by K. C. Lannon
James gaped at him. “What about Mum? If you think making a brief stop to the caves will be a detour, then what happens to our plans if you get arrested or taken back to Neo-London to testify? It should be someone else’s job to deal with this, not yours! You’re not the government!”
“I promised Philip—”
“The bloke who never lifted a finger or batted an eye while his brother knocked you around?” James demanded. “Why do you suddenly care what he said? Because, uh, he’s dead?”
Iain was silent, his shoulders tense.
James lowered his gaze to the ground, looking almost contrite. “You’re not Philip. You’re not high ranking like Philip was. You’re not, um, really even an Iron Warden anymore. You’re just… a person. Just a teenager. So,” James finished with a shrug, “there isn’t really anything you could even do. But we can find Mum.”
After a long, quiet moment, Iain sighed. “Fine. We’ll steer clear of the military and those caves.”
“But what about—”
“We’ll stick to the plan: head for Mum’s family and stay clear of the military. Got it?”
James grumbled, made a slightly assenting noise, and then stood, heading back up to where Alvey was and Deirdre should have been.
Jerked back to reality, she began to hastily climb back along the limb, shaking the leaves as she did so, then sliding down to the ground heavily, landing hard on one knee.
“Oww.” She grumbled, standing up and rubbing it carefully just as James came around the tree.
“I am hungry,” Alvey announced.
“I’ve got some lunch,” James said, reaching down and beginning to pull his packaged food from his pack.
As Alvey began to loudly deny everything offered to her, Deirdre sat down, still rubbing her knee but without concentrating on it, thinking, So Iain was told something about all of Alan’s lies, I guess? …I understand they want to find their mother, but shouldn’t they go and tell someone, like that Walker person? But maybe James is right. But I don’t know! And if he did go, wouldn’t we all get captured? Or maybe not? But… She shuddered, remembering her night spent in a cell in Neo-London, thrown in without reason or explanation, having to eventually break out to escape.
It’s all so confusing… Can I trust any of them?
Chapter Eleven
As she sat under the tree, with the noon sun beating down through the leaves, if anyone had asked Alvey if she was having a good day, she would have replied firmly in the negative.
First she was woken up at dawn, the time of morning that a common laboring faery would arise. Second, the tea had been bitter; humans obviously didn’t understand anything about brewing tea properly. Third, she had been scolded for no good reason both by Deirdre and then by the Phouka.
Fourth… well, she supposed the conversation with the human boy—Jay, right?—wasn’t entirely bad. But it definitely was not a comfortable one.
And now Jay had just finished offering her “food” that smelled so foul she briefly wondered if he was trying to poison and kill her as revenge for her witty sallies at his expense that morning.
Methinks traveling with them is a mistake. She wheeled a bit away from the tree as the boy and Deirdre chatted. The only reason I really wanted them to follow me was because I was concerned that something more malicious than a Phouka was about. But now that I know the truth, perhaps it is not worth it…
The sound of Iain’s voice came to her from the distance, along with the early-autumn scents of the nearby woods. He must have wandered off into the trees.
For some reason Alvey couldn’t quite pin down, it was remarkably easy to remember his name and identify his voice. And scent.
There was also a faint buzzing noise, unlike anything she had ever heard.
She began to roll over in his direction, sensing the magic of the stones and plants and trees in the way, wheeling around them smoothly and with little sound.
She could smell, hear, and also sense his presence, making a sort of negative space in the nature magic in the small grove ahead. Sensing that several trees and bushes separated them, shielding her from view, she stopped to listen.
The unfamiliar sound came again, along with a strange voice, disembodied. She smelled no one else there, but there was something metallic, something human-made in Iain’s hand. Thinking of what little she knew of human technology, she supposed that thing was some kind of radio.
The voice was also buzzy, but as it spoke again, it was obviously a man’s and sounded somewhat similar to Iain’s in the way that family members’ voices always sounded alike.
“What is your answer?” the voice asked. “I trust you’ve given some thought to what I’ve said.”
There was silence. Alvey sniffed the air, detecting that Iain’s scent was like the scent of something being hunted. He was nervous or worried.
“Iain, consider what I’m offering,” the voice said firmly. “All you need to do is do the right thing and hand that dangerous faery in. What is your decision? Will you do what is best for James?”
Alvey didn’t hear Iain’s answer because as she leaned forward, her chair wheels responded to her interest and accelerated over a twig, snapping it loudly.
Immediately she grabbed the wheels and headed straight back to the others, giddy at the prospect of something interesting happening at last.
As she rolled back to the boy and Deirdre, she immediately said, “I heard Iain talking with a male relative on the radio.”
Silence again. Alvey pursed her lips; she had been expecting an immediate reaction.
“You mean… his dad? On his little military radio?” Deirdre asked, her tone pitched high.
“I assume. They were speaking of handing some dangerous faery over and things like that.” Alvey could not help but grin in amusement when Deirdre gasped and the human boy, from the sound of it, either tripped or stepped back a few paces.
“That’s— I-I’m sure you didn’t hear everything,” the boy protested. “I mean, he wouldn’t talk on the radio with you sitting right there.”
