by Jessa Slade
Obviously he had been living alone too long.
He groped for the annoying cellular buzz. “Hello?” His voice sounded slurred, as if he had been drugged.
“Josh.” It was Vaile’s crisp voice. “We’re back. What’s going on?”
Josh pushed himself upright, blinking hard. He couldn’t very well tell his neighbor what he’d been dreaming about. But there was something he was supposed to tell Vaile. If he could just remember what. He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t...”
“Did you set the phae wards? Have there been any more imps? Where is the musetta?”
The strange words peppered Josh like buckshot. “I don’t—”
“Wake up, human!” Vaile’s shout ripped through the lingering dream.
Human. Phae. Musetta.
“Adelyn?” Josh let the phone fall to his side as he twisted around in the bed.
The empty bed.
His fairy princess was gone.
He jolted to his feet. “Adelyn!”
The silence of the house cut worse than sheet metal, deep yet slow to bleed.
Not complete silence, though. The phone in his hand was grumbling. He lifted it to his ear. “She’s gone.”
“I was afraid of that,” Vaile said. “Wolly is here, alone, and there’s a toadstool ring, recently withered.”
“Toadstools?” Josh yanked on his clothes awkwardly with one hand. “Why do you keep talking about mushrooms?”
“Every place, from desert to glacier, has some fungus, mold, lichen, or moss spore that will sprout into phae gateways. This circle led back to the phaedrealii.”
“Why would she go back?” Josh scrabbled for a lost boot under the bed. She had lied about where he put the charms last night, so that he had inadvertently left a gap. That was the only way she could have sneaked out. “Why would she leave?” He hated the plaintive sound of his own voice.
Vaile said flatly, “Because, like the imp, she came to betray us.”
Grabbing his wayward boot, Josh rocked back on his heels. His gaze went to a strange lump next to the dresser. “So the mushroom ring is how you phae travel?”
“Yes. The one here looks a couple days old. She must have sown it before you found her.” Vaile’s voice was grim. “I think she meant to bring our enemies through.”
“But she didn’t.” Josh clung to that fact.
“Or hasn’t yet. Stay in your valley, Josh. Get the wards and bring them in close and then don’t come over the ridge until daybreak.”
Josh swallowed. “Will you and Imogene be all right?”
“We can’t fight with iron, but we have other tricks.” Vaile’s voice softened. “I’m sorry the musetta played them on you.”
After they disconnected, Josh stomped into his boots and then went to the living room to collect his pistol and a spear. He thrust one of the iron-bladed knives he had assembled into his belt loop. The decorative curlicue from the log rack wasn’t exactly sharp but it was pure iron, and the black spiral looked wicked as hell.
Which was how he felt.
As he passed his work table on the way back to the bedroom, a rainbow shimmer caught his eye. He paused to touch the gemstones, each one more precious than the last. At the center was the emerald. She had left him a small fortune. He could feed the cows on caviar and Champagne with the jewels she’d left behind.
Adelyn had not betrayed them. The shining truth of her tears told him something she had never said aloud. He wanted to hear it from her.
And he had words he wanted to say to her. Maybe once he’d been the silent cowboy who’d let good things slip away because he hadn’t known to say how much he cared. He knew better now. Words had power, a power he could use.
He returned to the bedroom and shoved the dresser aside.
Next to the crumpled satchel that Adelyn had carried, the mushrooms were hardly larger than his pearl buttons, but they formed a perfect ring on the rough old wood.
Glad he’d never been good about dusting, he took a breath and stepped into the circle. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Adelyn.”
Adelyn had thought her first steps back into the phaedrealii would be triumphant, on Raze’s arm. Or if not triumphant at least minus the Queen’s death mark on her name. Instead, she was sneaking in through the same back corridor where she had been tossed out by EveStar.
Doubt slowed her steps. Was she right about the Queen’s handmaid? Had those vague words meant what she’d thought?
