“Well, he did ask me to come and tell you to hurry it up. He asked you both to make haste, though he is fully aware the journey to Fyre would take nigh of a month, if not longer. Truth is, once I explained to him the length of the journey and gave him a tonic to help keep Erualis’s life force strong enough to weather the month, I didn’t technically need to make this trip out to see you.” She pinched her lips.
“So the boy is okay?”
“For now. The daily tonic treatments will stave off his death for a little while longer. He’s got another two to three weeks at most, but that should be enough time for you to reach the chalice.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” he snapped. “I’ve been worried sick and it never crossed your mind to tell me we had a little more time?”
She spread her arms wide. “A little subterfuge just so that I could get in to see you—you can’t blame a girl. The magic of this shack was such that Lilith willed all away from it unless they had some dire news to impart.”
“So you fooled the magic?” His lips twitched. The fairy was not nearly as mad as he’d first assumed.
“It’s what I do, demone.” She smiled broadly.
And for just a moment Giles felt a quickening of respect for the doll-sized woman.
“I did indeed have news, though not nearly as dire as I’d first alleged. And let’s face it—Rumpel is hardly concerned when it comes to matters of the heart. Unless of course it involves his own; outside of his family the man is fair blind. But Lilith’s heart is near and dear to me and she is the real reason I’ve come.”
Her tone was suddenly much more serious.
Beyond curious to know the truth, just this once, Giles broke his own rules. “What did she pledge?”
“Her death.”
Her eyes were so serious that Giles could not doubt it.
“In return for what?” he asked in disbelief.
Death had occasionally resulted for a pledge who had not met their end of the deal, but it was a seldom occurrence and one Rumpel resorted to only rarely. Only when left no recourse. No matter that the outside world believed his prince had no heart, Rumpelstiltskin had a sense of honor that he clung to. Rumpel was fair and brutally honest.
“For completing the mating pact.”
“What?” He snapped as ice ran through his veins. “Why would she do that?”
Danika closed her eyes as she slowly drifted down to the edge of the bed. Landing, she drew her wings down and sat crosslegged before him, picking at a loose thread on the sheets. The tiny fairy was suddenly cloaked in sadness, and as much as he liked to believe himself immune to emotion, he felt too.
He tried to hide it, because emotion was a weakness in his line of work. Not as Rumpel’s personal valet, but as the master of the games. Time and again Giles had seen hearts shatter, seen dreams wither and die when a pledge realized that their life’s ambition would never be realized. Always he’d told himself that they’d known the rules before entering and if they failed it was on them.
But on occasion he’d felt the prick of remorse and had had to swallow it down deep. Knowing to give into it would cripple his ability to perform.
Now, with Danika before him staring down at the sheets with a look of hopelessness, he couldn’t turn it off. Because this time he knew the applicant, and though at times she vexed him, he liked her more than he ought to.
“What did she do?” he asked again.
It took another few seconds before Danika would look back at him. “Did you not wonder why her parents did not argue when you came to them?”
“Because Violet knew I’d be coming—”
Shaking her head, she cut him off in midsentence. “The Heartsong might be powerful, but she is not a mind reader. She knew because I told her. Because Shayera told me about your quest and immediately I concocted a plan, our last hope of salvation for that dear girl.”
“I don’t understand, is she dying now?” Just the thought of it made a strange buzzing sound in his ears. Lilith was so vivacious and lovely, full of youth and verve, why would anyone like her wish their death? It made no sense.
“I’m sure she is terrified out of her mind. Her petition was very specific, the child thought every last little detail through. There is hardly any wiggle room out of this mess.”
“What did she do, Danika?” he repeated more forcefully.
Squaring her shoulders, she looked at him. “She was thirteen and mocked daily because of the love shared between her father and mother. Not of the same species, it is a match highly frowned upon within their settlement.”
“So why didn’t they just move?”
“Because he was the Big Bad Wolf and she the Heartsong, evil incarnate. Who would take them in? Any other village and the two of them would likely have been stoned in their beds. At least there the pack physically left them alone, but the verbal abuse was horrific, especially for a child as tenderhearted as Lilith. The moment she’d gone through her reaping, she took the journey to Rumpel’s castle and pledged her soul to him. That she should never mate with anything outside of her species. And if she did, that she would keel over dead.” She snapped her fingers. “Problem is, wolf shifters are normally rotten bastards.”