Staked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #8)(27)
It feels like ice water in me pants to hear him say that. I gasp and everything retracts. But then I say, “Aye, lad, I will.” There’s silence for a few beats and then I add, “Greta would tear me up if I said a rude word to those kids. And their parents would join in, no doubt. I’ll try not to repeat me cock-ups.”
His face relaxes and he smiles. “Fair enough. I’ll try to keep mine to a minimum as well.”
“Good, good. Speaking of Greta, I’d best be getting back to her. Going to visit Brighid for a moment and then head home. You’ll be all right now?”
“Yes. I appreciate you taking the trouble to bring me here.” He says farewell and the hound thanks me for the poutine. I can tell he won’t shut up about it for days, but it’s Siodhachan who will have to listen to it, so I figure that stopping for food was a win for me in every way.
The Fae Court in Tír na nóg doesn’t operate on Canadian time, so it’s hopping like a rabbit warren during humping season when I get there. There are quite a few of the dodgy sorts of Fae around, far more than I had seen before, and I wonder why that is. I hang back and listen, ask a couple questions, and learn that Brighid has granted amnesty to a lot of Fae and other old creatures that had either been imprisoned or exiled for a long time.
“She’s being more accommodating,” a winged faery explains, “after Fand’s attempted coup. We may have lost our queen, but at least the First among the Fae is listening to us now. And Fand may return someday, just as these others have.”
She’s probably right about that. Fand won’t remain imprisoned forever. The Fae will start asking soon when she might be released, and eventually their questions will turn into demands. And the same goes for her husband, Manannan Mac Lir. Brighid can delay only so long before this temporary goodwill turns to ashes. But I’m not sure letting a bunch of prisoners free will do anything to keep the peace. Some of them are going to be grateful, sure, and be a grand addition to society. But some are going to be resentful and start throwing shite at things. She’d better be ready to duck.
But perhaps Brighid’s thinking that she can simply imprison them again and say, “Well, I gave them a chance, didn’t I? Not my fault if they’re stupid gits.”
I find a chamberlain figure near the front of the crush of beings, dressed all fancy and doused in perfume. I tell him I’d like a brief audience with Brighid, and his eyes stray down to me tattoos. They widen as he recognizes I’m bound to Gaia. “You’re a Druid?” he says.
“Aye. Eoghan ó Cinnéide.”
“She’s left instructions to bring you before her immediately should you appear. Please come with me.”
That’s a pleasant surprise, and I ignore the scowls I get from a group of pixie widows as the chamberlain interrupts their audience to introduce me—not just to Brighid but to everyone, since he shouts my name. I notice Brighid’s wearing a new kit. It’s a set of lighter armor instead of the heavy stuff she wore during the coup attempt, painted a metallic blue. It leaves her arms and legs largely unprotected, but her vital organs are under wraps. And the area around her throne is warded tighter than a hedgehog’s rolled-up arse anyway; I can feel the bindings warning me away from it.
“Welcome,” she says. “What news?”
“I’m starting a grove, taking on six apprentices to be Druids. Wanted ye to know. Whatever protection ye can afford would be grand.”
“Ah! This pleases me very much, Eoghan. Give the details to my chamberlain and I will see it done. I would speak longer, but I have much to do. Is there anything else?”
I think of how Siodhachan is trying to wipe out vampires and it’s going to be all blood and exploding organs until he’s done, but she probably already knows that since she had Luchta make those stakes and I don’t need to announce it where everyone can hear. So I says, “No, that is all.”
She bids me farewell, and I bow to her and chat off to one side with the chamberlain while the pixies resume their audience. I tell him about the property in Flagstaff and how it needs to be warded and after a few seconds become aware that something huge looms over us and smells like sweaty feet.
A gray-skinned hulk, probably twice me size, stares down at me with tiny black eyes and big tusk-like teeth sticking up out of its mouth. There’s a bit of drool leaking out the side, and there are also patches of lichen or fungus attached to its skin with either mud or shite or both used as an adhesive. It has a cloth wrapped inexpertly around its hips, and it’s doing a terrible job covering up the huge thing it’s supposed to be hiding from view. It’s a great fecking bog troll, the kind that doesn’t care if you see his cheesy dangly dong. The worst kind of troll, in other words.
“I know you,” it rumbles, and its breath is a visible cloud of decay. “You’re a Druid.”
“Ye have a keen eye,” I say. “Would ye excuse us, please?”
“No, we have business. I remember.”
“I don’t think we do.”
“I was on a Time Island. Released with many others. So were you. And you owe me gold.”
“You’re mistaken. I don’t owe you shite.”
“No mistake. You crossed my bridge in the bog and didn’t pay the toll. You look younger now, but I remember. You owe me gold.”