EveStar had said other phae left, never to return. Adelyn had assumed that meant they died hunting the Hunter. But no, they left because they wanted to. And they had never returned because they found something else. Something better.
Thanks to Josh, the veil had been lifted and she finally understood. In the phaedrealii, she had existed only to inspire others. In Josh’s world, she could make things with her own two hands. She could make cornbread and clean dishes. She could make something of herself.
She could make love.
She clenched her fists, trying to hold onto the memory of Josh’s callused palms across hers.
But now thanks to her, that valley sanctuary was threatened, and phae like herself who needed a place would find the way closed.
Maybe she should have stayed in the valley while the battle was fought around her, but she had stayed in the phaedrealii, too afraid to leave. Too afraid to even inspire herself. This time, she wasn’t going to stop with an inspiration; she was going to make a path for others like her.
Assuming she wasn’t simply snuffed out like a bad idea.
She made her way blindly down the corridor, stumbling in the dark without the light of the wisps. Once, she had kept them close as an affectation, because everyone looked beautiful by wisp-light. But now she thought maybe the pretty light had kept her from having to acknowledge the shadows at the heart of the phaedrealii.
She couldn’t pretend anymore.
As she reached the more commonly used corridors, the lingering glow of passing phae lighted the walls. She wrapped one of her veils loosely around her face. Not much of a disguise, but boring enough not to intrigue any phae who might seek to unravel a more elaborate illusion. She needed to find EveStar and see if her hunch about the handmaid was right: Someone was pointing discontented phae to the Hunter’s valley. But now they needed her secret key.
She passed two elaborately ornamented phae, dripping with jewels and nodding feathers. The Queen must be in one of her expansive phases. That could be good, if everyone was distracted by her generous mood. Or they could be trying to placate her because she was surly.
Despite her divorce from the court, Adelyn felt her heart stutter in remembered anxiety at the mere thought of the Queen’s moods, good or bad. She felt like an interloper in her old veils, decorated only by the leather belt with its carved copper buckle.
“Sweet muse!” The bellow—or so it seemed to her—brought her whirling around. “You have returned. Did you find the Hunter?”
“William, hush.” She hurried toward him. “Do you want to get me killed again?”
He had the grace to flush, as only a human could, but the gesture did not soften her as was the knack of certain other human males.
She stared hard at William, wondering at his allegiance. The Queen had stolen him away from the world, but he had never seemed to miss it. Josh would never let himself be imprisoned, not when he had his valley. No illusion would ever satisfy him.
She took some peace knowing no matter what happened to her, Josh would be there, with his cows and Wolly and the stars under whose light they’d made love.
She shook off her mournfulness. First things first, as her Josh would say. “Have you seen EveStar?”
“Everyone has been summoned to the throne room. The Queen is in a mood.”
Adelyn almost smiled. William had been in the phaedrealii long enough to not even name the moods anymore. “I guess that is where I need to go. You’ll have to be my disguise.”
William wrinkled his nose.
“You have your glamour.”
“But none so good as the Queen’s own lover. You owe me this.” Most courtiers avoided William and other humans within the phaedrealii. For good reason, as she could attest. Certainly no one would expect to see her with him.
They joined the throngs heading for the throne room.
Except for the unchanging steel seat at its center, the throne room became whatever the phaedrealii conjured. At the moment, it was a ballroom of matte white marble, thinly lined with black traceries. Hundreds of fluted columns towered upward, their peaks disappearing into a slowly roiling haze. Above the throne itself, a giant hollowed globe of marble hung as a chandelier. The undefined glow illuminated the room from the center, sucking the color from everything below it until even the glorious hues of the phae were cast with the pall of dread.
“Oh, this is a mood all right,” Adelyn murmured. “You are taller than I am. Do you see EveStar?” Normally the handmaid flitted both ahead of and behind the Queen, always in motion, preparing the way and picking up the pieces afterward.