“I can hear perfectly well, and I was far enough away that he knew not that I was present!” Alvey snapped, balling her fists. “I heard you and your brother earlier, talking about not going to the caves… or going to see the military either! Ha! Methinks he reversed his decision on that account!”
“He has been talking to Dad, yes, but—”
Deirdre groaned; it was muffled, so she was probably covering her face with her hands. “I thought something like this might happen. I just didn’t want to— I thought that maybe it’d be okay…”
“Deirdre,” the boy said firmly. “Iain won’t turn you in. He thinks you’re innocent!”
“But he thinks I’m dangerous!” she shot back. “So what difference does it make? I-I think my magic is dangerous too—and how can you even know, how can you be certain he won’t turn me in to your father?”
The boy was quiet for a long moment before replying, “Iain told me just today that we couldn’t let Dad take you, okay? He told me that, and… he’s got to be telling the truth.”
“How can you know that?” Deirdre asked pointedly. “Weren’t you just saying that he was probably using that faery fruit? How can we trust anything he says?”
“He… he wasn’t.” The boy gulped. “I was wrong about that.”
“But he’s done it before. Hasn’t he?”
“Well, yes—”
“And did he lie about it back then?”
The boy did not answer.
Deirdre didn’t rub her point in, but she let out a racking sigh; it sounded like she slunk to the ground.
Alvey folded her arms, feeling like she was missing something. What did “faery fruit” refer to?
Are they talking about Pan? Impossible. Seelie faeries are forbidden by the Court to give Pan to humans! She bit her lip. Is it possible… humans stole it? Or perhaps they found Unseelie Pan?
She heard Iain before he reached them, saying som
ething about cooking lunch. The other two were sullenly quiet, not offering to help or answering Iain’s questions about what they would like to eat.
“James, get the fire going, will you?” Iain pulled out spices and a steel pot from his pack. Then he added, employing sarcasm, “I guess it’ll be lentils then, if you won’t tell me what you want. Your favorite, James, delicious, healthy lentils…”
The boy grumbled but complied, starting the fire. Alvey could sense Deirdre next to the tree, tense, not moving.
As Iain began to cook, the spices growing warm in the hot oil and letting off all kinds of strange and pleasant scents, Alvey wheeled forward, asking, “Pray tell, shall we go to the caves after this?”
Iain shook his head. “Sorry, but it’s too dangerous for all of us.”
“I only have need of one or two things from there.”
“You’ll have to get them somewhere else.”
Her face burning, Alvey turned away away, heading around the tree and wheeling straight down the hill behind it and into the groves beyond. The others didn’t even notice her leaving, which she had intended.
I need to get those relics from the cave, and no one is going to stop me or tell me not to.
She continued for several minutes in a huff of righteous indignation, going deeper and deeper into the woods, focusing on where the Earth and Darkness Magic was the strongest, signifying the presence of a cave. Only once did she stop, when faced with an area of thick undergrowth.
“Some magic would clear the path.” She reached down for her bag of crystals and then cursed loudly. They were gone.
“Ugh!” She banged her fists hard on her chair’s armrests. “Fie, fie! I left that bag back with those fools! Curses!”
“Who goes there?”
She shot up straight in her chair, hearing one or two people approaching, and sniffed the air. She smelled iron, metals, and human males. There was also the slight but definite scent of gunpowder.
Soldiers? I cannot believe this! This is all Iain’s fault! This is all their faults! This would not have happened if I had not been so provoked at them and forgot my crystals!
The soldiers were standing in front of her; if she hadn’t been so angry, she would have known through their scents that they were hesitant, a bit unsure about what to do with a blind and legless girl in a wheelchair in the middle of the woods.
But she didn’t sense anything, so when they asked her who she was, she snapped, “I just want to get to those blasted caves! Shall you make that an issue too? What is it that makes humans think they can go about, telling a poor girl what to do every moment of the day?”
“You…” They raised their metal sticks—guns, Alvey assumed. “Hands up, faery! You can’t fool us with that disguise!”
“Hands up? Pray, why would I lift up my hands? That wouldn’t stop me from using magic! Are you a simpleton?”
And yet Alvey was still surprised when, just seconds later, she was clad in iron handcuffs and taken straight to the military encampment. Taken prisoner.
Chapter Twelve
The campfire was warm and crackling, the steel pot bubbling with oil and water and cooking lentils, the air smoky and wafting with heating spices. As Iain absorbed himself in preparing their meal, he felt his anxieties fade away. He supposed he learned this trait from his mum. Although she had warned him never to cook in a bad or nervous mood as the negative emotions might contaminate the food, she often ended up baking to wind down.
He always knew when she’d had a rough day at work or a rough day at home when she baked containers of scones and biscuits and trays of pirogo, a custardy noodle dessert. And when she realized she’d made too much, she would have him and James go door-to-door in the military housing and hand them out to whomever wanted some (or force it on them anyway).
Iain stirred the lentils around in the pot and tested one; it was soft and cooked through. As he did this, his conversation with his father faded away. It had been an even more one-sided conversation than usual. He’d been switching through channels, trying to get a read on the military situation at the caves, when he heard his father’s voice.
