by Ryan Graudin
“You don’t count, Embers.”
We reach the Thames. Under the full force of daylight, the river seems more disparaging than mystical. Its water is thick and brown, carrying bits of rubbish with every extra push of the current. Tourists and Londoners alike walk past without so much as a backward glance. But then, they never knew what the Thames once was. When the great stretch of water was surrounded by nothing but moorland. When every bend and curve of the great river spoke of strength.
Sickness kicks up in the pit of my stomach with a sudden vengeance. My steps falter and I bend, drawing quick, gritty breaths to keep the queasiness at bay. Richard halts with me.
“Are you all right?”
“It’s nothing.” The words leave me in a gasp. Although the pain has been latent over the past few weeks, its return is fiery and lancing. My knees nearly buckle under it.
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Richard sets his coffee on the stone ledge and wraps his arms around me. His grip is steady, holding me up when I would have fallen.
In a single moment, I lose all of the sparse contents of my stomach. The sip of coffee I tried an hour earlier and half of a croissant paint the sidewalk all sorts of unappetizing colors. Bitterness curdles, stains my lips. I wipe them hard with my shirtsleeve.
Richard guides me gently away from the puddle of vomit, lets me lean against the stone wall that borders the river. “What set it off?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” My voice is weaker than I’d like. “I think . . . I’ve been using a lot of magic today. More than usual.”
“For us to go on this date?” Richard frowns. “Do you want to go back to the palace? We can sit in the gardens and you could get some rest.”
I stay still for a moment, willing the pain in my stomach to go back to its usual, tolerable ache. Slowly, grudgingly, it retreats, leaves me be.
We should go back, considering what Breena and I are going to do tonight. I’ll need as much energy and magic as I can muster. But I know that if I turn back now, my courage will crumble.
“No.” I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“Are you sure?” His fingers tangle into a coppery strand of my hair as he brushes it back behind my ears. “We could do this another time.”
No. The time is now. It has to be. I swallow the tremble out of my voice and start walking, pulling Richard with me. “I’m sure.”
The riverfront passes by our slow, together steps. An artist stands at the far side of the walk, squinting out at the Thames with a brush wedged between her lips, teal paint streaking her cheek. Couples, so much like us, walk with fingers linked, stopping at various points in the stone wall to point at the scene beyond the chocolate waters. A young man with gnarled, knotted hair sits on a bench, plucking a guitar.
If you embrace this city and crawl under its skin . . . there’s something here. I remember Breena’s words. How, despite the sickness, I’m not the only Fae who’s lost herself to these people, this place. Slowly and surely it’s swallowing us all.
“Where are we going again?” Richard asks.
“It’s not far. Just a few blocks down, actually.”
“That doesn’t leave too many options. Are we going to go gape at Parliament? Or maybe Westminster Abbey?” He lists the sights with a jaded tone, as though he’s certain nothing down the Thames will be new to him.
“No.” I smile coyly, satisfied he hasn’t guessed. “We’re going to look at your kingdom.”
He frowns, perplexed by my comment. We continue down the river at a solid stroll, our silence filled by the hungry bprrrs of pigeons and the distant blare of horns. Richard’s face lights with understanding when I pull him into the winding queue beneath the giant white Ferris wheel.
“The Eye,” he mutters under his breath. “You’re talking about the London Eye.”
“You haven’t been on it, have you?” I rise on tiptoes to see past the dozens of people in front of us. The queue snakes slowly forward, passing a glassy ticket booth before mounting the ramps to step into the clear, creeping capsules.
“You’ve brought me to the one thing in London I haven’t experienced.” He cranes his neck to take in the massiveness of the wheel. “Two, really. Queues and the Eye.”
“I could magic us to the front.” I frown. Are there always so many mortals clamoring for a taste of flight? The queue is so sluggish it makes my skin itch.
Richard laughs so loudly that the family in front of us turns and stares. “No need. I’m perfectly content to stay here and wait with you. It’s not every day I get to stand in a queue. Besides”—his voice drops—“I don’t want you to get sick again.”
