My half-baked revenge left a bad taste in my mouth. No matter the sweetness of a meal, all I could taste was bitter defeat.
"Still as grumpy as a kicked cat I see," Knut smirked against his teacup at me from his new spot in the chair at the head of the dining table. The chair where his father had been sitting the first time we'd met. I kept stirring my untouched tea, only growling in response. "Eat. Your lessons begin today, and you won't be able to concentrate if you're hungry." He crunched on a handful of almonds with his sharp teeth, just trying to be as loud and obnoxious as possible.
My head throbbed in protest of the loud noise. Before we'd headed home, we'd spent a few hours in my favorite tavern so I could drink away my sorrow with the familiar swill I'd been raised on. I didn't even remember the ride home. Now, I was paying for it with the worst hangover I'd ever had in my life. It had been a few days since that night and my head still felt like it was about to split open. "Must we start this today?" I sighed. I poked at my hard-boiled egg with my knife. "I'm tired." And sick. And angry. And sad. And bloody annoyed.
"Should we go back to bed then? That would suit me just as well, but I doubt you'd get much rest." Knut laughed lowly when I rolled my eyes. I hadn't been in the mood for intimacy at all. I had banished him from our bed and rather than retreating to one of our many guest rooms, he'd taken to stretching out on the couch in his study. He liked to tease me, but he hadn't pressed the issue. He let me be angry, let me shove him away and I let him leave the door between our rooms open.
"Can you at least tell me why I'm dressed this way?" Ask had put me in a man's breeches and undershirt that morning instead of the comfortable green dress I'd begged for.
"It's a surprise." He chimed, wiggling his eyebrows.
"Another one?"
"I'm chockfull of them."
I sighed for the hundredth time that morning and pushed my plate away. "Have you sent your scouts after Jasper yet?"
"Of course. I sent the goblin you and the twins off to follow his trail as soon we returned from the human lands that night." He said slowly. Hesitating.
"And?"
He looked away from me and sipped his tea. Bad news. "They followed his scent to the brothel. Lily's gone too. After that, the trail ended at the port. They must have taken a ship somewhere."
My chest heaved against the crushing weight of hatred. "He ran off with her...of course he did. They're off living happily ever after while Rolland and Rhys are rotting in the ground." I stabbed the slab of ham on my plate with my knife. Again, and again and again until the plate beneath cracked in half and I started hitting the table. "He threw us to the wolves over that filthy whore."
"He can run to the ends of the earth, but we'd still catch up to him eventually." Knut reached over and stilled my hand. "Unfortunately, we can't wait until you're in a better mood to begin your lessons. We've only got a few months to prepare you. You need to be able to at least understand most of the Faerie tongue before the solstice. They won't speak English just for your benefit and I will not always be able to translate for you. It's not nearly enough time as we need, which is why I called on someone to give me a hand." He turned his head towards a doorway.
Ib strode into the room, carrying a large book beneath his arm. He was simply dressed in all black breeches and undershirt. His throat was bare, the collar of his shirt open, showing off his perfect alabaster skin. His white-blond hair was tousled as if blue-tinged fingers had just been running through it.
The changeling sidestepped the knife I flung at him. It crashed into the stone wall behind him with a musical clang. "Knut, call off your hound, please." He growled, his chest heaving in surprise.
Knut popped more almonds into his mouth. "Now why would I do that?" He crunched. "When this is far more fun." He grabbed me by the arm as I lunged for Ib's naked throat.
"What the hell's he doing here?" I hissed, pulling against his restraining arms like a dog on a chain.
Knut wrestled me back into my seat. "Calm down, Lovely. He's here to help us." He grinned crookedly over his shoulder at Ib. "If he fails, then I'll let you stab him to your heart's content."
Ib cleared his throat and fidgeted with his collar as if he knew exactly where I was planning on sticking him. "Knut asked me to help him tutor you on your languages. I'm more fluent in the faerie tongue than he is." Ib carefully took his seat beside Knut, watching me with wary violet eyes. He laid the thick, heavy book down on the table with a thud.
