by Rene Sears
The girls seemed to take the magic in stride. They went back to their blocks, two heads bent together, black hair next to pale gold, the color of our mother's. Gwen and I sat back at the table, and I poured another cup of coffee.
"You should come visit," Gwen said, hands wrapped around her coffee cup. She very carefully looked at her knuckles.
"I'd love to," I said, not entirely truthfully, "but I can't. The queen—"
"The queen has not forbidden visitors from overhill. You could come. Just for a day or so, to see the girls."
I took a sip of coffee to cover my hesitation.
I did want to know the girls better, and for them to know me. I had never been to Faerie—Gwen had always come to see me overhill.
I could feel the girls now, and I always would be able to, until and unless they ever wanted me to dissolve the bond. This close, I was aware of their location, but when they went back to Faerie, all I'd be able to tell was whether they were okay.
My reasons for not wanting to go to Faerie hadn't changed. But the reasons I should do it anyway had become more important.
"I will," I said slowly. "And I'll keep coming back. Someone's going to have to teach them how to use the human side of their magic."
The smile that broke over her face was like sunrise. "I always hoped you'd come see me there." Only then did I realize I'd been thinking about Faerie all wrong. Being there was not something she forced herself to bear. It was her home now; whether or not I wanted to think of it that way, she obviously did. She didn't ask why I'd never come to see it—she never had. Maybe she didn't want to know the answer. But I couldn't bear her thinking it was anything to do with her.
"Do you remember the trial?" I didn't have to say which one.
She frowned. "Of course. But what does that have to do with anything?"
It had been eighteen years before, the one time I saw the queen of Faerie in person. She had worn a gold dress, her midnight hair bound up with strands of gold. Her face had been cool and merciless as she stared at the human man who had attacked her nephew. I had been in the audience, but as her gaze swept the room, I felt irrationally sure that she'd marked me out.
Behind her stood the Queen's Blade, in golden armor that matched her dress. The Blade hadn't been wielded against humans since the truce went into effect, but that didn't make him any less intimidating. His helm was carved with leaves and vines and two great sweeping horns—or possibly, as he was fae, the horns weren't part of the helm. It covered his head so that all I could see of his face was the uncompromising line of his mouth. I was almost certain throughout the trial that the queen would demand her Blade dole out the punishment, but she didn't.
When the trial finished, I stood with my mentor, Marcus, as fae dignitaries streamed past us. I kept my head down, but I watched surreptitiously out of the corner of my eyes. Lords and ladies, nearly human-looking, slightly inhuman, and entirely other paraded by. They spread rainbow wings, they walked on hooves, they tossed hair in shades not found in nature that I'd have to shell out a fortune at a salon to achieve. At last, only the Council of the Association and their apprentices stood by, one less apprentice next to me than once there had been.
The queen and her silent escort stalked past the other members of the Council without glancing at them. But at Marcus, she stopped. I kept my head down, barely breathing.
"He was your student," she said to Marcus. Her voice rang like bells, cold as winter, cold as death.
"He was, your majesty," he said, bowing his head. His voice was rough with grief. I wondered if she could hear it. If she did, let her think it was for the transgression, and not for the condemned. "I am sorry for it."
She stayed still a moment longer. I glanced up, unable to help myself. The queen's eyes were fixed on Marcus, her mouth twisted in a sneer, but the golden helm had turned toward me. I dropped my gaze to my feet hastily.
"You are not welcome," she said to Marcus, "in the lands beneath the hills. You are not welcome in the Shining Courts."
"Your majesty," he said, bowing his head even further. From her angle to the front of him, she wouldn't be able to see the muscle jumping at the side of his jaw as he clenched it. "I would not presume."
She swept on. I looked at her back and saw her Blade still looking at me—or at Marcus—eyes hard through the slit in his helm. In the eighteen years since, I had never forgotten the look in them. I'd never forgotten the threat. It hadn't seemed worth the risk.
"At the trial," I told my sister, "the queen was adamant that Marcus never darken her doorstep. I was right there; I've always assumed she meant me too."
