by Sarah Hoyt
“Not now,” Nell said, knowing Grandma would understand, as she did when Nell was very young, that what Nell meant was “no lecture now.” Then she added, “Can you get me a couple of bottles of water and a package of crackers or cookies? I might need to go into Fairyland.”
Grandma’s eyes grew huge. “Nell,” she said.
“I have to go. I’m responsible,” Nell said.
“You are not responsible. He is a grown man and from another culture, and I know what time-traveling romances say, but– ”
“No. Not that. I didn’t mean I’m responsible for Seraphim. Seraphim is in trouble, yes. I might be to blame for it, yes, for things I’ve done to bring this about, but that is not it. And romance doesn’t enter into it. Oh, I… I might… I have feelings for him, but that is besides the point,” she added, as Grandma had been about to add that Nell was half-gone in love with the man. “He’s not for me, on Earth or on Avalon. On Avalon because if I go there, I’ll be the princess, and my marrying a matter of public policy and planning. On Earth because he could never come here and just be happy with me, and that is part of the reason I must go in and fix this. Seraphim is not just Seraphim, he is the Duke of Darkwater and the head of the second most magical house in the realm. Whether he lives or dies, and whether he’s tainted by scandal or not, affects not just him, not just his family, but people who work for him, people who depend on him, and everyone who interacts with them. Who holds power over his house affects even more, as they’re one of the houses responsible for the security of the royal family. The man is not a man, he’s an institution, one of the threads that hold up the state-tapestry of Avalon. That I must save, restore, and make sure it’s in his hands and not in much worse ones, and– ”
“And?” Grandma said.
“And I must go back for the same reason,” she said. “Whoever has used evil magic to remove the Darkwaters from here is also the person – or one of the people – who removed me from my birth parents. They want power, and it is essential they not get it. They are not good people. You came here to protect Earth, and I must go to protect Avalon.”
Grandma had looked old, then, really old. Nell realized that this was when Grandma had accepted Nell would be gone again, and for good. It didn’t matter that Nell had realized it at the same time.
Nell took off her clothes and threw on her prom dress, which, fortunately modest, could pass for an afternoon gown in Britannia, even if an odd one.
When Grandma came back with a box of Ritz and two bottles of water, Nell asked, “Was anyone here, today, in this room?”
“Only the ducting man,” Grandma said. “He came to clean the ducts, like he does every fall.”
“Was he… the same man?”
“Yep, Andrew, from the air conditioning place.”
Nell only nodded. She knew Andrew. Had known him for years. Either he’d been replaced, not an easy thing to do, or….
“He might be—”
“A changeling,” Grandma said. “He’d have to be from Fairyland himself, to mix dragon and unicorn. Besides, unicorns are the… thralls of the king of Fairyland. I will investigate as soon as I can.”
Nell nodded and kissed Grandma gently on the cheek and told her, “I’ll be back,” without saying it would be for only a little while.
Then Nell hefted her backpack, stood in the middle of her room, and built her transport spell.
The cold of the Betweener singed her for only a moment. And then she was on the other side. But she didn’t know where the other side was. She stood on a hill, overlooking a desolate plain, and yet it was hard to see clearly for a sort of grey, amorphous fog.
From somewhere at the bottom of the hill came a gloating voice, male, and awful, making her skin crawl, “So my darling nephew has come back!”
And then there was the snarling of dogs and the high-pitched scream of a young girl. Nell ran towards the disturbance.
A Ghost Of A Chance
Not all her equestrian lessons and prowess – and she was accounted a very good horsewoman by all her teachers – could have prepared Caroline for this moment.
Akakios had insisted she ride side-saddle upon his back. Only there was no saddle, just her sitting on the horse back of this creature who was – strangely – a young man in the front. In fact, he encouraged her – and blushed while doing so – to put her arms around his waist as she rode. “If we had a saddle,” he’d said, with a smile. “It would not be necessary to hold onto me. Of course, if we had a saddle and I consented to be saddled, my father would disown me.” He’d made light of it, and gave at the end an embarrassed chuckle, like one of the young men she met in drawing rooms who did not quite know how to address a lady.
