A Thief in the Night

chapter Seventy-nine

“Stop, please,” Cythera begged. “I feel I might burst!” She put her hand over her goblet before Aethil could pour her any more wine.

“More fish?” the queen of the elves asked, picking up a flat-bladed silver knife.

“No, no, thank you, your highness, but I really couldn’t swallow another bite.” Cythera laughed happily and dabbed at her mouth with a beetle-silk napkin.

It matched the dress they’d put her in, an elegant gown of the same cut and style as the ones Malden and Slag wore. Aethil had told them that the silk was made from threads secreted by cave beetles. The thought had discomfited Malden considerably, even after Slag told him where real silk came from.

The fish bothered him as well. Its flesh and skin were both snowy white and it had no eyes—the dome of its forehead was just smooth skin from the dorsal fin all the way to its toothy mouth. It looked unnatural to him, especially after being roasted and swimming in thin mushroom gravy. But it didn’t bother him enough that he didn’t eat it. He was still hungry after days of wandering in the dark and being locked up in a filthy gaol.

Every food the elves had brought for their queen’s special supper was questionable in one way or another. The wine was good but smelled of damp earth. The bread—far better than the mealy loaves they’d been given in the stockade—was the wrong color. The filets of cave beetle even tasted different underground, not nearly as gamey as the one he’d had up on the surface, in the forest, before they’d come to this benighted place.

But at least Cythera was there to share it.

Her release from the gaol had been the occasion for this feast. When she arrived, Slag—or rather, Sir Croy—actually smiled and wept a little. That had made Aethil so happy she ordered a grand celebration for the four of them. The feast was served by elves in patchwork shifts carrying platters of tarnished silver, while a musician playing a lute made of cave beetle shell serenaded them softly from one corner.

It almost felt like they weren’t prisoners anymore.

Yet when the musician had been sent away, and Aethil excused herself from the table to make water, Cythera drew up her gown to show Malden one of her legs. A tattooed vine ran up her calf, spreading spiky leaves and studded with tiny, vividly purple flowers. “He couldn’t cripple me,” she said in a very low voice. “But I know what he was trying to do. You, as well?”

Malden nodded and hauled his own hobbled leg up onto a bench. “If I move my foot at all the pain is unbearable.”

Cythera reached for his ankle before he could pull it away. “Be still,” she told him. “This won’t hurt.” She pressed her hands around his calf and gasped a little. “It’s a strong enchantment,” she said, and sank back into her chair.

The muscles in Malden’s leg relaxed instantly, and a wave of pure relief flushed through him. When he recovered, he grabbed Cythera’s hands to look at them. On the palm of each a violet flower bloomed, and as he watched they started to send out creepers.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “Just try to remember to limp, or they’ll know something’s up.”

“You worry too much,” Slag said. He was drunk on mushroom wine and smiling quite a bit. “She’s in the palm of my hand, I tell you. She’ll do any f*cking thing I say. If I tell her to let you two go—”

“I don’t advise trying that,” Cythera said. “This is an improvement in our situation,” she whispered, “but not a reversal of fortunes.”

“You mean they’re still going to kill us,” Malden said.

“Yes. But not immediately. Which means we have some time to work out how we’re going to escape. First we need to—”

But she had to stop then, because Aethil was coming back.

“Oh, this is so nice,” Aethil said, looking at her charges. “It can get so lonely in these rooms. But now—now we’re like a happy family. Like a human family! The mother,” she said, pressing a hand to her bosom. “The pretty children,” she went on, gesturing gracefully at Malden and Cythera, “and of course,” coming over to put her arms around Slag’s shoulders and put her lips next to his ear, “the daddy.”

She cooed and leaned her head on Slag’s chest, her ringlets of coppery hair tangling in his greasy dark beard.

Cythera shot him a querulous look, but the dwarf could only raise his eyebrows to indicate his own confusion.

Getting up from her place at the table, Cythera walked over to where Aethil was trying to climb into Slag’s lap. Slender as she was, it was still too small for her to fit properly. “Your highness,” Cythera said, “you have such lovely eyes. May I look at them more closely?”

Aethil laughed musically, pleased by the flattery. She let Cythera peer deep into her pupils and even pull one eyelid to the side. Then Cythera took one of the queen’s hands in her own and studied the lines on her palm.

“Thank you,” Cythera said, and went back to sit by Malden.

“This was a perfect feast, was it not? I’m so glad you three came along. You’re going to make me so happy, until you have to go away.”

