Snowdrop

by August Li

  On the second floor, Robin saw a maid changing sheets in the nursery. She didn’t notice him. He opened doors on a few musty, unused guest rooms before he finally found what he sought: the master suite.

  Aurential-inspired silk, red with geometric, white blossoms, papered the room. A four-poster bed stood in the center, atop a Prysian carpet. Scarlet velvet hung over the windows, blocking the sun. A fire burned low beneath a mahogany mantle covered with family photographs. Paintings of Max, his wife, and their sons hung on the walls. Aside from these, Robin found only a closet, a chest of linens, a dresser, and two night tables. He rubbed the back of his neck. He’d been so sure Max was the kind of man that kept his secrets close. But why had he been sure? He knew nothing of the man beyond the reports and photos he’d found. How did he know Max even kept his faerie captive in his home?

  He just knew. Robin went to a shelf that held a few books and began examining them one by one. He found them innocuous and boring: religious texts and cleaned-up classical poetry. He opened the dresser drawers and discovered the Bunge’s unmentionables neatly folded in stacks. Checking behind the portraits yielded nothing. He went inside the closet and pushed past the suits and dresses, to the back wall. It smelled of moth balls and strong perfume. Running his hands over the plaster surface told him that no secret door or hidden compartment waited beyond. Robin emerged, ready to leave the house and admit his folly, when he remembered the invoice that had led him here: a bill from a mason. He looked about for newly laid brick or stone, and he found it at the back of the hearth. The blocks and mortar were so fresh that they’d yet to be stained from the smoke of the fire.

  Robin stamped out the coals and kicked them to the side so he could stand within the massive inglenook. He felt and pressed the newly laid blocks, hoping one might open a hidden compartment. When he hit the right one, a concrete slab retracted at his left. Robin dropped to his hands and knees to crawl through the tiny corridor. After a few sooty feet, he found himself in a windowless room lit by an eerie, blue bulb. Machines of fathomless purpose filled the space. Strange, nasty-looking knives and tools hung from iron hooks on the walls. Chains dangled from the ceiling, casting odd, swinging shadows on the walls. Robin brushed the ash out of his hair and stood up. He looked forlornly at the black streaks on his knees and shins. He sneezed into his elbow. The sound startled a person he hadn’t noticed.

  “Who’s there?” demanded a voice that managed to be melodic despite the fear. “You’re not Bunge. You don’t stink enough.”

  Scanning the black shapes thrown by the unnerving apparatuses and eerie light, Robin located the source of the voice: the comely faerie man chained in the corner, his knees bloody and a blindfold over his eyes. The restraints wrenched his arms behind him, making his shoulders jut out at unnatural angles. Without thinking, Robin hurried to push the dark scarf away from his eyes and kneel down in front of him. His golden-brown eyes met irises that bled from emerald, to spring green, to daffodil. Robin inhaled sharply. He’d seen fey carousing around Enline, he’d seen them wandering the moors, but he’d never looked one in the eye before.

  “Are- are you hurt?” Robin asked.

  “What do you think?” the fey snapped back.

  “Sorry.”

  “Why are you here?” it asked, cocking its head to the side. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Robin. Robin Pastorius.”

  “You’re quite arresting for a human,” it said, smiling the most beautiful and suggestive smile that Robin had ever seen.

  “Um, you too.” The fey had pale skin with a greenish cast and dandelion-fuzz hair streaked with the lightest greens and yellows, almost snow-white. He smelled like clover honey and heather.

  “I’m not a human,” it retorted.

  “I know.” Robin was lost for words; he didn’t know how to proceed. He’d come here for money, with no intention of freeing this cursed thing. He’d never meant to speak with it, admire its face—

  “Won’t you get me out of here?” the fey asked. “I’ll make it worth your while. I know where there is gold.”

  “How much gold?” Robin asked, though he’d already resolved to free the creature, even if he couldn’t accept it in his own mind.

  “A great deal, I assume, by the standards of your kind.”

  “Where?”

