by Ana Mardoll
Beside me Clarent hesitates, looking grave. "Does that bother you?" he asks, his voice low and concerned. "Being human again?"
Tox shrugs, picking up a brown crayon to start on a tree. "No," they finally decide, their voice calm. "I was lonely. Nobody could come near without being hurt. Now I have people and food and Dakota lets me watch cartoons. I like those." They look up at Clarent with wide dark eyes. "Does it hurt being metal?"
Lavender stiffens at the question. "Can you still see his silver?" she asks, her voice carefully neutral.
The child nods happily. "It looks heavy. Is it heavy?"
He smiles gently at this. "I don't think so. Would you like to feel it?" He holds out a hand for their inspection, and after a brief hesitation they reach up to weigh him with their touch.
I notice Celia watching us, her heightened attention indicating that she hadn't realized Tox could still see through our veils. She doesn't comment on the revelation, however; she cradles her fresh cup of black coffee and gestures for Lavender and I to join her by the kitchen counter.
"The hunter's body has been disposed of," she murmurs, sipping slowly. "He had just enough magic left to let me open a very small portal and boot him over." She sighs. "You two did the right thing taking him down, but I wish we could have captured him alive."
Lavender's lips tighten. "He didn't leave us much choice," she points out.
Celia nods, unperturbed by her tone. "No, he didn't. And it would have been especially hard to restrain and interrogate him when he could burn through my ropes. Anyway, no use crying over spilled milk."
"What would you have asked him?" I murmur. I lean against the counter and watch Tox and Clarent color while they tell him all about the cartoons they've seen so far. "Surely we can assume that it was Clarent's faery who sent him; the High King?"
She shrugs and sips again. "Could be. But, Lavender, you mentioned he said 'they' sent him? If he meant that in the plural, it'd be worth knowing who else we're up against. And in addition to the question of 'who', I'd still like to know 'how'." She holds her coffee in both hands, staring into the dark liquid as though it might produce answers.
"You're wondering how he found us," Lavender prompts.
"The portal came down so quickly. I assume he did that?" I exchange a worried glance with her.
Celia shakes her head. "All hunters have ways to find their targets, and most of them can track fae magic," she says, her voice dropping. "That's why they're hunters. But being able to tune directly into his target's location from the other side? Slamming a portal right down on top of him? I've never heard of a hunter who could do that."
Her words jog a memory. "No. He was surprised," I recall, frowning in concentration. "He said something about expecting to have to search for Clarent."
Celia looks relieved at this. "If he didn't know Clarent was here, that means he wasn't an unprecedentedly good tracker with skills I've never heard of," she observes. "Which means we're back to either coincidence or... something else," she admits. "Four portals in two days is improbable. For you and Clarent to be caught in three of them, Rose, is a hell of a coincidence. And a hunter's portal forming right on top of his target?" She shakes her head. "The chances of all that occurring together must be next to impossible."
Ice traces down my spine. "If we can't figure out what's causing this and how to stop it," I observe in a thin voice, "people are going to start dying."
Lavender's eyes narrow with worry. "You've nearly died twice already, Rose," she points out.
"You're both right," Celia says with a nod. She looks thoughtful for a moment, savoring the bitter liquid on her tongue. "Seems like we have two problems. One is Clarent and this High King. I'm not going to lie," she says, giving us a serious look. "Having even one faery after you is a very bad thing. I can teach you ways to hide better, and how to run when you can. The good news is: if the High King fits the usual pattern, he'll lose interest after a while. They're vicious bastards, but capricious—forgetful and easily distracted. That works in our favor, but only in the long-term."
Lavender bares her teeth in a determined grin, pleased to have something concrete to do. "And we can make sure he's never alone, at least not for the first few months," she says. "Rose works days and I'm on the night shift, and there's still plenty of overlap for us to both spend time together," she adds, stealing a glance at me. I feel a blush creep into my cheeks at the open discussion of me and Lavs spending time together.
