own out of this bargain? It didn’t make sense.

Had Diego, her Wild Hunt leader, known what was going on when he sent her to the Court of Dreams, telling her that her services would soon be needed? At the time, Val had assumed he meant that she would soon find work here in the troubled section of the Fae Realm, thanks to the skirmishes between the Court of Revels and Court of Knowledge. But had this mysterious fae contacted him too?

The human nodded, his eyes still slightly distant as if he were mulling over what he’d heard .

Queen Mab reached out her hands, making a grabbing motion.

A trick. If the human handed the plate over now, Mab wouldn’t be obligated to tell him anything else. As far as he would know, she had told him everything.

The human’s gaze sharpened, holding the plate out of the queen’s reach. “Is that all?”

Val eyed him, frowning. Good thing she was handing this human over soon. He might look as toothless as a newborn puppy, but he actually had something of a brain behind that grin.

The faerie queen huffed. “I was told to provide a cure for a particular fae poison. That’s all I know.”

The human puppy’s eyes widened. “Then my brother was poisoned by a fae.”

“Or someone who bargained with a fae for poison.” Queen Mab flapped a careless hand, brushing that aside.

Even more curious. And dangerous. Just what was this human tangled up in? Val needed to hand him over before his problems became her problems.

A shower of pixie dust raining onto her skirts, Queen Mab wiggled her fingers again. “I have kept my end of the bargain.”

With stilted movements, his face still pallid, the human stepped closer to the throne and held out the plate.

Queen Mab snatched it, clutching it in her tiny fingers. While the plate had appeared small in the human’s grasp, it was as big as a platter in Mab’s hands.

“Now that everyone is satisfied with that bargain, can we complete the other bargain?” Val tapped her fingers along the hilt of her knife.

Queen Mab stopped stroking the plate long enough to scrutinize Val. “As much as I wish to add a human this delicious to my collection, I gave in to Titania’s whining.”

Something twisted in Val’s stomach. Surely the queen didn’t mean…

“I’m afraid I’ve already traded his bargain to Queen Titania to pay off a debt I owed her.” Queen Mab clutched the plate in both of her hands. “He’s not mine.”

Of all the swamp-infested, dragon-eaten things! Val bit back her growl and forced herself to grit out in a reasonably personable tone, “In that case, I invoke the Law of Hospitality and humbly ask for a safe and secure room along with safe food for myself, my dog, and this human until the time that I should decide to continue my journey.”

Queen Mab shrugged. “The Law of Hospitality doesn’t apply to you. You don’t have a court.”

“No, but as long as I’m on a retrieval mission for one of the courts, I’m to be afforded the hospitality due a member of that court.”

“Fine. The room and food are granted.” Queen Mab gestured grandly in a rather overblown and bored magnanimity. “You’re fortunate I’m still friends with Titania. The Court of Revels is on the outs at the moment. I wouldn’t travel through the Court of Knowledge if I were you, nor would I depend on your tenuous link to the Court of Revels to grant you hospitality in many places of the Fae Realm. ”

Val wasn’t going to thank Queen Mab for the advice or act like she was in the queen’s debt in any way. “I can handle myself.”

“Hmm. Perhaps. Though I’d keep an eye on the human. He’s one worth snatching, I think.” Queen Mab gave both of them a cruel smile before she returned her focus to her new plate. “Chicory, please see our guests to their room.”

A wispy sprite woman with little blue flowers trailing from her hair stepped out of the crowd, nodded to Val, then pivoted to walk in a new direction in a clear indication to follow.

Val headed after the girl with Daisy sticking close to her legs. The human hurriedly shrugged on his pack, running to catch up before the cord dragged him.

As they left the structure of arbors and started down a meandering path between the giant blossoms, the human leaned closer to Val. “What does it mean that I’ve been traded to Queen Titania?”

At least he’d had enough sense to wait to ask until after they were well out of earshot of Queen Mab and her court.

“It means”—Val gritted out between her teeth—“that I’m stuck with you for a while longer.”