Seasons of Magic Volume 1

by Selina J. Eckert

  He took a few steps toward her. “But it’s not just that. Fae are cold. They care only about their families. Their bloodlines. Or at least they used to. Our interactions with you...they’re changing us, little by little. You care for each other even though you could look out only for yourselves. You build on each other in order to make yourselves stronger as a whole. You have...compassion.”

  Had humans really had that much effect on the Fae? Hallie’s thoughts drifted to the words Nathan himself had said about his father, about the older Fae who were still rooted in their traditional ways.

  And she thought of all the humans who didn’t think of each other. The ones who stepped on the backs of the weak or those with fewer resources to climb to the top. The ones who cared more about their wallets than another life.

  The ones who would get behind the wheel of a car, inebriated. Who endangered the lives of everyone they encountered rather than call a ride.

  She looked back at him, wondering how many of her thoughts were visible in her eyes.

  Enough.

  “I can see you don’t agree,” he said, turning back to his chair. He gathered up his violin and turned toward the door. “Think about it, though. I know not all humans are like that. But the same can be said for any species.”

  She bit her lip, unsure how to respond. “I suppose.”

  He nodded, taking the first step into the mist. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  And then he was gone, leaving her alone in his sanctuary.

  Hallie glanced back at the rest of the shelves, sighing. She had a long way to go.

  ***

  Hallie didn’t leave the library until the light of day dimmed and Wyn appeared at the door with Nathan and Vesque. Wyn didn’t mention the fight after breakfast, acting as if it had never happened.

  “Have you even eaten today?” Wyn demanded as soon as she entered, the Fae close on her heels. Relief flooded Hallie at the simple words. Were they talking again?

  Before she could respond, Hallie’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t even given food a thought, too consumed with reading books. All of them dead ends.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Nathan said. “I can walk you ladies to the dining room.”

  “Does that mean you’re finally going to join us for a meal?” Wyn said.

  Nathan laughed. “Not this time. I’m afraid I’ve given quite enough of myself away already. Any more, and I might lose my bargain.”

  Darn.

  Nathan turned, and the girls followed behind him in the direction of the same glade where they’d had breakfast.

  Each step brought back the words Hallie had exchanged with her friend. Wyn didn’t bring it up, but the comments sat like weights on Hallie’s shoulders. And truthfully, Hallie was still angry. How could her best, last friend accuse her of being the reason they were drifting apart? Hadn’t she tried to contact Wyn as well?

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket, pulling up the messaging app as they walked and checking the dates and timestamps on their most recent messages.

  The last ones were all centered around this disastrous trip, a flurry of messages for planning, but before that?

  Lines of texts from Wyn over the last few months. And Hallie had only responded three times.

  Maybe Wyn was right.

  Irritated, Hallie hit the power button and shoved the phone back in her pocket. The battery was low, but she’d just throw it on the night table when they got back to the demesne. She didn’t understand how, but when she’d left it on the table between their beds, she’d woken to a full battery. Weird Fae magic.

  Suddenly they were at the door to the dining room...demesne...glade thing. And then Nathan and Vesque were gone, and it was just the two of them.

  Without looking at her, Wyn led the way inside.

  Okay, so neither of them was over that fight.

  Chapter Ten

  Hallie turned over in bed yet again. She’d been trying to sleep for over an hour, but it evaded her.

  Maybe it was the dancing, floating golden pixies that drifted around the room like fireflies.

  Maybe the enormity of her task and her lack of progress.

  She glanced over at Wyn and felt the tension again, nearly palpable.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and rolled over again, willing her body to relax, her mind to stop its restless loops. It jumped from Nathan to Wyn to Kat and then cycled back again and again. Worrying about failing the bargain. Losing Kat for good. Being stuck here the rest of her life.

  Losing Wyn.

  Wyn was probably right that it was Hallie’s fault they’d started drifting apart after the funeral. And if she wasn’t careful, Hallie would end up completely alone.

  With a frustrated huff, she threw the downy white blanket off of her, dropped her feet onto the soft, cool moss carpet, and threw a robe over her shoulders. Then she was out the door, her steps silent on the spongy floor.

  The forest path was empty and quiet save for the chirping of spring peepers. One of the small frogs hopped across the path in front of her, and she sidestepped quickly to avoid it. Mist drifted as always, painted blue and silver by moonlight, and the light faded to black in the deepest reaches of the forest between demesnes.

  She cinched the belt of the robe and looked in each direction. She’d already been to the left, toward the dining glade and where she had first been brought to the Court. To the right was the library, but she hadn’t been any deeper into the forest.

  She turned right, her bare feet quickly growing cold against the damp earth of the path. She passed many demesnes, assuming they were the quarters of the nobles and perhaps some of the servants. They were marked by small steps made of roots and moss leading to thick mist between two thick trunks, just like the entrance to her own guest suite.

  She walked for at least ten minutes, and the sound of the peepers grew louder with every step. The firefly-like pixies were drifting back, too, adding their warm golden light to the cold light of the moon.

  Her feet carried her deeper into the woods. Maybe this walk in the crisp night air would soothe her spirit and allow her mind to finally rest.

