Fae or Fae Knot (Providence Paranormal College Book 10)

by D. R. Perry

  Ed patted Tony's shoulder and left the group of them, his eyes on the ground. When he got near the boundary between the demesnes, a line of gnomes barred his way. The kid pointed at his brother, and the pint-sized faeries let him through. He made a beeline for us, but Fred stopped him.

  Edward Redford was seated on the left side of the queen’s pavilion next to Hope and her new dragon friend, clutching whatever trinket the lady gave him. His feet didn’t touch the ground, but the two girls’ did. The difference offered a stark reminder that my baby wasn’t anything resembling one anymore.

  Hope whispered something to Ed and he nodded, shivering even though it wasn’t cold. She reached down and took his hand. Had I been the one who’d taught her to share courage with her friends and allies?

  “You did right by her, Gem.” I heard the smile in Al’s voice and turned to look at him so I could see it with my eyes.

  “Hope so.”

  “I should have been there.”

  “You will be now.” I turned my hand palm up on my lap, offering it like Hope had, even though I knew he couldn’t take it without getting us both killed. But even if you can’t accept the invitation, sometimes just knowing you're welcome makes all the difference.

  A blast of trumpets interrupted as the monarchs entered. The king strode out of thick underbrush that cut the beach off from the rest of the wild Unseelie woods. The queen waved at the neatly manicured topiary maze that bordered her side of the shore. Richard emerged, decked out in the typical Sidhe armor, which meant shiny and lightweight.

  By contrast, the king wore his usual clothes. Usual, not regular. The Goblin King favored long coats and frilly shirts under tight doublets or vests. Nothing on his body looked like armor, but I knew he didn’t need it. Goblins defended themselves by not getting hit.

  While the king made his way down to the dueling square right away, Richard stopped and poured the queen a drink. As he prepared her cup, his body blocked the whole refreshment table from her view. I saw everything, though. Fine dust fell into the cup from his sleeve just before wine flowed like blood into the ivory vessel.

  It looked accidental, but my gut told me it couldn’t be. I made myself a promise to keep Her Majesty from drinking that concoction no matter what.

  But the queen refused the beverage for the time being, setting it aside after her consort offered it. As Richard belted on his silver sword and dagger, he smiled with his mouth, although his eyes remained mirthless. He approached the square, staring daggers at the king.

  Each of the combatants spoke with their marshals in hushed tones. I hadn’t seen an actual formal duel like this before. Most of the lower-ranked fae had contests more closely resembled a pro wrestling match than anything else.

  Richard tossed a glove into the square, then stepped over the ropes. The king nodded and entered from his side. They faced each other, the king saluting by placing one heart over his chest, but Richard refused to return the favor. Instead, he turned his head and spat on the sand.

  Movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention like flame to a moth. The queen had reached for her goblet.

  I stood and snatched it myself. Everyone stared.

  “To Your Majesty’s continued good health and well-being,” I said.

  I chugged.

  “What was that, Captain Tolland?” Ed Redford tilted his head.

  I mumbled something about the pirate code and sat back down, stomach churning. Nobody was paying any attention by that point.

  Down the beach, the duel had begun.

  Albert

  The silver sword hung at the wrong angle in Richard Hopewell’s hand, light glinting off it from all the wrong places as he held it in a novice’s grip. I wondered at first what business he had on the inside of a dueling square, but then he busted out his magic.

  The Goblin King leapt and dodged out of the way, as adept as any Olympic acrobat in the extrahuman category. I’d expected nothing less from a godlike being. Richard didn’t land a blow, although he showed off an impressive array of magical schools. Ice rimed the stakes at the square’s corners. Lightning made fulgurites on the sand in two tones. My head pounded like a wet towel hitting the back of my eyes.

  I stood up, intending to move as far away as Sir Fred would allow. Instead of letting me go, Fred made me sit closer, next to his brother on the kids’ bench.

