With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 13
If only they’d been able to get their hands on Alberich’s head, but that ship was long sailed. The only reason she hadn’t completely lost hope was because Simon was still out there. If he could find the Rider’s head like she’d asked, there was still a chance they could keep Valente from dying when Orlando showed up. It wasn’t much, but it was the only hope Lola had right now, and she clung to it with rabid determination. She was about to ask Tristan if he was feeling well enough to open the barrow for pizza delivery since she was almost at the bottom of her emergency Cup Ramen stash when Lola felt something buzz in her pocket.
She rolled off the bed with a jolt, landing on her butt on the carpet as she wrestled the sleek, slippery phone out of her gossamer and up to her ear.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Simon said.
Lola clutched the phone with a relieved breath so sharp it cut. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice right now.”
“I’m happy to hear you, too,” he said, sounding very pleased with himself. “But I need your help. I’m at the ruins of Tristan’s old apartment, but I can’t find the door to his barrow. Can you—”
“Wait, you’re here?” Lola interrupted in a panic. “Like in person? What about—”
“Victor’s asleep,” he said, sounding even smugger than before. “He still has to do that sometimes. I already made sure I wasn’t followed, so can you ask the fairy to me in? I’ve got something for you.”
Lola promised she would and hung up, looking pleadingly at Tristan, who just arched an eyebrow.
“I thought you said you weren’t able to rescue Victor’s apprentice?”
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it,” Lola reminded him. “I made it to Simon no problem. He just didn’t want to come back with me.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t want to talk about that,” Tristan said, taking an unhurried sip of his disgusting tonic. “So why is he scratching at my door now? What’s he been doing that merits an audience with the lady whose help he so caddishly rejected?”
“Pretending to be Victor’s loyal servant so he can stab him in the back.”
Tristan choked on his green drink. “You should have led with that,” he said, hauling his stiff body out of the chair. “Which door is he at?”
“Your old apartment,” Lola said, sticking to the fairy’s heels as Tristan hobbled into the living room. “I know it’s destroyed, but I didn’t tell him where any of your new doors were, so it was the only place he knew to go.”
“That’s fine. Low roads are a specialty of mine.” He got to the hallway door and paused, looking over his shoulder. “You might want to wait here. I’m not exactly at my best right now. I wouldn’t want to accidentally drop you in the ocean.”
Lola backed off at once, putting up her hands as Tristan limped into the blue-carpeted hallway and closed the door. She felt the whole barrow tilt like a ship going over a wave a second later. The floor was still settling when Tristan came back in, and walking right behind him was Simon.
Tears sprang to Lola’s eyes. She couldn’t help it. It was just such a relief to see him on his feet again. Even the horrid red coat he was wearing couldn’t detract from the healthy glow of his skin and the fullness of his face, so different from the skeletal corpse she’d seen at the hospital.
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” she cried, running over to throw her arms around him. “I’ve been worried sick!”
“It’s been a worrying time,” Simon agreed, hugging her back with only one arm, because the other was holding a large metal box.
Lola’s breath caught when she saw it. “Is that—”
She was interrupted by a loud bang followed by the overwhelming smell of flowers. When she turned to see what had caused it, Morgan was standing in the middle of Tristan’s living room.
Lola took an awed step back. She hadn’t seen the fairy queen in days, but her hunts had clearly been going better than Tristan had led her to believe. Like Simon, she’d transformed from an emaciated skeleton into a glowing picture of health.
She was seven feet tall and perfect as a Renaissance painting with her alabaster skin, leaf-green eyes, and waterfall of golden hair that trailed behind her like a veil. Her dress was a tapestry of sweet-blooming lilies, and her head was crowned with a garland of fragrant fire-red honeysuckle. Wherever her bare feet touched the floor, wildflowers sprang from the polished hardwood, filling Tristan’s barrow with the scent of a summer morning.
“Wow,” Lola said, batting the butterflies and honeybees that suddenly filled the air away from her face. “Someone’s feeling better.”