Celia hides a smile. "It's a good plan; I approve." She sighs and takes another long sip. "Second problem is these portals popping up. That's not a wait-and-see situation, as far as I'm concerned. Faeries are a known quantity: they're dangerous and clever, but they rarely chase after an escaped altered for long. We just aren't important enough to fixate on. So whatever is causing portals to pop open is something I don't recognize or understand, and waiting could make it worse."
I bite the inside of my cheek. The portals probably have nothing to do with me, since Kieran was caught in one when I was on the other side of town, but being caught in three of the last four has made me anxious not to repeat the experience. "What should we do? The last one hit too fast for us to escape before it closed, and Clarent's came down while we were in our apartment. We can't maintain a state of constant vigilance, always looking out the window."
Celia runs a hand absentmindedly over her thick braid. "Yesterday I was thinking about maybe taking you three to talk to another altered," she says slowly. "She's only been out for a couple months now; came out after you two escaped. But she's got some information that I don't think anyone else in our community has."
I'm surprised to hear this; I'd thought there hadn't been any new escapees between our own flight and Clarent's appearance. "A new altered? Has she been to see Athena yet?"
Celia shakes her head, frowning. "No. She's... complicated. I've got her in an apartment for now, sequestered away from everyone else. I wasn't sure whether it was safe to take you to meet her, but after this hunter attack I think it would be more dangerous to do nothing at all. She might be able to help, or at least to tell us something useful."
Lavender considers this, reaching out for my hand. "It would be better than waiting around for tonight's meeting," she points out quietly.
I make a face and nod slowly. "Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's either this or try again to get some sleep, right? Celia, what's her name?" I ask her as she polishes off the coffee.
She hesitates and then shrugs, figuring we'll find out sooner or later. "Her name's Oracle. I'll go tell Dakota we're leaving. You two let Clarent know he's coming with us. She's going to want to see him."
Chapter 22
Celia drives us to an apartment complex not far from Dakota's house. I recognize the area; the bookstore is only a few miles up the road, and Celia rents a residence here for Athena. I wonder if we're here to pick her up, but Celia instead pulls her truck around to the far side of the complex. The four of us pile out, and she leads us up the open-air stairs to a third-floor landing. She knocks on the metal door of the farthest apartment in the row, and the entrance is cracked open just wide enough to let us squeeze in.
We're fully inside the apartment before our host slips out from where she's hiding behind the door. When I glimpse her in the low light, my heart races painfully and my breath comes in shallow gasps. I stare at her, trying to understand why I have a strong desire to run and hide. She's only a few inches shorter than me and maybe a few years older. She's sickly wan—not white like Lavender, but strangely ashen, with blue veins that stand out in harsh contrast. Her eyes are too pale, strangely cloudy and gray. She's a corpse, I realize, my heart beating faster.
I know there are members of our community who look dead. Mina had been enthusiastic in her matchmaking attempts on behalf of a zombie boy I'd never met. I'd dismissed her suggestion at the time, not being interested in pursuing happiness I didn't feel I deserved. I'm now immensely relieved I never agreed to meet him; this girl looks exactly
like the bodies that lay overnight in my room, her dead skin and cloudy eyes summoning a storm of painful memories.
"Hello, Oracle," Celia greets her in a gentle tone. "Sorry we're a day later than you wanted."
"It's just as well," the girl says with a quiet sigh. Her voice is a high rasp that tickles the back of my throat; it makes me want to cough on her behalf. "He was cranky yesterday, but today has been better." Her eyes flit over us with obvious interest. "You're Clarent, right? You remove fae magic?"
Celia touches Clarent on the shoulder, preempting his answer. "He does," she answers. "But, hon, I really don't think you should volunteer just yet. We don't know what will happen to you."
Exhaustion and exasperation mingle in the girl's pallid face, the expression of someone who is tired of a familiar argument. "I'm done giving him a ride, Celia," she says firmly. "I want to be free of him. If it kills me in the process, so be it. He should have died long ago, and— mmm."
