Grandma let out a snort. ‘One-on-one all right.’
‘Mother,’ Mum said, ‘it wasn’t like that.’
‘What was is like?’ I asked.
She paused for a minute, a far-off look in her eyes. ‘Well, in retrospect, it probably was like that,’ she conceded. ‘He was so… raw.’
I looked at her with my eyebrows raised. ‘Raw?’
‘Faery warriors,’ Grams reached out for another pancake, ‘they’re the embodiment of everything male. There’s a wildness to them. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve met one of them.’
I gulped as I thought of Aethan. Raw, wild, manly. That about summed it up.
‘Anyway,’ Mum continued, ‘he swept me off my feet. I fell in love with him, but when the convention was over I never saw him again.’
‘Oh Mum,’ I said. Even after all those years there was still pain in her voice.
She smiled and said, ‘I got you, so it was all worth it.’
‘Faeries make incredible lovers,’ Grams said, reaching for another pancake, ‘or so I’ve heard.’
‘So why,’ I asked, trying not to think too much about that, ‘did you make up Sidney Mesmerer?’
‘Alexus was Santanas Gabrielle’s brother.’
I froze in the act of picking up a pancake. ‘The Santanas Gabrielle?’ I was guessing there was only one.
Mum nodded her head.
Breathless, I sat back in my chair. The War Faery was my Uncle? The faery who’d tortured and killed thousands of people was my Uncle? I was suddenly very glad his soul was entombed in stone.
Grams shot Mum a wild look. ‘Alexus Gabrielle is Isadora’s father?’
Mum nodded. ‘Did you meet him when you worked in Isilvitania?’
‘Once or twice.’
‘You used to work in Isilvitania?’ That was something I hadn’t known.
Grams nodded her head. ‘A long, long time ago. Before your mother was born.’
‘Does… Alexus know about me?’ I couldn’t make myself use the word father on a total stranger.
‘I never told him.’
I put my fork down. Suddenly, pancakes didn’t taste so good. ‘What do you think courting Aethan is going to entail?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Grams said, ‘did I miss something?’
‘Not much,’ I waved a hand in the air. ‘Apparently I’ve been hanging out with Aethan Gabrielle in my dreams.’ I raised my cup to take a sip of my tea.
Hanging out? I imagined some of the things we might have been doing together and the warmth of a blush erupted on my cheeks.
‘The Aethan Gabrielle? Second-in-line to the throne and Champion of the Faeries?’
My tea lodged in the back of my throat. I coughed and spluttered till I could breathe again. Second-in-line to the throne? Champion of the Faeries? Great Dark Sky, what had I dream-walked myself into?
‘Wonder what Queen Eloise will have to say about that?’ Grams had an amused look on her face.
‘Thanks to my faery blood she had to give us permission to court,’ I said.
‘She was here?’ Grams stared at the front door, a wild light in her eyes.
‘You missed her,’ Mum said, hopping up to get more pancakes.
‘Dear me,’ Grams said, smoothing down the already smooth tablecloth, ‘you have been busy.’ She shot another look at the front door. ‘I was wondering who you were holding out for.’
‘Grams!’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Grams replied, which made absolutely no sense until I realised that her familiar had uncoiled himself and was peering over the edge of the table at Scruffy.
‘We’re going to have to let them sort it out or it will be a constant problem,’ Mum said.
Cecil slithered further over the edge, flicking his tongue as he tasted the air around his victim. Scruffy stared at Cecil with a wide, doggy grin as he released his own secret weapon. A smell, so potent my eyes watered, rolled over us.
Poor Cecil, his tongue still out of his mouth, went limp. The weight of his head dragged the length of his body slithering over the edge of the table to the floor, where he lay in a pile of tumbled coils.
When the air had cleared enough, we continued the conversation. ‘So Mum, the courting thing, what does it all mean?’
‘It’s like dating, but a bit more formal.’
‘What if I don’t want to date him?’
