Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series

by Rebecca Bosevski

  “Look, your whole family is different. We are Stalisies Fey. The Fey are kind of a myth, mixed with a legend… with a little fairy-tale thrown in. Stalisies are able to fly, but we do not have wings. We don’t grant wishes and probably most obvious, we are not the size of a thimble or mushroom. History tends to twist the truth, and well, we let them believe we aren’t real, it’s easier.”

  He took another step and my eyes focused on the mirror shine of his patent leather shoes. “Can I say, Desmor—Des, you’re taking this exceptionally well.”

  Fuck that. The invisible lock on my lips tore open and I unleashed my retort. “You are clearly a lunatic! My mother couldn’t fly. She was a fortune-teller, tarot reader. Not a fairy, sorry a stalisylisieses, whatever you said.”

  He took another step forward. “Do you honestly believe every one of those people kept returning time and time again to your mother, paying her money, because what she told them was wrong? She had a gift, your mum. She was something special.”

  “Glad you think so. I do too, but you are clearly off your rocker. Now if you could point me in the direction of the nearest sane person, I will be out of your hair, and back into the real world in no time.”

  “Des, you have to listen to me.” His hands shook as he spoke. “You are being chased. A Tanzieth caught you the other day. I flew as fast as I could, but I couldn’t find you. I was sure you must have died, so I searched the city morgues. I didn’t expect to find you hiding in one.”

  What the fuck? “Hiding?” I barked. “I wasn’t hiding, you twit, I was… I don’t... There was a man.” The images came back to me slowly as I struggled to recall how, exactly, I had ended up in the morgue. “He was afraid of me. Or was I afraid of him? I don’t remember. I think I was the spider, but then it was dark. Until the morgue, and you.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched as he struggled to suppress a smile. “You said a man, a spider, darkness and the morgue, and you think I’m the insane one?”

  I didn’t get to answer. Instead, I screamed as debris from the ceiling crashed to the floor between us. I scooted up the bed, pressing my spine against the wood of the ornate bedhead.

  Amongst the dust, two figures now stood. The new, smaller man threw Moyeth to the wall as easily as tossing a ball.

  Moyeth didn’t stay down for long. He leapt towards the intruder, tackling him to the ground. They wrestled across the floor, trading blows when the new guy kicked out and sent Moyeth soaring towards one of the large windows.

  I screamed as the curtains enveloped his body and he crashed through the glass. I scurried further back against the bedhead. The invader turned and made his way toward me. As he strode across the room, light flitting through the broken window caught his glistening green eyes.

  HIM!

  In an instant, I jumped to my feet, taking a fighting stance.

  Arms on guard, left leg forward, hunch to the right, lead with the left. My instructor’s voice rang clearly in my head.

  The man continued towards me. My muscles tensed.

  Protect the liver, aim for the throat.

  But when he reached me, instead of attacking, he dropped to one knee and lowered his head.

  “I’m now at your service. I apologize for yesterday, I was misinformed.” His arms quivered slightly, the tips of his fingers white against the dark floor. “I did not know who you were. I’m sorry. If you wish for my head as punishment, I will not resist, they will not retaliate.” His voice never faltered at the suggestion of me taking his head.

  What would I do with his head?

  My hands shook, the deafening beat of my pulse eased, and I relaxed my stance. “I don’t want your head,” I said flatly, taking a step back. Though peering into those green eyes any time I wanted did appeal to me.

  “Your head would not be enough,” Moyeth called, as he pulled himself over the edge of the windowsill. He fell back into the room with a thud. Quickly standing, he took barely a breath before storming towards us. “What are you doing here? She doesn’t need you, or your kind. Let her be, leave her to her family.”

  Green Eyes hastily stood, turned his back to me, and held his hands up. “Her family is not only with your kind. Remember, Moyeth.”

  It can’t really be his real name.

  Green Eyes glanced back towards me. “Her father was leader of the Tanzieth, guiding our kind for decades, and she is his successor.”

  “Wait… what?” I butted in. “So, you,” I said, as I pointed to Moyeth, “that is actually your real name?” And I thought my name was weird. “Who the bloody hell are you?” I asked, flicking my arm towards Green Eyes. “And if yesterday wasn’t a dream then you had something to do with landing me in the morgue. Did you drug me? Did you undress me? WAIT! Did you say my father was one of you? Is he dead? Will one of you please answer my fucking questions already?”

