The Fairy's Tale

by F. D. Lee

  Bea felt coldness trickle through her veins. “What does the GenAm want from him?”

  Mistasinon met her eyes. “I think you know.”

  “Say it.”

  “They’ll use his magic to repair the Mirrors.”

  “You mean they’ll wish him to death. That’s why there’s no Redacted genies, isn’t it? The GenAm murdered them all, to keep the Mirrors going.” Bea shook her head in disgust, unable to look at him. “Only… what? The GemAm ran out of genies? And the belief isn’t enough, that’s what you said. That’s why the Mirrors have been breaking more. Did the Plots ever work?”

  “Yes, the stories work, but without magic we need so much belief, and the characters are changing. They have all those machines, all that light… They explain everything away.” Mistasinon put his hand on the cloth covering Seven’s mirror, not noticing the pressure plate at his feet nor the way the blade distorted the shape of the material.

  Bea felt sick. “Mortal gods. Was this your idea? Get some idiot fairy no one would care about to do your dirty work?”

  “No, no,” Mistasinon said, stepping away from Seven’s mirror, towards Bea. “Please. This isn’t what I wanted – I thought I could find another way. But I’ve run out of time. And we really don’t want to be here when the Redactionists come.”

  Bea stepped backwards, towards the broken door. “You knew all about me, before you’d even met me. You knew how much I wanted to be an FME. You put me on this story deliberately, didn’t you? Mortal gods – you kept me on it. All those times I came to you, ready to quit, ready to tell the GenAm about Seven, you always said something to keep me on it. Some little secret to make me trust you. I thought you believed in me. But you just wanted me to keep him here. You used me to entrap him.”

  Mistasinon stepped closer to her. “I didn’t mean it the way you’re making it sound. I knew you would intrigue him. They’re attracted to desire. I wanted him to trust one of us, and when I read your Books I realised you were the only one-”

  “The only one who would be stupid enough to think any of this was real?” Bea felt her back hit the broken door.

  “No, no, no,” he said. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Oh really? What part exactly? The part where you lied to me, or the part where you manipulated me, or the part where you’re trying to make me a murderer?” Bea reached down and grabbed a lump of broken wood, waving it in front of her. “Don’t come any closer.”

  Mistasinon stopped. “Bea… I should have told you what was happening. I wanted to. But I didn’t know where to begin. Please, we must leave now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m going to warn Seven.”

  Bea lifted her arm to swing the lump of wood at him. She heaved it around with all her strength, the wood whistling through the air towards his midriff. But he was fast. He was so fast that by the time her swing had finished its arc, he wasn’t there. He was underneath her, lifting her easily over his shoulder and moving back towards Seven’s mirror. Bea screamed and kicked him, beating his back with her fists. But if he felt it, it didn’t slow him down. He reached Seven’s mirror in a matter of seconds, and with his free hand pulled off the cloth.

  A troll burst through the mirror and landed foursquare on the pressure plate below. Her huge, heavy feet pressed the plate down, and before she knew what had happened the viciously sharp blade Seven had paid so much money for swung round, slicing into her chest. A shorter tribe and it would have taken their head.

  Mistasinon threw Bea off his shoulder, causing her to land with a heavy thump, hitting her already bruised head. Bea stared blinking at the troll, her vision fuzzy. The troll was screaming, a low baritone that made the floor shake. Black blood spurted from her chest in a fountain.

  “Get out,” Mistasinon shouted at her, circling round to stand between the troll and Bea.

  The troll pressed her hand against her chest, blood spilling between her fingers. She looked up at Mistasinon. “You,” she growled. “You did this to me.”

  Mistasinon rolled his shoulders, his eyes fixed on the troll as she lowered her head, ready to charge him.

  “Bea, run, now!”

  Bea shook her head, trying to clear it. “What about you?”

  “Go, go,” Mistasinon shouted. “I can-”

  He was interrupted by the troll as she ran at him, her heavy body and thick skull perfectly designed to shatter the bones of any smaller creature, a category that included almost all the fae and certainly all the humans.

