All for a Rose (24 page)

“Not merely a human,” Corrine corrected through clenched teeth. “A witch.”

The pixie shook her head slowly, that alien stare unnerving, unwavering. “Anyone who needs that sort of bond is too feeble to have anything to offer a fey.”

Corrine snatched up the cage and swung it at her wardrobe. The metal banged against the solid wood, rattling the pixie until she cried out.

“My parents thought I would never live to see my first birthday. Did you know that? I wasn’t supposed to live a
year
! I have not survived this long by being a coward—I have survived because I fight. I know what I want, I know what I
need
, and I am willing to do whatever I have to do to
get it
.” The words flew from her, giving her strength as if claiming her courage, affirming her fortitude, somehow made it true. The fragility she’d been so sure of moments ago cowered from the passionate claims spilling from her lips now.

The pixie clutched at the bars of the cage, her head swaying back and forth as if dizzy. “So what are you going to do?” she demanded, slapping a hand to the side of her head as if to stop it spinning. “March up to the manor and demand the dragonman marry you? That did not work out so well for you last time.”

“How…” Corrine gritted her teeth. She’d started dealing with the pixie a week ago because they were so very good at gathering information and she’d needed a spy. It shouldn’t surprise her the pixie knew of her past. “I have no intention of trying to marry that beast.”

“Again,” the pixie added smugly.

Corrine slammed the cage down on the bed and its already honey-ruined coverlet. “I am going there to get my sister. I’m going to bring her home where she belongs.”

“You should let her marry the dragonman,” the pixie observed, sprawled like a starfish stuck to the bottom of the cage. “She would give you much money.”

“I don’t want her money.” Corrine tore at the nightgown, fighting to loosen the ties so she could get it off. “I don’t want to rely on
anyone
!”

“You already rely on her,” the pixie pointed out, unperturbed by Corrine’s show of temper.  She winced as she pried her head from the floor of the cage, the suction of the honey making an audible sucking sound. “You need her energy, why not take her money too?”

“I don’t
want
her energy, I just want—”

The silken tie on her nightgown broke under the pressure of Corrine’s harried attempts to free herself of the gown. She stared at the string, loose threads curling into the air like the legs of a dead insect. Her eyelid twitched.

“Oh, boy,” the pixie breathed. “Now, stay calm. It’s going to be all right…”

Corrine’s vision went red. Her entire body trembled, pulse pounding so hard in her neck it was difficult to swallow. She stepped closer to the cage and the pixie shrieked and tried to scramble away. The honey she’d so willingly coated herself with was slowly thickening to glue, and she was stuck to the floor of her prison. Corrine watched her squirm with a bone-deep satisfaction and stopped a few feet from the bed.

“I don’t want to rely on anyone, but I need Maribel’s energy. The blackouts are returning and it’s only a matter of time before my flesh starts to rot away. There isn’t enough food to keep me full, not enough blankets to keep me warm. I survived this long only because of the bond I managed to forge with Maribel—without her, I will die.”

The trembling in her body grew worse and she had the sudden, awful realization that if she didn’t calm down, she was going to plunge herself into another episode. Now was not the time to be helpless. Carefully, slowly, she removed the ruined nightgown. The patch of honey left by the pixie had soaked through to her undergarments, so she removed those too. Naked, she walked over to the wash basin with as much serenity as she could muster and began cleaning herself for what felt like the thousandth time that evening.

She could feel the pixie’s eyes on her the whole time, though the fey wisely chose to remain silent. For once. Piece by piece, Corrine dressed again, every clean garment, every slide of silk calming her, soothing her frazzled nerves. Finally dressed again, she faced herself in the mirror.

“Mother Briar has promised to help me,” she said calmly, smoothing her hands down the rich green velvet of her skirt. “All I need is for Maribel to help me get the information she wants, and she’ll teach me stronger magic. I won’t need Maribel’s energy anymore, I won’t…” She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, the tightness of the gown’s bodice holding her in, holding her together even as she thought she would fly apart. “Maribel will help me.”