I leaned back in my chair and propped my boots up on the table. My arms crossed angrily over my chest. His unnatural beauty, his soft looking hair, his uniquely colored eyes with their pale lashes, and the full curve of his lips, made me want to punch him as hard as I could. "How sweet of you...What's in it for you?"
Ib shrugged. "Get's me out of Mab's palace for a while." He opened up his book to the beginning pages. "I'm assuming you're completely illiterate, so we'll have to just teach you by mimicry. Like a baby."
"Piss off." I spat.
Knut's chair scraped across the stone floor as he stood. "Well, I'll leave you to it."
"You're leaving me alone with him?"
"You're leaving me alone with her?" Ib and I gasped in unison, both of us staring at him like he'd grown a second head.
"I have to make sure your surprise is in order." Knut brushed golden locks of hair away from my brow and kissed the bare skin just beneath my hairline. I was tempted to headbutt him. He lightly touched my chin, angling my face up so he could kiss me properly. "Do try not to stab him." He smiled against my mouth, slipping my remaining utensils from the table and sticking them in his jacket while I was distracted. "Make sure you keep her away from any sharp objects. For your safety." He warned Ib before he hurried away, leaving the changeling and me alone at the table.
Ib watched him go with pure despair on his too-handsome face. Heavy sighs slipped from both our lips at the knowledge that the two of us were on our own without Knut to act as a buffer. Slowly, Ib returned his attention to his task. "We'll start with small words, I guess. Just repeat after me."
He rattled through a list of simple words, like cat and sea, first in English and then in the Faerie's common tongue. After I'd pronounced those correctly, he went on to slightly more complex words. Where the goblin tongue was hugely guttural, the Faerie tongue was soft and breathy. Many of their words began with "Shhh" sounds, like someone trying to soothe a crying baby. In comparison, goblins' tongue had the prettiness of a dog's incessant barking.
"Dog. Sheehi." Ib muttered wearily.
"How do you say, "go to hell" in Faerie?" I pondered, tilting my head back to stare into the void above. We'd been at it for hours and I was beginning to regret not eating.
"Sou xi biaha sol." He answered. "But you should know that that insult doesn't hold the same weight here before you go throwing it about at the solstice."
"Let's take a break. The words are starting to slur together and I'm hungry." I snapped my fingers and a hoard of tiny goblins descended upon the table, carrying a selection of meats, cheese, and fresh bread.
Ib lifted the massive book from the table to allow a little servant carrying a platter with a severed pig's head on it past. "Can't you wait a while longer? We've almost finished the lesson I've planned for today." Even while he said that he was eyeing a slab of sliced lamb with a watering mouth.
I completely ignored him. I slathered butter onto a piece of bread and stuffed it in my mouth. I made happy noises as the melted butter slipped down my throat. "Are you certain you don't want some?" I jabbed. "It's fresh from the oven. Still steaming."
With another sigh, Ib caved and began stuffing layers of meat and cheese onto a thick slice of bread. His eyes rolled back in his head at his first bite.
"Should I leave you and the meat alone?" I snickered, tipping a chalice full of apple cider against my lips, letting the sweet and tart liquid flood my mouth. "Does Mab not feed her pets?"
"Not like this." He mumbled through a full mouth, continuously chewing. "Mab usually keeps me on an exclusive diet of wine and fruit." He pointed towards a bowl of faerie fruit at the center of the table.
My eyes widened. "That's all you eat? Knut told me that it's an aphrodisiac. The wine's potent enough. I haven't dared to eat any of the fruit yet."
"That's the point." He sipped his cider, moaning at the taste. My own appetite was plummeting. "It keeps me docile and accommodating." A bit of color seeped into his pale cheeks. A splash of pink against milky white. "So, how has married life been treating you? You and Knut seem to get along surprisingly well." His violet eyes shifted away from me.
"Very well, I suppose, if you don't count the time Mab showed up and almost killed me right in front of him. One day after my wedding." I slammed my cup down a little too hard and cider sloshed over its golden rim. "I thought Knut was your friend." I said through grinding teeth. How could Knut just invite him back? How could he trust him so easily after he'd sung to his mistress about everything that had gone on?
