by JD MITCHELL
“I can escort you to the library after breakfast.” Aengus said. He frowned and looked at Leigh. “If you don’t mind my absence?”
“Mumph, fnnn,” Leigh mumbled though a mouthful of pancakes. He swallowed and smiled. “We’ll be fine.”
“Excellent,” Aengus crooned.
After breakfast a Fae woman gave Ali fresh jeans and a tee-shirt. A few sizes too big, the clothes hung on her lean frame like a kid trying on adult clothing. However, it was better than wearing the bathrobe all day–or a Fae dress.
Within minutes of changing, Ali and Leigh followed a Fae man to a separate part of the palace where they emerged outside onto a dirt clearing enclosed by a stone wall. Dust covered spears, axes, and swords hung on the wall near the doorway, while old mats lined the rest of the enclosure. Ali shielded her eyes from the warm sun as the scent of mowed grass wafted over the stone wall. It was difficult to tell in Aengus’s palace, but she thought they were outside in a long-forgotten facility.
Three Fae, two men and a woman, approached them. Ali scrutinized the woman with navy blue skin, large green eyes, and sky-blue hair which was secured into a braid. Based on the tan padding around her chest and arms, Ali assumed this woman was a warrior. She reminded Ali of a female assassin in a Bond movie.
“Daughter of Ollamain,” the Fae woman said as she inclined her head.
When Aengus used the phrase, it sounded charming. The words spoken from this woman’s lips were harsh, like Ali insulted her mother.
“Please call me Ali.”
The Fae woman placed a hand to her chest. “My name is Malvina. I’ll aid in your personal training.”
Ali’s heart sunk. She didn’t sign up to be a private in the Fae army. This woman seemed like she punished failure with push-ups. Rocking on the balls of her feet, she decided to be blunt.
“Um, thanks, but I think I’ll just train with Leigh.”
Malvina didn’t appear offended by the comment, but a spark of enthusiasm faded from her eyes. She uttered something in the Fae language, which was less whimsical sounding than others, and closer to barking orders. One man, burley and the color of a ripe peach, answered. The two of them exchanged a few words, then backed toward the edge of the training area.
Leigh came up behind Ali, a bounce in his step. “This is great! We don’t have to worry about your lack of control, or wayward magic.” He waggled his fake eyebrows. “Plus, I can unleash!”
He took a few steps back, pointing at a clay statue which had appeared in the middle of the training ground. It was approximately Ali’s height, and slender.
“Watch.”
Leigh placed his palms together in front of him like a prayer. He exhaled slowly. As the breath left his lungs, his hands separated, revealing a web of electricity. When his hands spanned the distance of a basketball, he brought his fingers toward his chest, then pushed the energy – or solas as Leigh called it–forward like he was passing a basketball. The web expanded as it traveled across the training ground, colliding with a clay structure in the shape of a person.
The clay exploded into a hundred fragments, and Leigh let out an excited laugh. “How awesome is this? The Fae can conjure training dolls for us to fight!”
Ali crossed her arms and nodded at the peach-colored Fae. “So, Prometheus over here made the clay statue you destroyed?”
“His name is Rafael, and it’s more than that!” Leigh gestured toward another Fae man who was a charcoal gray with purple eyes and wearing a crimson uniform. “Orren, can you make another? Have this one move.”
Orren held his own hands before him, then thrust them skyward. A clay figurine climbed up from the dirt as though it’d been waiting below the surface to rise. The figure looked right, then left, and bolted toward the stone wall enclosing the training grounds. Leigh conjured solas to the size of a golf ball and hurled the orb at the figure. It looked like lightening as it sailed through the air before hitting the figure in the chest. Clay shards toppled onto the ground.
Leigh spun around, grinning ear to ear.
Ali watched the crumbles settle. Leigh was correct in it was incredibly cool. However, she felt bad for the pile of dirt. She assumed soil didn’t have a conscious, however, if the last few days taught her anything, she questioned her assumption.
“The dirt man is fine though, right?”
Leigh snorted. “It’s dirt.”
