Soul of Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Are any of the gnomes still in residence?” Nalith asked the lead brownie, the way someone might ask if there was still any cake left after a party. Jan started, unable to help herself. Gnomes?

  Turncoats, the creatures that had tried to kill her, twice. Kill and—according to AJ—eat her, trying to prevent her from rescuing Tyler, from stopping the preters from invading. Nalith had gnomes here? The sense of betrayal Jan felt warned her: she was falling under the preter’s spell. This creature was not to be trusted, any more than others of her kind. Her hand touched the pocket holding the sachet and carved horse. Elizabeth had said they’d be protection, right?

  She hoped to hell that Martin and Tyler were still carrying theirs.

  “No, my lady,” the brownie said, answering Nalith. “You sent them all out earlier to...take care of matters.”

  “Did I? Ah. Then find others among your group who will do. I wish to see how kelpies fight.”

  Martin’s expression didn’t change. He bowed once and then stepped off the deck into the yard itself. To anyone else, he might have looked almost bored, but Jan had seen Martin bored, and this wasn’t it. He was tense, worried. Because of gnomes being here? Or about whatever the preter was up to? Jan cast a glance at the brownies, who were gathered together, clearly choosing up who would be the ones to fight.

  Finally, their huddle broke up, and two figures came forward. Like all brownies, they were barely knee-high and scrawny, but Jan was guessing that the scrawniness was over some seriously wiry muscles, and the way they were standing reminded her of wrestlers she’d seen in high school. You might not match them up against a football player, but they could do damage, too. Their tasseled ears twitched, then folded flat against their bald heads the way a cat’s did when it was angry or scared. They removed their shoes and stretched their toes, then moved down the stairs to stand across from Martin.

  Three feet, max, separated them as they stared at each other. There was no anger, no posturing; they weren’t doing this because they wanted to hurt each other, but because the queen had commanded it, to amuse her.

  The hatred Jan felt was like champagne in her veins, making her feel light and slightly off-kilter. The preter craved art, desired beauty, and thought that violence was entertainment? She kept gnomes at her beck and call, sent them out to hunt and kill people? She was the same as the others, after all. Not that Jan had doubted it, ever, but...

  But for a moment, for a few days, Jan had almost allowed herself to forget and not even realized it.

  She’d remember, now.

  Jan felt something at her side, a presence, a comforting shadow, and looked sideways to find Tyler next to her. His hair had been trimmed close to the scalp again while they were at the Farm, but he still managed to look sleep tousled. She looked back at Martin, her heart beating too fast for calm, and Tyler’s fingers slid into her own, a brief touch against her hand, pressing lightly against the sachet in her pocket, before he was gone.

  Jan’s fingers clenched against the fabric, but she couldn’t look around to see where he’d disappeared to, her gaze as tightly focused on the fight about to happen as anyone else, if for different reasons.

  There was no sign, no warning. One instant all three of them were standing there, looking at each other, and the next the two smaller figures launched themselves at Martin, one going for his knees, the other for his shoulders—no, his face, fingers trying to gouge out his eyes. Jan gasped, the faintest noise, and the preter queen turned her head and looked up at the human, a peculiar smile on her face. Jan’s heart stopped—had she given away her connection to Martin?

  “There is nothing about my courtiers I will not know,” the preter queen said, turning back to watch the fight. “And how one fights tells me much.”

  She couldn’t read human emotions, not yet, not well, anyway. Or she was too selfish to even try to learn. Whatever, it didn’t matter; she had no idea what Jan was thinking, so her secret was safe.

  “They might kill each other,” Jan said, feeling as if someone was grasping at her throat. It felt like an asthma attack, but it wasn’t; her inhaler wouldn’t help this. “What good is he, are they, to you if they’re dead?”

  The preter queen shrugged; clearly, she did not care.

  The two brownies were giving it everything they had, biting and scratching, hissing and throwing themselves at their opponent, putting Martin on the defensive. He moved back, and they followed, tripping him so that he fell backward heavily, coming up smeared with mud and grass.

  But he got up, and one of his hands palmed the nearest brownie, getting hold of its ears and yanking like a little boy pulling pigtails. The brownie shrieked, a high-pitched and painful noise, and twisted its neck at an impossible angle, sinking teeth into Martin’s hand.

  The preter queen was breathing harder, her fingers clenched, and Jan realized with disgust that the bitch was turned on by the violence.

  Martin, on his feet again, knocked one of the brownies away, but not before its teeth had torn his pants leg. The other, having escaped his hand, was now trying to do a face-hugger impersonation, clawing at Martin’s ears while its legs wrapped around his neck.

  His human form could barely keep even with the two supernaturals, giving him no chance to go on the offensive.

  “Change,” Jan breathed, and it became a chant. “Change change change...”

  There was no way he heard her, not over the hooting and cheering of the brownies, who didn’t seem to care who won, so long as there was bloodshed, but he tore the second brownie off and stepped back, a shudder running through his body that, even without the sudden intense need to close her eyes, made Jan know he was about to do just that.

  The kelpie Jan remembered was a sturdy pony, its hooves glittering black, its coat the red-brown of riverbank mud, its eyes deep brown and mild, with a flicker of mischief.

