I hated what that implied and sighed.
“I’m guessing you want me to meet him?” I asked.
“We must appear neutral,” she repeated. “You are my voice and sword in the region, which means it falls to you to introduce Lord Andrell to Lord Oberis’s court…and it falls to you to be neutral between them.
“That is why I will send you a trainer to teach you to use your gifts.” She shook her head. “You can no longer be Oberis’s pupil if you are to act as a neutral mediator between him and Andrell.”
“I am yours to command,” I said. There was more than a touch of sarcastic grouchiness to my voice, but it was true. Quite literally, Mabona owned my blood. Defying her was unwise for anyone. For me, it was almost impossible.
“Andrell is young for a Fae Lord,” she warned me. “He is an Unseelie who grew to adulthood in the fires of the First World War. Step carefully, my Vassal. You are protected by your oaths…but you are not entirely immune to his displeasure.”
My own displeasure was probably visible, but she let that slide. Mabona was surprisingly willing to ignore what she called my troublesome nature.
“I can be nice,” I said.
She chuckled.
“Nice is unnecessary. Be inoffensive, my Vassal. If nothing else, we are well served if he sees you as no threat.”
“That won’t be hard,” I pointed out. “I am a mere changeling, after all.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed. “Promise me one thing, Jason?”
“I am yours to command,” I repeated.
“Don’t make the Unseelie Lord take a cab. Find yourself a nice damn car before the flight arrives. Have Eric arrange it.”
Eric von Radach was Keeper of the Manor in Calgary, sworn to serve the fae race as a neutral in all affairs of the supernatural. His own oath was to the Queen, however, and the gnome was a friend as well.
I’d driven a courier truck for my first job here, until my Queen’s demands had grown too time-consuming. Since then, I hadn’t had a vehicle. The city had decent transit and, well, I could walk Between when I was in a hurry.
That, however, would be showing off when dealing with an Unseelie Lord.
Equally, driving the Unseelie Lord around in the type of car I’d prefer to own would be an insult. My Queen’s objection to my living and transportation arrangements had nothing to do with wanting me to be comfortable—and everything to do with appearances.
“As you command, My Queen.”
3
With everything Mary had going on, it was late by the time my girlfriend got home, and all she did was collapse into bed. Come morning, however, the fact that I was living with one of Grandfather’s administrators had its political advantages.
That wasn’t why either of us were there, but it was part of why our respective leadership allowed, even encouraged, the relationship. Our races weren’t cross-fertile with each other, though there was an open question of whether a regular changeling’s human half would be enough to allow for children.
My subtlety at buttering up the first long-term girlfriend I’d had in years, however, left quite a bit to be desired, so when Mary wandered out of the bedroom to find me making breakfast, she dropped into a chair at the table and leveled a sharp green glare on me.
“What’s up?” she asked. There was a warmth to her tone that few others heard from her, but there was more business to her than would normally be the case while she was sitting in our kitchen in a skimpy bathrobe and her long red hair.
“Pancakes?” I suggested hopefully, sliding the indicated product onto plates for us both.
“I can see that,” she agreed. “And it’s appreciated, especially since you’ve learned to use real maple syrup, but it’s Sunday, Jason. Which means you aren’t normally even awake before me, let alone making breakfast.”
I sighed.
“I couldn’t sleep well,” I admitted. “She dropped a bombshell on me last night.”
There was no question who “She” was. My love knew who I worked for and what I did.
“And I’m guessing I’m being bribed to carry some kind of message to Grandfather?” Mary asked as she took the plate and inhaled deeply. She might hate the “table syrup” I’d grown up with, but she had no complaints about the pancakes my mother had taught me to make.
“I’d hate to be so crass about it,” I replied, pouring and hand-delivering coffee mixed to exactly her tastes. “But he needs to know what’s about to get dropped on our poor city.”
She took the coffee and shook her head at me as she inhaled.
“You know you don’t actually need to butter me up for that?” she told me.
“It makes as good a reason as any,” I said with a smile. “Plus, you need the fortification.”
The humor faded from us both at that and she took a long swallow of the steaming hot coffee. Shifter regeneration meant that little things like “let the coffee cool” weren’t really necessary.
“What happened?” she asked.
“An Unseelie Lord petitioned for, and was granted, the right to assemble a second Fae Court in Calgary,” I said flatly. “Per our traditions and laws, he is still bound by the same Covenants Lord Oberis agreed to, but many other agreements will not apply to him.
“Even if he was coming in with the best of intentions—and he is Unseelie—this Lord Andrell would be a disrupting influence at a time when our supernatural community is still disrupted.”
We’d saved—okay, I’d saved—the city’s Wizard from being betrayed and murdered by his augmented human Enforcers. Kenneth MacDonald was a Power in his own right, but betrayal always struck where you weren’t looking.
But his Enforcers had been the binding force holding Calgary’s supernaturals together and something resembling in line. Through them, MacDonald had controlled the supply of heartstone, a by-product of the oil sands production north of the city that was a critically valuable commodity to all supernaturals.
Now…the Covenants that bound Wizard and fae and shifters to work together were strained, and only the personal friendships and personal trust across those lines had kept things together. A new normal was starting to take shape, but it hadn’t yet.