  “A wall safe. Push aside the bench with the whipping arm.”

  “Whipping arm?” Robin wondered as he stood. Upon closer inspection of the machines in the room, he noticed one that had a mechanized limb bent above a hard, steel bench. He saw the clockwork that, when wound, would bring the appendage and the crop it held down again and again. He also saw the wrist and ankle restraints that would hold a subject immobile, helpless to the merciless ministrations. A variety of crops, lashes, canes and sticks, one wrapped in spiky wire, waited nearby. Trying to ignore the implications of the apparatus, Robin pushed it aside. Built into the wall, he saw the safe the fey had mentioned. A compass-like wheel, surrounded by all the letters of the alphabet, prevented him from opening it.

  “What the devil?” he asked.

  “Snowdrop,” the faerie explained.

  “What now?”

  The fey sighed and shook his magnificent, sparkling mane. “That pig Bunge called me Snowdrop. He thought he was so clever to come up with that one. I’ll be a hedgehog’s wet-nurse if snowdrop isn’t the combination to that lock. Turn it to the right, stopping on every letter.”

  Robin did so. “Now what?”

  “A hard turn to the left.”

  The safe sprung open with a low creak. Ecstatic, Robin quickly stuffed his pockets with the hundred or so pounds in coin he found within. When he’d emptied it, he stood and prepared to go. He’d live like a lord for a year or more after this job.

  “You’re planning to leave me behind,” the faerie stated.

  “I can’t trust you.”

  “Why not? I helped you!”

  “Sorry, friend.”

  “Wait. I know of more gold. Ten times what you’ve found here.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Yes.” The creature hung his head, the ends of his luminous hair brushing the dirty, stone floor.

  “Goodbye,” Robin said, “and thanks for your help.” He moved toward the corridor that would lead him back to the bedchamber. Riches jingled within his clothes. He stamped down the guilt he felt at leaving the faerie to withstand the Whipping Arm, and the other, similar machines, some fitted with iron rods shaped into male organs. Some of them were horrifically large, others covered with bumps or thorny protrusions. Robin couldn’t bear to envision how the faerie had or would suffer when they were screwed into place on the machines and the dials wound. It wasn’t as though it could suffer the way a human might—

  “I implore you, Robin Pastorius, set me free,” the faerie begged prettily, as if practiced.

  “And what do I get?”

  “Anything you wish, if you come with me to my lands—”

  “Hell no. Sorry, friend, but the other side of the wall is the last place I want to be.”

  “For pity then. For mercy.”

  “Your kind deserves no mercy.” Robin crouched to navigate the fireplace tunnel.

  “If I thought you believed that, I would not ask. I can’t tell you the toll it takes on me to be separated from the earth and the sky. I ache to stand in the moonlight, to smell the heather on the moors. Do you have any idea what’s been done to me? Can you even stand to imagine? Can you not let me go?”

  “Damn,” Robin hissed, standing back up. “Is there a key somewhere?”

  Snowdrop laughed, and it reverberated up Robin’s spine, leaving his body acute and tingling.

  “Just break the device there.” He indicated a blue orb with his chin. Below the glowing sphere, gears turned, spinning flywheels and pumping pistons up and down. Electricity sparked along the connecting rods.

  “What on earth is that thing?” Robin asked. “I’ve seen a lot of machinery, but never
anything like this.”

  “It is a machine developed in Halcyon to absorb magic. From what I gathered from that pig Bunge, it’s a mix of clockwork and enchantment, developed for the sole purpose of hurting my kind. It steals my power, leaving me weak and helpless. Smash it and I can free myself.”

  “I will break it and be done with you,” Robin said. Seeing no weapon, he kicked at the sea-mist-blue ball with his foot. It dispersed, and he dismantled the rest of the mechanism with his feet and fists. Soon he reduced it to a steaming heap of metal rubble. The air in the room instantly felt different, less stale and dead. Snowdrop snapped the manacles that held his wrists and got shakily to his feet.

