A Study in Spirits

by Byrd Nash

  The black-tie affair meant the library would be closed temporarily to students, but that needn’t matter. Bandemer instructed Burkhalter to inform the smaller library annexes around the campus to shoulder the overflow of students.

  “If they dare to complain, refer them to my office.”

  He wanted the heavy library tables and their chairs removed from the nave. The central area would need to accommodate, not only the top-tiered guests (all receiving gold-engraved invitations from his office so she needn’t worry about that), but also the musicians, the ballet dancers, tables for food, and the servers.

  He would need a smaller select venue. A place where he could enjoy a one-on-one wine tasting for a few, well-chosen individuals. An intimate atmosphere. Perhaps the vestry?

  Burkhalter showed no evident dismay at the chancellor’s demands. If the smallest muscles around the corners of her mouth tightened, it was so insignificant as to cause no comment.

  She was a tall, athletic woman, maybe an inch taller than the chancellor despite him wearing his red-heeled shoes. Her honey-blond hair lay smooth against her head, and it was all contained in a tidy bun at the base of a long neck. She had a rectangular face, with features sharp enough to cut, and eyes that would drown you without a protest.

  After an hour of listening to Bandemer’s vision, he seemed to be winding down. Burkhalter said in a self-deprecating murmur, “Would you like to see the most important guest of the party? The 12th century illuminated manuscripts?”

  At long last, the library had received a valuable collection of illuminated manuscripts. The gift promised to the university in a will of an alumnus, had been delayed due to court battles. Now that the university had won in the highest court, the transfer happened over the summer.

  “Staff is still cataloging what we’ve received and assessing its providence. It will probably take a lifetime to know all of what we’ve received by this generous gift. Of course, the entire collection will never be fully on display. Permission will be granted only to vetted scholars.”

  Burkhalter was quick to assure the chancellor that three pieces would be displayed during the party.

  “For now, all remains in the vault.”

  She took them through several passages. These all required an ID, her full hand (showing a specific body temperature and a flow of blood to indicate living flesh), a retina scan, as well as voice identification.

  This area was the first to receive expensive renovations a year ago in preparation for the arrival of the donation. However, the upgrades had consumed the restoration fund, putting all other expenditures on hold.

  “If this event goes as I expect it,” Bandemer said confidently, “I hope to replenish the coffers and complete the abbey’s entire restoration.”

  The head librarian’s naturally pale cheeks flushed, but she said nothing, only bowing at the chancellor’s promise. Straightening, she gestured to the manuscripts laid out for the chancellor’s inspection.

  Two of the library’s archivists stood against the wall. They appeared barely restrained, as if Bandemer’s breath upon the precious materials might incite them to lunge forward and tackle the chancellor.

  Bandemer swept back the skirt of his coat and bent over the table. After a long moment of silence, he brought out a monocle from his waistcoat pocket to inspect the manuscript again. His right eye had a slight weakness due to the spit of a cockatrice he had battled back in 1718.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured. He had seen the work done by monks when the ink was still drying on the page, but he was still impressed. “The colors are almost as bright as the originals. The craftsmanship superb.”

  Burkhalter gave her first smile. Hands clasped behind her back, she said, proudly, “These will be the cornerstone of the library’s medieval manuscript collection.”

  The chancellor dropped his monocle and straightened up, chiding the librarian, “Cornerstone? I would say the crown jewel. These are extremely rare.”

  Thinking upon their scarcity, Bandemer replied sharply, “What is their providence? We do not want fakes in the abbey, frauds that imitate.”

  “This one is authenticated without a doubt. Two of the most outstanding scholars in their field have —.”

  Bandemer waved away scholars. He had little time for them despite being a chancellor of Leopold Ottos. He much preferred those from the arts, especially ballet dancers.

  “That information will impress our guests. Or at least the ones that read.”

  As the couple moved to leave the room, the chancellor warned the librarian that the public awareness of the donation could set a precedent in some people’s minds.

  “Some will now think we want any old book from their granny’s attic. You’ll be inundated with substandard offerings by those desiring a brass plaque. Always remember, Leopold Ottos is building a world reputation for having only the best in religious manuscripts from the 12th to 14th centuries. Only the most vetted can be allowed within our sacred walls.”

  Party Girls

  The loud yowls and growling made Celia turn to Brigit with her eyes wide. Brigit put one finger to her lips and whispered, “Logan gave Jib a new catnip toy.”

  The two young women were in Brigit’s bedroom, lounging on her bed, discussing their lives. Her father’s visit had revealed Brigit’s parentage to the naiad. When Celia treated Brigit no differently, the dryad felt a sense of relief, but also freedom. She didn’t have to hide anymore from Celia.

  “Your dad can be pretty scary. Thank goodness, Logan showed up when he did. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “My father is a huge pain in the ass,” complained Brigit. “He’s always interfering in the worst way. At least you aren’t holding it against me.”

  “Oh, we all have that one relative. Wait until you meet my oldest sister,” Celia reassured her. “Whatever did he want? He seemed intent on seeing you.”

  “To give me presents. That was his excuse anyway. But I think it was to snoop. He disapproves of Logan being a bard.”

