Nuss sighed and looked out over the crags of snow and rocks that could have killed us. "It is a secret long held by the Land of Snowflakes. You all see now why I've been so adamant that we do everything in our power to keep her safe."
He pointed to me, and I both wanted to kiss him again and slap him at the same time. Why was he keeping so many secrets from me?
Nuss continued on. "Had I known Fritz was here in the Winter Realm we would have had to rescue him too. The Mouse Queen can never get a hold of either of them. We'll be lucky if she doesn't already have some of his magic."
"Is this why you didn't want to touch me last night?" My bottom lip was still swollen from his harsh kiss, but it hurt less than where my thoughts were going.
Nuss swallowed hard and then knelt at my feet. He took my hand in his and gave it a soft kiss. "No, my lady. I want nothing more than to bond with you. But we must first find the crowns."
That meant we were headed straight to the Land of Snowflakes next because Nuss and I had some things to work out in and out of the bed. The siphoning my magic thing was high on the list. "What was that you said about me not needing the Land of Snowflakes power? Don't I need all the Lands?"
The four men looked at each other and did that silent communication thing that comes from knowing each other so well. Nuss answered for them all. "We don't know. It's not like the Winter Realm has ever lost an entire land and its royal family and been taken over by a power-hungry animal before. We hoped that by all of us bonding with you, we could grow your magic exponentially."
I'd assumed just Fritz and I were lost, not the whole land of Spirit and Magic that we'd been born to. Something niggled in my memory. "Drosselmeyer's stories must have mentioned something about this. Fritz, do you remember the stories of the Vivandiere and the seven crowns of the Winter Realm?"
Fritz wiggled around like a giant floppy fish, but Nuss had thoroughly tied him to the saddle, and he wasn't going anywhere. "Why would I? That was baby stuff."
"God, Fritz, don't be a dummy." I threw my hands up and rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn't see me. "Clearly it was all real."
"The realm might be real, but do you see a soldier woman traipsing around here? And if the Mouse Queen is so awful why hasn't the Vivandiere fought back herself?" Fritz's voice was beginning to grate on my nerves, as was his attitude.
But he had a point. Where was the Vivandiere? I turned to the men. "Are there legends or stories about what happened to her?"
"Who are you talking about, lass?" Leb was the last person I'd expect to keep secrets from me, so his question struck me as weird.
These were stories about their lands, they happened in their realm. I only knew them second-hand and had heard them as a child. "The soldier woman who hid all the pieces of the seven crowns from the wizard."
Nuss remained much too quiet and when we got to his land, he and I were having more than one conversation. I wasn't bonding with someone who didn't trust me.
"What about you two? Do the Fae lands keep secrets too?" I didn't think Zucker had held anything back from me. He'd been enthusiastic about everything from the first kiss.
"Subterfuge isn't the Sweet Fae way. But I don't know of a soldier woman called a Vivandiere. Tau?"
"I've got nothing. But perhaps the stories predate us. If that's so, the Fae Queens might know. They've both lived an exceptionally long time."
I'd been going on the assumption that I could find the pieces of the seven crowns because I knew all the stories of how and where they'd been hidden. But what if none of the stories were even real?
"How old are the Fae Queens?" Surely, they would remember. Or if they didn’t, we'd find out just how much trouble we were in.
"Hundreds of your human years," Zucker said.
What? Hundreds? Let me get this straight in my head. Fritz and I were born on the same day as all the men, so they were the same age as we were. Which was strange. They all seemed much older than me. But that must just be because they had so much more life experience than I did.
Drosselmeyer was at least twice as old as I was, probably three times. I didn't really know. He told Fritz and I the stories when we were young, but as if they happened in his lifetime. The Fae Queens were probably the same age or even younger than Drosselmeyer if they had sons my age. Mother Gingerbread didn't seem that old.
It couldn't be right that the stories were so old that they hadn't heard them or that my men were a hundred or more years older than I was. "I have a strange question. But does time move the same in the human realm as it does here?"
Tau shook his head. "No, vastly different and I'm sure that's been strange for you and Fritz to be caught in the middle of that. Sometimes, like now during the twelve days of Christmas we move much faster than the humans. One day here is like two hours there."
I've been in the Winter Realm a day, and only a few hours have passed at home? I'd be surprised if anyone even noticed I was gone. "At other times this world must pass the time slower because I think you all are older than I am, even though we're supposedly born on the same day."
Tau nodded confirming my suspicion. "Correct. But very few residents of the realm are privy to information about the human world. Mostly only royalty."
I slapped my hand over my mouth to cover my sudden gasp. Because the men weren't the only ones who seemed to have a few years on me. I marched over to Fritz and slugged him in the tied-up arm. "You've been here before, a bunch of times, haven't you?"
"Ouch. Now who’s the dummy, little sister?" Fritz squirmed around and glared at me.
"Oh, you still are. I can't believe you didn't tell me." I hit him again for good measure. Had to be the bit of warrior magic from the Gingerbread Kingdom in me feeling violent. If I didn't think he'd have valuable knowledge, that we could use, I'd shove him off this horse right now and tie him to a Christmas tree. My friends the pixies would feed him, so he didn't die.