“I’m fine.” But even as I say this, I don’t know if I am. My insides are churning: Tell him. Tell him. Tell him.
So we wait, side by side, talking about things eavesdroppers will find useless. Though I don’t use any spells to advance our way down the queue, I do cast a small charm when we finally step into the clear glass observatory. While the capsule has enough room for over twenty people, I secure a single car for just us. So we can be alone.
The wheel pulls us above the city in a lethargic rise. I feel like the dawning sun, really seeing and discovering London—looking down on the tangled monuments and buildings, the milling ants of people.
Richard’s nose presses against the glass, his breath creating steam spots on the capsule’s curved walls. All of his attention has been pulled into the city and its endless string of details. The three spires of Saint Paul’s pointing gold into a robin’s-egg sky, summer-green trees lining the Thames, boats and barges sliding under bridges arched like a skipping stone. Parliament, so small it looks like some kind of sandstone Gothic cake.
“It looks different from the sky. I mean, I’ve seen it from airplanes and stuff, but never like this.”
“Strangely beautiful, isn’t it?” I come up next to him, place my palms against the glass.
“Beautiful . . .” Richard is both beside me and before me. Solid flesh and phantom reflection. Both versions of him smile. “Is this what it’s like? Flying?”
“Not exactly.” How do you describe flying to someone ground-bound? It’s like trying to describe food to someone who’s never eaten. Or air to a person who’s never drawn breath.
And then I think of what it would be like, being always on the ground, forever tied to some surface. I look at my own feet, how flat they are against the pod’s metal-plated floor. Just at the tip of my toes is the edge where metal meets glass, what few inches keep us from a fall of meters upon meters. I see the ground, patched gray and brown below, and my head starts to spin.
“You’re lucky. Being able to fly.” Richard is still talking into the glass, looking out at the great heights he’ll never be able to reach by himself. “Most people would kill for that.”
I look back at him.
Richard or flying. Richard or everything I’ve known and been my entire life.
The human and the Fae writhe inside me, snapping and hissing dragon flame. One of them has to die.
“Richard?”
He looks when I say his name, his eyes boring into me as they always have, setting every piece of molecule and matter that is me alight.
I think of what I want to say, what I’ve been holding back for hours, days. If I let it out . . . There’s so much more at stake than his denial. In fact, if he says no, if the blade lets down and my head and heart spill away, it might almost be a mercy. It will spare me the choice of tearing myself apart.
“What is it?” he asks. His eyebrows dive, become a pen-stroke V, the way a child draws a flying seagull.
They rise up: the old Emrys and the new. The desire against what-has-always-been.
Is he enough? they ask. If he says yes, promises to be with you always and gives you everything you want, will he be enough? Will the hole be filled?
“I don’t know,” I say aloud, hoping the words will silence the chaos in my head. Let me think.
He stares. Unyielding as a sphinx.
> I turn away, walk to the bench in the middle of the capsule. I look through the clearness on the other side. There’s no reflection from the curve of that glass, but I still see faces. I see Guinevere and Isidore. Alene and Kaelee. I see the men they loved. The ones they left us for. All gone, now dust and memory.
I remember them, everything they gave up, and I know that I can’t promise Richard my love without everything else too. There’s no point.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know,” I say again.
I hear Richard’s steps behind me, light and metallic. “It’s okay, Emrys.”
He sits on the bench, slides his way down next to me so our shoulders are touching. Richard reaches over; his finger shaves up the side of my cheek. It pulls away, glistening, and I realize with a start that I’ve been crying.
“I do know. I’ve known for a while now . . . but the timing has never been right.” His voice is deep and everything in this glass chamber. “And I’ve been scared. Scared of what you’ll say and scared of what this means for you. For us.”
I look into his face—the goodness of it. He’s studying the clump of my tears shining against his knuckle. It catches the light, a tiny inverted mirror of our world rolling down Richard’s skin, falling to the bench between us.