Andrell was going to throw all of that into the blender again.
“What a fucking shit show,” my lovely and intelligent girlfriend spat. “Is your High Court insane?”
“No, they just have different priorities,” I admitted. “To them, keeping the peace between the two halves of the fae is far more important than worrying about order in any single city. A city with Calgary’s importance, regardless of the actual number of fae here, should have two Courts.
“So, when petitioned, they can’t deny it without appearing biased in favor of Lord Oberis, a Seelie.”
Mary didn’t look like she bought my explanation, but she ate more pancakes instead of arguing.
“I’ll let Grandfather know,” she told me. “All of that, including the political BS. Quietly.”
“Thank you. For my sins and official neutrality, I get to be Andrell’s welcoming committee, which means I need to go car shopping.”
She winced.
“For something ‘worthy’ of chauffeuring a Fae Lord around, I presume?” she asked. “How are you going to afford that?”
Theoretically, I had an employment contract from an Irish toy manufacturer that paid me a generous salary to act as a local “customer relationship manager.” I could use that to finance a car, but the more expensive the car, the more attention I would draw—and the last thing I wanted to discover is whether or not there were limits to the ninety-percent-false credit history I had in Canada.
“I’ll talk to Eric. It is a work expense, after all,” I told her. “If She insists that I acquire a fancy expensive car, then She can bloody well pay for it.”
Mary chuckled and reached over to take my hand.
“Be careful, my love,” she told me. “I grew up here, where there’s only ever been one Court. But I don’t g
et the impression being caught between two Courts is going to be good for you.”
I squeezed her hand as I shook my head.
“It probably won’t be. But I swore an oath and I agree with at least most of what She asks of me. I’ll be fine.”
If Mary Tenerim looked doubtful of that, well, no one had ever accused her of being stupid.
Eric von Radach had a thousand roles in the fae community as the Keeper, the acknowledged neutral, the man whose job it was to greet strangers to the city and offer them succor.
In the mundane world, however, he was the owner of an older motel and a gleefully gaudy bar between the university campus and the c-train line. If that motel and bar were something else to the city’s supernatural community, the type of people who drank at that kind of bar or stayed at that kind of motel weren’t the type to notice.
At lunchtime on a Sunday, the bar was open but utterly dead. There was a single dark-haired young man pushing a broom around and keeping an eye on the door. His long hair suggested he was one of us, and my own odd ability to pick out the supernaturals around me told me he was a changeling.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“I’m Jason,” I introduced myself. “Is Eric in?”
Eric was a gnome and blatantly short to human eyes. He spent most of his time behind the bar where it wasn’t quite as obvious, but he was nowhere to be seen this morning.
“He said you might be stopping by,” the youth said, bowing slightly. “I’m not sure of the address, My Lord Vassal?”
I laughed.
“You’re just off succor and working for Eric to stay afloat, I’m guessing?” I asked gently. He nodded. “I may be a Vassal, but I’m just a changeling. ‘Jason’ works fine.”
“A Hunter’s changeling,” a familiar gruff voice pointed out. “That means more than you might think. Zach here is still finding his own feet in who and what he is. I may send him to you with questions.”
I turned toward the voice and bowed to Eric. Both of us were sworn to the Queen of the Fae, standing outside the normal lines of Court and fealty. Which of the pair of us had authority over the other was…an interesting question, given that the Keeper served a hierarchy sworn to the Queen and I served Her directly.
In practice, Eric von Radach was ninety or so years older than me, so I went with seniority.
“I can probably help,” I agreed, offering my hand to the youth. He was, oh, maybe two years younger than my own twenty-four. Based off my own experiences, that meant he’d only had access to whatever gifts he’d inherited for a couple of years at most. “It’s a hell of an adjustment.”
“It is,” Zach admitted.
“Zach should have come to our attention earlier,” Eric noted. “He grew up in Saskatchewan’s foster system, though, and our reach in the Prairies isn’t what it should be.”
“Damn lucky my ears didn’t start pointing until after I’d realized I was getting weird,” Zach agreed. “Do you need me, boss?”
“Nah, Jason and I have business to discuss. Can you keep an eye on the bar? We’re probably going to have to hit the road pretty quickly.”
“Tarva should be here in a few hours,” the changeling youth said cheerfully. “So long as George in the kitchen stays awake, I can sling beer and sandwiches till then.”
“Good lad.” Eric turned to me. “Come on, Jason. I’m guessing there’s a reason I was told to expect you?”
“No one briefed you?” I asked quietly.
One old eyebrow went up.
“Step into my parlor, Mr. Kilkenny,” he replied.
By the time I was done filling him in, Eric just looked tired. We were in his underground apartment beneath the bar, drinking coffee he’d made himself. The overstuffed chairs down there were almost certainly older than I was—they were quite possibly older than the bar itself—but they were definitely comfortable.
“I was notified about Andrell not long after She updated you,” he admitted. Like when I spoke about our mistress, the capital was audible on the pronoun. “All I got with regards to you visiting me was to make sure I had funds on hand for an ‘authorized business expense of some magnitude.’”
