“Conscience,” she spits. “Consciences are for elves. Now I have a question that’s meant to be answered. Cooperate, and I won’t send you over the rim.”
“You willing to risk that? I might take my answer with me.”
“Perhaps, though it worked the last time.”
The last time. Exactly how many humans have been forced into this shit?
I’ve got questions, too. Plus, distractions to dish out. Lastly, an escape to plot before she makes good on her promise. “Where am I?”
“I’m asking the questions, not you!” Nevertheless, the Fae replies, “You’re in The Black Nest. It’s where we jail prisoners and leave them to rot, along with the humans who fail to reach the labyrinth’s crest but also fail to perish in the process, thus ruining our entertainment.”
“How rude,” I remark.
“Well, if you didn’t wish to decay here, you should have informed The Cauldron of Bats on your way down. They would have boosted you back up.”
I’d seen The Black Nest inscribed on the courtyard post. As for The Cauldron of Bats, that one’s a wild card.
So I’m in a cage shaped like an enclosed nest. And she happened to be here when I crash-landed? Hardly. Maybe she was part of the gaggle watching from the trees at The Wayward Steps. Whatever question’s chipping a hole in her head, it must be important enough to trail me.
“A trade,” I say, remembering a certain tongue-twister delivered by Cerulean during our initial meeting. “An answer for an answer. And…” Careful not to agitate the crate, I check my pack for the remnant offerings that survived my fall, then withdraw a ball of ribbon. “This too, but none of your parlor tricks. I like this cage right where it is.”
Her topaz eyes twinkle. She hops from her perch and plucks the ball from between the bars.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, bracing myself.
“A simple thing,” she says, weaving the ribbon into a sash around her waist. “Reports say that you resisted Cerulean’s lure. Is that true?”
I blink. “You mean the flute? It’s true.”
“But that’s impossible! If I was able to glamour you, he certainly should have been capable. You’re lying again.”
I’ve got no way to disprove it. All I know is his flute should have swayed me twice but didn’t.
It was a dumb idea, telling this to the Fae. She glowers as if someone revealed that her hero, the tooth fairy, doesn’t exist. “I should tip you over for this slander. I should splatter you all over the valley floor.”
“Do I get to ask my question first?”
She huffs. “If you must.”
What do I want to know most of all? Whatever I choose, she’ll skip around the truth, unable to outright lie. I need to start with something that no Fable mentions.
“Why, this mountain? Why make it into a labyrinth?” I ask, exaggerating my tone to sound awed. With any luck, it’ll stoke the Fae’s ego, enticing her to share more than she usually would.
The Fae puffs out her chest and opens her mouth.
“But what better landscape for tricksters to live in?” a new voice inquires.
The female snaps her mouth shut, her eyes inflating. I follow her gaze.
From the shadowed hedges, Cerulean emerges like a midnight wraith. With lazy strides, he prowls down the path, his boot heels clicking against the ground and the javelin prominent at his hip.
Not taking his eyes off me, he speaks to the whippersnapper. “Pecking at my spoils, Moth? What have I told you about sidetracking our quarry? It interrupts the fun.”
Moth. Guess her parents weren’t feeling very creative.
The Fae flutters into a curtsy. “Sire. We were—”
Cerulean halts and fixes her with a censorious expression.