“I’ve been working hard,” the queen informed her in a voice as sweet and rich as the scent of her flowers. “It’s been quite the uphill battle, but that’s the lovely thing about humans. Even when the world is ending, there’s always someone willing to open their heart.” She flashed a knowing smile at Tristan. “Or at least their legs.”
The wounded fairy had a good laugh at that while Lola’s face turned scarlet. She didn’t know what else she’d expected from the queen of Tristan’s court, but the gleam in Morgan’s eyes made her knight’s constant flirtations seem innocent by comparison. It got even worse when Morgan turned her predatory smile on Simon, whose eyes were now the size of golf balls.
“Hello, handsome,” she cooed, leaning closer to his spellbound expression. “What have you brought for me?”
“He didn’t bring it for you,” Lola said irritably, shoving herself between the queen and Simon, who was still staring at the flower-covered beauty in awestruck wonder. “Stop enthralling my guest.”
“I’m not enthralling him,” Morgan insisted, looking insulted by the very idea. “What you’re seeing is the natural reaction to my restored glory. He’s merely showing his good taste, which is lucky for him, since he’s not your guest. My knight was the one who bade him enter. That makes him ours.”
Lola shot a furious look at Tristan, who just shrugged and sat down on the couch. Fortunately, the fairy queen didn’t seem interested in feeding off Simon. Her green eyes were locked on the box under his arm as she gestured for him to hand it over.
“Uh…” Simon said, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it. He glanced nervously at Lola next, but she just sighed and motioned for him to go ahead. There was no point making a stink when they were all on the same team, and she was as eager as Morgan to see what was inside.
“It’s not often I allow a bloodstained man into my presence,” the queen informed him as she took the box from Simon’s trembling hands. “The changeling believes you can be trusted, but I’m not so sure. You reek of fresh blood.”
Lola jerked. She’d been so excited to see Simon up and walking around, she hadn’t realized how much he smelled like Victor until Morgan pointed it out.
“Oh, Simon,” she whispered, pressing a hand to his red sleeve. “What did he make you do?”
“Nothing,” he said, finally shaking himself free of the fairy queen’s bedazzlement. “This was my own work.”
“But you swore you’d never—”
“Victor wouldn’t have believed I was serious if I’d kept refusing to do his magic,” Simon said in a hard, practical voice. “I did what I had to, but I promise the results will be worth it.” His face split into a smile. “I’ve got him, Lola.”
Lola was already opening her mouth to ask how when Morgan stepped in front of her.
“Explain,” the queen demanded.
“Victor’s army isn’t actually what it looks like,” Simon said, tilting his head back to meet the tall queen’s gaze head-on. No small feat without a changeling’s immunity to protect him from her glamour. “He’s got willing victims coming out his ears, but blood magic is more than just shoving your hand into someone else’s soul. The spells he needs to make his army effective take years to master. That’s way longer than he’s got, so, as usual for Victor, he’s cheating.”
“How?” Lola asked.
“Same way he did with you,” Simon said. “He’s feeding them pills packed with his magic. One dose is enough to make someone who normally struggles with high-school-level spellwork into a mage on par with Victor himself, at least for a few minutes. That’s how he’s suddenly able to field thousands of well-trained blood mages. They’re not actually trained. They’re just doing what the pills tell them.”
The queen snapped her fingers. “That’s why my spies kept reporting smelling Victor all over town. I was worried he’d figured out the spirit trick of appearing in multiple places at once, but those weren’t actually Victor at all. They’re just normal people riding on his borrowed power.”
“That doesn’t make them any less dangerous,” Lola said nervously. “One Victor is bad enough. If he’s figured out how to make an army of himself, we’re in big trouble.”
“We would be,” Simon agreed, “if he was actually in control.” His lips curled into a smirk. “Unfortunately for Victor, he’s stretched himself too thin. Making the number of the pills necessary to turn thousands of power-hungry idiots into competent blood mages was more than even he could handle alone. So, like everything he doesn’t have time to do himself, he shoved the job off onto me.”
