by Keith Walter
He was leaning slightly into the center aisle as if preparing to run at any moment. His eyes remained fixed ahead, watching everyone with cold eyes. She understood the gravity of the situation, but watching him was almost sad. He would probably spend the whole trip in silence, just staring ahead like some golem. She couldn’t stand that. “I was once a homemaker,” she whispered, forcing Charles to turn and lean in to hear.
“Homemaker?” Charles repeated as if he didn’t quite understand.
“Yes, I constructed homes,” Leslie replied, not understanding any other meaning of the word. “My clan is—was—a clan of homemakers. We constructed modest homes to lavish mansions for the fey around us. We were not wealthy by most standards, but we were respected for our craftsmanship.”
“That sounds a lot better than what we are at the moment,” Charles said and sighed.
A smile crept across Leslies face. “Yes, I was very happy growing up. Looking back now, I know that I overlooked a lot of troubling things to be that happy.”
“You mean the converts?” Charles asked. He had wondered just how a pureblood like Leslie could consider herself family with converts, and he couldn’t hide his interest now.
“While I was working on a manor house, I once saw a servant collapse in the middle of the yard.” Her voice turned distant. “I didn’t take the time to notice how emaciated and frail they were. Even as I helped him up, there was a defeat in his eyes that should have spoken to me. I just ignored it and took the clan head’s word that good help was very hard to find.”
“Hard to find or hard to keep alive,” Charles finished with a scoff.
“Too often we ignore what is in front of us because it would be inconvenient to really see, to recognize our own role in the problem,” Leslie thought out loud. “I am not so naive as to think the world is an easy place, or that there is much in the form of justice. But I can’t look away anymore.” Catching Charles’s eyes, she explained, “I can’t be the person I want to be, the person worthy of all I have, unless I do whatever it takes to help those around me.”
“That is a hard line to hold,” Charles replied. His eyes dropped to the floor as his own memories overtook his thoughts. “But sometimes I’m not sure if that makes a difference. There’s so much wrong in the world, and I’m just one fey. A lifetime ago I was so much more.” He paused, remembering how dangerous it was to even talk about. “But everything I do now seems to put me one step backward.” His hand unconsciously rubbed his chest. “I don’t know if I have the strength to follow through.”
“How many lifetimes do you plan on living, Charles?” Leslie asked with amusement in her eyes. “Seasons change. We all change.” Sighing, her heart went out to the broken tone in her companion’s voice. “You can’t blame yourself if it doesn’t snow in summer. And you can’t blame yourself for being different than you once were. You can only move forward with what you have, what you can do, in the moment.”
“Forward, huh?” Charles contemplated. It had been years since he had considered a real future. Running, surviving, and escaping had been his world for so long it hurt to think of other ways. The future always made him think of Alistair, and the promise he’d failed to live up to. “I never intended to run away,” he admittedly almost shamefully. “Like you said, I didn’t want to see what was right in front of me. The signs were all there, but I felt important and needed. Gods, I feel so stupid now. I thought I was making a difference.”
Leslie laid a hand on Charles’s shoulder for comfort, preparing him more than herself for the hard question she knew he didn’t want to answer. “So what changed?”
“I got hurt,” Charles replied in a husky voice, his hand trying to massage away a growing ache in his chest. “Suddenly I wasn’t so important anymore, and the powers that be thought it would be easier to get rid of me. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t have even known, but a friend of mine happened to catch word. They managed to get me out and—” Charles pushed back the emotions in his voice “—I thought that would be the end of it.”
“It is often the case that freedom is only the beginning of our problems,” Leslie replied, her own eyes starting to sting as she thought of the many in her family who were completely lost even after their escape.
“The life I had once known ended that night,” Charles choked out. “Before I knew it, my friend and I were surrounded, not as well escaped as we thought.” He took a deep breath to clear his head. “I wanted to fight, but we were hopelessly outnumbered. My friend didn’t believe anything was hopeless. So he made me promise that if either of us lived, we’d make it count. We’d keep moving, and make right all the things we’d ignored for so long.”