“I don’t—Wait.” William rocked up onto his toes. “She just came in. The Queen won’t be far behind.”
Which gave Adelyn only a few moments to contact the handmaid. But she hesitated. “William, is this really where you want to be?”
His gaze slid away from her. “Do you know how long I have been here?”
She shook her head. “You know time does not always pass here as you might imagine.”
“I can’t go back now.” He let out a shuddering breath. “It will never be the same for me.” His eyes were dark but swamp lights moved within them. Haunted eyes.
Adelyn touched his arm before she slipped away. He had made his choice.
And so had she.
Amid all the wide skirts, high collars, and towering headdresses, she felt small and insignificant. Not a sensation a musetta knew well. She embraced it since no one looked her way. She wove between the courtiers and edged up behind the fluttering handmaid.
“EveStar,” she said quietly, nudging back the veil around her face.
The handmaid recoiled. “What are you doing here? Didn’t you find—” She bit her lip. “Come.” She whisked Adelyn behind the hulking steel throne.
“I don’t have time to lie and dissemble and tease—” Adelyn started.
“Well then, you are no phae,” EveStar snapped.
Under other circumstances, Adalyn might have laughed. But she held herself straighter and looked the other phae in the eye. “Are you a friend to the runaways?”
“The rebellion, you mean?”
The proud anger in the handmaid’s voice actually made Adelyn relax a notch. “Why are you the Queen’s handmaid when you want to be free?”
Bitterness hardened the elegant golden phae to something steely, sword-like. “I might never be free, but I can still be a guide. Why did we survive the Iron Age, just to retreat here within our own illusions?” EveStar gripped her hand. “Is that why you came back? To hide again? I thought you understood we need to find another way.”
Adelyn grimaced. “I didn’t understand at first. Not at all. But you can’t keep sending phae as you have. That way will be closed.” Her fault. “The Hunter’s valley is under attack.”
EveStar swayed a little. “Then it is over. For all of us.”
“No. I brought you a new way in.” Adelyn took a deep breath. “I have cuttings from the valley ferns that will take phae around Vaile’s wards. But the spores aren’t ready yet. You’ll have to sprout them here, in secret.”
EveStar tightened her grip. “I will. But you have to—”
“Arise all and bow to our steel-born Queen!”
“Quick,” EveStar hissed. “This way.”
Hand in hand, they scuttled away from the throne as the Queen’s goblin chamberlain stepped past the place they had just been.
Adelyn grimaced. With everyone facing the throne, there was no way she and EveStar could sneak out. They would draw too much attention. They could only bow their heads as ordered. No need to arise, of course, since there were no other seats in the room besides the steel throne.
The Queen swept into the room in a wave of black tatted lace. The diaphanous darkness floated around her, supported on the will-o’-the-wisps caught in the net. Their wistful little lights twinkled mournfully and cast stark shadows across her white cheeks, leaving her eyes in pools of unrelieved black.
Adelyn’s fingers curled into fists and she felt EveStar’s nails dig into her hand in matching, silent outrage. If the wisps were confined too long, they would fade to nothing.
The Queen mounted the three steps to the throne and turned to sit. From the base of the steel throne, the black occlusions in the white marble spidered outward. The wisp-lace drifted too outward, trying to escape.
She was beautiful beyond all phae. The voracious power of her illusions made her both: beautiful and queen. No other phae could stand up to her in either category.
They could only run away as the wisps clearly longed to do.
But the Queen wouldn’t even allow that. Adelyn wondered why she had ever wanted to come back to this place. Had she been that blinded? No, she had just been that small. Less than the faintest of wisps.
No longer. Josh had opened her eyes and made her see what she could do, really do. And she would never be merely someone else’s inspiration again. She would make her own way, be her own phae. Be her own woman.
She would be Josh’s woman.
She smiled to herself as warmth slid through her, chasing away the chill of the phaedrealii. But when EveStar’s grip on her hand tightened another notch, she refocused.
