Child of Darkness-L-D-2 Read Free Page A

difficulties of his childhood and held no one unduly accountable.
    Fenrick motioned to the stall owner and handed over his trade—a few water-stained packets of sugar from the Human world above, a booklet of paper scraps held together with coiled wire, and two or three small, coppery coins, also Human in origin—and waited for the thickarmed man to assess the value. He nodded, unsmiling, and broke off a large chunk of the sticky sweet bread for Fenrick.
    Fenrick held up his hand. “For the Human. She was willing to part with something much more valuable for it.”
    At this, the shopkeeper’s eyes widened in disbelief, and he made to pull the bread back, but Cerridwen snatched it and she and Fenrick ran laughing into the crowd at the center of the Strip.
    When they stopped again, near one of the tunnels to the Darkworld, she meant to thank him for the bread. But Fenrick spoke first, and she used the opportunity to bite into the delicious Human confection.
    “You look different tonight,” Fenrick said, gesturing to her face. “You’re wearing paint on your eyes. Trying to impress someone?”
    She had forgotten to remove the cosmetics Governess had applied for the royal party. She swallowed carefully, the sticky bread sliding down her throat in a raw lump. Then, she put on a wicked grin, the one she had practiced in the mirror until it looked both teasing and goodhumored. “Perhaps. Or several someones. The night is long.”
    He took a step forward, then another, until they were so close that his chest brushed hers. His gray tongue darted over his blue-black lips, his unsettlingly yellow gaze fixed on her mouth. He leaned down, and she did not know what to do, other than to flatten against the slope of the tunnel and move the bread to her side so that he did not crush it between them. His mouth covered hers—how often had she thought of this happening in the weeks since she’d met him?—and it was exactly like, yet strangely nothing at all like, what she had imagined it would be to be kissed. She heard a small noise from her throat before she could stop it; it was a shame, she wanted to appear experienced and unaffected.
    When he moved back, it seemed to have been finished in a blink of an eye. For another blink, she waited, wondering what he would say, if this was when he would declare some feeling for her. Her heart stuck in her throat, or it might have been the bit of bread, but while she gaped at him wide-eyed, his serious, intense expression changed into one of laughter.
    “Come on. The night isn’t that long.” He tugged on her hand and she followed him into the tunnel, bracing herself against the stench of decay that lingered in the Darkworld. So, that was not what he meant by the kiss, though she did not know what he had meant. It did not matter. She could laugh and dance and be young, unencumbered by the strictures of Palace manners, the seriousness that pervaded every facet of her life in the Lightworld. She let him take her hand and pull her deeper into the Darkworld, and she thought she could already hear the pulse of the music that awaited her.

    “Your Majesty?”
    Ayla looked up, away from the revelers who crowded the Great Hall. Cedric, seated at her side, turned his attention to the guard who had approached her, as did Malachi, who stood at the foot of the dais, in deep discussion with two other Faeries on her council. Angry as she was with her daughter, she would not show it. Nor would she show any concern, though in the back of her mind it crept in to spoil her annoyance. “Yes? Have you found her?”
    “No, Your Majesty. We did find a dress, which her servants have confirmed belonged to her, and shoes.” He cleared his throat, obviously nervous to have to speak to his Queene thusly.
    “Is it possible that she has left the Palace? We do not wish to presume—”
    Ayla cut him off with a glare. “If she is not in the Palace,” she began, her voice low and serious, “then she has left the