Suddenly she could no longer fight back the rising panic. Rushing to the cell door, she shouted, “Hey! Hey! Do you realize how many crimes you’re committing by putting me in this cell against my will? You can’t keep me here—I’m a Canadian citizen!”
No one came. As she paused, a deafening silence pressed against her eardrums. As far as she could tell, she was the only one in this horrid little building. They didn’t care enough to respond, and that frightened and enraged her more than anything.
Hours passed. Finally her own body’s needs forced her into using the latrine. She did so quickly, in case someone came, and afterward she flung herself onto the cot. From there, she counted and recounted the bars in her cell door and watched the light from the high window shift and eventually dim.
Her violin had been in the trunk of the car. Was it all right?
That violin was her most treasured possession. Crafted by the famous French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, it was nearly a hundred years old, and acquiring it with her own hard-earned money had been one of the biggest triumphs of her life.
She wanted to ask one of the more Powerful Djinn who owed her a favor for a much rarer Stradivarius, but she hadn’t yet worked up the nerve, and in any case, that wouldn’t feel the same as it had felt to buy the Vuillaume for herself.
She chewed her lip bloody as she fretted about her violin, but there was nothing she could do and no way to get any answers.
Eventually hunger set in, along with boredom, cold, and exhaustion. She curled herself into a small fierce ball as she worried at her dilemma like a dog gnawing at a bone.
While her kidnapper had made Isabeau out to be dangerous, even cruel, how much could Sid trust of what he had told her?
He hadn’t been impressed when she’d mentioned she had money, but maybe the Queen would feel differently. Almost everyone liked money, and they liked accruing more of it. The possibility of collecting five million dollars in ransom should mean something, damn it. The insurance certainly cost enough.
And who had her kidnapper been stalking? She knew nothing about Isabeau and the Light Court, other than the fact that a Dark Court existed as counterpart to it. Her kidnapper hadn’t mentioned a name—just referred to he and him.
Whoever he was, he liked Sid’s concerts. She might find an ally in him.
She had to face some cold hard facts. If she really had been transported into an Other land, she might find it hard to get justice for her kidnapping. The demesnes on Earth cared far more about interactions with human societies, but the demesnes from Other lands had a much greater degree of self-reliance.
If nothing else though, perhaps this male could help her cross back over to Earth and go home again. That was the most important thing.
As night came and her cell fell into darkness, the air chilled even further. Thirsty now, very hungry, and shivering from the cold, she thought she would never be able to sleep, but eventually she slid into an uneasy, miserable doze.
A sharp clang of metal against the bars jolted her awake. Heart pounding, she stared around her, disoriented.
“Awaken, human.”
She focused on the Light Fae male on the other side of the bars. She hadn’t seen him before. He carried a beaten metallic bowl and a cup that he shoved through a space at the bottom of the bars. She asked, “Can I talk to someone in charge?”
He threw her an indifferent glance. “You’ll be talking to someone in charge soon enough. Eat. We leave for the castle shortly.”
Castle? She would bet her next year’s salary he wasn’t talking about any castle on Britain’s list of historic sites.
Swallowing in an attempt to ease her dry throat, she asked, “Are we in an Other land?”
He paused in the act of turning away, gave her a sharper look, then barked out a laugh. It sounded contemptuous. “You don’t know? I will pass on the information that you have no Power.”
Feeling stung, she ground her teeth. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, human,” he said impatiently. “You are now in Avalon, and you are subject to our laws, our Queen. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better things will go for you.”
With that, he strode out, leaving her staring after him. The ground felt unsteady underneath her feet as the enormity of what he had said rang in her ears.
She really was no longer on Earth. Not only had she been transported to an Other land, she was in Avalon.
Avalon, the land of apples and faerie, fabled for its beauty and danger. She had remembered that Isabeau was a monarch of the Light Fae, but she had not even realized that Isabeau was Avalon’s Queen. Her knowledge of the Elder Races demesnes in Great Britain was that sparse. Angry at her own ignorance, she clenched her fists.
And without any magic, she had no way of getting home, at least not without help. Much as she hated that guard for his scorn, he had a point. She was going to have to lose that ignorance and learn as much as she could, as fast as she could, if she had any chance of coping with her new reality.
She was still shaking as hunger compelled her to go inspect the contents of the metallic bowl. Inside there was a plain hunk of bread and a piece of hard cheese. The cup contained water. Carrying both to the cot, she ate every scrap, and she drank all the water too.
After eating, she had barely finished taking care of some private business when the same guard strode to her cell door. As he unlocked it, she said, almost conversationally, “I was kidnapped and brought here illegally, you know.”
“Out,” he said as he stood back and held her cell door wide. He didn’t tie her up or threaten her with any other kind of confinement.
He didn’t really have to, did he? Simmering with fury again, she strode out. “Do you have any reaction to what I just said?”
“Not my place to have a reaction. I just follow orders.” He put a hand at her back and shoved her so hard she stumbled. “Move.”
How much evil had been committed by people who claimed they were just following orders? Regaining her balance, she clenched her fists and barely managed to keep from lashing out. If she lashed out, she would get tied up again. She might even get beaten.
That was okay. If he followed orders, he wasn’t who she wanted to talk to anyway.
She wanted to talk to someone who gave the orders. That would be the only way to change her situation.
He led her to the back of an empty wagon and made her climb into it. Sitting in one corner, she wrapped her arms around her knees as she watched an entire squadron of guards gather. Most of them had horses, and several drove wagons that were stacked high with barrels and boxes. Some of it, if not all, had to be the real trolls’ tribute.
Her kidnapper had known enough about the Light Fae to know when the tribute would be delivered, and where, and he had used that knowledge to insert her into the situation without causing suspicion. The calculation behind that was chilling. He might have cried when he held her, but that hadn’t stopped him from planning the details of her kidnapping with precision.
Despite her continued tiredness and worry, she grew fascinated by watching the Light Fae work at assembling a wagon train. She had never seen anything like it before.
If someone gave a signal to start, she missed it, because suddenly a wagon pulled out, then another. Eventually the wagon carrying her as its sole cargo lurched to a start and fell into line behind the others. The guards on horseback arranged themselves at either the head or the back of the train.
For most of the day they traveled through dense, overgrown forest. Quickly growing bored with the monotonous scenery and sore from the constant jostling, Sid counted all the wooden planks in the wagon bed several times over, then she tried to brace herself in the corner to doze.
They took a break at midday, and she got another hunk of cheese and bread, with another cup of water.
In the afternoon, they stopped at a few villages, where conversations occurred just beyond her hearing between the one Light Fae that she had identified as the wagon train leader and others that appeared to be villagers.
After the conversations, some soldiers led people to her wagon. As they climbed in, she studied them as curiously as they stared at her. Most were young girls, but a few were boys. All were Light Fae, and they were also quite a bit younger than she. Were they tribute too?