Troy ran into the forest, but at some point, Lily felt him doubling back, taking a twisting path back to the outskirts and the river. The previous times she had ridden him, he had moved like a shadow gliding over the land and it had been difficult to get a sense of direction, but on this occasion, she could track their progress. She was also very aware of the way his muscles strained below her and of his flanks rising and falling with the strain of the quick canter.
Had it always been like that? Or had he been wounded more grievously than he admitted to during the redcap encounter?
As if reading her mind, he snorted and jerked off course, bursting through the dense foliage and down the sloping glen into the river. The waters of the Dee were freezing cold in spite of the summer and Lily’s teeth chattered when a few splashes caught her lower legs and hands. Then, he stopped and shifted, not giving her time to react.
The darkness around her was thick and soft like velvet and she felt the magic that had linked them together dissolving gently, like a feather-light caress. It lasted but a heartbeat, and when it was over, she found herself waist-deep in the water, pressed up close against his back, her fingers still tangled in his wet hair. The current enveloped them and carried on with a faint tinge of red.
She wanted to ask if he was alright. But she didn’t dare.
One of his hands came up, settling over hers. Tugged a little.
“I’m sorry,” she said very quietly as soon as she realized she was still holding on to him. She let go and he took a step forward, shaking his head and slicking his hair back into place with his free hand. The other didn’t let go of her and she realized there were white half-moons in her palm from the strength with which she had clutched him. “I didn’t mean to tear off your scalp,” she added after a moment of silence. “I’m really sorry.”
“You apologize and thank and say too much, Lily,” he said, turning to face her. His tone was frustrated, just like when they had bartered questions and answers and she kept missing the right ones, but she thought there was a note of wry amusement in there too.
“Sorry, didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to.” She caught her opening too late and had to smile when he lifted a brow. Definitely amusement. “Why is it wrong, anyway?”
He shrugged. The lines of his body, Lily noted, were beginning to relax for the first time since they approached her grandmother’s house.
“I should not say it is wrong. It does acknowledge a favor is owed.”
Something stirred in her old memories. “And favors are the currency of faeries,” she ventured.
“Just so.” His fingers slipped from hers at last and he began walking down the current. For him, the water only rose to his hips. “Come now. Let us find Glaistig and be done.”
By the time he made to the riverbank, the cold had seeped into Lily’s bones and her teeth chattered.
“I said you need not fear,” Troy said while he watched her struggle up the mud, drenched and slipping every other step. “Why would you tremble so?”
“I don’t know.” She slipped again, reached for a small rock to steady herself and overbalanced, pitching forward. “Maybe because you’ve insisted on walking in freezing water when it turns out it wasn’t necessary?”
“You are cold.” Was that look confusion upon his face?
She sighed. “Yeah, Troy. I’m cold as a Popsicle.”
He grabbed her by the arm and helped her along the few steps remaining until she was clear of the treacherous slope. Then, moving with the care he would show not to startle a wild animal, he touched the side of her face with the back of his fingers. The contact was warm and Lily felt a new tremor that had nothing to do with exposure.
“A Popsicle must be something cold indeed,” he said, frowning. His fingers moved and touched the other side of her face, almost as if he were awed.
“So are you going to tell me why the splash?”
“No.” He smiled, tight-lipped, the expression not reaching his eyes. Lily realized with a start that, up to that blundering question of hers, he had been wearing an open expression.
“Wait,” she said, shaking off her thoughts and rushing not to be left behind. “Is there… Can you do something to help? With the cold.”
“It does not threaten your life.”
“No, it only makes my teeth clatter and my hands shake and my thoughts run around inside my head.”
“Judging from your much-too open attitude, I dare say your thoughts find that ‘scattered’ is their natural state.”
Lily stopped walking and stared at him, not sure how to proceed. It had almost seemed like Troy was playful in spite of his words. He was obviously still frustrated at the way she spoke, or at what she said, or didn’t say—she wasn’t quite sure where the fault lay—but there was also a hint of long-suffering amusement in his tone and his eyes. What was the correct answer to that?
“Well, well, is that the doctor’s whelp?” said a woman’s voice.
Troy’s eyes darted behind Lily and he inclined his head a fraction, half respect and half camaraderie. “Glaistig.”
