by M. A. Grant
And only Smith is incompetent and ignorant enough to not know that a simple illumination spell would finish the thing off. Any infant in the Winter Court knows how to do that. At least he lit it on fire. Probably did that by accident, but it’s what kept him alive long enough for me to get involved.
Do ancient creatures attack him because he lights up the magickal atmosphere like a fireworks show, or because he’s easy prey? Between his luck and his almost total lack of control, he should be dead a hundred times by now.
He would be, except for me. That’s how he survives all of this. Because I’m a fucking pathetic mess who places more value on his life than I ever should.
Smith never even saw this one coming. He walked past the garden, missed the tail whipping toward him, and before I could shout a warning, he was on the ground, vanishing into the darkness. The sight of him being dragged away, knowing what could have happened... No, thinking about it won’t help. Besides, I have more pressing matters now.
The charred creature snarls as I approach and collapses against the wall. The black blood coating it has cooked onto its skin, leaving an oily, rancid smoke hanging in the air. Its claws twitch and dig into the ground. It’s mortally wounded and doesn’t have the energy to launch itself at me. The stump of its tail twitches, spewing blood over the earth. This garden will look like a murder scene in the morning.
I don’t even have to think to pull on my glamour and cast light. The Seelie are better at this, sun worshippers that they are, but the Winter Court’s underground sídhe is filled with dark tunnels and calling ghostlights is second nature. The orb flares into being, throwing its white beams around the garden, and the sanglin gives a final howl of agony. Its flesh sizzles, its eyes roll back, and it gives a last, violent shudder before it collapses lifeless to the ground.
There. Monster dead.
Time to check that it’s the only corpse in the vicinity.
Smith has staggered to his feet. He stumbles toward me, face set in that irritating stoicism he unconsciously wears when he becomes heroic. Idiot.
“Smith, stop moving. You’re likely concussed.”
He doesn’t hear me. Or pretends not to. Weaves to the left. The right. Wherever he thinks he’s headed, he’s not on a straight path there. His left knee keeps wobbling under his weight.
I hurry to close the last few steps between us. “Smith, it’s dead.”
My glamour braces for the sensation of his magick, but there’s nothing of note there. There’s just a low, gentle hum buried so deep I nearly miss it. Would have missed it completely, if not for Smith’s hands clamping down on my shoulders. I support his weight even as I lift a hand and grab hold of his chin, forcing his gaze to steady on me. “Did that fight destroy your hearing as well as your common sense?”
He blinks, a long, slow, hypnotizing movement. His pupils are blown out, nearly obscuring the thin ring of plain blue. Mesmerizing. Searching for me with an intensity that squeezes the breath from my lungs.
The ghostlight finally catches up to us, stalling and hovering behind my shoulder. Smith winces against the light, but his pupils don’t contract. Dammit.
I readjust my grip, turning his face into and away from the light. No reaction. Definitely a concussion.
“Did you hit your head?” I ask him, already looking him over for other injuries.
Mostly scratches and scrapes. He’ll be bruised, judging by the welts already darkening his skin. Idiot. My grip tightens.
He gives a muted whimper, but doesn’t pull away. Instead, his gaze steadies and he takes a shallow gulp of air. “Lyne,” he mumbles, words garbled from the way I’m squishing his cheeks, “wha are you doing?”
I have no idea.
We’re standing too close. I need to stop touching him.
I drop my hand from his chin and cross my arms over my chest. “Checking that you aren’t going to die before we get back to the apartment.”
He steps back first. The minuscule distance between us makes it easier to breathe and sets this awkwardness to rights.
“Why would I die?”
“You have a concussion.”
His expression is pure exasperation. “Yeah. Football player. Kind of know how they feel.”
“Brilliant.”
His eyes narrow and I can practically hear those rusty gears turning. “Why did you jump in? How did you know where I was?”
“I don’t care where you are,” I lie. “I was going back to the apartment. Lucky for you, I was passing by. We all know how difficult it is to escape creatures who are so delicate light can kill them in two seconds flat.”
