She laughed as though surrounded by butterflies.
Did she know, could she know, all she had? Mallick wondered. All she might be if he didn’t fail her? At that moment, her power was so strong, but still young and painfully innocent.
What would she be, what would she hold when that power matured, and that innocence was lost?
She moved then, tipping her fingertips down in a gesture toward the hive. “Welcome,” she said. And as one, the swarm entered the hive.
“How do they—” He broke off to steady his voice. “How do they know where they should go inside the hive?”
Her answer came with a puzzled smile. “Well, I told them.”
“Ah. All right then, well done. I’ll put the tools and so forth away. You’re free until dusk.”
“I want to take Grace for a ride.”
He nodded. “Don’t go too far, and be no later than dusk.”
She ran off, young, innocent. Mallick listened to the hum of the bees, and felt very old.
BECOMING
Learning is not child’s play;
we cannot learn without pain.
—Aristotle
CHAPTER SIX
Every day for three days, Fallon visited what she thought of as faerie-land. She tried magicks on the owl with no success. She tried bribery, intimidation, and what her mother called reverse psychology.
I don’t want your stupid apple anyway.
He simply sat, guarding the apple that hung tantalizingly from that high branch.
She swam in the pool so at least she felt clean. The little faeries grew used to her and came out to dance or skim along the water when she bathed.
But she couldn’t convince any of them to help her get the apple.
She sat on the grass at the end of her first week, drying her hair, studying the stubborn, hard-eyed owl.
She couldn’t climb the tree, but what if she went up without climbing it? She’d been practicing—away from Mallick’s watchful eye—and though her form proved shaky, she’d managed to levitate about two feet off the ground.
The apple, to her gauge, would require a solid ten-foot lift. And then she had to consider that big, sharp beak, those keen talons. So she’d have to practice until she could go high, and go fast.
She wanted to outwit the owl as much on principle now as for the bathroom.
“One week down, a hundred and three weeks to go,” she said out loud as she braided her hair.
She still hadn’t unpacked, told herself she could leave in the morning, be home in less than two-days’ ride.
She didn’t mind the lessons and lectures and practice as much as she’d thought she would. Some of it was interesting, even if it had started to cut into her free time since Mallick had added physical training.
Still no sword.
And while she didn’t see how being able to balance herself on one hand or juggling balls of light would help her save the whole damn world, she liked learning. She didn’t mind the studying or learning about the people Mallick claimed were her ancestors. She liked the spell casting.
But everything took so long, had to be done over and over again. She couldn’t imagine spending another one hundred and three weeks doing the same things over and over. Or having nobody but Mallick to talk to.
Maybe she’d try balancing on one hand over the water. Now that would be really interesting. If she could work with two elements—water and air—balance on the surface of the water.
Even Mallick would be impressed.
She would practice levitating in her room with the apple as the goal, and practice the balancing here in faerie-land. When she had perfected those skills, she’d use them as a lever to start learning how to use a sword.
She wished she’d thought of the water-balancing earlier because now she’d already taken most of her free time for the day.
“Tomorrow,” she murmured.
She didn’t sense or hear anything until almost too late. She spun quickly toward the sense in time to see the boy slip half out of a tree, an arrow already notched in his bow.
Even as she threw up a hand in defense, she saw that he aimed the arrow not at her, but at the owl.
She didn’t think, only felt. Outrage, fear for another. And the feeling shot her ten feet in the air, slicing out her hand to deflect the arrow. The keen point grazed her palm before the arrow winged away and thudded into another tree. The shock of pain, the shock of rising, broke that feeling. She tumbled back down, landing with enough force to knock her breath away.
“Are you crazy?” The boy, tumbled bronze hair, furious eyes the color of spring leaves, leaped toward her. “I could’ve killed you.”
“Why would you kill the owl? Nobody eats owl.”
“You’re bleeding. Let me see how bad.”
“It’s nothing.” It hurt like fire, but she knocked his hand away. “You’ve got no business shooting an arrow in this place, or at the owl.”
“I live in this place.” He shook back his mop of hair with its single skinny braid falling over his right ear. “Sort of. And I wasn’t shooting at the owl.”
“Yes, you were!”
“No, I wasn’t. Taibhse is a god of the glade. I would never try to hurt him. I was aiming at the apple. You wanted the apple, didn’t you?”
“Why would you care?”
“Why not? You’d have the apple now if you hadn’t spoiled the shot, and I’d be the one who tricked Taibhse. That’s a deep cut. Mallick will have a healing balm. He’s a great sorcerer. You’re his student.”
“And I can take care of myself.”
“Whatever.” He pulled out a cloth, shoved it at her. “At least wrap it.”
Annoyed, she wrapped the cloth around the slice in her palm, pressed her hands hard together, then yanked off the bloodied cloth, tossed it back to him.
The wound had closed, begun to heal.
“Even if you were aiming for the apple, you could have missed, hit the owl.”
His chin jerked up. “I don’t miss.”
“You did miss.”
“You got in the way.” He shrugged it off. “They’re saying you’re The One, like some great warrior, witch, Savior. You just look like a girl to me.”
He wasn’t much older than she was, a year, maybe two at the most. Taller, yes, but hardly older. She bristled at having someone her own age so dismissively term her a girl.
“If I was just a girl, your arrow wouldn’t be stuck in that tree over there.”
Pride every bit as much as power had her flinging out a hand, yanking it out, floating it back until it dropped at the base of the owl’s tree.
She’d meant to drop it at the boy’s feet, but close enough.
“That’s pretty good.” He walked over to pick it up while the owl stared down at him with cold disdain.
“Look, I was just trying to do you a favor. You’ve been trying to get that apple for days.” Using the cloth, he wiped her blood from the arrow before slipping it back in his quiver.
“It’s none of your … How do you know?” Horror, instant and deeply female, flared through her. “You’ve been spying on me.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed, and it pinked up the tips of his ears. “I wouldn’t call it spying exactly. I just saw you come in here. Nobody outside knows about this place, and nobody who isn’t one of us can come into it. So when you could and did, I wanted to see what you were up to.”
“You’re a, you’re a—” She dug for the word. She’d heard it in a movie. “A Peeping Tom.”
“I’m Mick. My father’s Thomas, but I don’t even know any Tom.”
“It’s an expression.”
“What does it mean?”
“A spyer.”
“It’s not my fault you took your clothes off, and anyway, you’re skinny. And I was just trying to do you a favor. You left out sweet cakes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you the one who leaves things at the cottage?”
“One of us does. It’s tribute, and no payment’s expected or needed. It was kind to leave the cakes—and they were good. My father says you repay kindness with kindness, then there’s more of it.”