Doing her best to still her chills, Lily turned very slowly toward the voice. There, on the riverside, standing where not a moment earlier she herself had been trampling, stood the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She had a magnificent green dress of spun silk, like a maiden from an Arthurian tale, and her auburn hair fell in rebellious curls down to her hips. Her skin was fair like porcelain, as soft-looking as Troy’s and even a touch more translucent. Her eyes shone aquamarine. Her lips were full, red, and currently parted in a smile, showing her white teeth.
Lily stared at that smile, mesmerized.
“Kelpie,” she said. Her lips moved, revealed new flashes of white. “It is pleasant to see you, even in the present company. To what do I owe the honor?”
The smile widened and twisted a little and the minute gesture served to convey how much of a jest she made of the term “honor.”
“Is it so rare in this day and age to visit my good neighbor?” Troy said.
She let out a delighted burst of laughter and Lily managed to tear her eyes away from her mouth.
Her mouth, full of white, sharp, pointy teeth.
“It truly is, my old friend,” Glaistig said. “And while I do love your presence and your words, do tell me the truth now. Why did you seek me?”
Troy nodded in acknowledgment. “To present you with a mystery and see if perchance you could unveil it.” Then he added as an afterthought, “I must confess, however, that your directness presents me with yet another mystery to add to the first. Should I ask what ails you?”
“You should not. You should ask your question instead and let us see if our two mysteries are not, after all, one and the same. And you simply must introduce me to your mortal friend. I guessed correctly, did I not?” Glaistig’s attention fastened on Lily then.
She had been observing her and her interactions with Troy, the both of them thrusting and parrying words as if they were master fencers. Watching the graceful exchange, catching the unspoken nuances and feeling how a hundred more details slipped by out of her grasp, she had understood a bit better Troy’s insistence on speaking properly and even the disappointment he showed when faced with her own blunt, often misplaced questions and comments. When the focus of the beautiful fay fell on her, Lily felt very small, like a child playing make-believe in an adult world.
She opened her mouth to reply and introduce herself, but—
“So you did,” said Troy, smoothly speaking over her. “Glaistig, do allow me to introduce the good Doctor’s Whelp.”
Lily’s mouth closed again and she realized she would have given away her name once more had Troy not prevented her. If Glaistig took notice of the near miss, her expression showed nothing.
“Indeed. There is a certain family resemblance, would you not say? But enough of pleasantries. Be my guests, and once comfortable, we will speak more.”
Glaistig lifted her skirts to protect them from the mud and disappeared into thin air. She had opened a faerie path, much like the one Troy had tested her with. One step had been enough to take her from one side to the next and Lily couldn’t stop staring.
“Come,” Troy said, walking toward the opening. “Do not tarry or you shall cause offense.”
Lily followed him, one foot in front of the other, and she knew she should be paying attention, trying to discern the opening from the solid world. She knew it was important.
But she could only think of Glaistig lifting the hem of her skirts. She had revealed cloven feet.
Where Troy’s haven had been lush and green, Glaistig’s path led to what looked like the same muddy, barren river bank, adorned only by outcrops of rock and one gnarled tree.
It was under that tree that she sat, perched on a stone like a queen upon her throne. With a gesture of her hand, she commanded them to make themselves comfortable, disregarding the fact that there were no other seats around her. Troy simply sat on the ground, his long limbs gracefully arranged so that it seemed as if he were lounging somewhere fit for a king, and Lily resigned herself.
More cold. More mud.
She chose a spot close to Troy, as appealing as any other, and tried to imitate his poise. It earned her a bemused glance from Glaistig.
“Such an interesting little mortal,” she said. “Tell me, Kelpie, how did you come by her?”
“Where would the fun be if all secrets were to be revealed?” Troy smiled. “I believe it is more than enough to address the matter of the doctor herself for the time being.”
He had sidestepped the question while redirecting the conversation to what he truly wished to know and had done so in such an off-hand way that Lily would have been hard pressed to note the maneuver if she hadn’t been looking for it. Glaistig, however, acknowledged his move with a polite nod.
“The doctor, then. In truth, I do not know what you might hope to learn from me. You were always closer to her than I.”
“I would hesitate to claim such a thing. Was she not part of your flock?”
“Indeed she is. The babes, the old ones. They are my interest. And yet, you just said ‘was.’” Glaistig leaped on the tidbit of information like a hound and Lily wondered if Troy had fed it to her or if it had slipped from his tongue. “Should you not ask someone else about the fate of the departed? The graveyard’s Grim, mayhaps?”
“I would, if she were dead. Your confirmed claim over her just proved that she is not and that I did bring my questions to the right place.” He smirked and it earned a minuscule frown from their host.