After Caroline had arranged herself, as properly as it was possible on the back of a horse who was also a young man, he started walking at a pace, and they were quiet for a long while.
He spoke when she was just thinking that centaurs were very strange creatures and not at all as she expected, because while he smelled of warm horse – impossible not to when he had a horse’s body and was moving – he also smelled of herbs and soap. His mane of dark hair, tied back, kept touching her face. They rode through a Fairyland glade strewn all over with little yellow flowers. The only path through them was a rocky, uphill way and Caroline wondered whether the grass and flowers wouldn’t feel better on Akakios's hooves. Then she noticed how careful he was not to step off the path and shivered. One thing she’d learned, in Fairyland, was that what things looked was not what things were.
And then he said, “You must not resent my father, Lady. You see, he lost my older brother, his heir, in this mission. Athanasius left more than a year ago, and we have felt his death. So I have become my father’s heir and now my father fears losing me.”
“I do not resent your father. In fact, I don’t know why I should. But what is this mission? Helping me through Fairyland? Surely your brother could not have been doing this a year ago?”
Akakios shook his head, “No. The real mission. Saving Fairyland and the worlds with it.”
“How can you save the worlds? Save them from what?” she asked, but – before he could answer – something appeared on the path in front of them.
Akakios reared, like a horse. She held on around his waist and screamed. She could feel his body tense as he tried to suppress what had clearly been an instinctive movement – the way the body felt and the reactions built into it. He put his front paws down with an appearance of deliberate force. He stammered. “Forgive, Lady– Forgive–”
But Caroline couldn’t think of what he wanted her to forgive, nor did she say anything, because on the path, in front of her, looking translucent and yet somehow very real was her Papa, and her Papa had been dead for more than a year.
She wanted to say, “Papa,” but as in certain dreams, it seemed as though her voice was gone and she could not speak at all. It didn’t matter at any rate, because Papa walked around Akakios towards her. Though “walked” might not be the most appropriate word, since he seemed not to move his legs at all. As he got close, Papa stretched a hand for her, but Akakios did something – Caroline wasn’t sure what, but there was a hand lifted, and the singing of magic. What she could see of Akakios's face was very pale, like strained moonlight, and his lips looked almost gray and open as though he didn’t have the strength to close them. He too said nothing.
And Papa’s ghost spoke. “Caroline. You must go and save your brother. He has fallen into the most absurd trap.”
“Michael?” Caroline asked, managing to speak though her voice came out tinny and too high and sounding not at all like herself. “I know, that’s why I– ”
Papa made an impatient gesture. “Yes, yes, that’s why you and your mama came to Fairyland, a ridiculous endeavor if I ever heard of one, but it is not Michael I speak of. Oh, he’s in danger enough, but it will not kill him, or not immediately. He’s too valuable to the king for what he can get from Michael. No, it is your brother Gabriel who
has just stepped into a great danger, and he’ll be torn limb from limb in no time if you do not intervene.”
“Gabriel!” Caroline said, because her mind had been nowhere near her half-brother, whom she thought safe somewhere else altogether. “Why would Gabriel be in danger?” Somewhere at the back of her mind was the thought that, after all, Gabriel was half-elf, and who else could better cope with the perils of this place?
“Do not try to get past my defenses,” Akakios said, loudly, and put his hand up again, in between Papa and Caroline. “I do not know who or what you are, but you cannot get to the lady past me.”
“I am the lady’s father,” Papa said, sounding amused. “As for what I am, I am the Duke of Darkwater – or I was. I suppose Seraphim has ascended, and I’m sure he’s a better duke than I ever was.”
“Papa!”
“You are not,” Akakios said, “corporeal.” His body braced like Caroline’s pony when it was nervous, and Caroline, without thinking, ran her hand down his arm, seeking to calm him.
