Wasteland King by Lilith Saintcrow

Author:Lilith Saintcrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2016-07-26T04:00:00+00:00

MERRY CHASE

27

Sliding through the Veil in a fullblood’s wake was a good way to turn your stomach inside out, even if you were Half. The few times Robin had been allowed to trail Summer’s passage through the layers of real and more-than-real, the nausea had turned her pale and shaking.

This time, with her arm over Pepperbuckle’s shoulders, it wasn’t bad at all. Something about his steady warmth soothed the cramping, and if she shut her eyes she didn’t see the blurring of several places and unplaces at once that could drive a mortal without a half share of sidhe blood into catatonia. Ilara Feathersalt laughed once, a cruel tinkling sound sending a shiver through both Robin and the hound, and it was probably because she’d done some mischief, appearing casually to a disbelieving mortal or spreading ill luck along the edges of her wake.

Motion stopped with a jolt, and Robin’s eyes snapped open. She leaned against Pepperbuckle, his warm vitality tickling her hand, his fur soft even through the velvet coat-cloak. Mortal darkness pressed against them both, deep in the shade of a clump of ragged bushes at the foot of a wide field, greening rapidly after a winter’s sleep. At the other end, a large building rose, golden light winking through some of its windows.

Robin took stock. The Feathersalt stood tall and slim, her face and hands glowing faintly. Her platinum hair rippled in smooth waves, but the ends knotted into elflocks and that one chantment-blasted gold bead shivered uneasily. Robin blinked, peering at the fullblood; the glamour rippled, sensing her attention.

“Do not gawk at your betters, Half.” The words were cool and haughty, and the Feathersalt’s chin raised. “There.” She pointed, a graceful lifting of one silken-clad arm. “The knife is there, and you will go in to fetch it.”

“I will?” Robin examined the building. Brick or stone, a wide roof, and something that spread chills down her back.

“Mortal blood means less danger for you.”

That would be a first. “And you’re going to simply stand here while I do so?”

The fullblood shook her head slightly. “No. I—and your hound, there—shall be leading the guardians left here a merry chase.”

“Guardians.” Of course it couldn’t be easy.

“Did you think Summer—or Goodfellow—would leave such a prize undefended?” Ilara cocked her pale head. She gestured, the blue-velvet mantle shrinking on her frame, the sleeves melting and the skirt pulling itself free of the ground. Dainty pale-blue leaf-shoes curled around her feet, deceptively thin and probably loaded with lightfoot and other chantment. She shook her gloved hands, five fingers and a thumb loose and elegant, chantment beginning to spark between their tips.

Pepperbuckle’s ears pricked, and his eyes fired blue in the gloom. His ovoid pupils flared, tiny blue sparks in their very center, and he looked back at Robin, craning his flexible neck.

Robin listened. A faint, faraway grumbling, like a mortal subway. It made her think of Parsifleur Pidge, the poor Twisted woodwight she’d thought to leave the cure with at the start of this whole mess.

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