Fey Hearted

by N. E. Conneely

  As she thought about seeing her grandmother, Rose hoped the pond had a way of illuminating the images, because otherwise, she wouldn’t know if she was looking at unresponsive water or a family member. Thankfully, the water started to glow, and a pearly mist formed, just as it had last time.

  It settled into an image of Rose’s grandmother. This wasn’t the grandmother she’d left, but a much frailer version that looked completely swallowed by the bed. She covered her mouth with a tissue and coughed violently. There was no sound, which was a blessing because Rose didn’t think she could stand listening to her grandmother suffer. When she stopped coughing, she sagged against the pillows, paler than before. Rose finally looked at the rest of the image and saw a picture of herself in her grandmother’s lap. Her eyes widened and the gasp that came from her mouth seemed to suck all the air out of her.

  Grandmother’s lips were moving, and Rose wished she knew what she was saying. Suddenly, soft words were floating across the water.

  “I hope you’re happy, Rose. I hope it’s everything I told you it could be.” She coughed again. “I wish you were here. Not so you could see me like this, but so you could tell me of the wonders you’re experiencing. It is an old woman’s folly to want you here. A hundred years must pass before you are able to return, and by then I will have been gone a long time.”

  How does she—

  The picture started to fade.

  “No,” Rose whispered. “No, hold on, Grandmother.”

  “Perhaps it’s better than you seeing me like this, beaten down and dying from a little cold.”

  Grandmother coughed again and again. Rose had heard that cough before, just before her grandfather had passed away.

  When the coughing fit ended, her grandmother returned the picture to the nightstand with a shaky hand. “They don’t remember you, dear child, but I do. You always did believe in ways they couldn’t.”

  The image faded as her grandmother closed her eyes. Maybe it was the glow of the water, but Grandmother looked as pale as her sheets.

  “Come back,” Rose pleaded. “Please, come back.” Neither the pleading words nor the tears had any effect on the pond. It was simply a pool of water now.

  Rose cried until she had no more tears. Her grandmother was dying, and Rose had made one promise to her grandmother: to be there for her at the end. But this was the end, and Rose was trapped in another world.

  Not only that, but her grandmother remembered her. That shouldn’t be possible. The fey had assured Rose that her family would forget her, that they would not miss her. The fey had been wrong.

  Magic or family.

  It had been one thing to break the promise when grandmother didn’t remember her, but now…

  Rose had to go back. She wouldn’t let her grandmother down. She had to see her one last time. Then Rose would return and keep living the life her grandmother should had lived. It was what her grandmother would want.

  But how? Rose was unable to set foot in the human world for a century. However, if the fey were mistaken about the blood contract erasing memories, maybe it wouldn’t hold her here, either. Maybe no one had ever tried.

  Don’t ever give up.

  Chapter 26

  Silverlight looked at Everblue. “Are you sure Rose didn’t go to the Commons? She’s usually up by now.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Why don’t we just check her room?”

  “I usually give her privacy, but she could be ill.” Silverlight knocked as he walked in, calling out, “Rose, are you in here?”

  She wasn’t in her sitting room, so he walked around the screens. Her bed was empty, too. The screen in front of the bathroom was moved to the side, and she wasn’t in there, either.

  “You know I’m a light sleeper,” Everblue said. “I would’ve known if she walked past me.”

  Silverlight nodded. “I’m going to go check the Commons, just in case.”

  He was walking out the door when Everblue caught up to him, shrugging into a jacket. “I’m coming with you.”

  They walked quietly for a while, but halfway to the Commons, Everblue broke the silence. “What’s going on? Why are you so worried?”

  “I really shouldn’t talk about it. Dad asked me to do something and keep it a secret.” That was as much as Silverlight felt comfortable saying.

  “Will you tell me when you can?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s find Rose.”

  Silverlight nodded. When this was over, he would tell his friend everything. Hopefully Everblue would understand.

  They made it to the Commons without seeing Rose. The two exchanged a glance as they walked inside. They could tell right away that she wasn’t in the main room, either, and that certainly didn’t help Silverlight’s state of mind.

  He thought back to what he had seen at the house. There hadn’t been any sign of a disturbance in her room, but that didn’t mean a kin fey, like Dyna, hadn’t discovered the perks of subtlety and used magic to get Rose out of her room.

  “I’ll check the back,” Everblue volunteered.

  Silverlight looked around again, noticing a couple looking at him and whispering. He quickly grabbed a small basket and filled it with food. He didn’t want people to think there was something wrong—not yet anyway. It was entirely possible that Rose had gone for a walk or had taken a different way home after breakfast. It was possible, but unlikely.

  The unlikely part was what bothered him. Rose was steady and predictable. Now, the morning after Dyna told her she would be haunted by failing to solve the riddle, she’d vanished. That wasn’t like Rose. Something had happened, and Silverlight needed to figure it out before his father caught wind of it.

  Getting back to the path was easier than finding the pond had been, even without Esmeralda’s help, but it mostly had to do with the increasing light. She jogged along the path, hoping to get through the populated areas before people were up and about. It would be best if she wasn’t seen heading toward the Slitan.