Lola couldn’t believe it. “He’s trusting you to make his pills?”
Simon nodded quickly. “That’s why I went so hard into his blood magic. I’ve been churning out pills nonstop for the last three days, and you’d better believe I’ve made some changes to the recipe. Nothing big enough for Victor to catch, but when the Wild Hunt arrives, his blood mage army is going to suffer a critical malfunction.”
“Simon,” Lola said in awe, “that’s brilliant.”
“Very brilliant,” the fairy queen agreed, though she wasn’t smiling. “Just make sure you don’t pull the rug out from under him too early. If fighting Victor doesn’t cut Alberich’s riders down by at least half, we’ll just be trading one disaster for another.”
“Don’t worry,” Simon said, pushing up the sleeve of his red jacket to show them the brand-new spellwork tattoo wrapped around his forearm like a snake. “I’ve made sure I’m in absolute control of the kill switch. Every pill has a fault that can only be triggered by my blood. Nothing goes down until I say so, and only when the time is exactly right.”
“Wisely done,” Tristan said, hauling himself up from the couch. “As you humans say, ‘When you swing for the king, you’d best not miss.’ I’m happy to see you’ve thought this through, but what of the present you’ve brought?”
They all looked at the box that was still waiting unopened in Morgan’s hands, and Simon’s smile widened. “That’s also part of the plan,” he said, looking proudly at Lola. “If you’re going to kick someone’s feet out, you don’t go for only one leg. Victor’s strategy to hold onto power includes a lot more than just blood mages, so I persuaded Jamie to tell me where he was hiding the Black Rider’s head.”
Lola was giddy by the time he finished. Morgan wasn’t moving quickly enough, so she went for the box herself, grabbing its top to peek inside. But she’d barely gotten her fingers under the lid when Tristan slammed the metal back down.
“Have you looked inside this box yet?” he asked Simon.
“Of course not,” Simon said testily. “I was Victor’s right-hand man for twenty years. I know what the Rider’s head does to humans who aren’t his master, but I’m certain that’s it. Jamie’s been with Victor even longer than I have. She knows where all the bodies are buried, and this is the only fairy head she knew about.” He smiled at Lola. “He was hiding it under his bed back at the mansion.”
Lola stared at him in awe. Victor’s bedroom at the top of the golden tower was the only place in their old home that she’d never been. The wards he’d installed around it were so nasty that even she’d never dared trying sneaking through. Simon had really stuck his neck out for this, but Tristan’s expression had her worried.
“Why are you making that face?”
“Because I fear you’re about to be gravely disappointed,” the knight replied as he lifted the lid.
Lola rushed to shield Simon’s eyes. She was about to yell at Tristan for reckless endangerment when she caught sight of the head in the box. A head that was most definitely not Valente’s, or even human-looking.
The thing nestled inside the metal box looked like it had been cut off a sheep the size of a horse. Its wool was white and fluffy as fresh snow, too perfect to be real. It looked like someone had decapitated a stuffed animal, at least until you got to the rainbow gossamer that was still dripping from the stump of its severed spine.
“What is that?”
“It’s Lamb,” Morgan said, her voice delighted as she reached in to grab the head by its wool. “Lamb, my darling! Wake up!”
The fluffy head twitched between her rosy fingers, and then the giant sheep opened its eyes, staring at Morgan with horrified, side-slitted pupils. “My queen!” it bleated piteously. “The blood mage betrayed me!”
“Of course he did, you silly thing,” Morgan scolded, petting the sheep’s soft wool. “He betrayed us all.”
The head began to weep after that, but Lola was too confused to feel sympathy. “Wait,” she said, dropping the hand she’d slapped over Simon’s eyes. “Who’s Lamb?”
“One of my court,” Morgan replied, cradling the crying head in her arms like a baby. “And Victor’s lover, at least until he betrayed her.”