“Fuck off, Lyne.”
Thank the Goddess. Escape at last. “Happily. If you aren’t home within the hour, I’ll send the satyr to search for your corpse.”
Ten minutes later when I’m showering, I hear the apartment’s front door open and close. Good. He made it back in one piece. I finish up, dry off, and wrap the towel around my waist. It’s a bit of a surprise to open the door and find him leaning against the couch, fiddling with one of the satyr’s knitted blankets and waiting his turn.
In the bright glow of the electric lights, he looks worse than I expected. He’ll be a walking bruise by tomorrow morning.
“You look half-dead,” I say, striding past him.
He flips me off and trudges toward the bathroom, dragging off his shirt on the way. The movement makes the defined muscles of his abdomen flex and curl, drawing attention to the nearly invisible trail of hair leading down to the sharp V of his hips. It’s enough to stop me in my tracks and I draw up my glamour so fast it makes me dizzy. Or maybe that’s what happens when I steal the moment to gawk at him as he walks past me.
Faeries rarely scar. Our skin never tells a story of a life well-lived and hard-won. I’m torn between regret for his pain and jealousy at the proof of his strength, because Smith is a fucking masterpiece.
His body is functional, a marriage of brutal muscle earned from athletics and wiry strength gained from a lifetime of farm work. His skin is crisscrossed with scars, markers of the battles he’s survived, like the jagged zigzags of claw marks across his back from fighting hellhounds. As distracting as his back is, his hands and arms form the most diverse canvases of his body.
The delicate carpet of light blond hairs of his forearms is continually interrupted by blemishes. Paper-thin lines from sharpened blade edges. Tiny, puckered craters from burns caused by dripping dragon and chimera saliva. Larger slashes that seem silver in certain light, the calling cards of claws and fangs. His hands are worse: calluses and beat-up knuckles hardened and patched with scars. After summers at home, he returns with circles of pink, freshly healed skin from blisters. His right hand and wrist already had the dark indentations of bite marks; he’ll add the sanglin’s tail punctures atop those.
Years of fantasizing about those hands. Of memorizing the lines and curves of the muscle and bone. Of imagining how his skin would slide over mine if he were ever to reach toward me, touch me—
“Hey, Lyne—”
He turns back and the bathroom light catches over the long laceration across his ribs, a multitude of smaller lines near it. Injuries I know intimately. A gift from my mother, and by extension, me. It doesn’t matter who wielded the blade; I failed to stop his pain. Repulsed by the reminder, I focus on his face.
“What?”
He won’t look at me. Instead, he keeps his head down, gaze stuck on the floor, hands twisting and turning his shirt. “You were serious back there? It only takes light to kill one of those things. Like, even a flashlight would have worked?”
“Yes, Smith.”
He frowns. Shakes his head. His shoulders tighten. “What do you say we don’t tell anyone what happened.”
A command, not a request. I’m a prince of the Unseelie Court. I could eviscerate him, verbally and physically, for daring to give me an order. But I’m exhausted, and tomorrow will be hellish enough as it is.
“Fine, Smith. My lips a
re sealed.”
He’ll argue it. He always argues when I agree with him. He assumes I’m setting him up or simply being sarcastic. Most of the time, I am. Not tonight, though.
It goes to show how deep his own tiredness runs when he merely nods. “Thanks.”
And on that unexpected and nearly cordial note, we part ways for the night.
Chapter Five
Phineas
It’s been almost a week since the fight in the garden, and while my injuries are healing, my connection to the ley line still feels sunburned. I can channel the power more easily, but my control is even spottier than before. It’s bad enough that Professor Yaga stopped me after Intermediate Charms and asked if I had looked into finding a tutor to help me. And then she suggested Roark.
It took all I had to politely disengage from the conversation and flee the classroom. Pushing through the doors and back into the sunshine helps a little bit, though I can’t run away from the pulse of the ley line. The throb of it tingles up through me, delicate needle pricks of sensation in my feet, my legs, rising higher into my chest and out into my arms. I stuff my hands deeper into my pockets, fighting the urge to dip into that power and light something on fire with a cascade of raw energy.