  “You need this, Al.” Ed pressed something into my hand. I took it but couldn’t look at it since I had to keep pretending to watch the duel. It felt like my head would shatter into a million pieces if I didn’t.

  But the many-pointed thing I held had other ideas. A different scene imposed itself on my field of vision, like when you’re watching a movie and someone gets between you and the screen.

  I saw myself at Trout Academy with Gemma in our freshman year. That wasn’t any surprise, but being in the principal’s office was. I had no memory of any disciplinary action against me back in high school, just waiting outside the office as Gemma endured hers.

  “You understand, Mr. Dunstable, that the use of Null magic is banned at Trout.” The old, bald man who spoke was not the principal, though he wore a rumpled suit and tie with his shabby Greek fisherman’s cap. “They must promote a learning environment where magi can exercise their schools of magic without barriers. While here, you will stick strictly to your Sidhe powers. I hope I am making this clear.”

  “Abundantly, sir.” I had my hands behind my back, held so tightly by tradition they could have as easily been tied with rope.

  “But his headaches—”

  “Miss Tolland, you’re the one who encouraged him, so it will be you who helps him with his headaches. I understand that you have Air magic besides the skills that come with being a troll changeling.”

  “Gladly.” Gemma gave me a look that melted me, both back in the memory and in the present. I thought I’d always loved her by some stroke of destiny, even before we'd met, but this was it. The missing memory had contained the moment her name etched itself on my heart.

  “He will need to know someday, however. At the right time and no sooner.” The man who wasn’t the principal stepped forward, holding one hand out.

  He pressed a medal against Gemma’s forehead, then lifted it. Her eyes went blank, like she couldn't see or hear in the same time and place as me.

  “Who are you?”

  “Edgar Watkins.” He sighed. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but Joyce will use this memory to save the world years from now. You’re Null, which means you can cancel any magic, and as soon as you remember this day, you must do it in a big way. We don’t know the exact ending for you two,” he glanced at Gemma, “but I sincerely hope it’s the happiest possible.”

  “Hope,” Gemma said. After that, Edgar Watkins touched the medal to my head, and the scene ended.

  The next thing I saw was Richard on the run from the king's attack. He dragged the sword behind him like he had no idea what to do with it. The silver glint had gone dull, and I sensed a new aspect to my headache. Richard Hopewell had used Earth magic, which affected metals. He’d turned that silver blade to iron.

  “I know what I have to do now.” I stood again.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Fred reached out, trying to stop me. I threw the memory medal at him. When he caught it, he froze, paralyzed by whatever it had to show him.

  I called on all the extra speed my Sidhe powers offered, stopping in a skid just short of crossing the square’s ropes.

  Focusing my eyes and that blinding headache on the sword in Richard’s hands, I unleashed all my pain on it, hoping that was the energy needed to cancel the king-killing spell.

  Instead of deadly iron, a silver sword scraped the king’s side, and Richard screamed his rage. The sword and the dagger dropped in the sand. Empty hands pointed my way, and he proceeded to hurl every form of magic he possibly could at me, forfeiting the match.

  Within inches, every single one of his attacks fizzled out. The marshals called the duel and
the queen’s voice rang in my ears, stripping Richard of his rank and rejecting his tithe. He roared with anger, flinging out one hand to open a portal back to Swan Point.

  Tony and Olivia stood shoulder to shoulder, holding hands as they pointed together at the weakening wall between worlds. I saw Lane and Margot on the other side, standing in the cemetery in a pose mirroring the shifters. The others were there, too, everyone from PPC Richard had failed to defeat. Bobby and Lynn, Henry and Maddie, Josh and Nox, Blaine and Kim. Jeannie stood with them, although Ismail winked from his corner of the dueling square. Beth Dennison stood, arms crossed as she nodded at Ren. Irina Kazynski waved to Fred and Ed.

  They’d assembled to reinforce coincidence and ensure Richard’s failure. The sight of them made him clench his fists, face red and blotchy. He lunged forward, probably trying to get far enough away from my Null magic to sling spells at them as he escaped the Under. But they vanished just before Hopewell jumped through, replaced by a desk, filing cabinets, and people in suits.

