Except the Queen (46 page)

The boogans, ignoring the thrashing legs of the dying horse, threw themselves down on all fours and lapped at the slick puddles of the mingled blood. Lankin was left to grovel beside his slain horse, desperately trying to gather up the broken shards of glass and save some of the contents.

Ignoring the frenzied bodies feeding at her feet, Baba Yaga tore handfuls of flesh from the dying horse and consumed it in huge mouthfuls, her jaws cracking with pleasure. We all watched silently as she ate her fill. Even Red Cap withdrew, reminded I am sure that the Great Witch could never be claimed by either side. She was her own universe.

Finally, having finished her meal, and licking her fingers, Baba Yaga looked down at Lankin, and sniffed. “That’s for killing my dog. You should have kept the fuck out of my house.”

She walked over to where Sparrow and I waited, still clinging to one another. She removed a cloth bag from her satchel and handed it to Sparrow.

“Your journals. You left them behind.”

Sparrow took the bag in both hands and the tears formed in her eyes. “Lily,” she said. “I couldn’t save Lily. I’m sorry. I loved that little dog.”

Baba Yaga smiled, a not entirely pleasing sight as bits of Lankin’s horse were still visible in her iron-capped teeth. She patted the satchel. “Her bones are here. The Hands saved them for me. I will make another Lily. That little shit Red Cap has no power over those under my protection. Including you.” She leaned down and gave Sparrow an unexpected kiss on the forehead. “See,” she
whispered to Sparrow, though I was close enough to hear, “now both sides will think very hard before giving trouble for you.”

Then she turned and tapped me lightly on the cheek. “You’ve done well, little one. My garden looked good and will look good again. As for those very bad boys of the first floor, they are now keeping the rusalki company in the lake. It’s time for me to go home again for a while.” The burning embers of her eyes flared to life. “The fall semester is about to begin. And the little chicks will be looking for a place to live.”

She strolled to the Queen who slid from her horse to greet the Witch. How odd it was to see them standing there, youth and beauty bowing her head before Baba Yaga’s aged body. Baba Yaga spoke to her softly, and the Queen’s gaze followed to where Sparrow and I still huddled together on the ground. I saw her smile weakly, and then nod. Baba Yaga stepped away and the Seelie court parted to let her pass. She walked away down the bridge with her vigorous stride, and then she was gone, swallowed up by the darkness long before she reached the veil of lights that hid the Greenwood and Faerie.

S
parrow sat at the small table fashioned from a root that protruded from the cavernous wall of her room in the Queen’s chambers Under the Hill. She had not quite gotten used to the oddness of being beneath the ground, like a mole. While she no longer found the dark, earthy smell difficult, nor even the lack of light a problem—the glowworm lanterns shed a lovely light—sometimes she dreamed of rivers and high-rise buildings and wished for a double latte or a BLT on wheat toast.

But for now, the Queen’s chambers were deemed a better place for her than up in the Greenwood, where disgruntled Highborns from both courts might still take offense at her presence. They would do her no harm, the Great Witch had seen to that, but they could be cruel and petty, and the insults cut as easily as a knife.

“They need time to get used to the idea,” Robin had told her after the meeting of the Council. “But they will. Because we are here, there will be new life in the old clans. The women will come first to thank you when their bellies swell, and as sons are born, so too will their lords.”

“Is that all we are? Fertility idols?” Sparrow joked.

He’d placed his hand on her belly and smiled. “What’s wrong with that? Perhaps we should give them a lesson in how to procreate? There is a newly plowed field not too far from here. And the moon is full.”

“Not another public performance for me,” she’d answered tartly. “Once was enough.”

“In the furrows, you mean,” he’d answered, but smiled, to show he understood. Her private performances with him were proof enough that once was not exactly enough. For either one of them.

Sparrow pulled out a new journal, this one bound in leather. She opened it, and held it to her nose, inhaling the perfume of the rosemary leaves that had been pressed into the margins of the cream-colored paper.

“Almost hate to write on it,” she said aloud. At her feet a puppy stirred and whimpered. Sparrow glanced down at the fat-bellied creature, a gift from the Great Witch. The puppy’s white fur was spotted with the occasional liver-colored blotch. Sparrow reached down and tickled the pup behind her ears until she settled down again, yawned a wide pink-mouth yawn, and promptly fell back to sleep.

Returning to the pages of the journal, Sparrow wondered where to start this story of her life. Should it begin with Baba Yaga in the park? With Sophia’s arrival at the house? Or the tattoo? None of those appealed to her. What about Robin? Sparrow flushed red at the table remembering Sophia and Jack tripping over them in the garden. It sure wasn’t how she’d imagined her first time. Her face softened, thinking about sharing a bed with Robin at Jack’s house. He’d held her, nothing more, offering comfort and explanations.