‘Don’t want to date that?’ Mum asked.
‘What woman of flesh and blood would not want to date that?’ Grams fanned herself with her hands. ‘I saw him at the Tri-Race Convention a few years ago. Hubba hubba.’ A knock at the front door disturbed her and she leapt out of her seat like a scared rabbit and bustled off towards her rooms.
I shook my head at her eccentricity as I hopped up to let Sabby in. She was taking me shopping for a dress.
‘Pancakes?’ she said, peering past me to the diningroom table.
‘Help yourself.’
‘I shouldn’t, not if we’re going clothes shopping. I might bloat.’
I burst out laughing and pushed her towards the table. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word bloat.’
Scruffy waddled over to her, a pathetic look on his face as he eyed off her plate.
‘Now he,’ I said, ‘knows all about bloating.’
We didn’t leave for the shops until I had filled Sabby in on the morning’s developments and then answered about a zillion questions. Even after we got to the Eynsford Department Store she kept plying me with new ones. Most of them were about Aethan, and most of them I couldn’t answer, but all of a sudden she said, ‘When are you trying out for the Advanced Academy of Witches?’
‘I’m not.’ I held a dress up in front of me while I studied myself in the mirror. ‘What were they thinking when they designed this?’ It had bows on the hips and shoulders.
‘What do you mean you’re not?’ She shoved another dress at me. It was as bad as the previous one.
‘Which word didn’t you understand?’
‘Very funny. Why aren’t you going to try out?’
‘I wouldn’t get in.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I can’t control my powers. And besides, nothing there interests me.’ The problem with that was that I didn’t know what interested me.
I wasn’t sure if her scandalised look was for the dress I had pulled off the rack or what I’d just said. I was guessing it was for what I’d said.
‘Come on,’ I said before she could launch into a spiel on how wonderful the college was, ‘there’s nothing here that suits me.’ I dragged her from the shop and she thankfully left the subject alone.
‘Coffee?’ she asked instead.
A man, dressed like Aethan had been – all fur and leather, caught my eye. He sat at a table in the middle of the shopping centre and cleaned his nails with a dagger. A long scar ran down the side of his face and a pile of brochures sat on the table in front of him. He didn’t look very interested in handing them out.
‘Hang on,’ I said to Sabby.
I approached him warily and stared at the brochures. He lowered his dagger and eyed me through his thick, bushy eyebrows.
‘Nothing for you here,’ he said.
‘How do you know that?’
He had a menacing feel about him. Even though he was sitting still, I had no doubt he could snap me like a twig.
‘You’re a girl,’ he said, starting to clean his nails again.
I reached out and picked up a brochure. ‘Border Guards?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, not even looking up.
‘What do you do?’
‘We guard the borders between our magical world and the others.’
‘I might be interested in being a Border Guard.’ I might be, if Aethan was one.
‘You need faery blood.’
‘Well, I guess this is my lucky day. My dad is all faery.’
He pointed to the scar on his face with the tip of his dagger. ‘I
got this from a troll.’
I pointed at a scar on my leg. ‘I got this falling off a bicycle.’
He let out a snort and I realised I had been dismissed.
I stuffed the brochure into my jeans pocket and made my way back to where Sabina was staring at handbags.
‘Who was that?’ she asked.
‘Hmmm?’
‘That man?’
‘Oh, a Border Guard.’ I held my breath, praying to the Great Dark Sky that she would leave the subject alone.
She stared at me for a second, her eyebrows lowered, and then said, ‘Come and see this handbag. It would look great with that navy-blue dress you tried on.’
‘You mean the skin-tight one?’ I let out an inaudible sigh of relief.
I had already fielded too many questions about Aethan that morning. I was never going to hear the end of it if I admitted I’d taken a brochure because the gruff man had been dressed like him. That was way past sad and all the way to the Land of Pathetic.
5
Some Days Aren’t Worth Getting Out Of Bed For
‘I can’t wear this,’ I said to Sabina. The navy-blue dress was so tight I was finding it hard to breathe.
