by Ruth Vincent
“Mab, you have nothing to apologize for. You said it yourself; you didn’t know. You thought it was me.”
“I should have known. I shouldn’t have let myself get fooled by that.”
“How would you have known? Anyone can be fooled by a spell. Anyone. How do you think the fairies kidnapped me when I was a child? One of them looked just like my mother; that’s why I went with them. I thought she’d come back for me. Anyone can be fooled by magic.”
“Still,” I said. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “But when I said it killed me, Mab, it was because I knew he’d hurt you. Why do you think I wanted to stay and find him, and kill him? Because I wanted to hurt him for hurting you. The butler who’s been bringing me meals told me about what you did, sparing him from execution, putting him in life imprisonment instead. That was noble. I never could have done that. I would have killed him. Tortured him, and made him suffer, made him pay for what he did, and then killed him.”
“Killing Korvus wouldn’t have made you feel better, or me either,” I muttered into my hands.
“You’re probably right,” he acknowledged. “But still. I would have.” He threw his hands up into the air helplessly. “I want to do something to make this better, and there’s nothing, nothing, I can do!”
We were silent for a long moment, looking at each other.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner,” I said. “I’m sorry I avoided you. I just didn’t know what to say. I thought you’d be angry at me.”
Obadiah shook his head silently.
“I mean, I . . .” I swallowed hard, barely able to say the word. “I guess I cheated on you.”
“It’s not cheating if you think you’re sleeping with your own boyfriend,” Obadiah countered.
“But it ended up the same, didn’t it?”
Obadiah studied my face silently for a moment; at last he spoke.
“Hell, Mab, I’m just glad you’re alive. You shouldn’t fault yourself for . . .”
“But I do,” I cried.
He was silent for a long time.
“You’re sure you’re not mad at me?” I whispered.
“I’m not mad. I’m mad at Korvus; I want to murder him. But never you.”
I didn’t believe him.
How could he not be mad at me, when I was so mad at myself?
“You’re hurting more than I could ever imagine.” He reached out to me, and I met his hand, holding it, his fingers interlacing with mine. “But what’s killing me is how you’re pulling away from me right now because of this. Please, let me help make it better.”
I sat down on the bed; he sat down next to me. Slowly, tentatively, I lay my head against his shoulder. I felt his sigh, a slow lowering of his chest against my cheek. He began to stroke my hair.
“I thought I was never going to see you again when Korvus captured me. I thought he would kill us both. This sucks, Mab, but we’re alive. We can go on. We can get past this.”
“But it may take a while.”
I tilted my head, looking up at him, and for the first time, I saw light in his eyes again.
“The first step, though, is that you have to forgive yourself.”
I said nothing, staring down at the floor.
“If you can forgive that bastard Korvus, can’t you forgive yourself?” he said.
Wiping my eyes, I nodded, then fell into his arms, letting him hold me at last, wondering why on earth I’d thought to deny myself his love.
We spent the night in my mother’s guest room. The unfamiliar bed and sterile sheen of the polished agate floors was like being in a hotel, somewhere far from home. I laid down on the catkin coverlet in bone-deep exhaustion. Obadiah laid down next to me. He didn’t touch me more than I wanted to be touched, just lay with his body pressed against my back, his arm arched protectively over me, chin against my shoulder. We lay there silently, and I found the constant presence of his body next to mine was more comforting than any words that could be said. At last I fell into a heavy sleep. When the pale blue light of dawn woke me early in the morning, Obadiah’s arms were still around me.
The morning sun made me feel better. Not good, but able to function. I said goodbye to my mother, marveling at how rosy her cheeks looked. For the first time, I was leaving her without feeling guilty, because she was going to be all right. The next time I visited, it would be out of choice rather than necessity. The Queen and Obadiah bade each other, stiffly formal but not hostile, goodbye as well. I could tell my mother was trying to accept him, and it touched me to see her effort.
We walked outside into a little courtyard, where we would have a bit of privacy.
I looked over my shoulder to where my mother had disappeared behind the doors to the Great Hall. “I’m glad to see the Queen warming to you,” I said. “Well, maybe not warming, but at least being more cordial.”
“Yes, she is,” Obadiah said as we walked along the garden path. “I would have been satisfied with her just not trying to kill me; it’s been a delightful surprise.” He cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. “I think it’s just that she cares about you so much. We had a long talk yesterday, while you were sleeping.”
“Really? What did you talk about?”
“She told me my hand shaking and the weakness will get better over time—it’s not Elixir Thirst after all. She said it’s just withdrawal symptoms that came from drinking Elixir as a halfling. Because I make my own Elixir, like Korvus said, I don’t need to drink it—so it was like a drug to me. But once all the Elixir I drank is out of my system, all the symptoms should go away. Apparently it’s a common problem that happens to half fairies; I didn’t know, being the only one I’ve ever met.”
“I’m so glad you’re going to get well.”
I threw my arms around him and he held me close.
When we pulled back, he pointed to the open clearing in the middle of the Queen’s garden.
