The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)(20)

“You’re—” My mouth fell open. “You’re joking?”

Rory let out a low laugh. “Of course, you twit. You think I’d butcher him? In front of everyone? You really don’t know much about knights or Traum or, come to think of it”—he scraped his teeth over his bottom lip—“anything at all, do you, Diviner?”

Three and Five choked on their ale.

“Quit playing, Rory,” Maude said in a lecturing voice.

Suddenly the notion of violence didn’t seem so abhorrent. “You’re an incomparable fiend, Rodrick Myndacious. A truly accomplished asshole.”

Rory spun his blade in an arrogant flourish and dropped it back onto his belt. “Apologies. Just trying to make things fun.” He toed the boot of the trembling merchant. “Mention you saw her, and the next time I come to your stall won’t be so pleasant.”

The merchant let out a sob, and Rory stepped out from his stall, toppling a stone bust as he went.

I stomped toward Three and Five, intending to lead them away, but Maude had already slapped a coin in a passing merchant’s hand and pulled a cup of ale from his tray. When I reached her, she thrust it into my hand. “Ignore him. And drink.”

The ale was crudely warm, slightly sour, but its effect was acute enough. I drank deeply, and a tingle began in my stomach, my teeth, my lips. It felt better than being kissed by Hamelin.

“You shouldn’t be wandering the Faire alone,” Maude said, the picture of calmness. “Where’s your escort knight?”

“Don’t know.” I wiped my lips on the back of my hand, looked into my half-empty cup, and took another swill.

Maude persisted. “Which knight was it?”

“Uh-oh.” Five elbowed Three. “Someone’s getting flogged.”

“She was with Hamelin,” Rory said flatly, procuring his own ale. “They were waylaid in the glen.”

“You noticed me go?” I scoffed into my cup. “How nice.”

“Difficult not to,” Rory bit back. “What with the show you made.”

Like an ill-timed sneeze, Hamelin stepped into the walkway, followed by the rest of the Diviners and their respective knights.

“There you are,” One called, spotting me. She glanced at Hamelin and chuckled. “That was a quick roll in the grass.”

Hamelin turned a violent shade of red, then disappeared behind a row of tents.

Rory downed his ale, tossed his cup on the grass, and stepped after him.

“Ah, ah.” Maude caught his arm. “Wait for me.” She finished her drink, then the two of them quit the walkway, heading after Hamelin—but not before Rory dropped his mouth to my ear.

“Hope he was deferential in his hastiness.”

I watched them slip away, an inferno burning beneath my hood.

Then One was there, oblivious to my ire as she linked her arm in mine. “I fancy a dance.”

The knights led us, and we made our way to one of the pyres at the periphery of the Faire where music played.

“You know,” I said to One. “I think the king and his knights are not as decent as I imagined.”

“Likely not. No one is as decent as they think. Not even us. Not even the abbess.” She ran her hand over the brightly dyed banners that hung over the mouths of tents. “I wouldn’t worry over it. Knights are shooting stars, Six. They come and go. But you and me, our sisterhood of Diviners—we’re the moon.” She smiled. “We’re eternal.”

My spite for Rory, my indignity for Hamelin, quieted. If I am as indistinct as Rodrick Myndacious says, I thought as I looked at the other Diviners, their cloaks and shoeless feet just like mine, what a happy thing to be indistinct from them.

There were more knights by the pyre. Dancers, too. Music caught in the air. A fast tune, strummed by instrumentalists fixed around that blooming fire in the heart of the Faire. “Well.” One squeezed my arm. “Shall we?”

I hesitated, afraid that I was a bad dancer. That I would look stupid or less, somehow, like a Diviner. But no carpet felt finer than being barefoot on grass, and the song—a jovial jig—was telling me it wanted all of me, so I swallowed my timidity, let the other Diviners lead me near the fire, and began to move.

A few knights danced, strangers with happy eyes, but I liked dancing with Diviners best. Hands, skirts, bare feet. The thump, thump, thump of my pulse in perfect time with the music. When we twirled in bold turns near the licking flames, I felt wildly astir. And I wondered why. Why didn’t the Omens speak to me like this? In a melody or a spin or the heartbeat of a drum? Not in the spring, in dreams, where I was in pain and afraid, but like this, loose and infinite, when my soul was split open and thrown skyward in delight.

The songs played on, and the dancers thinned until it was just us Diviners. The pyre, I realized, was surrounded only by knights and the instrumentalists, as if it were our own private gathering. More ale, have pity, was consumed. We Diviners wove together, clasping hands. “This is better than any dream,” One said to me as we spun.

I held her hands in mine so tightly they felt fused together.

It was only when the fiddlers and drummers broke for respite that I realized how late it must be—how far the moon had traveled in the sky.

There was more armor in the field now, the rest of the knighthood having joined us while we were dancing. They drank and laughed in clusters, seated at the rickety wooden tables scattered near the pyre. Maude was there, and so was Hamelin, a shiny new bruise on his jaw that had decidedly not been there when I’d been kissing him.