  It wasn’t a short trip, but she managed it without getting lost. Standing beside the Slitan, Rose tried to figure out what to do next. There had to be a way to open the Slit, if only she could find it. She didn’t even have a memory of coming through the Slit. Silverlight had rendered her unconscious before carrying her off. She had only seen an open Slit when Ember had tossed Rebecca back into the human world, and she was sure that wasn’t the typical way a Slit was opened. Later in training she’d get to work with Slits, but that was months away. She suspected it was placed strategically to keep people from trying to slip back into the human world.

  Rose took a deep breath. There was no guarantee that she could even open the Slit. And if she managed to make it to the human world, it was even less likely that she would be able to return. If she did this, she would be leaving Silverlight, Everblue, and Alda without a single word to explain her actions. That was a pain she would never be able to fix. Even if she did make it back, she would be returning to a world where she’d broken the most important—and first—promise she had made to the fey. However, the promise to her grandmother had been made years before that and she couldn’t let it go without making every attempt to keep her word.

  Rose studied the empty space and tried to determine the best way to open the Slit. With a shrug, she tried the easiest way to get the magic to do anything. She thought about what there was to gain by going to the human world.

  Please open. I need to see my grandmother.

  Nothing happened, not even a whiff of magic. Rose asked again, but still nothing.

  There was a soft noise behind her, and she turned to see Pearl settling into a tree. The dragon cocked her head to one side and then the other.

  “Can you help?” Rose asked as Pearl lay down on the branch. “Please? I really need to get back to the human world.”

  Pearl eyed Rose and then, in a determined fashion, turned and looked at the path.

  Rose glanced behind her but didn’t see anything. If that had bee
n a hint, Pearl needed to be more obvious because Rose didn’t know how to interpret it.

  Refocusing on the Slitan, Rose tried to communicate with the magic, explain to it why this was so important to her. When more time passed without results, she tried a different set of reasons it mattered to her. This time, Rose focused less on wanting to see her grandmother and more on needing to keep a promise.

  “Please open the Slit,” Rose pleaded, hoping the magic would take pity on her.

  It didn’t work. The area was as inert as ever. She searched her brain, trying to remember if she’d read anything helpful about opening the Slit in any of the books Silverlight had given her, but her lessons had been remarkably vague on the topic.

  This was all assuming she could even go through the Slit once it was opened. The wording on the blood contract had been precise, dictating that she could not enter the human world again for a century. Even if she got the Slit open, there was no guarantee that she would be able to walk through it. She could only hope.

  “What are you doing?”

  She froze, recognizing the voice. She turned around slowly.

  Waterfall stood in front of her, arms crossed, face stern.

  Thinking hard, she tried to come up with an explanation that wasn’t suspicious, but the only ones that came to mind were outright lies and she wasn’t willing to give those voice.

  “Don’t answer. I heard enough. Come with me.” Waterfall grabbed her by the arm and marched her down the path.

  Visions of being tossed into the human world with no memory of this place flashed through her head. She only hoped that her reentry to the human world was gentler than what Rebecca had experienced. Then again, considering that her transgression was attempting to break a blood contract and escape to the human world, they could lock her up here for the rest of her life. She didn’t know if they had a jail—somehow that hadn’t come up in her lessons—but she had a feeling she might be about to find out.

  A few turns later, Rose recognized the path. They were going back to the pavilion she’d awakened in when she first arrived. There was nothing she could do but keep walking. She might be arriving for a trial or banishment, but she walked to her judgment willingly. She had brought it on herself after all.

  The pavilion was empty but for a table with three chairs behind it and a single chair opposite. Inside, Waterfall pointed her to the chair that stood on its own. Rose sat down, smelling magic—lilies and water. She tried to move her legs, to get more comfortable, but she was magically bound to the chair.

  “Now we wait,” Waterfall said.

  “What are we waiting for?” Rose asked.

  “The treis,” he said, and he walked back outside.

  Rose tried to figure out the best thing to do. If they kept her here, then her grandmother would die and a promise would be broken. If they sent her home, she would lose all memory of this place, of Silverlight and Everblue, of Pearl and Alda, but she would be with her grandmother.

  It kept coming back to the same three things: family, magic, and what Rose desired the most. She closed her eyes. It would be easiest if they sent her back. She would not remember this world, but she would get to be with her grandmother in her last days. That was worth any price, even losing the life she loved.

  After some amount of time passed—Rose wasn’t sure how much, it could’ve been a few minutes or much longer—she heard feet on the path. George, Summersky, and a male fey she didn’t recognize walked in and sat behind the table. Silverlight, Everblue, and Alda came in next, followed by Waterfall, and they stood in the corner.

  George cleared his throat. “Today we face a unique problem. Rose, a fey hearted who has been welcomed and even protected by the elemental fey, has attempted to break the blood contract and return to the human world. Summersky, Fireheart, and I will be sitting judgment. Waterfall has removed himself due to his relationship with Rose.”