  Mistasinon jumped aside at the last moment, twisting in mid-air to land on the troll’s back. Bea watched in horror as he crawled across her body until he was on her shoulders, his hands pressing down on either side of her head, his teeth bared like a snarling dog.

  Bea, clutching her head in her hand, pushed herself through the hole in the door, her skirts ripping further on the splintered edges. She landed poorly, twisting her ankle. She pushed herself to her feet and began running down the hallway, towards the Ballroom.

  She heard the clocks begin to strike twelve, and then the sound of screaming.

  Chapter Forty-two

  “Albelphizar!”

  “Maria Sophia,” Seven said, turning. She stood on the middle step of the dais, looking down at him. She was smiling. She reached out her hand.

  Seven stared at it. She wasn’t wearing gloves. If he took her hand he’d feel her skin against his own. He swallowed. When he had known her, her hands had been rough, the skin that on every other part of her body was as soft as melting snow was, on her palms, calloused from years of household tasks. He shivered as he remembered the blissful contradiction of her touch on his body.

  “Very well,” she said, pulling her hand back.

  Seven jolted. “I am sorry – I did not mean to offend, I only… It is good to see you.”

  Maria Sophia smiled again, all upset forgotten. “I knew it was you, you know?”

  Seven stepped closer to the dais. “I do not follow.”

  “I knew you were the Adviser here. Even with the new name – which, by the way, I don’t find in the least bit amusing.”

  “I chose my name for you. It is a token of what was taken from us.”

  She looked away.

  “Maria Sophia,” he whispered.

  She smiled quickly, warm and slightly embarrassed. “Like I said, I knew you’d be here. I should have trusted my instinct. If I had I certainly wouldn’t have-”

  Seven bounded up the stairs, bringing himself level with her. “Do not say you would not have come. A love such as ours will not be denied. I know you still feel it, I see your longing to be with me.”

  “No, no,” she laughed, her features relaxing, “I was only going to say I’d have worn a nicer dress – yellow really isn’t my colour. Still so dramatic, Alb?”

  Maria Sophia again lifted up her slender hand for him to kiss, and Seven felt the breath die in his throat. He could smell her. He caught her hand in his, and softly kissed her knuckles, his eyes closed against reality as he once again felt Maria Sophia’s skin against his lips. He turned her hand over and began kissing her palm and the tips of her fingers.

  “Alb…”

  He groaned low in his throat, continuing to drop kisses on her hand, refusing to hear the worried tone in her voice.

  “Albelphizar, don’t,” she said gently, pulling her hand away. “My husband will be finished talking to the King soon.”

  “Let him see. I care not.”

  “You might not,” Maria Sophia laughed, “but I do.”

  “You care so much what these people think of you?”

  Maria Sophia’s laughter drifted into a sigh. “You never did understand these things.”

  “I need only understand my feelings for you.”

  “So you do still love me?”

  Seven looked into her brown eyes with his blue ones – his true eyes, not the misty hallucination the rest of the humans projected onto him, but the eyes he knew she could see an
d understand.

  “I have never stopped loving you,” he said. “Of all the things I have done, of all I have caused to pass, the lives I have ruined and saved, loving you has been the defining of me. It is both the most painful and least regrettable action of my existence. I have been dead these fifteen years past, and I will die again if you forsake me now.”

  “You should be careful with a declaration like that, Alb. Someone might hold you to it.”

  “You believe I jest?”

  “No. I know you mean it.”

  Seven looked around him. Ana was with the witch, both women leaning into each other liked school girls sharing secrets. John was still talking to the Count, Maria Sophia’s husband. The world was ongoing. It seemed unreal.

  “But you do not love me,” he said, pulling his gaze back to Maria Sophia.

