by Rene Sears
I wondered if I could cast something like that in the real world, or if it would only work somewhere as malleable as Faerie. I watched closely, trying to see what she was doing, but much like when the twins had cast spells, I couldn't see how she did it.
"Who is she?" Teo muttered after the fifth time she'd adjusted the path.
"I don't really know too much about her, but she's one of the people who've been helping me over the last week." I hesitated. Teo didn't seem antagonistic toward the fae like our father had been, but I didn't know if he was friendly toward them, either, and it wasn't really my place to tell him Hawthorn's secrets. She'd tell him about Strangehold if she wanted to. "Morgan and her nieces helped me out a lot too."
"I understand why you'd want to help them back," Teo said. "You're loyal—I like that. Uncle Vicente will too," he added. "It's going to be great to get you home. You'll love it."
"If we can get through this." I did want to meet all of my family. But at the same time I was afraid of them. What if they didn't like me? What if I didn't like them? What did I owe my mother's memory? She'd wanted so much to distance herself from them that she hadn't even taught me Spanish, hadn't let me ever meet my uncle when he came to visit. The only one she'd trusted with the knowledge of my existence was her sister. I liked Teo, but it was hard to believe I actually had the brother I'd wished for my whole life. It didn't quite seem real yet—like he might be snatched away at any moment, or turn out to be someone else.
He took in my expression and the corner of his mouth crooked up. "Don't worry, little brother. I've got your back."
Hawthorn hesitated, and I wondered if she had overheard us talking. But the forest had thinned, and she was looking ahead and frowning. I focused on the lines of my spell. The current led to a dilapidated barn in the middle of a field of overgrown grass. The path continued through it—either it always had or Hawthorn had made it this way for us. "That's the place," I said.
Hawthorn frowned. "I don't sense a trap, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I'll go in first." Lunn barked softly and sat on the path.
We pushed through the brush that edged the path to the barn. The grass swung back, whipping against my legs, but nothing bit me. We came to a side door of the barn. It wasn't locked; in fact, it was cracked open, and quiet voices floated out from behind the door. Hawthorn looked back at us, and Teo and I glanced at each other. Lunn butted a reassuring head against my knee.
Teo looked around and rubbed his ear. "I'm going to stay out here and keep watch," he muttered. "I don't like the idea of anything sneaking up on us."
"Good idea," I said, just as quietly.
Hawthorn nodded impatiently, shoved open the door, and strode in.
"What are you doing here?" It was a woman's voice, but not Morgan's. I pushed in right behind Hawthorn, Lunn at my side.
The inside of the barn was streaked with light from cracks in the roof, catching on dust motes floating in the air. It smelled of hay and age, but not livestock. I doubted animals had been kept there in years. But Morgan was; she was sitting in an old wooden chair in one of the stalls, her hands tied to the armrests. Her eyes went wide when she saw us, but she was still hunched over, and her shirt was streaked with blood. Lunn growled deep in his throat.
An elegant fae woman in a long blue dress stared at Hawthorn, gold-brown eyes as wide as her captive's. I had seen her not half a day ago. "Who are you, and how did you find me?"
"Oh, Briar." Hawthorn sighed. "What have you done? He won't thank you for this." She walked to Morgan and dropped to her knees beside her. She pulled a knife from somewhere on her dress and slashed at the twine around Morgan's wrists. I went to the other side and picked at the knots. I regretted throwing away my knife earlier; dull as it was, it would have been faster. Morgan's fingers clenched on the armrest, and she tried to smile, but her face was ashen and sweaty. This dirty barn couldn't be the best place for the kinds of wounds her sister had dealt her.
"Hawthorn?" Briar's brow wrinkled as she took in the glamour. "What are you—? Why are you...?"
"I've no wish to be seen underhill at the moment, so I wore another face. But you haven't answered me—what have you done?"
"Oh." Briar tossed her head minutely, sending rippling waves through her autumn-red hair. "Rowan's pet got lost so I retrieved her and am keeping her for him. He'll come get her as soon as my message goes through and—"
"And I doubt he'll thank you if the Queen's Blade finds her first and finishes what she started," Hawthorn said. "You haven't been able to get in touch with him, have you?"