Leslie gasped as the pieces fell into place. “They didn’t make it.”
“My friend was brilliant, always a step ahead of our enemies—and ten steps ahead of me.” Leaning back against the faded seat cushion, he stared at the roof of the bus.
Leslie let the words sink in, hearing what Charles couldn’t bring himself to say. “Your friend didn’t just…die,” she whispered, “they sacrificed themself for you.”
“That promise was the only thing that kept me going for so many years,” Charles continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Yesterday I broke it. I finally admitted what I had always thought. It would have been better if my friend survived and I died that night.”
Leslie recognized the same emotions in dozens of converts she had helped. Many times only parts of families could get out, and the consequences for those that stayed were severe. “Do you think that they would agree with you? Knowing now all that you have gone through, would you really wish that on your friend?”
Charles paused for a moment before letting a out a defeated, “No.” Alistair was the smartest fey Charles had ever known. Charles didn’t trust himself to have thought through the decision any better, and he sure as hell wouldn’t wish this life on his best friend. But then, Alistair would not be stuck in the same situation. He was more likely to be powerful and a step ahead. Like many times before, Charles just couldn’t understand his friend’s endgame.
Silence hung in the air as the bus rumbled along the city street. “That’s why you’re helping us,” Leslie broke in. “You don’t know how, but you’re still trying to live up to your promise.” She squeezed his shoulder, forcing him to look at her. “I was wrong,” she stated flatly. “You do know what family is.”
“We weren’t…” Charles shrank back, his posture closing in defensively.
“You’ve put enormous faith in this friend of yours. Even years later, you’ve put your entire life in their hands. Your willing to put yourself in harm’s way, in apparently a weakened condition, just for their acceptance.” She smiled. “That’s family. I was wrong to say you don’t care. I see now you are doing things for the same reason I am. I can trust a fey who is fighting for his family.”
Dredging up the memories felt draining, but Charles realized how much lighter he felt in Leslie’s presence. He hadn’t considered how similar they might be, and was begrudgingly glad she had gotten him to talk. “I’m not like you all,” he reiterated. “The form you saw last night was kind of a one-time deal. Every time I use it, the next is more likely to kill me. And while what I did to those soldiers comes back every time I close my eyes, I can’t pretend I wouldn’t do it again if I thought it was the only way.” Sighing, he added, “I can’t offer what you really need.”
“Your experience,” Leslie shot back, “is invaluable at the moment.” She tugged on the lapel of her jacket for emphasis. “We don’t need you to be someone you are not. This is more than enough.”
“If I could help you and your family,” Charles thought out loud, “then maybe I could try to get back to that promise, for whatever time I have left.”
“You don’t think this plan will work,” Leslie stated bluntly.
“No.” Charles had no desire to lie. “I think that you will get out of this city and head south, but running has a way of wearing you out. Littl
e mistakes are all it will take for the Union to find you, and they will never stop looking.”
Leslie smiled. “Charles, I imagine you were once a man who saw the world in black and white. There were those on your side and those against you. You said before that you didn’t look close enough, but that doesn’t mean that everything you missed was bad. I am prone to thinking that way as well, but it would be a mistake to assume everyone in the Union thinks as the tyrants at the top do.”
“Are you talking about some sort of resistance?” Charles declared hotly. “You can’t fight the Union. They would wipe you out.”
Leslie brushed off his words. “Again, you are only looking at things like a conflict. The Union’s views are not shared amongst all of its people. I would dare say that its current views are only shared by those in power. Talk to fey not in the military or grip of a wealthy clan, and there is a different story. We must always be careful who we trust, but just as you’ve shown, there are others worth trusting.”
Charles was a little overwhelmed. “You’re saying someone else might take you in, hide you?”
“For now, we run,” Leslie said resolutely, “as far south as we can. But, I will keep all my options open as we go.”
