Loose Changeling: A Changeling Wars Novel

by A. G. Stewart

  Merlin straightened and stretched out a hand. “Then let me read the truth of it in your thoughts.”

  Without even the slightest hesitation, Grian stepped forward and into his touch.

  Both Sidhe went still; I didn’t even see the rise and fall of breath. Merlin was known for his magic, and was a Changeling. This would end here, now. I could go home, get someone to see to the arrow in my upper arm, take a hot shower, veg out in front of the television…

  My fantasies were cut short by a sharp cry. Merlin dropped to the ground. The flicker of a smile crossed Grian’s face as she stepped away.

  I was running toward them before I registered that I’d moved. All my plans, shattered. If I’d given myself time to think, I would have started running in the opposite direction. Grian wanted me dead, and she’d done something to take out Merlin. Merlin—the man who lived large in all the Arthurian legends my dad had read to us as kids. His imprisonment may have weakened him, but he was not weak.

  And I was a Changeling, my magic freshly hatched, still young and untried and wobbly.

  But emotions had a way of trampling logic, and I was filled to the brim with relief at Kailen’s honesty, anger at Grian’s manipulations, and a hope that burned as steady and bright as a kerosene lamp.

  I slammed into the Fae Queen, and my weight carried us both toward the ground. Before the impact, I shoved into her thoughts with the gusto of a swimmer pushing off from the wall.

  Darkness surrounded me, punctuated with pinpricks of light, like stars.

  Oh, Nicole. Grian’s voice emanated from all around me. Will you ever learn?

  I ignored her, focused on a mote of light, and dove toward it. Almost immediately, a subtle pressure began building against me, like the water at the deep end of the pool. I was still on the surface of her thoughts. I had to get below, into what made Grian who she was, to cause any damage.

  But by delving into her thoughts, I made mine vulnerable to her. My memories flitted through my mind as she sorted through them. Though maybe “sorted” isn’t the right word. She sorted through my memories the way a two-year-old sorts through their toy box in search of their favorite Lego. My sister and I playing hide-and-seek as children, my first day of school, the time I broke my arm on the monkey bars. Tears gathered in my eyes. Grian had no right to muddle through my memories or my thoughts.

  Flashes of Grian’s memories hit me as I dove. A memory of her crafting the watch, of her sneaking up on Merlin in the middle of the night, of her placing it against his skin.

  The lights to either side of me shifted and lengthened into spikes. Go back. This isn’t your battle to fight. I have returned your nephew and called off both the Guardians and the other Fae families. You could live your life as a mortal, unmolested. I will not bother you again.

  “And what about everyone else?” I called into the darkness.

  They are not your concern.

  Like hell they weren’t. Maybe a few days ago I would have been content with such a bargain. Keep me and my own safe, and let the rest of the world deal with their problems. But I wasn’t that woman anymore. And these weren’t the fluffy, glittery Fae of youthful fairytales. Some of them were genuinely bad people, and I had the power to stand between them and the defenseless. I wasn’t going to let Grian wreak her havoc on the mortal world, or the Fae world.

  Even if it cost me my life.

  The darkness disappeared, replaced only with thin white spikes. I fell with them, into them, through them. They pierced my belly, my face, my hands, my feet. Each one prickled and burned, the pain spreading through my body like an infection.

  I clenched my teeth, biting back a scream. Pieces of me began to fall away and still I pushed forward. There was no blood, only flesh and pain. Grian was cutting to my core; there would be nothing of me left by the time she was finished. If I didn’t turn back, she would leave me worse than dead. She would leave me completely mad. Panic began to eat away at my hope. My progress slowed.

  But Grian had just tried to bargain with me. I may have been Fae, but I’d spent my life as a human, and nine of those years I’d spent as a salesperson—begging, cajoling, and convincing people to purchase daily planners. Maybe I wasn’t centuries old, like Kailen, but I’d learned a few things.

  As soon as someone tries to bargain with you, it means something. It means you’re halfway to making a sale, because they’ve conceded they actually want what you’re selling. It means you’ve almost won.