“Very well. Do answer me first. Why are you posing such questions, Kelpie? I would think your pet mortal to be the interested party.”
Lily felt Troy tense beside her. Somehow, Glaistig had just regained the advantage and she realized it as soon as she read the unease in him.
“Let her speak,” she commanded. “Tell me, Doctor’s Whelp, what drove you to ask questions about your family to a stranger such as myself?”
Lily wet her lips. Her throat had gone dry under the sudden scrutiny and she could feel Troy’s attention on her too, heavy with warning. But she couldn’t warp words and weave traps like he could. She could only offer the truth and hope she would get an honest answer in turn.
“The house was attacked and she’s disappeared,” she said. “I’m worried about her. I need to know what happened.”
The moment her words were out, Glaistig’s polite smile widened into the feral grin of a huntress. Her pink tongue poked between her sharp, sharp teeth, as if she had just caught the scent of prey and was savoring the kill in advance. Lily shuddered and cut a side glance to Troy, who just stared at her with a blank expression.
“Ah,” Glaistig said. “I understand your need to assuage the pain of the unknown, and I shall offer my help for I believe my answers might prove to be a balm for your mind and heart.”
It couldn’t be that easy. The faerie’s look belied her words.
“Do you know where she is, then?” Lily asked anyway. She had to.
“Such eagerness,” Glaistig said with a low chuckle. “I may or I may not, my sweet. Either way, just as I have proved such understanding of your predicament, surely it is only fair to ask you to return the favor?”
An alarm bell went off in Lily’s head. In the tales and legends she knew, bargains were hardly ever fair. But what other choice did she have?
“What do you want?”
“The babes, the old ones, the cattle that sustains their lives. Such are the things I rule over. Yet as of late, a bout of a most irritating sickness is wreaking havoc among my charges, leaving them prostrate with a consumption their bodies cannot heal. All I ask is that you should retrieve for me a stone that will banish this plague from my lands.”
Lily thought back to the cure for pixie pox her grandmother had brewed with her. She thought of Ms. McEnroe, lying in her bed, of her son who was just a kid acting like a grown man. She remembered how bad she had felt upon seeing them in their grief.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” she said. “And you’ll tell me what you know about the disappearance of my grandmother in exchange,” she added, feeling the need to clarify to avoid being cheated.
“I accept,” Glaistig crooned. “It is sealed.”
“Where is the stone?” Lily asked. “How will I know that I get the right one?”
“You will recognize it, rest assured. It is smooth and slippery, black as the poison it is meant to heal, in shape like the sole of a shoe. Furthermore, you will know it for the place where it rests, in the heart of the cave overlooking the Braeroddach Loch where the cuelebre stands guard.”
“And what is a cuelebre?”
“A cuelebre,” Troy cut in, “is a serpent meant to protect the secrets of the land from meddling mortals and from those who would misuse them. You shall find it holds remarkable resemblances to the guardian dragons plaguing the minds of your medieval ancestors.”
“What!” Lily recoiled from his words, but also from his sharp tone and from the scathing look he had given her. “How am I supposed to get past a dragon?”
“Is now the time to ask such a question?” he said with a smile that was almost vicious.
“I…” No, it wasn’t. The moment for it came and went, right before she accepted the bargain. “I don’t have any real chance of killing a dragon, have I?”
“A cuelebre,” Glaistig corrected, tutting faintly. “And while death is nearly assured should you charge off blindly like the knights of old, I expect you to use your cunning to defeat this foe if the need arises.”
Lily snorted. “Of course it’ll arise. It won’t let me just go with the treasure it’s meant to protect. You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
Glaistig narrowed her eyes and the good humor that had surrounded her evaporated. The look she gave Lily was long and hard, cold, and full of sharp edges, and it made Lily think of Troy’s words. For she dislikes devouring anything but young and hale men. She could see the terrible behind the beautiful now and it made her swallow past a lump in her throat.
Then, as quickly as it came, the look went away and left a slightly colder, more formal Glaistig in its wake.
“I am sure it was an unfortunate choosing of your words that made it seem as if you implied treachery in my pact,” she said, enunciating with exaggerated care. “In my magnanimity, I shall even remind you that cuelebres do not part with their treasures willingly, but they do accept offerings most graciously. Now go and come back when your part of the bargain is done.”
Troy stood first and he left without word or backward glance, leaving Lily scrambling to catch up before he crossed the opening of the path alone and left her lost in Glaistig’s domain.