“...This cannot continue, my phae,” the Queen was saying. Under the white marble chandelier, her blackness was even more fearsomely stark. “Since the Iron Age, the phaedrealii has kept its distance from the sunlit world, withholding our presence from the humans, except for our treasured few.” She ran her hand over William’s head where he sat on the step beside her chair. He stiffened, but his eyes were full of floating wisp light.
The Queen cast her dark gaze around the room. Adelyn quickly lowered her face, letting the shadow of her veil fall forward.
“My phae.” The Queen’s whisper swirled through the room on a chill breath though Adelyn tucked her shoulders up around her ears. “If you run, I will find you. And when I find you, I will tear you apart.”
In the stricken silence, the infinitesimal hum of the wisps’ wings sounded menacing.
And even more faintly yet, came a whisper all around them: “Adelyn...”
Her head snapped up. “Oh no. Josh, no.”
EveStar shuddered. “You gave him your name?”
“I didn’t believe he would follow me. Or even remember me.” Adelyn took a step forward, unbuckling the belt as she went. “The spores are behind the stones in the belt. There aren’t many. Use them well, and maybe someday we’ll meet in the sunlit world.” She tossed the belt to the other phae.
EveStar thrust it back. “Open a gate. Run while the Queen is distracted.”
Once she’d been too afraid to run, and now, when she most wanted to...”I can’t. Not without him.”
In the space by the throne where she had been standing only moments ago, a ring of mushrooms sprouted with unnatural speed. And then Josh was there. In the court. Standing tall beside the deadly phae Queen.
Chapter 11
His head spun, like a middle-of-the-whisky-bottle moment, but Josh blinked hard to clear his wavering vision. No, not wavering. The vision in his scarred eye was eerily intense.
For a second, he thought he had landed in a movie set. Everything was so...Too much. The outrageous visuals—pointy ears, giant butterfly wings, glowing glowering eyes—made him wonder what kind of mushrooms exactly had been growing in his bedroom.
But he hadn’t imagined Adelyn. He hadn’t. He still felt her in the tips of his fingers, still tasted her on the back of his tongue. And Adelyn wasn’t the sort to run fro
m make-believe.
He lifted the iron-tipped spear, and the figures nearest him pulled back with a murmur of dismay.
One moment he had been standing in his empty bedroom and now he was surrounded. And if at one time, he entertained the notion of fairy princesses, these beings destroyed that childhood illusion forever. He had come upon a mountain lion once, feasting on the remains of a calf. While the cow lowed plaintively in the distance, Josh had stared at the beast. It stared back: ferocious, deadly, and utterly indifferent to him.
He had shot at it, but it had been too quick. And though it had run away, he knew it could just as readily have run at him if it believed him weak prey.
These phae were the same.
With the pistol in his right hand, the spear felt strange and unwieldy in his left, but he cut it in a slow circle around him, forcing them back another step.
He strained for a glimpse of Adelyn in the crowd.
And caught a glint of emerald eyes. She lingered behind a distant pillar. He wanted to call out to her, but she’d said names could be dangerous.
“Poor man, you seem to have lost your way.” The voice was silk over steel, slicing and beautiful, and he couldn’t stop his gaze from rising to the dais nearby.
He had registered the throne-like setting, but in his need to find Adelyn, he hadn’t paid attention. He did now.
Adelyn had called her a Queen, and even in the heart of his rugged individualism, he understood. She exuded a sheer power that made his legs tremble with the urge to lower himself.
Not likely. He locked his knees and swung the spear across his body, partly to make sure the tip wasn’t pointing at her—no sense angering a reigning monarch, after all—and partly to aim the pistol more discreetly.
But he couldn’t run, not without Adelyn. He wouldn’t let her walk away without knowing if he was the only one to feel...
But the Queen had him in her sights now. The blackness of her eyes cracked with fissures of scarlet like the coals in a hot forge. “What have we here?”