I just—
Why?
“Like I was saying before, I am quite busy. I came all this way for this auction and, now that I’ve been successful, I must be on my way. I’m sure you understand.”
“Would you like to arrange for a portal, my lord? You can use my private tent.”
Rys shakes his head. His long, tawny hair sways with the elegant motion, the firelight flickering on the golden color enough to hypnotize me. I’m staring at him. I know I am.
What is he doing here?
How did he get here?
And, more importantly, why does the redcap seem to believe he’s Unseelie?
I don’t know, but I figure he has to have a reason. And I can’t wait to find out what it is.
In Faerie, money talks as loud as it does back home. Of course the redcap doesn’t just trust that Rys tossed him seven hundred gold coins. I almost expect him to count out every last one, but he surprises me when he pulls a scale out from a drawer in his table. He fiddles with it for a few minutes before proclaiming the deal met.
After that, Rys whisks me out of the tent. He’s careful not to get too close, he especially doesn’t touch me at all, but gestures with his hand which way he wants me to go.
As soon as we’re outside, he slants a look my way. “Don’t be afraid,” he murmurs softly. “
It’s me.” Then, as if I managed to forget him in the last week or so, he adds, “It’s Rys.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He pauses. “You know?” Blinking slowly, he says, “You can see me?”
“Um. Yes?”
“But you don’t have the sight.” At my blank look, he explains, “You can’t see through glamour.”
“Nope. Only if I have a seeing stone, but that’s it.”
“But you can see me.”
“Of course I can.” I think I’m missing something here. “Am I not supposed to?”
“My glamour is thick enough to fool everyone else in the market.” He pauses again. “But not you.”
I shrug.
Rys glances around. His jaw tightens and, after throwing his hood back over his head, he starts striding forward again, murmuring for me to keep up. He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I’ve seen the way some of the market patrons are looking at me. The sooner we put some ground between us and the Faerie Market, the better.
I think about Morgan and hope that the redcap is like the rest of the faerie folk, that he can’t lie. I want to believe that she made it out safe—even if it sucks to know she abandoned me here on my own—and, even if she didn’t, there’s nothing I can do to help her now. From the second I broke out of my daze and realized that Rys has suddenly arrived to rescue me, my every thought is consumed by that.
Rys, it seems, is obsessing over something else. After we’ve been walking for a while and we’ve gone far enough that I can’t make out the tents behind me anymore, he finally breaks the quiet. “Was it the same when we were in Siúcra?”
“What?”
“When we were imprisoned. Could you see through my glamour then?”
“Um. I don’t know. When were you glamoured?”
“Not very often around you, I’d have to say. But sometimes, usually after I recharged my strength after leaving my cell, I’d spruce myself up so that some of the Cursed guards wouldn’t see me at my worst.”
Oh. “You mean like how I looked like I’d spent days in the hole, but your prison uniform was spotless and you didn’t have a hair out of place?”