Ruler of the Realm

Seventy-four

Somehow it all went far more smoothly now the Forest Faerie had arrived.

Nymph seemed to have an instinct for where they should be going. She gently herded Pyrgus in the right direction when he got lost again, which wasn’t all that often now since he was spending a lot less time crawling on his stomach.

In five minutes they were back on the lakeside path, heading in the general direction of the boathouse. Pyrgus should definitely have been feeling good about the mission. But he wasn’t. It was much too quiet.

Actually it had been much too quiet all along, Pyrgus thought suddenly. For Light’s sake, Ogyris was a Faerie of the Night, the most ruthless breed in the Realm. The crystal flowers were his big thing. He might have relied on secrecy and spells at first, but Pyrgus had knocked his entire glasshouse down. The whole estate should have been crawling with guards by now. New securities should be in place to protect the flowers. He remembered what they’d faced when they called on Hairstreak, and that was just a routine system. Ogyris should have had a thousand trackers heading for them by now.

But nothing.

‘What’s the matter?’ Nymph whispered.

‘It’s so quiet here,’ said Pyrgus. ‘Much too quiet.’

‘That’s just nerves,’ Nymph shrugged. ‘Are we close yet?’

‘It should be over the next rise.’ Pyrgus frowned. He was still uneasy.

Then they topped the next rise and he discovered why Ogyris hadn’t ordered more security. The shattered remnants of the glasshouse had been cleared away.

Not a single crystal flower remained.