  I stood, shoulders back, hip out, hands crossed over my chest, and gave them both an evil eye the devil would fear.

  “Potty-mouth, just like her mother,” Green Eyes declared.

  “Yes, and as stubborn as her father,” Moyeth said, taking a position closer to me. “Well, Des, Jax tried to kill you” He pointed his long arm straight at Green Eyes.

  “I assumed I had until I arrived at the morgue and she was gone.” He said it as if it were nothing.

  “Wait,” I interjected, stunned. “Yesterday, you tried to kill me. What did you do—what did I do? I mean for you to want to kill me. I must have done something pretty bad.”

  “I stabbed you with the Noxuer. It is a death sentence to any living thing. But then your pendant caught the light, and I left to confirm it was his symbol—the Sine of your father.”

  I gawped down at where my pendant had once sat. Crap, where is it? In the shock, I hadn’t noticed it gone. I hadn’t taken it off since my sixteenth birthday. My father’s sign? My hands fidgeted at the bare skin where it had once sat.

  “I was misinformed,” Jax continued, his green eyes somehow brighter. “I tried to kill you because I thought you were the Dazerarthro; the beast has been foretold to arrive.”

  “Don’t try and shift the blame, Jax,” Moyeth cut in. “You are at fault, you could have killed her, and then where would we be? You were a fool to assume you would have any chance against the Dazerarthro.” He glared at Jax as if he wanted to cut off his head, dismember his body, and feed the parts to Piranhas.

  Jax burst full of life and stepped towards him.

  He must have a death wish.

  He crossed the final few feet between them and pointed at me. “No, don’t you see? I don’t think I could have,” he said, waving his arm. “I mean, I did. I stabbed her with the Noxuer, several times in fact. She should be dead!”

  Should be dead. Maybe I am dead. I flopped down onto the edge of the bed as they continued to discuss me as if I wasn’t there.

  “So, what is she?” Jax finished.

  Moyeth took a step towards me, turning to block me from Jax’s view. “She is one of us, and her mother wanted me to find her and guide her. She didn’t want her to have anything to do with you and your kind, Tanzieth scum.”

  “Our kind? You sound just like him, separating the Tanzieth from the Stalisies, as if you are any better than us.”

  “Hey!” I bellowed, standing to face them. “I’m in the room, you know. So try addressing me, for a change. And furthermore,” I continued in my best matronly voice, “what the fuck is the Dazerarthro?” I waved my hands dramatically in the air and stomped my right foot down on the floor.

  “Sorry,” they both stated, in unison, as if they were children reproached by their mother.

  Moyeth scowled at Jax. “You have to understand, this traitor tried to kill you. He would have doomed us all; you should cut off his head.”

  “Stop! I don’t think anyone should have their head cut off—what is it with you lot and beheading? You say it as if it is an everyday sort of thing. I mean, you stabbed me so I guess I should be dead, maybe I am dead
—why else would they take me to the morgue? Is this hell?” I peered up at them until Jax finally broke the silence.

  “This isn’t hell, but wait. If the Dazerarthro does surface, you will get to see hell up close. You are unlike anyone. Maybe you truly can stop it. Maybe you can save us all.” He moved so quickly, Moyeth didn’t have a chance to intervene before Jax grabbed my hand and dug something into my palm.

  “Fuck off, jerk, what did you do that for?” Swearing was an automatic response of mine, one I had not tried to shake, because, well, let’s face it: I enjoyed it.

  “I wanted to show Moyeth what I meant,” Jax explained. “He needs to see for himself.” He glanced at Moyeth, who had finally taken the few steps to join Jax in front of me.

  I held out my hand. The slightest pink mark surfaced in the middle of my palm.

  “Moyeth, do you see now? Do you know what she is?” Jax said, disregarding my presence altogether. This and the dull ache in my hand had me sufficiently fired up to release more of my reflex upon them.

  “What I am is pissed off, and sick and fucking tired of being harassed by lunatics who speak to me as if I’m stupid and think it’s fun to poke me. While we are on the subject of lunatics, will the white coats be showing up for you two anytime soon?” Maybe I should go with them when they do.

