Wondrous Strange Three-Book Collection by Lesley Livingston

Author:Lesley Livingston [Livingston, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4434-1696-2
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI

Don’t lie to me, little Janus.”

Sonny rubbed his shoulder along the side of his face where the invisible fist had hit him. Hard. “Why would I do that?” he asked with a profound lack of concern. Regardless of the fact that Mabh had been pummeling him enthusiastically with her magicks since he’d regained consciousness in her grim stone hall, he was silently far more worried about the fact that he could no longer feel his Janus medallion hanging about his neck. He must have lost it in the fight—and he felt its absence like a physical ache. All of the Unseelie magick that Auberon had gifted him was bound up in that talisman. Without it he would be forced to rely exclusively on his human abilities in a fight. But he wasn’t about to let Mabh know of his concerns. “Why would I lie?”

“Because you hate, fear, and generally distrust me,” answered the Faerie queen with a charming smile, kneading dainty knuckles, as if she’d actually been physically hitting him.

“So does half the populace of the Faerie realm, lady. That in no way makes me unique. Or particularly prone to lie to you.” Sonny struggled to heave himself back up onto his knees. It was a bit awkward, what with his hands being bound behind his back. “If I knew where Kelley was, and I did not wish to share that information, I wager I’d simply be inclined to tell you to sod off.”

Mabh flicked her wrist, and the resulting blow almost sent Sonny reeling back into unconsciousness again. It would have been the third time in very recent memory. He lay on the stone floor for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, struggling to stay cogent. He could hear Mabh’s footsteps as she paced in a circle around him.

“I cannot find my daughter, fleshling,” she said. “My Storm Hags tell me that she is quite hidden from them. Almost as if she never existed. That has me worried. And I tend toward violence under worrying circumstances.”

“Perhaps you should get therapy, then, lady. You seem to worry an awful lot,” Sonny said through clenched teeth, tensing for the next blow. It never came. Instead, when he dared to open his eyes again, it was to see the queen crouched in front of him, peering at him with a frank and lively curiosity that seemed to override her anxieties for the moment. It made Sonny’s heart ache to have her staring at him with those flashing green eyes, so very like her daughter’s. He avoided looking at her directly, staring instead at the floor between them.

“You’re a brave little monkey.” Mabh shook her head, bemused. “But not, I was led to believe, monumentally stupid. Which is why I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it when we found you sleeping all alone on the edge of my lands like that.”

“I wasn’t sleeping—I was very unintentionally unconscious,” Sonny said. “And I wasn’t alone.”

“Well, I suppose that lump on the back of your head is almost big enough to be called a companion, true enough.

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