by Amy Sumida
“Well, thank Faerie for that,” Lugh muttered. “I don't even want to contemplate what a bunch of horny kids running around Faerie would be like.”
“I think they call them teenagers,” I said dryly.
Lugh chuckled. No one else did.
“This is Patrick, Rory, Sean, and Drake,” Lugh introduced the knights. “Air, Water, Earth, and Darkness respectively. And I'm sure you remember Wayfarer Mallien, who is of your element. My father thought we should take a faerie from every elemental kingdom with us to cover all of our bases.”
“Nice to meet you all and good to see you again, Mallien,” I said to them. “Glad to have you with us.”
“Well met, Queen Vervain and King Arach,” Mallien bowed to us.
The knights only bowed.
I was curious as to what they really looked like, especially with the Air-Sidhe. He would have wings hidden under his glamour—some sort of butterfly pattern most likely, though I'd seen them with moth wings too. I was fascinated by men with butterfly wings. It was a nice juxtaposition of masculinity and femininity.
“Hold on.” I looked at the Dark knight. “Drake? As in Mandrake?”
“Yes.” He grinned and flicked back his choppy black hair. “I was wondering if you'd recognize me beneath my new skin.”
The Dark Sidhe all had sable skin—as in pure black—and blue eyes. Since no one on Earth had skin like that, Drake had lightened it to a chocolate-oak. With his dark blue eyes—nearly black—he looked very exotic, though not as exotic as he normally did. All of the Dark Sidhe also had a specific dark emotion they could control. Mandrake's was Jealousy.
“It took me a minute,” I said. “I didn't realize that you'd been sent to serve at the Castle of Eight.”
“Been awhile now.” Drake nodded.
“Are you happy—”
“Vervain,” Arach cut me off, “where are those photographs?”
“Sorry. I guess we don't have time for socializing.” I pulled the photos out of the leather satchel slung across my chest and handed them over.
Arach chose one and held it out for everyone to see. “We can use this image to direct our first trace. The location is in England.”
Right, I didn't need the directions after all. But then again, where I was concerned, it was better to be safe than sorry. The Aether had messed with me before; it was how I'd wound up in Faerie the first time.
We all took a good look at the photograph before Arach handed it back to me with the others and I slid them into my satchel. We stepped up to the Great Tree. It was wide enough that we could all touch its trunk at the same time, standing side by side, with room to spare. They didn't call it great for nothing. I pictured the photograph in my mind and asked the Aether to take me there. I was sucked in with the rest of them.
And spat out on a hill covered in cold, damp mist. The sun was just creeping upward across the sky but the land didn't seem to have gotten the message that it was morning. I shivered for a second before I turned my internal temperature up. Arach must have done the same but the other men had to deal with the chill. Luckily, they had dressed warmer than I.
Below us, a picturesque village rolled over the hilly terrain. We were at Painswick, one of those historic, country villages with stone cottages covered in thatched roofs and climbing ivy. A lovely place with a horrible name. The mist made it seem magical but not as magical as the faerie garden lying right at my feet.
“Fred Flintstone,” I whispered as I lowered into a crouch. “This is so bad.”
Jake's picture hadn't done the fey flora justice, especially if he'd taken it days from now. The affected land stretched several feet to either side of me, sprouting not only flowers and grass but also a few types of bushes. Most of the plants were benign but if you walked too heavily on those blades of grass, they would stab you like real blades. And they weren't the most dangerous things there; that would be the flowers.
The rainbow blossoms swayed at my touch, some of them emitting a heady fragrance. One whiff and a normal human would lie down and take a long nap—á la Dorothy in the poppy fields. Unlike the poppies of Oz, these fey flowers would feed on their victim's energy, making them want to sleep more and creating a vicious cycle that could prove fatal. It was more a M. Night Shyamalan movie than The Wizard of Oz.
“We don't know how plants obtain these abilities, they just evolve very rapidly,” I murmured a line from The Happening; It felt appropriate.
If humans found those fey plants, they'd first think it was nature, then they might realize something was wrong and, eventually, they'd figure out that these plants didn't evolve on Earth at all but had migrated there from someone else. Then things would really get dicey.
“Faerie plants haven't evolved in millennia,” Arach murmured, not recognizing the quote. “But that might change here, in a new, non-magical environment.”
“Great. So, this could get worse. What the hell do we do with them?” I asked in dismay.
Arach gave me a grim look.
“No,” I said firmly.
“We can't transport them all back to Faerie,” Arach argued.
“Why not?” I crossed my arms.
“There's grass here, Vervain.” Arach swept out a hand helplessly. “Do you want us to dig up the sod?”
“We've got an Earth-Sidhe with us.” I waved a hand at Sean. “I'm sure he can manage it.”