“No,” Papa said, a glint of amusement in his eye. “I, too, fell into a trap, much like Michael’s. But fortunately, they don’t know everything I know, and it left me freedom of movement… as long as I don’t move my body. But Gabriel won’t be allowed that. He won’t be allowed to stay alive. You will find him where you hear the hell hounds bay.”
A Friend In Odd Places
Seraphim looked in horror at Jonathan, and Jonathan looked back at him, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “I thought you were exiled? I’m sure I heard something. Not that I didn’t understand. I’d prefer to be exiled than to marry Honoria, and I don’t say that just because she is my sister. Damn rum family we would be if I married my own sister, I mean, but all the same, even if she weren’t my sister, I don’t think I’d like to marry her, because she is– because she is–” he hiccupped loudly and said, in an ominous tone, “Damme if I don’t think I’m going to shoot the cat.”
For all Seraphim could imagine, it was quite possible Jonathan had come into the alley just for that purpose. After all, it made perfect sense to choose a secluded spot to throw up. But after a while, the honorable Jonathan Blythe, the back of his hand pressed to his lips, seemed to steady himself. “No,” he said, meditatively. “Perhaps not.”
Meanwhile Seraphim was thinking furiously. He’d known Jonathan since school, off and on. They’d attended Eton together and often found themselves thrust into the same circles. In such circumstances, it was impossible not to know a man’s vices, such as whether he was prone to being sodden drunk in public. And that was not something he’d ever expected of Jonathan Blythe. Disorderly, sure, indiscriminately lustful and a devil with gaming. But drunk? In public? “Jonathan,” he said. “Why are you drunk? How have you got in this state?”
He turned around and looked at Seraphim, and his eyes, though so much like Honoria’s, yet had an animated expression to them that Honoria had never managed. Jonathan’s eyes showed shock, surprise, and an underlying "tempting hell and the devil” sort of amusement. “Why, I got into this state because I would much rather be drunk than think about where the old gentleman and m’sister are going to get themselves. They think that they’re using Sydell, but Darkwater, I tell you, no one uses someone who is half dragon-spawn.”
“Who is what?”
“Sydell. Half dragon. Raised in a foundling home, till he was reclaimed on his father’s death. Faith, didn’t you know?”
“I begin to think, Jonathan, that I don’t know nearly as much as I should. Can we go to your rooms in town? I believe we should have a good, long talk.”
Little Necromancer Lost
“My rooms?” Jonathan said. Then he nodded suddenly. “Aye. My rooms. We can go there. I have some fine smuggled brandy that I–”
“Have had quite enough of?” Seraphim essayed.
Jonathan grinned. “Nonsense. I can tell you’re not a Blythe. If you were linked to those mad people by family ties as I am, you’d know as I do that there is no such thing as drinking enough.” He blinked in Seraphim’s direction. “Have you considered, dear chap, that everything that has happened to you, even the royal seizing of your estates and the attainder of your title, does not compare in misfortune to being related to m’sister?”
Seraphim felt as though the world had whirled under his feet. “The attainder of what?”
Jonathan looked almost comically dismayed, a schoolboy caught in an horrendous gaffe. Which, in many ways was exactly what Jonathan was. An overgrown, bumbling, schoolboy. “Very sorry, Darkwater, that is–”
“That is, I don’t actually have any right to that title any longer?” Seraphim asked.
“I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding. Or at least, not a misunderstanding, but you know, they mean to do it, only not–”
“Indeed,” Seraphim said, and felt more than ever that they shouldn’t, in fact, have this conversation in an alley. But it came to him, like a flash, that they probably also shouldn’t have it in Jonathan’s rooms. The Blythes might not suspect Jonathan of betraying them to Seraphim, exactly, but when someone was so unhappy with the course of events that he gave off his despair and anger like a cloud, his family couldn’t avoid knowing it. Particularly not his very magical family.
But Seraphim’s pockets were sadly to let. Particularly since these pockets weren’t even, technically, his but belonged to the trousers he’d got from Nell.
