Last night’s events, from the standoff at the bar to the nightmares that had awakened me in the middle of the night, came back to me then. I frowned as I claimed a chair. Some of what I remembered wasn’t at all bad, like talking with Christopher and seeing him almost at ease, as though the darkness was somehow a safe refuge in which to let down his guard. All his defenses were back with the morning light—or at least, most of them. He said nothing as he brought the plates and a pitcher of orange juice from the fridge to the table. But he paused at my side, and when I looked up, he held out the pitcher.
“Thanks,” I murmured, accepting it.
Christopher stared down at me; then, the edge of his mouth curled up, just a bit, and I gave him a little smile of my own in trade. He seemed to need it. Sleep had done him some good, but a shadow of strain still darkened his eyes.
“You do that,” Millicent snapped into her phone, then jammed the device into a vest pocket and stomped over to join us. “Did somebody say something about a game plan?”
“She did,” my aunt said, gesturing at Jude. “I suggest we start with breakfast.”
Out of deference to Aggie, I turned my chair into place as the others sat down. But I couldn’t muster any interest in the food laid out on the table, not when nervous speculation about Millie’s phone conversation crept across my mind. “Breakfast is good, but I’d like to start with who you were talking to.”
Millicent slid me a considering look. She hadn’t yet put on her fedora this morning; without the shadow of its brim obscuring them, her eyes glinted at me like chips of polished flint. “Verlaan,” she said. “Seelie Court seneschal. Terms of the Pact say I have to report transgressors of either Court to their Queens, especially when there’s a changeling involved.”
“Oh,” I said, disturbed by the sound of that.
“You can call up the Seelie Court on a smartphone?” asked Jude, furrowing her brow.
It was a good question, and I latched onto it. “Doesn’t seem any stranger than emailing an Unseelie,” I pointed out, trying not to babble, and then grimacing at my own words. “Scratch that, they both sound bizarre. Do all the Sidhe use human technology, Millie?”
Aggie cleared her throat. “I suggest,” she repeated, a little more loudly than before, “we start with breakfast.”
A childhood spent under her roof had taught me all about that look my aunt was wearing, an expression that belonged on stern but fair schoolteachers, with or without rulers to smack errant young hands. But this morning, it made me think of a fragment of insight not my own, a memory of a dream: a wise-woman or a shaman. I blinked. I looked at Aggie as if seeing her for the first time. And I wondered if that had truly been what my mother had seen in my father’s sister—and why it had come into my sleeping brain.
Chastened and just a bit spooked, I turned to pay better attention to Aggie so she could say grace over the food. “Sorry, Aunt Aggie,” I mumbled.
Christopher hunched in his chair as if he expected it to swallow him whole. Then, seeing Aggie bow her head and close her eyes, he relaxed just a bit and followed her example. So did Millicent, though she didn’t so much relax as scowl a little less. Jude and I, Wiccan and agnostic respectively, simply fell patiently silent and waited.
Knowing what I did now about our family history, I was no longer surprised that Aggie hadn’t blinked when I’d taken a different religious path than hers. After the jolt Elanna of the Seelie must have given her, it was no wonder that nothing had shocked her since. I gave Jude a quick, reassuring smile. Then, with a suspicious fullness welling up somewhere in my throat, I watched Aggie pray.
“O Lord,” she said, eyes closed, “we are gathered here this morning with hearts that give different names and faces to the divine Power that watches over us all, but we are united in our desire for the safety and health of our loved ones. Thank you for this meal that has been laid before us, Lord, and let it bring us strength to meet the challenges of this day and days to come. Watch over us and grant us the wisdom to make the choices we must to keep us safe, healthy, and able to honor and cherish that Power that cherishes us. Amen.”
Christopher and Millicent murmured ‘amen’, and half a beat after, Jude and I did the same. Safety, health, and wisdom were concepts I could get behind praying for, even if I had no specified divine listener in mind. I’d always found prayer tantamount to emailing somebody without a To: line, but today, I was all about sending out a spiritual S.O.S. if something friendly out there was paying attention. From the look on Jude’s face, she seemed to be right there with me.