  “Alb, it’s not that simple-”

  Seven rubbed the snake coiled around his neck. “It is the simplest thing in all the worlds. We are destined for each other. This is the miracle of our love. You think that man will do for you? He will not. He is less than a shadow of myself, as every other woman is a shadow of you. They are but trees offering brief shelter from the storm, yet ultimately so easily torn from the earth. Our love is the very earth itself. It is the foundation of my life, Maria Sophia. I am born of our love, as are you. I do not accept-”

  Seven heard the explosion before he felt it. The windows and glazed doors along the far wall of the Ballroom shattered into a mist of tiny shards. He leaped forward, covering Maria Sophia’s body with his own as the glass flew through the air. He could hear screaming and the pounding of feet on the marble floor as guests ran for their lives.

  He lifted his head, peering over the top of his forearms. In the centre of the Ballroom was an ogre, surrounded by witchlein. All were dressed in white suits.

  Ana put her hand up against the invisible wall. It was definitely there, even though she couldn’t see it. Her eyes focused beyond her fingers, onto the Ballroom. Below her on the dance floor a woman was screaming, blood pouring down her face and matting her hair. Ana watched as she fell to her knees, her hands dancing around the large shard of glass impaling her thigh. People were running past her, crashing into her, no one bothering to stop.

  Ana pulled her gaze away, trying to take in the whole Ballroom. What she saw was a nightmare.

  The floor was slick with blood as the guests, almost all of whom had been in the radius of the windows when they exploded, stumbled over each other to escape. To the left of the dance floor stood a monstrous creature, five times the size of even the largest man. She watched as it knuckled its way across the room towards them, as it casually swept people out of its way like so many paper dolls, as it roared and raged when some wannabe hero took a run at it, only to be reduced to a broken and bleeding pulp.

  “What the hell is that thing?” she asked Melly, not looking away.

  “….og’e….”

  “That’s… Ogres aren’t…” Ana stopped herself. Why not? She was trapped in some kind of solid, invisible bubble with a witch, at a meeting with a King that had been arranged by a fairy. She was learning a lot today, but a massacre hadn’t been on the curriculum.

  She turned to Melly. What she saw did nothing to reassure her.

  “Good God! What’s wrong with you?”

  Melly was on her knees on the floor, her skin waxy and covered in sweat, her hands biting into the material of her dress.

  “…m’g’c…”

  Ana looked back at the Ballroom. The ogre was getting closer, its lumbering gait unstoppable. A movement caught her eye, and she turned in time to see a man being, yes, being yanked down to the floor. She blinked. Surely she’d imagined it? He’d been standing, advancing on the ogre, and then he’d… it was almost like his legs had bent and broken under him. Ana scanned the room, and then she saw it again. This time it was a woman. She was drawing a sword – God knows how she got it past the guards – and then she was crumpling towards the ground as if all the joints in her body had snapped.

  Ana narrowed her eyes. “What are all those little spiky things? They keep… my God… they’re swarming... Melly! What the hell is happening?”

  “…r’d’ct’on…”

  Ana spun around and knelt by the witch. “Re-what-tion? What’s happening?”

  Under the slick of sweat there was now a definite yellow tinge to Melly’s skin. “Re…dac…tion…”

  Ana reached out to Melly, but pulled her hand away as if it had been burned. “You’re freezing cold!”

  Melly turned to look at her. Blood was trickling out of her nose and eyes, black rivulets running down her waxen face. “…keep…safe…”

  “Keep safe?” Realisation dawned. Ana slammed her fist against the invisible wall that surrounded them. “You’re doing this?”

  “Can’t…see…”

  Ana stood up. “Stop it right now! We need to help them – we need to… oh God, no, no, no!” Ana forgot all about Melly as she pressed her face against the witch’s shield. “Stop it! Run! It’ll kill you! Stop it! No! No!”

  But it was no good. No matter how much she screamed, he couldn’t hear her.

  Outside the safety of Melly’s magic, John ran towards the ogre, a large sword raised above his head.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Bea shoved her way through the guests as they fled the Ballroom, her head throbbing from being thrown out of the way of the troll by Mistasinon.

  pushed against backs, ducking under arms and shoving herself between bodies. She couldn’t see anything, and all she could hear was the frantic pounding of a thousand people as they pushed and shoved against each other. She was too short, too small, too late.

