The Unfairfolk (Valenbound Book 1)

by Sara Wolf

  For once in his mega-trust-fund life Alistair deigns to listen to me, and his eyes flicker up to take in the line of trees, the lights of the chateaus, and the unlight of Knight Durand. He snaps the notebook closed with his long fingers.

  “I’m bringing this to Von Arx. And you -” He points the book at me. “Won’t breathe a word to anyone about it.”

  “Too late,” I chirp. “I’ve already told my BFF.”

  Alistair steps in suddenly, but I’m ready for him this time. I quickly move to make space between us, and then I look up. His eyes cut. No exhaustion, no irritation. They’re clear and bright - galvanized by determination.

  “You won’t tell a single person in Silvere about this, or I’ll have you cleaning the rose maze for the rest of the year.”

  “Jeez, overprotective, much,” I grumble. “So what if I keep quiet or not? What’s in it for me?”

  “I’m offering you the privilege of not cleaning the rose maze.”

  “And I’m offering you the privilege of getting launched through seven layers of drywall by yours truly,” I snap. “You think the threat of kicking around nasty rubbers will keep me quiet? I went to a public school. I did that shit for funsies.”

  Alistair glowers German longswords at me. Lionel sighs. “Lilith, please -”

  “If you two want me to keep quiet, you gotta pay me. Them’s the rules. I don’t make ‘em, I just follow them. Straight off a cliff and into a pit of money.”

  “This is much more important than you think it is, Lilith -”

  “I’ll help you. With Ciel.” Alistair interrupts Lionel. I perk my non-existent cat ears up to the non-existent ceiling.

  “Really?”

  “What, don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t make it a habit of trusting people who chase me out of rooms.”

  “I was eating.”

  “Something you don’t do often, apparently.”

  “I do it as much as anyone else. Just not to your specifications.”

  I narrow my eyes. “What -”

  “I help you with Ciel. You keep quiet about this drawing. Forever. Do we have a deal?”

  I gnaw my lips.I shouldn’t trust him. My gut says not to, but the idea of an actual date is like a tempting dream and I start to get all kinds of hope. It could happen. It could actually happen to me. I could be the one Ciel kisses. The one he -

  “Pinky swear?” I start, my face already flaming red.

  “Would a pinky swear really stop the likes of your motormouth from babbling?” He asks.

  “Definitely not,” I admit. “Probably.”

  A flash of silver arcs in the moonlight, and he suddenly pulls something metal out of his pocket. It takes me a second to realize it’s a switchblade, but Lionel gets it way faster than me.

  “Alistair, this isn’t necessary -”

  “It’s a Silvere tradition,” Alistair says without breaking eye contact with me. “Used to be an initiation ritual, back in the days with no TV or internet or anything interesting to do. But it still stands. A blood promise made on Silvere grounds means something. If you break it, there’ll be consequences; one way or another.”

  It’s a not-so-subtle threat. But he can’t mean, like, an actual blood promise. Who just casually offers something like that? Scratch that - there’s no casualness about him right now. He hasn’t once looked away from me. He won’t even blink, and it’s blistering my face off.

  “Why are you so fuckin’ serious about this?” I press. “Why do you want me to keep quiet so bad?”

  Alistair doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s happened before.”

  “What has?”

  “My sister. She’s drawn the future before.”

  I look over at Lionel for some kind of indication Alistair’s joking, but Lionel won’t meet my eyes, staring at the switchblade warily instead.

  “Okay. I get it,” I finally say. “This is some kind of hazing. You tell new people impossible shit, and see if they’re gullible enough to believe it. Yeah, I believed Santa existed until I was twelve, but this one’s not gonna get me.”

  Alistair’s fast when he wants to be. But I knew that from the duel. I blink and he’s above me, looming there in a faint curl of bergamot and sweat and looking down at me like I’m a child to be pitied. I can see myself in his irises - I’m stupid to him, aren’t I? I’m just some nonsensical American girl with a bad knee, who can’t tie her shoes properly, who’s naive and easy to manipulate. The instinct to back away from him rears up, but I force my legs to stand firm. Not this time. He doesn’t get to win this time.