  Grian’s mental battle with Merlin had weakened her. The attempted bargaining wasn’t the whim of a powerful Sidhe. It was a desperate attempt to get me to leave her alone.

  I pushed aside the pain and dove.

  The spikes disappeared. I floated in an empty white space.

  Changeling…

  Before she could say another word, before she could stop me, I imagined the door and made it real. As before, a little girl stood next to me, one palm placed against the wood.

  “Sometimes,” I said to her, panting, “what we see in our heads is worse than the reality.”

  I jerked open the door, and the monster emerged. Bloody saliva dripped from its jowls, its massive knuckles dragging on the ground as it lumbered into the white space. A matted patch of hair covered the top of its head; its clothes were torn and tattered. The little girl took a step back, then another, and then fell. The monster’s lips parted in a grin, revealing sharpened teeth. But instead of going after the girl, it turned back the way it had come and began to tear the door apart. Grian and the little girl screamed in unison.

  I fled—up and up—desperate to surface. The screams followed my path, as loud as though I hadn’t moved at all. I found pieces of myself on the way, and I snatched them from the darkness, holding them close. Mostly my memories, and the quirks I held unique to me.

  The pressure lightened. I felt cold air on my cheeks.

  And then I was back.

  Grian was beneath me, one of my knees pressed into her hip, the other stinging on the pavement. Her eyes were open and sightless, and her screams filled the night air. I checked my torso and my limbs. Other than the arrow and the skinless part of my thigh, I was unhurt.

  “Nicole. Changeling,” a voice said behind me.

  I turned my head and saw Merlin, his hand outstretched. He still lay on the ground, blood leaking from his ears and nostrils, staining his white hair red. “Bring her to me.”

  I hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  Well, I wasn’t about to argue with Merlin. Sliding off of the Fae Queen’s body, I pulled at her arm until her hand touched his. The screams stopped and both of them went still again. Was that how I’d looked when I’d fought her? I sat between them, unsure of what to do next.

  A moment later, they both breathed again—Grian in gulping sobs, Merlin in rasping, shallow breaths.

  He grabbed for my arm. “Her magic is spent. I have bound her. She will never be able to tell another lie, for as long as she lives. The only one who can undo this is you. The only one who can undo it is another Changeling.”

  His grip held me tight, the gnarled fingers molded around my wrist. He waited.

  “I won’t. I swear it,” I said.

  The hand went slack, his eyes rolled back, and a last puff of breath left his lips and curled into the air. I felt his life wink out like a burnt-out bulb. I was alone again—the only living Changeling. It made me gut-wrenchingly sad.

  Footsteps crunched against the asphalt.

  “So,” Officer Brown said, “what just happened here?” He had his thumbs hooked into his belt, one hand resting lightly over his gun.

  I pointed to Grian. “Arrest her. She’s the one that killed those people. She’ll give you a confession, if you ask for it.”

  Dorian stepped out of the crowd of Fae, dressed in a flannel shirt, black leather pants, and loafers. I could have sworn I hadn’t seen him among the Fae as they’d approached. Had he only just now arrived? I wouldn’t have been surpris
ed. He had his own piece of moonstone and the Talent to travel. He seemed to have a knack for showing up in the right place at the right time.

  "It appears we have been deceived," he said. "Grian framed Faolan in order to goad us into warring with the mortal world."

  Yeah, thanks for the Cliff notes, dude. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

  But he wasn't talking for my benefit. The Fae, lesser and greater, gasped and murmured. They hadn't been crawling inside Grian's head like I had.

  "Mortals," Dorian called out, "please accept our apologies for any death or destruction we may have already caused."

  Officer Brown didn't pay any attention to Dorian. He cuffed Grian and hauled her to her feet.

  "Nicole, we should go." Kailen stood over me, his hand extended.

  I glanced over at Merlin's body, and again the grief filled me—silent and cold and hollow. "He deserves better than this."