“Daman will never betray the location of Mother Briar’s daughter,” the pixie muttered. “The old bat was too cruel to the goblin girl, Daman would never risk her life by telling anyone where she is—not even the woman who transfixes him so.”

Corrine paused, a sudden thought occurring to her. She slanted a glance at the pixie. “Do… Do
you
know where the goblin girl is?”

“No.
Nagas
are much like their draconic ancestors in their ability to keep a secret. If the
naga
does not wish for the goblin girl to be found, it would take much to find her.”

“But you
could
do it.”

The pixie shook her head, frowning as her hair stuck to one of the bars of her cage. “No. Even if I wanted to help you—and at the moment I don’t,” she added, looking pointedly at the cage. “I would need help from my brethren. It would take me ages to find her by myself.” She tried to pull her hair free of the bar, the effort drawing the skin from her face until her eyes were mere slits. “And there’s no way I could convince enough of them to help—not when they would be risking the fury of the
naga
who wished the location to remain a secret.” She grunted.

Corrine drummed the fingers of one hand against the opposite arm.
No help there, then.

“Well, then I guess there’s only one thing to do.”

Ignoring the protests from the pixie, she packed the cage and some potions in her satchel and laced it up tight. After giving herself a moment to calm the last of her nerves, she marched to the door, thrust back the lock, and ripped the door open.

Her father jumped as she stormed into the main room of the cottage on her way to the front door. He was seated in the chair by the fireplace where an episode had struck her and left her lying helplessly with her hand on the hearth. The memory twisted her stomach and Corrine kept moving, determined to keep the memory from sinking its claws in deep enough to slow her down.

“Corrine,” her father said, wariness in his voice. “Where are you going, child?”

“To get my sister back.” Her hand tightened on the door handle, the aged metal creaking in her unforgiving grip.

Her father rose from his seat, wringing his hands in front of him. “Corrine, please. You have to accept your sister’s choice—we both do. We cannot—”

“
We
are not going to do anything.
I
am going to get Maribel. Perhaps
you’re
content to sit in that chair and do nothing, but I refuse to let that monster keep my little sister.” She fixed her father with the glare that had been her most frequent expression for the last few days when dealing with her parental figure. “After all,
someone
has to do what’s right for this family.”

Her father flinched as though she’d physically struck him. Corrine wished she had something else to say, something else to throw at him to make him suffer as much as she was. Didn’t he feel Maribel’s absence? Didn’t he think of her laugh, her smile, the way she hummed stupid little nonsense songs while she was cooking?

She was sick of seeing him go on with his life as if nothing had happened. After they’d lost all their money, their home, their friends, her father had picked up and moved on as though it were nothing. He’d bought this miserable farm, put his daughters to work, and acted like life was wonderful again. Then he’d lost Maribel, allowed her to go to that beast. And the bastard didn’t even care about that!

“Corrine, you’re always telling me that you’re sick, that you’re too weak to work outside. And yet now you’re perfectly willing to go traipsing off through the forest—”

“Shut
up!
” Rage seized Corrine in a suffocating grip, raking claws over her voice until it was as rough as evergreen bark. “You don’t get to believe in my illness when it suits you and forget it otherwise. You don’t—”

She bit her words off, shifting her bag in her grip, trying to calm down. She couldn’t leave in a rage, it was too dangerous to get that emotional when she was going to be alone.
Breathe…calm down…it’s all right.
“I’m going to get Maribel back,” she said, her voice only slightly breathless. She stared hard into her father’s eyes, putting as much disdain as she could manage into her expression, wanting to be absolutely certain he wouldn’t interfere. “Go sit in your chair.”

As predicted, her father’s face crumbled under her derision. He collapsed back into the chair like a marionette who’d had its strings hacked off, bones jarring with the impact as he hit the cushions.

Corrine gave him one last disgusted look and then left, heading into the dark forest to find her sister with her heart bleeding inside her.

Chapter Eleven

“Your ssisster iss the witch who curssed me, and if it weren’t for you, I would have her here now.”

