Another figure swooped in from above and finished him off, even as Jan scurried back to relative safety, her breath harsh in her throat and the insane desire to let loose with a whoop curling in her chest.
“Are you insane?” Tyler hissed, grabbing her elbow and pulling her close to him. She might have been; it almost didn’t matter.
Nobody seemed to have realized that the preter queen was among them. She had wrapped herself in thicker shadows, and even knowing she was there, Jan had trouble finding her again.
“I’ve tried.” Nalith continued their conversation as though nothing had happened, her gaze seemingly caught by a tombstone off to their left, waist high and deeply carved with rosettes. “I’ve tried everything. It comes so easily to you all, even you. Everything in this world has some spark, some thing, that lets you create. Even the meanest, dullest child draws, dances, sings, and there is a spark. I want that.”
Jan stared up at the preter. All this—for that? Because she wanted to be an artist? But it made sense, in a weird sort of way. Preters were cold, hard—all the things that the fairy tales said about elves. But they loved arts, and poetry, and all that, and maybe for one of them, being a patron, however twisted, hadn’t been enough.
The queen had wanted it enough to give up everything. Would destroy everything if she couldn’t have it. She didn’t understand that you couldn’t force that, either, couldn’t demand it and make it happen.
But preters had honor, too. The consort had honored their bargain, had let them walk away. Nalith had asked for their fealty, not forced it. They had been the ones fooling her, not the other way around.
Oh, this was going to suck.
“You don’t have it.” It was hard—Jan had never been good at letting anyone down, gently or otherwise. She was more likely to encourage beyond reasonable limits than tell them their heart’s desire was out of reach. But the stakes were too high, and the body count was mounting. Soon, they’d notice the three of them, and...and Jan wasn’t sure they could run fast enough, even if they started now. “Wanting isn’t enough. You could work the rest of your life—” however long that was “—and you still wouldn’t be anything more than technically adept.”
“Where is it? Where do you hide that skill?” It was a demand rather than a question, but now Jan could almost hear the panic underneath it.
“Nobody knows. I told you that. Nobody knows why one person gets it and another doesn’t, or why this person can sing and that person can draw, or... It just happens.”
“I want it,” Nalith said again, a touch of fire in her voice.
Jan tensed but didn’t back down. Cruel to be kind; hell, cruel to survive. She’d learned that lesson better than Nalith had learned hers. “Yeah, well, life sucks that way. Here, at least. Probably there, too, from what you’ve said.”
The preter drew herself up—and then stopped. Her attention had been caught by something, but Jan didn’t risk looking away to see what it was.
“Nalith.” The voice was silver-bright and familiar. Next to her, Tyler shuddered once but said nothing. A preter limped toward them, barely sparing the humans a glance. It wasn’t the consort, nor were the two moving with him. The fighting slowed, shadow-figures moving to surround them. Jan swallowed, feeling sweat on her face and down her back, despite the chill.
“Damn it, Seth, I told you to get them safe, not to bring them here.” AJ’s growl, unpretty but far more welcoming, as the lupin matched the consort’s pace, carefully and almost subtly preventing him from coming closer to the two humans.
Around them, the fighting slowed as the survivors realized that their leaders were distracted, and why.
“Under your own accord, or theirs,” Jan said in a low voice, playing a hunch. Preters were cold, proud, selfish. But they had their own honor. And Nalith had been—was—a queen.
“I am...fond of this place,” Nalith said. “The sunlight, the colors. I wanted to...to possess it. To make it part of me. But you are not wrong. It resists, refuses me.” Her smile was sharp, but for once, there was little cruelty in it, and Jan thought what there was might have been directed inward, not out. “I am not accustomed to being refused.”
“Humans,” Tyler said. “We’re obnoxious that way, sometimes.”
“I would have been a benevolent queen,” she said, and Jan was pretty sure that she believed that, which was a whole new kind of terrifying.
“You can be,” Jan said. “Just not here.”
* * *
After a major project was finished, Jan always felt wound up, jittery—until the realization that they were done set in, at which point she felt the urge to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and lie there like a lump, exhausted by the anticlimax. That same urge hit her now, looking at the portal shimmering in the basement of the old church.
“What about...them?” She lifted one index finger and pointed at the humans, lining the wall and staring at the portal as if it was the best reality show on TV ever.
“We take them with us,” the consort said matter-of-factly.
“The hell you do.”
“Jan.” Tyler stopped her from saying more. “Wait.”
She glared at him, then Martin touched her hand, and she dropped her gaze. Ty had been one of those, once. He knew, better than she, what they were feeling, thinking. “What, then? Let them go back, as...pets?”
“Humans have been doing it for centuries,” AJ said. His face was bruised, as if someone had taken a two-by-four to the left side of his head—for all she knew, someone had—and he was listing slightly, but there was no doubt that he was in control of the moment. Jan would be annoyed at being replaced if she weren’t so grateful for it.
“If they were treated the same way you were...”
