“I thought... that the Seelie, the light Fae, were... the good guys?” She bit her lip, hoping that Patch wouldn’t be offended by the question.
The kobold snorted. “Light and dark are only a reference to a Fae’s source of power, girlie, not an indication of what lies in their heart. Are we dark Fae more prone to giving humans nightmares or tempting them into danger? Of course, life wouldn’t be fun without a bit of danger, eh?” He was chuckling to himself now as if at some private joke. “I suppose if you want to get down to particulars, the Seelie might overall be more appealing on the surface, but trust me, Kate of the Winslows, you’d be better off with Lord Arun than the likes of Culan. At least when Lord Arun seduces you, he will give you all that you desire. We are the court of dark, delicious pleasures. The Seelie love to play their harps and sing their merry songs, but us... we embrace our hungers and our vices in equal measure. You’ll have no shame here, not if you become his consort.”
“Consort?” Kate had heard the word before but only in the context of marriage to a royal person.
“Aye, some might call you a human pet, but Lord Arun would certainly take you as his consort, to care for you all your long-lived days.” He hummed softly then, a little tune that was part mystery and part melancholy. “You wouldn’t know the ballad of the Bride of the Dark Woods, would you?” he asked, clearly convinced he already knew her answer.
She shook her head.
“Didn’t think so. Humans always forget the best stories we tell them. The bride was one of you, a human girl who was brought here by one of Lord Arun’s ancestors when she made a wish. She became the king’s consort, his queen.”
“She married a dark Fae king?” Now Kate was enraptured. That was a story she’d like to read. “Could you tell the story to me?”
Patch huffed. “I’m no bloody bard, girlie. Besides, we’ve got to keep our wits about us. If I start trying to tell a story, we’d get eaten.”
“Oh...” The sting of disappointment faded when she remembered what he’d been telling her about the labyrinth and its dangers. He was absolutely right—getting lost dreaming about fairy tales would only get them both killed.
“So how do I kill trolls and basilisk?”
Patch let out an aggrieved sigh, as though her questions were starting to annoy him. “You need onlyrunfrom a troll. They are slow, stupid beasts. Just don’t stand too long in one place, so they can’t strike you with a club.”
“And basilisks?” She kept at his side as they walked along the path.
“Assuming you avoid staring at one or getting bitten, you need to have your blade soaked in its own venom to kill it.” Patch shot her pitying look. “If you see a basilisk, you’re probably done, girl. Done.”
Kate shivered as a knot of dread welled up inside her. If she was remembering her mythology, a basilisk was a serpentine creature that was sometimes said to have a lion’s tail or a even a rooster-like head, but was definitely snakelike. She wasn’t afraid of snakes, at least not the ones who weren’t venomous. She even liked holding ones that weren’t dangerous. But a basilisk wasn’t just a poisonous snake. It was a legendary one. One that could kill her before she could even blink. If she got herself killed, Caden would never get to go home.
Oh, Caden...She wanted to cry, wanted to go back home and just convince herself this was all some wild dream. But it wasn’t. She sniffed, trying to fight off the burn of tears. If her mother was here, she’d tell her to buck up, to keep her focus on the goal.
“Well, I can’t just give up, Patch,” Kate whispered. “Roan has my brother in the dungeons at the palace. If I can solve the labyrinth in a month, he’ll set us both free.”
“Isthatwhat Lord Arun said?” Patch looked unconvinced. “You’re in the land of the Unseelie, girl. Every bargain has a price, every wish comes with a sacrifice. ’Tis the way with all Fae. We can’t be trusted.”
“Even you? You’ve been really helpful,” Kate reminded the kobold. She had already learned quite a bit about this world, thanks to him.
The kobold gave her a look of reluctant surprise.
“If I was, I didn’t mean to be,” he grumbled and resumed walking.
Kate still had more questions, and she hoped the grumpy little Fae would keep answering them.
“Why would Roan bring me here? I mean... I’m not exactly fairy consort material.” She was just a girl. She knew she was pretty, but she wasn’t “bride of the dark Fae king” kind of pretty. She wasn’t experienced, she wasn’t worldly, she wasn’t... anything Roan should be interested in. So why had he brought her here?
She didn’t want to think about the way he’d kissed her in the bathing room, because if she did, she would have to acknowledge that some small part of her wished she had done exactly what he had asked her to do: strip naked and climb in his bed. That girl wouldn’t be facing trolls, Fae vampires, or basilisks. She’d be having sweaty, mind-altering sex with a Fae lord.
But Kate had never had sex, had never done anything more than make out with a boy. Roan was all man, everything that frightened and excited her in ways she barely understood. She’d been hoping that in college she’d find a guy she liked and trusted, and then she’d take that step into exploring sex, but she was a long way from her college campus, a long way from that life she had been looking forward to.
Her previous life seemed strangely distant, as though another person had lived that life, and who she was right now... this was therealKate. A woman stuck in a labyrinth with a grumpy kobold.
“You wished for him to bring you here. At least, that’s what the pixies said. He only did what you wanted,” Patch said.
“But Ididn’task him to bring me here, I—” She stopped dead in her tracks, her mind replaying her whispered plea into the barn owl’s feathers. Into Roan’s feathers. “That... that wasn’t a wish,” she protested.
Patch glanced over his shoulder. “A wish is a wish if you truly want what you wished for. That means you wanted to leave wherever you were. And no, Lord Arun has never done this before. Now his father, Lord Bahden Arun,heliked human women a bit too much. When he stole that human queen... er... What’s her name...?” Patch muttered as Kate ran to catch up to him. “Gwendolyn... Wandavere?”
“Guinevere?” Kate suggested.
Patch snapped his fingers. “Aye, that’s the one. Well, that started a lot of nonsense in the human world, it did. Got ’em real upset.”