"He is." Ib's voice cracked. "I had to tell her the truth. I physically cannot lie to Mab. She can pull the truth out of you, no matter how hard you try to keep her out...You and Knut have the seed and The Hollow's blessing to protect you from her prying fingers. I have nothing." His eyes shifted to the spilled cider. His voice dropped to nearly a whisper as his fingers picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. "I wouldn't willingly hurt Knut for anything in this world." His jaw clenched. His adam's apple bobbed beneath his too-pale skin. "He's been like... an older brother to me since we were boys." He raked his slim fingered hand through his short hair, tousling it even further. "He'd been in Mab's palace for a few years before I was taken. As I grew, he taught me how to survive there. How to hold on to myself when Mab was trying her hardest to break me. I wouldn't be who I am now, if not for him." His gaze lifted back to my face, but he refused to look me in the eyes. "Think what you will of me, but I didn't spill my guts to Mab out of loyalty or affection. I did it because she forced me to, just like everything else." He went back to eating, polishing off an entire loaf of bread by himself.
"If you haven't noticed, family doesn't add up to much with either of us." Knut had already murdered his brother and father. I was still working on putting mine in the ground.
He nodded, trying to swallow the food stashed in his cheeks. He gulped at his cider to wash it down. "We heard about what you did...having your husband spread disease through the very city you grew up in, letting thousands suffer and die to quench your anger...Mab's almost impressed."
"And what do you think?" I smirked, knowing his answer before he even said it. "That I'm some sort of monster? That I'm evil for wanting to hurt people? Should I get on my knees and beg The Hollow for forgiveness?" I sneered.
His fingers tapped rhythmically against the rim of his goblet, sending a metallic song ringing through the dining room. "I think Knut could not have chosen a more suitable wife for himself. Humans are viewed as traitors...blasphemers by them. Humans turned their backs on their creator yet feed on The Hollow still. Every tree is one of The Hollow's branches. Every gust of wind, its breath, every animal, every person, its children. Humans cut down The Hollow's limbs, kill their brothers and sisters and eat their flesh, all without giving the Hollow thanks. None of their kind has ever deemed a human worthy of entering one of the high families. No one would dare mix blood with our ilk. We make good lovers, certainly, but that's all I am. It's all I'm allowed to be. But you are...special, Matilda. A human with a goblin's soul. A soul transformed through years of wallowing in malice and greed. When you kill you feel nothing, not even the slightest pang of guilt. What your victims suffer, what their loved ones endure after you take them from them, never even crosses your mind. Does it?"
I emptied the remainder of my cider into his face. "I don't know what gossip's going around at Mab's court, but you don't know a damned thing about me or the life I've lived. Don't sit there and judge me."
He blinked at me. Cider dripped from his long lashes and pooled in his lap, but his voice didn't reflect the slightest anger. "I'm sorry if it sounds like I don't approve. I do, actually. Your greed is what fuels you, what gives you the will to bite and claw for what you want. I mean, you stabbed Queen Mab for Hollow's sake! Not because she was hurting your dear husband, but because she was threatening your new status. Just imagine what your children and grandchildren will be like. Goblin Kings with the will and the savagery to seize what they want, raised by a woman that will teach them not to fear their faerie masters. Savage Goblins with a human's ambitious nature? That's a dangerous combination and one that Mab is deathly afraid of." He leaned forward, his gaze locking with mine. "Knut needs someone like you to push him." His mouth stretched wide, mimicking one of Knut's grins and showing a mouth full of pearly, perfect teeth. "As do we all."
"Queen." Agi greeted as he took form atop Ib's book. Ib reeled back in disgust of the rat-tailed goblin with the far too wicked twinkle in its eye.
"Agi, how are you?" I chuckled at Ib's reaction to my guard. I slid my fingers over Agi's bowed spine, petting him like a cat.
"Never been better." Agi snickered, eyeing the hand covering Ib's mouth and nose as if he were plotting to bite off a finger or two. He probably was. "King Knut sent me. Your surprise is ready, and he asks that you come to The Hollow at once." He flashed Ib a demonic smile. "You too, Pretty Man."