  “I’ve seen it for myself,” Alistair mutters, so tall he’s speaking just above my ear. “The things my sister draws - they happen.”

  I glower at his neck. “Is this the part where I boo you offstage for your shit attempt at stand-up?”

  My joke’s hollow in the face of his seriousness - it just hits the floor and stays dead. I’m standing near him. Close. The difference is I’m too pissed to listen to the warning bells, this time.

  “It started out small,” He insists. “She drew pictures of my grades before they came out down to the last number - before she even knew what numbers were. She’d draw pictures of toys Grandmother would get her for Christmas six months in advance. True to the color, the size, the number of sparkles.”

  My throat goes dry. “But that’s - that’s coincidence -”

  “I thought so too,” He says, peeling away the first few buttons on his shirt. “Until she drew this, a whole year before I got it.”

  My blood curdles to icewater, even as his skin radiates heat. There, inches away and down his broad olive chest, is the massive stretch of pale scar tissue. It begins at his sharp collarbone and runs the line between his pecs, bleeding over between his ribcage and down to the beginning of his stomach.

  The burn.

  “Oil,” His voice digs bitterly, like an old thorn. “It healed messily, but it’s got a distinct shape to it, doesn’t it?”

  Like a flower. A spider, a lily, a spider lily with thin petals blooming in a clear trail where the oil dripped down his skin. Not splashed, like an accident a child might make grabbing a pot on the stove. But dripped. Slowly.

  Purposefully.

  I can say I understand. I can try to pretend being shoved down the stairs by Dad and snapping my leg is anywhere near as painful. But when I work up the courage to look at Alistair’s face I realize I don’t understand anything at all. Not about him, or about what his life’s been like up until now.

  Someone hurt him on purpose, maybe.

  And at the very least I know what that’s like.

  I inhale a shaky breath. “Say I decide to go against my better judgement and believe you. You’re saying your sister can see the future?”

  “I don’t know if she sees it, or dreams it, or makes it up. All I know is she’ll draw pictures of things that haven’t happened yet,” Alistair continues. “And sometimes, there’ll be this thing in the background. This same dark figure, with the teeth and the red eyes - ”

  The red eyed man in the restaurant, dark hair, high cheeks.

  Breathe, Lilith.

  “- so I started looking for it. Whenever the picture would finally manifest in reality, I’d look for the shadow thing, for its exact location in the picture.”

  “And?” I manage.

  “I could see a watery shadow out of the corner of my eye. Shadows can be explained away - tricks of the light, furniture, the time of day. But the one thing I couldn’t explain was the sound. I couldn’t always see it, but I could always hear it.”

  “Hear what?”

  “In the exact same spot it would be standing, according to the picture,” He murmurs. “I’d hear singing. Not words, but the sound. The notes.”

  And then Alistair hums. And my brain jumps instantly to the words.

  Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.

  All my brain can see is the shadow around the corner, in
the hall. The red-eyed man in the LA restaurant, slowly opening his mouth to sing, and the horrible feeling crawls up my skin inch by demonic inch. Is it the same? The same monster? The one Rose draws, the one Alistair hears, the man I’ve seen. The thing in the picture…was that thing the man in the restaurant? But that doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense. He didn’t look like that. Aside from the red eyes, he looked normal. Human.

  None of this makes sense.

  Lionel clears his throat. “Alistair, that’s enough. You’re scaring her.”

  I snarl to drive off the cold chills. “Why would you tell me this?”

  “You asked me why I’m so serious about this blood promise.” Alistair peels away from me, buttoning his shirt, and I finally start to breathe easy again. “I don’t know if that singing shadow is real or not. I don’t know what my sister can do. Or why. But I know if that woman found out about it -” His fingers pause. “Rose would get hurt.”

  “Who would hurt -”

  “My mother would.”

