by K. C. Lannon
“He will enjoy the gesture as much as you are now.”
“You are no goblin.” Alan smiled, though the expression was a mask. Any pleasant conversation with the creatures was forced—a duty and no more.
A comely smile almost touched the corners of Edith’s mouth.
Shame… what a waste of a nice smile, being worn on a faery’s face. Not even Edith will be spared when the day of reckoning comes. She is no different than all the rest—no different from the slavering wolf or the ugliest of the goblins.
The mirror rattled almost angrily, and Alan stopped breathing for a moment as if the air had been stolen from the room. He regained his composure through sheer force of will and stubbornness. The Winter King was not pleased, which was exactly what he wanted.
“Is your revered king willing to speak to me now?” Alan asked, standing to his feet.
Fear flickered behind Edith’s eyes, and her fingers twitched in her lap. She clasped her hands together, perhaps to steady herself. Her gaze darted to the side, looking at something beyond her. And the mirror began to shudder with ice.
“I will grant you the audience you so desire.” Edith’s voice, cold as the ice around her, rang out. “Do not say I did not warn you!”
At once, it seemed all the cold was sucked out of the room and into the mirror. Frost leapt across the shimmering surface, crackling and squealing as it spread. As Alan reached out to touch the surface curiously, Edith vanished and a dark, twisting shape appeared.
An awful, unearthly shrieking, both too high-pitched and inhumanly low, vibrating like tectonic plates shifting under the ground, crackled though the air. It was so overwhelmingly loud and penetrating that Alan fell to his knees, his hands clasped over his ears. Then he felt the mirror shatter as the shards rained down on him in icy fragments.
All at once, the screeching stopped. His ears rang.
Alan stood uncertainly, surveying the mess all around him.
A few pieces of glass fell from the cracked surface, clattering onto the vanity or crashing to the floor. Alan stood over the fragments that gleamed dully up at him but did not pick them up.
There was no logical reason to fret over a broken mirror. He was not a superstitious man and did not believe in bad luck. Yet the sight did cause him some slight discomfort; he decided it must be the residual chill from the Winter King’s presence.
The sky was misty and gray above Neo-London. General Callaghan met with the Iron Architects and for another round of weapons testing, leading a unit of the Iron Infantry outside the city limits to a marshy area that used to house a factory farming company. The marshes had been unoccupied for years; a dark Fae creature had overwhelmed the bog, forcing the factory to shut its doors after a series of drownings and disappearances.
There was the sound of around twenty pairs of boots squelching through the mud and peat of the wetlands as Alan led the unit to the place where the magic activity spiked. They were armed with special iron artillery.
“Keep your wits about you,” Alan said to the infantry that fell in line behind him. “There’s an energy barrier located somewhere in these marshes. It will get the best of you if you let it, make you forget where you are.”
“What kind of beastie should we expect, General?” one of the infantry soldiers asked.
“It’s rumored that a Kelpie resides here,” Alan said. “It was apparently drawn to the factory pollution. This used to be but a small bog—now the Kelpie’s magic has expanded it to this.”
He heard the younger infantry members whispering to each other about what they knew of the Kelpie—eerie tales of a shape-shifting water horse that lived in lakes and shallow pools and lured humans to ride it so it could drown and devour them.
Levi, the lead scientist and weapons specialist of the Iron Architects Company, followed behind Alan closely. There was a device in his hand that could detect slight shifts in the atmosphere that were caused by magical interference. He nodded to Alan, pointing to the twitching needle on the device that indicated a high reading.
The air was close, thick with the scent of stagnant, putrid water and a strange musty animal smell. The mist was more intense in the area where Levi’s device led them. When Alan held out his hand, he could barely see the outline of his fingers through the fog.
Once they were settled in the area, Alan received news that General Windsor would be stopping by before the demonstration to discuss something with him. They were to wait until after the general left to continue with their test.
Windsor looked tired. He had the look of a man who had lost a great deal; Alan knew that look very well. When Windsor did arrive, he made no inquiries about the demonstration and got straight to the point.
“I’m signing off on the deal you proposed. I believe that the creation of more weapons will indeed serve as a deterrent, and I do believe that we ought to be more proactive when it comes to the Courts.” Windsor still sounded uncertain, but the wariness might have been from his grief.
“Of course,” Alan said. “It is not just the Winter Court that we need to be wary of anymore.”
The Iron Guard had rounded up faeries accused of conspiring with assassins that murdered the king. Imagine the surprise when it was found that the faeries caught were both Seelie and Unseelie, though there were very few of the former even in Neo-London. It would seem that the rest of the world was only just catching up to what Alan had known since the Cataclysm: that faeries, no matter their creed or what type of magic lurked in their veins, were no friends to humanity.
Alan was pleased to hear that Windsor finally saw the world in the same light he did. Things might have gone differently had he agreed much earlier. Alan said, “I will be needing half the infantry. The next time the Winter Court threatens us, I plan on meeting them before their monsters reach our walls.”
“That is advisable, yes,” Windsor mused.