Ib and I followed Agi down through the goblin tunnels. I still couldn't remember the way through the labyrinth of passageways, and I doubted I ever would. The path seemed different each time I'd taken the journey.
"Ugh, he smells," Ib grunted, his hand still covering his mouth and nose in a futile attempt to keep out Agi's stench.
"He might be smellier than most goblins, but it's not that bad," I said, carefully watching Agi's quick movements as he wove from one tunnel to another. If you looked away for even a second, you'd lose him. "London smells of piss and shit. In comparison, Agi smells of roses."
Slowly, his hand fell away, but his nose still wrinkled. "You don't look back fondly on your home city, do you?"
"What is there to look back fondly on? It smells and it's full of disgusting, corrupt people. From the queen to thieves like me, everyone's out for themselves." Our talk was sending my mind back into a dark place. I swore I could almost see Jasper running away through the tunnel ahead of us.
"Sounds like the Faerie courts." Ib said quietly. "I guess the whole world's that way." He didn't say it, but I could tell just by his tone and the look in his eyes that he'd dreamed of a human world far different from the one I'd known.
"You aren't missing anything," I mumbled. "Even if you aren't free, you're better off warming Mab's bed than you are starving to death in some rat-infested gutter." The words echoed through the hollow space between my ribs and the tunnels both.
We walked out into the Hollow's forest. There were no war drums. No chattering goblins. No cheers. Just endless, deafening silence. The unnatural kind that gets your hair standing on end. I looked around the forest of seemingly dead trees, at their gnarled and twisted network of branches that weaved together overhead, reaching up into the earth. So many. Thousands? More than that? The number must be countless if they've added to it since the dawning of life itself. Somewhere within that forest, a fresh sapling was growing from King Frode's corpse. The dark soil at our feet was rich with the ashes of the princes that hadn't been good enough.
Agi continued leading the way into The Hollow. It was completely empty save for two goblins. Knut and one other. A smaller man stood at his side, a beaked mask tucked beneath one arm and a thin golden sword brandished in the other. Dark hair was brushed back from a high forehead. A thin face etched with deep hollows was dominated by large pupils that stared out of deep eye sockets. A thin, barely-there mouth was almost hidden beneath the long, curved nose that jutted out from his face.
"Who is this?" I asked, coming to a stop in front of the long-nosed man. The mask and the sword gave me an idea, but I'd never seen his face during his fight in The Hollow when I first visited. I couldn't be absolutely certain.
"My father called him, Llinos." Knut said. "He was his favorite champion. Mine as well. You remember him, don't you? Even you knew he'd win almost as soon as he set foot in the arena last time."
It was him. The gladiator. Llinos bowed his head at a tilt, his eyes fixed on my face. "Forgive me." He said softly before lunging towards me with his golden sword aimed at my belly.
I started to leap backward, to dodge the blow, but Llinos was fast. Impossibly fast. I saw the blade coming nearer and nearer to my side and squeezed my eyes shut, preparing myself for searing pain.
"Pitiful." Llinos said. I blinked my eyes open and saw that he'd stopped. The blade laid against my side but hadn't cut into me. He slipped his sword into its sheath at his side as he stood straight. Even at his full height, the top of his head barely reached my nose. Those large bird's eyes peered straight through me. "If I were her enemy, she would be dead now."
"Yes, you see my problem," Knut said.
"What's going on?" My breathing was ragged, my heart racing still with panic. "Why did he attack me?"
"He wasn't attacking you." Knut laughed. His arm clamped down around my shoulder. "He was testing your reflexes. He's going to be training you."
"Training me?"
Knut smirked. "You are very good at attacking. You know how to use a blade. How to kill swiftly and efficiently using stealth and manipulation. However, you haven't the slightest clue how to defend yourself against an outright attack. That we have to fix." There was a flicker of malice in his eyes that made my heart flutter. "I will not have my wife stolen from me." With his arm wrapped firmly, possessively, around me, his words echoed with greater meaning than perhaps he meant.