by Rene Sears
The bridge swayed beneath my feet, and the strong urge to look down was overwhelming, but instead I took another step forward, and then another, hands clenched tight on the vine handrails. My heart hammered, pumping blood into my pulse points, and my breath came fast and shallow. All those processes I took for granted, so fragile, so small compared to the void we walked over.
"Did I tell you about my friends that built this place?" Rowan's voice was both reassuring and annoying; part of me wanted only to focus on the feel of the bridge beneath my hands and feet, solid ground—or solid tree trunk anyway—still terribly far away. He didn't wait for me to answer. "The one you'll meet first is Lady Hawthorn."
"Lady Hawthorn?" I croaked.
"Yes. She's fae of the court, but she left underhill decades ago, when she met Rose—the sorceress who built this place." I wanted to tell him that sorceress was hopelessly outdated, and that people said spellcaster for magic users regardless of gender, but that would have required more breath than I could spare at the moment. "Rose—well. You'll meet Rose."
"Fae?"
"No, human as you, more or less. The two of them maintain this place as a sanctuary of sorts, for themselves and their friends. They've kept it secret from the queen of Faerie and from all the major human magicians' consortiums on all continents. Quite an accomplishment." I could hear the smile in his voice. "You're one of very few people to have ever seen this place. It's a select group."
"I'm honored," I managed to say. The tree I'd been staring at hadn't gotten even a bit bigger while we'd been walking.
"They're wonderful people," Rowan said. "They've been isolated for a long time and you might find them a little odd, but—"
I laughed before I could stop it. Most of my life on the island had been just me and my parents, except when my aunt visited. I'd gone to the mainland with my mother to get supplies or to visit my aunt, but mostly it had only been the three of us. I'd always wanted a dog for company, but my dad was allergic, so we'd never gotten one. "I've been pretty isolated," I said. "They might find me odd."
"In that case, we'll all be good company for each other," he said.
The next step, my foot hit solid wood, and I stumbled forward onto a landing wrapped with vines. When I closed my eyes, the image of the tree I'd stared at was superimposed in red over the black. My pulse slammed in my throat, as if my body had been waiting for me to get to safety before making me aware of how much danger I'd been in, and my legs were weak and shaky now that the worst was over.
Morgan and the girls were up to the next landing of the broad wooden staircase, and as we walked to them, Rowan said softly enough that they wouldn't hear, "Well done." We came even with them before I could say anything back. He had been kind, talking me across, making sure I was all right. I felt more off-balance than I had on the bridge or the landing before it; why would he bother to be nice to a human?
Morgan started walking as soon as Rowan and I caught up. "Rose will have already told Hawthorn we're here, I imagine. It seems polite to let her know the Hunt is on our heels."
"The Hunt can't come here," Rowan reminded her.
Morgan looked back over her shoulder at us. "The Hunt never has, anyway."
Iliesa dropped back to walk next to me. "It's all right," she said in an undertone. "Morgan's worried, but this place is special. You'll see."
"Thanks," I muttered, still embarrassed by my reaction to the bridge.
The next turn of the stairs brought us to a courtyard. Potted cypress trees lined a marble walkway to a wooden door that looked like every mental image I had of a castle: big arch, portcullis, narrow hallway to pass through. The door was open and a woman waited for us.
She was beautiful, and she shared a lot of features with Rowan. High cheekbones, narrow chin, elongated face. Her hair was long and pale and her eyes a violet that wouldn't been out of place on a My Little Pony. She wore a long silver gown that trailed behind her as she approached.
"Welcome, my friends." Her voice was as lovely as her appearance. I didn't trust it. "Rose and I are always happy to see you."
Rowan bowed, a courtly gesture that should have looked stupid but didn't. "Lady Hawthorn, your welcome brings us joy. May I present Javier, a young magician from overhill? Javier, this is Lady Hawthorn, our host."