“Do you know who you are?” he’d asked.

“Is that a trick question?”

“It’s an important one.”

“Then tell me. Who am I?”

He’d whispered a name into her ear.
Passerinia
. A name he’d found etched on the spine of a green leaf near a spring. It belonged to her, given her by the Queen herself. It meant Sparrow.

Sparrow had wept when she heard it, for she remembered, long ago, on a sunny day, being rocked to sleep in the arms of a woman with shining hair singing her name
softly in a lullaby. Only once and yet it had lain in her memory like a seed.

Two nights later, at Vinnie’s and in bed once more together, Robin had given her his true name.
Articus
.

“Does it mean Robin?”

“No—it means something cold. But he who named me wanted me to be ice.”

“You’re not ice at all.” She’d snuggled closer.

He told her his story then, and it was even uglier than hers. The mother raped and destroyed by Red Cap, the life of servitude, the beatings, and the blood. He too had wept, grateful tears when she put her arms around him. And that time when he’d kissed her, she responded. There was no feverish rush, but something more thoughtful, more confident. He was gentle and she opened up as before, but without fear, without the arum’s heady charge.

Later, as Sparrow lay on his chest amid the tangled sheets, Robin had said, “We can change everything, right here and right now, if we choose.”

“How?”

“A pledge of blood. The fey need mortal blood and in the past blood was taken as a sacrifice in the tithe. The Queen put a stop to it, perhaps when she was thinking of you. But what if we pledge our blood to each other—mortal and fey together?”

“Can we do that?”

“We can try. It would certainly shake up the Council.”

Robin had retrieved a small knife from his pants pocket and returned to the bed. He cut a line in the center of his hand and closed his palm around the flowing blood. He had handed Sparrow the knife.

“Too bad we couldn’t just spit on it,” she said, eyeing the knife. But she took it and biting down on her lower lip, cut a gash into her palm, then quickly pressed it against his.

“Do we say anything?”

“Ouch!” And then his face grew serious. “I give you, daughter of the Seelie Queen, the pledge of my blood, the tithe which you require.”

“And I give you, Robin, the pledge of my blood, the tithe which you require,” she’d answered.

“Then it is done and none may take offense,” he’d finished.

Robin had bandaged their hands, less to stanch the wounds than to protect Vinnie’s sheets from stains. In the morning when they’d risen, the wounds were healed and there were only pale scars on their palms.

Sparrow sighed, recalling how she’d felt Robin’s power flowing through her, as he must have felt hers. It was like being a little drunk and very happy. That last night at Vinnie’s, she suddenly discovered she knew the words to all of the songs Robin played on his fiddle. She also knew that the tattoo of trouble was fading, for she could feel the lines of ink crumble on the surface of her skin like a scab over a healed wound.

And what of the Queen? So long parted, they met again on a bridge in the midst of battle. Not the best place for a reunion. But later, when Sparrow felt the shivering thrill of passing through the veil into Elfland, the Queen had called a halt to her procession. Slipping down from her horse, she had come to Sparrow, who was mounted up behind Robin on a black horse.

“Walk with me,” she had said.

And while the rest of the court waited on the path, Sparrow and the Queen faced each other in the twilight shadows beneath the oaks. The Queen who had seemed so powerful on the bridge now trembled. She reached out a hand and touched Sparrow on the cheek.

“Forgive me.”

Sparrow closed her eyes, the years of anguish falling from her shoulders. “You abandoned me.”

“Not entirely. I sent the deer to wait on you. I prayed to keep you safe until you were grown. But it did not happen thus. Those sisters,” and she sighed, with a mixture of annoyance and respect.

Sparrow had laughed at that. “Still, they made good. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Meteora. And her sister isn’t half bad either.”

The Queen chuckled softly. “Even the powerful must never forget the power of the smallest of our clans.”

“My father . . .” Sparrow began, almost afraid to ask.

“Is no more,” the Queen answered. She looked away and Sparrow saw the smooth expression crumple for a moment before returning, serene and regal. “For a mortal to lie with a Highborn fey is to invite madness. Death has freed him of that affliction.”

Sparrow and the Queen stood awkwardly, until Sparrow offered the only gesture possible to free them from the past. She put her arms around the Queen’s neck and held her, until the stiffness left the Queen’s body and she responded at last, leaning in to receive the embrace of her lost child.

*   *   *

D
IPPING HER PEN INTO AN
inkwell, Sparrow began to write on the first page: “This is the tale of Sparrow who fell from the nest, was lost, and then found again by Cock Robin.” Then she leaned back and laughed at her own joke until the little dog at her feet woke and started barking.