In fact, everything I owned seemed to have become brand new again. My books no longer bore creases in their spines and covers. The imprints of my fingers were gone from my laptop’s keyboard, and characters worn down by extensive typing stood out crisp and clean once more. Old, near-invisible stains in my clothing, my bedclothes, the upholstery of my furniture, and the carpets, stains that no one knew about but me, had disappeared. Every threadbare patch had been repaired, blended seamlessly with the cloth around it, and every fraying seam ran smooth and tight, without flaw.
The brownies even fixed my bike. I found it leaning against the back of the house where I typically left it locked, frame unbent and glistening, tires firm and full of air. I was almost tempted to go check if the shattered remains of my phone were still on the Burke-Gilman trail, just to see if the little guys could fix that too. But that felt like greed, and I didn’t want to push it.
It was simultaneously wondrous and disconcerting, and felt like exploring a store designed to look exactly like my house. I half-expected to find price tags on all of my belongings, or a helpful sales clerk, with or without pointed ears, popping out of nowhere to explain the history of everything I owned. Even more spooked than I was, Fortissimo stalked through all the rooms and mewled at things only he could see or smell—mostly. Once I caught a glimpse of something small diving beneath my bed, giggling and piping tauntingly, “Here kitty!” I made a point of not looking under the bed, and did my best to distract the cat with all the tuna he could eat.
And I started setting out snacks on the kitchen table before I went to bed, things I knew Fort wouldn’t touch. Old fairy tales, I remembered, talked about setting out bread, milk or honey for supernatural visitors doing you a favor. Carson and Jake covered for me with bread and honey before I collapsed on Sunday morning; on Sunday night, the first night I spent under my newly mended roof, I found neither of these in my kitchen. So I tried milk instead, and just to be safe, an open pack of fudge stripe cookies. By Monday morning nothing was left of them but crumbs, and the brownies had organized my closet.
The cookies, apparently, were a hit.
Along with the new look of my house, I slowly grew accustomed to the new look of me. I woke up on Monday with more visible points to my ears, and by Tuesday night a certain sneaky sort of glow had crept in beneath my skin. Oddly enough I got a little darker, shifting from café au lait towards a duskier, richer brown, which brought me surprised satisfaction. I wanted to find a balance between both sides of my blood, and if my magic wanted to help me out by including something of Dad in my supernatural makeover, it and I would get along just fine.
Carson and Jake helped me out the whole week, bringing me fresh groceries and sharing meals, movies, and companionship. Jake especially radiated anxiety about me, till I gave in, hugged him, and swore up and down that after having him and Carson as housemates for so long, I wasn’t mad that it had been at Millie’s behest at first. Nor was I freaked that he could turn into a fox. (Much.) I also told him that I wanted to hear all about it… after I adjusted to the new me.
I went to see Aggie every day, and discovered a sudden ardent desire for her to teach me how to quilt.
Jude kept checking in too, via online instant messages during work hours and after, though she also took me out to lunch to bolster the virtual company with physical. “Y’know, chica,” she said as we went out for sushi on Wednesday, “I could tell James I know this really sharp tester and slip him your resume. I mean, after you tweak it to leave out the part about having worked on the team already.”
I chuckled at the thought, but it weirded me out too. Never mind my coworkers not remembering me—I just wasn’t prepared to face another gamut of interviews at the place I’d worked for five years now. I did send Jude to Mama’s, though, to scope the place on my behalf and sneak extra money into their tip jar. It was thriving and open for business, she reported, with rebuilt tables and a new collection of Elvis movie posters on the wall I’d assaulted the only sign Elessir and I had ever fought there.
That was enough to content me; I didn’t dare show my face there for a while, tempting margaritas aside. After the way the weekend had started, I wanted a vacation more. A really long vacation.