‘Nonsense, you look gorgeous.’
‘But it’s so…’
‘Grown-up?’ Sabby had a stubborn look on her face.
The dress was very grown-up. That was the problem. I wasn’t used to wearing clothing that showed the exact contour of my body.
‘It’s not the dress. It’s me.’ That part was true.
‘Well perhaps you should have found the time to buy yourself a dress.’ Sabina’s voice had taken on a dangerous tone. A tone I knew all too well.
If I were being totally honest with myself, I would have had to admit that I looked fantastic. Sabby had spent hours on my hair and make-up, and the dark-haired beauty that stared back at me was someone I had not met before. I wasn’t sure if I could do her justice.
And the dress? Well, the dress was something else entirely. Navy-blue silk hugged me to my knees. The bodice would have been strapless if not for the two spaghetti-thin straps that graced my shoulders. The crystal necklace and earrings Grams and Mum had given me for my birthday were going to complement it perfectly.
‘I can’t walk in these shoes.’ I mean as if I weren’t tall enough without the sky-high, silver stilettos.
‘Get used to them,’ Sabby barked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done for me.’ The look on her face softened. ‘And the dress is perfect, and my hair looks amazing. You could get a job as a stylist.’
The scowl slid off her face and was replaced by a small smile. I sighed inwardly with relief. The last thing I needed at my party was a sulky Sabina; I was relying on her to act as a pseudo-hostess.
Scruffy sat near the door to my bedroom, his mouth open in a doggy grin. ‘You wouldn’t know I washed him this morning,’ I said to Sabina.
‘You wouldn’t know you’d ever washed him.’
And then I saw it. His old, black, studded collar sat snugly around his neck. ‘Agghhh,’ I said, as I tottered towards him on my dangerously high heels.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘That’s the third time I’ve put his new collar on.’
‘I thought his new collar was red.’
‘It is,’ I said, as I ferretted around in the bathroom bin. I emerged with his shiny, red collar in my hand. ‘This is his new collar.’
‘So who keeps putting his old collar on?’
‘No-one.’
Initially I had thought Mum or Grams must have been doing it, but they had both professed innocence, and I knew that no-one but Sabby and I had been in my bathroom all morning.
‘That’s one weird familiar,’ Sabby said.
‘Yoohoo,’ Grams called from downstairs.
‘Come on up,’ I yelled back.
‘What do you think?’ Grams asked from the top of the staircase.
I watched in astonishment as she settled a feathered mask over her eyes. ‘Really?’ I asked.
‘You don’t like it?’ The black and white striped feathers matched her current hair-do and black velvet dress. I noticed that Cyril was also black and white striped.
‘No, no, it’s just an interesting choice.’ I had already offended Sabby this morning; I didn’t want to add Grams to that list.
‘I could wear this one.’ She held up a sequined gold one.
‘The black and white one is better,’ Sabby said. She didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by Gram’s decision to wear a mask to my birthday party.
‘Yippee, the guests are starting to arrive,’ Grams said as she peered out my window. She hurried back down the stairs and I heard the front door close a few moments later.
Eeeek. The moment of truth. I managed to make it to the window without tripping over my own feet. I could see people in the distance winding their way down a narrow path to the large field behind our house. A huge marquee fluttered in the distance, its bright colours adding a festive feel to the otherwise green field. A banner, so large I could read it from where I was – Happy Birthday Isadora – hung over the opening. I knew there were also chairs and tables and a dance floor set up, but I didn’t know how I was going to dance in these shoes.
‘So,’ Sabby said, ‘is Aethan coming to the party?’
Great Dark Sky, the last thing I needed right at that moment was to think about Aethan. I was nervous enough about my party without throwing that into the mix.
I hadn’t heard anything since that weird morning a week ago. Nothing about the courting and nothing about my training. I wasn’t sure which I was more disappointed about.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, turning away from the window. ‘Mum said she sent an invitation to the faeries.’