  Celia was nonplussed.

  “I would have thought Logan being male would have been the problem. Especially with an over-protective father.”

  “Why?”

  Celia smirked. “Well, lovers usually start as bondmates.”

  The dryad threw a pillow at her.

  As ordered, Logan showed up an hour before the black-tie function at the abbey library. The person checking him in asked if he was human or fae, and his answer got him a wave through. But a fae being behind Logan was pulled out of line. She had to go through a list of agreed promises. Leaving her to her fate, Logan stepped inside the old building.

  Arriving early, he was roped into doing last-minute chores by the frazzled library staff. He set up chairs, used a lint roller to clean tablecloth skirts, made sure the bathrooms had toilet paper in all the stalls and did any other duty that didn’t require a particular skill or specific knowledge.

  He was relieved when he could make his way back to where the maestro’s assistant was about to start roll call. With each name, she handed out a piece of paper with the schedule of what set each student would be doing.

  “Set your watch or phone for your time. If your butt is not in your chair at the time indicated, I will destroy you.”

  “You know what might be fun?” Brigit asked with a giggle.

  The two had spent the last hour sharing horror stories about family members while consuming several glasses of wine with their take-out veggie pizza. Between the wine and the deepening of their Bond, Brigit was feeling euphoric.

  Celia raised her eyebrows in a question.

  “We should go to that party. The one Logan’s at.”

  “I thought it was for big-wigs? Invite only? We’d never get in.”

  “Wanna bet?” demanded Brigit. The excitement of proving Celia wrong aroused her competitive spirit. Brigit’s parents could have warned Celia that being told she couldn’t do something only spurred their daughter onward.

  “Those
things are all about appearances. If you look like you belong, no one asks questions. I should know. I’ve been to enough of these dull, pompous affairs back home.”

  “If they’re stuffy, why go at all?” protested Celia, swirling the red wine in her glass.

  “Not being invited makes it a thrill. Besides, Logan is there. We could surprise him.”

  Brigit jumped up, running to her room. She came back, holding three ball gowns in her arms. A diamond tiara was perched crookedly on top of her curly head.

  “Which one do you like best?”

  “You can’t be serious?” asked Celia, laughing with disbelief.

  “It’s Friday night, and we’re here eating pizza. Don’t you want to do something more exciting? Jib’s knocked out so my watch-cat won’t stop us or tag along. I’ll let you do my makeup — add some Glamour. You’ve always wanted to do that.”

  Celia moaned, letting herself be convinced with Brigit’s scheme, despite herself. Even as she stood up to take a dress, she said pessimistically, “It won’t fit.”

  “They adjust to your size. Now, I’ll let you have the first pick. What will it be? The moon, the sun, or all the colors of the sky?”

  The musicians, the ballet dancers, and the serving staff were to use a conference room as their Green room between sets. There were chairs and tables set up with soft drinks, water, and coffee as well as trays of snacks.

  Logan had a canape in his mouth when his neighbor, the viola from his string quartet, said, “What they’ve done to the library is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He gave an uh-huh while he ate. However, Logan wasn’t sure what she was meant. Sure, the tables and chairs were gone, but the bookshelves remained. It didn’t look all that different. Maybe she was a lover of 12th-century architecture.

  A ballerina agreed with the viola.

  “Pretty dreamy. Like something from a fantasy story. I guess the chancellor used fae powers to make it happen.”

  A guy across the room dressed in a waiter’s outfit of black and white gave a sharp bark of laughter.

  “If you knew the chancellor, you’d know he wouldn’t lift a finger. He probably got some of his staff to dress up the place.”

  They all started talking about the waterfall feature that started right below the Rose window and fell into a bottomless pool on the floor. And an exciting discussion about the mysterious forest murals on the walls with images moving between the trees that you couldn’t quite make out.

  “But have you seen the hall of mirrors yet?” asked someone else.

  As they talked, Logan realized that the Glamour they all saw was invisible to his eyes. That was the drawback to Bard-sight: fae illusions could not mask reality.

  The two young women used Brigit’s seven-league boots to get to the campus. Like a three-legged race, each wore one boot, and by wrapping their arms around each other’s waist got to the abbey library in three steps using the magical shoes.

  “Let’s get our dress shoes on,” said Brigit, unwinding her arm around Celia. She opened up her purse, took out doll-sized shoes, and handed a pair to her friend. A breath enlarged them. After slipping on her high heels, Brigit shrunk the seven-league boots and tucked them away in her designer bag.

  “I still don’t see how we’re going to get in,” began Celia, but Brigit shut down her doubts.

  “I have an idea.”

  Brigit’s idea was to latch onto a large party of fae before they entered.

  “Torfa? I haven’t seen you since Queen Titania’s midsummer party,” exclaimed the dryad, approaching a tall, lean fae with antlers. He was one of a party of six coming down the main sidewalk leading to the front door of the abbey.

  “Lovely lady,” he returned, giving air kisses to either side of Brigit’s face, “you must have mistaken me for someone else.”

  “Truly?” asked Brigit. She gave a pout. “I would have sworn we met at Litha and that you promised me — well,” she looked back at the rest of his company, “I won’t say in mixed company. Are you going back on your Bond?”