  The Extramagus had landed inside an FBE office somewhere near Washington, DC. Without his faerie magic, he had nothing to fight with but his fists.

  My head felt light and painless, his magic cutting out completely even through that open portal. Gino Gitano stood flanked by guards, laughing in an orange jumpsuit. Derek Dennison grinned at us, waving as his partner Natalie slapped cuffs on Hopewell. The way closed. We'd defeated him without breaking any faerie laws.

  I opened my mouth, but the cheer died in my throat. Hope called out for her mama. When I turned back toward the queen’s pavilion, Gemma had fallen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gemma

  By the time Al got down to the dueling square, I knew exactly what Richard had intended to poison the queen with—iron shavings. Trolls have a superior constitution to Sidhe, but it was killing me, anyway.

  With one hand over my gut, I tried to get away long enough to try to discreetly sick it up, uncertain it’d make one bit of difference. Every move took more effort. I felt heavy, like my arms and legs had doubled their weight. Iron is the heaviest metal.

  I got exactly four steps away from the bench I’d sat on. After that, my body gave up. That was the strangest thing for someone like me, who relied on the extra strength from my faerie side.

  Trying to sit was an abject failure. Instead, I toppled over. My face went hot, and probably red too. Iron, embarrassment, or the two combined; it didn’t matter. Inside my belly, a million claws tore at my guts. I was dying.

  “Mama!” Hope fled to my side, kneeling close but not touching. “Mama, your skin’s covered with iron sores. Are you all right?”

  “I’ll get better in a minute, baby.” I swallowed the truth but couldn't stop my tears. I would have closed my eyes to keep them in, but I didn’t want to lose sight of my little girl.

  “If I have anything to do with it, she will.” Al stood over us, his hair unkempt and windblown, his stance victorious.

  “You beat him? Richard?”

  “Not just me. Everyone—all our friends. He’s not a problem anymore, Gem.”

  “We saved the worlds then?” I winced. My whole body burned with the iron in my bloodstream.

  “Stop. You already owe me back.”

  “I’ll never stop, Al. Not even when I’m gone. I'll haunt you. Didn’t I make that clear?” I held up one hand, gazed at the iron-induced blemishes. They looked like blistering burns shot through with rusty flecks.

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “Gone?” Hope reached out a hand, about to touch me. I didn’t have the strength to flinch away or stop her.

  “No, kiddo.” Al hugged our daughter close, then set her back on the bench I’d collapsed behind. “I’ve got an old promise to keep.”

  And then he held his hands over mine, not touching me with anything but the anti-magical energy coming from them. The pain vanished. The sores did, too. At first, I didn’t understand. No faerie or magus power could reverse injury. Only shifters had rapid regeneration, and that was an individual ability. They couldn’t use it on someone else.

  “How?”

  “Null magic, Gem.” He moved his hands up, hovering them over my arms to erase the damage the poison had done to them. “But there’s a price.”

  “Iron isn’t magical, though. How are you doing this?”

  “It's not the metal I'm nullifying, Gemma, it’s the part of you that makes it deadly. I’m so sorry.”

  "Don’t apologize, just don’t stop.” My tears dried. "I only want to live and raise our daughter."

  By then, I didn’t care what magic he eradicated. The sores had vanished from my hands, but so had the thick troll claws I sported in the Under. My muscles thinned, and I would have gotten weaker if the iron hadn’t already done that number on my body.

  As the soothing absence of pain spread along my extremities, I noticed Al’s hair. Had it changed color? Gone to the honey blond it appeared to be in the mortal realm instead of the Under's Sidhe-alabaster? And was he squinting, like he always did outside the Under when he needed his glasses?

  “You’re tearing our magic away. All of it.”

  “Yes and no.” Al leaned over, gazing into my eyes. “Only most of it.”