“I never loved him!” the sheep’s head insisted. “He’s a rotter!”
The queen arched a golden eyebrow. “That wasn’t what you said last time. You claimed he was a genius and I just didn’t understand.”
The sheep lowered its sideways eyes sullenly, but Lola was still gawking.
“Victor’s lover was a sheep?”
“She’s not a sheep all the time,” Morgan said with a laugh. “You’re just seeing her at an unflattering moment.”
“You mean as a head,” Lola said, her eyes going huge as she realized what that meant. “Victor kept his murdered lover’s severed head in a box under his bed?”
“Makes sense,” Tristan said. “His skill with blood magic might be at the top of his species, but no human can use gossamer. I always wondered how he was keeping that stolen barrow of his from falling apart, but now I see. Lamb was still in there.”
Lola felt like a fool. She’d never questioned how Victor kept his house up. She’d simply accepted it as another facet of his seemingly limitless strength. Like everything else about him, though, it was a lie, an illusion built on someone else’s stolen power. But if this was the fairy that he’d killed to get his barrow, then—
“Where’s the Rider’s head?”
“I don’t understand,” Simon said angrily. “I had complete control of Jamie’s mind. She couldn’t lie to me, and she said this was it.”
“I’m sure she thought it was,” Morgan said, tucking Lamb’s fluffy head under her arm. “Since we keep our true forms hidden, most humans have no idea whose head is whose. Did she say it was the Rider’s specifically?”
Simon opened his mouth then closed it again. “No,” he said at last. “I asked her where the Rider’s head was, and she replied that Victor kept the fairy’s head in a safe under his bed. It never occurred to me there could be two heads. I just assumed…” He trailed off in frustration. “I’m sorry. I may have just tipped our hand.”
“Don’t worry, darling man,” the queen replied with a dazzling smile. “This is the best mistake you could have made! Despite how she looks at the moment, Lamb is quite powerful. A bit of a wool brain, but you’ll never find anyone with more skill at spinning gossamer, which I’m sure is why the blood mage pursued her. Getting her back now puts a much-needed ace in our hand. I even give you permission to blame the break-in on me when Victor finds out. If I’d known she was still in such good condition, I would have gone after her myself.”
Lola wouldn’t have called being a head in a box “good condition.” Considering how she’d found Morgan, though, she supposed it was all relative. But while she was happy to rescue anyone from Victor, she didn’t understand why everyone else was acting like this was over.
“We have to go back,” she said. “The Rider’s head is still in there! If we don’t get it, he’s going to die.”
“That’s not certain,” Tristan said in a cajoling voice. “Victor’s Black Knight might be an abomination, but he’s no slouch. He went toe-to-toe with me after taking a beating from Orlando. Granted, I was queenless at the time, which put a serious damper on my abilities, but he’s not going to just roll over for the Wild Hunt.”
“Yes, he will,” Lola said, clenching her fists. “Simon’s not the only one planning to betray Victor. The Rider’s going to lose to Alberich’s knight on purpose so he can send Orlando crashing into Victor’s back.”
The room went silent as she finished. Lola thought that was because they were horrified, but then Tristan’s face broke into a proud smile.
“That brave boy,” he said, laying a hand on his heart. “He really was a knight after all.”
“Very noble,” Morgan agreed. “I just hope he times it right. Orlando’s a powerful weapon, but he’s not a precise one. With our luck, he’ll kill the Rider and go for one of Victor’s copycat mages because he’s too stupid to tell the difference.”
She turned to Simon. “You work with him. Can you ask the Rider to hold off until after Alberich lands? My husband never could resist a good gloat, so I know he’ll go straight for Victor. It would be best if the Rider waited until then to die. That would ensure Orlando stays on target, though it might mean you’ll have to finish him off yourself, knight.”
“I look forward to it,” Tristan said, dropping a hand to the sword he was suddenly wearing. “I have a score to settle with that tongueless bastard.”
