The Shadowed Path

18. Lawrence

18

Lawrence

“Mrrowl?” Sir Raleigh plopped in front of me when we started walking away from the stream.

“Hey, there you are.” I rubbed him behind his ears, which were slightly damp, strengthening my suspicion that he’d gone to help Kestrel. “I’m glad you’re back.”

He sat on the path in front of me, and each time I tried to move around him, he blocked me.

“What is it?” I asked. “Are we supposed to wait for the others. We can’t see them, remember?”

“We can’t just stay here,” John argued. “It’s going to get dark soon, and it’s too exposed out here.”

Sir Raleigh gave me a baleful look, then stepped aside. He watched us walk past, then took up the rear behind Kestrel. Message received—we were making our own choices, and he could only help us so far. It would be up to us as to the price we’d pay in the Gray Zone.

We had just walked into the woods when we found ourselves surrounded. Small creatures that resembled the gatekeeper of the dark Fae capital, but grayish green instead of blue, melted out of the trees and encircled us, pointing nasty-looking wooden weapons.

"You come with us," the tallest of them, which came to my knee, commanded.

"Says who?" John asked. "Lawrence, surely you can handle a bunch of gnomes with toothpicks."

One of the gnomes jabbed John in the calf with said toothpick, and he buckled backward. They swarmed him, and in five seconds, they had him trussed and strung on a pole that two of them carried between them. At least they'd bandaged the wound on his leg.

The leader nodded, apparently satisfied, and turned to me. "As you see, we mean you no harm."

"What do you mean?" Kestrel demanded. "Your guy stabbed my father!"

"That was Chirzig. He gets carried away sometimes."

I glanced up, but the branches hung too close together for me to be able to fly and get help from… Well, I didn't know where. For all I knew, Rhys and the other Fae were still battling the creatures of the lake. Sir Raleigh and I exchanged despairing looks. He didn't speak to me, but he c****d his head, and I caught his meaning—We're outnumbered and trapped.

"It's fine. I'll take care of them."

The grimalkin c****d his head, and I sensed his doubt.

"What, it's not like you can do much. They have us trapped."

In fact, they kept trying to throw ropes over Sir Raleigh, which he batted away. Finally, one of them looped a rope around his tail, and with a hiss, he disappeared.

We followed the gnomes down the path and then onto a smaller path to the left, which I would never have seen had they not shown it to me. We finally came to a clearing very much like the one in the woods in the Earth realm, ringed with standing stones. A large fire burned in the middle, and a slightly larger creature—greener than the rest, but still wrinkled and gnome-like—sat on a throne. It wore a black shirt and breeches, and over them, a gray-feathered cloak. A silver crown perched on its bald head. It studied us with glittering, black eyes for a few minutes, then turned to the leader of the expedition.

"The human. It resisted?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"It hurt?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Chirzig?" He scowled, and the gnome who had stabbed John bowed his head, his ears going forward in shame.

"No need to say yes." The king of the gnomes snorted. "And the grimalkin?"

"Allowed to escape. Can disappear."

Another snort. "Fae queen will be angry we have her friends. Good bargaining."

Recognizing that somehow we'd been trapped, I decided I needed to act, especially since the humans had no point of reference. I might, but it was shrouded in the mists of time. I stepped forward and bowed, figuring that any king would appreciate the gesture. All the gnomes raised their heads to me, and I found myself the object of a hundred flinty, black, but curious, gazes.

"Good evening, and well-met, Your Highness." I reached back into my memory for the etiquette lessons my mother had drilled into me so many hundreds of years ago "just in case" we were ever to go to the Aerie and meet the Gargoyle Regent. "I and my friends thank you for your hospitality."

The king looked up at me, his eyes going wide, and then he laughed, showing pointed, yellow teeth. He turned to his general. "You didn't mention the funny gargoyle."

"I didn't know gargoyles could be funny, Majesty."

The head gnome looked me up and down, then turned his attention to Kestrel. "This isn't her?"

"No, Majesty. The Fae Queen has lighter hair and has better powers."

Kestrel opened her mouth, possibly to ask what powers they sensed in her, and I shook my head. I raised an eyebrow slightly, and she nodded. I hoped she got the message—figure out something to channel, if she could. We could use a secret weapon.

"Um, a little help here?" John called. "You're not going to cook me for dinner, are you?"

"You're not going to cause more trouble, are you?" the gnome king asked, and his tone mimicked John's.

Listening to him talk made me suspect that they were picking up on our language as we spoke. How fascinating. I itched to take out my notebook and record my observations, but I didn't dare call attention to my backpack. I didn't want it to be confiscated like John's.

"No, sir. I will not. Please release me."

I held up a hand, and if I wriggled my fingertips to emphasize the sharpness of my claws, I couldn't help it. "John, remember where you are. Your Highness, please release my friend with no penalty or lien."

The king grinned again. "Gargoyle knows the rules of the game. Well met, indeed. Cut the human down—no debt."

"Thank you," Kestrel sighed, then put hands over her mouth. "I'm sorry—is that okay to say here?"

The gnomes around us snickered, and the general said, "We see you've been to the dark Fae capital. We're Woodies, not Brownies."

"Excuse me?" Her cheeks turned pink, and I could only imagine the internal snickering a twenty-year-old would be doing at creatures identifying themselves as Woodies.

"Wood gnomes, not house elves," I explained. "I think?" Now I imagined the big-eyed servants from the Harry Potter movies. Would I need to bargain with my socks?

The king waved his hand. "Close enough. We are the Court of the Winter Gnomes." He bowed slightly, and Kestrel returned the gesture, but more deeply to show respect. Good girl. What had her PBI training taught her? Or was she channeling something innate, something from that secret identity that came forward in flashes?

As we talked, the gnomes cut John down from the pole, and he rubbed his hands together, presumably to return feeling to his fingers. Kestrel knelt beside him and massaged his ankles. He grimaced.

"Pins and needles?" she asked.

"Yes, and how."

She closed her eyes, and everyone in the clearing stilled and watched her.

"Catch the eel," she whispered. "Like Reine told me, catch the fishy—aha! There you are, you slippery thing."

She opened her eyes, which had turned more green than blue, and blew on her fingertips. She took John's hands in hers, and his shoulders relaxed with relief. Then she placed her hands over his feet, and he closed his eyes. Finally, she touched his calf where he'd been stabbed. He slumped to the ground, asleep. She stood, her brows drawn together and rubbed her hands over her upper arms like she'd lost a lot of heat.

"I think I healed him, but what happened? He should be okay."

A wizened female gnome emerged from the crowd and patted Kestrel on the leg. "It's okay, dearie. It happens. He's fine. You'll get more finesse with practice."

"Thank you." Kestrel smiled down at the gnome. "I'm new to this."

The gnome healer cracked a sharp-toothed grin back at Kestrel. "It's okay. Tricky, you are."

The Winter Gnome king cleared his throat, and the healer bowed her head and melted back into the shadows that gathered at the edge of the clearing as dusk fell.

"Stay with us," he said. "We will feed you and keep you safe. Danger lurks in the dark."

I crossed my arms and tried to look intimidating, but they had me outmatched in number if not size. "Are we your guests, or your prisoners?"

"That, Sir Gargoyle, is not for you to decide. It will be her decision."

"Whose?"

"The new queen's."