  Both of them stared down at me, mouths agape.

  I’m never going to get any answers out of either of them. I let myself look at Jax. Big mistake. His green eyes had some sort of power over me and I became lost in them again. His voice became murmurings in the background.

  Moyeth snapped his fingers in front of my face, breaking my gaze. “You are not altogether adept at holding her attention, are you?” he said as he shot me a wink.

  “Des!” Jax said as he grabbed the hand he had poked and held it in front of my face. “That was the Noxuer. It should have sliced straight through you, killing you in a matter of moments, but you didn’t even bleed.”

  I examined my tingling hand, and the pink mark turned a shade of pale blue.

  “Give me that knife,” I demanded, giving a glare my grandmother would have been proud to see. I took the knife and edged it towards my other arm, laying the cool, dark multi-faceted blade on my skin, and flinched in expectation of the pain to come.

  The Noxuer vibrated against the soft layer of flesh. I pressed down a little and moved my hand back, holding the blade firmly against my skin. I cried out, but purely as a reflex; there was only the slightest pinch, no searing pain as I had predicted. There was no blood, no gash where the blade had sliced. A line appeared on my arm as if drawn with a dark blue pen.

  “How do I know this is not some trick blade? Magic shops sell this sort of crap all the time to kids. You two should really grow up.”

  A large bellow of laughter exploded from both of them.

  My face flared and my heart raced “Fuck you both! What a stupid trick. Laugh it up, boys. You got me. Now where is the bloody door out of here?” I threw the knife into the vase of red tulips bedside me and gasped in horror. The beautiful red of the petals turned instantly black, as did the stems. The vase shook as the tulips fell, one by one, to the table and became fine soot on its surface.

  “No… fucking… way!” I gasped, as the last of the tulip soot collapsed to the tabletop.

  The two of them stopped laughing

  Shit just got real.

  Jax cleared his throat. “Des, we were laughing at you telling us we needed to grow up. We are each,” he said, pointing to Moyeth and back to himself, “over one hundred years old. That is, if you are counting human years. Our bodies age slower than humans. We are not dissimilar to cats, but in reverse.”

  “For every seven human years passing, we age only one,” Moyeth interjected. Jax rolled his eyes.

  “You mean dogs,” I said, rubbing my palm.

  “What?” Jax asked.

  “Dogs age seven years for every year that passes, not cats.”

  “Dogs, cats, whatever. Your human pets are so weird,” Moyeth added.

  “We are all that way,” Jax said pointing at me. “It’s not as if we go around trying to kill ourselves, but there have been deaths, and the Noxuer has caused some of them over the past century or so. You seem to be the only one unaffected.”

  “How Jax can risk holding the Noxuer is beyond me, but I’m still curious as to why he believed you were the Dazerarthro. Jax, enlighten us?” He turned, as did I, to await Jax’s reply.

  He lowered his head. “I was misinformed.”

  Moyeth scowled. “Who told you she was the Dazerarthro?”

  “It doesn’t matter, I believed she was the beast, or at least I believed she was to become it. I wanted to prevent the death and carnage the scrolls foretold.”

  “She will not become the Dazerarthro, she will destroy it. She is ours!”

  “Wait a fucking minute!” I said, advancing on them, forcing both of them to take a step back. “I’m not yours or anyone else’s. I’m a person. You can’t own a person. Get back in your medieval carriage and ride the fuck off if you think you can ever refer to me as owned. I belong to no one. Got it, Bub?”

  “Desmoree,” said Moyeth, again using my full name. Prick. “I do not mean to offend you; it is not as simple as you might think. I meant you are one of us.”

  “She is one of us as well, Moyeth. A fact you can neither alter nor deny.” Jax took a few strides back to sit proudly on the large Victorian chair beside the wall, crossing his legs and arms in a way that made him appear almost regal.

  I held my hands out to halt them as I tried to gather my thoughts. Most of my previous questions either remained unanswered, or the answers I had received were not entirely out of the Sane People R Us handbook.

