The werewolf hesitated a moment, then gestured to a table. “You’re welcome to eat. Welcome to pass through. But not to stay.”
That would have to do. Blue Jay nodded. “You have our thanks.”
“Keep them. I’ve done you no great favor. You could still be eaten on your way out of the Quarter.”
He turned on his heel and signaled to a waiter to attend to them. Chorti did not wait, but moved quickly to a nearby table. Blue Jay was not at all surprised, given that the wild man was practically slavering at the scent of meat. After a moment’s hesitation, Cheval joined Chorti at the table.
“What are you doing?” Blue Jay whispered as he went to her side. He did not take a seat, standing beside her instead.
Cheval gazed up at him. “We have been offered a moment of haven and hospitality. It might do well for us to make an effort to be less conspicuous.”
Blue Jay laughed softly and stared at her, wondering if her mind was quite intact. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
Already Lycaon had drawn a great deal of attention to them. He looked around and saw two of the Keen Keengs bent close, muttering to one another. The third he caught watching him, but it glanced away upon being discovered.
“This is idiotic,” Blue Jay said.
He strode toward the center of the restaurant, out into the open courtyard. Warm summer rain pattered his hair and jacket, fell upon his hands as he stopped and glanced around. If the whispers were true and there were Borderkind taking refuge in the Latin Quarter, he had not seen any of them here. As he surveyed those lunching at Lycaon’s Kitchen, many of them studied him in return. Human faces narrowed with concern or suspicion or simple curiosity. Blue Jay did not mind the scrutiny. In truth, he had counted on it.
The waiters studiously ignored him. If Lycaon had not slain them or thrown them out, then his staff would not trouble themselves. Only the waiter assigned to the table where Chorti and Cheval sat would pay any attention to them.
Yet there was one other.
Blue Jay raised an eyebrow when he saw Leicester Grindylow emerge from the kitchen bearing a tray of sandwiches. Grin had been a frequent customer at Amelia’s and often substituted as a bartender there. But Blue Jay knew that the long-armed bogie had also been a friend of Jenny Greenteeth’s, and Jenny had betrayed them to the Hunters. He wondered if Grin was also a traitor.
When the Grindylow saw Blue Jay, he lifted one hand in an amiable wave. Grin slid his tray onto the table before him and smiled at the trickster before sorting the plates out in front of the olive-skinned women at the table. They whispered to one another and looked at Blue Jay with gossip and scandal in their eyes.
Blue Jay nodded to Grin and resumed his search of the restaurant.
A pair of hooded men sat at a table near the kitchen. As an oven door opened, the heat and light of the fire inside rushing out, they glanced up. Their faces were wan and gray, eyes black, and their beards were white and braided. Blue Jay knew them on sight as Mazikeen.
Yet if there were Mazikeen here, he did not understand why they had not revealed themselves. They were not cowards, that much he knew. Which meant they had come here for another purpose, and perhaps it was in his best interest to give them their secrecy for another few moments at least.
As he searched, he noted the presence of a few other Borderkind. Several merrows sat together, feasting upon raw fish, their webbed fingers and large green eyes revealing their marine nature. Toward the front of the restaurant, bathed in the gray light that came through the pitted glass of a window, a small man sat eating something that resembled burnt poultry. His features were unmistakably Asian, yet though he was the size of a child, his face was clearly adult. As Blue Jay studied him, he turned away, resolutely refusing to meet the trickster’s gaze.
Borderkind. Blue Jay was certain of it.
He started to walk toward the little man and crossed a place where the warm summer rain was frozen, icy sleet. Blue Jay flinched and glanced upward, but even as he did so he realized what had happened. The roof was open to the gray stormy sky, and Frost had passed above the courtyard, watching him, swirling in the wind and rain.
Cocky and carefree as he normally was, Blue Jay felt a distinct relief at this reassurance that Frost was with him. Cheval and Chorti might be staunch allies, but neither their loyalty nor their skill as warriors had yet been tested.
The little man glanced at last toward Blue Jay as the trickster approached. Fire ignited his eyes and streamed to the sides, flames rising toward his hair. He was no Greek or Roman legend, obviously, and so he must be Borderkind, or have presented himself as such.
Blue Jay strode to within several feet of him and bowed.
The little man with flaming eyes nodded slowly, as though in resignation.
The bang of wood on marble cracked in the air like a gunshot. Blue Jay twisted round even as Cheval called his name. The Keen Keengs had thrown their table aside. Wings spread, they lunged across the restaurant, banging chairs out of the way and driving a waiter to the ground. Chorti rose up in an explosion of fur and claws, huge jaws opening to reveal those perilously long metal teeth. The first of the Keen Keengs grabbed him and drove him to the ground with the power of its thrashing wings, long talons raking Chorti’s fur.
Cheval staggered back several steps, retreating from the attack. But she was not fleeing. She transformed in the space of those steps from stunning beauty to horrid ugliness-from woman to the green-furred, muck-encrusted horse-woman form of the kelpy. She reared back and shot out a hoof, cracking the skull of the nearest Keen Keeng. The thing was shaken, but then it spread its wings wider and screamed fury, ignoring the blood that ran from the fissure in its face.
Blue Jay ran toward his companions, and once again the blur of azure wings colored the air around him. One of the waiters reached out to prevent him from joining the fray and Blue Jay spun, dancing on the air, spirit-wings hammering the waiter, throwing him back onto a table that tipped beneath his weight.
As he raced toward the Keen Keengs, he saw Chorti grip his attacker by the throat and lift him from the ground. The wild man bared his metal claws and slashed the bat-man’s right wing, shredding it entirely. The Keen Keeng reached for Chorti’s eyes, trying to gouge them out, and the wild man plunged metal claws into its chest and, with a splintering of bone and wet ripping of flesh, tore out a handful of pink organ flesh.
The one with the cracked skull leaped toward Cheval. Again she kicked it. This time when it stumbled back, the Grindylow caught it in his arms. Blue Jay took flight, feet sweeping above the ground though he maintained a vaguely human form. The trickster was disappointed that he would have to kill the amiable bogie.
Grin reached up, wrapped an arm around the Keen Keeng’s head, and with a swift jerk broke its neck. He dropped the dead thing to the ground.
CHAPTER 9
T he castle of Otranto stood on a hillside above a broad lake whose calm, silvery surface reflected back the image of the castle. It was a grim, practical structure built for the glory of war rather than pride. Round towers marked each corner and the outer walls were windowless. Near the top they were lined with iron spikes to prevent climbing. Even in peacetime, there were soldiers on the battlements and sentries on the tops of the towers and at the gate.
Hunyadi’s flag waved in the breeze from a post atop the gatehouse.
The king was in residence.
Oliver rode alone toward the castle on a road that curved northward through fertile farmland. Men and women worked the fields, harvesting everything from berries to barley. In the distance, the span of two entire hills displayed an orchard full of fruit trees. Pickers carried barrels to wagons drawn by horses, and children ran amongst the trees. Despite the distance, Oliver fancied that he could hear their laughter.