Daman’s words echoed in Maribel’s head and she clenched her teeth. The dirt slicked rock slipped in her fingertips and she firmed her grip, heaving it into the lake. The rock landed with a satisfying smack on the water’s surface. Water sprayed up into the air, disturbing the peace. She scanned the ground for another properly sized rock. As good as it felt to be throwing things into Daman’s precious lake, she would have felt even better if she had enough rocks to fill the damn thing.
Let him try to swim in wet stones.

She hefted another rock into the water. “That’s for you, Daman.” She gripped another, craggy rock. Heaving it with all her might into the lake, she grunted, “And that’s for you,
Mother
Briar!”

That lying witch. Filling Maribel’s head with ridiculous romantic notions of a beast who needed true love to save him from his curse. What a fool she’d been to fall for such nonsense. How simple-minded did she have to be to put one ounce of belief in such falderal? How desperate did she have to be to want to believe it?

“And you’re even more foolish for not leaving immediately,” she scolded herself. “He wants you to leave, so you should leave. How pathetic must he think you to see you staying where you’re not wanted?”

“Not ssso foolisssh.”

Maribel jumped and dropped the rock she was holding on the end of her toe. She shouted and cursed in a most unladylike manner, hopping on her uninjured foot as pain radiated with ridiculous intensity from her toe. When she was sure she could speak without spewing profanity, she faced the sound of the voice.

“You!” She pointed at the silver winged snake hanging from a tree branch like calcified ivy. “What do
you
want?”

“Jussst checking to sssee how thingsss are going.” The snake looked pointedly at the rock beside her foot and then at the lake. “He ssswimsss when he isss feeling ssstressssssed. Are you trying to keep him on edge?”

Maribel slanted a glare at the lake. “Why not? He’d driving me to the edge. Why should I be the only one to squirm?”

The snake blinked. “Sssquirm?”

“You probably knew all along though, didn’t you?” Maribel muttered.

“Knew what?”

“Knew that he never wanted me here. You probably knew that the only reason he demanded my father send his daughter here to take his place was because he thought my father would bring my sister. He thinks she’s the witch that cursed him and he wanted to bring her here so he could force her to lift the curse.”

“Sshe would have removed her cursse from me, or elsse I would have finally had my revenge.”

“Or worse,” she added. Her stomach twisted at the last thought, dropping further at the memory of the hissing snarl Daman’s voice had become. Despite his temper, she truly hadn’t wanted to believe Daman was capable of anything horrendous. The thought that he was serious about getting revenge, that he might have hurt Corrine…

“Ssso now you know about your sssissster?”

Maribel kicked a rock, crying out as her toe screamed in outrage, reminding her of its earlier injury. She collapsed to the ground, grabbing her aching foot. “I know that he
thinks
she’s the one who cursed him,” she ground out through clenched teeth. “What I don’t understand is why.”

“You think he isss missstaken?”

“All I know is that my sister has not left my side since we moved out here, the only time she’s alone at all is when she’s cleaning the house and I’m out in the fields.” Maribel closed her eyes, wincing at the throb in her toe. “I don’t see how it could have been her.”

The
cuelebre
twined around the tree, corkscrewing down the trunk. “If it were within her power to get here on her own, without your knowledge, do you think ssshe would have attempted it?”

Maribel opened her mouth to say absolutely not, then hesitated. The rock in her hands was suddenly intensely interesting. The surface was damp, making the grey stone black, and it was coated in enough dirt to give it a gritty texture. “She’s been hiding food again.”

“Hiding…food?”

“Yes.” Maribel shifted uneasily, feeling uncomfortable discussing Corrine’s personal life this way. It was wrong to talk about her with a stranger, and yet… Dammit, she needed to talk to
someone
. Someone had to understand why Corrine couldn’t possibly be the monster Daman believed her to be.

“When she was young, Father was always afraid she’d have an episode while she was eating and choke on her food. He used to limit how much he allowed her to eat.” She bit her lip, focusing on the lake, on the ripples fading into glass-like smoothness. “His intentions were good, but I think it hurt more than it helped. Corrine panicked a lot, she worried about starving. She got better when she got older, and the episodes were further apart so Father relaxed the limitations on her food.” She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. “Then we came here.”