Once we started passing the food around, Millie answered my question as though we’d had no interruption. “Times past, the Sidhe never needed technology—they had magic,” she said with a smirk, spearing a waffle for herself with her fork. “These days, they’ve got their purists, but most of ’em will use a phone or a car right along with us mortals.”
“Or a computer,” I said, thinking of the card the singer called Elessir had given me, and Millicent nodded.
“Or a computer. Just because you’re a mage doesn’t mean you have to be a technophobe.”
The words sounded sensible enough, but they spooked me all over again. Millicent had called me a mage. The scary part was that I wasn’t at all sure I could argue with her. “Good,” I proclaimed, determined to sound nonchalant even if I wasn’t. “Because magic and Sidhe and trolls or not, I still have to eat. So I still have to work. And—”
Hell. I did still have to work.
As I jolted and looked up at the kitchen clock, Jude froze in the middle of claiming her share of the scrambled eggs. “We did just ship,” she blurted. “Half the team’ll be taking the day off.”
“Does that half include us?” I worried. “I didn’t ask for a vacation day, did you?”
“No. Crap. And somehow, I don’t think ‘acts of the fey’ are covered in the employee handbook under reasons for a leave of absence.”
“Kendie baby, I don’t think you should go anywhere,” said Aggie.
“Definitely not.” Millicent ate the same way she drank brandy: serving herself up portions that might have daunted a much larger person, yet consuming them with almost delicate care. She pointed her fork sharply at me nevertheless. “It ain’t safe to let you out of this house. Not while the Seelie are on your case and not until we figure out what’s churning up in that blood of yours.”
“No debates here,” I assured both the older women, holding up my hands. “But I don’t want to get fired, you know? And Jude has to work, too.”
Aggie’s eyes were sympathetic, but her expression was resolute. “I am not above telling your boss you have the flu if it’ll get you permission to stay home.”
“I don’t want to lie to him.” Even as I said it, I recalled what Millicent and Aggie had said the night before about the Sidhe never lying. I tried not to think about whether it meant anything about me. You didn’t have to be fey to think lying was wrong, right?
“He probably won’t buy both of us coming down with a case of the post-ship ‘flu’ anyway,” Jude chimed in, making a droll face.
“We’ll think of something,” Aggie replied, and then nodded at both Jude’s plate and mine. “In the meantime, you girls eat your breakfast.”
“Every bit of it, too,” added Millie. “You’re going to need the energy.”
That was not exactly encouraging, but I dug in anyway. I wasn’t ill—but I still felt enough off-kilter, with those odd flares of sensation all over me, that I could buy that many of my inner systems were whacked. Nor did I need an actual answer when I asked the old Warder, “Because my blood’s trying to make me change?” I already knew what she would answer.
And I was right. Mostly. “Yeah, but that’s only part of it,” Millie said. Her white brows crinkled as she looked me up and down. “You’re also going to need nourishment just to keep up your strength, mental and physical both. You got fey blood in you, girlie, that means you got magic in you. The trick is, making it a
nswer to you rather than the other way around.” A crooked smile spread across her face, and for the first time since she’d crossed my path, she looked almost gentle. “Seen it happen to a couple other kids. One of ’em wished herself right back to looking so normal you couldn’t pick her out of a crowd. Other ’un… well, let’s just say, last time I saw him, he had wings.”
Jude and I both blinked, Aggie raised her eyebrows, and even Christopher lifted his attention off his plate to peer at the older Warder. Millicent waved a hand at the lot of us and went on to me, “Don’t worry, honey, he wasn’t one of the Sidhe. You won’t have to worry about throwing out all your shirts.”
“Good,” I croaked. I didn’t want to know what exactly the winged person of Millie’s acquaintance had become.
Nor did she tell me. Instead she eyed Christopher, whose glance she had not missed, and with a soft humph she gave him a more critical once-over than she’d given me. “And I suppose I’ll have to figure out what to do with you. Big strapping boy like you should be able to help me patch up the holes in the Wards, at least. What branch of the line are you out of?”