Malden frowned. “Perhaps we could stay here forever,” he said. “If your highness wills it.”

Aethil frowned and looked away from him. “I’ve told you, there are limits to my power. The Hieromagus has plans for you three, and I can’t gainsay him. You have . . . other enemies as well. The lords are not happy about having humans in our midst.”

“Maybe you just don’t know how much authority you truly wield,” Malden beseeched. “Maybe if you talked with him, tried to find a way to—”

Aethil started squirming on top of Slag as soon as Malden began speaking again. His words were clearly causing her great distress. Slag sat up suddenly, nearly dumping the queen onto the floor, and said, “Squire, be still. Your words are an annoyance to our fu—to our hostess.”

Malden closed his mouth.

“Let’s speak no more of such things,” Cythera said quickly. “Instead, let’s think of what pleasures this day may bring. Your highness, your kingdom is lovely, but we’ve seen so little of it. Do you think it might be possible for us to walk about a bit, and view the triumphs of elfin society?”

“Now that suggestion,” Aethil said, “is pleasing to my ears. Yes! I shall give you all the grand tour of my domain. I’ll show you everything! Oh, you’ll be amazed and delighted by our mushroom farms, I’m sure. They’re so cleverly made. And you must see some of our better tunnels. Oh! Wonderful!”

She jumped up and ran to the door. “Wait here while I arrange for our escort,” she told them. Before she left she turned around and looked at them. “What fun!”

“Good thinking,” Malden said when she was gone. “We can look for an escape route while she’s showing us where they turn beetle brains into soup.”

“Indeed.” Cythera got up and went over to Slag, as if she’d barely heard Malden. She peered deeply into his eyes, then grabbed one of his hands. “Hmm. You’re not affected. You don’t find her attractive at all, do you?”

“Who? Aethil? She’s a nice enough brat, but no, my tastes run shorter and more generous in the arse.”

“Just as I thought.” Cythera let go of his hand. “She’s completely in love with you, though.”

“So I noticed. Well, can you blame her? I am a f*cking perfect specimen of manhood. As far as dwarves go, anyway. Or very short humans.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. She’s been enchanted.”

“What?” Slag demanded.

Cythera scowled. “Someone gave her a love potion. Probably just before you met her for the first time—whoever walked in through that door would have looked to her like her ideal husband, the person she couldn’t live without. I don’t know what kind of potion they used, but it was strong enough to make her fall in love with a cave beetle if it knocked on her door.”

“I’ll choose not to be insulted by that comparison,” Slag said.

“Such philters are dangerous to brew, much less to consume. Too strong a dose and she would have—well, she would have attacked you, rather than doted on you. She would have exerted herself,” Cythera said, blushing a little, “until you both were exhausted unto death.”

“Lass, come now. I wouldn’t have let her do that,” Slag pointed out.

“You wouldn’t have had a choice.” Cythera rubbed at one eye with the heel of her palm. She looked quite tired, perhaps from the work of absorbing Malden’s curse. “She would have had her guards strip you and hold you down. She would have had you crippled for real, just to keep you where she wanted you. On your back and helpless.”

“I suppose I’m glad they got the dosage right. But why, lass? Why do this bloody stupid thing? Just to play a trick on her? On me? And if it’s magic—you don’t suppose it’s going to just stop working at some point, do you? F*cking magic.”

“Such potions can be made to work for a single night, for a year and a day, or for a lifetime,” Cythera said. “It’s been long enough that I think we can rule out the mildest form. I doubt this one’s going to wear off anytime soon.”

“That’s a relief, I suppose,” Malden said. “At least we know we’ll have one friend here we can count on.”

“Indeed.” Cythera stroked her chin. “It makes me wonder, though. A deep game is being played here. Why would anyone want her to fall in love with—with Sir Croy? Clearly that was the intention. They believed they had Croy in their gaol, so they sent him to her just after she took the potion. It must have been some elf or other who did it. But why in the world would they want that?”

“By the sound of it, there’s some kind of power struggle between her and the Hieromagus,” Malden suggested. “If it got out that she was sleeping with a dwarf—”

“Very short human!” Slag reminded him.

“—it would make her look bad,” Malden finished.

“Perhaps. Though it sounds like the Hieromagus has little to fear from Aethil. I’d think it more likely they would give the Hieromagus the potion, to make him look silly so that Aethil gained power.” Cythera shrugged. “It must be something of the sort, though. Politics. Elfin politics. I don’t claim to understand. But we can make it work for us, I’m sure of it.”