  His voice is hard, final. He finishes with his shirt, and in the next neat second slices across his palm with the knife, no hesitation, no decorum, the shallow cut welling crimson instantly. Blood. Bright red blood. The urge to run away, to hide (in a closet, something small and safe and dark) crashes over my brain like a tidal wave and all I can do is stand and endure it, frozen to the spot as the blood seeps down his palm and drips into the grass, drips into the carpet, my leg bone splintered and piercing through my paper skin at the knee, the pounding of Dad’s feet on the stairs as he approaches, a shadow looming tall, and I raise my hands and scream and then there’s red, red everywhere -

  “You said -” I swallow and look at Lionel. “You just warned me not to make promises with strangers.”

  Lionel’s quiet, and then; “She has a point, Ali. Surely a handshake would be much simpler -”

  “She and I can’t stand to look at each other, let alone trust each other with handshakes,” Prickland scoffs, fingers dripping red. “This is the only way.”

  “Y-You could just pay me off,” I offer woozily. “I’d…pretty sure I’d shut up for money.”

  “Money is easy. Blood is hard.”

  “Says you.”

  “Alistair,” Lionel’s voice tinges weirdly desperate. “Please. Reconsider. Rose is safe with your father right now. Devonne is not coming to Silvere anytime soon. This is all so unnecessary -“

  “Your choice, new girl,” Alistair extends his hand. “Do you want my help with Ciel or not? It’s now, or never.”

  Abruptly, like a guillotine moving too fast to see, Lionel’s hand darts out around Alistair’s wrist, stopping him from reaching me. Their faces are starting to blur as the panic grips me around the throat and squeezes in red, but I can see Lionel’s ice blue eyes, so strong, so pointed. Winter.

  “What?” Alistair’s chuckle at him is bitter. “You were the one who taught me the importance of promises, Lionel. Now I can’t make any?”

  “Your grandmother -“

  “I can bleed a little. It won’t kill me.”

  “What if Lilith has a sickness? If you contract it -”

  Alistair’s snarl rips the air in two. “I’m not a child anymore, Lionel. And I certainly don’t need two of my Grandmother harping at me to be careful all the time.”

  Lionel tries to reach out again, to stop him. But he suddenly pulls back, like he’s been shocked by static or something. His mouth knits, lips struggling over one another like he wants to say something, like he’s trying with every muscle to say words but…can’t. It’s weird. It’s weird, or it’s normal, I can’t decide. This is all so fucking weird. This whole place. Durand, the arranged marriages, the forest, the helicopter, the drivers spying, the way people treat each other, Von Arx, Lionel - all of it. The world’s spinning, my insult-comeback lost in the tornado of light and dark and color. All I can hold on to is the chance. This is my one chance. A one in a million chance. I have to try. Ciel’s the only one I’ve never felt the fear with. And I might never find someone like that again in my whole life.

  Alistair flips the switchblade and hands it over to me, the actual cutting part of it still slick with his viscous red. I’m gonna fucking black out right here.

  “Are you afraid of blood, too?” He scoffs softly. “Me, blood, your own shadow. What a terrified thing you are.”

  Asshole. I’m not afraid. I’m almost seventeen. The world is almost ready for me. He’s gone. The one who hurt me is gone. I lived. Mom lived. I survived. There’s nothing to be afraid of, anymore.

  I snatch the switchblade from Alistair’s fingers, my vision swimming violently as I hold it up to my palm.

  “F-For the last time,” I hiss up at him. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of anything.”

  I slice. The feeling is cold across my skin, and then hot, unbearably hot as blood oozes down my fingers. I force all my willpower into staring at Alistair - holding his gaze, neither of us blinking. Neither of us giving in. A long moment. Two. But as he extends his cut hand, I swear I see the edges of his long, dour mouth curl up. A ghost of a smile. No, not even that. A ghost of a ghost of a smile.

  “A blood promise, then, between a girl who’s not afraid, and a boy who very much is.”

  I’m shaking so hard I can’t say anything back - my teeth chattering in my skull. But if I could say words, they’d go something like this;

  My name is Lilith Elizabeth Pierce, and I’m not fucking afraid, anymore.

  I slip my hand into his, our warmth mingling, our blood exchanging slick and magma-hot, and that’s the last thing I feel before the world goes totally black - red on red, red on black, red on his dour frown, red on my hands, red on nothing at all.

