"Yes."

A match to Ulrich's mule, what might have once been a fine riding horse, now looked to be ready for pasture. With little choice, Gossamyr had paid the stable owner for the palfrey, glamourizing the coin by suggesting he spend it quickly. Better luck that way, for Faery coin lasted only so long as it desired. A mortal who h.o.a.rded the precious coin might return one day to find nothing but a whisper of dust.

Leading the tired gelding toward where Ulrich waited on his mule, she saw him laugh and shook her head. "I saved him from becoming horse stew!"

"A most n.o.ble effort, my lady."

Mounting the horse bareback, she tucked the c.u.mbersome wool gown up around her waist. Her leather-bound braies and bare feet received a lifted brow from Ulrich.

"Paris will offer the comfort of dress you seek." He handed up her staff.

The horse groaned as she heeled its flanks, but in its defense, it took off in a feisty gallop, leaving Ulrich and the mule in a cloud of dust.

Hours later the distance between windmills shortened and spirals of smoke from the grand city could just be seen coiling on the horizon. Eerie tendrils of the unknown shivered through Gossamyr's system. She felt traces of residual glamour coil away with every ponderous clod of the palfrey's hooves. 'Twas a heavy fall of something unnatural coated her flesh, invisible, but knowingly mortal. The air had become less light, but she could not determine if it was a foreboding to danger or a physical change.

A rub of the cut on her arm made her wince. You don't bleed ichor.

Once she had asked her mother to twinclian for her, and when Veridienne had lifted a refusing chin, Gossamyr learned that day how different they truly were from the common fee.

Do you not wonder?-she recalled Veridienne's mad query but days before her disappearance-What we mortals are like?

We mortals? Of course, her mother often forgot her daughter bore half-fee blood in her veins, so focused had she been on herself. Mortals must imagine loving a Faery lord as a grand vision. Yet, Gossamyr had never once dreamed to love a mortal man. Only, she did spend much time perusing the bestiary.

Had she savored the thought of meeting a mortal man? Mortal touched as she had become, she favored the sensation of Ulrich's flesh to hers. It did not spread a chill through her. Would a kiss be as favorable?

A shake of her head sorted her thoughts. What is this? Thinking to kiss the man? Truly, these delusions were not her own. Gossamyr would not allow the mortal pa.s.sion to trounce this mission. Nor must she succ.u.mb to wistful dreams of stolen kisses.

Now she could not press her mount to more than a walk. Nudging her toes into the palfrey's side served little more than to make the beast whicker at her. A fat, pollen-loaded humble bee buzzing from one clover patch to the next marked a swifter pace than she did.

With thoughts to abandon the beast to a peaceful death in the meadow, she suddenly jerked up her head. p.r.i.c.king her ears, Gossamyr homed in onto the minute thunder of hooves. Nowhere in sight, but the pace of their approach verily pounded in her veins.

"Ulrich" she whispered. Staff spinning, she tucked it under her arm, at the ready.

The man pulled rein beside her. "What?"

"Listen."

He shrugged. "A stream babbles nearby. We parallel the Seine by less than half a league-"

"No. Two of them. At a good pace. Heading this way."

"Travelers?" He shrugged again, but Gossamyr saw his move to slide a hand across his ever-coveted saddlebag. "Where? Behind or ahead?"

"Ahead. There!"

Two black chargers gained the horizon, their hooves beating the road to a fury in their wake. Could merely be an equipage with an urgent message. But Gossamyr suspected otherwise. They yet roamed Netherdred territory. And the oncomers charged lick-for-leather.

"Armagnacs!" Ulrich yelled.

The same they had avoided by traveling around Aparjon. "What beast be they?"

"Frenchmen! But fear them, my lady, for they only have mind to annihilate."

Leaping from the horse and giving it a slap to flee toward the meadow, Gossamyr slid her staff along her arm and a.s.sumed a defensive pose in the center of the road. Drawing up straight, she nodded. "Have at me!"

"Gossamyr, I don't think you should-"

"Follow the nag," she hissed at Ulrich.