"No, not yet. But he'll answer. He always does."
"He may be a trifle busy at the moment. I'll take Morgan with me." The twine around Morgan's wrist fell away, and Hawthorn passed me the knife. I sawed at the knot on my side until it parted. I helped Morgan up and slid under her arm so I could support her. She leaned heavily against me, biting her lip.
Briar frowned. "Tell him that I found her. Tell him that I was keeping her safe for him."
"Safe?" I couldn't keep the words from bursting out. "You tied her to a chair!"
Briar looked at me. I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. "She kept trying to leave." Her mouth twisted as she eyed me—looking at my glamour, or beneath it? Dad always said a glamour only worked if you weren't trying to see through it. "The company you keep," she said—not to me, but to Hawthorn. "How's your dead girl?"
"I'll send her your regards." Hawthorn sniffed.
"As long as you tell Lord Rowan," Briar said. "I pay my debts."
"You can pay them even further if you help us to a gate," Hawthorn said.
"As long as you tell him," Briar repeated. "He did me a service when he was the Blade that I may never be able to repay."
Wait, what?
Morgan winced as she took in my expression. "It's all right," she said softly. "It's true. He was the Queen's Blade, as well as her...well, never mind that," she added with a quick glance at Briar. "But he quit. Decades ago. Before the treaty with overhill."
I could not believe that the man who had helped me across the bridge to Strangehold was the monster from my childhood stories. My father had thought the Blade was the symbol of everything wrong with Faerie—the queen's hand reaching out to crush who she wanted, when she wanted. I shook my head, not really disbelieving, but in denial.
It's true, Lunn said in my head. But what he is now is not what he once was. I have scented only truth on him, not blood, since I have known him. Hearing it from Lunn helped, but I would still need to wrap my head around it.
"The gate," Hawthorn said impatiently.
Briar looked at me and Morgan and her nose wrinkled. "Very well. Let me see what I can do." She opened a trunk and pulled out pieces of tack—oddly shaped bridles and halters that did not appear to be meant for horses. At the bottom were several folded blankets, and she pulled out a green one with gold embroidery, and smoothed it out, running her hands over it. It changed, becoming finer and smoother, the gold wave pattern twisting around itself, more intricate. She snapped the fabric out and it fell in ripples to the ground.
She brought it to Morgan, who flinched back. Briar shook her head and said slowly, as if to a child or a dog, "I mean you no harm." Even pale and sweating, Morgan rolled her eyes. Briar clasped the blanket around Morgan's neck and it fell in sleek folds around her like a gown. Her face shimmered and reformed along fae lines. Briar ignored me entirely, even though she had to move around me to get the cloak on Morgan.
"Very good," Hawthorn said, assessing Morgan with a critical eye. "That will do nicely."
"It's not far to the closest gate." Briar tilted her head to the side, considering. "I'm sure you want to be seen with me as little as I want to be seen with you." Briar had been much nicer the last time we'd seen her—but then again, Rowan had been there too, and thinking back, maybe she'd only been nice to him. Perhaps whatever debt she owed him required her to be polite. Or maybe it was just that he'd been the Blade. I imagined people were p
retty polite when they knew you were an assassin.
We walked out the door. Teo was standing there, hands in his pockets, scanning the horizon. He turned and nodded when he saw Morgan. "Good. Let's go," he muttered. Briar didn't answer but swept by us. Hawthorn waved for us to follow, so Teo went directly behind her. I followed, Morgan leaning heavily on my shoulder, with Hawthorn bringing up the rear.
"Thanks for coming to find me," Morgan said through gritted teeth. "Briar might have been trying to save me for Rowan, but I'm not that wild about her hospitality, to be honest."
"I can see that." I shifted so her weight was more evenly balanced across my shoulder.
"Who's your friend?"
"Turns out I have a brother."