  "Dorian will see to it." Kailen shook his head, the corner of his lip curled. "Fae politics. But the police won't be mollified by pretty words. They'll try to make more arrests and things will get messy. I know that. You know that. The other Fae may be able to just jump through the doorways, but we can’t. Grian is in custody. We need to leave."

  Brown nodded at me as his partner walked up. "He's right. If you go now, then officially, you weren't here. It's the least Gomez and I can do. Faolan will be released, once we get her confession."

  I took Kailen's hand and he hauled me to my feet. I tried not to wince at the pain in both my arm and my leg. Before I could stumble, he'd wrapped his arm around my waist. The touch of his hand distracted me, chasing away the pain.

  I leaned into him, grateful for the support, and let him lead me away from the prison. The world around us blurred. Ten steps, and we were downtown. Twenty, and we stood at my doorstep.

  Though he looked as tired as I felt, he helped me inside, sitting me down on the couch.

  It took him almost an hour, but he removed the arrow with gentle fingers and healed the wound it left behind. We barely spoke.

  We'd won, but at what cost? How long could I—could anyone—keep the Fae and the mortal worlds separate?

  I needed time to process what had happened. I needed space.

  He must have sensed what I felt—in my body language, in my expression. When Kailen finished with my leg, he brushed the hair from my face and put his lips to my forehead. "Call me," he whispered. "If you need me, I'm there."

  His hand lingered on my cheek. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, I was alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  When you’ve got a heritage like mine, you come to realize you have to adjust your expectations of normal. Normal isn’t sitting in front of the television with your feet propped up and a beer in your hand after a long day of work. Normal is waking up to a grushound at your door, loudly demanding food and lodging with a vocabulary that surpasses your own.

  I let the hound in. Leaving a talking dog on my doorstep wasn’t the best way to lie low. Anwynn quickly made herself at home, claiming the guest bedroom as her domain and cleaning my freezer of anything resembling meat. I tried petting her wiry black fur the day after she’d moved in. She only rolled one brown eye back at me and said, “This probably doesn’t feel good for either of us.” I kept my hands to myself after that. Not a cuddly puppy dog then. More like a prickly, bitchy roommate. Still, she made me feel safe.

  So when the Arbiter showed up in my living room a couple days later, I didn’t so much as yelp. I calmly asked him if he wanted tea, and inquired after the nature of his visit.

  He said yes to the tea, and settled onto my couch, his arms slung across the cushions, robes pooling about his seated form. The hood inched back, revealing a face that looked rather normal, if I ignored the pale skin, the blue-black hair, and the pupil-less green eyes. “I’m granting your petition for legal status,” he said, “with conditions.”

  Of course. Couldn’t just be a simple stamp-the-form-and-sign-here sort of process, could it? I flipped the kettle on and shuffled through my cupboards for the tea bags. “What conditions?”

  He waited until I’d found them before speaking again. “First, you must close all the doorways Merlin has opened.”

  I’d known this was coming; it what was what I’d been created for, after all. Still, hearing it out loud was a shock. “Kailen’s had that watch for a while. Rooting out all the doorways it’s reopened—and closing them—that’s practically a full-time job. How will I pay for my food? For my house?” For the pony-sized hound with the insatiable appetite?

  The Arbiter shrugged. “Not my concern.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You do want to live, don’t you?”

  “Point taken.” As soon as the kettle boiled, I poured it over the tea and took it to him. “And the other conditions?”

  “Only one more.” He blew the steam from the top of the mug and sipped. “Changelings were outlawed for a reason. If I grant you legal status, this tips the balance of power firmly in the Aranhods’ favor. I can’t have that. The other families will begin creating Changelings with or without permission. I’m severing your ties with the Aranhods. From here on out, you will be your own, separate entity. You will not be under their protection, nor will they be under yours.”

  Anwynn chose that moment to pad into the room. She bowed her head to the Arbiter as she passed. “Arbiter,” she murmured. The hound stopped before the tile floor of the kitchen and sat. “I wish to be fed.” Even sitting, her head breached my countertops.

