As much as she tried to make herself believe that, Merrigan couldn't. The young man had been entirely too kind, too considerate of her, to be faking it. She knew from long experience how to tell the difference between true gentility and false manners. The ones who stooped down to help a threadbare old woman, with expansive gestures and loud voices, only did so when they had an audience. The food they gave her, even if it was higher quality, didn't taste nearly as good as the simple fare shared by someone who couldn't afford to share.
Strange. Why hadn't she noticed that before? Maybe she was losing her mind, under the weight of this dratted curse.
Merrigan's grumbles halted when the look-alike resumed his otherworldly, cold good looks. His chuckle was entirely too warm and pleasant to be real, when the miller's son dropped to his knees, stunned with wonder. At least the boy had the sense to be frightened. He might not be quite as much an imbecile as others who didn't deserve magical help. However, when the boy stood up, wearing fine clothes, and climbed onto the donkey that had been turned into a massive white stallion, that was the last straw.
"Excuse me?" Freed from magic once the boy rode away, Merrigan stumbled forward, through a berry bush. "What about helping someone who really needs it? Or do you have some awful grudge against old women?" She stomped down the road toward the Fae, who simply stood there, hands clasped behind his back, getting a little taller with every step she took. By the time she reached him, his head was even with the treetops. "Maybe our time has passed, and we don't have a right to help? Don't trust to appearances—isn't that something you're always—"
"I know exactly who you are, Merrigan of Avylyn," the Fae said, his voice deep enough to shake the ground.
"Don't I need help too?"
"You need even more help than that good-hearted young lad, but there's the pump principle involved here." His smile was a glacial smirk. "You probably don't know what a pump is, do you?"
"Of course I know," she snapped. "I've had to pump my own water when I'm thirsty. The rudeness of some people, filling troughs and buckets for themselves, but when I step up and need some water, suddenly I'm invisible."
"No, you're just as visible as all your servants ever were. Your fellow travelers are in a hurry, and since they're used to having to fend for themselves, they think everyone else can do the same. Have you ever heard of asking—not ordering, but asking?"
Merrigan knew better than to snarl that she was a queen, she shouldn't have to ask, she shouldn't even have to order. People should just be on the alert, watching for her slightest need. She didn't look like a queen, after all. She didn't sound like a queen.
"I ask plenty of times." Her hands shook just at the memory. The memories of the times she had to lower herself to beg for a piece of bread, for some cheese, scalded her soul.
"At least now you know you have a soul," the Fae man said.
She trembled. The cold running through her had nothing to do with her usual fury when some majjian saw into her thoughts.
"Back to what I was saying." He chuckled and bent down so his eyes were even with hers. They burned bright. "The pump principle. It's called priming the pump. When a pump has sat idle for some time, you must put water in before you can get water out. All your life, you've been taking from the pump. You're as dry as some pumps that haven't given water in years." He stood up, his smile even colder. "You're a smart girl, Merrigan. So smart, you've been very stupid. Think about it. What would Nanny Starling say about the predicament you've gotten yourself into?"
"Nanny—How dare you!" She shuddered hard enough she nearly went to her knees.
"Think about what you just heard." He gestured down the road to the spot where he had rewarded the miller's son.
Then he vanished in a haze like hoarfrost that fell down on the road and dusted Merrigan's black dress with white. She shivered. Any other time, she might have welcomed the chill. Black clothes were hot, and it was an unusually warm, pleasant fall day.
"Pumps," she muttered. For a moment, she wished the boy had offered her a ride on his big, strong horse, but she had too much sense to take a chance on a beast that had been magically transformed. "Just where am I supposed to find a pump? And where am I to find water to prime the pump if the pump is dry?"
She shuddered and looked down the direction the miller's son had gone, then slowly turned to look at the intersection of five roads where she stood. The stone pillars standing between the roads indicated the towns each road led to, and how far away they were. The boy had to leave the closest town, Smilpotz. If he had told her his name, she couldn't remember. Smilpotz was just beyond the woods, according to the markers chiseled into the stone pillar. The town where his ancestors had run the mill that now belonged to a cheater with a dishonest judge in his back pocket.
"I know what it's like to be cheated out of what belongs to me," Merrigan muttered. "Will it make you happy if I do something about it?" she said, just a little louder, to the now-vanished Fae. That didn't mean he was gone. Someone who meddled in the lives of others likely remained nearby to see what she did with his unwanted advice.
If she had learned anything from Leffisand's mistakes, it was that majjian folk had to be treated with far more respect than her peers. Much as she admired Leffisand and understood why he took such pains to protect the treasures of Carlion, she had to admit that her late
