Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Author:T. Kingfisher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

* * *

When the queen summoned her, Toadling was startled, then afraid.

They had spoken less than a handful of times. You could not avoid another person in a keep as small as this one, but nevertheless, they had managed. Toadling stayed in her small, inoffensive toad shape when the queen was about and did not ask—or demand—a place in her counsels. The queen did not seek her out. When Toadling watched Fayette, it was with the nurse beside her, not the queen.

But when Fayette was six, the queen summoned the castle fairy to the solar, and Toadling, ever obedient, went.

The solar was empty except for the queen. She was looking out the window, with the sun glowing on her skin.

Toadling knew that to mortal eyes, the queen was beautiful. To Toadling, she seemed pallid and flat-faced, her golden hair lying dead and motionless on her shoulders.

Among the greenteeth, only Fadeweed was that pale. She lurked in the deepest water, where she would not burn, and her paleness was a lure to fish. She would use her fingers as bait, wiggling them like white worms, and then snatch the fish up and bite them behind the eye.

Fadeweed spoke very little, but she shared her fish generously, as if food had taken the place of her words.

The memory rose up like water before her, and so Toadling missed the first words that the queen had spoken to her in more than a year.

She bit her lip, hoping that it had not been something that required acknowledgment.

The next words drove it out of her head.

“Fayette tortured a dog this morning,” said the queen.

Toadling cringed. “Is … is the dog hurt badly?”

The queen turned her head and looked at Toadling for a long, silent time and then said, “It will heal. One of the foresters took it to live outside the keep.”

Toadling nodded, weak-bellied with relief.

I’ve come to keep you from doing harm … and again and again, I’ve failed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Usually I can catch her before…”

The queen looked away, out the window again.

“There have been others, then.”

“Yes,” said Toadling. She swallowed. “The birds that get into the tower sometimes. And the dovecote. And I think mice, too, but she’s gotten better at hiding them after.”

“You’ve punished her for it,” said the queen, a line forming between her eyebrows.

Toadling wanted to laugh, not from humor but simple frustration. “It doesn’t do any good. She’s like a cat playing. They’re not real to her; they’re just … things that move and flutter and squeak. The nurse has tried—it’s not her fault, I swear! But we can’t make her believe it matters. I’m sorry.”

The queen was silent for a long time.

“You saved my life,” she said, and Toadling almost said, I’m sorry, again but caught herself in time. She was not supposed to apologize for that.

“I wanted to think it was your influence,” said the queen. “I wanted to think that you were a wicked fairy who had come to lead my daughter astray. Perhaps saving my life was merely to cover your intentions.

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