Page 164 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Whatever Pete hoped to watch, it didn’t matter. Sionna hadn’t gone far, and she hadn’t scented anything nefarious. In fact, she’d nosed out a pair of youthful beyns nibbling from a basket of bread and berries in a wagon with a broken wheel.
At first glance, I pegged them as Middlings, but as we drew closer, I realized they were different racially. While Middlings shared a similar musculature with humans, these beyns’ bone structure was more otherworldly. More like the sluaghs that hijacked my first traveling companion, though quite a bit larger. They were both blue as toilet bowl cleaner with eyes too large for their faces—Bratz dolls with wings. Their skin was so clean it shone, but their clothing was filthy and tattered. If not for the assortment of chests and bric-a-brac surrounding them in their wagon, I’d have thought them paupers. And they were more than generous in offering Sionna morsels of their lunch.
“Blue Caps,” Pete murmured before we stepped from the drapery of purple Spanish moss concealing us. “They dwell under the hill.”
“What hill?”
I wasn’t the only one who delighted in making cryptic references. His lips quirked, Pete replied, “The phrase ‘under the hill’ is a generality for mines. Blue Caps work in mines.”
That explained the dirty clothes.
“They’re more deposit diviners than miners, however. Their skills are coveted widely. They make a fair living. Much fairer than the miners do themselves.”
“Do they travel often?”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen them about on the road, though not too often. I reckon they go where the work is, aye?”
Made sense. “Anything I should know about them?”
The corner of Pete’s mouth quirked higher. “Starting to think like a harbinger, are you?”
Should I be flattered or alarmed by that remark?I couldn’t decide.
“I’d wager most Blue Caps are upstanding fae folk, although they’re reputed for being opportunistic. Mind what you say to them, Shorty. We can’t risk them selling information about us to those on the hunt.”
“Then what should we tell them about why we’re traveling together? We can’t really say you’re a harbinger, and I’m your captive. If the Goblin Market story has gotten past us—”
Pete watched me in patient pleasance as I hashed out our cover story.
“We could say that you’re doing what Briar was doing—that you’re seeing me safely to my distant family after my father’s death—that you’re a longtime family friend who’s protecting me on my journey.”
Problem solved!
“Hm.” He rested a casual arm over the tip of his bow. “You suppose they’ll swallow that?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
He clicked his tongue. “Firstly, because it’s highly unlikely any Danann feyr would befriend a lowly human. They’ll take your claim that I’m a family friend to mean I’m truly the family slave. And secondly, no discerning Danann father would entrust the care and protection of his daughter to the slave who’s no doubt forced to clean his piss pot.”
I cringed. “Oh.”
“Not to scorn your cock and bull abilities, Shorty, but I think, in this instance, it’s best if we employ the simplest possible explanation for our unlikely association.”
“And what’s that?”
“That we’re lovers.” He grinned as he passed me, the devil jigging in his gaze. “And you’ve run away with me.”
I was still staring after him when Pete swaggered into view of the Blue Caps and waved a jaunty Irish hello.
Knowing my cheeks had flushed, I cursed Pete’s raffish name. Then, feigning nonchalance, I tugged down the hem of my leather vest and glided after my “beloved,” who was already chatting it up.
“Aye, she’s my hound,” Pete answered the Blue Caps hand-feeding Sionna, who’d invited herself to their luncheon, the shameless beggar that she was. “I do hope she’s not intruding on you.”
I stopped beside Pete. “Don’t you meanourhound, sweetums?”
“Forgive my thoughtlessness, darlin’.” He cast a wry glance at me. “Of course, Sionna is yours as well.”
I sniffed at the apology, then smiled at the beyns. A couple, I presumed.