‘They didn’t R.S.V.P? How rude.’
I heard a shout from the field. It was quickly followed by a scream that had the hairs on the back of my neck doing an impression of a group of prairie dogs. I spun back toward the window, falling awkwardly as one of my shoes got twisted in the rug. I hardly felt the pain in my ankle as I stared out over the field.
People were no longer meandering down the path towards my party. Now they ran across the field, away from the field, up the path; they ran anywhere that they could.
Goblins chased them, their cruel swords hacking and slashing at anyone not quick enough to get away. I could see a couple of bodies lying in front of the marquee.
Goblins? Here in sleepy Eynsford?
‘Grams,’ I said. ‘Oh Great Dark Sky, not Grams.’
I yanked the shoes off and ran, as fast as my dress would allow, to the front door. Mum came running towards me from her rooms.
I picked up Scruffy and placed him in Mum’s arms. ‘Stay here,’ I said to her and Sabby. ‘Eric will keep you all safe. Don’t let Scruffy out.’ A battle with goblins was no place for my little, white familiar.
There was a moment’s resistance as I twisted the front door knob. ‘Please,’ my voice caught on the word. ‘Please, you have to let me get Grams.’
The resistance lasted for a moment more and then the knob twisted in my hand. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered as I raced through the doorway. I heard Scruffy barking behind me.
Which way had Grams gone? The straight path down to the field that was steep and slippery, or the long way that twisted through the edge of the trees?
I had to hope she wouldn’t have wanted to risk a chance of slipping in her gown, and gone the long way round. At least then she would have a chance to run and hide in the trees. I headed for the start of the path.
Lily Templeton burst from the trees in front of me, a goblin not three paces behind. Her eyes were wild, her mouth wide open, but no screams came from her. She was conserving her energy for the only two things she could: running and praying.
I looked around for a weapon, grabbing a thick branch off the ground before ducking behind a tree. As she ran past me, I s
tepped out and swung the branch at the goblin’s head. It made a satisfying clonk as it connected with his skull. He went down with a roar and I jumped on top of him and thwacked him again and again until finally, he stopped twitching. Panting, I leant on my branch, trying desperately not to puke as I stared at his blood-spattered body.
I had seen pictures of goblins of course; had even seen one on the news once. And I’d heard countless stories about them at the Toasted Toadstool. But nothing had prepared me for this.
He was huge; at least a foot and a half taller than my six foot. His skin was a dark-coffee colour, his long hair matted into dreadlocks that cascaded down to his waist. He wore a leather loincloth with a strap that ran across his chest and over one shoulder. The leather strap was decorated with small bones. An ugly, curved dagger was sheathed at his waist, another dangled from his lifeless fingers. But the scariest things were his teeth; filed to points, they looked capable of tearing flesh from limbs.
With a start I realised I had been staring at the goblin for longer than was safe. Lily Templeton had disappeared, probably unaware that the creature was no longer chasing her, and I had to find Grams.
I plucked the dagger from his hand and hacked at my dress, ripping the side-seam up high enough that I could run unencumbered. Then, with the dagger in one hand and the branch in the other, I advanced slowly towards the path. I kept to the edge of the tree line and watched for goblins.
It didn’t take me long to find them.
Two appeared in the trees in front of me, walking slowly through the long grass as they searched. I saw a flash of black and white feathers off to the left and realised Grams was there, crouching behind a shrub. I bit my lip in frustration. The goblins were between her and me, heading off to her left. Was it possible they wouldn’t see her? I was suddenly absurdly glad she hadn’t decided to go with the gold-sequinned mask.
I could hear screams from the village and smell smoke in the air, but I stayed still as I watched them. One suddenly froze and, raising his head, sniffed the air. He put a hand on the other goblin’s arm and said something in a low, guttural tone.
Faery Born (Book One in the War Faery Trilogy) Page 5