  Clearly Brigit’s target had no idea what she was talking about, but he was game to play along.

  “Of course, not!” He said, evincing amused shock. “Queen Titania’s summer party? What promise did I make beneath the willows? Or was it in a swan boat? Refresh my lamentable memory.”

  Celia would have expected the dryad to box the guy’s antlers if he had forgotten a promise. However, Brigit only slipped her arm around the crook of the guy’s elbow, letting herself be dangerously close by fae standards to him.

  “Willows? By perchance are trying to trick me, Prince of the Forest? Last Litha, Queen Titania’s party theme was winter-in-summer, with penguins, an ice castle, with dress attire made of frost. If you cannot remember the theme, I see you shall not remember me. Or your promises.”

  “Please, my lady, you know how heady the Queen’s mead is.”

  “Since you have forgotten it,” said Brigit in a cloying little girl voice Celia had never heard her use before, “gain entrance for me and my bondmate to this party. Let us use two of your official invitations, and I will forgive your faulty memory.”

  He looked down at her, taking in the diamond tiara, the necklace of rubies around her neck, the shimmering wealth of her dress, and the designer purse. He snapped his long fingers, pointing to two of his entourage.

  “You and you. Be gone. I shall be escorting these two young ladies as my plus-two.”

  There were some stormy looks, as the two bowed low, and murmured a subdued, “Of course, my lord,” before vanishing.

  “Now ladies,” he said, taking Celia’s hand and kissing her knuckles, “let us arrive fashionably late.”

  It was almost time for his quartet to perform. Logan went to the bathroom, washed his hands, checked his tie, and headed out to the nave. Entering the grand room, he took a moment to look around, trying to see all the wonders that the other students had discussed. As usual, he just saw the ordinary.

  It would have been nice to have seen the Glamour. But his bard Talent didn’t work that way. It showed the plain and simple truth of things.

  His abrupt turn made him collide into someone behind him.

  “Sorry, excuse me,” he said to the beautiful woman he had jarred.

  “Logan,” Brigit laughed.

  He did a double-take. The girl he knew who loved jeans and t-shirts wore a full-length, strapless dress that revealed the top of her breasts and the smoothness of brown shoulders. Around the column of her neck was a shiny silver and ruby necklace that Logan, in a daze, recognized.

  Something about her face: the nose, high cheekbones, and pointed chin were all the same, but not the same. Her black eyes sparkled in merriment.

  “How did you get here?” His demand came out more abruptly than he intended.

  “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

  “Of course!”

  People moved around them, pushing them closer. Their chests were almost touching, and Logan suddenly found the room very warm. Looking down, he became acutely aware of how much skin Brigit’s dress revealed. Right above her left breast was the faint silver outline of a leaf.

  Apparently, there was some fae Glamour he wasn’t immune to.

  “It’s a crush, isn’t it?” said Brigit, giving a casual glance around her. Feeling the intensity of his gaze, she smirked and took a sip from the champagne flute she was holding.

  “I just don’t understand how you got here. Why you’re here?”

  She reached out to tug her fingers through his hair. Instinctively, he hastily pulled back, demanding, “Are you drunk?”

  She frowned at him, her quicksilver mood changing from light to dark.

  “Are you my father?”

  “Where’s Jib?”

  “At home, if you need to know, sleeping off that catnip banana.”

  Brigit might have said something more, except a male fae, with antlers sprouting out of his curly black hair, came up behind
her. He was thin and limber, wearing a modern interpretation of a tuxedo with the elegance of a rock star. He gave Logan a dismissive glance.

  “Come, fair lady. Some would like to meet you.”

  “Sounds enchanting.”

  She gave Logan a meaningful look. Before he could stop her, his phone alarm beeped. He had ten minutes to get to his seat.

  After meeting more fae who bored her to tears, Brigit excused herself.

  “My nose needs powdering.”

  “Oh, don’t go,” her companion begged playfully. “If you need human drugs, I can provide them.”

  Brigit frowned, pulling her arm firmly out her companion’s grip.

  “I’m talking about makeup, you idiot.”

  He moved away from her, merging into the crowd, laughing, and looking for another conquest.

  Feeling irritable, Brigit thought she would locate Celia and see if she was ready to leave. Before she could find the naiad, her least favorite person in the Human Lands greeted her.

  “How lovely you look all cleaned up.”

  She sighed, closing her eyes briefly before addressing the Doppelgänger.

  “Don’t you have a home? A dog or something that needs a walk?”

  At least he wasn’t wearing Logan’s face. She would have slapped him if he had been. Instead, Paul showed a hodge-podge of features, making a very ordinary face. His tuxedo looked old, some of the black material a bit too shiny, indicating wear. He was lounging against the wall, watching the glitter around them with an air of mocking boredom.

  “I didn’t know you knew Prince Torfa.”

  “I know a lot of people,” Brigit replied tiredly. The exuberance that alcohol had powered had worn away hours ago.

  “That could benefit me.”

  The tight black curls of Brigit’s hair vibrated with the foulness of her mood. They writhed around her tiara, gripping it, instead of strangling Paul.