The thought of Nell was not a good one. Their match had never been a likely thing, but now…. “Perhaps we can find a parlor somewhere that we can let for an hour or two,” he said, “in some hostelry. A coffee room or something.”
“At this time of night?” Jonathan said. “Unlikely. Everyone will see us coming and going. I’d think you’d not want to be seen. That is, I’d not want to be seen if there were a price on my head. What I mean is–”
“You can explain your meaning better shortly,” Seraphim said.
“My rooms,” Jonathan said, “are this way.” And, with the cocksure certainty of the very drunk, he turned away from where the alley met the street and towards the other end, where it was blocked by rubbish bins.
Seraphim lurched after him, trying to stop him, but before he could get hold of Jonathan’s sleeve, Jonathan tripped and fell – headlong forward.
From where Jonathan had fallen came a sound like someone wakening, and then a male voice – not Jonathan’s – asked, “Who are you?” Even as Jonathan said, in a startled tone, but in the same vaguely polite way he’d employ to someone he’d stepped on at a ball, “Pardon me, pardon me. Exceedingly clumsy of me, dear fellow. That is– I do beg your pardon.”
“I don’t want you to beg my pardon,” the other man said. “I want you to get off from on top of me. Where am I? Why have you brought me here? What kind of perfidious magic did you use to pull me–”
“Marlon,” Seraphim said, “Elfborn.”
Now Marlon surged off the alley's muddied ground, shoving Jonathan to the mud, and was on his feet, suddenly, his fists balled. “Darkwater. I should have known. You brought me here to get me away from him. How dare you? How dare you?”
“I beg your pardon,” Jonathan said, mildly from somewhere near the ground, “But you should just call him Ainsling. His title is under a decree of attainder. I wouldn’t wish you to commit a social solecism, old fellow. Who are you, anyway? Elfborn? Marlon– not the necromancer?”
Marlon cast the man a look over his shoulder, while Seraphim decided to ignore Jonathan entirely and instead to respond to the necromancer with withering disdain, “I did not transport you, if that’s what you ask. Last I left you, you were talking to Gabriel in the room under the house. I went to my own room and decided it was time I stopped hiding and worked on solving our difficulties. I don’t know what happened to you or why nor even who might have transported you here.”
Marlon stepped forward, Seraphim was not sure why and never asked, because as Marlon surged towards him, the light from the street behind Serap
him hit the man’s face, and Seraphim saw that it was covered with black residue, as though someone had coated it in coal. His expression must have shown his horror, because Marlon said, “What? Am I quite disfigured?” His hands went up to his face. Meanwhile Jonathan had stood up and blinked at Marlon, “No. It is magic explosion stuff– ice and – magic. It will come off. But it is the result of dragon magic.”
“Dragon?” Marlon asked, and blinked.
Seraphim realized with a sinking feeling that the two of them, one drunk and the other possibly concussed – he couldn’t imagine how Marlon could have found the time to be drunk, but he had been lying unconscious in an alley – could discuss this till the end of time, possibly loudly. And whether there was a price on his head or not, there surely was one on Marlon’s. He let out air with an explosive sigh. “Jonathan,” he said, keeping his voice low, “says Sydell is half dragon. Please, say nothing, Mr. Elfborn; there is no time for this. I believe there is a conspiracy afoot that has ensnared both me and my whole family, including Gabriel.” He felt obscurely that he should despise himself for using the man’s misguided affection, but a drowning man will get hold of any floating straw. “Jonathan seems to know something of it, and wants to go to his rooms, to talk, but I’m afraid his rooms might be magically spied upon.”
Elfborn nodded. He didn’t speak or protest, which at least spoke well for his intelligence.
He was quiet a moment, then gave a disquieting little laugh. “Well,” he said. “I’ve been hiding for years. I can take you to the place where I’ve hid.”
Seraphim bit off the question of how many corpses were hidden there too. This was the most unlikely ally and the most unlikely offer of help.
“If you must know,” Marlon said, sounding stiff and forlorn, “Gabriel ended our attachment quite decisively just before… whatever this spell was, but….”