"I don't think so!"

If he had intention to start that again. "There are but two of them. I can manage!" "Come, my lady, toss the poor man a bone. At least let me appear I can defend myself."

"You cannot fight clutching that saddlebag as if a favorite child."

Gossamyr heard the oncoming shout, "He's got it!"

She lifted a brow. Who? The soul shepherd? Got what?

She hadn't time to consider what the Armagnacs wanted from Ulrich. Aligning the staff along her forearm, she flung her arm around, landing one of the riders across the chest and successfully unseating him.

Spinning to the left, she planted the point of her staff in the ground and swung up her legs toward the rider tormenting Ulrich with a wickedly curved falchion. She succeeded in kicking the horse's flank, bringing the angry beast around. Landing her feet, she swung up the staff and clocked the rider between the eyes. The horse, angered at her a.s.sault, tried to stomp her. Seeing the obsidian-glossed hooves rise over her head, Gossamyr dropped to a roll and spun under the horse's belly. A shimmer of glamour snuck beneath the horse, spiraling it on its hind legs to land away from Gossamyr.

Steel cut the tension. Equine snorts misted the air. Gossamyr stood, spat out a mouthful of road dust, and faced both men clad in black leathers and shining mail, their falchions swinging in tandem as they approached. Gold fleur-de-lis decorated their gray tabards. The symbol of Paris; Gossamyr recalled it from the bestiary. Indeed, Frenchmen. So why should they attack?

Thrusting up her staff before her, she blocked both weapons. The applewood had been forged of an ancient tree and of dragon fire. Hard as steel, it would not be thwarted. Nor would she.

"Achoo!" Wavering off balance, Gossamyr sensed the sweep of sharp steel and followed her equilibrium to the ground. She landed palms first. A curved blade cut into the dirt but a breath from her littlest finger. As quickly, it was cleaved from the earth in a spatter of fine dirt that again tickled her nose.

The shrill of another blade alerted Gossamyr. She rolled, twisting her staff to catch the bravo between the legs. His slicing attack abruptly veered from her and he collapsed in a groaning tumble.

"What do you want?" she said, jumping up and spinning to strike the other across the knees, and bringing him down with a yelp.

"We want what he gots!"

"The prize," the other grunted. "Ouff!" Gossamyr connected to his throat. b.l.o.o.d.y spittle sprayed the air.

"What does he gots-er, have?" she asked.

The two exchanged vacant looks. "Don't know. But it has power!"

"Have at me!" Ulrich shouted. Bravado splashed the air with an abbreviated punch of his fist. Yet he had moved safely to his mule's side.

Ulrich? A prize?

Gossamyr felt steel slice her shoulder. She brushed a hand over the wool undergarment, touching blood. A shiver drew up a mist of faery dust. Not completely Disenchanted then. The flitter of the fetch's wings hovered high above.

Her eyes watered. A sneeze threatened. But through the blur of tears she a.s.sessed the situation. Both men felled and groaning, yet on their knees and recovering.

A thwap of her staff to the men's skulls-swing, connect, spin and connect-knocked them out.

The midnight chargers huffed out foamy breaths behind her. One falchion had landed the ground, point first. Glinting steel quivered.

Elation from the fight made her jittery and loose. A swing of her staff and a decisive stub of it into the ground placed a mark of triumph before the Armagnacs. Who be willing to stand with a fix to challenge her? Standing over her carnage, Gossamyr swiped a hand across her brow. A nod and a satisfied smile. "Most splendid."

Hand-to-hand combat delivered double the thrill of a well-met tournament. This danger was everything she had hoped it to be. "Blight, I'm good."

Over her shoulder she sensed the fetch's twinclian.

Do not worry, Shinn, she thought. I fare well away from your side.

She c.o.c.ked a look over her shoulder. Ulrich bristled with pride. "I took out one before he could jump-"

"Very well. So you did."

Retrieving the falchions-careful to grip only the leather-wrapped hilt- Gossamyr handed them to Ulrich. He took them, awkwardly and unsure what to do with the vicious blades that were the size of his thigh.