That was all she needed for confirmation. No animals, spirits, or beings were harmed in the making of this training session.
“How do I conjure solas?” Ali asked.
“Whoa, first things first.” Leigh stood in front of her. “Spread your legs shoulder width apart.”
He positioned her shoulders, then kicked her feet apart using the toe of his shoe.
“Why does this remind me of gym class and the batting cages?” Ali asked.
“I don’t want you to fall,” Leigh said. “If you push too hard, you might experience kickback.”
Great. Although, she appreciated his confidence that she’d succeed on the first try.
Leigh circled her, adjusting her posture like she was a debutant. Seemingly satisfied with his brief invasion of privacy, Leigh stepped back giving her space. Her body felt awkward, but she held her complaints and kept still. If the difference was falling on her butt or discomfort, she’d choose discomfort.
“Do you remember when you pushed the gancanagh away from you in the diner?” Leigh asked crossing his arms.
The image of the gancanagh flying backwards wasn’t something she’d forget. She nodded.
“Focus on that moment,” Leigh said as he looked behind her. “Malvina, can you help us?”
The navy-blue Fae was at Ali’s side in seconds. “What aid do you require?”
“Would you mind making a dirt man?” Leigh asked.
The corner of Malvina’s mouth turned downward. Ali suspected Malvina hoped to spar.
Without a word, Malvina gestured toward the ground, then grasped the air like she was uprooting an invisible weed. A figure sprouted before Ali, standing like a faceless statue. If it had eyes, Ali would have met them.
Leigh grabbed Ali’s wrist. Heat radiated off his fingers, sending warm tingles up her arm and flutters into her chest.
He placed Ali’s palm against the cool chest of the figure and released his grasp. As his warmth disappeared, she slowly exhaled and cleared the nonsense from her head. This is training stupid, not a Lifetime romance. She forced herself to think of Leigh’s face when he was around Melissa. He seemed hurt, confused, and as good as admitted he still loved Melissa on the plane. That was the reality. Ali was in what you might call ‘the friend–zone.’
She shifted her focus to learning magic and the doll in front of her. The dirt below her fingers was smooth to the touch, like it’d been mixed with cold water and pressed to perfection. She touched the surface of the doll, then pulled away and looked at her fingers. The dirt left a wet layer on her skin which quickly dried.
Beside her Leigh crossed his arms looking very much like a strict gym teacher.
“Try to remember how you reacted when the gancanagh attacked you,” Leigh said. “Once you can hang onto that emotion, pretend as though this doll is the gancanagh. Push the threat away from you.”
Ali didn’t need to dig deep to summon fear she felt in the diner. Any incident over the last few weeks was enough to incite panic within her.
The clay man is the gancanagh.
She replayed every detail of the incident in her mind. The creaky floorboards, his hot breath on her face, the look in his eyes as he approached her with his devil-may-care grin.
Die. Go away! Leave me alone!
Nothing.
She tried again.
Not even a wobble. This went on for the next ten minutes. The greatest effect the memory had on Ali was a growing desperation. I can’t do this.
A montage of monsters fluttered through her mind like a horror movie on repeat. Panic crept into her thoughts. Cre
atures lurked outside Aengus’s walls and she was helpless to defend herself.
She forced the monsters out of her mind and took a deep breath.
To her left, dirt crumbled into a pile. Leigh had dispatched another clay man. Mounds of dirt now lay all over the training floor. Ali hadn’t noticed Leigh was destroying a clay army. A fine layer of dirt caked his arms and face. Sweat streaked down his neck, carrying dirt where it saturated the collar of his tee-shirt in a brown ring.
Malvina watched from the sidelines with the longing of a sailor stuck on land. Ali envied them both. Leigh who stood up to danger when confronted, and Malvina who seemed to possess a warrior’s heart.
A clay figure burst near her head. As the dirt crumbled, she noticed Leigh staring at her.
Her despair faded into embarrassment. He was working so hard, and she’d given up.
“I can’t do it,” Ali mumbled.
