Oops.
“What? No! Not at all. It’s just… I don’t have fifteen gold coins. I…” With a small shrug, I admit, “I don’t have any.”
“Oh? Then what do you have?”
Nothing, really. I’ve got the jacket on my back, the clothes I’ve been wearing for ages now, and that’s about it.
Except for—
“Apples?”
I have apples. I can’t see how that’s worth much. I saw the spread on their table. Even if they didn’t have apples, there was plenty of food and, apart from the squirrel meat, most of it was fruit.
“Apples?” Shanley echoes. “Where are they? Where are the apples?”
I jerk my thumb over my shoulder. “I hid them outside before I, um, shrunk down, I guess. Unless someone else finds them first, they should still be out there.”
“Excuse me, yes, yes?”
The imp turns, gesturing toward some of the busy workers. The male who made the cloak is one, the other is a female even older than Shanley. They rise from their stools, hurrying toward the clan leader. As I watch, they form a huddle, chattering away in a high-pitched language that reminds me of someone tooting away on a flute.
Shanley lifts her head, glancing toward me. “It’s faerie fruit, yes? The apples?”
I nod.
They huddle again.
The elder imp steps back, her voice a deeper squeak as she asks, “From the Summerlands? Not the Winter Court?”
The Winter Court? Welp, there went any hope that I didn’t get too far from the inn where Rys sent me. I’d expected as much—the unseasonable chill was a big honking clue that I’d moved further than I wanted to, and the dark violet sky is ominous instead of lovely—but hearing it from the imps slams the message home. The fairy circle didn’t bring me back to my world, but it sure as hell spit me out on the other side of Faerie.
I know a little about it. When we were still in our cell together, Rys was interested in my “adventures” through Faerie; he’d rather hear about my time in his world instead of what life was like for me in the Iron. After I told him all about how I ended up in Siúcra, he paid it forward by offering me some insight into the world outside of the Faerie prison.
We were in the Seelie Court, ruled over by Oberon the Summer King, the part of Faerie where the Seelie—the Light Fae like Rys—are in charge. Second to the Seelie Court, there was the Winter Court, the home of the Unseelie. Also known as, I remember now, the Shadow Realm. I thought the name had something to do with how the Dark Fae’s magic uses shadows while the Light Fae draw their strength from fire and sunlight.
Of course, after walking into a gloomy forest, the branches tinged with purple, and the shadows hiding the dangers lurking nearby, I’m beginning to think there’s more to it than that.
And I’m stuck here at the mercy of these strange imps—while standing like, I don’t know, six inches high myself.
Fucking great.
It’s barely been a day and already I’m homesick for my cell.
Shake it off, Hel. You need this cloak.
I nod again. “Yeah. It’s one of the pink ones that grows on the weird crystal-looking trees in the Summer Court.”
A chorus of oooh’s come from the group.
Almost reverentially, Shanley says, “Fruit from the Fae Queen’s trees?”
The elder female snaps something in their strange language. Shanley immediately corrects herself, saying, “I mean, from the False Queen’s trees.”
False Queen, huh? I know that, before Oberon took over the Seelie Court as the Summer King, there was a Fae Queen who was in charge. Meli-something. Rys hated her so much that, when word spread through the prison that Oberon assassinated her, my former cellmate regretted that he wasn’t there to kick the head that was lopped from her shoulders. Now that she’s dead, it seems she isn’t remembered all that fondly.
I file that away, just in case that information is something that might help me later.
“Yup.”