The opportunity to rest and spend time with my friends and with Aunt Aggie was a good start. But thanks to Amelialoren, I could have afforded a trip around the world if I’d wanted one. On Tuesday morning I got a FedEx envelope full of official-looking documents, printed on fine linen paper with discreet, tasteful letterhead, and subtly tingling with a trace of power. Said documents informed me that the firm of Amerine, Carey, and Sherer, Inc. (attorneys at law, with branches in the U.K., New York, and Los Angeles) had identified me as the heir to the estate of Elanna Thompson, née ana’Kirlath, amounting to funds held in trust in the mortal realm for the last hundred years as well as a stipend out of House Kirlath in Faerie. Proof of my identity would not be required, as AC&S had already received same from an ‘unimpeachable reference’, and my only obligation was to review and sign the accompanying paperwork should I choose to claim said estate. Nor would I need to mail or fax the forms. My signature upon the paper, or so I read, would cause the same writing to appear upon the originals of each document stored in the firm’s offices.
Not once in the sheaf of enchanted papers was the Queen mentioned, by name or by title, but the echo of magic that made my palms itch as I handled them felt like what I’d sensed from her during her brief visit. That kept me from pitching the entire packet in the recycle bin, but not even the aura of the Queen of the Seelie could make me put my name to legal papers, magical or otherwise, without getting them independently checked. Carson, Jake, and even Millicent came through for me on that front, helping me go over the documents and confirming that my signature would not bind me to any promises I’d sorely regret later, and ultimately convincing me it was safe to sign them. And from them I learned that AC&S had existed in one form or another for almost as long as the mortal realm and Faerie had been interacting for the single purpose of providing a neutral means by which humanity and fey might coexist. In its modern incarnation, at least as far as humanity and the order-loving Seelie and myobu were concerned, that meant expertise with the laws of each race.
They had, the boys reported, utilized the firm to draw up their wills, powers-of-attorney, and other documents to get their partnership as close to a legal marriage as possible. Clients of Warder blood frequently employed AC&S as well, according to Millicent—and in fact, the Carey of the firm’s name referred to a branch of the Warder line out of Ireland. She’d gone to them forty years ago to draw up her own will, and twelve years before that when she’d engaged them to review the contract she and her husband signed to buy a house.
“Wait a minute,” I blurted at her, unable to fathom the little Warder woman as someone who might once have been married, with a family of her own. “Husband?”
“Jonathan. Passed on ten years back.” That short, gruff admission and a fleeting, unguarded softening of her eyes was all I got out of Millie on the topic.
I’d figured that Warders must get married or at least have children, from what I’d learned from Seattle’s two Warders so far. But Millicent’s little revelation somehow solidified in my head that those in her particular line of work could get into… well, relationships. The whole significant other thing. Being involved.
And once that idea occurred to me, it dug in with tenacious fingers and toes and refused to let go whenever Christopher came over.
* * *
Just as he’d promised, Seattle’s new Warder Second came to check on me on Sunday, and every day of the week that followed. Christopher accompanied Fort and me when we first ventured back into our half of the house. He explored every nook and cranny with even more assiduous care than the cat, searching with magic and eyes alike until he was satisfied that no fey presence or power was in the house aside from the brownies—and me—and that they’d done nothing more than fix things.
> Claiming the authority of eleven years’ worth of odd jobs at construction and carpentry, Christopher also climbed up onto the roof and inspected it, shingle by shingle and gutter to gutter, for structural integrity. He crawled over every square inch, sat right on the place where the tree had rammed through, and even stood on it to see if it would hold his weight, which would have been a precarious risk indeed if I’d been the one trying it. I do not get along well with heights. I wondered if Christopher had sailor blood as well as Warder; he was after all a Newfoundlander, and with the easy balance he displayed poised up on my house, I could effortlessly picture him high in the rigging of a wind-tossed schooner. Especially when he started belting out sea shanties while he was up there.
Oh yeah. Did I mention he could sing?