It’s the busy part of the day. Students mill around between academic buildings, a small café, and the temptation of sun-warmed lawns. Minotaurs and Valkyries debate the latest Heavy Weapons class lecture. A small herd of hinky-punks hop toward the café. I take a deep breath and focus on the normality of it all.
I hurry down the building steps, only to find my escape cut off by a group of Seelie faeries deep in conversation about the upcoming Seelie party. It’s a yearly event, more of a ball than a kegger, and a last hurrah before the Seelie Court’s power shifts back to the Unseelie Court. One of the faeries—Dixie? Trixie? Sebastian dated her for so little time I can’t actually remember her name—smiles when she notices me standing awkwardly behind them.
“Hi, Finny,” she chirps before shooing her friends far enough that I can get down to the sidewalk. “You’re coming to the party, right?”
I freeze. I don’t dislike the Seelie, but they’re the shinier, more polished, smooth-as-fuck cousins of the Unseelie. If I can barely handle Roark, I don’t know how I’d fare for an entire night in a room of faeries who are legendary for stealing humans away for centuries just to party. “Um—I don’t know if—”
She lets me stammer on helplessly for a moment before laughing. “Come if you can. No pressure, I promise.”
“Thanks.” I nod and hurry past her. “See you around.”
I’m too flustered to check the caller ID when my phone rings. Instead, like a dumbass, I answer on instinct.
“Finny?”
The ley line’s furious energy dies and for the first time today, I feel the knots in my shoulders and neck loosen. Mom’s voice is balm and bane at once. The sound of my name sends me hurtling back to the years she’d stay up with me, brushing her hand over my hair while I sweated and shook after a magickal incident, soothing me with stories. No matter how chaotic our lives got because of me, she and Dad were always there. Avoiding her call is a shitty way to show how much I love them back.
“Hey, Mom. Sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
She makes a soft noise. The muted clinking in the background tell me she’s washing dishes. “You know, the last time we went this long without talking, you’d just gotten out of the hospital.”
After Mab’s torture. Right. I rub a hand over my eyes and wallow a bit in the guilt. “I’m healthy, promise. No unexpected hospital stays.”
“So what’s keeping me from talking to my favorite son?”
“Oh, just busy. I’m a bit stressed about finishing up this year,” I admit. Keep it vague. Don’t unload everything on her. She’s got enough to worry about already.
“A bit?”
That’s all it takes. I cave, incapable of lying to her. “Do you need me to come back and help with anything?”
She laughs. “We’re fine, honey—” It’s her patent response, one I’ve heard my entire life, but I know better now.
“Mom, I saw the letter before I left.”
Her laughter dies.
My stomach churns and I wish I wasn’t so far away from her. Fuck. I should have had this conversation face-to-face, should have been brave enough to talk to my parents right away instead of fleeing back to school, stuck in denial.
“Oh, Finny,” she sighs. The clinking stops. Water runs.
If I close my eyes, I can see her standing there, drying her hands off on a towel. The window over the sink looks out over part of the fields and the hill where the memorials for the babies lost before me rest under the shelter of an ancient tree. Losing the farm means I’ll never see her standing there again and I can’t let her be cut adrift like that, no matter the cost.
“Your father and I should have told you, but we didn’t want you to be worried about all of this during your last year. It’ll be fine.”
“Then why’d you already get moving boxes?”
She rolls past my concern with a breezy dismissal too practiced to be real. “They’re just in case. We still have time to finish the harvest and see where that puts us.” She must know I want to argue because her voice gentles as she reminds me, “You know your father. We won’t give up without a fight.”
Of course they won’t. Mom and Dad are high school sweethearts who got married and took over the family farm. It took them thirteen years before they had me and they still get weepy every Mother’s and Father’s Days. But Dad isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t continue a fight that would cost too much and hurt Mom.
