Rían started for the courtyard. Two men with chestnut-colored skin and lashless eyes appeared deep in discussion next to a black horse. A white-haired woman with translucent skin floated near the entrance, her hair lifting around her slender shoulders. It was rude to stare, but I couldn’t help it. What type of creatures were they?
They stared back at me as if I were the oddity.
I supposed here, I was.
When we passed the fountain, which looked more like a small pool up close, a dark head rose from the turquoise water. Black eyes set in a blue face focused on me. I knew what she was without seeing her tail.
A merrow. Just like the ones Rían and I had seen that day on the beach.
At the back of the castle, two grogochs in short breeches and brown tunics knelt in the vegetable gardens, pulling carrots from the ground. Beyond a patch of pumpkins grew a small orchard of various fruit trees.
Rían came to a stop next to a patch of grass and a small wooden shed.
“Here,” he said.
“What is it?”
“It’s a shed.”
I ground my teeth together until my jaw ached. I could bloody well see it was a shed. “Why are you showing me a shed?”
“It’s your shed.”
“You expect me to live in a shed?”
Cursing, Rían stomped to the door, slid the bolt, and threw it aside, sending a blast of cedar-scented air over me. “Just look inside.”
Shelves lined the wooden walls, filled with every gardening tool imaginable. A skinny table sat in the center, topped with pots of all shapes and sizes, packets of seeds and bulbs.
He was giving me a gardening shed?
Rían watched with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“Thank you.” When he rolled his eyes, I bit back my retort.
“Don’t bother me if you need anything else. Bother Oscar.” Rían waved toward one of the grogochs in the garden. The stooped man returned the wave with a hairy hand.
“Why are you being so nice?”
His face paled as he glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not being nice. I’m showing pity to a powerless human hostage who serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.”
Heat bloomed in my chest, my anger flaring into fiery rage.
And then Rían did something so unexpected that it made me wonder what in the world was going on.
He winked at me.
Before I could demand an explanation for his mercurial mood, a roar erupted from inside the castle.
Rían clapped his hands, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Brilliant. Tadhg is back.”
* * *
We found Tadhg in the study, thrown across the chair behind the desk, covered head-to-toe in dirt. The only clean part of him was the bottle of amber alcohol cradled in the crook of his arm and the full glass in his hand.