Her sentence ends abruptly in a low hum, her high voice segueing into a much deeper resonance. Her stance changes, shoulders hunching forward and her fingers steepling thoughtfully as she looks at us. When she speaks again her voice is lower, deeper, and gently accented where it wasn't before. "Mmm. No, I won't die today, girl," the new voice purrs. "Not unless you kiss the pink one, and then we'll both die. The purple one is safe, though. Do keep it in mind when you're piloting us, no matter how much we want them."
Her gaze sweeps back to Clarent. "Is that the boy you've been watching?" Her rasping voice doesn't seem to be addressing any of us. "He doesn't remove magic. He certainly can't remove me. Did anyone actually say he could? Was it that silly speckled healer, Joel? He's a child surrounded by babies, and it's gone to his head. Or did you just assume it from watching the boy work? Your eyes deceive you, girl, no matter how sharp your sight."
Celia takes the disconcerting shift in personality in her calm stride. "Hello, Hermit," she says mildly. "Would you like to come sit on the couch with us?"
The girl nods. Her expression doesn't change, but her deep voice sounds sullen. "Oracle says not to put your dirty feet on the coffee table," she grumbles. "There, I told them so you don't need to speak. Quiet down. I said, quiet dow—"
There's a pause, a sense of internal struggle, and then the girl's voice returns to her higher soprano. "There's sodas in the fridge where you put them, Celia," she says, resignation suffusing her voice. "You'll have to get your own glasses; he refuses to host properly."
"That's what servants are for," the girl adds, sniffing haughtily as the deeper voice returns.
"We're fine," Celia says stiffly, ignoring the last comment and leading us to the couch.
I follow, intensely uncomfortable. "How do you know us? How do you know Joel?"
"And why do you want Clarent to de-magic you?" Lavender pipes up, frowning at our odd host as we settle into our seats.
"You're one of the avatars, aren't you?" Clarent asks. "Like the one who carried me out. A dead shell for a faery to remotely control." His eyes glint in gentle hope. "Did you get away before they could finish draining you?"
The girl waves her hand in a gesture of annoyance, her deep voice dripping with disdain. "Hardly! A modified avatar, perhaps, but far superior to the original; in no way deserving of the same term. And I am anything but remote, human."
Lavender leaps to her feet. "You're a faery?" she breathes, scented fury filling the air.
"She's complicated," Celia repeats firmly. "They both are."
Oracle's pitch rises again. "He destroyed his own body," she says, her expression glum. "He was trying to make a vessel that wouldn't break down over time, one he could permanently embed his consciousness in. Instead he got stuck in here with me, with only limited control."
"That is a very simplistic explanation," the deeper voice of Hermit grumbles. "I acquired this servant because she has a gift for far-seeing, projecting her consciousness to view events from a distance. I believed she would be an excellent candidate for total removal. My experiment yielded unexpected results, and now she is quite stubbornly present despite my best attempts."
His hand snakes out to grab a piece of candy from a bowl on the coffee table, only to fiddle helplessly with the wrapper in frustration. "She wants the boy to exorcise me, without realizing— fix it, girl!" he snarls, frustrated by the candy.
The hands still for a moment as though two drivers are exchanging control, and then she unwraps the candy with ease, a weary expression flitting over her face. "You have to be patient, Hermit," she says dully, eating the newly-liberated candy without gusto.
Celia watches all this with a grim expression. "Oracle phoned me yesterday, Rose, right after you found Tox. Her call came through before Elric's did."
"I saw what he'd done," Oracle says, nodding at Clarent. "I was stepping out for a while, to get away from Hermit. I saw the whole thing and asked her to bring him over." She flashes an apologetic look at me. "After they healed you, of course."