"Now." She strode past Ulrich to Fancy and slapped a hand onto the saddlebag. "To what they were after."

"No!" Blades clattered as Ulrich dropped them. One of the falchion tips landed his shoe. He fell to his haunches, clutching his foot. "That is my private cache!"

Gossamyr ignored his protest. She did see no blood, so the blade must have missed toes. Instead, she upended the saddlebag upon the thick summer-sweet gra.s.s and out spilled a twist of black linen, which splayed open to reveal its long and glittering treasure.

"b.l.o.o.d.y elves." She fell to her knees, not daring to touch the item. "What have you done?"

NINE.

Gossamyr gripped Ulrich by the hair and forced him, scrambling on his knees, over to the spilled contents of the saddlebag.

"What evil have you done?"

"My lady, have mercy, I am not evil!"

"Why then, do you carry an alicorn in your saddlebag? What madness possesses you?"

"Release me, foul faery!" Pushing from her grasp, the man made to cover the contraband horn with the thin black cloth.

Shoving him aside, she plunged to the gra.s.s on her knees before the sacred article. The alicorn sparkled with Enchantment. Carved with interlinking symbols of purity, innocence and wisdom, the twisted bone verily hummed a canorous song that Gossamyr felt in her bones. She recognized the curved, intertwined symbols from her school studies. 'Twas an unpardonable crime to remove such from a unicorn-far more wicked than murder; more devastating than to dabble in magic. All of Faery wept when such occurred, for the severing of any source of Enchantment crippled Faery profoundly.

"It is mine." Ulrich smoothed the cloth over the sacred object and clutched it to his chest. "I purchased it from a hawker a week ago."

"A hawker?" Gossamyr huffed. Unbelievable!

"An old man with a cart hobbled roadside betwixt Sees and Tourouvre."

So much she wanted to say, to tirade, to condemn and accuse- and yet what could she say? Did the man know the significance of what he possessed?

"I do not believe you," she said firmly. "Some roadside hawker sold you this? Unknowning?"

"Indeed! Displayed amidst his wares of various distinction; wood sabots, candles, obsidian blades, wicker baskets; it sat amongst a basket of sh.e.l.ls and stones. Pretties, he called them."

"He knew naught what he was selling. He could not!"

"Oh, he knew. The man did look to have survived a journey through Hades. He wanted to be rid of it something desperate. And I now know why."

"Why?"

"This pointy thing is evil!"

"It is a sacred object, how dare you-"

"Sacred? This bedeviled horn-" he shook the wrapped horn before her, causing Gossamyr to veer back "-attracts evil like flies to the plague, my lady. You mark my words. Everywhere I step, evil senses this thing and evil wants it." He gestured to the men sprawled on the ground behind them. "Do you not find it at all unusual that we've been so oft attacked?"

"I did. But we stand adjacent to the Netherdred; it is to be expected with the rift-"

"We stand on French soil, my lady. Paris looms to the north and the soil beneath our hands is not sprinkled with faery dust. France! Nothing but!"

"If you have Danced then you should not be so quick to discount those who travel here from Faery."

"Oh, I do not discount them, I merely wish they were not so determined and so well armed."

Gossamyr paid him no mind, for something she had said bothered her. The rift? It made trips to and from Faery much easier. The rift let out things that did not belong-such as bogies? And let in the revenants and dancing mortals with an ease that should not be.

We know naught what caused the rift, only a great source of Enchantment was decimated.

That source be a unicorn.

An unbidden moan preceded Gossamyr's sorry shake of head. She lifted her head and eyed the wrapped horn Ulrich clutched so covetously. Surely the Enchantment had bespelled him. But, could it truly be, the very cause for the rift, held in a mere mortal's hands?

"What are your plans for the alicorn?"

Tilting the horn this way then that before his eyes, Ulrich said, "Not your concern."

"Not my- Be this the reason for your quest?"

"It may be. Yes. Don't look at me like that. I plan to return it to the beast!"

"The unicorn? Why?"

"Not your concern."