  The beast that appeared before her had the same shape, but beyond that she could not identify it. The coat now gleamed with a sick green sheen, the mane, still thick, was tangled, knotted, and muddy, and the eyes were not golden-brown but a deep, ugly yellow that shone even at this distance.

  The hooves were the same sparkling black, until he cracked open one of the brownies’ heads, and then they were coated in red.

  The creature still tried to attack, grabbing at Martin’s mane as though to pull itself onto his back, but let go as soon as it grabbed, crying out and clutching its hand with its other as blood dripped down.

  “Saw-grass sharp, that mane, and likely the tail, as well,” the preter murmured, sounding pleased. “All of it designed for one purpose and yet handsome in execution.” She raised her hand and flicked the fingers as though scattering water away. “Two more, aid your kind.”

  Martin had no more warning than that before two more of the brownies threw themselves into the fight. He backed up, hindquarters bunching as though he were about to run away, then—rather than rearing or screaming the way a normal horse might—he lunged directly into the fight.

  And seconds later, there were four small bodies laid out on the grass, one still, the other three moving faintly, either shocked into submission or too injured to get up again.

  Jan’s eyes forced themselves closed—and did that happen to the preter, too? Impossible to tell, and the bitch would never admit it, if so—and when they opened again, Martin was standing in front of them. His pants leg was ripped to shreds up to his thigh, both of his arms were covered with scratches, his face was bruised, and he looked as though he had at least one black eye.

  But the grin on his face was not only triumphant but a little scornful, and the look in his eyes was brilliantly cold, like an icicle on a cold winter morning. There was nothing of the Martin she knew in those eyes. Jan shivered a little, even as the queen leaned forward in her chair.

  “I had thought your kind only good for drownin
g little girls in shallow streams,” she said.

  “You may find this world surprises you,” he replied and then added, almost as an afterthought, “my lady.”

  Nalith practically purred at his presumption, or how he yoked that presumption into obedience, more likely. Jan choked back her own anger and nausea, remembering their reason for being here. Get into her graces. Find a way to hold her here, see if they could identify a weakness or find a way to use her against the other preters, alert AJ, and let the teams descend.

  Nothing else mattered.

  Chapter 10

  The Huntsman was old. He remembered when the world was a slower, larger place. He also remembered that it had never been a simpler place. Some things never changed.

  The note from the old wolf had come on the heels of the witches’ warning. He had needed neither, already aware of the change in the world.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” the man across the counter said.

  “I’ve been away.” He had been hiding. Spending long afternoons in the Center, the tree-ringed clearing where there was no time, no stress, only peace and calm. The last time he had been there, he had sat all night by a fire, watching the stars wheel and turn, and found no peace, no calm.

  Preternaturals stalked this world. AJ had warned him, and the witches had confirmed it. The Huntsman had no beef with supernaturals; how could he, tangled in their hold for all these years? If he sometimes longed for the dust and oblivion that would have been his measure had he not stepped between a wood nymph and a wolf centuries before, that did not mean he did not still love his nymph, and the wolf...

  He had called the lupin friend for almost as long. Supernaturals did not hold grudges. Not of that sort. And neither could he. But preternaturals did not belong here.

  “And now you’re back.” The human across the counter finished bagging up his supplies, slow and methodical. “You do nothing without a reason, David.”

  That was true. The witches—the only of his species who could see what he was, who could understand—had called him to duty.

  The grocer was human, but he was human the way the Huntsman himself was: touched by their grace, changed by their magic, able to see the fantastical and, having once seen, unable to live anywhere or any way else.

  He had once thought he had paid the price for that, paid in double and in full. He had been wrong.

  “There’s a storm coming, Jack.”

  The grocer wasn’t fool enough to bother looking at the clear sky outside his shop. “Your lumbago tell you that?”

  “No games.” He had never been one for games, but Jack had. Once it had been all games and foolishness with the boy, and how long ago that seemed now. Jack hadn’t been a boy for decades. “No ache that tells me the fair folk are distressed, that magic is stirring where none should move. The elves are at their tricks again.” He was an old-fashioned man, and he would use old-fashioned terms, and to hell with any who mocked him for it.

  “Ayup.” Jack was no fool, for all that he’d once played one. “And you think we need to do something about it? You?”

  “Once a meddler, always a meddler, it seems,” the old man said, not without some rue.

  Jack put his elbows on the counter, his palms pressed together. He had been a fair-haired boy once, before that hair receded and the bright, clever look in his eye was replaced by a more knowing one. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Nothing...yet,” the Huntsman said. “But be ready for my call.”

  When the storm hit, all hands might be needed.

  * * *

  With his performance against the brownies, Martin became the queen’s new favorite, her obsession with art and creativity washed away for the moment by her appreciation for violence. He bowed to her, a shallow thing, but she ate it with a spoon, drawing the kelpie close, her arm tucked through his. She was taller than he but so slender, they made an odd, almost complementary pair.

  Jan set her jaw and reminded herself that this was all part of the plan, as much as they had an actual plan, following the pair back into the house like an obedient human. Martin wasn’t hers—he was her friend, her colleague, fine, but she didn’t own him.