“There is rumor of the Winter Court planning to send monsters to the border of Scotland, near the Summer Court. I would like to begin sending troops to be stationed there to protect the surrounding towns.”
Windsor nodded. “Perhaps I should come back from my leave early—”
“Windsor,” Alan said, placing his hand so it just hovered over Windsor’s shoulder, “you’ve suffered a loss. Our country mourns a great king. You mourn a great king and a brother. Take the time you need.”
After Windsor departed, Levi’s team pushed the vessel on a cart built for rugged terrain. Even with many men pushing, the wheels still became inexplicably stuck, as if repelled by the nature of the marshes. They situated the machine to where it was pointed at the predicted barrier, and Levi instructed everyone to stand back.
Alan stood beside Levi. “I trust that you’ve found a suitable candidate to make this test possible?” he asked under his breath while the rest of the group was busy setting up.
Levi seemed preoccupied with scraping the mud off his shoes by rubbing them against the tall marsh grasses. His glasses were dotted with humidity. “Oh, yes, General Callaghan,” Levi said, looking up at him with a faint, wry grin. “This candidate’s claimed to be of Noble blood. With any luck, that energy will be enough to break down this barrier.”
Alan felt a curious twinge of doubt, given what Edith had divulged to him earlier, but it did not snuff out his eagerness. “I don’t much believe in luck.”
The vessel hummed to life as Levi and his team went through the procedures. All the sound was sucked from the area—not an insect chirp was heard nor the rustling of the foliage or the faint bubbling sound of the marsh waters. There was only the thrumming of the energy held within the vessel.
It seemed to be released in a quick burst and slowly at the same time. The energy did not behave as it had after the attack at the parade when it had absorbed the smoke from the air. Instead, the energy was released like smoke and seemed to float against an invisible wall in the marshes—the barrier the kelpie’s magic had created.
“Oh dear,” Levi murmured un
der his breath. “Oh— Oh no.”
Alan thought to step back, but one or two steps backward did nothing to protect him. The second the energy struck the wall, it burst back in a wave so fierce that it knocked everyone onto the ground.
As Alan pushed himself up onto his elbow, realizing he was on the ground, he watched as the air began to clear around them, the smog dissipating some. It appeared that the barrier had only just been broken through or at least damaged.
Some of the younger soldiers were the quickest to get to their feet again. Alan got up and brushed himself free of dirt. As the scientists began to check the vessel for damage or malfunction, Alan made his way to Levi.
Levi explained that, while the energy had seemed promising, it had only damaged part of the magical seal. “I suppose— I suppose it was not quite strong enough to absorb the energy. We’ll need something immensely more powerful to even make a dent in a stronger shield.”
“We take no more chances,” Alan said. “The next time a faery tells you it’s of Noble blood, assume it’s lying.”
It has to be Deirdre…
Who would have thought that such power could come from an orphanage, from a simple, unassuming orphan… Then Alan thought in the back of his mind that the same could be said of him one day, but that he would most likely not be around to hear it.
When he drove up the hill on his way home, he watched numbly out his windshield as smoke billowed up from the military housing. Fire trucks lined the inside of the property as firefighters tried to tame the building flames. Veterans and active soldiers stood outside and watched, apparently all or most having gotten out in time. Alan would make certain they had a place to stay.
They would not be able to douse the flames, he knew. Faery fire was magic, and magic did not play fair.
He supposed this was what he got for trying the Winter King’s patience.
After parking by the curb, Alan got out of his car and stood across the street by the park entrance to watch. He choked on the smoke and retched at the smell of it, wiping his mouth on his sleeve; the smoke tasted of acrid Unseelie magic, like how the wreckage from old London had tasted. It was impossible to forget.
He stared and thought distantly and quietly in the back of his mind that he had once been petrified that such a thing would happen, that he would be around to witness his life burn up in ashes around him. But that fear was far from him now, and there was no one left inside to burn.
It was just an empty house.
Alan thought about ringing Boyd up and asking him to stay at his place for a while. He could almost see the smug smile on Boyd’s face as if he had already told him, which made him reconsider his options. After a moment of thinking, he reached into his coat pocket and produced a key—the key he’d given Iain.
Why Iain was out there somewhere beyond the walls and not in the new, spacious flat Alan had given him was still baffling to him.
He rang up Boyd after all and told him to meet him at the flat with some essentials.
Once Alan mentioned the reason for his call, Boyd asked how the fire had started. The tone of icy anger in Boyd’s voice was just as he expected when he told him that the blaze was another faery attack; he heard no doubt in his voice. He always found doubt in Iain’s tone.
Why is that? I wonder…?
“What do we do?” Boyd asked him once Alan had finished explaining. “Just tell me the word and I’ll do it.”
“We need to accelerate things,” Alan replied, his anger against the Winter King sparking. “No more hiding, no more placating. You bring that faery girl to me as soon as you can, by whatever means. I need her and James alive…”
There was a pause before Boyd asked, “What about Iain?”
Alan lowered the phone slightly, turning to look out the foggy window of the booth at the street. Curious, he searched inside himself for a thread of doubt or remorse. There was nothing; it felt like a hand falling through air unexpectedly, searching for something in the dark that wasn’t there.