This was becoming too much for Charles. Hadn’t he tried something similar in the beginning? But the Union was too devious, too cruel. He still remembered the sad resignation in the eyes of former comrades, fey too weary to keep up the fight. Glancing at Leslie, he hoped she and her family had better luck. Thinking of better luck, he wondered how Barclay was doing with his so called connections.
CHAPTER SEVEN:
Nothing Like a Good Plan
Barclay gave Charles and Leslie a few minutes’ head start before securing the small wooden gangplank connecting to the dock. He scanned the docks once, just to make sure the pair weren’t just sitting around arguing with each other. He wasn’t entirely sure how easy Charles would be to deal with, but he was confident Leslie cared too much for the band of converts on board to let it ruin their mission. Just as Barclay stepped onto the gangplank, a familiar voice rang out.
“Ahoy, there!” a scruffy man yelled from the Port Erie dockside.
The hoarse voice caused a grin to spread across Barclay’s face. Before he could reply, a short auburn blur flew past him and dropped to touch the docks at her feet. Fire elements were always amusing in their first moments back on shore. Barclay strode across the plank and ignored the deeply grateful young woman breathing in the scent of dry land. He sized up the younger man at the docks, noting the too-clean scrapes around the man’s elbows, the purposely unkempt beard, and what looked to be brand-new boots dusted with dirt. “You’re a sorry excuse for a lookout, Windum.”
The man, Windum, grinned from ear to ear. He swung out his right hand as Barclay mirrored the motion. Arms slapped together with a crash, and both held tight to the other’s wrist. A short jolt of magic from palm to wrist confirmed the identities of both parties. Windum held a moment longer than necessary. “What gave me away, Captain?”
Barclay reached up to the other man’s face and squeezed the unkempt beard. Windum shimmered momentarily before the glamour spell disappeared. Suddenly Windum was wearing a brand-new sailing jacket—royal blue—with spotless boots and a perfectly clean-shaven chin. “You’re the only man I know who polishes his boots before tryin’ to make ’em look dirty.”
The man chuckled. “Give me a break. Unlike your little enterprise, we run things smooth out here.” He jerked one thumb toward the ship at their sides. “It’s only when a big honker like this comes in with no warning, refusing to answer our calls, that we get a little concerned.”
“You didn’t call the authorities on us, did you?” Barclay demanded.
“Have a little more faith in me, Captain. We didn’t know it was you, certainly not in this beast. But we know the benefits of a subtle approach.” Windum leaned in, lowering his voice. “Though word is you had a bit of trouble out there.”
“How much have you heard?” Barclay asked. Windum was a good man, a good soldier, and one of a handful of people that Barclay trusted implicitly. He didn’t know everyone at these docks, though, and didn’t want to think that he might be busted before his plans could take form.
Windum pointed both hands at himself. “Enough that I’m out here greeting arrivals instead of relaxing inside with a drink. Enough that I ignored your friends not-very-stealthily jumping ship before you fully pulled in.” He held up a hand before Barclay could ask more. “The Union’s been spewing their normal rhetoric, which I assume is bullshit. Still, when I get a call in the middle of the night asking about my dear captain, I can guess it’s pretty bad. The regulars only know what the Union’s telling the world, so only my most trusted men are in the office today.”
A sigh of relief escaped Barclay’s lips. “Good work. I just wish I could pay you back for this.”
“After all the times you’ve pulled me from the fire, it’s the least I can do.” Poking his head around Barclay, the well-dressed man stared at the woman on the ground before giving the side eye. “You running with a bunch of greenies, Captain?”
Barclay noticed Serin perk up at being called a greeny. Her eyes locked with Windum’s and glared hard. Windum smiled in reply, taking in the woman’s brown eyes (with a hint of red), button nose, and well-tanned complexion. Cutting off the staring contest, Barclay amended, “They ain’t green anymore.”
