Foxbrush breathed a heavy sigh and dropped his gaze. He saw the scroll lying near, a little mangled by Nidawi’s pearly teeth. “She ran away into the Wilderlands. I’m not sure what became of her, but I must—”
“If she ran away,” the Everblooming said, settling down to the ground as elegantly as though she sank into the cushions of a fine couch, “she can’t like you very much, so I don’t see why you make these protests. Come. Sit by me.” She patted the ferns beside her, smiling invitingly and making Foxbrush’s stomach drop. “I like you well, and besides, I need you to kill someone for me. She can’t say that much, now, can she?”
For a brief, thrilling moment, Foxbrush almost took one step, then another, then sank into those alluring immortal arms. All thoughts of his life and his mission and his world could so swiftly be forgotten.
But a timely sneeze returned enough of his sense that her words sank even to the dullest places of his mind. “I’m not killing anyone,” he said, rubbing his nose.
“Not yet.” Nidawi ran long fingers through her own hair and shrugged prettily. “But you will. Which means you have, which means . . . Oh! So much! Now come here, mortal king, and let me kiss you.”
Foxbrush fled.
He did not run, for he knew that it would do no good, but he turned on heel and walked very fast, stopping only long enough to grab up the scroll as he went. His face flushed deeply with something between panic and dread, and his heart thudded madly in his breast. He could easily imagine the tear of the lioness’s claws in his back, the fire, the rip, the end. . . .
His hands in fists, he strode as fast as he could, and the trees parted to make way, though he did not notice this. He knew the name of the Everblooming. What child in Southlands did not? She featured in many rhymes and nursery tales, even in the Ballad of Shadow Hand, if he remembered correctly.
But that was just it. This nursery story wanted to—he nearly choked at the thought—wanted to kiss him! This children’s book character, this figment of some strange man’s even stranger imagination! Real and voluptuous and terrifying and . . .
It was too horrid. He must escape.
“Where are you going?”
“GAHHHH!”
Her voice in his ear propelled Foxbrush into a faster pace, though he maintained enough control over himself to keep from breaking into a full-out run. “I . . . I . . .” He panted, for she had drawn up beside him, striding on her long legs, the leaves of her gown fluttering. Foxbrush could feel the silent thud of the lioness’s feet behind. “I am simply, um, going . . .”
“I haven’t told you whom to kill yet,” she said, using a patient voice that was more terrible even than her wrath. “You mortals really are odd beasts, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying but failing to outpace her, for she matched her stride exactly to his. And his own wasn’t great in any case, what with his shoes falling apart and leaving bits of themselves in his wake. “I really can’t kill anyone. And I really can’t marry you either!”
“Oh, that’s what you say now,” Nidawi replied with a merry laugh. “But you’ll change your mind. Mortals always do. I’ll make you a Faerie king, and though I won’t give you three lives, I’ll give you one nice long one. You mortals like that, don’t you?”
He caught another sneeze. His head was beginning to throb. Why, oh why had he not thought to grab an extra handkerchief before setting off on this fool’s errand? “I think you’re very kind, my lady,” he said, “but I prefer the life I’ve always had, humble though it may be.”
“A mortal life?” she asked, a sneer in her voice.
He nodded and she fell silent beside him. The trees cast their green shadows around them, and Foxbrush noticed for the first time that he heard no other sounds besides his own footsteps and the beat of the lioness’s paws. Nidawi moved without even a murmur of her fern-leaf gown, and there were no birds in the trees.
A grove of five thin silver-branch trees grew up nearby. Nidawi saw them and twisted her pretty mouth thoughtfully. “I’ll take you back to There if you like, my king,” she said, and her voice was quieter than it had been hitherto. “I’ll take you back to the mortal realm.”
“I . . . I can’t go before I find Daylily.”
“Lumé’s crown,” she snapped, and her long-fingered hand clamped down upon his arm. “If I never hear another word about this chit of a mortal girl of yours, it’ll be too soon!”
She whirled him about to face her. She was suddenly neither a young woman nor even a child, but a much older woman, stern, beautiful, not alluring so much as commanding. There were streaks of silver amid the black and green of her hair, and her large eyes glowed with purple fire.