I stare at her. In a few short, panicky moments I've gone from being afraid due to her resemblance to my victims to irrationally wanting to add her to their number before the faery inside can hurt us. I could kill them both right where they sit. Yet she's a victim as much as any of us. "It's no wonder you can't bring them to meetings," I whisper.
Celia nods, her voice grave. "The fewer people who know, the less I have to worry about someone climbing through her window with a knife."
"But we're in danger," Lavender argues hotly. "He could be plotting with them! Sending information back! Especially if she can see us without our knowledge. No offense," she adds to the girl.
Oracle shrugs wearily before Hermit reasserts himself. "Bah! Stupid girl," he grumbles. "To whom would I send information? I'm an abomination to those nitwits. Trapped in a human body? They'd kill me rather than acknowledge such a thing is possible."
He grabs another candy and manages to work it out of its wrapper on his own. "How do you think she escaped? Do you imagine she took control from me long enough to bring us out? Ha! No, I went into exile for my own safety. And you can't have any candy," he adds, shooting a glare at Lavender.
Oracle sighs and pushes the bowl away. "You've had enough already, Hermit," she says glumly. "You'll make us sick." Looking at Celia, she asks, "If you aren't here to bring Clarent to me, what has brought you out? I haven't seen much, but enough to gather that you're too busy for casual house calls, I think."
Celia nods at her. "We've had four portals open in two days. One of them was created by a hunter looking for Clarent, so that one is less surprising except that he defied all probability by opening right on top of him." She gives Oracle an apologetic look. "I was hoping to talk to Hermit."
Oracle's face falls with fresh disappointment before morphing back into the haughty self-assurance of her counterpart. "Portals," he scoffs in his deep voice. "Finicky things; I don't care for them. You're a hunter, Celia. You ought to know enough about them without needing to bother me."
Lavender jumps beside me but Celia pretends not to notice. "Humor me. Talk Rose through the mechanics," she requests.
He gives me a curious look. "Why Rose?"
I lean forward. "The portals keep forming on top of me. Am I doing something to cause that?"
"That depends," he says with a chuckle. "It is well known that humans yearn to return to the human world, while faeries desire their own homeland. Are you a secret faery princess, little Rose?"
I widen my eyes at him. "You know she's not," Celia says firmly. "Don't lie to us, Hermit, or I'll shuffle everyone right out the door."
His face twists briefly back to the resigned expression of Oracle. "I'll step out for the rest of the day if you drive them off," she threatens him. "You'll be all alone."
He flinches. When his haughty expression settles back into place it is slightly subdued, his tone sullen. "Very well. Our world and your world overlie each other, but only the portal-space allows passage between them. When conditions are righ
t, two points are joined to make a third. For that moment in time, three separate locations exist in the same space; for example: your apartment in the human world, a forest in the fae world, and a portal which imperfectly attempts to combine the two."
I nod at him. "Okay. What about the people?"
He steeples his fingers again. "The portal-space can copy inanimate objects and some aspects of the scenery: trees, grass, and so forth. More complex life forms, no. Anything living at either of the two points will stay where they are, often unaware of the portal, or will slip into the portal-space. For faeries or humans, slipping requires an act of will, which is quite a hurdle for humans who don't know the fae world exists. But altereds slip easily, often without meaning to. You brim with fae magic, yet you are neither fully faery nor fully human; you exist in a state between two worlds."
"You said 'when the conditions are right'," Lavender repeats with a frown. "What are those conditions?"
Hermit makes a face. "Sufficient power and the will to expend it," he says, his tone suggesting this should be perfectly obvious. "Portals require magic to power them, human or faery, it doesn't matter. The only real variable is the amount of power needed, which depends on the conditions at the two points. The border of a faery's estate or the edges of a human city have less magic worn into them over time, and are therefore easier for the portal-space to copy."
"That's why the portals tend to open on the outskirts of town, not smack in the middle," Celia says calmly, resting her hands on her knees. "Which is partly why it's so alarming that the three yesterday popped out where they did."