style="font-size:15px;"> «If you want to free me, don’t believe I’m an elf, even if you see otherwise. Believe that I am human, like you. I am with a bit of magic blood, but human. Don’t let me out of your grasp, even if I become a trembling serpent. If you, clutching the monster in your arms, continue to believe it is me, you will set me free.»
«Even now,» she hugged him and waited for him to turn into a snake or a monster, but he didn’t.
«It is not now,» Tamlane corrected her. «It is on the night of the elves equinox. It happens once every thirteen years. It’s only a week away. It is the only night you will be able to rescue me from my captivity.»
«I’m ready.»
«In any case, you have a week to think about it.»
Rainbow, who had been listening intently to the conversation while sitting in the tree, was very unhappy with what she had heard.
«Who would dethrone the fairies’ queen if you two just ran away?» She laughed. «Come to your senses. You can’t leave Corund in the lurch. There are many others suffering besides you, and you only want to save yourselves. You cannot be so selfish.»
Tamlane looked at her in a way that silenced her.
«I believe you will save me, because you are so uncommon,» Tamlane ran his hand through her shimmering hair. «The love of a mere girl would have been enough, but she would have died to save me. You have a bit of magic in you. I can feel it. And that’s what attracts me to you. Or maybe it’s something else. I’ve never seen another girl like you, not in the magic world, not in the human world. And I’ve been to both.»
«And the ladies here and there have tried to seduce you?» Janet said it in a half-joking tone, but Tamlane turned sullen, as if he’d been inadvertently reminded of something painful.
«The love of a fair lady can be very onerous at times, especially if she’s a queen of magic and has so much power,» he complained. «No one likes it when they try to impose love by force.»
«Can it be forced?» Janet couldn’t imagine.
«It can be forced with magic, yes.»
«But you didn’t force it on me. I fell in love with you at first sight. I can feel it in my heart. You did not bewitch me.»
Tamlane turned away.
«Do you think it came out differently?» Janet guessed. «You’re wrong.»
«I wasn’t referring to you and me at all, but to the queen of the fairies. She thinks she has the right to force her subjects to admire her, to fall in love with her.»
«Are they her dragons?» Janet remembered Rainbow saying that the dragons were the fairy queen’s lovers. «Or are they her elves? Or are it you?»
That last one hurt her.
«Don’t speak of that,» Tamlane dropped his gaze and noticed the wondrous fruit languishing in the grass.
«You shouldn’t have picked it,» he glanced at Janet, seeing how she’d been exposed to it. «You might not be able to find your way back home because of it. It makes you crazy, it confuses you, you can’t leave fairies’ kingdom.»
«What am I supposed to do with it?»
«It is nothing. Just take it to the castle and treat your enemy with it, if you have an enemy.»
«And if I don’t?»
«Save it for when he shows up. But remember, this fruit is only harmful to humans; to fairies and elves it will do no harm.»
«How do I get out of the forest?»
«I’ll give you guides. I have many friends in the thicket,» he said, referring to the clawed, furry little beasts she’d already seen. «Better yet, spend an hour in my arms. I’ll share with you all the magic I got myself from the fairies’ queen. She made me an elf. And by becoming an elf’s mistress, you’ll be immune to little magical tricks like this fruit. Even if the fairies fed it to you, you wouldn’t lose your mind, since your body and heart belonged to a particular elf, and not to anyone else.»
He didn’t have to talk her down. His kisses and touches were always extremely seductive, and the carpet of green grass replaced the bed. Roses were jealous of what they could do. Janet could hear their furious hissing as she let Tamlane lay her down on the grass. His fingers tangled in her hair, the green spurs on his torso caressed her, as did his hands. And it felt as if snakes were slithering across her skin. The kisses didn’t burn, but it was as if they left a mark on her body-the invisible seals that she belonged to her elf lover from now on. Love was a beautiful thing, but intimacy was even nicer. Someone in the thicket looked at them with judgment. He was wearing a mask of golden leaves, if only it was a mask. Janet spotted him, but the next moment he was gone.
She and Tamlane hadn’t parted until closer to evening. And they didn’t feel like parting at all.
A Friend of Magical Creatures
Janet was returning from her date with the elf, her hair disheveled and her hands scarred by rose thorns. Pixies were tangled in her hair, and magical creatures followed her out of the woods. There was a whole flock of them. Tamlane had asked them to escort her to the edge of the forest, but they followed her farther. The sunlight seemed to burn them. But the last rays of sunset were already dissolving into the first twilight, and the magical creatures were getting bolder. They were jumping on Janet’s torn train, making faces, dancing right at her feet. And all this was happening in full view of the maidens, who had just finished playing ball and were now standing as a group at the drawbridge. There were several knights with them. Among them was old Ambrose. He was warning the girls about something. Probably about the danger of magical creatures, and then Janet came in with a pack of witch creatures. The creatures had leaped out of the woods after her, and now they were under her feet. Janet looked helplessly at them, but could not chase them away. And here they were, trying to scratch her with their claws or tear out a strand of her glistening hair. Eloise was tired of resisting them, and her thorns made no impression on them.
Several of the maidens fainted as the creatures that came out of the forest began to make faces at them. Others looked at Janet with fear and mistrust, and when she approached, they all scurried away from her like the plague. If she hadn’t been an earl’s daughter and lived anywhere in the countryside, they’d have sent her to the stake for having such an entourage. But no one dared touch the daughter of a local landowner. They only stared at her with horror. Janet herself was frightened when the attendants trotted after her across the field. Tamlane summoned the creatures with a light whistle, and Janet herself couldn’t chase them away, not even with a threat. They only chuckled back and let out their claws. Now how to get rid of such an entourage?
«Let’s get out of here!» It came from the moat, and a jet of water splashed toward Janet’s vicious escorts like a fountain from the back of a whale. The ghastly retinue immediately shrieked and scattered. But this did not diminish the fear of the maidens. In addition, they noticed the strange wounds on Janet’s skin. The marks of elves and fairies! That’s what they seemed to call it. The wounds and scratches from the roses were beginning to form some bizarre symbols on her skin. And people who saw that she was marked by fairies tried not to get close