Sean frowned at me and then at the expanse of fey flora. He brushed back his blond hair and considered it. “I could manage it but then we'd have to find a place for them. It's not like there are a lot of open patches of land in Faerie. Plus, they feel strange to me. Bringing them home might have a detrimental effect on the other plants of our realm. I'd rather not risk Faerie to save a few flowers.”
Arach looked at me.
“These aren't just normal plants, they're more alive, almost sentient.”
“They're magical, not sentient, Vervain,” Arach said gently.
“But they react to stimulus,” even as I said it, I realized that the same could be said about some plants on Earth. “Never mind, you're right. Reaction to stimulus doesn't make them sentient, the ability to think and communicate does. Blossom is sentient, not these flowers.”
Blossom was a flower I'd created with magic in the God Realm, but she was a fey flower and she had ways of communicating with me. I brought her to live in Faerie and she seemed to be happy there. But these plants weren't like Blossom and there were far more than one of them.
“I'll make it quick,” Arach promised.
I got up and stepped back, off the fey grass.
“One moment, King Arach,” Mallien said. “I must find the way to Faerie and close it before you take care of the flora.”
“Of course.” Arach gestured for Mallien to proceed.
“Shouldn't it be in the center of all of this?” Lugh asked.
“Not necessarily,” Mallien murmured as he stretched a hand out and looked around. “Magic can behave erratically, especially when it's growing. It could have jumped.”
“Jumped?” I asked.
“Jumped.” Mallien nodded as he walked off... then vanished.
“Mallien?” I called.
Mallien reappeared, looking grim. “The way through is here.” He lifted an arm and his hand vanished. “No cave or tree or anything to hide or hold it—just a door from this world to ours, hanging in midair. It is most irregular.”
“An invisible door,” I growled. “Anything could wander through, not just humans.”
“Yes, that has occurred to me, Queen Vervain,” Mallien said grimly. “But this is what I'm here for.”
Mallien held up both of his hands, palms facing outward, and closed his eyes. A glow seeped out of his palms and soaked into the passage, forming a tall oval. The oval of light brightened and then suddenly winked out. I'd seen the trick before, when Mallien had closed the passages in the Fire Kingdom, but it was still impressive.
“There. Now, your efforts should prove tri
umphant, King Arach,” Mallien declared.
The other men drew even further back, but I stayed at my husband's side as he blew a stream of fire over the affected land. The beautiful flowers and grass were gone in an instant, reduced to ash that floated up into the morning mist. It hurt my heart a little to see them destroyed, but I understood that it was for the best. They couldn't be left there to be discovered by the locals. Or worse, hurt the locals.
After Arach burned them, I held out my hand and drew in the lingering heat, taking its power into me and putting out and embers that might be hiding in the soil. Fire Faeries can use the energy in fire to heal and strengthen ourselves. It's also the easiest way to put out a fire.
The smoke cleared, merging with the mist, and Lugh stepped up with the other men to stare at the blackened ground in a reverent silence that we all shared. The plants may not have been sentient but they had held magic. Which meant that we had just destroyed fey magic—a part of Faerie and, therefore, a part of ourselves.
But as we stared silently, each of us lost to our sad thoughts, a tiny blade of grass sprang up rebelliously through the ash of its predecessors.
“Oh, no,” I whispered.
More grass began to sprout and then flowers blossomed upon stalks, their vibrant petals waving like the banners of valiant knights. Maybe the damn things were sentient because it sure felt as if they were communicating. Like a floral middle finger flicked in our faces.
“This is very irregular,” Mallien murmured.
“The paths aren't the problem,” Lugh noted. “They're only a symptom.”
“Like sex,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?” Arach lifted a brow at me.
“Sex,” I said again. “All of the lust going around the Faerie Realm is a symptom of whatever this is.”
“This isn't a disease, Vervain,” Arach argued. “This isn't a symptom, it's simply a result. Cause and effect.”
“Look at you, talking like a human,” I teased. But then I sobered, “And you're right. So, if this is the effect, what's the cause? Because that's what we need to deal with.”
“Whatever it is, it's strong enough to establish a magical foothold here,” Mallien noted.
“A foothold?” Lugh asked.
“It jumped, as I said. Leaping from the passageway to anchor itself in this patch of earth,” Mallien explained. “It separated from its source and, as you can see, it doesn't need the source anymore. This has essentially become a piece of Faerie on Earth.”
“Oh, fuck,” Lugh cursed. “Faerie said this happened because the realm was flourishing. Does that mean we have to stop the Faerie Realm from growing to stop it from coming here?”
“Growing!” I pointed at him. “That's it! It's not just flourishing, it's growing past its borders.”
“But the Faerie Realm is surrounded by dark matter—open space,” Lugh argued. “If it's growing, shouldn't it be growing in that direction?”