  Yet, the more she walked, the more she felt her mind drift. A pixie settled on her shoulder and laid one tiny hand on her jaw, her eyes full of concern, but Hallie did her best to ignore her. And the burning tears in her own eyes.

  There was a time she’d shared a night much like this one with Kat. The girls had grown up together, had even been neighbors for years. One night when they were eleven, they snuck out after bedtime and back into the woods behind their houses. It was late summer, so the fireflies were out en masse, and Kat had brought a jar. They must have caught at least twenty of the tiny bugs, leaving them in the jar and using their light to find their fort in the woods, one tucked neatly in a small clearing. They’d stayed up until the early hours of the morning, watching the stars and talking by the light of fireflies until they were too tired to stay out a moment longer.

  The pixie fluttered off her shoulder, joining the ones flying in front of Hallie. They veered off the path onto a grassy trail shooting off to the right. She followed, curious where they might lead her.

  The grass began to speckle with what appeared to be deep purple flowers, but it was hard to actually tell the color in the moonlight. The trees turned from aspen, hemlock, and hickory into the ghostly white of birch, growing farther apart and allowing in more of the moonlight. Above her, the stars twinkled peacefully, oblivious to her mortal chaos.

  The pixies drifted forward, and Hallie followed. They climbed a small ridge, and then the forest returned.

  But this forest was different from the rest of the Court.

  The trees here were bigger, towering above those behind her, their gray trunks as wide as a car. Moss draped the thick branches like garlands, and tiny lights in blue and pink and white glittered in the fronds. About a hundred yards deeper, a small pond glimmered in the night. The trill of the peepers seemed to emanate from there.
r />   And below, between the massive trees, stood a number of stones, evenly spaced around a single large monolith.

  Hallie ventured down the hill toward the stones, the pixies fluttering around her and ahead of her, tinkling with pleased little songs. The trees seemed to reach toward her, welcoming her, and as she approached, the air grew warmer. The chirping of the frogs greeted her as she took the first steps from the grass onto the loamy earth.

  She approached the largest stone, a chunk of granite carved with intricate repeating patterns and topped with a gold statue of a Fae woman, her head bent and arms out toward the viewer. The script on the stone was in Fae, but Hallie knew enough of the language to make out some key words. It appeared this stone was a memorial to someone important, someone who had passed away during the War of the Courts. It had been a turbulent time for the Fae, when each of the seasonal courts were still young and establishing their boundaries, a bloody, violent time that no human had borne witness to.

  Could it be that the Spring Court had lost one of its royals? Who else would have such a lovely statue?

  But then again, perhaps it wasn’t a memorial at all. Just because it referenced a war didn’t mean it was for the dead. Perhaps it was simply a record, a history of the people.

  Humans knew so little about the Fae. Even in her studies she’d never learned more than the myths and legends of the Fae’s interactions with the humans.

  Besides, if the Fae could resurrect in the Spring Court, why would they need a memorial?

  Hallie settled onto a bench under one of the trees, and the pixies settled next to her. She stared at the stones, at the pond, losing herself in the same thoughts that kept her from sleeping and wondering why Fae who could resurrect would have a graveyard.

  Chapter Eleven

  Over the next few days, Hallie dove into the library with renewed vigor. But so far, all she’d come up with was dead ends.

  Except for the stones in the forest.

  A couple days before her deadline, Nathan left her alone in the library. That morning he seemed distant, sad even, and after letting her into the library, he disappeared, leaving her alone again. And Vesque was nowhere to be seen, also leaving the human to her own devices.

  The sky was overcast, so the demesne had been gray and dim when she and Wyn awoke. There was the earthy, damp scent of rain on the air, promising the sun would stay away a while longer.

  Wyn stepped into the library, burdened by a tray heavy with tea, sandwiches, and fruit. Hallie just barely saw Nathan’s form disappearing again.

  Wyn set the tray on the table. “Any progress?”

  Despite their tension, somehow Wyn still hadn’t abandoned her, and Hallie’s heart ached. She was such a terrible friend while Wyn was always there for her, no matter how badly she treated her. No matter how much she screwed up.

  Hallie sighed, stepping away from the shelf she had been staring at absently, and began pouring tea for them. “Is it really lunch already?”

  Wyn nodded. “I’ll take that as a no, then. We’re running out of time to get you out of here.”

  Butterflies—or maybe pixies—fluttered in Hallie’s stomach. She was starting to believe she’d never figure out his identity. She glanced at the real pixies floating around the room. Perhaps this would become her new home.

  Would the Fae continue this hospitality if she were a permanent resident?

  Hallie and Wyn sat across from each other munching watercress and egg sandwiches and sipping lavender honey tea. Neither one felt much like chatting, and there was no new information to discuss.

  A pixie settled on Hallie’s shoulder, the same one from the night she found the stones in the forest, and Hallie offered her a small, sad smile. Hallie pinched off a corner of her sandwich and handed it to the pixie, who smiled brightly and flitted away with it clutched between her tiny hands.

  But instead of settling somewhere to eat her lunch, the pixie went to a shelf Hallie had not yet explored, hovering next to a set of three figurines. She fluttered back and forth, her bright yellow light illuminating the shelf and making the shadows dance as she flew.

