CHAPTER SIX
The next morning I slipped away from the cottage before Syla was awake.
Allard was waiting for me beneath a tree, eating a fruit that looked like a hot pink apricot but with a shockingly lime-green, jelly-like flesh.
“What are you eating?” I said, forgetting that in the daytime, he couldn’t speak.
But to my surprise, I heard his voice in my head.
It’s called a sochen, he said. You don’t have them in your world?
“Allard,” I said. “I can hear you.”
His face split into that hideous grin again. I had hoped that would happen, he said without speaking. The Verge can either dampen or amplify a talent. You are heir to both fae and human magic, so….
“Do you think I’ll be able to read Syla and Marus’ minds?” I asked aloud.
Possibly his mind but Syla guards her thoughts very carefully.
I thought he might say something more but instead, he reached up to pull another fruit from the tree.
You must try one. He broke it in half with a practiced twist of his hands and plucked out the large flat seed in the center, discarding it before he handed me the fruit with two hands.
You are the stone of my heart’s fruit.
What?
I looked at him. “What is that, poetry?”
He looked down at his huge feet. I forgot you can understand my tongue.
“It’s a beautiful thing to say.”
Taste, he said.
I could tell he wanted to change the subject so I took a bite of the fruit.
Tastes exploded on my tongue. The delicate flesh practically melted in my mouth, leaving behind a vaguely citric taste that was at once sweet and sour and almost fermented, like a really good Jell-O shot.
“Thank you,” I said.
You’re welcome, he said formally. He looked away from me then and into a shadowy corner of the orchard.
Marus is watching us. We should walk.
I looked around casually but did not see Marus anywhere. It did not surprise me he could blend into the background, like a rattlesnake lying in wait.
Allard walked away from me, following an almost invisible trail in the brush.
Twining vines, some of them with sharp thorns, caught at my clothing and lodged in his pelt. When he judged we were far enough away from Marus not to be observed, Allard slowed down and fell back to walk at my side.
Your mother could summon creatures, he said. Is that one of your talents?
I thought about how easy it was for Hugh to befriend dogs and cats. “No,” I said, “but I think it’s one of my brother’s.”
I saw a yellow flower hanging from a low-lying branch and plucked it. “I can do this,” I said, and held it until the blossom turned orange, then red, then faded to pink. I could feel his amusement and started to bristle until I realized he was taking pleasure in my little trick and not mocking me.
“I can make things move on their own,” I said.
That could be very useful, he said.
“I’ve only done it with small things,” I said, thinking of the balloon animals and small toys I’d flown around my room when I was little.
Why don’t you try it with that rock? He suggested, pointing to a largish chunk of quartz half-embedded in dirt.
I picked it up and hefted it in my hand experimentally. Then I threw it up in the air.
Allard followed its trajectory hopefully and then winced as the rock fell to the ground at my feet.
Damn, I thought, but then I had an idea. I picked it up and threw it again but this time I scooped the air with my other hand, as if grabbing a handful of it, and I flung the air at the stone.
It stopped falling and hovered between us.
“Hah!” I said, extremely pleased with myself.
Excellent, he said and I could tell he meant it. This mind-to-mind communication was the best.
I continued playing with the rock as we walked.
Allard told me the forest path marked the boundary of the Verge and every so often he’d have me try to walk throughthe invisible barrier that we’d run into before.
I had so many questions to ask him, and he was willing to answer, but he kept bringing the topic back to how he could help me escape from the Verge.
Syla is planning something terrible, he said, and she will want to use you for some dire purpose.
“We’ll leave together,” I said, because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Allard to the untender mercies of Syla and her son.
He shook his head.
In this shape? How long do you think I would remain alive if mortals saw me?
“We’ll make Syla reverse the curse,” I said.
She will not, he said, and changed the subject yet again.
The sun was nearly down when we came to a part of the Verge I had not yet seen. I saw little winking purple lights all around a bush with dark green berries.
“Fireflies?” I guessed and Allard laughed.
It was a good sound.
Look again, he said.
I did and I realized that what I was seeing was not flying bugs but tiny little fairies. I thought of Peter Pan’s Tinker Bell and wondered if J.M. Barrie had been inspired to write his masterpiece by a visit to the Verge.
They flew up in my face as if to examine me, then flew away.
“I scared them,” I said, disappointed.
No, they simply have a very short attention span.
He held out his hand to me. A tiny, dark green berry rested there.
Taste, he encouraged.
“Thank you, Allard,” I said and took the berry from him and put it in my mouth.
It tasted of nothing more than the inside of my but when I swallowed, it hit my stomach like a six-course Christmas feast with all the trimmings. I could taste each dish separately—roast turkey and mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts wrapped in bacon, and warm sourdough rolls and green bean casserole, which I secretly love but always pretended to hate because it was made with canned stuff and my parents hated using canned stuff.
I could even taste the persimmon pudding and sweet whipped cream.
Good? He asked.
“Yes, Allard, it was very good, thank you.”
I wanted you to have your Christmas feast, he said.
I’d forgotten that it was almost Christmas. Allard’s kindness suddenly made me want to cry. Instead I grabbed his furry shoulders and impulsively pulled him close…close enough to kiss.
Hildegarde, he said, and though he wore a rough pair of linen breeches much like those Marus wore, the clothing did little to contain his erection.
He was bending his great beastly head toward mine when Marus suddenly came thrashing down the path, wildly waving a crude iron dagger.
My first reaction was not fear but curiosity. Is that the weapon that ended my mother’s life?
“You human slut!” he roared. “You reject me and treat this thing tenderly?”
I could see the fur on Allard’s back and shoulders rise in a threat-display but I put my hand on his arm. I didn’t want him getting anywhere near that dagger if it were true, as Syla had told me, that iron would kill fairies.
“You’re half-human yourself,” I reminded Marus. “And my cousin. Do you know what happens when cousins have sex with each other?”
“Never say that,” he said. “Never call me human.”
“Okay,” I said, and made myself shrug. “You’re inhuman.”
As I’d hoped, that ratcheted things up considerably. Marus was a bully and I’d had some experience with bullies. Meeting his threats with contempt would enrage him and tempt him to make a mistake.
“You bitch!” he screamed and he swung the dagger in a wide arc.
He was aiming for my neck but before his arm had even begun the downward motion, Allard was on him like a dog on a bone.
They wrestled for the knife as I tried to find something, anything, I could use for a weapon.
And then I heard Allard scream.
I turned, horrified, to see him fall, bright blood spurting from the wound Marus had inflicted.
“No!” I screamed, and rushed at Marus, who easily swatted me away, backhanding me with such force that I fell to the ground.
He pounced then and began tearing at my clothes, ripping the tunic from neckline to hem so that it fell away.
Exposing the tattoo on my hip.
It was glowing as if on fire, searing my flesh as if I were being branded.
I howled in pain and scrabbled away from the witchling who stepped forward with a sneer on his face and then…stopped as another man stepped out of the trees.
“My lord,” he said, and dropped to his knees in a sign of total submission.