FOUR

Torsten made his way into the left side of the house, which meant that he placed his hand on the banister on the left. His hand curled around a round knob at the foot of the porch stairs. He did not notice the blade that suddenly protruded from the knob. It came snapping up between his third and fourth fingers, but it did not catch his attention.

Neither did he notice the dagger that fell from the door frame because he went into the house so quickly that it missed him. It lay on the floor for a moment, waiting for Torsten to move along before it scurried back to its position above the door.

Needles spiked up between the planks of the hardwood floor, but Torsten walked just a trifle too fast to be caught by any of them.

The reason why he was moving so quickly through the house had nothing to do with the blades that barely missed him. He was walking trying to keep pace with Fayette who was already in the back of the house, where the bedroom was. He wanted to hear her moving around, but through the walls of the house, he couldn’t hear a thing. If she hummed to herself while she undressed further than she had in the yard, he didn’t hear her. If she winced while she undid her corset, the wall blocked the sound.

He put his head right against the wall, but through it, he heard absolutely nothing.

It was a magic house.

He knew that without seeing the blades or the needles that threatened him.

He had studied magic. Not that he knew how to cast a spell or how to work even the tiniest bit of magic himself, but he knew what magic was and how to tell when magic was in place. It was already so obvious from the elk that turned into a goat, from the archway in the woods that led into a pocket dimension, from the size and shape of the woman who guided him to the house. Magic was all around him.

He wasn’t bewitched, he assured himself. He couldn’t be.

Love…

As a schoolboy, love was all he’d ever been taught he realized with an odd feeling behind his left eyebrow. He hadn’t pieced it together before. Even though Fayette had not explained the bargain in more detail, he got the gist of it now. His parents hadn’t been preparing him to lay on an altar and be murdered in some pagan ritual. They had been preparing him to be given in an arranged marriage where he could never be a threat to anyone because he had never been trained in warfare. He was being trained to be a consort.

He wished he’d realized it sooner.

He had been trained to write in flourishes, to paint in delicate strokes, and read aloud in even low tones so he could be the plaything of a woman from the North Country.

Was it Fayette?

If it wasn’t Fayette, it seemed an odd choice to send a little female who wasn’t even a knight to collect him. She did not say she was a princess. He would naturally expect a princess since he was a prince, but she said she was a librarian. In his experience, female librarians were spinsters from wealthy families. They did not want to get married. They wanted to read and organize books. He understood the appeal of holing up in a library, but Fayette did not resemble any of the lady librarians he had known. Compared to them, Fayette was a goddess.

He took his cheek and ear away from the wall, one second before it oozed with a sticky toxin the same color as the plaster.

He didn’t notice and he explored the room instead.

He found a piece of polished brass that was obviously used as a mirror though it left his image somewhat distorted compared to his mother’s mirrors. He scoured the closet, found very few pieces of clothing, and reflected on the idea that they must not be staying in the house long if there were no supplies. There was nothing in the closet better than what he had on his back, so he didn’t bother changing clothes. One of the shirts dripped off the hanger in a toxic mass a moment after he placed its hanger back on the rod, but his back was already turned.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

In the kitchen, he found potatoes, turnips, beets, and onions. If he ate the way he ate at home, he judged they would not last more than two days.

Though he did not know the reason for bringing him to a house with such an intense spell cast on it. If they were only staying there for the night and she just needed a little privacy while she did not know him or trust him, the enchantment of the house seemed like overkill.

However, Torsten did not know the plan. He hardly knew the bare bones. Fayette had explained so little before she disappeared. He had let her go since she seemed on the edge of exhaustion. Somehow he had slept while she pressed on through the forest.

He went back to the front door.

He did not notice needles and blades protruding from cracks in the walls, in the floors, and over his head.

Torsten was not aware of them in the least.

The greatest reason he avoided them was that he had a way of making up his mind quickly and then putting his body in motion to follow the quick command of his mind. It made him a slippery opponent for an enchanted house.

Outside, behind the house, he found an enclosed bathtub under a porch. It was filled with warm water, but Torsten did not need a bath. He had been prettied up only a few hours before arriving at the house. At least, that was how it felt to him. Fayette had her own identical area where he assumed she could bathe as well, though he did not circle the house to investigate. Instead, he found the outhouse and noted how incredibly clean it was. As far as he was concerned, the outhouse was where they needed the enchantment the most. That made sense to him.

Turning back to the house, he spotted the gazebo Fayette had mentioned earlier. It was hidden in a very tight cluster of trees.

He went there and followed a pebbled path to go inside.

There were two benches inside that faced each other. He sat on the left side and stretched out his legs.

Out in the gazebo, no knives leaped between the wooden boards to snatch at him or make him bleed.

He couldn’t explain why he did not feel comfortable in the house. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The only thing he knew was that he didn’t need to be in any place in particular while he waited for Fayette and it was alright to rest in the gazebo instead of the house.

The Extra Tail in the Fairy Tale

Fayette was a little librarian, but that was only a small part of her story. She was also a full-blood elven princess. However, that wasn’t much to get excited over. All the girls of her kingdom were elven princesses. Each and every one of them was prepared to be a warlord, or a queen, or a librarian, or a sorceress if the role was demanded of them.

Fayette had chosen to be a librarian, which meant that she had put herself up to be a keeper of the woods and the words. The first step in her career path was to learn how to maintain the magical barrier that kept the people of the North Wood from the King’s Folk (Torsten’s Kingdom).

Fayette was a master.

The second step was learning to keep one’s mind active by maintaining a library. Keeping the barrier up was one thing. Staying sane while enduring the lonely community of elvish folk that maintained the barrier was another matter. In their village, the elves had simple needs and they were easily met. Fayette kept raspberry and blackberry bushes. That was her contribution to the community. Everyone had their thing that they did, besides maintaining the library, and in turn, maintaining the magical barrier.

The third step was marrying a man instead of an elf.

They needed drops of human blood for the spells they used to keep the magical force field alive.

It was not the elvish way to tie a human up and bleed them in the basement. That was boorish and ridiculous.

They were elves. They could make rocks fall in love with them… If given a little time.

That was the point of the house with two halves. Fayette and Torsten were alone. There, they could take their time and focus on themselves. He really had no choice except to fall in love with her.

He was probably the kind of idiot who would fall in love with anybody.

Except Fayette didn’t want that to be true.

She saw him exploring behind the house as she sat in her bed. She was supposed to sleep, but she was too excited, like a child waiting for fireworks. None of what was happening was news to her. She had known what she was signing up for and every little bit of her body was alive with interest.

She got out of bed and started prettying herself up.

Fayette wasn’t going to sleep either way.