  22

  The Nightrose (Or, How a girl breaks the devil)

  So in the cold and unforgiving retrospect of four a.m, making a Dracula deal with Dracula Jr. probably wasn't such a good idea. Was Dracula Belgian? No, idiot, my phone says. He was obviously Transylvanian.

  Okay. But that doesn’t change the fact Alistair now has my genetic blueprint. He can do all sorts of illegal shit with that. Number one being, like, cloning me. Which I'm not totally against because like any rational human yes, I’ve thought about it, and yes, making out with myself would be very sick, in fact. If I’m going to lose my first kiss to anyone, it better be someone who respects me. And really, the only person in the world I can rely on to respect me is me. You show up to class once in seventh grade with a tiny smear of nutella on the entire left half of your face and BAM - that’s it. Game over. People think you eat poop for breakfast and all your respect points go down the metaphoric toilet.

  Sorry. Toilette.

  Alistair could totally feasibly clone me, too. I know that because the first thing I do when I wake up in my dorm room bed with my bandaged hand is read Lionel’s note on the desk that says; ‘Please get your injury checked out by the nurse in Knight Augustin every few days’, the second thing I do is drink a refreshing glass of asscrack-o’-dawn water, and the third thing is google everything I can remember about the conversation pre-blood. The Girl Scout song, turns out, is just a song. No ghost-connections, no creepy nothing attached to it. Just a song, made by someone. ‘Red eyes scary singing’ gets me a shitload of very bad and very fake ghost-hunting videos. ’Seeing the future’ just gives me a fuckton of hokey occultist sites trying to sell me essential oils and palm readings. So I turn to something more concrete, instead.

  Yanagiko - that word Lionel said - is apparently some big-time biomedical company based in Tokyo. It produces one half of all Japan’s medical equipment, ships a ton more overseas, and it’s heading some pretty prestigious Tokyo University-adjacent research into cancer mutagens - and hopefully, as their website reads, an eventual cure.

  Yanagiko is headed by one Eric Nakano. It takes me all of two seconds skimming his google results to realize A. He’s an extremely smart man, and B. He’s an extremely handsome one. He was born in Seattle, attended H
arvard at the age of fifteen, and got his PhD in biomedical engineering and his doctorate in medicine by the age of twenty-three. Even at fifty-seven the guy’s a bonafide hot toddy; super tall, dark slicked-back hair, gentle brown eyes, and a jawline to die for. There are a ton of pictures of him mingling with European socialites at charity balls and stuff. If you told me he acted in some Hollywood movie, I honestly wouldn’t even think twice.

  But it’s his mouth that really gives it away; that long, tender, sad-looking mouth, like the world is ending and only he can see it. Alistair’s mouth. Mr. Nakano is his dad, or I’ll eat my imaginary snapback.

  And, of course, googling Alistair’s dad means I find his mom, too.

  It’s an article about their wedding twenty years ago. And it’s immediately followed by an article about their divorce, six years later. But it’s the wedding that entrances me; I might not be able to read Belgian-French or Japanese, but I sure as shit can look at the pictures. Mr. Nakano is in an immaculate black suit, his face even handsomer when he smiles. Cherry blossoms rain down from the grand church’s gothic-as-hell ceiling. And the woman waiting at the other end of the aisle…I suck in a breath. Her massive wedding skirt billows out like a bank of snow, her veil barely able to hide her beauty. Her hair’s long and curly and the exact color of tempered milk chocolate and just as shiny. Her face is Von Arx’s elegant face, almost down to the last detail. She’s got a rounder chin than Von Arx, and bigger shoulders. But she’s her daughter for sure; those green, fox-like eyes pierce out into the photographer’s lens.

  The definitively bizarre part is finding the Wikipedia article on Alistair’s mom - Devonne Frances Isabel Strickland, 14th Marquise of du Larc-Thien. There isn’t much on her. She’s a socialite-philanthropist and was a model in her early twenties, mostly starring in commercials. A little footnote says she married Eric Nakano, much to the vocal protestation of her family, and had two children; Alistair Theodor Ryou Strickland and Rose Celeste Hikari Strickland. What is with these royal people and their seventeen names?