“It should,” I agreed. “Except there's now a ring around the original portion of the realm. A ring of land that was never connected to Earth.”
“The Dark Kingdom,” Arach murmured.
Everyone looked at Drake.
“What did I do?” Drake huffed.
“Do you think the Dark Kingdom has somehow confined Faerie and forced her to grow inward, pushing her magic through the Aether and into Earth instead of outward?” Rory asked.
The men looked at Drake again.
“I didn't make the damn kingdom,” Drake growled.
“No, that would be me,” I said grimly. “I don't understand how it would be possible for the Dark Kingdom to affect the magic of Faerie like that. But then again, none of this should be possible.”
“It is possible,” Mallien said gravely. “Magic seeks the easiest path. If one way is barred to it, it will find another way instead of pushing harder.”
“But wouldn't it have to push harder to get through closed paths?” I asked.
“Perhaps it's easier for the magic to break through our seals than to traverse the Dark Kingdom and build new land. Establishing footholds here, on a firm foundation, would take far less energy than forming fresh land in Faerie.”
“Either way, it's something to investigate,” Lugh said. “Which is more than we can do here.”
“But we need to do something here,” I argued. “We can't just leave patches of Faerie unattended.”
“Then we won't,” Patrick said. “We ward them and cover them in a glamour.”
“I don't know how to cover other things in a glamour,” I admitted. “Only myself.”
“It's okay, A Thaisce, we do,” Arach said with a smile that was a touch condescending.
“Watch it, Dragon, or you won't be getting any Vervain-lovin' tonight.”
Arach blanched. “That is to say, you could do it if you wanted to learn.”
Lugh made the sound of a whip cracking.
Arach narrowed his eyes at Lugh. “I watch human movies, High Prince. I know what that means.”
“And?” Lugh grinned.
“And I don't care if you're the High Prince of Faerie. If you call me pussy-whipped again, I will burn all of your pretty hair off. We'll see how much Isleen likes you then.”
Lugh's hand went to his silken mane of snowy hair protectively. “My apologies, King Arach.”
Arach grunted with a satisfied air. “Shall we?”
“Hold on.” I held up my hands. “Are we really just going to cover this up and leave? We're essentially sweeping a fey mess under a carpet of magic. This is Faerie on Earth; we need to get it back to where it belongs.”
“Honestly, Queen Vervain, I don't know how to do that,” Mallien said. “This has never happened before.”
“You mean, this could be here forever?” Lugh asked in a horrified tone.
Mallien looked at the patch of fey flora and then back at us. “Yes.”
“Oh, fuck,” I repeated Lugh's earlier sentiments, too upset to use one of the child-friendly versions I preferred. Sometimes, the F-word is necessary.
“This isn't over,” Arach said to me. “We've faced impossible situations before and handled them just fine. We'll take care of this too. For now, we cover it up and cut it off from the humans. Then, we go back to Faerie and figure out what's pushing the magic this way.”
“Okay,” I agreed with relief.
The men, with the exception of Lugh—who didn't know how to glamour plants either, formed a circle around the magic-infected land and held their hands out toward it. A glimmer rode the air as they placed the fey version of a ward around the area. Then, a shimmer descended. The fey plants disappeared while normal grass and weeds took their place.
“One down,” I said as I pulled out another photograph.
Chapter Seven
It didn't take as long as I expected to hit all of the spots Jake had photographed. Unfortunately, not only was it merely a band-aid slapped on a catastrophe, but there were also likely several other locations that we didn't know about. I mean, really, what was the likelihood that Jake just so happened to find every place Faerie had seeped through and they were all in the UK?
“We're going about this the wrong way,” I said. “We need to find the open paths in Faerie and follow them to Earth. Then we can be sure that we've closed all of the paths and protected any patches of fey land that have formed.”
“We need to go home anyway,” Arach noted.
“Yes, to investigate the Dark Kingdom,” I agreed. “But I think we should locate the open paths first. These are a priority. If any more are open—and it stands to reason that there are—people or animals could be stepping through them even as we speak.”
“That will be harder than it sounds,” Mallien pointed out.
“Why?” I asked.
“These are not the original raths to Faerie.”
“The paths, you mean,” I corrected him.
“They are called raths, with an R,” Mallien insisted. “And they were never found hang
ing in midair as several of the ones we saw today were.”
“Raths were also called faerie mounds because they were usually found under hills,” Arach added. “Some were in caves, but all of them required earth to anchor them. Without soil and stone surrounding them, the magic would, theoretically, be unstable. Air is flighty after all.”
“Just so,” Mallien agreed. “The ways were always anchored within rock. That leads me to conclude that these are fresh raths—opened by the magic.”