  Fireheart continued where George left off. “Waterfall, could you tell us what you witnessed?”

  Waterfall stepped forward and spoke in a clear voice, but underneath, it rippled with anger. “I was out for a walk and happened to pass by the Slitan when I spotted Rose. Upon approach, I heard her attempt to open the Slit.”

  Rose tried not to listen to the rest of the explanation. It was bad enough knowing she had betrayed their trust, but it was worse hearing her actions repeated by someone else.

  When Waterfall finished speaking, the three fey whispered among themselves. Then they turned back to the room and focused on her.

  “Could you tell us of your actions this morning?” Summersky asked.

  Rose looked at them, tears gathering in her eyes. She had to give Silverlight a sign without giving the treis reason to pry further. “Cayenne, chocolate, and pie. I have only one regret, and no satisfactory explanation.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see Silverlight purse his lips, and she hoped he understood the message. He needed to know that none of this was his fault. He had done nothing to make her take this course of action. Even without the pond, Rose simply would have tracked down Dyna and gotten the sphinx to give her more information, even if it was in riddle form.

  The three members of the treis glanced at one another before returning their attention to her.

  “Would you care to offer an unsatisfactory explanation?” Fireheart asked.

  “I wanted to visit the human world, just for a night.”

  “Why?” Summersky pressed.

  Rose shook her head. She couldn’t mention the riddle. Not because she had been forbidden to work on it, but because they would ask how she was sure it meant that her grandmother was in danger. The only way to prove that would involve Silverlight and the pool, and she would not volunteer that information and risk him being punished for an act of compassion.

  “What of the blood contract you signed when you agreed to stay here?” George demanded.

  “After this one trip back, I intended to honor it,” Rose said.

  No one spoke for a moment. Then Summersky cleared her throat. “We must now consider the proper punishment. While this has happened before, it was never so far into a fey hearted’s stay, and never with one whom the elementals so clearly supported.”

  “Yes, but what would be the correct punishment?” Fireheart asked. “It seems that sending her to the human world would be more a reward than a punishment. At the same time, the elementals will not allow someone to reside here if they are unhappy.”

  “Send her back,” George said. “We’ve wasted too much time on someone who doesn’t understand the gift they were given.”

  “That was harsh,” Summersky said. “We are all fallible, and she is hardly more than a child.”

  While the three of them paused, Alda stepped forward. “I would like to speak for Rose.”

  The others looked surprised, but Summersky waved her hand. “Proceed.”

  “Rose has been an example of everything we look for in the fey hearted. She has taken to this life as if it were the one she was born into, and unlike most of you, she had to learn everything in a short period of time after giving up her family and her entire world. To judge her on one choice is hardly fair. Unlike you, I can say that leaving your home is traumatic, and while you learn to live without the people left behind, you never get over the loss.”

  Rose bit her lip. She’d known Alda was a fey hearted, but the woman had never spoken of her time in the human world or her transition into this world.

  George started to speak, but Alda talked over him. “You don’t get an opinion on this one, George. You’ve been very vocal about having no regrets in leaving your previous life behind, in no small part because you didn’t have a single family member or close friend to mourn.”

  “Alda, you do not have the right to disrespect a member of this panel,” Fireheart said. He shifted his attention to Rose. “Waterfall, confine Rose in a room in the healing house. Direct Moonbeam to look in on her from time to time. A mental examination may be p
rudent, as well. We will reconvene when a decision has been reached.”

  Waterfall walked over and the bonds holding Rose to the chair vanished. She stood up before he could pull her out of the chair and started down the path. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her friends as she walked away, afraid of what she would see in their faces.

  When they were outside, Waterfall spoke softly. “You can walk on your own as long as you don’t cause any trouble.”

  Rose nodded once and kept moving. She wished he would talk to her, wished he had talked to her before summoning the others. In all the time they’d been bringing humans here, at least one other person must have tried to return to the human world for a similar reason. With the difficulty his own wife had experienced in adjusting to the fey life, she would have thought he’d have been more understanding.

  There was one thing Rose was sure of, though. She had to find a way to her grandmother. Hopefully Silverlight had gotten her message and would help her. If anyone understood the power of love, he did.

  Chapter 27

  When Waterfall led Rose away, Alda grabbed onto Silverlight and Everblue. She made them wait until the panel left before guiding them out of the pavilion.

  Silverlight couldn’t understand how his morning had spiraled out of control. One moment he had been standing in the living room with Everblue debating where Rose could be, and the next, Fireheart was barging into their living room and telling them Rose had attempted to violate her blood contract. He wasn’t sure how Alda had heard about the problem, but the next thing he knew, she was by his side.

  It was a good thing, too. Without her watchful eye, he would have said something unforgivable to his father. Of all the ways Waterfall could have handled this incident, he had chosen the one that was guaranteed to get Rose in trouble.

  Silverlight started paying attention when Alda guided them past his house. She shoved them into hers, with a quick look around to make sure no one was there.