“Sure,” I said, looking at Darion.
He caught on immediately. “I don’t want to know,” he said, standing up in a hurry. “I’ll be on my way. Good night.”
“Good night,” we chorused simultaneously.
Tanya slipped into the chair across from me, an almost eager look on her face. “Slow night?” I asked.
“A little. I was going to spar with Chris, but he and the boys are holed up in some kind of planning session.”
“With much pizza,” I said.
“Hmm, I was hoping he’d have lobster bisque tonight. I like the flavor of it in his blood.”
“Yeah, yeah, quit bragging. I’ve got way more important information for you,” I said.
“Really? What?”
“I’m getting a new house,” I said, holding up my phone to show her the pics I snapped at the Aunties’.
“Oh, that is important.”
The King’s Daughter
In all of the Demon Accords, we’ve only explored Fairie a very few times. That needs to change.
“Watch your step, Nira. The gangway is slippery.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said, turning her eyes down to the wooden ramp that led off the ship. In truth, she’d been more interested in looking at the village’s quay to see who might be meeting them rather than looking where her feet were stepping.
The two months they’d spent away from the island had been exciting, but she was glad to be home and anxious about what might have changed in her absence. Her one long look, before her father’s admonition, had shown only the headman, his assistant, and the constable waiting for them.
“Armond, welcome back to Lileire,” the headman said smoothly. It was cool out, as it always was this far out into the Western Sea, yet drops of sweat were beaded up on the short man’s bald head. Suddenly Nira realized that other people might be anxious too—for very different reasons.
“Thank you, Lentin,” her father said, turning to hold out his hand for her. She chose to speed up her last few steps, eschewing the helping hand but shooting him a bright smile that he immediately answered with one of his own.
“Nira dear, you look lovely,” the headman said to her. She knew his words fell under the category of making nice, as Mother used to call it. She was wearing the same dress she’d left in, her new clothes packed carefully in the travel trunk that was being swung over the side of the ship on the same pallet as her father’s tools and luggage. Prior to the trip, it had been her best dress, but it had seen much better days.
Her master plan had been to step off the ship in one of the wonderful new outfits she’d acquired in Idiria, but her father had forbidden such a callous display of their new wealth. “No one on Lileire has been to Idiria in years. Rubbing your agemates’ faces in your good fortune will just cause envy and resentment. You must think of others’ feelings before you act, Nira,” he’d said. “You have to try and understand how they might perceive what you do.”
She understood, intellectually, but really, why have new clothes if you couldn’t show them off?
Now, as she saw the tiny welcome party, she realized her new wardrobe would have been wasted on these old serious men. And they were clearly more concerned with her father’s words than anything else.
Lentin stepped forward and gripped her father’s forearm in the standard greeting of the Middle Realm. The constable, Kuldennie, was next to greet him while Len’s assistant, a gawky-looking young man named Eben, just bobbed his head awkwardly.
“Things look the same,” her father said, sounding mildly surprised as he glanced around the waterfront. She understood. Travel was unusual for her community and their trip was unprecedented. But the bobbing fishing skiffs, moored sloops, drying nets, and crates stacked around the wharf looked almost unchanged, as was the cry of the big gray gulls and the smell of dead fish and crab that always permeated the air despite the constant sea breeze.
“Everything is as you left it, Armond,” Lentin said. “Ah, how was Idiria?”
Of course, that was the foremost question on his tongue. As far as she knew, at no time in the history of her island had anyone been called to the Middle City, and certainly not for the purpose of building an entire dwelling’s worth of furniture from witchwood.
Lileire was the principal source of witchwood in the Middle Realm, the trees growing in profusion over much of the island’s open land. And her father, Armond Ocar, was considered by many to be the most gifted crafter of furniture in generations.
“Idiria was a surprise,” her father answered. “One that I’m sure the entire village council would like to hear about, so I’d rather tell it all at once—with Nira’s help.”
All three village men turned to look at her in surprise. Immediately she blushed, mentally cursing her lifelong automatic reaction to attention.
“That’s… unexpected,” Lentin said slowly.
“Wait till you hear it,” her father said with a chuckle. Armond was, in addition to a master woodworker, also a very clever and skilled storyteller. He was often called upon to entertain at both the Springfest and Season’s End. She had seen him hook his audience more times than she could count, pretty much like he had just done. Sadly, his only child had not inherited that trait.
“Well, we know your journey was long, but we’ve prepared a welcome luncheon for you at the Whitefish,” Len said.
Ah, Nira thought. That explained the lack of greeters on the quay. Their summons had caused much consternation across the entire island. Just the fact that there was now a Lord of the Middle Realm had been enormous news when it happened over a year ago, but to have that lord request her father come to Idiria and build a whole suite of witchwood furniture had turned the little island community upside down.
Witchwood was uncommon but