In the middle of a drink of milk Christopher paused, the strain in his eyes growing more distinct. As he put his glass down and began cutting up more of his waffles his fingers trembled. “Damhnait MacSimidh,” he said roughly. “St. John’s, Newfoundland. Daughter of Michael Hallett. Son of Gregory Hallett.”
The generational listing rang oddly in my ears, but it had a far greater impact on Millicent. Her eyes went wide and her features crinkled up into a look of extreme consternation. “You’re her son? Good God, boy, do you realize every Warder between here and Port aux Basques has been on the lookout for you for the past sixteen years?”
Christopher went completely still save for his hands, which clenched into fists around his knife and fork until I wondered if they’d bend with the strength of his grip. Then he turned a hard, raw gaze on Millie. “Why do you think I’ve kept movin’, Gran?” he said, tight and harsh.
“Why don’t you explain it to me, sonny?” she shot back. “From where I’m sitting, all I see is a boy who’s turned his back on everything his people stand for! Do I have to lecture you on your blood, too?”
“There’s only one thing I need to know about my blood. It got my mother killed.”
The words ripped out of Christopher like bullets from a silenced gun, no less forceful for their lack of volume. I felt each one as an odd little flinch to the prickling that still coursed across my senses, and I stared up at him, distraught. Like a witness to a car wreck, Jude winced in ‘oh crap, that had to hurt’ sympathy.
Gravely, her gaze taking on a gleam of understanding, Aggie said, “We’re sorry for your loss, Christopher.” Jude and I hastened to echo the sentiment, though neither of us managed anything more eloquent than “yeah” and “me too”.
His only acknowledgement to us all was a shrug of one broad shoulder, and he avoided all our eyes, staring instead down at his plate as if suddenly sickened by the sight of the food before him. Then he lurched up out of his seat, dismay slashing across his face. “Thank you,” he said, but it was toneless, mechanical, as though his manners dictated some sort of response while his mind was thousands of miles away—maybe all the way back in Newfoundland, I thought. To Aggie he added, “Sorry. I can’t. I just can’t.”
My aunt was unperturbed. “There’s a love seat in my den, son,” she said. “Why don’t you go back there and take it easy for a bit?”
Christopher snatched the reprieve, giving Aggie a shaky, grateful nod before he fled. I watched him go, but as his eyes met mine in passing, I almost wished I hadn’t. His cheeks flamed, and in visible chagrin, he tore his attention away from me as he bolted off down the hall.
My own cheeks flushed hot from embarrassment and indignation on Christopher’s behalf. I was getting more and more aggravated by Millicent’s ripping into him, and I opened my mouth to demand an explanation. Before I could Jude beat me to the punch—which was for the best, since she was far more civil than I would have been.
“So, um… what just happened here?”
* * *
Millie told us little more than we’d already heard. But what she shared made a few more things come together.
“All the Warders are related, if you trace the family lines back far enough,” she said grudgingly, poking with her fork at what food remained on her plate, as if Christopher had taken her appetite with him when he’d gone. “So we look out for each other. We have to do it long-distance, since we’re all bound to the cities we Ward, but we do it. Phone, letters, Internet, whatever works. And not a damn one of us has been able to find out what happened to Damhnait MacSimidh.” The old woman turned her head, squinting off down the hallway, and for an instant she looked actively concerned. “That boy’s the only one who knows, and he’s been hiding from the lineage all this time.”
“Seems to me,” remarked my aunt, “that the first Warder to lay eyes on him in sixteen years might want to remember that the boy lost his mother. We’re both old enough to know how hard that is, even after many years.” Her tone was mild as always, but her eyes were stern again. Though Millicent Merriweather was hardly a misbehaving child, I suddenly suspected that Aggie was about to lay down a few choice words about stepping all over the feelings of a bereaved young man.
The concern vaporized from Millicent’s expression. “Goddammit, Aggie,” she snapped, thumping the table with a fist and leaning belligerently forward in her chair, “I’m eighty-five! My power’s failing right along with my eyes. Trolls and hostile Sidhe are crossing my Wards without me sensing ’em, and if you really want me to keep on looking after this niece of yours”—she then thrust a finger at me—”then I ain’t got time to coddle that boy. I need him, and so does she!”