"You are most welcome here," she said. I bowed much more shallowly and awkwardly than Rowan had. "Won't you all come in? I will bring refreshments, and you can tell what has passed since last we saw each other. I wasn't expecting to see you again quite so soon. Has school started yet?" It gave me a jolt to hear this unearthly woman mention something so mundane as school—and at the same time, envy for the twins' normal lives pierced me. Although, to be fair, their normal lives apparently involved being chased down by the Wild Hunt for the queen of Faerie, so maybe I shouldn't be too jealous.
"Not yet," Igraine said. Her voice was fond. "But we have our books and schedules."
"I'm afraid we have some pressing matters to discuss before we can get to the fun things," Morgan said. "This isn't entirely a social call, I'm afraid. We're in trouble. Again."
"Oh, dear." We were in an open room with a double staircase at the far end and a twisting chandelier of carved vines dangling from the ceiling. "Let's settle in the blue parlor and you can tell me all about it."
The room she brought us to had a floor inlaid in dozens of shades of blue tiles. The furniture was also blue but relatively plain, so the focus was on the mosaic. Morgan and the girls sat on a velvet couch; Rowan, Hawthorn, and I settled into overstuffed leather chairs, setting our various packs and backpacks on the floor.
Between them, Rowan and Morgan caught her up on the Hunt coming to Morgan's house. Rowan glanced at me, gave a brief nod, then took up the thread. Did he know I had eavesdropped at Morgan's house, or had he decided that if I was this far in, I might as well know the rest? "The queen has been looking for the girls since they fled, but only in passing, only as a means to control their father." I looked at the twins out of the corner of my eye. Their mother was missing—who was their father? Some powerful caster to have come to the notice of the queen, no doubt. "But in the last few days, it has come to her attention that they are important themselves."
"We know what Rose told us, but who told the queen?" Hawthorn interjected.
Rowan frowned. "She consulted the Oracle of Ashdown, who said they were necessary to heal Faerie. When she didn't find them in all her realm..." He set his shoulders, looked at the twins, and spoke gently. "She knew they were in the mortal realm because she scryed in blood."
Igraine frowned, Iliesa bit her lip, and Morgan's brow furrowed, but Hawthorn gasped and leaned forward, her fingers clutching the arms of her chair. Her face had gone nearly as pale as her hair. "But she would have to use a blood relation."
Morgan's hand went to her mouth. Iliesa said, "Dad?"
"We can attack the court and get him out," Igraine said, and at the same time, Iliesa said, "We can scry for Mom and Dad! You can use my blood."
Morgan shook her head. "Don't you think I've tried? I've looked for Gwen using my own blood and it never works. I don't know if it's where she is, or if it's just that human blood doesn't work that way—"
"We're not human!" Igraine's shout silenced her aunt. I bit my tongue.
If their mother was Morgan's sister, then their father wasn't a prominent spellcaster. I should have seen it, except I hadn't wanted to. They had family in Faerie. They would have to look for him at the court, because he was fae, like Hawthorn. Like Rowan. I swallowed and hoped no one else was looking at me. How had I ended up with only one other human in a room full of fae?
The conversation had gone on without me. "Why didn't you use our blood?" Iliesa demanded. Her voice pierced me. Whatever else the twins were, they had lost parents, like me. The only difference was that they might get theirs back. If I had a chance of seeing mine again, there wasn't much I wouldn't do.
"I—I couldn't," Morgan stammered. "It's not a—it's
a painful process, and I had mine—why should I use yours?"
"Because it might have gotten us somewhere," Igraine yelled. Iliesa took her hand, and they both turned implacable looks on their aunt.
"It's a moot point for now, my dears," Hawthorn said. She poured a cup of pale green tea from a tea service I didn't think had been there a moment ago. She handed one to Igraine, then poured another for Iliesa. "Rose thinks you should hold off. If the queen is scrying one way and you try to scry the other, you might meet in the middle, and what a dreadful foofaraw that would be." She continued to pass out cups of tea. I held mine to my nose; it had a floral scent I didn't recognize. I was in a magic treehouse in an impossible place. I didn't think Hawthorn would bother to poison me. I took a sip. It was good.
"I beg you, be cautious," Rowan said to the twins, who looked mutinous behind their teacups. "Promise me you will not try to scry for either of your parents."