His eyes lock into mine. Steady, sure. “I love you, Emrys.”
He loves me. Me. My heart stretches full with the joy of these words. For a fleeting moment I’m giddy, until I feel the strain of tendon and aorta. The fight that’s still there, the tension of magic and mortal.
I want to respond, but what can I say? How can I profess a love I can’t commit to? How can I say anything except yes?
Richard goes on. “I know it’s impossible—us together. I know what you would have to give up, and I could never ask that of you. But I just need you to know how I feel.”
The tears come back as I try to smile at him. I lose sight of his face.
“It’s been a good day,” he says softly. “Thank you for it.”
His arms swallow my shoulders, so much comfort and togetherness. I rest my head against his chest—it seems unhindered by my weight, ready to carry anything. I lean on him and watch the world rise up to receive us. Parliament tower’s owl-eye clock face winks against the sun as we draw level with it, start to descend.
“You know, I was thinking,” Richard begins.
“Hm?”
“I want you to meet my sister. You’ve become such a big part of my life that it feels weird, her not knowing you.” His words rumble through me, almost as if I’m a part of his body. “But only if you want to. And if it’s okay with your Faery friends.”
I shift, remolding myself into his chest. “I’d like that.”
“I’ll set up a lunch, then.”
I rest against him a little longer, listening as his heartbeat drums me a personal lullaby. The capsule groans, creeping like a wandering feather toward the Thames and the crowds below. I look out on the endless threads of asphalt and cars weaving through buildings and wonder what tonight’s hunt with Breena will bring.
“Want to go around again?” I ask as the platform and its endless queue of tourists draws closer.
Richard glances out the wide, curving glass. “We only paid for one round. It would be rather unkingly to steal a ride.”
“We’ll slip a little more money into the till on the way out,” I promise.
Genuine concern lurks behind the lines of his face. Something about it touches me. There’s a compassion in him that runs deep. It’s what made men like Richard the Lionheart worthy of the crown—what made them true kings.
“All right,” he says finally. “One more time.”
“Good. I’m not ready to leave yet.” I rest my head back against his chest, push away all thoughts of the hunt. Instead I let his confession linger in my mind. Three words, short but so vast, lifting me up and giving me new meaning.
For now, they are enough.
Twenty-Four
In the darkness, the city takes on a different personality. Lovers who strolled in the sunshine retreat to their hotels and flats, replaced by snappy, sparkly strangers who roam the sidewalks in herds.
I lean against a brick wall, taking it all in. Several flushed, swaying boys eye me as they pass. A few even catcall. I cross my arms, resisting the temptation to give them a zap. I must save all of the magic I can tonight, conserve all of the energy I managed not to spend on my date with Richard—I’ll need it for the hunt. That’s the reason the mortals can see me at all.
I spot Breena almost a block away. She’s wearing her sequined dress, the one that shines like polished pewter. I glance down at my own wardrobe choice: a slim black dress touched up with lace. Without my skirts I feel close to naked.
The men see Breena too. They throw more yells and whistles her way, but she charges forward without a glance.
“Maybe being visible was a mistake,” she mutters as she draws up next to me and digs through her clutch for her habitual lipstick.
“If we use veiling spells it will alert the soul feeders,” I remind her. “Besides, it’ll be slow-going through the crowds if we’re invisible.”
My friend’s lips pop scarlet as she applies her lipstick. “Are you sure one of them will be here?”
“This is one of the largest nightclubs in London. Even if Jaida and Cari aren’t here looking for food, there’ll be someone who can lead us to them.”
I stare at the club’s entrance: a large ebony door set in a wall of worn, lamp-lit bricks. A queue of mortals winds down the sidewalk—the few faces at the front bathed in a wave of neon lights from behind the dark door.
Tucked away beneath all this flash and flare is an unmistakable flavor of magic. There’s at least one huntress behind those black doors.
I start to step across the street when Breena’s arm shoots out, clamps my shoulder.
