I didn’t like it. “Are you sure there’s no other way?” I asked, frowning.
One pale brow arched. “You’d prefer to fight your way in?”
“I’d prefer more than half a shirt!” I said, tugging at the handkerchief hem, trying to get it to meet the skirt. Which would have been easier if said skirt had started higher than my hips. And if the tugging wasn’t threatening the shirt’s already low neckline. And that was despite me picking out the most modest of the costumes.
“Isn’t this going to get them looking at me more, not less?” I demanded.
“But not at your face,” Pritkin replied, and ducked when I threw a pillow at him.
The little wagon we were in was full of them, probably because the thing didn’t have springs. Just costumes, masks, rolls of canvas backdrops, and a large, stuffed dragon’s head on a stick. We’d had no choice but to join the players, who had rumbled into town during the chaos, because there were anti-glamourie charms on the castle. Pritkin’s abilities wouldn’t help us there, even if he rested up. Which was why I’d slapped on a face full of makeup to go with the bright crimson outfit.
Of course, that wouldn’t help, either, if somebody ratted us out.
“Are you sure you can trust them?” I asked as the wooden box we were in swayed and shook, partly because of the road, but also because the girls up top kept leaning over.
Tonight they played for the court, tomorrow for the townspeople, and they were busy drumming up business. Which meant that, instead of furtively sneaking in through a back door like I’d hoped, we were heading for the main city gate on the medieval version of a party bus. A bright red, blue, and green party bus, with a bunch of waving, shimmying, half-naked girls on top. One word to a guard . . .
But Pritkin didn’t seem worried.
“I arranged the job for them,” he told me. “They’ll help us.”
“There are other jobs.”
“Not as many as you’d think.” He was trying on different wigs, because he was better known at court than I was, and the current one did him no favors. Of course, that would have been true of anyone except Ronald McDonald.
I pulled it off, substituting a tasteful, forgettable brown.
“They started in Constantinople, playing to large audiences,” he said as I tried to stuff his cowlick underneath the wig. “But once the emperor closed all the theaters, they had to take to the road. Their fortunes have been mixed ever since.”
“He closed the theaters?”
Pritkin nodded, looking up at me with a grin. “Ironic, when you consider that his own wife was an actress before they met. Theodora was famous for dancing in nothing but a single ribbon. And then there was that business about Leda and the swan—”
“A swan?” I frowned.
“More like a goose and some strategically placed grain. They say she—”
“I don’t want to know,” I said quickly.
He grinned some more. “But he needed the church on his side, and they don’t like the theater.”
“Why?”
“We’re all licentious fiends,” he said, steadying me with hands on my hips as we hit a pothole.
Considering that it was something like the ninetieth one, that didn’t seem strictly necessary. And then I looked down, to find that his eyes were especially green next to the new, dark hair. And open and clear . . . and inviting. No strings, no agenda. Just the promise of pleasure, shared and given.
I swallowed and picked up a comb. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I tackled the bird’s nest on one side of the wig, where it had been crushed in a trunk. “So, so many reasons.”
“Name one.”
“You first.”
“Ah, but I don’t have any reasons,” he said while the thumbs began to move in slow circles on my hip bones.
I shot him a look.
They stopped.
“I mean, you tell me something first,” I clarified.
He looked a question.
“Back in Nimue’s . . . thing,” I said, because I doubted “Winnebago” would translate. “You wanted to know my name. My real one. Why?”
I immediately wished I hadn’t asked, because a lot of the fun faded from his face.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to answer.”
“No, it’s fair.” He looked up at me, through a fall of brown hair. “You know the old couple I told you about? The ones who raised me?”
I nodded. After Morgaine’s supposed death, Rosier had dumped him on a farmer’s family, who’d thought he was basically Satan incarnate, and then fled. It made me angry all over again, just thinking about it. I knew he’d had a reason: that if Pritkin didn’t end up with his power, he’d be better off growing up in this world, where he had at least a small chance of fitting in. I even agreed with it. That is, I agreed with the idea.
The execution, however, had left the fey knowing more about Pritkin’s true heritage than he did.
“I spent most of my time with the old woman,” he continued, “but one day the old man decided to go fishing, and agreed to let me tag along. I was quite excited. I was never allowed to go anywhere—officially.”
“But you went anyway.”
He grinned. “But I hadn’t been caught in a while, so I suppose this was their way of rewarding me.”
I rolled my eyes and started on the other side of what I was deciding was more dust mop than wig.
“In any case, we were halfway to the lake when we met one of the farmer’s friends. They stopped to talk, and I wandered off, trying to catch frogs for bait. They must have thought I was out of earshot.”
“And what did they say?” I asked, carefully. Because the smile was gone again, lost—not in the usual anger—but in sadness.
“The old man’s friend asked about me, specifically why they would take me in when they didn’t even know what I was. There were so many Changelings then, some who grew up to be dangerous, that it was a fair question.”
I nodded.
“But the old man said he wasn’t worried. My father had dropped me off, and my father was human. Making my mother the fey—or part fey, as he’d been told—in this instance.”
“The opposite of the usual situation.”
“Yes. The old man believed that she was some tavern wench or farmer’s daughter, a descendant of one of the Returned that my father had lain with for a night or two. Then passed by the same way in a year and realized he had a son. One he was willing to support in case I turned out to have any magic.”
I didn’t say anything. That was uncomfortably close to the truth.
“He gave them money and a name—Myrddin. But he never gave them hers. The old man joked that he wasn’t sure he even knew it—or that she knew his.” Pritkin’s tone was light, but his jaw was tight. He saw me notice, and relaxed it. “I would want any child of mine to know, that’s all.”
“So you make sure, if things are getting a little heated—”