Pritkin scowled. It was strange. The face was different—the face was a stranger—but that expression was hauntingly familiar. Except for one thing.
“I hate your eyes,” I said suddenly, before I thought.
“What?”
“Not—I mean those,” I said, gesturing at the blue-black combo he had going on. “Do you have to keep them?”
He looked a little surprised but shook his head. “No. The guard was about to change while I was here, and I wasn’t using this face then, in any case. They won’t know me any more than they will you.”
“Is that why you think this will work? They don’t know me?”
Pritkin looked at me for a moment, and then walked back over. He had that expression, the I’m-going-to-figure-her-out expression, which yeah, probably wasn’t much of a challenge right now. It felt like I was stalling, even to me.
But I couldn’t seem to help it. I didn’t want to go in there. It had been okay from the outside, just a silly little hat of a house, but now . . .
I didn’t like it now.
It felt like standing at the entrance to a cave where you’ve been told there’s a monster, but you didn’t believe it until you got there and, oh, look, a monster. Or like being in one of those old movies where you’re at the top of the basement stairs, leading down into darkness, and the light switch doesn’t work. And, worse, you’re a blonde. Everyone is yelling at their TV, “Don’t go in there, don’t go in there,” but you do because you’re the blonde, which is Hollywood code for criminally stupid.
Only I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to go in there.
Pritkin’s head tilted, as if some of my inner dialog was showing on my face. “That and the fact that the fey can sense power.”
“And that matters?”
He held a hand just above my arm, and goose bumps rose to meet him. “You have power. Anyone who concentrates, anyone with the ability, should be able to feel it. If I’m to convince them that you’re someone who needs to be put in a highly secured area, you have to be powerful.”
I looked up at him. “Is that why this Caedmon doesn’t trust me?”
“He didn’t say.”
“But you believe him.”
“He said I should avoid you. He told me that you’re dangerous.”
“And you believe him?”
It felt important for some reason—some stupid reason, since this Pritkin didn’t know me. We’d spent all of maybe a day together as far as he was concerned. Of course, it had been a hell of a day, and it was a day longer than he’d known the damn fey king, but still—
He stepped closer, until our bodies were almost touching. A finger tilted my chin up, and I looked into eyes that were finally familiar, vivid green shining through whatever spell he’d used before. “I’m with you now. I’m trusting you with this. And when this is over, I’ll take you to court. We’ll find out what the Svarestri want with the staff together.”
I swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
We walked through the door.
I’d expected another big room on the other side, making up the other half of the circle. But instead, there was just a hallway, relatively narrow, with a low ceiling. It was almost claustrophobic, especially coming from the previous room, and there were no windows. Instead, lanterns hung on the walls at intervals, throwing flickering shadows everywhere and ramping up the creep factor.
There was also a door, just one, at the far end, flanked by two guards.
They didn’t look like the others I’d seen, in the camp and on the road, most of whom could have been knights out of some medieval flick from the sixties. The kind where they were too clean and had chiseled jaws and perfect teeth, and looked like they smelled good despite riding around in armor all day. But, I realized now, they’d also looked like something else.
They’d also looked human.
These two didn’t. The differences were subtle, unlike with the Svarestri, who appeared almost alien, with skin so white it was practically ashen, and a weird springiness to their movements that human anatomy just didn’t allow. These two had skin that looked like it saw the sun occasionally, and hair that was long and dark, instead of silver bright. But they still had the same too-tall, too-lithe builds, and faces that would never have made it onto a mannequin, no matter how handsome the features.
Because the cold haughtiness would have scared off all the customers.
After a brief glance, I concentrated on keeping my eyes on the ground at some indeterminate place in between the guards’ legs, trying not to notice the way the firelight streamed on burnished armor and in strange, foreign eyes. I also didn’t glance at Pritkin, who had just put a hand on the back of my neck, because he was a slaver and I didn’t think I’d look at a slaver for reassurance. But God, I wanted to!