Chapter 15
The air issweet and tastes like freedom. I tilt my face toward the sky, relishing in the warm sunlight. As my gaze drops, my heart begins to race as it truly hits me:
I’m in a world of fae and magic.
Men and women wander the street, going about their business as though their unnatural features are utterly un-noteworthy. I see a couple laughing, hooking arms with each other and spinning around a bend. There’s a father and his children, dutiful assistants for today’s trip to the grocer. A girl flies overhead, chased promptly by two others, shouting something between them that’s lost in the sounds of their buzzing wings and magic.
Everyone has something unique—horns and hooves, tails and wings. I see bright pink hair and cat-like eyes. I should be terrified. Find fear! my better sense shouts at me from the back of my mind, these people are your mortal enemy.
But I’m not afraid. My heart beats with a rhythm that matches their footsteps. My eyes drink in everything about them. And my feet want to run toward something utterly indescribable—something that I’ve no idea who, or what, or where it might be. I want to see and touch everything around me. My drab world has found its color and I want to make it mine.
“If you keep gawking, people’ll notice.” Raph tugs my hand and jerks his head to the right. I take his cue and we begin to move.
Every building in Dreamsong is more magnificent than the last. They’re made of wood and stone, iron and glass. Silken bedsheets hang out to dry on lines strung across the street, perfuming the air with lavender and soap. I stop at one particularly stunning gate to run my fingertips over the ironwork. Thousands of tiny holes have been punched through a thin sheet of metal, turning it into a delicate lace. Ribbons and bows are unfurled along it, so lifelike that I’m shocked they don’t blow away in the breeze.
“Come on.” Raph takes my hand and tugs. “I thought you wanted music, not…what was it that you were doing just now? Human magic?”
“No, humans don’t have magic.” I chuckle softly. My eyes are still on the gate even as he tugs me away. “I was admiring it. The construction is so beautiful; I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It looks pretty normal to me.” He shrugs. Oh, to grow up in a world where all this is normal. “This way.” We round the building with the lacy gate, ducking through a back door and into a small courtyard in the back-left corner of the lot. “You wait here.”
“All right.” I remain in the shadow of an arbor over the side door as Raph scampers up to a kitchen door and knocks several times. It opens and a red-faced maid pokes out her nose.
“The mistress of the house is going to skin you for certain this time. You can’t keep calling like this.”
“She doesn’t have to know I’m here. Can you get Ralsha?” Raph clasps his hands and holds them up like he’s begging. The woman puts a hand on her hip and arches her eyebrows. “Fine, I’ll give you a delivery whenever you want it. But you’re not getting anything else out of me.”
“Good boy. Wait a moment.”
Everything has a price here, I remind myself as I watch the interaction. I must remember that and to pay attention to every word people use. Luckily, I have experience from my father in doing so. It’s not just what people say, but how, he would tell me. Pay attention to everything. Before Joyce came around, he even let me sit in on some of his meetings and would ask me for advice after. One of the few times I felt like I could use my senses about lies to be helpful to someone beyond myself.
Ralsha is a young girl, no older than Raph. But where Raph has short auburn hair, Ralsha has long, deep violet curls. She squeals at the sight of Raph, throwing her arms around his neck. There’s clearly some young love brewing and I bite back a warning to them both. Maybe the fae are immune to the pitfalls of love we humans must endure. Regardless, their mistakes are not my business.
With some eyelash batting from Raph, Ralsha goes back in the house and returns with a cloak. Raph gives her a peck on the cheek and a wink before returning to me. Ralsha melts into the doorstop…before she’s summoned back inside by the maid I saw earlier.
“Here you go. It’s actually a good cloak, too. Ralsha’s mum is the best tailor in Dreamsong. Ralsha says she’s even got an enchanted loom that can weave invisible thread into fabric.”
“If it’s invisible thread, how would you ever know it’s there?” I grin.
Raph considers this for far too long. It only makes me grin more and he sticks out his tongue at me. “If she says it’s there, it must be.” Oh, right, they can’t lie. “Now, turn around and let me put this on you.” He holds out the cloak.
“What service.” I laugh softly and turn.
“Well I told you I’m the best guide—” His words have a distinct halt. I flinch instantly. I know what he’s seen. This stupid silken dress and its stupid swooping front and back. I feel a small finger press into my spine between my shoulder blades. “How’dja get this one, miss?”
He’s a child. He doesn’t know better. He doesn’t know that it’s rude to ask about people’s gnarliest scars so plainly.
“I don’t remember,” I murmur. As I say the lie, the metallic taste fills my mouth. But it’s not just because I’m lying. I tasted blood that day, too. I’d bitten my tongue from the screaming and thrashing. I smell the singed aroma of burning flesh peppering my memory. “I’ve had it forever. Since I was a little girl. No older than you. It’s always been there.”
He snickers. “It’s wicked looking. You must be one tough human to endure something like that and still be all right.”
I shrug the robe onto my shoulders, feeling much less bare. My ugliest secrets are hidden once more beneath the armor of fabric. “I like to think so.”
“Good, you have to be tough to survive the fae.” He grins again and we’re back out in the streets.
After another few minutes of walking, we come to a tavern. I hear the scorching hot strings of a well-played fiddle. Underneath is a feverish drumbeat, setting a lively pace for the other performers. A pan flute soars above them all, stringing together a melody that turns the whole raucous collection of sounds into breathless song.
“What is this place?” I whisper.