“They were.” He had no hesitation on that score.
“So, don’t you think maybe they have someone who wants them home?” Like you did, she didn’t say. He’d either know that or not, but this wasn’t the place or time.
“I think maybe it doesn’t matter. They’re broken. Unless the supers are willing to spend six months trying to glue the pieces back for all of them... How the hell are they supposed to recover, when nobody will believe where they’ve been or what happened to them?”
And there was no one here to hold them went unspoken. It took true love, a true heart, to break a preter’s glamour.
“They are ours,” the consort repeated.
“My lady,” Jan said with exaggerated politeness to Nalith. “Please tell your consort to shut the hell up.”
“Shut up,” she said to him. Then “Your leman is correct. Whatever damage was done to them in our care, your people cannot cure. It was ever thus.” Her smile was both sad and weirdly proud. “What Under the Hill takes, it keeps.”
“She’s not wrong, Jan,” AJ said, his voice harsh but not entirely unkind. “You were able to save Tyler because, well, you had a stronger bond. Love trumps everything else. But you don’t have that here. We can’t even know these people have a true love to make the attempt.”
She slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the remains of some dried herbs and cotton. The sachet had worn through during the fight. The little horse was cool and smooth under her fingertips. A healing fetish. “We have to try!”
“Why?”
Jan exhaled hard and reminded herself that she wasn’t arguing with humans. AJ and Martin and the others were...well, not human. They didn’t feel the same way she did. It was getting harder to remember that, until they reminded her.
“Jan.” It was the first time Nalith had ever used her name. “I will ensure that they are cared for. They will lack for no comfort in my court. And if ever any wish their freedom or a leman comes to find them, they will be released.”
It took a true heart to break the glamour, reclaim a human who was taken. Maybe—maybe, and Jan wasn’t placing any bets on it—a true heart could keep them safe there, too.
It was as good a deal as she was going to b
e able to make, without giving something in return. Jan nodded once, still reluctant. “They’re your art,” she said softly. “Care for them.”
Nalith made a gesture, and the remaining preternaturals—far the worse for wear and war—went to the humans, tapping them on the shoulder and summoning them back to awareness. Slowly, they moved toward the mistily glowing arch of the portal and disappeared through it.
Jan remembered her own travels through the portals and swallowed hard, the sensation of tumbling through an airless void still number two in her nightmare hit list, right after being attacked by gnomes.
“Oh. The gnomes...” she said, horrified that she had forgotten, even for a moment.
“Gone to ground. Literally, it seems.” AJ was grimly satisfied by that. “The few who were still around have disappeared. Hopefully they’ll be licking their wounds for a long time, because we’re not going to forget anytime soon.”
“Nor will I,” Nalith said, equally grim, and the two exchanged looks that made Jan stop worrying about the turncoats. As tough as she liked to think she’d become, she didn’t have a patch on either one of those two.
“Fare thee well, Janet,” Nalith said. “You were a terrible servant, and I am well rid of you.”
“Go home, my lady,” Jan replied. “Put your house in order and take care of your remaining servants. I pray I never see you or your kind again.”
Not a win, not a loss. Stalemate. Or maybe, Jan thought bitterly, balance.
A few minutes later, the mist pulled into the portal’s frame and disappeared, leaving the basement empty of all save a dozen supernaturals, two humans, and a few scorch marks on the floor and ceiling where the portal had been.
* * *
“So,” Martin said, having changed back into human shape at some point during the negotiations with the preter queen. Jan hadn’t even noticed her eyes closing; she’d been so focused. “What now?”
“We need to break the portals, make it so they can never come back again,” Tyler said. He was holding Jan’s hand so tightly her fingers had gone numb, but she couldn’t bring herself to care or try to get loose. “The only way we’ll ever be safe is to break the portals.”
Jan shook her head, even as AJ said, “We can’t. We can’t even stop them from using humans again to force a portal.”
“But—” Tyler’s voice was pure pain. Whatever healing he’d hoped to find, whatever protection the sachet had given him, it hadn’t been enough, and Jan’s heart ached for him.
“We can’t stop them yet,” AJ amended. “We’ll keep working on it.”
A woman who had stayed on the outskirts with the other combatants now inserted herself into their loose huddle. She was human, Jan realized, and her face was covered with splatters of blood. “Whatever happened, the world has changed. We can’t go back. Magic can be lost, forgotten...but it can’t be unmade.” She looked at them each in turn, her eyes cold but not unfriendly. “We will always be at risk.”
A witch, like Elizabeth. How many others had been out there, in the fight? How many had died? Jan wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but knew she would have to, eventually.
“We’ve always been at risk,” Jan said. “Right now, our best hope is that Nalith, once she regains control of the court, remembers how badly she failed here, how badly they need her there—and that we know how to find her, how to hurt them, if they overstep again.”
“So, our survival is dependent on the wounded ego of a preter?” AJ was too dignified, even now, to roll his eyes, but they could hear the disbelieving exasperation in his voice.