Not with Elessir’s eldritch beauty—like his eyes, Christopher’s voice was entirely human, and he wasn’t even always on key. He had a habit of wandering off pitch if he wasn’t paying attention, especially on high notes. But mostly his rough, round baritone stayed on the true, and gave me a glow of pleasure every time I heard it rolling through or over the house. He didn’t realize I’d heard him at first, but once I asked him to do so, he sang “Tam Lin” for me and taught me the words so I could sing with him.
He spent hours, too, bolstering the house’s Wards on my side as well as Carson and Jake’s, with their ready permission. It got to the point where I had but to wake up in the morning to feel his presence in the air of the house, blending with the shyer, more unearthly resonance left by the brownies—who had, if the reaction to the cookies was any sign, decided to settle in and stay for a while.
Once the Wards were reinforced, that seemed to make them back off teasing Fort as long as he was in the house. A cat in the yard on the other hand was fair game, and more than once I had to pry my mewling pet out of the branches of the willow tree, where the brownies had cornered him.
When Christopher wasn’t working on the Wards, either on my house or on Seattle in general, we talked. I mentioned what the Seelie Melisanda had said about the Warders being more than merely human, and asked what she might have meant. That made him screw up his brow in consideration.
“There are stories about where Warder magic comes from, lass,” he said. “But they don’t all say the same thing. Some of ’em say God gave it to us, tellin’ us to protect mankind from the Sidhe. Some of ’em say we took it from the Sidhe. Causes no end of arguments, it does. I remember Mom arguin’ with Granddad about it, back when I was small.”
“What do you say?”
Christopher soberly replied, “I know the magic’s in us, so God must’ve meant to put it there. But I don’t pretend to know why He did it. At least for my family, the old stories have been jumbled up, and some of ’em lost as time’s gone on. Maybe Millicent can tell us more, if you want.”
I did want to know more, but until I was done with my little vacation, I was willing to put off asking the older Warder for further clues. I already had a lot to think about. So did Christopher. On Sunday evening I learned that Aggie had gotten a phone call from a confused-sounding man with a thick Newfoundland accent, identifying himself as Thomas Hallett, and dialing the number his caller ID had left with the aborted message on his answering machine two days before. But it took Christopher two more days to work up the courage to call his uncle back, and I felt for him every step of the way, because it took me until Friday to get brave enough to touch my violin.
Oh, we’d found the instruments at once the first time we crossed the threshold on Sunday evening. Christopher’s bouzouki, the pick tucked neatly through four of the strings, stood propped in the chair that faced my couch; my violin and bow leaned against it. It was as if someone had arranged them for a photograph or the cover of a CD, and like everything else in the house, the instruments gleamed as though newly made. But unlike everything else, my books or my DVD collection or Fort’s food tray or the cabinet handles in the kitchen or what have you, the bouzouki and violin glowed.
Not brightly, not with the fireworks of Malandor or the Queens of the Courts, much less the volcanic brilliance of the sphere through which Azganaroth had vanished with my uncle. This glow was elusive, noticeable only as an extra sheen to the wood that made up each instrument, a glimmer like the reflection of the warm light of a nearby hearth. I have a hearth, a fireplace right there in the living room. But I don’t light fires in it in August.
Every time Christopher showed up at my door, his gaze slid to the bouzouki waiting for his hands, and his features crinkled with the same awe and dread I felt every time I looked at my violin. Granted, my mother hadn’t lovingly crafted it for me, nor did it bear Gaelic words etched in silver that shone now like starlight filigree against the dark wood beneath them. I didn’t own a Stradivarius, or even a concert-quality instrument; no, this was just the violin I’d played through my school years, and I loved it for no other reason than having made music on it for most of my life.
As well as I knew my own quirks and foibles, I knew its marks of individuality: how long I could play before my bow needed new rosin, which temperatures threw it out of tune and which let it keep its pitch, all the little dents and nicks all over the body and neck. All of those unique traits, along with the maturing of the instrument’s sweet, mellow voice, had added to its character over time. And if the brownies had remade it, a fundamental little core of my being feared that I no longer had the violin I knew and loved.