"Turns out? You didn't know him?" Her eyes narrowed in speculation. It looked a little weird across fae features. "Can I ask you something? That spell you did earlier—I've only seen spellwork like that from one person in my whole life. Who taught you how to cast like that?"
I drew in a breath, held it like I could taste it. But to hell with it—she already knew. Maybe not all the facts, exactly, but she knew my father. And I was dying to know more about him, about who he was before he came to the island, even more than I was anxious to hear how she had come to be friends with the former Blade. "My father did. Matthew March."
She closed her eyes and leaned heavily on me for a moment, then opened them and looked at me. I was shocked to see tears glistening at their edges. "I have no idea he had a son—sons." She glanced ahead of us, toward Teo.
"I just found out about him." It already seemed like a long time ago that I'd seen him in the parking lot outside the woods. "It turns out I have a lot of family on my mother's side. That'll take some getting used to."
"How did—I mean, I didn't know anyone lived with Matthew."
"How did you know him?"
"We were students together, studying magic in New York." She smiled. "I've never seen anyone who cast like him. Even all these years later, I couldn't mistake it when I saw your spell."
She hadn't known about my mother. My heart sped and my stomach gave a slow flip. "Did you ever try to get in touch with him?"
She shot me a quick sideways glance. "I tried to send messages down the leylines several times. He refused to speak to me. We had another friend—Eliza. She and I went to see him when he wouldn't reply to either of our messages. Even though the Association had interdicted the island and anyone coming to see him...There was no way across. We could see the shore, but when we rented a boat to try and go to it, the currents pushed us away every time, even though the water around it was still as glass. We rowed closer and called to him and he never answered. I had to assume he didn't want to talk to us."
I didn't know what to think. It seemed equally likely to me that the Association had set some sort of wards that kept anyone from visiting the island. But before I could bring up this theory, Morgan leaned in close to me. Even under her glamoured cloak, she smelled of blood, and she was pale except for the circles of her cheeks, which were flushed a feverish red.
"Javier...there's something I have to tell you."
"About my father?"
She swallowed audibly. "Yes. I—"
"Hsssssh!" Teo turned around, his eyes so wide the dark irises were rimmed with white. "It's going to hear you!"
Briar and Hawthorn both turned to us from their opposite ends of our line. No—they turned to look at Teo. He had covered his ears with his hands. I didn't hear anything.
"Teo—!" I wanted to go to him but Morgan was a weight against my side.
"Go," she gasped, but I couldn't drop her to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Lunn shoved his nose under my hand.
Briar snapped something in a liquid fae language and a bright net of red settled around us. Teo gasped in relief and rocked forward, hands falling away from his ears. She looked at him with a new level of interest.
"We need to hurry," Hawthorn said. Briar shot her a cool look of disdain. Hawthorn frowned back. "The faster we get to the gate, the better."
"I suggest we all arm ourselves as best we may," Briar said. Once again, her gaze landed on Teo, and there was no mistaking the speculation in her eyes.
I pulled another of my father's defensive wards to mind—who was there to recognize them here? Besides Morgan, and she already knew—but decided to be more careful of how I cast it when we got to the gate. Hawthorn appeared to be unarmed, and Morgan was unable to stand alone but her hand rested on the silver bracelet at her opposite wrist. Teo shot me a quick glance and slid a dagger out from somewhere where it hadn't interrupted the line of his clothes. I raised an eyebrow and he grinned at me, looking more like himself than he had since before the barn, now that I thought about it. Briar hissed, and we both snapped our attention back to the path ahead of us. The red lines of whatever ward she had cast around us glowed brighter, and a woman came into view, blocking the path in front of us.
I blinked. She was slight—maybe the size of Igraine or Iliesa—and she wore a simple dress, no weapon or armor, and a battered hat that had seen better days. She was green, not like she was about to be sick, but like deep water in shadow, and her hair was a black tangle down her back. She stood in a puddle, the only water I'd yet seen on the path. Next to me, Lunn growled.
"You're a long way from home, my lady," Hawthorn said. Briar's lips curled.