  The Arbiter eyed the grushound. “As such,” he continued, “any lesser Fae that bond to you will be yours alone to control.”

  Anwynn’s tail twitched once.

  I was missing something here, some larger implication. I should have called Kailen to ask his advice, but I was still winding down from the confrontation at the prison. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Fine.”

  He nodded and then made me swear an oath that felt about fifty pages long, give or take. There was magic in it, I was sure of it, but when he cupped my chin with his hand and I spoke the last words, I felt only a vague warmth in the center of my chest. There was no smell to speak of.

  “Stay out of trouble, little one,” the Arbiter said as he rose from his spot on the couch. “Though I have the feeling that may prove difficult.” Before I could protest being called “little one,” he’d disappeared.

  He left half his tea in the mug, the contents still steaming. I watched it curl into the air, bemused by everything that had transpired.

  “It has been over five minutes, and I am still not fed,” Anwynn announced.

  I sighed and went to the refrigerator. “Yeah, yeah.”

  It took another few days for me to wrangle the hound onto a leash so I could leave the house. I wasn’t keen on going out alone, not so soon after the Arbiter had given me legal status. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that the Fae were all about breaking rules.

  But all my explanations of leash laws wouldn’t sway the stubborn beast. I tried sweet-talking her, I tried bribery. Just the sight of the leash was enough to raise Anwynn’s hackles. Finally, my patience worn thin, I ordered her to wear it, and she submitted to this indignity without another word.

  I took her to a café downtown, and we waited on the patio at one of the tables. Though we received a lot of looks and a few questions on the type of dog she was (I’d settled on, “A third Great Dane, a third German Shepherd, and a third Irish Wolfhound.”), no one asked to pet her.

  Owen showed up fifteen minutes after I’d arrived. He approached our table in an arc, giving the grushound wide berth.

  “Hey,” he said, sliding into the seat next to me. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he’d actually taken the time to shave.

  “Hey,” I said. I didn’t want to drag this out any longer, so I pushed the papers over to him. Under the hand-written “Are you sure?” note, I’d checked yes.

  He stared at it for a long time, and s
o did I.

  “So this is really the end,” he finally said.

  “It is.”

  He glanced up at me, briefly, and then back down. “Are you okay? You’re not being chased anymore? I heard something went down at the prison and figured that was you.”

  I gave him a tentative smile and felt the corners of it wobble. “It was, and I’m not being chased anymore. I’m going to be fine. You?”

  He let out a long breath. “Yeah. I got a job waiting tables, just to hold me over. My brother knows a few people—we’re forming a band.”

  “Good.” And I meant it. It was the sort of work that better suited him.

  The door to the café swung open and the barista brought me my mocha. Anwynn, apparently bored, scratched an ear. Neither Owen nor I spoke.

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose that’s it then.” He stood and turned to go.

  “Owen,” I said. He looked back at me. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad I met you.”

  “Yeah?” He cocked his head, the trace of a smile on his face. “You know, you’re different now. You seem more like you, if that makes any sense. See you around, Nicole. Take care.”

  “You too,” I called after him. A lump formed in my throat as I watched him walk away. Our marriage was over. I lifted the mug and sipped, trying to swallow back the tears. I’d known this was coming, and so had he.

  I was opening the door to my car when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

  “You haven’t called.”

  Kailen. He wore gray slacks and a slightly rumpled button-up shirt. There on the sidewalk, he turned enough heads to stir a breeze. I don’t think any of the passing women (and some men) even noticed Anwynn.

  “I didn’t need to,” I said lightly. The truth of the matter was that the mere sight of him set me off balance. There were things I had to do, to sort out, and having him muddle up my feelings didn’t help me get anywhere.

  His gaze settled on Anwynn. “You bonded the grushound.”

  His tone inspired defensiveness. “So? It was in the middle of battle. She offered. And why didn’t you tell me grushounds could talk?”