“This looks like as good a place as any to do the transfer and go back to the human world. Are you ready?”
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the Vale Cleaver. The Queen had given it back to me; Korvus had taken it from Obadiah when he captured him, and her guards had taken it in turn from him when they raided his dwelling.
I turned the blade over in my hands, watching the way the shifting light glinted on the crescent moon handle and the smooth polished flat of the stone.
“I’m ready,” I said to Obadiah.
He held tightly onto one of my hands as I raised the knife with the other. Hopefully the hand-contact would keep us together when I passed the ceremonial knife to him and we fell.
Looking down at the stone blade in my hands this time, I didn’t feel so afraid.
It wasn’t like I felt completely calm. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the feeling of safely stabbing myself with a six-inch knife, but my heart wasn’t racing with the terror of the unknown anymore.
Closing my eyes, I thought of my fairy self. The memory was so fresh now.
I’ll see you soon, I told her, but right now, I need to go see my human friends.
With a yell for courage, I plunged the blade into my heart.
Reality smacked me in the form of hard concrete and I opened my eyes, blinking. We were in Times Square, huddled together on the median. Obadiah was still squeezing my hand. I rose to my feet shakily.
“It worked,” he said.
I patted my body, making sure I was still solid, then patted the sidewalk, making sure that this was real.
Taxi cabs swerved around us, yellow streaks with blaring horns, and Obadiah protectively edged me back towards the median.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” he said.
Taking his hand, we made our way shakily down the steps to the subway.
When Eva answered the door to our apartment, she didn’t say anything. She just threw her arms around me, squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe. She held me for a minu
te or so, and when she let go and our eyes met, I saw that her lashes were wet.
“I was so worried about you,” she whispered.
I felt a pang of guilt in my chest, feeling like I should have said a better goodbye before I left. I’d left her a note saying I had to go to the Vale for a few days and not to call my parents. But my phone hadn’t worked down there. She’d probably been worried sick.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
She hugged me again.
“It’s okay. You had to do what you had to do. I’m just glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” I sighed.
Eva gave Obadiah a hug as well, reaching up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck. She’d accepted him as a part of my life, and truthfully I think she was glad there was someone else besides her now watching out for me.
“Well, I’m making breakfast; you guys want?” Eva asked, busying herself in the kitchen. We both said yes at the same time and smiled. We never said no to Eva’s cooking. As Eva began to pull cooking implements from the cabinet, she cast a sidelong glance at me.
“You okay, Mab?”
“Okay” was such a relative term.
She must have heard my answer in my silence.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Later,” I said, and she backed off, knowing I would eventually keep my word. “Let’s eat first. I need a little bit of reality.”
Obadiah and I helped Eva make one of her traditional Dominican breakfasts: mashed plantains, fried salami, queso frito and sunny-side-up eggs. The sizzling aroma in the kitchen, coupled with the scent of Eva’s sweet, strong coffee, was close to heaven. We crowded around the little IKEA table with our heaping plates. For a long while, we couldn’t even talk; the three of us just munched silently together, occasionally punctuated by a small moan of satisfaction.
“The Fey don’t know what they’re missing,” I said at last, “not eating stuff like this.”
Obadiah made a noise of agreement, his mouth full.
Eva beamed.
As we leaned back in our chairs at last in full-bellied contentment, I shared with Eva about the cure I had in my blood, how it could save countless fairies, and how the Queen had agreed to free her captives.
“Thank god.” Eva breathed a long sigh. I knew she’d had nightmares of all those death-still little faces as well. “You did it; you really did it.”
I smiled at her, a little weakly. I hadn’t told her yet what the cost had been.
“There’s one more thing, though,” I said to her. “I think I may have also found the cure for girls like Quinn.”
Eva’s eyebrows raised.
“If I carry both the X-factor and the Y-factor, enough to synthesize Elixir, and anyone who receives from me can make their own, then it would be logical that someone like Quinn, who had their X-factor stolen from them, could get it replaced, if she got a donation from me.”
Eva nodded, wide-eyed.
Obadiah steepled his fingers, thinking.
“They won’t just be getting X-factor from you, though,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “I thought of that.”
“What do you mean?” Eva asked.
“I mean that if I donate to Quinn, I’ll be giving her missing X-factor back, but I’ll also be giving her my Y-factor. I’ll be giving her the ability to do fairy magic.”
The three of us looked at each other in silence for a while, processing the magnitude of what this could mean.
“It would be the first time in history that someone who was born fully mortal suddenly has innate magical powers, just like a fairy has,” said Obadiah, “just like the immortal witches in the Vale have.”
“Oh my god,” Eva whispered.
“I know,” I said. “It’s world-changing.”
“Even I couldn’t give people that when I gave them my Elixir,” Obadiah spoke up. “All I could give them was temporary, minor abilities. But this would be unlimited power, just grafted onto a mortal body.”
“My mother will have kittens if she finds out I’ve done this,” I said, laughing, but only on the outside.
“But by then it will be too late,” Obadiah replied.
