He nodded. “She lost everything. But last I heard she’d been hired over at Trip’s barn in the Dark Fey lands. She’d got a knack for animal husbandry.”
Oh my God. Marmal. She was breeding animals for that asshole Trip in order to feed herself? In the Dark Fey lands! My mind spun with the news.
“Thank you.” My voice cracked and I indicated he could take the seeds.
Leaning down, he picked out his seeds and then left, a bow and arrow tied across his back.
The next person came holding some type of family heirloom, a beautiful brooch that was an oil-rubbed bronze color and inlaid with turquoise.
“Was my mother’s,” she said, voice shaking. “Twenty seeds?”
I couldn’t take these people’s things just for food. What kind of leader did they have that he was letting them starve like this? I didn’t know the rules, but why weren’t they going out one of the gates into the human world and making a fucking Costco run?
I would be.
“Just take the seeds. Keep the brooch.”
Her mouth popped open in surprise and she just stood there as if she didn’t trust me.
“Come on.” I waved my hand to hurry her along. I needed to get moving. I was going to give away all these seeds to these people and then I was going to see Marmal and Trip. My goal was still to find the troll who’d broken out of Magic City Prison and talk to him, but I had to check on my dear friend first.
Thinking ahead, I reached down and grabbed about fifty seeds, putting them away in my pocket in case I had to barter them with Trip for Marmal’s release. I didn’t know if she was a slave or an employee who could quit at any time, but I wasn’t leaving her there with him.
No way.
Each person came to my little seed store and I gave each one five seeds for free. I wanted them to start their own garden and hopefully get more seeds from that and rebuild their community. The trolls were known for farming, so this was a devastating blow for them no doubt.
Once my trading cloth was empty, I packed up, and as we left, the smiles and waves as they watched us depart made me feel a little better about what we’d done.
“Hey, Sage?” I called over to her as we wove our horses through the grassy landscape in the direction of the barn I’d saved Astra in. We were completely avoiding Marmal’s land and crisscrossing through all of Troll Village to hit the fey territories by tonight.
Sage looked over at me.
“Why doesn’t the troll king get in a car and leave the Magic Lands and get some seeds from Home Depot or something?” I asked.
Sage frowned in confusion. Probably the reference to Home Depot.
“A store in the human world that sells seeds and farming stuff,” I amended. “In Spokane or Idaho.”
She nodded then, comprehension coming over her face. “The human hunters won’t allow that kind of stuff. Can you imagine if a human saw the troll king standing in line at a store?”
True. The only passable races in the human world were werewolves, vampires, and witches. Even then it was iffy. If we wolfed out, or a vampire’s fangs distended, it was game over. Delphi had been in a magically restricted area of Spokane that humans didn’t come into, and all of their stuff was delivered. Only my family and a few witch families were permitted to live off campus in normal apartment housing because we’d had the cuffs on that essentially made us human.
I shivered. “I didn’t know there were human hunters. I mean, I heard rumors but I didn’t believe them.”
Sage nodded. “They were probably watching you the entire time you lived there. Waiting for you to slip up and expose yourself, or hurt a human, and then…” She dragged her finger across her throat.
Whoa.
I guess it was good there were rules in place to keep the humans safe from magical creatures that could get out of control.
We rode on in silence for a few hours, passing into Dark Fey Territory without an issue.
I was about to ask another question when I noticed the familiar outline of a giant pole barn in the distance. I consulted my map and nodded. “This is it, right?”
Sage bobbed her head in agreement. “We really just going to waltz in there after last time…?”
I winced, remembering Walsh and I killing two of Trip’s prized fighter Ithaki trolls. Walsh almost died and we’d taken Astra. It was a hot mess.
“I mean, technically, it was all part of the deal.”
Sage chuckled. “Trip looked like he was ready to murder us. Let’s be cautious.”
She was right. The last thing I needed was for someone to turn me in to the vampires. I mulled over different ideas for ways to get inside and look for Marmal when my wolf rose to the surface.
‘I’ll go.’
Yes!
I was so used to not needing her that much during my time in the Dark Woods that I almost forgot she was there at times.
I clued in Sage to the plan and she nodded as we pulled our horses off to the side. We were behind some thick trees which afforded us a nice view of the back of the barn.
Sage looked at me expectantly. “Want me to shift and go with your wolf too?”
I shook my head. “No offense, but your wolf can’t walk through walls.”
A grin pulled at her lips. “Touché.”
I slipped off my cuffs quickly and without another word, my wolf leapt out of my chest and onto the ground. She solidified and then gave me a nod as I placed the cuffs back onto my wrist.
‘Find Marmal,’ I told her, ‘Get her to come outside.’
I was talking to myself. Of course she knew the plan, she was me. Being a split shifter would never be something I would get used to. Closing my eyes, I tuned into my wolf’s point of view and suddenly I was looking out of her eyes. She padded across the rocky ground until she reached a back door.
It was closed.
Sticking her nose to it, she inhaled.
Blood. Pain. Deer. Bear. Fear.
The mixture of smells wafted through a tiny crease in the door and my wolf suddenly went semi-solid. When in my wolf form, I never had to strain to do anything or think about it too much. If I wanted to walk through a wall, I just did it. I wished my human side was more like that. Human Demi questioned everything, even herself.
When she was through the wall, she stayed semitransparent and I knew that she would be invisible to others who looked at her, the same way she’d been invisible during the meeting with the vampires, when only Sawyer saw her.
Weaving through the crowd, I noticed there was a fight going on. I recognized the yelling and the sound of fists hitting bone.
“What’s happening?” Sage whispered beside me, pulling my attention from my wolf.
“She’s in. There’s a fight going on. She’s looking for Marmal.” I slipped from my saddle. I wanted to be ready to run up and greet my troll friend.
“I’ll tie off the horses,” Sage informed me, and I just nodded, seeing through my wolf’s eyes as she scanned the room.
Big male, small male, ugly male, Trip, animals in cages … it was all the same until I noticed a girl hunched over the largest cage in the place.
Marmal.
She was doing something to the dragon! I’d completely forgotten about the dragon creature we’d seen last time until now. My wolf burst forward, weaving in and out of the melee until she was at Marmal’s heels. My beautiful troll friend was covered in dirt, on her knees and scrubbing the talons of the dragon through the cage with a bristle brush and some water. One of the talons had been shorn off completely; the end of it was flat and chipped in some spots.