Gwen laughed, then winced, a hand going to her eye. "Morgan. Look. No offense, but the queen has no idea who you are. She knew who Marcus was, sure, but I don't think she'd see mere students as important enough to care about."
"It was a mere student on trial," I said softly. "You weren't there; you didn't see her. Or her Blade."
Gwen leaned back and wrapped her hands around her coffee cup. "Well, she no longer has a Blade. He left her service not long after the trial, so you don't have to worry about that—anyway, the treaty forbids it."
"If you say it won't be a problem, I believe you. You'd know far better than me." A coil of unease crept up my spine nonetheless. But truly, the queen had been talking to Marcus, not me. One of the girls—Igraine—crawled over my foot to retrieve a block, and I told myself to suck it up—they needed me to come, so I was going to.
"I'll get Elm's family to ask the queen. I'm not in her good graces at the moment, but she wouldn't refuse a request from them."
I nodded, hiding a frown with a sip of coffee. There was another reason I didn't want to go to Faerie, but there was no need to tell Gwen about it. She and Elm had had two weddings—one in Faerie, and one overhill. It was at the latter where I'd first met her smiling, golden husband and his smiling, golden family. Over champagne and cake a forbidding older woman had cornered me and asked question after question about Gwen's childhood, her education, her ambitions, until finally, half amused, half annoyed, I'd told her to ask Gwen herself if she wanted to know.
The woman looked down her long nose at me and dropped her glamour, there in the reception hall. In front of me was a formidable fae woman of indeterminate age, golden hair tipped with purple twisted in a complicated updo held in place with jeweled pins. "I am asking you," she said, "for insight into your sister—such as you have to offer. If my nephew insists on marrying so far beneath himself I will do what I must to make the best of it."
I counted to ten, and then did it again. It didn't help. "Somehow I doubt your nephew would agree with your assessment, and if he does, better they not marry at all."
She shot me a sideways glance as her glamour turned her into something more human but no less cranky. "I know who you are, Morgan Tenpenny, sister of Guinevere, student of Marcus Grey. You do your sister no favors with your connection."
I had never told Gwen about it, and I wasn’t going to now. If she didn't already know how little Elm's family thought of her, why should I tell her? And if they were so stupid as to think of her badly, what should I care for them? But it was different, now that the girls were in the picture. I had stayed away because of fear of the queen's retribution, because I was Marcus's student; and because as Marcus's student, I could only lower my sister in their estimation. Out of sight, out of mind, or so I had hoped. To be completely honest, I hadn't been entirely comfortable with my sister's marriage. I'm sure Elm loved her and she him, but their marriage had put her literally out of my world.
No, I realized now. That was wrong. Her choice to be an ambassador to Faerie had done that before she ever met him. She had been willing to keep one foot in both worlds to stay in touch with me. The only question was how willing I was to reach back to her.
"When should I come?" I said.
"Give me a few weeks. Say, the next new moon. That'll give me time to make the arrangements." My sister smiled at me, and her face glowed despi
te the bruise around her eye.
If she said she could get her family to make it right with the queen, then I believed her. "I'll look forward to it," I told her.
A small hand tugged the edge of my shirt. Iliesa had brought a stack of blocks to show us, babbling in a toddler approximation of speech, brown eyes intent on me. I swung her up into my lap and ran a hand over her soft golden hair. The tiny acorn on her hand was a reminder of my promise to her and her sister.
"We have to get back," Gwen said softly.
"Of course," I said. "But I'll see you soon."
I drove them back to the feygate in Cheaha State Park. It wasn't too far—I had moved here with the feygate in mind. We went down a road not marked on any map and hiked down the trail to the gate. They stood in the middle of the rough stone arch, silver energy floating like fog around the gate and the trees around it even in sunshine. Gwen held the girls' hands, a picture of maternal affection framed by the gate. She looked over her shoulder at me as they crossed. I would pass through myself before too long. I told myself the uneasy shudder that ran along my skin was only the magic of the feygate.
