Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(17)

There were better singers among the fae, but he would have done well, even so, she thought, in the courts where her mother had lived.

At his orders, she stayed in bed for a few more days. When she grew restless, Haida brought her weaving to her. It was not her favorite task, but making cloth was a necessity even for the fae. Samuel came in while she was threading the warp—and he made her teach him. At first he made a mess of it, but his fingers were long and clever, and it wasn’t long before he caught on. She thought it was another thing to keep her in bed. But when he later made Haida teach him to cook his favorite soups and sweets, she decided it was just curiosity.

If it hadn’t been for his kindness to her little champion, she might have resisted him longer—no matter the serious attention he’d given to her women’s work. He was human (and wolf, warned her beast, though it wasn’t loud around Samuel). Ariana wasn’t used to small kindnesses being dealt out by men, and she felt herself falling under the spell of the soft-spoken Samuel, just as Haida was.

The hobgoblin had initially resisted his intrusion into her kitchen—but then he proposed a trade. He taught her a song for every dish she taught him to make, finding pretty but simple tunes with limited range, so Haida could sing them well. Her little friend’s pleasure in making her own music made him happier than learning to cook did.

He let Ariana get out of bed after three days—and then, contrary man, he became relentless in his demands for her to move, to bend and twist. An old wound in her leg bothered him the most. He told her to keep salve on it to soften the scar, made her move and bend until it hurt, then bend a little more.

It took her a week before she admitted that she’d named him true: Silverheart, Ariana’s heart. Her body loved his form, but her heart loved the man within who had so much kindness inside him.

TEN

Samuel

Haida was shy and nervous about my bumbling around in her kitchen. But I needed something to keep my hands and mind busy. Ariana was healing much faster than I expected, and after the first few days, her care was not enough to keep me busy. I needed to do things to keep my mind off Da.

Haida had broken the hold my grandmother had on me, but the tie that bound my father to the witch was stronger than mine, either because he’d taken Dafydd’s place as head of the pack, since he was closer in blood to her, or—and he’d said this was probable—because she’d had her claws into him longer. The witch would be enraged with the deaths of the rest of the pack and whatever Haida had done to free me—and my father was facing her alone. When I was certain that Ariana would heal without me, I would return to do for my father what Haida had done for me.

I would free him from the witch. I could all but taste her blood on my tongue—and it was a fine taste, one to look forward to.

In the meantime, I found things to keep me busy. If she had not loved music so much, Haida would never have let me into her kitchen. My wife . . . my wife had never let me help her cook.

As I worked grinding leaves to powder I thought about those lost memories. My da, he remembered my wife’s name and my children’s, too. I remember asking him about them and he told me, and their names and faces ran from me as if they could no longer stay within me.

The sound of Haida’s singing soothed my sore heart. I don’t know why she’d never sung on her own—her voice was lovely—but she treasured the songs I gave her more than my grandmother treasured power. After I’d been underfoot awhile, Haida quit being so quiet.

“I knew that you had it in you,” I told her after she scolded me, then paused, almost cringing away from me. “Good. Now do it again.”

“You,” she exclaimed in exasperated tones, but she stopped cringing. “You go. Do as I told you.”

So I pounded and ground and stirred at her direction. Some of the ingredients were new to me. When I asked about those, Haida’s eyes grew round, and she ducked her head, glancing around herself, as if asking for permission.

“That would be Underhill,” she said. “This part of Underhill, anyway. It likes you. Brings out favorites to share with you.”

Some of those ingredients I learned centuries later. Saffron, paprika, black pepper—spices from all over the world. It was there I first tasted oranges, bananas, and potatoes. Some of the foods I ate there I never knowingly tasted again.

I was crushing peppercorns with a mortar and pestle when she said to me, “You must be careful with my lady.”

“I won’t hurt her,” I promised after sorting through several replies. Had Haida noticed how I looked at her sometimes? There was nothing that could come of it. I was a monster, and beyond that a simple village herbalist, and she a fairy princess. But a man could look and dream, couldn’t he?

She made a chiding sound. “Of course you will. Everyone hurts everyone—it is a part of living. But I don’t mean careful that way. She has a beast inside her.”

“So do I,” I told her, and as if that acknowledgment awakened it, the wolf inside me surfaced.

“Your heart beats with a wolf’s rhythm,” Haida said prosaically. “But it is not a monster. Not the way my lady’s is—or your da’s is, for that matter.”

“My da is the same as I,” I protested. “And Ariana is . . .” Words failed me for a moment. “Ariana is strong and true as a good oak tree.”