by Rene Sears
This was so widely known it was even in fairy tales nonmagical people told. "So since you've been in Faerie your whole life, you've aged differently than you would have if you'd grown up at Morgan's house?" They both nodded, in unison. I looked from one to another. "So either you're thirty or you're really, like, ten."
Igraine laughed. "We're not thirty." The smile abruptly slipped from her face. "I don't know how to count how old we are. Overhill, less than a year has passed since our birth."
Less than a year? I knew my mouth had fallen open. I knew I looked like an idiot staring from one to another. But I couldn't stop. If it were anyone else I'd think they were messing with me.
"And underhill..." Igraine shook her head. "I don't know how to count it. I know what we feel we've lived through, but even there, time ran faster around us. In our house, we could go into a room and count how drastic it was by the dismay on our mother's face when she saw us come out of it."
"And even this summer," Iliesa said, "when we came to Strangehold, time rearranged itself around us." Igraine bit her lip and shot her sister a look I couldn't interpret. "So whatever Faerie did to us, even the magic here adjusts to it."
"No one knows why, or how. Not our parents, not Morgan, not Rose or Hawthorn. Not the queen of Faerie, apparently. The only place we seem to age at more or less a normal rate is overhill." Igraine drew in a breath. "So there you have it. The mystery of the Elm sisters. We want so much to be able to go home, but it may that be if we do, we'll be old women before a decade has passed."
I leaned back. I don't know what I'd expected, but it hadn't been this. "Does—does Morgan know?"
"Yes." Igraine forced a laugh. "She had to resubmit our school forms after we went to Strangehold for a couple of weeks this summer and came back a few years older."
I wrapped my hand around the coquí. How would it feel to see an expiration date stamped on your life? "But you still want to go back?"
"It's our home," Iliesa said simply.
Igraine shook her head, though. "If we could find our parents...home could be anywhere."
I nodded, throat too full to say anything else.
Iliesa cleared her throat and leaned forward. "Can you keep a secret?"
"Liesa—!" Igraine hissed. She sat bolt upright and leaned toward her sister like she could hold back her words—or possibly like she wanted to strangle her. It was hard to tell.
"No." Iliesa shook her head emphatically. "He understands." She turned to me. "If you could get your parents back, you'd do anything, wouldn't you?"
"Of course," I said without hesitating.
"Well, we would too."
"You're going to scry your blood for them?" It sounded awful, the kind of spell my mother would tell me to stay far from and my father would dismiss as crude and inelegant, but maybe it was different with the fae part of their magic. At least it explained how they'd been able to work spells I hadn't been able to notice; it was fae magic.
"No," Igraine said reluctantly. "Hawthorn's right. If there's so much as a chance it could help the queen find us—just no." They shuddered in unison. "She was bad enough when she barely knew we existed. Now that she's looking for us..."
"And if we brought her attention here, to Strangehold, when Rose and Hawthorn have been nothing but kind to us...No. We're going to rescue our father," Iliesa said. "He needs us. If she's using his blood to scry for us, then the family Elm can't protect him."
"We're his family too." Igraine stood and started pacing. "We can protect him."
Decision time. I couldn't stop them, and truthfully, I didn't want to. Iliesa was right. I understood only too well. Maybe, though...maybe I could help them. My father may have been wrong about the fae, but he was a gifted caster. It seemed unlikely they'd be expecting human magic in Faerie.
"I can help you." I swallowed my fear. How bad could Faerie be? "I'll go with you."
"You can't," Iliesa said. "Faerie isn't safe for you. If someone from the courts saw a human walking around right now, they'd probably kill you, or give you to the queen, which would be as good as."
"It's not safe for you either, if the queen is so fired up about you. After you left, Rowan said she wants to find you to sacrifice you for Faerie." Iliesa went pale, and they reached for each others' hands. "Why don't you ask Morgan or Rowan to go with you?"
"They'll only say it's too big a risk."