"I am angry," Iliesa said clearly, "not an idiot."
"We won't scry with our blood," Igraine said. They exchanged a look that made me feel nervous about what they hadn't promised.
"May we stay in the same room as last time, Lady Hawthorn?" Iliesa asked.
"Of course," Hawthorn said. "Do make yourselves at home." Her brow wrinkled as she watched them walk out together, and then it smoothed out.
As soon as their footsteps faded away, Morgan's head dropped into her hands. "Could I have made a bigger hash of that?" she groaned. Then she looked from Rowan to Hawthorn. "Could I have done it? Could I have used their blood to track my sister?"
"Who knows?" Rowan sat next to her on the couch and put a hand on her back. "Gwen is as human as you are, so I don't think it would have worked regardless." She leaned into his hand, shaking her head.
"How are they supposed to fix what's wrong with Faerie?" They all turned at the sound of my voice as if they'd forgotten me.
Hawthorn took a delicate sip of her tea and regarded me thoughtfully. "Rose wasn't able to tell, exactly. Fragments of image unmoored from context come to her—so she's seen they will be important to Faerie, but she doesn't know how, or why."
"The queen knows, or thinks she does." Rowan's face was grim. "She thinks the land demands a sacrifice to be made whole. 'The youngest branch of Elm,' the oracle said. She thinks it's them."
Morgan made a choking sound, and he pulled her closer. "That's not going to happen," she said after a moment.
Hawthorn set down her teacup and stared into the dregs as if she could see something there, then shook her head. "You're safe here. The queen can't find you and nothing can harm you within Strangehold. Rose and I will keep them safe." She looked at Morgan, who had buried her face in her hands, and Rowan next to her, then stood up and offered me a hand. "Come with me, Javier; I'll show you to a room."
*
"...and your room is just across the hall from the twins', so all you young people will be right next to each other."
All you young people? Really? I found it a little strange that she was so trusting as to put me right there with them. She knew them; she didn't know me. Plus—it was odd to be right across the hall from girls my own age.
Hawthorn looked at me from lambent violet eyes, reached forward, and patted my cheek. I drew back, affronted, but she misinterpreted. "Don't worry, Javier. If you need anything, you've only to ask Rose."
"When will I meet her?" I wanted to meet the human half of Strangehold, no matter how weird she might be.
"How kind of you to ask. She will meet you as soon as she is able—and you mustn't think her rude if it takes a few days. She always has to adjust the influx when we have visitors." She smiled at me as if that made perfect sense. I smiled back and made a mental note that Hawthorn was bonkers.
As she walked away, I heard voices. Not actual words, but the ebb and flow of Igraine and Iliesa talking to each other. Should I tell them what Rowan had just told Morgan? Was now the time?
How much worse would it be to have to deal with the loss of a parent with the rest of us watching on? At least after my parents died, my aunt and I had each other to grieve with, all by ourselves. Maybe they needed some time alone. On the other hand, they had looked like they were hurting, and like they wanted to take action. If they were going to do something, they needed to know.
I listened to their indistinct voices, uncertain, but they could always tell me to go away if they didn't want to be bothered. I'd rather offer to talk and get turned down than know I hadn't tried. I knocked.
The door swung open, enough that they could see it was me. Both of the twins were dressed formally, and both their eyes were rimmed with red. The clothes were weirdly archaic; wide trousers with tunics over top of them, all embroidered with little leaves and birds. Not unlike Rowan's. Igraine glared at me, but Iliesa smiled and said, "Come in."
Her sister rolled her eyes and flung herself down on one of the beds. It was weird being in a girl's room, even if it was only a guest room, after being the only person my age on the island, population three.
"Are you okay?" I asked whichever of them would answer me.
"What does it look like?" Igraine said. She threw an arm over her face. "They won't do anything."
Iliesa smiled a tight smile that did not signify happiness. "And we're not supposed to do anything either. We're too valuable. Never mind that Dad's in trouble now too."
