One mistake was all it took. Being here was a horror and an honor, because of it. She was trusted to handle matters.
She pushed the goblet to one side, and Hildr grasped it and tossed it back with one singular motion. The goblet crunched between teeth.
One of the Faerie in attendance managed to look horrified.
Another cleared its throat, saying, “Then, if we shall sum up the first part of our bargain, Aifric, Lachtna, and Gearalt will accompany you and guarantee safe passage to you and your Hildr, guiding you out of the Faerie and into your city and your world. There, you’ll be able to pair them up with the young ladies you described, and they’ll enjoy an adventure in mortal form.”
“So we hope,” she said. The wind was making its way through the grove of trees, and the rustling formed almost-words, as if a slight change in direction might make sense of it all.
Had one of the Faerie given a subtle signal to the trained wind spirits to cue the distraction? Was it meant to distract her from something?
“We’ll need confirmation,” the Faerie ambassador spoke. “Do you agree?”
Did she?
“Let us talk about that in a moment,” she said, deflecting the promise. “There is another subject I must raise, and it’s hard to do so in a polite way.”
“Rest assured,” the Faerie to her left told her, “Mavourneen and I are some of the least polite Faerie you’ll ever meet.”
She was all too aware. Riordan and Mavourneen were mercenaries in the court, known for their uncharacteristically brutal natures. If the Faerie were all playing a complicated, multilayered and interconnected game of chess, then Riordan and Mavourneen made themselves out to be knights that any side could use to make plays. Which wasn’t to say they weren’t making plays of their own, when nobody was looking.
They’d befriended her, offering her their services, which she had taken, because the wildernesses that stood between any Faerie-inhabited space tended to be dangerous, and she wanted Hildr in tip-top shape in case something happened. She had already uncovered one planned betrayal, and she was already betting that this wasn’t only a cover-up for a deeper, more subtle betrayal that she wouldn’t uncover, but that the whole interplay with Riordan and Mavourneen and the ambassador was part of a greater scheme. Each of the three could have practiced this play in various forms until it became second nature, and she was the latest fly to step into the web.
“My husband. Four of his satyrs seem to have gone missing.”
“You’d like our help in locating them?”
“I’ve located them already. I’ve been led to believe they’re in your employ, ambassador.”
“Are they? My staff will have to answer for this.”
“I’ve heard tales that you were the one that expressed interest in it. To have a different kind of danger lurking in the labyrinthine corridors around your tower, and a decoration at your evening parties.”
“Mad,” he said.
She sat back. Hildr leaned forward, planting one meaty hand on either side of the surface, leaning over Sandra.
Sandra reached out to toy with one of the dangling braids and metal shackles. “Mad indeed.”
“You asked me if you could come here, expressing good faith. If you do violence-“
“I asked you to visit Toronto in good faith. My husband and I didn’t expect to find ourselves missing four satyrs.”
She could see the weave of connections at play, she could pluck, pull and break connections if the situation demanded it, but some connections were false ones. Others were bait, strands that were sticky enough she wouldn’t be able to free herself if she tampered with them.
“You act above your station,” he said.
She couldn’t help but feel she was following a script. No doubt the Faerie ambassador had stolen people before, had played out dozens of permutations of the same scene, learning to account for all the possible variables.
She gestured, and saw the Faerie’s eyes go wide.
Hildr lifted the metal patio table, tearing it from the ground, where it had been worked into brick and tile, alternating patches of grass and flower, in a very strategic and stylized ‘ruin’ layout.
The female troll pushed the table’s edge against the ambassador’s throat, toppling him backward in his chair. The table was held down, pinning him. It was large enough and heavy enough that if the troll saw fit to let go, it would pass through the Faerie’s neck and likely sink a short distance into the ground.
‘Her’ mercenaries were standing, now, a distance away, hands on their weapons. One with a sword, one with a handgun. They seemed a little out of sorts.
“They were not yours to take,” she said.
“He had no claim to them,” the ambassador said, voice strangled.
“His god did. Dionysus gave a contingent of his servants to my husband for looking after. If those satyr are not returned, the god will be very upset.”
“We can bargain. I’ll pay you generously for the creatures. My generosity is worth more than a dead god’s wrath.”
“Not dead. Some still worship him. My husband included. Dionysus remains a god who can make his displeasure known. You crossed us. Me, my husband, my husband’s god.”
And here was the conundrum. The tangled weave. Killing the ambassador was easy, relatively speaking. But even a low-ranked Faerie like this ambassador was embroiled in a thousand different schemes. The Faerie were very invested in their houses of cards, and they felt a genuine kind of upset when they couldn’t see things through to the epic moments that had been decades in the planning.
That upset had a way of finding the individual who upset the house of cards. Worse, it fed into what the Faerie really wanted. A break from the pattern.
When that happened, they tended to get creative.
“Arms and legs only,” she said. “He lives.”
“Wait!” the ambassador cried out. “I can-“
The table came down like a chef might use a knife to dice a vegetable. Wrist, elbow, shoulder, ankle, knee, hip. The impacts were heavy enough to toss the Ambassador into the air like a rag doll, but the table still struck unerringly at the key points.
The Faerie screamed.
Touching her implement, she found and extinguished the torches and candles around the patio.