Igraine leaned forward. "And it is—we know that. We're not stupid. What you just said doesn't really change anything. We knew she wanted us and we knew it wouldn't be good, even if we didn't know exactly why. But—"
"He's our father," Iliesa finished. "We have to."
"Promise you won't tell Morgan."
I hesitated. This was a terrible idea. But I'd have done the same thing if it were my father.
"Promise!"
I nodded reluctantly. "I promise."
Iliesa's shoulders relaxed. She went to the dresser and pulled out a glass disc, which she pocketed, and another, which she handed to Igraine. Igraine put on a pair of leather boots, and they both got packs out of the closet—leather ones, not the ones they'd brought from the human world.
"How will you get there?"
"There's a gate to Faerie," Igraine said. "We're not sure exactly where it'll put us, but that's okay."
"We know our way around there," Iliesa added.
"Well," I said awkwardly. "Good luck. I hope you find him and come back quick." What I really meant was I hope you come back at all, but it seemed like a bad thing to say out loud, so I didn't.
"Thank you." Iliesa held her hand out and I shook it. Her hand was shaking. I guessed mine would have been too. "And thank you for offering to come with us. It means a lot."
"Yeah." Igraine shrugged into the straps of her pack. "Thanks."
"I...Here, take this." I fumbled with the clasp to my coquí necklace. "It's always been good luck for me. You seem like you might need it more right now."
"We can't possibly take this." Igraine's hands stilled on her pack. She lifted her head so she could look me in the eyes.
"You can." I reached out and put it in her hand. Her fingers closed around it slowly. "Now you have to come back so you can return it to me." I tried to smile like I was confident they would.
She nodded solemnly. "I'll take care of it."
Iliesa cleared her throat and turned to her sister. "Well. I guess we better get on with it." She glanced at the frog. "I'm sorry about this, Javier."
Before I could ask what she was sorry about, it became all too clear. She flexed her fingers and a net of energy settled on my skin, binding me in place. I tensed my muscles but couldn't take a step forward, couldn't move my arm even a millimeter. It was like being on the platform over the abyss again; except instead of my own brain trapping me, Iliesa had done it.
"What—?" At least I could still speak.
"What the hell, Iliesa?" Igraine spun around when she felt the magic, hand tightening around the coquí charm.
"It's better this way," Iliesa said. "We'll be away by the time the spell wears off. I'm sorry," she said again to me.
I didn't dignify this with a response beyond a glare. Had I just been thinking that I liked them? Ha. They'd made me promise, and then didn't trust it. Igraine looked at me, uncertain, but Iliesa pulled her forward, and like that, they were gone.
I was alone, trapped in a motionless body, but I wasn't entirely helpless. I probed the spell she'd cast on me with my own magic, furiously looking for hints of what she'd done and how she'd done it. She'd been clever about it; the "ties" that wrapped the magic around me were on the outside of the shell holding me still, and the shell wasn't only holding my body, but keeping my magic on the inside as well. They were loose, unraveling as I watched, and after they got to a point, I'd be able to hasten the process along. Unfortunately, it would be a good long while before they reached that point.
If I'd thought about it, I'd have expected Igraine to be the one to do something like this—she
seemed more hostile in general, while Iliesa had seemed more kindly disposed. But there was no requirement for her to dislike me to see me as an obstacle. Maybe it was stupid to feel betrayed, but I did. It was humiliating to be trussed up and left to simmer.
There had to be something I could do besides just sit here and wait for the spell to unravel. I couldn't think of any reason an adult might come this way. They were presumably all plotting together while the kids rested or sulked, or whatever we were supposed to be doing.
It couldn't hurt to try, though. I sent my senses along the web of magic here, the way I had listened in at Morgan's house. The magic was different inside Strangehold, stronger than I was used to, even though it was nothing like the vast cascade outside its walls. But it swept my thoughts along in a dizzying loop. I caught a glimpse of a dark-haired woman I didn't recognize, Morgan and Rowan talking in low voices, their heads close together, but I swept by them too fast to catch their attention. I whirled up to the top of the fortress, unable to pull myself back, too fast to control, suddenly terrified at the thought of the power that waited out there, envisioning myself a mindless husk caught in Strangehold, my thoughts eternally lost in the power beyond, whirling in the sea of magic until they came apart.
