Twelve Days of Faery by W. R. Gingell Read Free Book Online Page A

two Doctors were spell-bound.
    When Althea said: “There we go,” and tossed the comb back onto her dressing-table, all three of them jumped, each of them to some extent mesmerised.
    Doctor Fenke was the first to recover himself. He said: “Well, if that’s all, I think we’ve trespassed on your good nature long enough. That was a first-class unworking, madam! First class!”
    “Not at all inferior,” said Doctor Romalier coldly. “I’ll walk with you, Fenke.”
    They withdrew together, leaving Markon and his steward to hear Althea’s sudden: “Well, that’s interesting! You’d probably better stay.”
    “What’s interesting?” asked Markon, indicating to his very surprised steward that he could leave. The man did so, his face struggling between proper reserve and faint approval.
    “The espionage magic isn’t the only fae magic in the room.”
    “What?”
    “Someone—some fae—has dropped a very nasty bit of magic on my bedside rug,” said Althea. “No, don’t come closer, for all I know it could be a sticky one. Throw me an apple, will you?”
    “Hungry, are you?” said Markon dryly, but he threw her one of the apples from the fruit bowl by the window. “What are you– oh.”
    Althea tossed the apple into the centre of the rug from a careful distance, a flash of red against blue that changed to a flash of cream against blue and then shattered in a cascade of porcelain apple shards.
    “Not very nice,” said Althea, observing the mess. “Still, that seems to have gotten rid of it, so it can’t have been a very high level fae.”
    “I’ll have you changed into a different suite,” said Markon tightly. “If you hadn’t–”
    “If I hadn’t stirred things up, I wouldn’t have to change suites?”
    Exasperatedly, Markon said: “You wouldn’t be in danger!”
    “Yes, but just think! There were two different kinds of nasty magic in my suite. Two. Unless we’re dealing with a very disturbed person, it seems obvious that in this situation at least–”
    “–there are two people involved.”
    “Exactly,” said Althea, smiling at him. “One of them wants to implicate me in espionage; another wants to make it look like I’ve been taken by the curse as well.”
    “What else did you get up to today?” asked Markon, sitting down absentmindedly on Althea’s plump couch. Rather to his disappointment she didn’t join him: she sat on the bed instead, her back as straight as ever but her arms folded comfortably on the footboard.
    “I was looking for Doors,” she said. “Nothing to make anyone try to discredit me via espionage. And honestly, I don’t think it was Doctor Romalier, either.”
    “Don’t you?” said Markon. “I’m not so sure.”
    “Well, neither am I, if it comes to that. And he was awfully angry when he found out it was fae magic instead of human.”
    “But that could just be Romalier being the pleasant human being he is,” nodded Markon, following the thought that Althea had left unsaid. A blaze of what if flashed across his mind, and he added slowly: “Or it could be that someone told him what to expect, and he felt that he’d been made a fool of. He was certain that the magic would be yours.”
    “He was, wasn’t he?” said Althea, after the barest possible pause. “That’s an interesting possibility. Oh! How odd: one of my combs is missing.”
    “The one that was used in the espionage magic?”
    “No. It’s a set of three. One is still missing: my favourite.”
    Markon, unsure if he should be commiserating or grasping a point, said: “Who took it?”
    “Well, that’s the question,” she said. “Things like combs are usually taken because of what they have more than because of what they are.”
    “You think they wanted your hair,” said Markon, after far too long in thought.
    Althea gave him a pleased little nod that made him feel he’d been particularly clever. “Exactly. I think that’s how the victims are being targeted. Which brings me to