***
After breakfast, Stonemane fetches his journey bag and joins us in the front sitting room. He wears his traveling clothes again, though they are stiff and clean now. I study them covertly; we have not done the wash since he arrived. Did he wash them out in a bucket in his room, or merely wave his fingers and shoot sparks from his eyes?
He sits on the floor, his bag over his shoulder and looks to Niya. The rest of us are seated around the room, Bean rocking back and forth on the edge of her chair in excitement. Niya and I have agreed that the best place for her to sew her stitches is in my sash, for I already have a few bands of embroidery at the ends. She holds it in her hands now.
“Are you ready, my lord?” she asks.
He dips his head. “I thank you all for your hospitality.”
“I am sorry for this trouble,” Baba says.
“So you have said,” he agrees. “But it is not of your making. Miss,” he nods at Niya, “do your work.”
She does. In five simple stitches, she sews a small circle on my sash. She pauses as her needle begins the final stitch. Stonemane waits, his eyes on her fingers. I glance between them, my eyes alighting on Stonemane just as Niya pulls the needle through with a single, confident tug. Stonemane snaps out of existence; one moment sitting before me and then, between one blink and the next, disappearing so completely I can almost believe he had never been there at all.
Bean gives a little shout of glee and jumps up. “Oh, you’re good!”
Niya smiles as she knots the thread and breaks off the extra. She looks relaxed, the tension slipping from her shoulders. It had not occurred to me that holding her magic might be so difficult, or that having an opportunity as significant as this to use it would be a welcome reprieve rather than exhausting. She winks at Bean now. “Let’s hope he’s comfortable in there.”
“The goat never complained,” I tell her comfortingly, taking my sash back and binding it around my waist. It feels no different than it did this morning; it seems strange to imagine that the stitches themselves hold a faerie within them.
“What goat?” Baba asks.
“Nothing,” we chorus together.
He regards us with fatherly suspicion. Mama, knowing our secret, averts her eyes.
“It’s just an old joke,” Bean says a little too brightly.
Baba shakes his head. “There are some things I suppose I’m better off not knowing.”
Mama stands up, brushing out her skirts. “Bean, you’d best head off at once if you’re going to take the horses the long way round. Rae, let’s get you a spot of food packed so you don’t come back starved.”
We leave the room together, Niya catching hold of my hand. Her eyes dance with excitement. In the kitchen, Mama finishes packing a rucksack with bread, cheese, a few bits of dried, seasoned meat and a water flask while Niya fetches my walking stick. We had packed food for Stonemane as well, which he had slipped into his bag. I lace on my leather shoes, ruminating on the wonders of his bag—it clearly holds more than its small size suggests. Perhaps it also washes clothes.
Bean manages to leave a scant few minutes before me, riding out of the stable yard with five horses on a lead rope behind her. They are some of our best—Diamond and Harefoot and Storm among them. How very odd that he came to us walking when he had wealth enough to buy them. Storm alone, with her long legs and sculpted nose, with her frothing dark mane and the speed of the wind, must have cost him thrice as much as a regular riding horse. Baba would not have parted with her for less.
I take the back path leading out of the kitchen yard, walking down through the pastures. I see no one till I reach the old wagon road that borders our land. Bemain the blacksmith sits with Finyar the wheelwright, each gazing down opposite ends of the road. I raise my hand in greeting, and Bemain returns the courtesy. He says something and Finyar turns to watch my progress across the road, the walking stick swinging in time with my bad foot. Finyar snorts, and even though they are a good thirty paces down the road, I hear him say, “What, the cripple? She’s nothing to worry about.”
I set my features and keep walking, pretending their words had not carried to me. By mid-afternoon I reach Empty River. It is, as its name suggests, a great empty riverbed carved into the sandstone ground. Here, it is hardly deeper than a man stands tall, though farther into the plains I have heard it runs deeper than some mountains rise high. I follow it to where the horses are picketed in an ash grove, happily grazing on the sweet spring grass. Sitting down beneath the shade of a tree, I lay my staff on the ground and turn the end of my sash over in my hand.