When I got home, I cracked a beer, though it wasn't even three in the afternoon yet, and held the cold glass, slick with condensation, against my forehead. A long gulp of brown ale slid down my throat. I set the bottle down, opened the pantry, and pulled out a cardboard cylinder that had once held breadcrumbs. The plastic top popped off with no effort at all, and I pulled out my sidheblade, cold as ice and glowing with restrained fire to my spellcaster's sight. It looked like a silver bracelet now, but it would come to my hand as dagger or axe—whatever I needed. I had not had to use it as a sword in years. I hoped I'd never have to again, but...
I flipped through my calendar and marked the next new moon: three weeks, about. It had been years since I used a gate—and I'd only used the ones that went from here to there overhill, not the ones that crossed into Faerie—but I'd do it for Gwen. I couldn’t wait another six months to see the girls, not with how fast they were growing. I supposed I'd have to see Elm's family again, but that couldn't be helped. For Gwen's sake, I'd try to get along with them. At least Elm himself had been courteous the few times we'd met.
And if we were all very lucky, the queen would have other things on her mind. She had promised her Blade would never again attack humans when the peace between our worlds went into effect forty years before, but as Gwen's bruised face attested, she had other ways of expressing her displeasure.
I hoped my sister and her family would bear no more of it.
*
Weeks went past and I could feel the girls, a faint, tenuous connection when they were Underhill, but strong enough to know they didn't need me as guardian. I'd be happy if they never did; they would need me in other ways. They were fae, but they were human, too, and a spellcaster's gifts were their birthright. They were young yet, but the better they knew me, the easier their teaching would be when they were older. Trust all around could only help.
The day before I was to go, the waning crescent moon rose in the afternoon sky, a sliver of white against clear blue. The sun's rays dyed it blood red, a trick of the light that left me uneasy all evening. I'd kept my tattoos filled with magic so I'd never need to be close to a leyline to work, but I checked them again anyway; they were brimming with energy, just as they'd been the last time I checked. I made sure of my wards and packed for Underhill: clothes, food from the mortal realm, charms and runestones, three sticks of incense. The sidheblade rested against my wrist, to all appearances an innocent silver bangle.
I was as ready as I could be.
I slept fitfully until midnight, tossed out of amorphous bad dreams that slithered away as I woke. A sound that wasn't a sound echoed in my skull like a bell that had been struck much too hard. All the lines of my wards vibrated, and the tattoo above my heart reverberated worst of all. Igraine. Iliesa.
The oath that I'd sworn bound me to them, and I sent my magic sense questing down it. The line between us was taut, but they were safe. Safe-ish. I closed my eyes and traced the lines of magic from my little wards down the thicker leylines to the powerful river of energy that led to the feygate in Cheaha. There, the magic terminated abruptly.
I couldn't go to Gwen and the girls.
The feygate had slammed shut.
All right; that was just the closest one. There were others—a longer drive away, but I could get there, and sooner if I left now.
I pulled on my jeans and shoved my feet into my boots. At least I was already packed. I settled my bracelet and scooped up my tool bag, a backpack stuffed with the this-and-that human casters needed to work more complicated spells.
The phone rang.
My heartbeat sped and I dropped the bag on my foot. I swore as I fumbled the phone from my pocket and swept my thumb across the screen. "Hello?"
"Morgan?" Eliza Bent spoke in my ear. She was head of the Spellcasters' Association of New York, SCANY for short but more often known as the Association; in earlier years the Gentlemen Protectorate, until sometime in the thirties or so when they got to the point where a considerable number of the members were female. I was not a member, but I helped them out when I could. Eliza and I went way back. We'd been the last pupils of Marcus Grey before he stopped teaching, along with his most infamous student, Matthew March. She and I shared the bond of people who'd been through the same crucible. "What the fuck is going on?"
"I don't know."
"Have you heard anything from your sister?"
I closed my eyes. "About a month ago, but I told you about that."
"Yes, and she told me as well. I meant tonight."
"No." I tried to swallow. "I was going to see her tomorrow." My gaze dropped to my useless suitcase.
"Morgan." Eliza's voice went gentle. "All the feygates are shut."
"All of them? I know the one closest to me is, but I hoped..."
