Only then did he stir. To his own sensitive nose, he stank, smelling of chemicals and blood, so he eased himself carefully off the bed and took the metal stand with the IV into the bathroom, where he washed up.
Something, some small noise, made him turn off the faucets abruptly. Holding his breath, he tilted his head to one side and listened intently, but whatever he had heard was gone.
Still, he pulled out the IV needle from his wrist and moved to the bedside table where he had set his Beretta. Then he prowled through the empty flat, checking out windows and opening the front door to look down the length of the mews.
A newspaper lay on the front doorstep. Everything looked quiet and peaceful, just as an early morning should, but when he drew a breath, he recognized a familiar scent—the scent of a creature that had disappeared from Isabeau’s court weeks ago.
Someone she had wanted back badly enough that she had sent Morgan to hunt him down and bring back to her. That task had led Morgan to the confrontation with the knights from Oberon’s Dark Court, and it had resulted in the injuries that had ultimately set him free.
He had not been as successful as he had thought in hiding his trail. The puck Robin had found him.
The geas shifted uneasily, like the coils of a python sliding around a man’s body. Tensing, he waited to see what would happen. Would it force him to obey Isabeau’s earlier order to hunt Robin down and bring him back to her? Or would her latest words bear the greater weight?
When the geas subsided, he knew. Her last words to him were the ones that carried the most weight. He was still free, for now.
With a sharp gaze, he studied every detail of the scene—along the rooftop, the shadowed doorway of the shop across the street at the end of the mews—but there was no sign of the puck and no sign or scent of anyone else.
Then he noticed another thing. None of the other flats in the mews had received a folded newspaper. Bending with care, his gun held at the ready, he knocked the paper open. Despite what he had expected, there was nothing tucked inside.
Instead, a black-and-white photo of Sidonie Martel leaped out at him from the front page. Underneath her photo, the headline said FAMOUS MUSICIAN MISSING AFTER CAR CRASH.
A sprawling message had been written in black ink across the paper.
The Queen has her.
The words kicked him in the teeth. Morgan’s breathing stopped, then fury roared up in response.
The puck had not just found him. Robin had studied him carefully and struck a calculated blow.
Gathering up the newspaper, he carried it inside and flung it across the sitting room with such force it hit the opposite wall with a crack like a whip. He stalked through the small flat then back again.
No, he thought. By gods, no. I WILL NOT BE MANIPULATED LIKE THIS!
After centuries—centuries—he had just won a tenuous measure of freedom for himself, and he had no idea how long he might keep it. If he was going to have any hope of striking a blow against Isabeau and Modred, it was vitally important he continue to follow every avenue of research on the Athame’s geas that he could. He could not risk throwing all that away for a stranger.
Unbidden, an image of Sidonie Martel came to mind, along with her joyous, passionate music. She was so beautiful, so toweringly talented.
For those very two things alone, Isabeau would be cruel to her. Robin had known that.
Breathing hard, Morgan ran his fingers through his hair as conflicting impulses tore at him.
Sidonie Martel means nothing to me, he thought harshly. I enjoy her music, that’s all. I don’t owe her a thing. Not a blasted thing.
Silence was all the flat gave him in response. After tensely listening to the quiet emptiness for a long while, he strode to the bedroom, pulled out his knapsack, and began to pack.
* * *
Once the wagon train had made its way down the winding road to the castle, it disbanded like segments of a giant centipede falling apart, as various components went off in different directions.
Sid had jumped out of the wagon along with her fellow travelers, but when she would have followed them, a sharp whistle brought her up short.
They didn’t put her with the young Light Fae they had collected along the road. Instead, they put her with a large pile of barrels and wooden boxes they stacked in the stables, shackling one of her wrists with a chain to a metal ring that was bolted to a wooden beam.
She was there to be counted as part of the trolls’ tribute, she assumed.
Then they forgot to feed her.
As the light of day passed into darkness, then blossomed into the new morning, she drifted beyond fear and simple anger into a kind of incensed exhaustion.
She had enough room on the chain to reach a bucket that had been set nearby. It was partially full of water that was none too clean, and probably laced with horse spit, but after a certain point she became too thirsty to care. When the water was gone, she used the bucket to relieve herself.
The sound of voices roused her, and stiffly she uncurled from a thin layer of straw that had been her bed. There were three voices, all male, one sounding clearly in command, asking questions while the other two answered. They appeared to be tallying a long list of items.
“Hey,” Sid called out, her voice hoarse from disuse. She stood, yanking irritably at the chain attached to her wrist. “Hey! What is wrong with you people?!”
Silence greeted her shout. Then came the sound of approaching footsteps, and the nearby doors were pulled open. As bright sunlight spilled in she had to squint and turn her face away.
Three men strode in, led by one tall figure. He stopped in front of her and asked in a cultured, pleasant voice, “What is this?”
The two men behind him shuffled their feet. “Ah, my lord,” one of them said as he consulted the papers he held, “this is the trolls’ semiannual tribute.”
“The trolls gave the Queen a person?” The first male raised one eyebrow. He was richly dressed and handsome, with the characteristic blond hair of the Light Fae pulled into a queue at the nape of his neck, a sharp, angular face, and an ironical gaze.
“I’ve been kidnapped and unlawfully detained,” Sidonie said between her teeth. “I’m a Canadian citizen, and you have me chained up like an animal. No, that’s not true. Animals usually get treated much better than this. At least they get fed. I’ve been here like this since yesterday with no food and only stale horse water to drink.”
“Oh, dear,” said the man. He turned to look at his two companions. “How did this happen?”
Under his steady gaze, the other two attempted to stammer out an explanation. One forgot to tell the other of her presence. Or maybe she hadn’t been added to the inventory. She couldn’t have been added, or he would have noticed.
Oh… oh, yes, my lord, it did say so right there on the inventory list: one musician. No magic.
Listening to their excuses, Sid hung on to her patience by a thread. Finally she snapped, “At this point, does it matter?”
The well-dressed Light Fae angled his head back at her. “Why, no. I don’t suppose it does.”
She held up her wrist. “Will you please unchain me?”
The Light Fae nobleman gestured. “Harkin, if you would, free the lady from her confinement.”
One of the other men hurried to obey. As he unlocked the shackle and it fell from Sid’s wrist, relief washed over her, leaving her feeling light-headed. Finally she was talking to someone in charge, and what’s more, he was listening to her. It looked like this whole, long nightmare might be over with soon.
“Are you really a musician?” the nobleman asked with a smile. “Or did the trolls mess that up too?”
“Yes, I’m a musician,” she replied as she rubbed at her wrist. Should she tell him that the troll who had kidnapped her hadn’t really been a troll? Or should she heed her kidnapper’s warning and stay silent about his part in this debacle?
Watching her with interest, the nobleman asked, “Are you any good?”
She frowned at him. “As it happens, yes, I am, but the only thing that really matters is that I was taken and held against my will. I need to be escorted back to the nearest crossover passageway so I can go home again. If you need reimbursement for the costs of the journey, I can see that you get repaid.”