Jude and I exchanged uncomfortable looks, and my friend’s features mirrored the question shooting through my head: whether we could retreat in Christopher’s wake. My own face must have been broadcasting that thought, too. Aggie, who knew all of my looks as well as I knew hers, swung a glance around to me. “Millie and I will clear the table and wash up. Kendie, you and Jude go call your workplace. See what you can do about getting today off.”
“And after you do that,” barked Millicent, snapping a look around to me along with Aggie, “you girlies get on Aggie’s computer. Until I can get through to the Queen, I ain’t betting on the Seelie Court telling me who their own troublemakers are, so that leaves other Warders. I’ll give you a few email addresses you can try, and you can tell ’em I sent you.”
I got up, and Jude did likewise, but I didn’t retreat just yet. Instead I eyed Millie. “You said you wanted to have more words with me this morning,” I reminded her. “What are you going to do besides dishes?”
She looked no more inclined to coddle me than she did Christopher. If my aunt was the stern-but-fair schoolteacher, then Millicent was the irascible principal ready to take a paddle to my backside, and she sounded it, too. “I’ve got to walk the Wards on the city still, and if that boy ain’t going to take his turn at bat yet, I damn well better get to it. And I meant what I said.” Her finger thrust out at me once more. “You stay put, right here, till I get back.”
“Got that the first time,” I retorted, thrusting my own finger right back at her. “Did you not get it the first time when I asked you to back off of Christopher?” My voice rose, and right along with it, the prickling in my blood. I barely noticed; I was too pissed off. “For God’s sake, at least wait till he’s over the concussion before you rip into him some…”
The prickling surged, enough to make me dizzy for a few seconds. As I trailed off, wobbling where I stood, Millicent jumped to her feet and seized my hands in an iron grip. “Tamp it down!” she commanded. I felt a second surge rise out of her, splashing over me like a bucket of water over a campfire. “You’re in charge of the magic, so put a lid on it!”
My temper—and the prickling—faltered and began to subside as I strug
gled to steady myself. But I wasn’t quite ready to let my temper go. “First tell me you’ll stop arguing with Christopher.”
Millie glowered up at me, opened her mouth, and then snapped it shut. She kept up her hold on my fingers—and her stream of power overwhelming my senses—but that earlier trace of concern crept back into her eyes. “All right, girlie,” she said, sighing. “For what it’s worth, and for what good it’ll do, I’ll give him as much time as we can spare.”
I wanted to believe her. After a second or two, I realized I did. Closing my eyes, fighting to calm down, I sucked in a huge breath and slowly let it out again. “Thanks,” I mumbled. As I did, the prickling died.
Only then did Millie release me, in more ways than one; her grip slackened, and then her magic retreated from my awareness. I stood there giddy and a little breathless, and it took me more effort than it should have to focus on the sight of the old woman stepping cautiously back from me. “Go call in. And maybe talk to that—” She caught herself, and then finished, “Talk to Christopher.”
Surprised, I blinked and looked back and forth from one face to another. “What, me?” But Millicent was already turning away, grabbing the first of the dishes off the table.
Aggie smiled faintly and waved me towards her telephone. “Make the call from the den, baby,” she suggested. Which wasn’t any more helpful. But I knew a large stone Hint when I saw one, and so I stumbled over to grab the handset off its cradle. Jude followed me, and it was to Jude that I murmured a request for a clue.
“When did this become my problem?”
“Duh,” my friend murmured back. “You like him, don’t you?”
She was right. As we headed down the hall, chagrin heating my face and Jude’s wry, knowing gaze blithely avoiding mine, I didn’t try to deny it.
I just hoped it would help.
* * *
We found Christopher in the den, slumped on Aggie’s old love seat with his head tilted back against the wall behind him, rubbing his fingertips across his brow. When Jude and I came in, however, he immediately sat up. “What was that I felt out there?” he asked before I could apologize for intruding.
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