“I’ll take the lead,” she says with all the decisiveness and authority of those extra one hundred years. “I don’t want you doing anything rash.”
My face must betray how I feel about her tone, because Breena stares dead into my eyes. “I’m doing us both a favor, Emrys.”
I wait until she’s fully turned to release the brunt of my glare.
We cross the street, weave and thread through the crowd like swallows in flight. Thanks to Breena’s tiny, almost unnoticeable spell, the club’s bouncers are quick to let us in. The nausea hits immediately. I sway under the influence of the blinding lights and soul-rattling notes. Breena stumbles under the sudden wave of sickness, lurching into several well-dressed men in the process.
“Keep it together,” I mutter to myself. The music’s wasp-buzz bass is so loud it drowns out even the sounds in my head. I nearly retch under the intense blare of technology, but after this afternoon’s purge there’s nothing in my stomach. The sickness snakes through my limbs instead.
One of the men grabs Breena by the arm, steadies her. She stares, her eyes darting back and forth between the man’s hand and his face.
“Easy there.” He has to yell above the music.
Breena nods her thanks and edges away, like a beast eyeing some untested power.
“Are you okay?” I holler into her ear. She flinches at the extra volume, but doesn’t move away from me.
How can the soul feeders stand this? The question leaps from her eyes into my thoughts.
I think back to the Darkroom, when Breena had been the picture of togetherness. Is this club really that much worse? Or have we Frithemaeg become that much weaker in such a short span of time?
“They must eat well. Save your magic,” I warn her. “At this rate we’ll need every ounce we can get.”
Breena nods. Her face is pinched together in fierce determination. The sickness won’t get the best of us. Not yet.
We push farther into the club, past the forest of elbows and whipping hair. Fleeting rainbows of neon dazzle our eyes and frenzied notes become everlasting inside our ears. I fight a path to the edge of
the dance floor, where there are fewer chances of being thrashed in the face.
“This place is huge!” Breena’s voice fights a losing battle against the dance track. “She could be anywhere!”
My closed lids don’t do much to block the flashing lights, but they do make it slightly easier to concentrate. The taste of magic drips around us, honey thick, more viscous than it was in the doorway. I open my eyes, look to where it’s strongest.
“This way.” I point to the right, my finger forever disappearing and resurrecting beneath the throb of strobe lights.
We follow the wall, pushing past the dozens of beached dancers. The club goes on, rooms stretching into themselves, all packed with the silhouettes. We pass through three whole segments before the magic becomes unmistakable.
“Where are you?” I mutter, look over the dance floor.
It’s as if all of young London is crowded in this series of flashing rooms. Even with my magical senses, the place is so crammed with the salt and sweat of humanity that picking out an immortal seems impossible.
Breena’s fingers wrap cold around my arm. I look back to see her lips moving, forming words I can’t hear, but understand. “Over there.”
She’s pointing deep into the shuddering shadows, by a curling wrought-iron staircase. It winds all the way up to a shallow balcony. There are no dancers up there, only loungers, taking advantage of the long row of leather chairs. A familiar twinge shoots through my nerves as I review the balcony’s residents. Something’s up there, watching the crowd. Waiting.
I lurch toward the stairs, but Breena’s fingers don’t release their grip.
I lead. Her eyes remind me.
The stairs are tricky to navigate. I clutch the iron railing so hard that it leaves a deep red line in my palm when I reach the top. The balcony unfolds—an entire room to itself—crowded with tired dancers collapsed on chairs, their half-drunk cocktails scattered over tiny black tables.
Breena steps in front of me, curls spilling gold into her dollish face. “In the corner,” she mouths.
There, in the chair closest to the ledge, glowing drink in hand, lounges a Green Woman. The fiber-optic blonde of her hair reflects the neon chaos around her. Her face is lax, careless, as she looks out on the heaving crowd below. From the taste of her magic, it seems she’s recently fed. She isn’t here to hunt. She’s here to relax.