  My body felt much better, except for my stomach and head. Was that what migraines felt like? The pain behind my eyes got intense enough for me to firmly believe that Albert Dunstable was the most courageous man in the known universe. If he’d functioned with pain like that for most of his life, he had a will of steel.

  “It’s not leaving, not all the way.” I coughed.

  "I think I know how to fix that, Gem.” He leaned closer. "If it's okay?"

  He put his lips to mine, not quite touching, as though asking permission. I lifted my arms, one to his shoulder and the other around his neck as I’d done all those years ago, and accepted his kiss. I had to hope that with the Null force removing our faerie natures, the tithes wouldn’t turn our embrace into a death sentence.

  When we broke away, a rush of sound met our ears, rising in volume above the ocean waves. I looked up, finally free from pain and unburdened. The smiles surrounding us were like rows of stars, shining down their approval.

  Hope and the other children held hands, cheering. Fred slapped his hands together, blushing almost as deep a crimson as the cap on his head. The Tsuchigomo applauded with his hands and two pairs of his feet. Even Hertha Harcourt spared us a grin with her golf-clap.

  “Enough!” The queen’s voice rang like steel on bone.

  “No, it’s not.” The king stepped through the crowd, pushing between Hertha and the Tsuchigomo. He held a wooden box, ornately carved.

  “Get back on your side, Baelgreth, or so help me—”

  “That’s what I’m here to do, Illyana. Help.” The king extended his hand. Al took it and rose, then helped me to my feet.

  “You help my prisoners—transgressors in my demesne—yet my one request of you, ages ago, you denied me.”

  “My greatest mistake. I find these rebels of yours inspiring.”

  “They’re inspiring me to new heights of anger.”

  “I can’t blame you.” The king took a knee before his former wife.

  “You’re mad, Baelgreth.”

  “Love is like madness at times.” He opened the box and presented it to her, revealing something dainty that shone brightly in the sunlight. “Marry me, Illyana. Again. Please.”

  “Déjà vu.” I rubbed my temples. Maybe it was the strange lightness of being unburdened by the ties of my tithe that caused me to continue, “You know, when he asked, I said yes. Sometimes you just have to admit that you want a second chance and damn the torpedoes.”

  “Your former captain has an unhindered tongue.” The queen looked down her nose at the king, not giving me a second glance. “I wonder why she believes it is her place to speak on this matter, or to me?”

  “Begging Your Majesty’s pardon, but she did save your life by drinking the poisoned cup.” Al
slid his glasses over his rounded ears. “Our laws are clear on lives owed.”

  “They’re hardly your laws now, Null magus.” The queen tilted her head at Al. “But you are correct. The Air magus may address me.”

  “I hope my words will help you steer your course, Your Majesty.”

  “If only I were certain that Baelgreth is sincere.” She gazed out at the sea.

  “There’s never any way to know that for sure, Majesty.” I held my hands out. Albert took my left hand and our daughter rushed to my side to clasp my right. “The best you get is hope.”

  “It’s enough for me, Illyana.” The king’s eyes plead in shades of melting amber. “I swear that this time, we can build a real family. If a knight and a pirate can work things out, even under the burdens we each placed on their shoulders, why can’t we?”

  His question took her breath away. The two monarchs eyed my little family with something more akin to longing than envy. When their eyes met again, the air quivered with promise. The rest of the crowd gasped their astonishment like fish out of water when the queen nodded and let the king slip the ring on her finger. But our little family didn’t.

  We knew all about hope and second chances after all.

  The End

  Sorrow and Joy

  Have you started D.R. Perry’s latest series, Gallows Hill Academy?

  Available at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.

  Free bird? Don't make me laugh.

  I'm Mavis Merlini and I want out. Of my shady family, this rowdy school, maybe even the world.

  My brother got kicked out of Gallows Hill School for inciting mermaid violence. I'm determined to cut out all distractions and be the first of my six siblings to actually graduate. Which means living on campus and ignoring my extroverted roommate.