Something caught me, steadied me.
??? An impression of questioning, inside my mind, like when the questing beast had spoken to me.
"Thank you," I whispered, or thought; I wasn’t sure. I couldn't feel my lips.
It is not wise to leave your body here, little one. The voice sounded amused, and strange. It hadn't thought those words at me; that was my mind interpreting the thoughts of a consciousness very different from my own.
"I didn't mean to. I was trying to call for help."
I see. Your friends play a very strange game with you. But then, the games of the young always seem strange to their elders. Well, it won't do to have you wandering out here. A vast presence engulfed me, and as quickly as I had spiraled up through Strangehold, it pushed me—gently—back down into my trapped body.
"Thank you." I licked dry lips, deeply glad to be able to do so.
Perhaps we will meet again, the voice whispered, and was gone.
I sagged against my invisible bonds. Had I imagined it? Maybe there was something at Strangehold that they hadn't told me about, some fae creature like the questing beast. Maybe it was the spirit of the castle itself. I wouldn't put anything past this place. I took a deep breath to steady myself. All right, I wasn't going to try that again. But there was nothing stopping me from calling out. Worst case, I'd just have to stand here with my thoughts for an hour or so until the spell unraveled.
"Morgan," I called. "Rowan. Hawthorn. Rose?" Hawthorn had said it might be a few days until I met her, so Rose was the last person I expected to answer, but she did.
And it was a good thing that I was frozen in place, because my first instinct was to jump away. The shadow on the opposite wall shimmered oddly, and the hair on my arms lifted. I let my spellsight fall into place, and the weird shadow writhed with silver threads. They coalesced into a phantom of a person—a woman, I realized, as she came into focus.
She was wearing jeans that hit just below her knee and a button-down blouse, and her dark hair was pinned up so it framed her face with careful waves in a style that made me think of old movies. She had on precise red lipstick, but otherwise there was very little color to her. She frowned as she saw me, and then her mouth dropped open. "Oh, Javier! What did they do to you?" She came closer somehow—she didn't walk. One moment she was framed by the door, and the next she was right in front of me, the door still visible through her. I tried not to gulp out loud.
She frowned, and the ties to Iliesa's spell came undone. I staggered forward and into and through her. Walking into her was like walking into a cloud: a shock of cold and I was left feeling like moisture was clinging to my skin. I ran my hands down my arms, though, and they were dry. I backed away hastily. "I'm so sorry—" I wasn't sure of the etiquette of meeting the departed; it wasn't something either of my parents had ever covered. I wondered why Morgan or Rowan hadn't warned me she was dead. Maybe they'd thought I wouldn't believe them. But standing in her presence it was impossible to disbelieve.
She waved her hands. "Think nothing of it. I'm Rose, of course. Nice to meet you. What happened?" She had a faint accent, Southern, but not like Georgia or South Carolina. I couldn't quite place it.
She sounded so sensible and practical, not at all like a ghost. And I hadn't promised not to tell Rose—only not to tell Morgan. I told her more than I'd intended to—not only what the girls had done to me, but some of our conversation before that. I didn't tell her about the voice that had spoken to me. I wasn't sure I hadn't imagined it, and it didn't seem pertinent to the more immediate problem.
"Well, damn it all," she said when I was done. "The gate to Faerie has certainly been used in the last ten minutes, and the little minxes hid it from me until I thought to look. Morgan's been teaching them too well." She frowned into the distance, flickering slightly and going more transparent. "Hawthorn's bringing the others."
"They're going to be okay, right? We'll get them back." Though I'd have a thing or two to say to them when we did.
She solidified a little as she looked at me, eyes crinkling with a smile despite the situation. "I like you, Javier. We will do our level best to get them back unharmed."