Breathless, he approached Ali’s statue and rested his elbow on its shoulder. Even the stupid dirt statues were shorter than him.
She gestured to the intact figure, holding back hot tears.
His expression softened. “Just take a moment to breathe.”
Ali exhaled.
“We’ll try something else.” Leigh gesticulated in a circular motion with his index finger. “Air is all around us. It exists in and outside your body.”
Her inclination was to roll her eyes at his lame science lecture. But she didn’t want to fail, so she kept an open mind and listened.
“I want you to ball the air up and condense it to something that feels solid. For instance, I pretend I’m holding a basketball because I’m familiar with it.” He mimicked the motion before her, holding his hands several inches apart. “Once you have a familiar image in your mind, push that image against this statue.” Leigh thrust his hands toward the statue but stopped short of using magic against it.
She raised an eyebrow at him. The only tool she was familiar with was a pencil. “I don’t know what a basketball feels like.”
“A football, baseball, whatever you are comfortable with,” Leigh said.
“Um…” She regretted ignoring gym class.
“Right; sports references are lost on you.” He pursed his lips, then a spark lit in his eyes. “You’re into poems and stuff. Is there one about a hurricane?”
She riffled her memory. “Anne Bronte has a poem about storms. It’s something like, ‘above and around me the wild wind is roaring, arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.’”
“Perfect,” Leigh said. “You’re the wind, now rip apart this clay statue.”
Ali wanted to protest he missed the point of the line, but his words clicked. Deep in the corners of her mind, what he said made perfect sense. Which was crazy.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and imagined she stood in the diner. The gancanagh fizzled into existence before her. They were alone. His greedy eyes held only her. Ali’s heart thumped with increasing rhythm.
She whispered. “Around me the wild wind is roaring.”
In her imagination, the wind swirled about her. Air tugged at her clothes and whipped her hair.
The gancanagh charged; her hand flew forward to stop him. Air traveled away from her, directed at him.
Her eyes flew open in time to see the clay statue topple backwards and crash into the dirt. Large fragments lay at her feet.
Holy Shatner.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins. She let out a whoop as she jumped in the air with a fist pump.
“Did you see that?” She spun in place and threw her hands out. “I can’t believe I did it!”
Leigh smiled. “I guess that’s how the magic relates to you. Try thinking about poetry as you conjure.”
“What’s my magic called?” Ali asked. “Is it still solas?”
“Gaoth,” Leigh said, pronouncing it like gwee.
Ali deflated. “Gwee… thanks.”
Leigh snorted.
“Your magic sounds much cooler than mine,” Ali said.
Leigh walked back to his section of the training space. “First learn gaoth, then I’ll try teaching you solas again.”
From the corner of Ali’s eye, she saw Malvina crack the smallest grin of approval. That smile was enough validation to drive Ali forward.
Ali pointed to the dirt. “Malvina may I have another?”
The process repeated until dinner time. Ali was so consumed with improving her new skill; she missed lunch. It wasn’t until Jessica appeared on the training grounds that Ali realized she was hungry.
After promising to meet Malvina the next morning, a Fae escorted them to a bathing room. She showered alone again, then put up a fuss when the Fae tried dress her in a strapless black evening gown. There was no need for the frivolity, and she stated so. In the end she agreed to wear a white dress shirt with black slacks and heels.
Jessica was less picky and let the Fae women pamper her. She even allowed them to manicure her nails before they draped her in a midnight blue dress and placed her into a makeshift wheelchair. The chair looked like someone took a regular four-legged dining chair, drilled two bike wheels into the side, and glued the bike handlebars to the back of the chair. There was a third wheel on the front below a leg rest. Ali hadn’t the faintest idea what appliance supplied this wheel. She was more interested in how something which appeared to be nonfunctional, was stable enough to push through the halls.
“This isn’t a spa,” Ali accused as she pushed Jessica toward dinner.
The ridiculous heels they forced Ali to wear clacked against the floor, adding to her annoyance. She stumbled a few times, using the wheelchair as support.
Jessica grinned lazily. “You should indulge. Fae pampering is wonderful.”