  The mob thickened, and for one terrifying moment she thought she was going to be crushed. Someone slammed their shoulder into her left ear, causing her stomach to lurch as pain shot through her head. Bea closed her eyes, pulling her arms up to cover her head, and continued forward.

  And then, like a cork from a bottle, she was suddenly freed from the mob and stumbling down the staircase and into the Ballroom. She righted herself, reaching her arms out to get her balance. The skirts and butterflies of her gown were lost, sacrificed to the struggle to reach the Ballroom. Her hair hung in long knots, dark grey with sweat and matted with blood. A bruise was already darkening on her cheek, threatening a black eye.

  The Ballroom looked worse.

  The witchlein swarmed around and over the bodies, no longer trying to hide, overwhelming the few humans who still stood. Bea knew she would wake up in the dark to the sound of their hissing – if she survived, anyway.

  On the far side of the room, near the clockwork podium where a lifetime ago the band had played and she had danced with Seven, an ogre let loose a bellow. Bea felt the noise hit her in the chest and covered her ears against it, screwing her eyes shut. When she opened them, the monster was moving towards the throne. She couldn’t see Ana or Melly anywhere. A flash of blue and her eyes landed on Seven. He was on the steps, his body bent over someone she didn’t recognise. Why wasn’t he doing anything?

  Bea didn’t have time to wonder. Free from the bonds of her heavy skirts, she ran towards the ogre, all the while knowing she had no idea what she would do when she reached it. And then something caught her eye, a flash of light reflected from the candles as they continued to spin on their clockwork mechanisms above her head.

  Bea skidded to a halt, not daring to think about what the slippery substance beneath her feet was. Scrabbling against the floor to gain purchase, she snatched the sword from the cooling hand of one of the guests.

  Around her the witchlein hissed.

  “John!” Seven screamed at the King as he ran down the stairs. Seven lifted himself up, about to grab him, when he felt soft hands on his jacket, pulling at him.

  “No! Save me!” Maria Sophia begged.

  Seven turned back to her, his expression an agony of indecision. “I must aid him, he will not survive-”r />
  “No, Albelphizar, please! Don’t leave me!” She reached her hands up to his face, her skin brushing against the golden snake around his neck. “I wish for you to save me!”

  The magic shot through Seven like spears, pinning him in place, causing him to gasp in pain as the wish took hold. And then, hot on its tail, was the inevitable wave of pleasure, the impossible, longed-for warmth that came with the pain. Seven barred his teeth against it, groaning as the magic coursed through him in waves, shocks of pain closely followed by tingling sparks of pleasure. For Seven, who had for so many years lived in self-imposed denial, it was as if the universe had opened itself to him. He heard the music of the nine worlds, the song of his home, the drumbeat at the centre of time.

  The empty blue of his eyes filled with stars and he was, once again, himself.

  John stepped in front of the ogre, broadsword clasped firmly in his hands. He’d trained with a rapier, of course, but he’d always found it easier to manage the weight and heft of a broadsword. His aunt had hated it and had discouraged the ability. John’s lessons with the palace guard had been his one boyhood rebellion, and his aunt had never found out.

  He didn’t like being King.

  He’d never wanted it, never asked for it. But he’d tried to do it right. He’d tried to find answers to impossible questions. He didn’t know how to deal with the Baron in Cerne Bralksteld. He didn’t know what to do with the refugees. He didn’t know how to negotiate or be diplomatic.

  He adjusted the balance of the broadsword.

  But this he knew.

  He let loose a bellow and charged at the creature in front of him, the sword raised above his head and ready to lunge.

  The ogre turned at the sound of John’s rage and blinked stupidly at the King. And then it picked John up, barely flinching as the broadsword pierced its hand, and threw John away as if he were nothing.

  The last King of Llanotterly hit the wall with a heavy thump and slid to the floor, a red trail of blood smearing the surface as he fell. He landed in a wet heap.