“If I might inquire,” Foxbrush managed with some shred of dignity when at last she seemed to be quieting. “What is this, um, Lumil Eliasomething, please?”
He might have been the stupidest thing to ever crawl out from under a rock for the look she gave him. Foxbrush died a little on the inside; a man doesn’t like a woman such as she to look at him that way.
“The Lumil Eliasul?” she said, shaking her wild hair and blinking her amazing eyes. Everything about her, every movement, every word, was huge, not in its size but in its power. Even the trimness of her waist was huge in its own way. “The Prince of Farthestshore? The One Who Names Them, the Song Giver, the Eshkhan, the . . . I don’t even remember all his names! Don’t you know any of them?”
“Um. Well, Farthestshore sounds familiar.”
“It should !” Another shake of her head, and flowers dropped their petals in colorful cascades from her hair. “He’s only the Lord of all the Faerie folk, son of the King Across the Final Water. Even I am subject to the Lumil Eliasul!”
“And, um, who are you, please?” Foxbrush asked.
“WHO AM I?”
The whole forest around them shook with the enormity of her ire. Foxbrush squawked and hid his face in his hands, and even the sneeze that had been building vanished as he curled up into a fetal ball, expecting imminent smiting.
But the lioness put up her head and gave a loud whuffle, effectively snatching the gorgeous woman’s attention.
“Did you hear what he just said?” the woman demanded of the lioness, pointing at Foxbrush with both hands. “Did you hear him?”
The lioness grunted and shook her ears again, her face patient and serene.
“Oh, fine. Fine, fine, fine!” said the woman. She rounded on Foxbrush once more, rolling her eyes at his quivering form, but her voice was less piercing when next she spoke.
“I am Nidawi the Everblooming, Queen of Tadew.” Her face sagged a little, though it became no less beautiful. And she amended her previous statement with a quieter, “Queen of Tadew-That-Was.”
Foxbrush looked up between his fingers just in time to see the woman crumple, sinking into the form of the wild child once again. She buried her face in her hands and burst into another round of stormy tears, more violent than the first.
The lioness got heavily to her feet and padded over to the child. She put out her raspy tongue and began licking the back of the child’s head until her mass of hair and moss stood all on end. The child pushed ineffectually at the insistent muzzle and even took an angry swipe at the lioness’s nose. But the lioness, ever patient, ignored this and went on with her grooming until Nidawi had quite finished her cry.
Then both turned to Foxbrush, who still lay where he had fallen, watching all with horror. Even an interview across from Baron Middlecrescent’s fish-eyed stare would be preferable to the gazes of the lioness and her now-small mistress.
Nidawi the Everblooming said, “Say you’re sorry.”
“For what?” Foxbrush gasped, but when he saw her face screwing up to a violent degree, he quickly sputtered, “Sorry!”
Oddly enough, this seemed to pacify the child, who got to her feet, all legs and elbows, now standing nowhere near as tall as the lioness’s nose. She crossed the short distance to Foxbrush and stood over him, imperial as the queen she claimed to be but rather less majestic with slime on her face and puffy eyes. Up close, however, he saw that these eyes were the shade of demure violets hidden in the deepest shadows of the forest. And her lashes were dark green like pine needles.
She looked him up and down, considering, her head tilted a little to one side, a stance mirrored by the lioness a few paces behind. Then Queen Nidawi said, “You are from There.”
He snuffled back another sneeze. “Pardon?”
“There. The Other Place. The Near World, the Time-bound land. What are you doing Here?”
“I . . . I hardly know,” Foxbrush replied. “I’m not even certain where here is. I raced my cousin down the gorge, and we’re searching for my betrothed, Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent. I thought the . . . the wind, I suppose, said something about her, though I might be mistaken, and I hope . . .”
He stopped talking, for he saw that the child was paying him absolutely no mind. Rather, she was staring at the space over his head, her mouth moving as she muttered to herself in a voice that began out of Foxbrush’s range of hearing but which swiftly rose to a near unbearable pitch.
“Here. There. There. Here. Here and There!” She clapped her hands and spun about in place, scattering petals in a rainbow storm all around her. “Here and There! Are you a king?”