  He extended a long-fingered, white hand toward Robin. “Despite what you may believe, my people keep their promises. You have been my friend, Robin Pastorius, and I will return the favor.”

  Robin squeezed the delicate, white fingers. He hated to admit how good they felt within his grasp; the skin was soft as a summer night. He’d spent the last few nights curious about the texture of that skin. Releasing them, he realized he was a rich man now, and his debt to the faerie had been paid. Snowdrop would go where he would go, and Robin would decide how to spend his fortune.

  “Off you go,” he told the fey.

  “Yes.” He lifted his chin and tried to appear unaffected, but he took only two steps before he faltered and fell to his knees. They left bloody smears on the floor.

  Robin helped him to stand, savoring the sweet slenderness and sinew of his waist even as he said, “The both of us need to get home. Me to mine; you to yours.”

  “I’ll be fine,” the fey breathed. “Let go of me.”

  “Alright, if you like.”

  Robin removed his arm, and the faerie fell to the ground, clutching his ribs. He toppled over on his side and spit up a mouthful of blood. Instinctively Robin reached for him as he drew his knees to his chest, but he stopped midway, fearing the faerie would chastise him again. He couldn’t help but feel pity for the crying, convulsing creature. He doubted the faerie would reciprocate the compassion if their positions were reversed, but Robin was human and had a human heart. He reached down and squeezed the faerie’s shoulder.

  “I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re hurt. Do you want me to help you?”

  Snowdrop nodded and whispered his thanks. He let Robin grasp him under his arms, help him to move to the wall and lean his back there. Robin took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood away from the faerie’s chin. Snowdrop took the cloth from Robin, pressed it against his face, and sniffed it deeply. Since he could tell the fey wanted to keep it, Robin didn’t ask for it back. “Should I try to get you some water?”

  He shook his head. “I need to get out of here. Away from these machines and into the fresh air. I thought I’d recover my magic sooner, but it seems I might need you a little longer. I’ll make it worth it to you.”

  “Alright,” Robin said. “I will help you to get outside, but then no further. You’ll have to make due on your own after that. Will you be able to crawl out the fireplace?”

  “I’ll make it.”

  “Follow me then. It’s not far.” Robin navigated the passageway back to the bedroom, and Snowdrop emerged a few minutes after, sweating and out of breath. He crawled to the bed and grasped the footboard in order to stand. He wobbled a little but remained on his feet. “We only have to sneak through the house now. Let me get you something to wear in case we’re seen.”

  Robin found a white shirt and a pair of trousers for Snowdrop, and he helped the weakened faerie into them. He tried to pretend he didn’t enjoy the grain of his skin or the feeling of his muscles moving beneath it. With every scrap of will he had, Robin tried not to look at his pale cock or his balls dusted with white hair. Robin hated himself for finding the faerie beautiful when he should be appalled. When he stretched the too-large shirt across his shoulders, Robin shuddered at the horrible scarring that extended from the faerie’s upper back all the way to his knees. Some of the wounds had healed into raised, pink lines; others were fresh and oozing. When he realized Robin saw them, the fey quickly snatched the shirt collar away from the thief and turned, clearly ashamed. Robin gave him his pride and went to the closet in search of shoes for him.

  Once the faerie had dressed, Robin peered out of the door and into the empty hall. He motioned for Snowdrop to follow him, and the two men crept toward the stairs. Snowdrop was taller and leaner than Robin, but his ordeal caused the faerie to falter and lose his balance a few times as they descended to the first floor. Every small creak stopped Robin’s heart. He couldn’t imagine what they’d do to him for helping a faerie. He knew he shouldn’t be doing it, but there couldn’t be much harm in just helping him outside. Robin didn’t think he’d be able to close his eyes every night and see the faerie bleeding and bound, knowing he’d left him to that fate.

  The sun had set, leaving the downstairs dark and shadowy. Robin and Snowdrop crouched behind an armoire while the housemaid lit the gas lamps. When she had finished, Robin looked over his shoulder and pointed toward the end of the hall. The faerie clutched his elbow, looking terrified.