Windum stepped toward Serin, and she leapt to her feet quickly. He held out his right arm in the same position as he had held with Barclay. Serin raised an eyebrow, but caught Barclay nodding toward the offered arm. Serin reached out and grasped the taller man’s wrist as he did the same. She felt a warm pulse of magic from his palm and followed suit. When she tried to let go, Windum suddenly grasped tighter, looking at her quizzically. She looked to Barclay, who let out a forced cough and swung two fingers in a forward roll from his chin, indicating for her to talk. “Oh! My name is Serin Adelaide Fortier.”
Windum returned back to a smile and eased the pressure on her wrist, “Windum Bartholomew Chase.” He allowed her to take back her wrist, but caught her fingers. Suddenly, he bent forward in a half bow, pulling her fingers close to his lips. “I must say, it is a pleasure to meet such a striking young lady as yourself.”
Before Windum could bring her hand to his lips, Barclay grabbed him by the back of his collar and pulled up straight. “Cool it, pretty boy. She’s already bonded.”
Windum dropped the small hand from his own quickly. He glanced from Serin to Barclay and back several times suspiciously. Finally, his face broke into a lopsided grin as he spoke. “I never figured you to be one to settle down, Captain.” He nodded to Serin, keeping his eyes on Barclay “What have you got, a couple centuries on her?”
Barclay bristled and Serin gaped at the accusation. “Me?” Serin shouted. “And him?”
The twinkle in Windum’s eye gave him away, and Barclay placed a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “He’s just teasing you.” He let her go and immediately began walking toward the office building near the end of the dock. Windum winked at her before turning around and matching pace. Serin stewed for several seconds before racing to catch up. Barclay turned enough to catch her eye, adding, “You should probably stop hiding your bond. The fellas will respect what that really means.”
Serin seemed to consider it. Leslie must’ve already told her that he’d sussed out their relationship, and Barclay hoped he had proven himself trustworthy. However, she didn’t know Windum, or the rest of the men here. Revealing the bond would reveal more than just her entanglement with another fey, and he assumed the secret she kept from authorities in the fey cities was rarely well received.
Serin clasped her wrists in her hands, speaking a few soft words. A glow erupted under her palms before fading. Tentatively she released her wrists, and green tattoos appeared on both arms. Two female figures in long robes wrapping around each wrist held each other in tender embrace. The
crests of Fortier and Ertrum were sewn into each dress, respectively.
Windum glanced back briefly, noting the bond symbols. He turned away and huffed. As he opened his mouth, and Barclay saw Serin prepared for the worst, but she seemed relieved instead when Windum spoke. “I tell you, Captain, kids these days are all so secretive. And here I thought we’d won the war to be free.”
Barclay felt the presence of half a dozen fey behind the office door. Each he recognized easily, glad some relationships managed to remain after all these years. He stood behind Windum as the younger man entered first. As expected, six men stood to attention upon their entrance. When Windum gave them a thumbs up, the men snapped to salute in unison, dropping it after a long second. The room was suddenly loud as each called greetings. “Captain, it’s great to see you!” “Captain, you never visit!” “Captain, who’s the lady?” “Captain, what can we do for you?” “Captain!” “Captain!”
It felt nice to be around people he knew, people he could trust. Back at Ulsimore’s place, he made it a point not to keep up with anyone he had known from the old world. Remembering the good times had a nasty habit of bringing up the bad. But he held other concerns about getting too close. He had already spoken too freely. Being around people you could trust made you sloppy. One day you’d say or do the wrong thing around the wrong person, and then you’d have the Union crawling all over your nice little enterprise. That Windum had kept everyone together while keeping the Union off their backs was a testament to his leadership. Barclay held up a hand to quiet the crowd. “It’s good to see you, too, men. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a hell of a day, and yer ugly mugs are a sight for sore eyes.”
A loud “Here, here!” erupted in response.
Barclay glanced at Windum and received a nod in return. “But listen up. I’ve got the Union on my tail and a crew on board that freighter to take care of. I trust that you men understand the gravity of the situation.” He scanned each face in front of him, each set with determination. “I’m gonna work out battle plans with our strategist here—” he nodded at Windum “—but once that’s settled, we’ll have a drink like old times.” The men cheered once more.