“Yeah,” Martin said. “Funny, huh?”
“You have a sick sense of humor, swishtail.”
“You’re not the first to say that.” He leaned against Jan slightly, and she realized that he was bleeding. “It’s nothing,” he said, hearing her gasp. “I’m fine.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said and looked up to see Tyler watching both of them. He had a strange expression on his face, one she couldn’t read.
“We’re all idiots,” he said, getting closer to look at Martin’s arm. The kelpie snorted but let the humans guide him to a chair while they fussed over him.
Her best friend. Her leman. Both alive. Not right, not well, not healthy, but alive. Right then, that was all she could focus on.
“So, what now?” Martin asked again, looking over at AJ. The lupin raised his brow and shrugged. “I don’t know about the rest of you,” he said, turning briefly to look at where the portal had been, “and it may be the worst cliché in history, but I need a drink.”
Chapter 18
Three days later, the exhaustion had faded, and Jan had almost stopped jumping at shadows in the night. Almost.
She was actually quite proud of the fact that when a deep voice came out of the darkness, she only clenched the mug between her hands more tightly and kept her ass planted on the log she was sitting on.
“So, you are Jan,” that voice said.
She almost smiled at that. “I think so. I’m not really sure right now.”
It had been three days since Martin had brought her to the Center and left her there. For rest, he had said. But he had left her alone, with nothing to do but think. She was good at thinking. Less so, it seemed, at resting. Even without the tick-tick-tick of the deadline in her chest, even without the manic anxiety, once the deadline had passed, she still felt...odd.
The others at the Center left her alone, mostly. She was fed, and if she wanted to talk to someone, they didn’t exactly run away, but...these weren’t the supers she knew, the people she knew, and Jan suspected that she smelled of preter to them.
Sometimes, she thought she smelled of preter to herself, too. Preter and super and blood and dust, and not much of Jan left at all.
She went to bed each night with the carved horse pressed against her palm, wishing she were home, curled on the sofa with Tyler. Or sitting on the grass with Martin, watching niskies splash in the pond. But the Farm wasn’t home, and her apartment and Tyler’s were gone, someone else living in them now.
And Glory, who was supposed to be here, was supposed to be here, safe, and wasn’t.
If Jan couldn’t find peace here, then how could she find it anywhere?
The source of that deep voice sat on the log next to her, groaning a little as he stretched his legs out in front of him and got comfortable.
There were other campfires, all of them more social than hers, and she should have resented being approached, but she knew who the old man was.
“Once the off-natural touches you, you are never the same,” the Huntsman agreed, seemingly responding to both what she’d said and what she’d been thinking. “But that does not change who you are.”
“No. No, I guess it doesn’t.” But it changed everything else.
He didn’t seem to want to talk, so Jan went back to staring at the fire. Even though it was late autumn back home, it never seemed to get cold in the Center, just enough of a temperature drop to make it good sleeping weather. For her, anyway; she didn’t know what the various supers thought about it, but most of them had fur or scales to deal with, not bare flesh.
She missed Martin. She missed Tyler. She wondered if Nalith had anyone she missed, or if she was pleased to be reunited with her consort.
Somehow, Jan didn’t think she did, or was. Something burned in the preter, something fierce and determined, but it wasn’t a heart.
“You’re very brave,” the Huntsman said out of nowhere.
That not only made her smile but laugh. “What, you mean the ‘terrified but going forward anyway’ thing? Yeah. I got that. It’s the picking up after that’s got me stumped.”
“Ah.” It was an intensely irritating noise, the kind a teacher made when you couldn’t answer a question they thought you should know cold.
She stared into the fire, taking the little horse out of her pocket. For healing, the witch had said. And had given it to her, not the others. Jan rubbed her fingers over the
dots in the horse’s flank, along the arched mane, and then put it back in her pocket. Maybe it wasn’t magic at all. Maybe it was just...comfort.
Tyler had been invited to the Center, too. Martin would have taken them both. He had declined. She understood that, a little. He wanted to get distance, find himself in the real world, the human world.
She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. She might not have changed, but she wasn’t the same, either. And unlike Ty, she’d chosen it. Most of it. And...they weren’t all bad memories.
Except, of course, for the ones that were really bad.
Jan let out a sigh and heard the Huntsman echo it, with something that might have been a chuckle, too, as if he knew what she was thinking. He probably did.
How did you go back to an ordinary life when you’d been, however briefly, extra-ordinary? Except that was exactly what you did, apparently. The dead were buried or burned. AJ’s pack was back to stealing cars, Elsa was returning to her mountain—she was from the Appalachians, not Norway or whatever, Jan had learned with a shock—and the others were doing whatever it was they’d done before. The threat was over, life resumed.
Jan seemed to be the only one who didn’t know where she was or what to do.
“I found this,” the Huntsman said. “In the crook of a tree, in the copse of trees on the Farm when we were cleaning up.” He handed her a black plastic bag, folded flat, with something inside. She took it, opened it.
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