Ali shook her head. “Did you find anything useful in the library?”
Jessica’s tone took on a businesslike quality. “Only a confirmation of what we already know. Carman was Greek, she had three sons. They destroyed Ireland. The Tuatha de Danann banished the sons, and Carman died of grief.”
The chair got stuck on a seam in the floor and Ali shook the chair hard. Jessica shot her a dirty look as she wedged it free.
A surprising moment of compassion suddenly struck Ali. “Did the Sons know their mother was dead? Or did they just find out?”
Jessica glanced up, placing her hand over Ali’s fingers. “Their names translate to darkness, violence, and evil.” She paused. “Don’t sympathize with them.”
Ali forced the thoughts of their own mother out of her head and considered this new information. Dub lingered in the shadows and Dain’s wicked eyes held dark delights. “Does that mean we haven’t met evil yet?”
Jessica’s mouth opened, then closed. Finally, she spoke. “I hope we never meet him.”
“Me too,” Ali agreed. Just speaking about the Sons caused her stomach to knot. Facing darkness, violence, and evil would paralyze her.
Ali shook her head and pushed the chair across a threshold, entering another of Aengus’s dining halls. The room was solid gold from the marbled tiling on the floor, to the crown molding on the ceiling. A chandelier which appeared upside down in design, cascaded over the table in hundreds of shimmering tiny white lights. It reminded her of stars tumbling from a container.
She wheeled Jessica to an opening at the table, taking in its grandeur. Even the cups, plates, and flatware were gold. The room was so over the top and gaudy it seemed stylish rather than ugly. Aengus pulled out a chair at the head of the table and sat. He smiled at the both of them.
“How to you find our Hall of the Sol?”
The décor made sense to Ali now. Images of the sun appeared in the woodwork of the gold chairs and even in the gold patterns of the cream cushions. The walls held a few gold tapestries, in which the pattern was clear.
“It’s beautiful,” Jessica said.
With a nod of agreement, Ali walked to an empty chair across from Jessica. The table which easily held fifty, was set for four. She assumed Leigh wou
ld be there any minute and saved the chair closest to Aengus for him.
“Do you have a Hall of the Moon as well?” Jessica asked.
“The Lunar garden. We shall dine there tomorrow,” Aengus smiled. He looked to Leigh’s empty chair and frowned. “I hope our final guest isn’t delayed much longer. I don’t know if I can handle this much beauty by myself.”
Ali forced a smile, but she no longer found his sweeping romantic statements as entertaining. His first day charm had worn off.
The dinner party waited another five minutes before Aengus ordered the start of the meal. Halfway through her cup of something creamy which resembled tomato bisque, Leigh finally strode into the dining hall. At first Ali was excited to see him. Leigh was another buffer between her and conversation, but her pleasure shrunk as he neared. Leigh wore a white button-down shirt tucked into black slacks. Ali scrutinized herself.
I’m dressed like a boy.
Leigh pulled out the chair next to her and plopped into the seat.
One of the Fae servers, a red man with orange hair, brought Leigh his soup. Leigh looked at it, then whispered into Ali’s ear. “He’s the same color as dinner.”
Ali snorted. “It’s some sort of Fae tomato broth.”
Leigh stirred the bisque with his spoon, his expression comical. He took a sip, then shrugged. “It’s pretty good.” His eyes widened as he looked at her. “Oh, hey! Twins!” Leigh pointed to Ali’s clothes and then himself. “Great minds!”
She wished he hadn’t noticed. “We look like missionaries.”
Unfortunately, Leigh chose that moment to sip the soup and wound up spitting it back into the cup. They stifled giggles, receiving a confused stare from Jessica.
Seemingly oblivious, Aengus spoke to Leigh. “Did Red have anything to report when he called?”
Jessica’s gaze immediately snapped to Leigh.
Leigh shook his head. “Red thought he found a Lugh descendant, but the house was empty.”
“Ah,” Aengus said as a Fae waiter removed their soup bowls and replaced them with deep purple colored salads that tasted liked field greens.