By Friday, I had to know one way or another. I didn’t tell Christopher what I had in mind or wait for him to show up that afternoon as was fast becoming his habit—though I half-hoped he would sense what I was doing anyway. With trepidation, I took my violin and bow out under the willow in the backyard. Despite the extra energy he’d poured into the Wards on the house, that spot beneath the tree where he’d touched his hand to the earth still resonated as his most distinctly through my senses. So there, I reasoned, was where I needed to be if I wanted him to find me.
Beneath the willow’s sheltering fronds, I settled the violin onto its accustomed place on my shoulder and rested the bow against the strings. The weight of both objects was right; the texture of the wood I touched, still well known territory to my fingertips and palms though my eye could find none of the old nicks and scratches. My hands trembled with relief at that familiarity. It was as I’d been reunited with a long-lost friend only to find her twelve years younger.
With my first note, I wept.
My instrument’s voice was still the same, with the mellow timbre I knew—only refined, made purer, sweeter, and alive in a way it had never been before. Before I knew it I was sending Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 wafting out into the day. Sixteen measures in, my fledgling magic awakened, bubbling up in giddy response to the music; the violin and even the bow seemed to joyously accept it, warming within my hands until it seemed as though I played an instrument made of laughter and light.
I played anything and everything that came to mind: jigs and airs, sonatas and fugues and minuets; I didn’t know how long I played, and I didn’t care. Not until I swung around to “The Swallow’s Tail Reel”, though, did the full-throated chime of the bouzouki join me on a line of rhythm chords underneath the melody. And there was Christopher, the bouzouki’s strap slung across his broad shoulders. He went down on one knee beside me underneath the tree, missing not a single note as he played. His face was a study, with his eloquent eyes broadcasting both fierce intensity and naked, unvarnished astonishment. Under the guidance of his hands eight strings tossed notes like pealing bells in among my violin’s silken, living singing, and between us the reel became an entire flock of sparrows in acrobatic flight.
When that song was done I stopped, not because my hands were tired—in fact, I distinctly sensed that the instrument I held was eager for more. No, I quit playing because I realized that Christopher too was crying.
“How you doing, big guy?” I leaned the bow against the trunk of the tree, and then reached up to his bearded chin to turn
it to me so I could see his eyes. The tears looked like a good thing, but I wanted to check just in case.
Christopher grinned a little and proffered me a shaky nod, but it took him a few moments more to answer me with words. When he managed to speak, all he could say was a hoarsely rasped, “Well.” He swallowed hard, and then said it again. “Well. I’d best be out to buy somethin’ special for the brownies tonight.”
I grinned back, for I’d had that thought too. “I’d best go with you, because we owe them something special for this.” Then I realized I was touching his face. Shyly, I lowered my hand and nodded at the instruments.
“Yeah.” He drew in a huge breath and sank down to sit against the tree, cradling the bouzouki in his lap. For a few seconds he just held it, his eyes closed and moisture gleaming on his lashes. Then he looked at me once more, and the broadest smile I’d yet seen him produce caught fire across his face. His voice was still hoarse, his eyes still wet, but that smile blazed like a beacon through fog. “And you know what else I’m thinkin’? Gift of music like this’ll make me not miss home quite so much.”
“I’m good with anything that’ll make Seattle feel more like home to you,” I murmured, moving to sit next to him.
“It’s already started. Been walkin’ the Wards with Millicent, and I’m findin’ places callin’ out to me, tellin’ me I’m where I belong,” Christopher confided, with that incongruously boyish giggle of his. Then his eyes and voice turned earnest. “Have you been on the University of Washington campus, Kenna-lass? There’s a spot there, where you can stand in the early mornin’ and look down to the lake, with the misty blue hills on the other side and the lights of the cars on the bridge like a ribbon of gold across the water…” He trailed off, blushing and looking stunned by his own poetic outburst.
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