Once again, he had asked Iain to consider turning Deirdre in. Once again, Iain had told him swiftly that he would not. Then he had shut off the radio and taken the battery out, determined not to engage him again.
No good can come of it.
If there was one thing for certain he still knew about his father, it was that there was no reasoning with him once he’d made up his mind. There was no way but his way, and there was no such thing as compromise. This he had learned well.
“Who’s hungry?” Iain asked as he began filling bowls with the stew.
James and Deirdre barely responded to him, looking glum, and then barely touched their food after Iain sat down and began eating eagerly. He had missed the satisfaction and assurance of cooking his own food, knowing it was prepared properly.
Did that crazy half elf do or say something to them? She would be the worst commanding officer ever. Just look at their morale!
They at least were still in one piece, so she hadn’t blown them up with her crystals. Iain glanced around, but he did not see the half-elf girl anywhere in the camp. No wonder it had been so peaceful and quiet.
Standing, Iain asked, “Where did—?” Embarrassingly, he couldn’t seem to remember her name. “Where did that blond gal go?”
“You mean Alvey?” James asked a little tersely.
“Yeah.”
James just shrugged.
Deirdre twisted on the log to look all around. “Hey,” she said, “you’re right. She is gone!”
Iain gaped at them. He knew that James was not very observant at times, but he expected Deirdre to at least have an idea of where the girl went.
Did she get lost? Did she get eaten? Did the Phouka come back and whisk her away? All those possibilities were awful; even if she did just get taken back to her family and was safe, she was still Deirdre’s only link to the Summer Court.
“Well”—Iain set down his empty bowl—“we had better find her.”
“Give her fourteen days to show up,” James suggested slyly. “If she doesn’t turn up by then, then we’ll look for her.”
“We don’t have that kind of time.”
“I was joking!” James rolled his eyes. “She probably just snuck off to go see the caves without us.”
Deirdre sat up, suddenly alert. She turned to James. “You don’t really think she would do that, do you? I mean, we told her not to!” Then she frowned and amended, “Actually, she doesn’t listen much, does she?”
Sounds like someone else I know, Iain thought.
“Let’s split up and look around for her,” Iain said.
He ordered them to scour the woods in three separate directions. They were to all meet back at the camp in fifteen minutes to report anything they had found.
Iain trudged back to camp after the minutes had passed, having not found any trace of her. There were no marks in the dirt from her wheels, which made it impossible to track her movement. When he got there, he found James crouching on the ground a few feet away from the campfire, holding something in his hands and staring at it wide-eyed.
“What did you find?” Iain asked.
“Alvey’s bag of crystals,” James admitted, setting it back down gingerly. Even he was starting to look a little concerned. “She probably wouldn’t just leave this here unless she thought she was coming back though.”
Deirdre traipsed back into the camp, her hair somehow tangled with dead leaves. “I couldn’t find her anywhere,” she said, sighing.
Not good. That girl may be capable enough, but she’s still not a match for the Iron Guard. She could get into trouble fast.
Iain grabbed his pack from the ground and rummaged through it, finding his folded uniform and then his firearm. When he set his pack back down and looked up, Deirdre and James were both gaping at him.
“You two look out for each other, yeah?” Iain
jerked his thumb in the direction of the woods and said, “Stay hidden, and don’t leave camp unless you’re discovered. I’m going to the caves and see if I can cut Alvey off before she gets caught.”
“Why can’t we go as well?” James demanded. He looked to Deirdre for support, waiting for her to agree with him. “It’s stupid for you to go alone, and you don’t even have a plan!”
“I do have a plan,” Iain insisted.
“Let’s hear it then.”
Iain just sighed impatiently. “We’re wasting time—”
“Deirdre,” James said, “what do you think?”
Deirdre’s eyes flicked up to meet his, narrowed, nearly a pale purple color in the light. She took a step forward, her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides.
“You were talking to your father on the radio,” she said, pointing at him. “Now you want to go to the military camp by yourself!”
Iain looked away almost instantly, not wanting to see the accusing look on her face. Then, after a moment, he met her gaze evenly, his expression softening. He had nothing to hide from her. “Did you hear what I said to him?”
“No.” Deirdre folded her arms. “But I didn’t need to.”
Iain’s chest tightened almost painfully. “He asked me to turn you in, but I told him I wouldn’t. I would never do that.”
“How can I trust you?” Deirdre cried, throwing her hands in the air. “How do I know you’re not going there to turn me in or to bring the whole army after me because you think I’m so dangerous?”
“I think your magic is dangerous because you don’t understand how to use it yet,” Iain blurted, the words coming out quickly and with honesty and with no regard for his own comfort. “I know you aren’t dangerous. You’re a good person, and you’re kind, and you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
Deirdre looked away but said nothing, still frowning, her arms wrapped around herself.
James just stared at him, not speaking up to defend him or to refute anything said. Even after all they’d shared recently and all the progress Iain thought they’d been making, did his brother still have no faith in him?