"Not so long as some of you," the green woman said, too many teeth showing in her smile. I didn't think our glamours had fooled her for a moment.
"Get back to your lake, Jenny Greenlegs." Briar tossed her head, glossy hair shining as it floated back into place. "What we're about doesn't concern those not of the Court."
The woman's eyes narrowed. I didn't think her name was actually Jenny. "If it's court business, you won't mind if I yell." She drew in a breath like a bellows. Her neck swelled, the green skin along her carotid artery thinning and puffing out as it filled with air. The red wards glowed even brighter, and Teo winced even before she opened her mouth.
"Wait, please," Hawthorn said. The woman paused, throat still swollen with air. "We only want to pass. Can we bargain with you?"
"Hawthorn—!" Briar made a disgusted sound.
"What do you have that I could possibly want?" The woman let the air out of her throat as she spoke, and her words had an added dimension of power, more resonant than they had been before. Teo flinched as she spoke, and her lake-green eyes missed none of his reaction. "I think letting the queen know that two of its ladies have brought mortals to the courts when she is most angry with overhill would be worth far more than anything either of you could give me."
"What about us?" I said.
Three sets of fae eyes turned to me. Teo shot me an "are you crazy?" kind of look.
"What about you?" the green woman said after a moment.
"Is there nothing of overhill that you might want?" I was thinking maybe a ward I could cast for her, or some trinket she might like
"Hush," Hawthorn hissed.
The green woman turned to me and Teo, looking between us speculatively. Morgan, sagging against me in the cloak Briar had made her, she ignored completely. Morgan shook her head.
"That one." She pointed at Teo. "I'd take that one in exchange for letting you go quietly."
Briar's eyes narrowed as she looked at Teo. At the same time he said, "Hell, no."
"We're not up for negotiation," I said firmly. My heart thudded against my ribs. I hadn't thought. "Besides, didn't you just say the queen has forbidden us here?"
The green woman shook her head. "I might risk it, for a pet with an ear such as his."
I looked at him. "What does she mean?"
"I don't know. But I can hear—sounds, at the edge of hearing, like voices. Horrible voices. I can't understand them, and it hurts." He tried to smile. "I'm sure it's nothing."
It's not nothing, Lunn said, his voice serious in my head. He is like you—one who could hear us. But not quite like you. I can talk to you
. You are attuned to our voices. I can't talk to him. To try would cause him pain. He is tuned one channel over, where he cannot understand us clearly and hears mostly feedback. To one such as her, whose voice is her power, and who enjoys causing pain...he must be a temptation.
Jenny Greenlegs let out a breath in a slow, soughing noise that raised the hair along my arms. Teo winced, the net around him going red as the color drained from his face. We hadn't yet heard the full power of her voice.
"No," I said.
She didn't bother with anything else, just threw back her head, throat swelling out again. There weren't scales, exactly, but traceries of dark green over her thinning skin suggested them. I didn't want to find out what would happen when she stopped breathing in. I knotted a fraction of the omnipresent fae energy into a nose and flung it at her. It wrapped around her neck hungrily, tightening on her throat, shoving the air back into her lungs. She made a wretched choking sound, and I paused, but the spell wouldn't kill her. I doubted she'd have hesitated if it had been me, but all the same...I couldn’t kill her on purpose.
"Oh Javier, you don't do things by half measures, do you?" Hawthorn said ruefully, but she was smiling too. "There will be no mistaking that for anything but human work."
I will make sure she doesn't give chase, Lunn said. He bounded toward her, and she staggered back, hands still at her throat. I'll find you later.
Briar had no smile, rueful or otherwise. "We must leave."
We did, Morgan leaning heavily against me and Teo looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide and wild. I didn't look back at the green woman. Even if she didn't break the spell I'd left about her, it wouldn't hold her long. I didn't know how to cast a spell right in Faerie anyway—I didn't know how to make it hold, and after my last attempt I was a little afraid to see what happened. I still couldn’t figure out exactly what I'd done to make the gate go awry. But I trusted Lunn to keep her from following us.