  Hallie watched and took another bite of her sandwich. What was she up to?

  The pixie flitted back to her, tapped her cheek, and fluttered back to the shelf again.

  “What’s with her?” Hallie asked.

  Wyn’s doe-brown eyes were wide, filled with the sparkling sunshine of the pixie. “I think she wants to show you something.”

  Hallie’s heart lurched. “Wouldn’t that be helping me?”

  The pixie held a tiny finger up to her rosebud lips and smiled.

  “I don’t think she cares,” Wyn said. “Besides, the pixies...they’re not really part of the Spring Court. No one can really control a pixie.”

  Hallie and Wyn crossed the mossy floor, lunches dangling forgotten from their fingers. Once they reached the shelf, the pixie flitted to the top and settled into the ivy. She took a bite of the sandwich, tilting her head sideways since the pinch of bread and egg was nearly as tall as her head.

  Hallie glanced at Wyn, then they each started at one end of the shelf, examining everything it held. Wyn pulled out each book one by one, ruffling the pages, checking the titles. Hallie picked up each knick-knack, starting with the tiny crystals and shells. Behind those, the three figures stood together, a man and woman along with a child, all Fae.

  Hallie leaned closer. The child’s features seemed familiar. The tilt of the ears, the line of the jaw.

  It was him. Nathan.

  The larger male was behind him, like an older version of Nathan. His father? And the woman next to his father—his mother?—had a tiny ring on her finger that matched the one Hallie wore, the one Nathan had carried on a chain around his neck, along with the ring that matched his father’s.

  Hallie reached for the figure, but as soon as her fingers touched it, it disappeared, replaced with a chunk of gray granite.

  She gasped and jumped back. “What just happened?”

  Wyn shoved a book back on the shelf and looked at the granite. “Oh, a glamour! Someone put a spell on the rock to display those people.”

  “So where did it go?”

  “You disrupted it by touching it. It will be back after the moon comes out.”

  Hallie reached for the granite, picking it up and examining it. It seemed like just a typical hunk of rock.

  Something behind the shelf clicked, and then the entire bookcase was swinging back on invisible hinges.

  And then they stood in the doorway to a hidden room. Another room with a single table holding one stack of books.

  Had Nathan hidden these from her? The jerk!

  Hallie stormed into the room, grabbing at the stack.

  “A History of the Spring Court. The War of Seasons,” Hallie read. She caught her breath at the last one. “Resurrection and Rebirth.”

  Wyn, who had stopped just behind her, froze, and Hallie barely even heard her breath.

  “Wyn, what is this?” Hallie breathed. Her heart was pounding like she’d just run ten miles, and she could feel anger flooding her. “How much has he been hiding from me?”

  Wyn rolled her eyes. “Hal, he’s probably hiding this from everyone. Not just you.”

  Hallie shrugged. “Still. What is it?”

  “Maybe a secret study?”

  “But his whole library is secret.”

  Wyn propped a hand on her hip. “I don’t know, Hal. But you should take the opportunity to look around before we get kicked out!”

  Of course Wyn was right. If it really was secret, there was no way Nathan would just leave them here. As soon as he realized they’d found this room, he’d probably kick them out and put some sort of glamour or spell blocking the entrance.

  Hallie sat down at the table and slid the first book toward her. If she was going to get kicked out, she had to start with the resurrection book.

  She opened to the first page, and with each word she read, her heart began pounding har
der and her excitement grew.

  Resurrection was real. And only the members of the Spring Court’s royal family could perform it. Had Nathan had this power all along?

  She thought back to his comments about how Hallie needed to understand the cost of magic. Was it about this?

  Wyn, who had grabbed the book on the War of Seasons, suddenly sat back and let out a breath. “Wow.”

  Hallie looked up. “What?”

  “Today’s the anniversary of the end of the War of Courts. How could I have forgotten that?” Wyn rubbed a hand over her face. “I shouldn’t stay away so long.”

  Hallie’s heart lurched, but she chose to ignore that comment. “So? Why is everyone acting so glum, then?”

  “You don’t understand. The war ended because the Spring Court’s queen was killed. And they surrendered to every single other Court.”

  “Oh,” Hallie said. “Wow.”

  And that explained why everyone seemed so melancholy today. No matter how long ago it had happened, they must have really loved their queen.

  Did she have any children? Sisters? Brothers? Was she married?

  On an impulse, even though she had no context for anyone in the Spring Court, Hallie grabbed the genealogy book. She looked through the index and paged to the War of Courts.

  And right there, the queen’s obituary, nearly two hundred years ago.

  She left a husband, the king, and a young son, the prince Arion, barely out of diapers.

  Where was the prince now? How had he fared without a mother? Hallie couldn’t imagine not having her mom to call whenever she wanted, to visit for a hug or a good meal.

  And at the same time, though she could never claim to understand the loss of a mother, she thought of Kat and knew a small frisson of that grief.

  Wyn’s words came back to her again, bouncing around her thoughts and reminding her how she’d neglected the people still here, the people who loved her. She had allowed the loss of Kat to destroy her relationships.