of a wall covered with colorful scraps of paper and yet more scribbles of paint. Linden was just about to ask what they were looking at when the other faery raised a hand, and a hidden door opened in the wall.
Stepping inside, they climbed a narrow, creaking staircase to its very top, emerging at last into a single tiny room. The air inside smelled musty, and the ceiling bowed over their heads, cracked and stained from years of slow leaking. The wallpaper had peeled away in strips, the carpet was black with mildew, and when their guide pressed the light switch the naked bulb sizzled fitfully in its socket.
“All right,” said Timothy, shaking himself free of Linden. He looked tired, but now his eyes were clear. “So now that you’ve rescued us, do you mind telling us who you are?”
The stranger turned, pushing back the concealing hood. Linden stepped forward eagerly-and her throat closed up with shock.
The faery who had rescued them was a male.
Timothy was still so dizzy from the aftereffects of Veronica’s spell, it was an effort at first to tell who he was looking at. But gradually his rescuer’s features came into focus, and he knew. “Rob!” he exclaimed.
Linden whirled on him. “Rob? This is the musician you were talking about? But he’s…” Words seemed to fail her as she looked back at the other faery, her gaze traveling up his figure to linger on his broad shoulders and the spare, angular bones of his face. “I don’t understand,” she faltered.
“I thought you were a friend of Veronica’s,” said Timothy, unable to keep the accusation from his voice.
Rob seemed unfazed. “Our people make no friends,” he said, “only allies and enemies. But for now, I am your ally, and not hers. She won’t find you here.”
For now. That didn’t sound too reassuring to Timothy, especially after the way he’d seen Rob play his guitar back at Sanctuary. What if he’d rescued them from Veronica just to steal Timothy’s music for himself?
“You mistrust me,” said Rob. His voice had fallen into formal cadences, with a rich, rolling accent that sounded centuries older than he looked. “I do not blame you for it. But I give you my pledge-I mean you no harm.”
“But you’re a faery,” said Linden in a plaintive voice. “And you’re male. How can that be?”
“I am as real as you,” Rob told her. “But enough idle talk. Tell me, who are you and where have you come from?”
His eyes were on Linden now, so intent that she might have been the only other person in the room, and Timothy felt a flicker of irritation. “What about giving us a chance to rest a bit first?” he said. “Linden’s hurt, and I want to look at her foot before-”
He broke off as Rob swung around and gave him a hard look. All at once Timothy became aware that there was a bed just a few feet behind him, and that he was even more tired than he’d thought. He backed up slowly until the mattress bumped against his legs, and then sat down.
“Timothy?” said Linden, sounding anxious, but her voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. And the bed felt so soft, the springs trembling invitingly beneath his weight… It wouldn’t hurt to lie down just a moment, would it?
He slumped over, his head dropping onto the pillow. The world around him faded, and Timothy sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
“You put a spell on him,” Linden accused Rob as Timothy began to snore. It was all she could do to speak firmly, and not betray the nervousness she felt inside.
“Not quite,” said Rob, looking amused. “I merely took away the chemicals in his body that were keeping him awake. You might even call it a healing.”
“Healing?” She was taken aback. “But you did it so easily… I thought that healing spells were the very hardest magics to perform.” Or at least, that was what Valerian had told her, and surely the Oak’s Healer ought to know about such things.
Rob shrugged. “For you they would be, no doubt. Just as the glamours that you and Veronica create would be all but impossible to a male such as myself. But you should know that without me telling you. Sit down.”
Linden tensed. Was he going to put her to sleep the way he had Timothy?
“Or not, if you prefer,” Rob said with a touch of exasperation. “But it will be difficult for me to heal your foot if you insist on standing on it.”
Embarrassed, Linden sidled over and sat down on the end of the bed where Timothy slept, lifting her bandaged foot for Rob’s inspection. The male faery knelt and cupped her heel in one hand, deftly unwinding the bandage with the other. He considered her injury a moment, then laid his fingers against the wound and said, “Done.”
She could feel a tingling warmth where his hands rested, but no pain. Wondering, Linden pulled her foot back and turned it over. There was no sign of blood or bruising, only a tiny white scar.
“And now,” said Rob, “you are in my debt twice over.”
“I am,” Linden admitted, coloring at the directness of his gaze. “What would you ask of me in return?”
“Knowledge, no more. But I warn you, I have a great many questions-and if you lie to me, I will know.”
His tone was mild, but the warning in it was unmistakable. Linden took a deep breath. “I accept your bargain.”
“Why did you save the human boy from Veronica?”
An odd question, considering he’d just rescued the two of them from Veronica himself. “She was going to take his music. What else could I have done?”
Rob stooped and lifted Timothy’s guitar from its case. He ducked his head under the strap, sat down in the room’s only chair, and began to play, fingers wandering over the strings. “You could have taken his music for yourself,” he said. “Or let Veronica take it, and escaped from Sanctuary unharmed. Instead you defied the Empress’s decree, and risked your own life, to rescue him. Why?”
Linden sat back a little, moving carefully so as not to disturb the sleeping Timothy. “I never even thought of doing anything else,” she admitted. “I mean…his music means so much to him. And what Veronica was doing-tried to do-was wrong.”
Rob’s left hand slid down the guitar’s neck, his right plucking soft chords as he spoke. “Wrong?” he said. “How so? He would never have known what she took from him, or remembered how it was done. When he awoke, he would only find that his skill at making music was not what it had been, and in time he would give it up and move on. Where is the harm?”
“But it’s stealing,” protested Linden, shocked. “You don’t take from people without giving them something in return.”
“People?” said Rob. “Faeries, perhaps. But humans? What do we owe them? They have abilities we lack and envy, but they would say the same of us. We could kill them or herd them like cattle if we chose, but instead we allow most of them to live without even suspecting our existence. Having granted the humans so great a favor already, why should we give them more? It is not as though they are our equals.”
He spoke without hesitation, but his tone was colorless, as though he were reciting a speech he had given too many times. Still, hearing him say those words made Linden feel queasy.
“Like cattle…” she echoed, and then with sudden passion, “No. No, I don’t believe that. The Great Gardener-”
She stopped, unsure. Did these city faeries even believe as she did? Or were they like Timothy, certain of nothing but doubt?
“Go on,” said Rob.
“When the Great Gardener planted the world,” Linden went on carefully, trying to remember the story just as Queen Amaryllis had told it to her years ago, “the humans were appointed to rule it and tend it and look after all the other creatures. And the first faery, Lily-she was supposed to help them by watching over the garden and letting them know when the plants or animals needed care.
“The Great Gardener promised Lily that if she did her work faithfully, she would in time receive a mate of her own. But as the days passed, Lily grew impatient. She left the humans and flew off to see if there were any others like herself, and when she returned, the garden was in chaos and the humans were gone. So the Great Gardener punished her by taking away her creativity.”
“That hardly seems fair,” said Rob dryly. “What about the humans?”
