humor around their eyes as Gwen stood. She cradled the tissue-wrapped ornament in her hands and went down the hallway to the room that they’d set up for Henrik, just one door down from hers.
Pucker up, ornament.
3
Henrik was swimming through a sea of confusion. He had no body to direct, no power to control, and his helplessness ate at him. There had been a battle, he remembered. Robin had cast something. No, he had cast something? There had been such a chaos of spells, at least three of them colliding in a way that he knew meant trouble.
Cerad’s witches, his bleak forces, the dours...Henrik struggled to remember, to focus. He was glass, fragile, and the light he grasped for slipped through him as if he was transparent.
He was adrift, and angry for his weakness. He was a gryphon warrior! A knight of the fallen kingdom!
He couldn’t tell how long it had been, only knew that when he felt his limbs at last that they were strange and unfamiliar. He was clumsy, frustrated, and dazed, flailing wildly as life returned to him at last, feeling the unexpected brush of soft lips.
“Careful! Careful!” There was a woman before him, a sweep of silky black hair, short around an oval face. She was back-pedaling from him, and her dark eyes were wide.
She was holding his glass prison away from them, like she was protecting it, and Henrik felt a surge of rage. Was she the one responsible for his long enchanted slumber?
“Who are you?” he growled, but when he reached for magic to persuade her to answer, he was dismayed to find that nothing responded.
A weapon then, but when he reached for his axe, he realized that he was not only defenseless, but also completely naked, and he took a staggering step forward.
“What have you done to me?” he demanded.
“I’m your key!” the woman said wildly. “My name is Gwen. Your shieldmates are here, Trey and Rez, at least, and Robin is here, too, and it’s okay, we’ll explain everything I brought you clothes please put them on now.”
Henrik had a perverse desire to taunt her with the nudity that she was clearly appalled by, but he swiftly realized that this was only going to backfire; she must have cast some kind of seduction over her flawless skin and entrancing figure and shape-hugging breeches.
The woman—Gwen—was staring at his chest as if she’d never seen one before, and the world around them was so strange and unexpected that Henrik could not discount the possibility. They were in a fancy sleeping chamber of some kind, hung with fine fabrics and finished in metal and materials that Henrik could not identify, smooth and unmarred. Strange, smokeless lamps lit the room quite brightly, and the floor beneath his bare feet was curiously plush. A strange construct perched on a small table glared at him with what looked like blocky red numbers.
“Where am I?” he asked. Having fingers again was unsettling, and he flexed them experimentally, rolling his shoulders and testing his range of motion.
Gwen’s eyes got larger, something that Henrik had not thought possible, then screwed shut as she spun around. “Clothes!” she squeaked, pointing back at a pile of folded cloth. “There!”
Henrik could not make sense of this witch casting a seduction on him but not acting on it, but she had named his shieldmates; he would go along with her at least until he found them and got answers to his many questions.
The top garment was a simple, short-sleeved tunic in black. Holding it up, he feared it was tailored too small, but the black fabric was unexpectedly stretchy and he was able to pull it over his head and down his chest without trouble. The undergarments were similarly constructed, and more comfortable than he expected. Over this went a pair of heavy pants in a regal blue. It took him a moment to figure out the curious combination of zipper and button. There were even socks, knitted from some of the finest wool he had ever seen.
Whatever fate the witch Gwen had in mind, he would go to it well-dressed.
“I am dressed,” he growled.
“Thank goodness,” Gwen said, turning back. “Oh my God.”
She did not look much more settled, but after a moment of gaping at him, she managed a breathless laugh. “Well, that didn’t help as much as I was hoping it would. Okay, then. I’m Gwen. Right, I already introduced myself. You’re Henrik, welcome to Wimberlette.”
“I do not know this Wimberlette,” Henrik grumbled.