Chapter 16
Davien follows behind them,pausing when he notices that I’m not in step with him. “Are you coming?”
I fold my arms and walk up to him. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak for me.”
“Would you have refused them?”
“I don’t know.” These fae have done very little to endear me to them. I’m not sure if I want to be sitting at their table and breaking bread.
He chuckles and shakes his head. Under his breath I can hear him say, “You really are human.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” We start walking.
“You would not only pass up an opportunity for Hol and Felda to be allies by sitting at their table, but offend them as they tried to make amends.” Davien laughs. “You don’t understand anything about how words can be twisted against you. About deals, rituals, or the laws of hospitality.”
“Don’t mock me.” I glare up at him. Yet, as if he’s ever in a competition with himself to see how much he can frustrate me, he smirks. His green eyes sparkle in the sunlight.
“I’m not mocking you; I think it’s charming that you’ve lived a far simpler life.”
“I doubt it. But even if you’re right, simpler doesn’t mean good.” I avoid staring at him, instead looking at the joining on a roof.
“How did you know that song?” he asks, seemingly out of nowhere. I wonder if he can tell I’m uncomfortable and is trying to backtrack to something more harmless.
I glance back up at him. Can he tell I’m uncomfortable?
“Wait, don’t tell me, it’s yet another one of the old songs you’ve heard around town?”
“Yes,” I lie, and swallow to try to remove the taste of metal from my mouth. It seems like the more I lie around him, the harder it becomes, and the longer that metallic taste lingers at the back of my throat. My mother was the one who taught me almost all the songs I know.
“It really is incredible how much of us is left in that world…” He trails off, eyes filled with longing as he stares ahead. Davien is a good head taller than most people, so he can see down the entire street without issue. But I don’t think he’s looking at anything in particular. I wonder what he’s trying to see, what place…or time.
“It really used to all be one world? I heard the old myths, about the ancient magic wars. I remember what they told me about the Elf King carving up the land. But I thought…” I look around me. “I guess I have to believe it’s true, seeing this place, seeing you.” My gaze snags on intricate leaded glass that adorns the second floor of a building we pass. “Glass art, did it come from the fae as well?”
“It did.” Davien smiles. “The fae are an offshoot from the dryads. They were the old sentinels of the forest, long before the magic wars were even a whisper on people’s lips. Unlike the fae—which were a natural evolution of time and magic—the dryads made the humans with their own hands. Initially, the fae looked after the early humans, teaching them how to use their magic to work with nature.”
“Humans had magic?” I try to imagine such a world and fail.
“Long ago, before the Fade. Perhaps that’s why you are able to be a vessel for the ancient kings’ magic.”
I curl and relax my fingers, trying to see if I can feel the magic that even Vena said she could sense in me. But I feel absolutely nothing. I know the magic is real, I’ve seen it. It poured from me in the woods that night. Yet I can’t summon it even if I try.
We arrive at a stone house with a clay roof. Hol and Felda lead us inside, down the hall, and to a kitchen that takes up the back half of the house. Davien and I are seated around a table as Felda and Hol bustle about their kitchen. I notice pegs by the back door—a messenger bag very similar to Raph’s hangs on one.
“Please don’t punish him…” The soft words slip from my lips unintended as Felda sets down a board with a rustic sourdough loaf and knife.
“What?” She blinks and tilts her head at me.
“Raph. Please don’t punish him when he returns home. I wouldn’t want him to be hurt because of me.”
“Hurt?” She shakes her head and seems aghast at what I am suggesting. Her brows furrow slightly, as though my concern has offended her somehow. “We would never hurt our son.”
“But, in the tavern…you seemed so upset.”
“I was upset.” Felda puts her hands on her hips. “I don’t know how I managed to have the most precocious child in all of Dreamsong, but I guess that is my honor and burden to bear.” She grins as though some part of her really does think it is an honor to be associated with Raph’s antics. “But he’s been appropriately reprimanded already. As long as he doesn’t step out of line again today—which is a challenge sometimes for that boy—there will be no more words on the incident when he gets home.”
“Oh, good…” I stare at the bread that Felda begins to cut. Is it really that simple? I’ve never seen a child be so easily forgiven when they erred. Helen and Laura never made a mistake. And whenever I did, I felt the repercussions for days usually. When I sense the weight of another pair of eyes on me, my gaze is drawn across the table to where Davien sits. He watches me with a slightly furrowed brow, as if he’s inspecting or studying me.
“Please help yourself to our bread and wine,” Hol says ceremoniously as he pours mead into each of our cups.