  “Is he here?”

  “Who?” Robin whispered back, trying to urge the fey along, but unable to make him move.

  “Bunge?” he asked in a trembling voice.

  “No,” Robin said, reaching across his chest to give Snowdrop’s fingers a reassuring squeeze. “We should get out of here before he comes back.”

  “Yes. Yes, agreed.”

  They made their way back to the servants’ entrance, but two maids met them at the top of the kitchen stairs. Robin panicked. He could explain away his own presence but not the faerie’s. He held up his hands and tried to stammer out some excuse, and then he looked behind him, wondering if they would be able to run, if Snowdrop had the strength. Taking a step back, he put his arm across the faerie’s chest. The two women in their black dresses and white bonnets just stared at the pair. One held a platter stacked with roasted meat and parsnips, the other a silver tureen. Robin expected one of them to scream at any moment, but they just looked right and left. They couldn’t see them.

  “Did you hear something?” the younger girl asker her senior.

  “Just a draft, I’m sure. Hurry along now. You know how cross the master gets if his supper ain’t on the table when he gets home.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” They scurried away and turned into the dining room.

  Robin opened the door, took Snowdrop’s hand, and hurried him outside. They ran a few steps through the dewy grass before the faerie stopped, held his knees and collapsed. Robin turned and shook his shoulder. He tried to push himself up on his elbows but couldn’t.

  “That little bit of glamour took a lot out of me,” he breathed.

  The sound of hooves on the cobblestone announced an approaching carriage. It stopped in front of the gate, and a man said a few words to the driver. The sound of his voice terrified Snowdrop. His hands closed around the back of Robin’s neck, and his eyelids peeled back, revealing the entirety of his magnificent irises. “It’s him,” he whispered, sweat sparkling on his forehead and upper lip. “Robin—” His fingers shook beneath Robin’s curls. “I can’t go back there.”

  Robin smoothed the light hair away from Snowdrop’s face. He heard Max Bunge’s shoes on the walk, then the front door opening and closing. Not long after the carriage departed again. “There, you see? He’s gone. Can you walk?”

  The fey nodded. “I’m helpless,” he said, as if he’d only just realized. “How am I going to get home? How will I stop him from capturing me again?”

  Robin sighed deeply, shocked at the words that formed in his mind. He didn’t know where they’d come from, but he said them anyway. “You’ll stay with me tonight. I’ll keep watch while you rest up. We have money; we can get a nice room and something to eat. You’ll be better by tomorrow, and able to find your way home.”

  “White wine?” Snowdrop asked.

/>   “Alright then,” Robin conceded. “Some white wine.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “What choice do you have? You’re better off with me than probably anybody else who might find you.” Robin’s stomach tightened as he considered what might befall the fey should he be discovered by a group of drunken laborers, or even some angry women. He’d be lucky to escape with just a beating. He stroked the top of the faerie’s head, exploring the texture of his unusual hair. “Listen, I promise I’ll keep you safe tonight.”

  Snowdrop turned his face toward Robin and let his eyes flutter shut. Condensation glittered on his long, white lashes. Robin’s fingers raked through his hair and found the ridge of his pointed ear. He pinched the edge between his thumb and finger and then moved up to squeeze the tip. The fey smiled next to Robin’s knee. Aside from his ears and his coloring, Snowdrop didn’t seem much different from any other man. He was much more beautiful, but he didn’t seem as dangerous as Robin had been led to believe. Still, he resolved to keep his guard up around the faerie. His demeanor very well might change when he no longer needed Robin’s protection.

  “You’re thinking you can’t trust me,” Snowdrop said. “I don’t suppose it will do any good for me to tell you that you can.”

  “No, not really. I’ll help you as I said, but I can’t trust a faerie.”

  “I’ll take what I’m offered, then,” Snowdrop said. “And I do thank you.”

  Robin nodded and hoped he wasn’t the world’s biggest fool.