  I lowered my hands and focused on Moyeth, not wanting to get lost in Jax’s green eyes. “So, I’m not dead, but they put me in the morgue after Jax stabbed me with the blade thing. There is something called a Dazerarthro, a beast I still know almost nothing about, and I’m a Stalisies or whatever, but Jax says I’m also a Tanzieth. But no one is telling me what the hell any of it even means or matters.”

  “Des,” Jax began, glancing at Moyeth before continuing.

  I don’t care who answers, but someone had better bloody do it soon.

  Moyeth leaned against the wall, waving his approval.

  “You are the same as us both, but different still,” Jax said. “We don’t work the same way as humans. Our heartbeats are almost impossible to hear, for example. Everything about you is important because the Dazerarthro, a foretold beast—fierce, vicious and bloodthirsty—is going to destroy all of us if we don’t find a way to stop it. The scrolls say you are the way. You will destroy it.”

  “Uh-hum.” Moyeth cordially cleared his throat and walked over to Jax. He stood in anticipation of an attack, but Moyeth raised his hands. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but we have a serious problem. As she is clearly not the Dazerarthro, then where is it? It was to surface before the seventeenth. Today! Maybe we should continue this discussion in our realm, Sayeesies, before anything else comes looking for her—or us.”

  Both Moyeth and Jax motioned to take my hand. I was still unsure of either of them so I turned away, catching a glimpse of my own reflection in the ornate mirror by my side.

  I ambled over to it. Is that me?

  Pale green pants hugged my lean legs perfectly, and diamonds glistened across the neckline of the pale blue singlet.

  “You better not be responsible for this change of outfit,” I said to Moyeth as he chuckled.

  “Would you rather I had left you adorned in all your natural glory?”

  Hmmm… No.

  I was about to thank him when he scooped me up, took hold of Jax’s arm, and we flew out the massive hole in the ceiling, into the moon lit sky.

  I smiled down at Jax clinging to the wrist of Moyeth as we soared higher. His eyes squeezed tightly closed. Having been in Moyeth’s arms before, I rested my head on his shoulder and
took in the beauty of the night sky as we zoomed above pillows of white. In a matter of breaths, we began to descend. A vast forest loomed before us.

  Moyeth dropped Jax a few feet from the ground. He landed perfectly and then walked towards a thickening.

  “This is the entrance to Sayeesies,” he told me.

  Moyeth landed gracefully beside Jax and lowered me to my feet. I peered into the thicket. Too many braches intertwined for me to ascertain anything beyond them.

  Moyeth stroked a pattern across its surface and the branches creaked, twisting around each other, resembling snakes creeping in and out, recoiling to create an archway. A rush of tingles flowed over my body Moyeth and Jax stepped through.

  “If this is a dream, there is no harm in going through, but if it’s not,” I ran my fingers over my head and down through my hair. “Fuck it.”

  Making my way beneath the frame, I ran my fingers along the delicate branches. They hummed with life.

  I froze barely a step through. Waves of colored light rippled around everything. I couldn’t see past the arcs of light—they swam outward, never-ending rainbows engulfing every surface, shielding their true form from my sight. Perfect blues, greens, reds, corals, purples—every color you could think of and more you couldn’t name. I wished for my camera, but I doubted it was something I could capture.

  I blinked and it all disappeared.

  Everything before us was beautiful, perfect almost. The cobblestone streets before us buzzed with life as people went about their day, seemingly unaware of, or unfazed by, our entrance. Light radiated all around us, but gazing up, I could see no sun. The sky was unlike any sky I had ever seen. A golden haze glistened and churned. A sea of clouds, a mist skipping across the sparkling golden heaven, danced, not unlike the arcs of light I had witnessed only moments before.

  I watched in awe. Mesmerized by the patterns that were almost, almost welcoming me home.

  I had seen this place before. I thought it existed only in my dreams. “It’s beautiful,” I said, looking back to the people. They don’t look like fairies. Actually, they all looked like normal people—fashionable people at that. One woman was wearing a skirt I swore I had seen on a runway show only a few months back. My eyes drifted to the shoes. I was disappointed to see all of them were plain, simple flats. Practical, but not exactly desirable. I caught a flash of blue twinkle through the sea of feet and lifted on my heels to search the crowd. They flashed again, and this time I made out a thin heel. Someone has sparkly blue heels.