“Mab, are you sure this is a good idea?” Eva asked.
“No,” I said. “But it’s the only way I can possibly see to cure what’s wrong with Quinn and those other girls. Korvus stole something from them, and we have the ability to give it back. Shouldn’t we do it? I mean, god forbid, if Quinn were to . . .” I didn’t want to say “kill herself,” but I could tell Eva and Obadiah knew what I was thinking. “It’s worth taking the risk, isn’t it?”
Slowly, both of them nodded.
“We’d tell her, though. She should know exactly what it is she’d be taking on, so she could make an informed choice. If she doesn’t want it, I won’t push it on her.”
“But she will want it,” Eva said quietly, and we all looked at her.
“Quinn is a witch, like me. She’s probably been trying to do magic for years, buying crystals and herbs at little new-agey bookstores, and staying up late reading spell books under the covers with a flashlight where her mom couldn’t see. And now you’re about to come tell her that the power is absolutely real, and she can have it?”
“She might say no,” said Obadiah. “She might be too scared to wield power like that. If she’s scared, it means she’s wise. Any person with any sense would be scared of that kind of power.”
“Still, we have to give her a choice.”
He was right, though. Suddenly having power, especially without the immortality that usually accompanied it, could be dangerous. I didn’t want to be giving Quinn something that could get her killed.
“She needs a magic mentor,” I mused. “Someone who can help her learn to work with these new abilities. But I don’t know if any of the fairies in the Vale would sign up for something like that. They wouldn’t trust her; they wouldn’t know what to do with her as a mortal. I wish there was someone here.”
“You can make someone,” said Eva, and I looked up at her, the possibility of what she was suggesting dawning on me.
“I mean, you’re making the donation of the X/Y-factors to Quinn because she’s sick and she needs it. But you could give the same donation to someone who is well, and who is more experienced and could handle it better. And might really be able to mentor Quinn.”
“Tiffany,” we both said at once.
I thought of the vivacious, dark-haired leader of Eva’s group. Tiffany might be human, but the magic I’d seen her tap into the night of the ritual was real. I’d never forget the way her eyes had glowed with otherworldly light, the way she’d spoken with another’s voice. And instinctively I trusted her. She took her responsibilities seriously. She could mentor people like Quinn and anyone else from Korvus’ list who’d been affected. Thinking of my conversation with her at their ritual, I knew in my bones I could trust Tiffany. She might be a little “out there,” as Eva would say, but oddly enough, underneath all her Renaissance fair clothing and lopsided grins and cackling laughter, there was a maturity, a groundedness, a strength. I couldn’t think of a better human candidate for handling power. Well, except maybe Reggie, but I couldn’t go there with him. Magic definitely required someone humble, honest, strong. And then it hit me, and I was embarrassed I hadn’t thought of it before.
“Eva,” I said, and she looked up at me questioningly.
“It should be you.”
“What?” She still didn’t seem to understand, or maybe she did and her mind just couldn’t accept it.
“I can’t think of a better candidate for magic, a better mentor, than you.”
When I looked up at Obadiah, he was nodding in agreement.
Eva blushed. “I can’t,” she said. “There are so many people in our group who would be better candidates than me. They’ve been involved longer, they’re more experienced, they’re better at it.”
“The fact that you say t
hat is all the more reason it should be you,” Obadiah interjected. “I’d be terrified to give this level of power to someone arrogant.”
Eva looked up at us. I could tell she was scared, but her eyes were shining.
“I can’t believe you would trust me with that.”
“I can’t think of anyone I trust more,” I said quietly, “than the people sitting at this table. Obadiah and I already got ours. You deserve it too.”
Eva smiled sheepishly. “Oh god, how am I ever going to break this to my grandmother?” she said, and then laughed.
She turned back to us, a look of hesitant acceptance in her eyes.
“Okay, but if I say yes, you need to give it to Tiffany as well. I need a mentor too.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Remember, you’ve got me also. We’re in this together.”
When I came in to work, Reggie was exactly the same. There was something deeply comforting about that, I realized. Everything else in life could be thrown upside down, but Reggie was always Reggie, despite how much the world changed around him.
He offered me his usual office breakfast, but today I declined. “I’ll pop if I eat anything more—Eva already took care of that,” I protested as he tried to thrust a bagel into my hand.
We sat down at his desk together.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” I began, “but I think I may have some ideas for how to help Quinn.”
Reggie’s furry eyebrows rose. “Do tell,” he said. “I’d pretty much given up on that case. What the kid has is a mental health issue. I was going to call her mother back and tell her there wasn’t anything we could do for her, that she’d be better off trying elsewhere.”
“I’m not sure if it’ll work, but there’s something I’d like to try. If you could call Mrs. Sheffield and ask for another meeting tomorrow, I’d appreciate that. I’d like to talk to Quinn one more time. It needs to be in person. There’s something I want to try.”
Reggie jotted something down on a legal pad.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked.
“I’m really sorry, but would it be alright if I don’t talk about it yet? I just . . . I want to try something different. An experiment. See if it works . . .”