“Give Iain one final chance to turn the girl over,” Alan answered. “If he refuses, he is a traitor to the Iron Guard and an enemy of humanity. You know what happens to traitors, Boyd.”
“Understood, General Callaghan. It will be my pleasure.”
Chapter Six
The boys were quiet when they first returned to their room. James’s silence was deliberate and rather grumpy. He couldn’t stop thinking about the Pan that might’ve been in Iain’s backpack. As for his brother’s silence, James hadn’t a clue. For whatever reason, Iain seemed quite lost in thought, which was a rare sight.
James decided to spend as much time getting ready for bed as possible, hoping to avoid talking to him. When he did return to the bedroom, clean and dressed in fresh clothing, Iain was still awake and sitting up in his bed.
But apparently he had not just been sitting there the whole time, because the hole in the wall was almost fixed now. Iain had scrounged together enough paper, tape, and other items from around the inn to cover it. It reminded James of how Iain used to repair things in their house when it started leaking, creaking, or falling apart.
James wondered whether they would ever go back to their house. He decided he never wanted to see it again. He was finished with that home and everything in it—finished with seeing things patched up haphazardly with crooked nails and duct tape.
“James, do you think I’m difficult to talk to?” Iain asked suddenly.
James frowned. “Uh…”
“Do you find me easy to talk to?” Iain insisted, crossing his arms.
James was unable to keep a straight face. “Are you serious?” He chuckled without humor. “You’re nearly the least approachable person on the planet, besides Dad.”
Iain’s expression faltered, and he shifted in his seat. “Yeah?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” James asked. “You don’t want anyone to bother you, so you’re unfriendly and aloof and whatever. You don’t want anyone to get you.”
“Get me?”
“Uh, understand you.”
Iain just squinted at him.
“You’re kidding, right? I don’t think I understand a thing about you. I don’t even think we’re alike at all.” James chuckled again. “For one thing, you always walk around with your arms crossed, and you just, uh, grunt in response to everything.”
“I don’t always cross my arms.”
James pointed an accusing finger at him. “Your arms are crossed right now!”
Iain looked down at his arms, promptly unfolding them. “I guess that explains why Deirdre looks at me like I’m…” He shrugged, trailing off. “It just explains a lot.”
“Uh, threatening to cuff her probably didn’t help. And freaking out about her magic—don’t forget that.”
Iain did not sense the sarcasm. He scratched his chin, thinking. “That was probably a factor. I should apologize for that, yeah?”
“I thought you liked your mean reputation. No one messes with you.” James had quite enjoyed the benefits of that reputation on a few occasions. If anyone gave him trouble at school, he had always just threatened to tattle to his big, scary brother.
Iain stared at him, looking lost. “Yeah, but… it’s not meant to be like that with you. And Deirdre—she’s your friend.”
James scoffed. “Since when do you care?”
Iain sat up, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. “Are you angry or something?” he asked. “If you are, just tell me.”
Turning toward the door, James swallowed hard, his throat constricting. It felt like his chest was going to explode if he didn’t release the pressure soon, if he didn’t address what he was too scared to mention.
“Are you on Pan?” he asked, his voice tight. “I’m just wondering if I’m going to have to start sleeping in front of the door again so you can’t sneak out.”
Iain’s stunned silence was palpable.
James felt every second of time after he’d spoken, waiting
to hear the worst.
“James—” Iain stammered. “I didn’t—”
“You’re lying.” James twisted around, jabbing a finger at him. “I smelled it in your pack, and you vomited this morning.”
“Listen, James, I did have some on me, but I threw it away.” Iain sighed, running his hands over his face and keeping them there. “I didn’t eat any of it. I promise.”
“Why would you throw it away?” James demanded. “Where did you even get it from? Elaine?”
“No. Of course not.” Iain lowered his hands, looking more tired than James had ever seen him. “It’s a long story. The point is, I found some, but I tossed it. I didn’t have a bite of it. I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Iain’s voice was firm but wavering. “I thought of you and how disappointed you’d be in me. And I was on a mission, trying to find you. You know how hard I had to work to get my health back, to get my job, to make up for my stupidity. I’m a soldier now, and there’s nothing I would do to jeopardize that.”
Iain seemed struck by his own words, his brows pinching together, then he added, “Well… at least I wouldn’t lose it all for something so idiotic.”
James remembered. Iain had lost a lot of weight and muscle mass during the time of his addiction, his health suffering for it. He’d had to put in double the work he’d had to before then—to catch up with the schooling he’d missed, to get back in shape for training. Even eating normal food again had been a struggle, and yet Iain had insisted on not seeking help, stating that he had to do it on his own, that Dad wouldn’t be able to bear the shame of the Iron Guard knowing what he’d done. Dad hadn’t offered to get him help anyway.
He supposed that Iain really had given up his position in the Iron Guard when he’d agreed to travel with him and Deirdre, when he’d let Deirdre go, when he’d defied their father.
“They’ll discharge you for what you did, won’t they?” James asked. “I mean, you’ve abandoned your orders and stuff.”