I need only break the knot and the spell will be undone. Yet I hesitate. He is one of the Fair Folk, to be dealt with respectfully, but—how much can he be trusted? Mama had been afraid to leave him alone with Bean. I run my hand over the sash, then clench my fingers to keep them from shaking. I am different. I am, after all, the cripple. I take the knot between my fingernails and with one swift yank, snap it.
Genno Stonemane sits before me, utterly at ease, his journey bag beside him. His eyes run over me, and then he tilts his head to survey the horses. I push myself up, taking my staff with me, and brush the dust from my skirts.
“Empty River is there,” I say, nodding towards the sunken riverbed. “If you follow it south one day’s ride, you’ll come to Kharite Road. It runs east-west, all the way to Lirelei, if you wish to reach the sea. If you follow it east a league, you will come to Garol Road, which runs north to Tarinon.” West of us rise the mountains, sharp and clear, hardly a morning’s journey. But I doubt the faerie will be going there. That way lie only the uninhabited forests and the long, winding road to the lesser kingdoms beyond the mountains.
“Thank you,” he says. He stands fluidly, the essence of grace. I wonder if all faeries are as perniciously lovely as him, or if it is his particular gift. “Do you go back at once?”
“I must,” I say, keeping my eyes on the horses. I can feel his gaze again, coming to rest on my face. “It is a good walk, and I wish to be home by nightfall.”
“Are you afraid of the land around your home at night?” His voice is warm, amused.
“It is not fear,” I reply, my voice cold, “but practicality. It is harder for me to walk when I cannot see where I step. The new moon will not cast enough light for human eyes.”
“The ever-practical Rae,” he says agreeably. I glance at him, surprised that he would use my nickname so easily, without permission. I should not have looked for he was waiting to catch my gaze. “Tell me, why would your parents let you walk here on your weak foot, when your sister might easily have carried me as she rode? Why didn’t she wait for you here?”
In the afternoon light I realize that his eyes are not all black, but the deepest brown fringing a night-dark center. There is a warmth there that blackness cannot hold, like a forest in darkest night, the trees still friendly company. “Bean is pretty,” I say, my voice no more than a whisper.
“Ah,” he says softly, and turns back to the horses. I clutch my staff, leaning heavily on it, grateful for his attention elsewhere. I know I should leave now, that he will let me walk away without another word, but there is an unbearable bitterness on my tongue. I watch as he moves among the horses, greeting each with a cupped hand, checking their hooves to assure they are ready to travel.
When he is done, he crosses back to fetch his journey bag. “I suggested it,” I say suddenly.
He frowns slightly. “I recall.”
“They weren’t happy.”
“Yet here you are. Suppose that I have now what I wished from your father: five of the finest horses in Menaiya and his daughter’s company.”
His words surprise a laugh from me. “The horses are lovely, but I’m afraid you’ve gotten the raw end of the deal when it comes to me. Better luck next time.”
I start away, my staff swinging out as I begin the trek back home. Faster than I’ve seen any man move, I find him a bare pace in front of me. I lurch to a h
alt.
“I make my own luck,” he says smiling. “I rather like what I have just now.”
“Lord Stonemane,” I say carefully, hoping the formality will keep him at bay. “I should not have stayed this long; the way back is not short and, as I told you, I would not walk at night. I wish you safe travels and prosperous arrivals.” I breathe slowly, knowing that he plays with me, that I have nothing truly to fear. Do I?
“You’re a hard woman, Mistress Amraeya,” he says quietly. “You should on occasion be kinder to yourself.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“No,” he agrees. “Before you go, I would repay my debt to your family.”
“Debt?”
“You have risked something to deliver me here. I do not allow myself to remain in debt when I can help it.” He pauses, his eyes wandering past me as he considers his words. “For your sister of the gray eyes, I offer these words: there are many different paths to working magic. She has found one, and the mages of this land would have taught her another. Tell her, among the Fae, the highest magic is that of understanding patterns.”