He chuckled.
“I sometimes wonder if the people who send those notes understand what I would regard as ‘some magnitude,’” he continued. “Here I was, trying to work out how I was going to move a couple of million from liquid assets into cash on a Sunday.”
I winced.
“I need a car, Eric, not an airplane.”
“If you needed an airplane, I’d need more notice,” he told me. “I can arrange a charter on twenty-four hours’ notice, but I can’t buy a plane in that time frame.”
“What about a car?” I asked.
“You want something expensive enough to support the fact that a Fae Lord needs to treat you with respect, without being flashy enough to draw attention from the mundanes.”
“Basically,” I agreed with a nod. “And I need it ASAP.”
“Even in this city, that rules out sports cars and Teslas,” he told me. “What’s ASAP—tomorrow?”
“Lord Andrell arrives at eight PM on Monday, presumably with an escort,” I told him. “I don’t have details for how many people he’s bringing with him, but I presume an Unseelie Fae Lord won’t travel alone anymore than Oberis would.”
Eric snorted.
“Even less likely. So, you want something that can carry at least four passengers comfortably. You realize that’s getting you big SUVs, right?”
“Can’t be worse than the courier truck,” I pointed out. “I’d still be driving those if you lot left me the time.”
“That would be even worse for Her image than you not having enough passenger seats for Andrell’s bodyguard,” Eric said with a chuckle. “You might have managed to get away with a ‘day job’ while Oberis was the only Lord in the city, but with two Courts that need to see you and me as neutral arbiters?
“No, you’re getting a Cadillac, boy. Escalade, eight passengers, big engines, black paint job.” He snorted. “I’d recommend against black, to be honest, except you need to walk into a dealership, pay cash, and pick the vehicle up with all registration sorted tomorrow morning. So, you’re stuck with what they’ve got…which will be black.”
It could be worse, I supposed. Though that left me with the headache of working out where I was going to park a massive luxury SUV anywhere near my apartment complex.
“I don’t suppose they’re bulletproof by default?”
“No, but you’re bringing Andrell here,” Eric reminded me. “He’ll come to the Manor, and then we’ll take him to see Lord Oberis, then you’ll bring him back here. From there, getting around is his own damn problem.
“Leave the car with me after that for a day or two, and your enemies will wish I’d merely made it bulletproof.”
Eric von Radach, these days, was a neutral arbiter and required to stay out of most conflicts. In his younger days, though, he’d been a gnomish War Smith and forged magical swords and guns for Fae Lords.
Whatever he did to the car, I knew I wasn’t going to mind.
4
Maneuvering the leather-seated and electronics-festooned SUV into Calgary’s airport parking was intimidating enough for me—and I’d spent three months driving courier trucks around the city. I couldn’t imagine why someone would voluntarily drive a boat like the Escalade.
Its sheer size and mass seemed to get a degree of space and respect even my courier truck hadn’t, and with the overpowered engine built into this one, it was actually more maneuverable than any regular car I’d driven.
It was just a monster to try to fit into a regular parking spot in the multi-level garage. Duty, however, called and I took advantage of my literally superhuman senses and reflexes to tuck the wheeled boat into a spot and get into the airport to meet Calgary’s newest supernatural power player.
Like the executive sedan drivers around me at the gate, I carried a sign with Andrell’s name
on it. Unlike them, it was a mere formality. I’d know the Lord on sight. No one else was going to come off the plane radiating Power the way he would.
I hopefully wasn’t quite as recognizable to him, but he’d probably be able to guess that the long-haired man in the cheap suit was his fae greeting party. It was even possible that my Queen had made sure he had a picture of his greeting party.
Mistakes would be insults, and insults were a deadly game amongst fae nobility.
In the end, I didn’t even need my ability to identify the supernatural to pick him out. Two men and two women, all in matching expensive suits and long hair, emerged from the gate with rolling luggage. All four of them towered over the crowd around them, radiating the kind of calm authority and power than led even mundanes to give them space.
The fifth fae was barely visible through his escort. He didn’t come up past the shoulder of any of his friends, probably only came up to my nose or so, but I didn’t need the guards to know who he was.
Lord Andrell was short for a Fae Lord, broad-shouldered but still bone-thin. Long red hair covered his ears and was drawn back into a ponytail that highlighted his sharp features, helping him draw intrigued looks from the crowd around him.
He moved with the liquid grace of a tiger, and his green eyes were cold as I met his gaze across the concourse. He was as different from Lord Oberis, the other Fae Lord I’d spent any time around, as I could imagine…but the Power and intensity of his gaze were the same.
Andrell gestured toward me and his mobile square of bodyguards moved in my direction. I folded away my sign and inclined my head toward him.
“Lord Andrell,” I greeted him quietly. He’d hear me, as would his guards. Anyone with merely mortal senses, however, would barely notice I was moving my lips. There were courtesies to be observed—but also practical necessities of greeting in an airport surrounded by non-supernaturals.
“You would be Kilkenny, then?” he greeted me in a strong Irish accent. To my surprise, he stepped through his bodyguards and offered me his hand. “I knew your mother, long ago. It’s a pleasure.”
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