So there’s still time. If I can master one good productivity spell, if I can learn to siphon off the ley line’s power correctly, I can help them make up for previous seasons’ losses.
“Now, stop acting like we’re already homeless,” she scolds me, “and tell me how this year’s going. Do you like your classes? Are you seeing anyone? What about that nice boy who lives at your apartment?”
It takes some fancy steps to divert Mom’s attention from my love life. And from Roark, who I cannot remember ever calling a nice boy. But the dance works. Our conversation drifts into the comfortable back-and-forth it normally takes. The lull of her voice reciting the weekly forecast, the adjusted prices for soy and diesel and water, Dad’s newest fight in the ongoing battle with the tractor, is a balm.
By the time I turn the corner to pass the outdoor amphitheater and finish my meandering walk to the apartment, we’re laughing and trying to plan when I’ll come home next. There’s a long weekend in October I could probably make, but she suggests extending Thanksgiving instead so I can help Dad with machinery repair. It’s great, until I see the students gathered at the amphitheater.
They’re all fae. They’re all watching the stage with rapt attention.
And then I notice the two kneeling figures on the stage. The third figure paces in front of them; his coiled, controlled movements are so terribly familiar.
“Mom, can I call you back about Thanksgiving? I just saw a...friend who I think could use some help.”
“Of course. Love you, honey.”
I mumble my love and a goodbye back to her, stuff my phone back in my pocket, and hurry toward the crowd. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Just because Roark’s talking to a large crowd of terrified-looking fae doesn’t mean anything. Just because those two fae kneeling on stage look like... Oh, crap, that’s blood, isn’t it? Why’d it have to be blood?
I push my way through the back rows, mumbling pardons as I go. At one point, I push past some of the Seelie who had been talking by the steps outside my class. Their earlier enthusiasm has vanished, replaced by shock and fear. They don’t notice when I move in front of them; they simply part like a silent sea to let me through.
Suddenly, I find myself at the front of the crowd. Suddenly, I see what’s actually going on. And I’ll be damned if I walk away from this.
; Roark
This morning did not start well. Before dawn, I awoke to a call from Mother, who informed me that the Pantheons had agreed to debate whether or not to punish the Seelie Court for their violence against Ripthorn. She attended the meeting between him and Dean Tanaka last night and ensured his complaint was formally submitted. It would take the Pantheons several days to review the evidence before they issued a verdict, so I was reminded to keep our students on their best behavior until we heard back.
At five, just as I crawled back into bed, I fielded a call from a panicked young hob. Some drunken Seelie mistook her room for theirs and tried to break in. Campus security disbanded the offenders quickly, but it took me an hour to talk the poor girl down. She only relented to stay when I reminded her that I was a phone call away. The issue seemed resolved.
Then, in the middle of my Ancient Sumerian class, I received a text message that the hob’s boyfriend, a boggart named Reginald, had taken it upon himself to teach those Seelie bastards a lesson. He found one of the supposed bastards playing croquet outside his dorm. After the punches started, he was joined by one of Ripthorn’s friends, an Unseelie pestilence faerie. The last message I got begged me to hurry because a crowd was gathering. Clearly they weren’t content as spectators, since I arrive to a brawl with only a vocal few trying to break it up.
I don’t bother to hold back my glamour as I stomp across the lawn and directly into the fray. Most of the crowd recognizes the bite of my magick and steps aside, fists dropping out of surprise or fear. A few try to keep the fight alive, but quickly abandon their efforts when I freeze their feet in place.
Ahead of me, the center of the mess. Reginald and his friend taunt their victim, who has managed to crawl to the shelter of other Seelie. The beautiful faeries’ eyes widen when they spot me, and they brace for an attack.
I appreciate their paranoia. It means the Unseelie instigators are completely unprepared when a jagged ripple of ice flings them onto the amphitheater stage. They hit with startled yelps of pain and scramble up. At least they start to until they see me. It’s almost amusing how quickly cowards can hit their knees.