The door burst open, and Morgan, Rowan, and Hawthorn ran in. Hawthorn went right to Rose, her face a picture of beautiful distress, and somehow, even though she wasn't quite solid, Rose took her hands and bent until their foreheads touched.
"The girls did what?" Morgan's face wasn't distressed at all. She looked furious. Rose and I explained together and the blood drained from her face as we talked. "Oh, no. No, no, no. They couldn't be so stupid. They'll walk right into her hands."
"I'm afraid the gate has been used," Rose said. "And I've no way of knowing where precisely in Faerie it sent them to."
"They wanted to help their father," I said. "They'll go wherever they think he might be."
Rowan put a hand on Morgan's back. "I'll go. Right now."
She nodded slowly. "I'll go too." He started to say something, but she fixed him with a look, and he subsided.
"I'll go with you." They both turned to me.
"It's too dangerous," Morgan said. "The queen has forbidden humans. If they find you...I wouldn't go myself if they weren't in danger."
"I can help."
"I don't doubt that you could, but this is not the way we get you back safe to your aunt." I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from snapping at her. It wasn't that I wanted to run into danger, but my parents had disappeared from my life and there had been nothing I could do at all. That wasn't the worst part—the worst part was the hole in my life they left—but the complete and utter helplessness to do anything about it was awful enough on its own. Here I had a chance to keep someone from dying, and there was no way I was going to just stand by and hope someone else would handle it.
Rowan glanced impatiently at the door. "We can talk about this on the way to the gate."
They left the room and I fumbled through my backpack quickly, shoving a few wards and the dull silver knife into my pockets. The knife jabbed into my leg uncomfortably as I jogged down the hall and caught up with them before they reached the stairwell.
Hawthorn led us through parts of Strangehold I hadn't yet seen. I was in no mood to admire the opulent surroundings. We went down steps and through curved corridors, and Morgan shot down every argument I made as to why they should take me with them.
Finally we went through a door into a large stone room with no windows. The largest working circle I'd ever seen was inlaid in a mosaic covering the floor. In one corner was a stone dais topped by a free-standing arch. Hawthorn led us to it while Rowan and Morgan made whatever preparations they needed to. Hawthorn handed Morgan a long cloak embroidered with leaves, very similar to the style of clothes the
twins had been wearing. Morgan pulled the hood up so her face was in shadows.
Hawthorn grasped each of their hands for a moment. "Please be careful. Come back in one piece. Rose and I are both very fond of you. Now give her a moment; she's discorporated so she can try to get the gate to send you to the same place it sent Igraine and Iliesa."
I stood next to Hawthorn as the stone arch filled with silvery light. I saw a vague and blurry landscape through it. I couldn't tell much about it except that there was a lot of green.
"We'll be back as soon as we find the girls," Morgan said. Rowan nodded, his gaze already set on the other side of the gate. I slouched resentfully next to Hawthorn and sidled a little closer as Rowan disappeared into the gate. When Morgan had one arm and leg in the silvery surface, I launched myself next to her.
The gate's energy surged around me, wilder and less friendly than the gate into Strangehold. I stumbled through and staggered on uneven ground, almost running into Rowan. Morgan caught my arm. "What are you doing?" She looked more dismayed than angry. I glanced around in case they tried to send me back, but the gate was already gone.
Rowan made a frustrated sound and said something in a language I didn't recognize—a fae language, I assumed. He moved his fingers and a web of magic settled over me. It was like the girls' magic in some essential way, threaded though with a strangeness alien to everything I knew of magic—some fae way of casting. "This was a foolish decision. I am casting a glamour on you—on both of you—that will give you the seeming of minor servants of my house. But there are beings who can see through glamours, and, of late—" He glanced at Morgan. "—there are some places where glamours don't work reliably. Now we will have to worry about you as well as the girls, and expend some of our efforts defending you, should it come to it."
Servants of his house? Was he a lord of the court? I hadn't thought the high court went slumming in my world. I focused on that rather than on the anger and embarrassment I felt about being read the riot act. I glared down at my shoes, which now looked like boots, a delicate pattern of leaves tooled into the leather.