Vale of Dreams (Fey Academy for Spies, #2)

by C.N. Crawford

“How long?” Serana asks. “In three days.” “What?” Serana sputters. “No, sorry. I got a bit of pie crust in the tea leaves. It’s in about fifteen minutes.”

“Is that Stilton?” Serana asks, already reaching for it. “Stop!” Tana leaps from her bed. “Stilton is almost as good as goat entrails.” “You’re wasted here,” I say. “You should be in marketing. ‘Stilton: almost as good as goat entrails.’” Tana grabs the plate, staring at it. “I don’t eat it, but I can see the future in cheese. Especially if it’s ripe like this.” “I’m just going to have a little nibble.” Serana grabs a piece and pops it in her mouth. “Serana!” Tana yanks the cheese plate away. “You just ate the fate of the Italian military.”

“Use him, manipulate him, and kill him. Are you speaking from experience?” “As a matter of fact, yes. It’s what I did with my first wife, Cwyllog, a human from Camelot.” Terrific. I’m surrounded by psychopaths.

“Do you know what a Hemlock Oath is?” he asks. Vaguely, I remember that term from my studies as a cadet in Avalon Tower. “It’s a dark magic ceremony, practiced by Fey. The oath-takers bind their lives to a promise, and if the promise is broken, they die a horrible death, as if poisoned by hemlock.” “You’re right, essentially, but I don’t know why you call it dark magic. I’d call it useful magic. Humans made up something much worse, didn’t they?” “What are you talking about?” “They have binding covenants written on parchment, the language complex and tedious. An elaborate, arcane process navigated by advocates and proctors in the inns of court.” I stare at him. “Are you talking about lawyers? Contracts?” “And when the covenant is broken,” he goes on, “the proctors battle each other, sometimes for years, while their pockets and purses fill with gold, until finally, the winner is chosen by a be-wigged magistrate in a robe. Now, that’s a strange and dark practice.” “Point taken.”

“I love you.” “That’s too much emotional expression for me, thank you,” says Viviane shortly. Her smooth blond hair gleams in the dazzling light. I glance up at her. “I was talking to the sandwich.”

I wince. “Maybe if it’s life or death, but it feels like my sinuses are going to explode.” “Okay. Well, if anyone gives us trouble, we can slit their throats and then bury the bodies in the cold earth. I do enjoy that sometimes.” Silence stretches between us. “Great. Good times. Are you ready?”

“He started with his own people. Half of Brocéliande burned to death. Auberon blamed the revolutionaries for killing his son, the crown prince Lothyr. He lost his mind. The revolutionaries were left as nothing but ashes, and all the leaders were executed in front of the castle. Ripped limb from limb, their entrails dragged⁠—” “I don’t need the details.”

I’m feeling oddly better about things. Maybe this is what everyone needs after a breakup: onion farming.

“It’s a good onion,” I point out. “Whatever. And yesterday, you found a weird-looking carrot⁠—” “It looked like a penis, and it was delicious.” “And that one potato. You’re driving me insane.” “Father said you were in a rotten mood.” “Well, Father can bite my⁠—” “Girls,” Meriadec shouts from the doorframe, clinging to it for balance.

“Oh, I’m sure it will be a complete disaster, but I don’t know how yet, and that’s always interesting.”

She sets out my clothes as she talks. “Anyway, my daughter has all sorts of silly ideas. Listens to whatever the cook says because she saw the cook’s bare chest once, and she can’t stop thinking about his muscles. I said to her, Aela, I said, half the men in in Brocéliande have perfect chests. We’re Fey. It’s not like we’re human. We have cheekbones too, you know? Not like humans. Do you know what they look like? I’ve seen one in a picture book. They’re like a bloated toe with a face drawn on. Like a bowl of quince sauce with eyes. That’s not us Fey. And do you know what else? I once caught the cook fondling the uncooked bread dough in a way that I would call…well, I would call it unsavory. I really would, with the look he had on his face. The way he violated that dough with his hands…and do you know what that lump of uncooked dough reminded me of? A human face, really. So, that’s what he fancies, I imagine. Humans. Imagine that.”

“Nice moves with your blades, Nia,” Serana says, dabbing Darius’s cut with alcohol. “Hard to believe you’re the same girl who showed up here less than a year ago.” “It wasn’t as good as Tana’s teapot maneuver.” “She’s the legendary Teapot Dame,” Serana says. “Sworn to strike down villains with her kettle and cups.” “You can laugh, but if the tea in that pot was hot, his face would have melted off,” Tana points out. “Who’s laughing?” Serana says. “Tomorrow, I want you to start teaching me all you know in the dark arts of tea violence.”

“Anyway, not to worry. You might loathe me, but you are mine now, and if anyone tried to burn you at the stake, I’d make them wish they were never born.”

“I’ll see you later, Talan.” When I glance back, I find his eyes locked on me. “How strange. I like the way it sounds when you say my name.”

“There’s only one woman for me, and she is a figment of my imagination, a voice in my thoughts.”

“Well, I was asleep, and I was dreaming you were a horse.” “I dread to think what you do to horses. And they say I’m depraved.”

“In the winter, though?” Aisling blurts. Jasper blinks at her. “I’m sorry, who are you?” “It’s Aisling.” He nods. “Right. Shut the fuck up, Aisling.”

From a distance, soft, deep laughter ripples across the garden. Gripping my slashed side, I look up to see Mordred stalking closer, his dark cloak flowing behind him. “Did you bring me something daughter? A gift. Like a cat brings a dead mouse to its owners. How sweet.”

I glance across at the ruined castle. “Never mind. I need you to get rid of the bodies. Can you do that?” A dark smile curls his lips. “I do remember a look in your eyes, condemning me for killing all those people in Lothian Tower. But truly, my daughter, you do take after me. I am delighted to find you just as ruthless.”

“Nia,” he says softly. “If you want to keep your secrets, you can.” “Why?” “Because I trust you.” I blink. Strangely, my eyes are misting. “Why would you trust me?” “I don’t know. For some reason, I feel like I know you.”

My mind reels. All this time I was hearing his thoughts, I never imagined he was hearing mine, too.

“My source indicated that we can use it safely. He wouldn’t have told me about it if it would deliver us to certain death.” Raphael’s silver eyes pierce me. “Who, exactly, is your source? Can we trust him?” Oh, sure. The Butcher of Lothian Tower is super trustworthy. You’ve seen pictures of him murdering innocent women all over Camelot. You plan to kill his entire family. And by the way, he’s my dad. “Absolutely. We can trust him implicitly.”

“Nothing to worry about,” I whisper to him, trying to reassure myself. “There’s no one after us. You’re a good horse.”

“That was incredible,” I say, “and I hope to never repeat it.”

“As a kid, I ate McDonald’s Happy Meals with plastic toys. I drink Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with vanilla flavor shots. My favorite food as a kid was corn dogs.” I turn to see Raphael staring at me, horrified. The man keeps the rifle aimed at me. “Christ, lass, now I’m tempted to shoot you to put you out of your misery,”