"All of them. The one upstate is also guarded."
"Guarded?"
"A phouka is circling it, braying at the night sky. The nearest caster's not answering his phone."
No one could have slept through what I'd felt. And a phouka wasn't easy to ignore either. Eliza needed to get someone over there before the police got involved with something they were totally unequipped to handle. Under terms of the treaty between underhill and over, nonmagical humans ought to be sacrosanct, but, well. The gates were supposed to stay open too. "What do you need me to do?"
"I want you to come here and help me." For one brief moment, I heard the girl I'd studied with twenty years ago. Then Eliza's voice firmed. "But I need you to check out the feygates nearest you. Some of them might be guarded as well. Maybe one of the guards can tell us what the hell is going on."
I nodded, though of course she couldn’t see me. "They're far apart. I'm going to call in some help." Feygates were set up along leylines, because of the energy needed to maintain them. Casters usually lived pretty close to leylines, too, because they liked having ample magic to work with. I didn't like all of them, and some of them I didn't know all that well, but most of them would help me out. Whatever was going on, we needed all the help we could get.
Eliza bit back something. "People you trust."
Well, duh. "Of course."
"Call me as soon as you find out anything. Anything at all. I don't want this to be another fuck-up like the Matthew incident."
"I will. You too," I said, but Eliza had already hung up. Only she would call a crisis of interspecies diplomacy a fuck-up. A brief memory of Matthew flickered in front of me: him tracing an intricate knot-like glyph on a bar napkin, his face mobile with excitement. I shoved it away. He had made his own bed, and he wasn't my business anymore.
Anyone with even the mildest sensitivity would have felt the feygates close, but the first three practitioners I called didn't answer their phones. Unease cramped my stomach. I left brief messages with each of them while the kettle boiled, then poured hot water over coffee grounds in my French p
ress. I was too anxious to feel tired, but there was nothing like a few hours behind the wheel in the middle of the night to unwind me, and then I'd need the caffeine.
I dialed a fourth number, and relief at getting an answer kept me from snapping back at the terse "What?"
"Anil!"
"What do you want, Morgan?"
"The feygates—Eliza says they're all closed. Is yours—?"
"Yes." Anil lived outside of San Antonio, close to the Lost Maples feygate and attendant leyline. "All of them?"
"The one by me is, and Eliza says the one in the Adirondacks has some kind of guard—a phouka."
I heard him turn from the phone and spit. I raised an eyebrow, though he couldn't see it. Anil wasn't part of the Association either—he disapproved of that many casters together—but he got on pretty well with the fae. Then again, a phouka alone was worth spitting. Anil was older than me. He might remember incidents from before the treaty. "There's nothing haunting the one by me—it's just shut."
"Let me know if anything changes, will you? Or Eliza—do you have her number?"
"I'll call you," he said firmly. "They don’t care about us down here, Morgan; you should know that by now."
I could have told him that Eliza had called me, not the other way around, but it wasn't an argument I wanted to get into, and I was so relieved that someone had finally answered the phone I didn't care what he thought about the Association. "All right, Anil. I'm headed to the gate in Cheaha, so I'll let you know if there's anything there."
I yanked open the junk drawer that always stuck and cursed when it opened smoothly and hit me in the hip. I had a couple of maps of the southeast marked with red sharpie. American feygates were in state and national parks, for the most part, far from cities. I had a lot of driving to do unless some of my people called me back. I poured coffee into a travel mug, grabbed my tool bag, and left.
My pickup truck had three-quarters of a tank. Eliza had laughed when she'd seen it and I'd told her it was protective coloration, but the fact of the matter was that I could haul a body if need be, and anyway, it fit right in here. My home was comfortable but I hadn't put down much in the way of roots, if I thought about it; I knew my nearest neighbors well enough to nod at and say hello, but I'd never had anyone over to dinner. I worked two jobs, both online; one, designing websites for clients, was done mostly via email and phone calls, and the other, magical research with a collaborator in Vancouver, required at most a couple of meetings in person per year. It was a solitary existence, but most of the time, I didn't mind. If nothing else, it made it easier to spellcast.