"We never found my mother's body," I blurted out, and two surprised faces swung toward me. I winced; I hadn't meant to say it. I'd meant to say why the queen wanted them. "I know she's dead. Her spells all died, and..." I swallowed, thinking of all the times I'd tried to scry for either of them, getting back nothing but cold and silence. The note my father left me explained what he was trying to do and that he might not come back. I still didn’t know exactly what had happened to Mom. Had she been the first victim of his spell? "What I'm trying to say is I understand how you feel, at least a little. I wish there'd been something I could do for them."
"I'm sorry." Igraine's voice was the softest I'd heard it yet.
"It was really isolated where I lived with my parents, so it's been weird. I've never been to school, or had friends my own age. I miss them so much, and I'm mad at them for letting me grow up like that." I shut up. I hadn't meant to say that. I hadn't even realized I'd been thinking it, but it was true. Resentment had poisoned my grief.
"We've never been to school, either," Iliesa said. Her face was still, looking inward. "We had tutors at court, but a lot of the things they taught us aren't exactly the kind of things we'll need to know overhill." Somehow I hadn't quite realized that they had grown up in Faerie, in the heart of all the things my father had hated. It seemed unreal—they looked so human.
I wanted to tell them about how my family had tutored me in magic along with a basic education, and how I felt unprepared for school as well, but it would have veered too close to telling them about my father. Before I could decide whether I wanted to or not, Igraine started talking and the moment for it was gone.
"We didn't have many friends either." Igraine sat up and pulled her knees in toward her chest. She wasn't wearing shoes, and her bare feet looked vulnerable. I looked away. "There were friends of our father's who had children, and we played with them sometimes, but most of them never forgot that we were also our mother's daughters, and they never let us forget either. I'd be lying if I said I never wished no one knew about her. The fae outside the court aren't supposed to care as much if you're a changeling, but we weren't allowed to make friends with them."
"It won't be any different at school," Iliesa said bitterly. Her hand wrapped around the chain of the owl pendant, hidden beneath her collar. "We'll look like all the rest of them, and no one will know or care who our parents are. But we'll act wrong, I know we will. Everyone will be able to tell that we're not from around here. We won't be right." She had just expressed my own worst fears about school.
"Was it very hard, at—" I couldn't say Faerie without hearing my father spitting the w
ord. "—at court? I mean, since you look so human."
At that Igraine smiled, a weak smile, but a real one, and gestured. A wisp of magic, barely perceptible, floated away. Iliesa followed suit, and I swallowed as their glamours dissolved.
Of the two of them, Igraine had changed less. Her face was thinner, with the attenuated proportions I'd noted on Rowan and Hawthorn. Her eyes were the bright green of a fresh lime without the glamour, instead of muddy hazel, but Iliesa was more inhuman looking, with elongated feature and cheekbones that could cut glass, her hair a fall of bright gold; but her eyes looked like Morgan's, dark brown. They looked beautiful, and terrible, because it was a beauty that was close to human, but apart from it.
Against my will, fear dried my mouth. They are still the same people they were a moment ago, they just look different. My father would have been revolted by their very existence. The fae could be terrifying, like the hounds, or kind, like Rowan on the bridge. Just like everyone else. My father had been wrong about the fae.
What else had he been wrong about? What misconceptions or misunderstandings was I carrying around with me, all unknowing? Again, resentment surged. They had left me on my own, and terribly ill-equipped. It wasn't logical—even if my father had known death was a possibility, my mother at least hadn't meant to die—and it made me feel guilty.
"You don't look that different," I lied.
Iliesa snorted, a bizarre sound coming from that ethereally lovely face. It made me smile, however weakly.
Another thought occurred to me. "Can I ask you both something?"
Igraine shrugged. "Sure."
I picked at the cords at my wrist. "The thing at Morgan's house—the questing beast—it said Faerie bent time for you. What did it mean?"
Iliesa hesitated. "How old do you think we are?"
"About my age. Sixteen? Fifteen?"
"Time moves differently in Faerie than overhill. That's always been true." Igraine folded her fingers and looked at her sister. "Most of the fae age slowly enough that it doesn't matter to them, really. Human lives seem short compared to theirs, so what does it matter if time is longer or shorter than when you thought it would be the next time you get overhill?"