I nod, storing away his words. His eyes return to me, dark and, despite their human aspect, utterly foreign. He swings his journey bag around and delves into it. “For your sister who loves animals,” he says, and brings forth a stone no bigger than the pad of my thumb, carved in the shape of a stocky little horse. I hold my hand out silently, and he drops the tiny statue in it. For a heartbeat, it feels as though the stone moved, as though what I hold in my hand is a living creature. But it is only a little figurine, and I drop it into my skirt pocket with some relief.
“And this,” he says, “is for the cripple.”
He holds his hand out to me, his fingers curled around the mottled wooden hilt of an old bone knife. I stumble back, staring at him, at his perfect face, smooth and unsmiling. I had not thought his words could hurt me so.
“I do not require your thanks,” I say, my voice uneven. I want only to get away now, to have nothing more to do with faeries and their hellish eyes that see everything.
“My debt must be repaid,” he says. “And you walk so easily into danger, you may need a knife.”
“I absolve you of your debt,” I say, my voice shaking. “Safe travels, my lord.” He lets me pass him. I walk as quickly as I can, my staff meeting the ground with purposeful thunks. I dare not look back.
“Prosperous arrivals,” he says, the wind bearing me his words. I jerk my chin down, careful not to raise my hand to wipe away my tears. I do not look back until the path has wound away from Empty River and turned north towards home. By then the copse has sunk into the gently rolling land.
I reach home just past sunset, a faint pinkish-blue light still lurking in the west. Our house has never looked so welcoming before. I pause a moment at the edge of the kitchen yard, my eyes running over the adobe walls. The timbers that support the roof extend through the walls, throwing a row of shadows over the smooth earthen sides. Lamplight falls through the kitchen doorway, creating a golden path across the yard. I have only to step onto that path and be returned to my family.
“You’re back!” Bean shouts, rousing me from my reverie. She crosses the yard at a dead run and very nearly knocks us both down with the force of her hug.
“Of course. Did you think I was running away?”
“He was faerie,” she cries. “I should have stayed and waited for you.”
“Rae?” Niya calls from the lamp-lit doorway, and then there are three of us nearly falling over. “I kept thinking I should have sewn you a skillet,” she gasps, her arms tight around my neck. “Or—or something.”
“Don’t be silly,” I scold her, hugging her back just as tightly. “What would a faerie want with me?”
“He rather seemed to like you,” Bean says diffidently. “He listened to what you said.”
“Ha,” I say, remembering our last exchange. “He listened because I gave him a plan.”
“I dunno,” she says, unconvinced.
I laugh. “Did you see him, Bean? Then imagine their women. We must look like little old hens next to them.” I take my sisters’ hands and lead them towards the kitchen. “I rather think all those stories about Fair Folk stealing children are just a lot of poppycock. What would they want with the likes of us?”
“I suppose we look different to them as well,” Niya says thoughtfully. “Perhaps they think their own folk look a little too every-day in contrast.”
“Oh, Niya.”
Bean, not as concerned with the unknown as what happened, asks, “What did he say? When you let him out?”
“Not much.”
Niya glances at me nervously. “Did he look okay?”
“None the worse for wear,” I assure her, and then look up to see Mama in the doorway, her hands fisted in her apron.
“Rae.”
I reach her, smiling, but she doesn’t smile back, only holds out a hand to me. I take it and find myself folded in a fierce hug. Inside, Baba climbs to his feet slowly, standing before the low kitchen table as if lost. He looks suddenly, inexplicably, like an old man.
“I was going to come looking for you,” he says, his voice rough, “if you didn’t get back soon. Don’t you ever let me allow you to do such a thing again.”
“Yes, Baba.”
At which point Mama, strangely silent till now, launches into a full-fledged rebuke of all involved, including herself, and ends with a clear directive to my father to never invite another faerie into the house.
“Ah, but love, he’s taken some of our best horses. I’m sure he’ll show them off; and we can’t very well treat faeries rudely if they do come to our doorstep. An angry faerie is more trouble than a wildfire.”
“Oh, brilliant,” Mama says. “Are we going to stitch them all into sashes?”