  This wasn’t the same as Tyler and the elf-bitch who’d stolen him. Martin wasn’t being abused or brainwashed; they were here for a reason. They were here together, all three of them. Safety in numbers. She wrapped herself around that fact, warmed herself on it.

  There was coffee and tea set up in the kitchen and an assortment of warm muffins filled with cheese on a platter. Jan took one, suddenly aware that she was hungry. Whatever else she might think about brownies, they kept house like champions.

  The sense of hunger faded once the muffin was gone, and all that was left was an emptiness in her chest. She couldn’t identify it at first, then a sudden panic clenched her gut and made her breath come short. She was reaching into her pocket for her inhaler before she realized what it was.

  The sense of a clock ticking down a deadline that had moved within her, ever since the bargain she’d made in the court...was gone. No fear, no pressure...but Jan didn’t for a moment think that the threat was gone, too. If anything, it was closer than ever before.

  “Nothing’s changed,” she told herself, ignoring the sideways look a lupin gave her as it grabbed a muffin for itself. A human talking to herself couldn’t be all that off the weird-o-meter, not here. “Just keep going.”

  There were no clocks or calendars in the house that Jan had seen, and she had a feeling that asking someone what day it was might not be the best way to blend. They were supposed to be here by choice, waiting on Nalith’s whim, not waiting on outside forces. The queen’s schedule set the day, and everyone seemed to follow along. “So, follow along,” she said in the now-empty kitchen and went where everyone else had gone.

  The preter queen was settling into her not-quite-a-throne-seat in the main room, Martin standing by her side while she conferred with another one of the supers, a thin, reedy thing with a face like vanilla pudding. Their voices were too low to overhear, but neither of them seemed particularly upset, and Martin’s face was still that calm, waiting expression that told her to hold the course and not do anything.

  The rest of the room was not crowded, exactly, but filled. Tyler had come back, now dressed and looking more awake, a mug of coffee in his hand. Kerry never woke before midday if he could avoid it, he’d told her, but both Patrick and the unnamed man had joined him, the three of them settled into a corner of the room, watching Nalith’s face like dogs might watch their owner, waiting for a command. Jan caught Tyler’s eye and was somewhat reassured when his left lid lowered in what might have been a wink. They were still there, still here, still them. For a moment, a strained, dizzy moment, she had doubted that.

  “You, Patrick, attend me,” Nalith said, dismissing Martin and beckoning for the human, who jumped to his feet as though he had been waiting for her call. He had, of course. Jan watched as he made his way to the preter’s side, remembering with a sick twist in her stomach the way Tyler had stood next to the bitch-preter who had captured him, seduced him. How she’d tried to destroy his mind, his will, his personality, turning him into an empty vessel, a tool to be used to open portals.

  No. Stjerne had failed. Jan had won. Tyler was here, not safe, no, but aware. Human. This wasn’t the same. She wouldn’t lose him, wouldn’t lose either of them.

  “I wish to see the progress you have made,” the preter said to Patrick. He nodded, almost a bow, really, and left the room, Jan presumed to fetch his current project.

  “And there you are. Sing for me, my bird,” Nalith said, almost offhandedly, as Patrick came back with a cloth-wrapped object the size of a small child in his arms, his tool kit slung over one shoulder. Tyler didn’t bother to ask what she was in the mood for—did he know, did he guess?—but opened his mo
uth and let sounds come out, a sweet, slightly mournful song that Jan didn’t recognize. Not the pop songs he used to sing in the shower, but something older, more suited to this court, about a lady who was locked in a tower and desired more than anything to see the living ocean and be tossed upon its waves.

  Nalith didn’t seem to be paying any attention, more focused on what Patrick was setting up in front of her, but there was an easing of tension in her shoulders and jaw that gave her away.

  With the preter distracted for at least a little while, Jan risked slipping away, moving quietly out of the room. Several of the supers glared at her, as though she were giving offense by leaving, but none of them tried to stop her.

  There were maybe two dozen supers that Jan had been able to identify, although it was difficult when so many of them looked alike; there could be ten brownies or thirty, and that was without considering the gnomes.

  Jan shuddered as she went into the kitchen. She didn’t want to think about the gnomes. They weren’t allowed in the house. Let them stay far away, doing whatever errands the preter had sent them on. Let them be someone else’s problem, as horrible as that sounded. She had enough to deal with here.

  There were three brownies and what looked like a water-sprite of some sort, based on the gills and seaweedy hair, still in the kitchen. They turned to look at her, and while they didn’t say anything, she didn’t feel particularly welcome, either.

  She needed somewhere to think, somewhere she would be left alone with her thoughts but not perceived to be hiding or doing anything wrong that would be carried back to the queen. But this place was almost as bad as the Farm, for privacy.

  The basement where most of Nalith’s followers gathered, where the most useful gossip could be overheard, was off-limits to humans; that had been made clear their first hour in the court. Going back into the front rooms, having to see Tyler singing like a pet canary for the preter, or Martin standing like some kind of...obedient pet, wasn’t going to help her thinking, though.