by L. A. Boruff
I waited until the door jangled shut, leaving the coffee shop shrouded in a silence almost thick enough to drink. “What in the fuck?” I demanded.
“Domhnall’s always been a bit of an ass,” Cillian observed casually. He looked at the door before his gaze settled on the paper on the counter. “The Queen’s dogs tend to be full of themselves, but he’s worse than most.”
“Dogs?” I gestured angrily toward the door. “That was a dude.”
“Now he is. Your dad got small, I grow wings, Domhnall turns into a dog.” Cillian put his head to the side as he looked at me. “Do you get small? You never have, but we haven’t really been in that kind of a situation.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again.
He smiled, at once amused and sympathetic. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be seeing you soon, love. I’ll meet you there.” He tipped an invisible hat to me and made his way out of the coffee shop.
Once alone, I again demanded, “What in the fuck?” No one answered.
The paper on the counter seemed to beckon to me. I needed to look at it or risk Domhnall showing up unannounced, and that didn’t sound like a good time. I didn’t know what I’d do if he appeared in the backroom. Scream, probably.
I picked it up and gingerly unfolded it. Elegant gilt script informed me I had been summoned to the Fairy Court by the Queen of the Fae and I was expected at the twenty-second hour. Tonight.
Was that ten? Assuming fairies didn’t tell time differently, I was going there at ten tonight? I shook my head and shoved the paper deep into my pocket.
4
The rest of the day passed by in a blur of existential crises. I went through the motions, smiling, making coffee, giving totals, the admin shit I had to do before I left for the day. But I wasn’t really there.
I kept turning it over in my head. It had to be some kind of cruel prank. Had to. But what if it wasn’t? What if I really was responsible for some pot of gold and I had to pass some sort of test to get it back? Would I be able to come into work in the morning? Would I be able to continue on with my life?
Going home wasn’t much better. I figured I should probably nap if I was going out at ten and had to be at work in the morning, but my mind wouldn’t sit still long enough to let me sleep. I paced. I cleaned. I tried to watch TV. Nothing helped. I felt like a spring wound entirely too tightly.
Needless to say, I was a bit of a wreck that night when, at five to ten, there was a knock on the door. I opened it to see Domhnall standing there.
He offered me a bow. “Eva.” He seemed a lot less, I didn’t know quite what the right word was. Arrogant? Smug? Challenging? Whatever it was, he was less of it, and I wondered how much of that had to do with the fact that Cillian wasn’t around.
“Hi.” My eyes moved over him. He was dressed in armor, was probably the best way to describe it. Leather pants, a leather vest, and what looked like an actual sword belted at his waist. “Come in?” I didn’t know where we were going, but at least that way he wouldn’t draw curious stares from my nosy neighbors while we figured it out.
He slipped past me into the apartment, piercing gray eyes sweeping over my living room. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah. Just…” I sighed, a flush of heat creeping its way up from my neck. “I wasn’t sure what to wear.” Whatever one wore to the Fairy Court, I was pretty sure I didn’t have anything like that in my closet. I’d wanted comfortable clothes when I got home, so I’d put on a pair of yoga pants and a soft hoodie. Now, seeing his armor, I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea.
He looked me over. “Wear something you can move in,” was his sage advice.
“Yeah.” I could definitely move in what I was wearing, but that didn’t exactly instill confidence in me. “Hey, so did you know my dad?” Part of me was stalling, but that was one of the things that had echoed around my head. My dad, apparently a leprechaun, had somehow died. I wanted to know a bit more about that.
Domhnall had been pacing further into the apartment, but he stopped. He turned to me and nodded, one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Yes, I knew Jack.”
“So, how did he die? Like, are we talking some sort of hereditary leprechaun disease?” Was that even a thing? It sounded stupid saying it out loud, but I’d spent a pretty good chunk of anxiety on it. Because leprechauns were supposed to be basically immortal according to the internet, but my dad had died.
“He got himself snatched.”
I took a step back. “Snatched.” Domhnall was there to snatch me, wasn’t he? If this whole thing wasn’t a prank, which I was still wrestling with, a large, strange man was in my apartment to take me somewhere.
“Greedy humans want your pot. It’s part of the reason the Queen is going to test you. No point in giving you stewardship of one of our artifacts if you can’t keep it safe.”
That wasn’t something I’d thought about. I knew the fairy tales, of course. If you caught a leprechaun, you could supposedly make them tell you where their gold was. They were tricky things and would escape given half a chance. But apparently my dad hadn’t? And I needed to somehow keep an entire pot of gold safe from the kind of people who had killed my dad?
I wrapped my arms around my middle as a chill swept through me. “You need to leave.”
“Oh, for the love of…” Domhnall trailed off. He came toward me, and I moved back until I bumped into the white-painted door. Anxiety prickled down my spine as he followed, but he pulled me into his arms to hold me close. That was probably the most shocking thing he could’ve done. “Hush now,” he soothed. “You have people. You’re not the only leprechaun there is. If you can get through the Queen’s trials, they’ll help you adjust.”
I stood stiffly with my cheek pressed against his chest, one of his hands stroking over my back. He smelled good, like leather and something crisp, and it was so tempting to let myself relax and let him comfort me.
An irrational thought occurred to me. I tried to fight it, but a giggle bubbled up until my shoulders shook and I had to let it out.
A gentle finger tipped my chin back, showing Domhnall looking down at me in some concern. “You alright, now?”
“I’m a fairy tale.” The idea was so ridiculous. Not only that, but it was something to laugh about in the stress of the day, and it was better to laugh than cry.
He smiled. “You are at that. Feeling better?”
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion as my laughter died away. “You’re being really nice to me now. You weren’t so much earlier. What gives? Are you trying to get me to let my guard down so it’ll be easier to kill me?” I was very aware of the sword at his hip. It looked real.
His shoulders stiffened, his body growing rigid against me. The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and he stared down at me for a moment in silence. “The Trickster and I don’t get along. But this, you… The Queen is worried about you, which means things might even change around here.” I swore I saw hope glimmer in his eyes.
“Right.” He probably thought that answered my question, but maybe I’d be able to make more sense of it as the night went on.
“We do need to go, so if you’ll hold on tight…” He urged my head against his chest and held me close.
The most intense sense of vertigo I’d ever felt sent me reeling. I clung to him as the floor slid sideways, using him for an anchor. My eyes were tightly shut, and I felt my hair whipping around my face like I really was spinning around.
And then, as soon as it started, it was over. I stood on solid ground and I no longer felt like the world was spinning around me. I risked lifting my head and looking around, and my eyes flew wide. We definitely weren’t in my apartment anymore.
It was a small room, dimly lit from some unseen source. The entire room seemed to be a uniform shade of darkness, some kind of brown or purple that I couldn’t focus on enough to pinpoint.
A fresh wave of anxiety surged through me. I couldn’t hold onto the prank idea anymore, but that didn’t
mean I was safe and everything was okay. I wrenched out of Domhnall’s hold, taking a few steps back.
Impatience flickered over his face. “This way.” He swept a grand gesture to one of the walls.
I didn’t see a door, but as I edged toward where he’d indicated, I noticed a break in the wall. I pushed through into a wide room filled with chaos. The rumble of dozens of conversations and laughter hit me at once, and there was so much to see that I couldn’t focus on any one thing. I got impressions of wings, antlers, tails, horns.
I turned. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to go back into the room or just find Domhnall, but he was right there, close enough that I bumped into him.
His arm closed around my waist. “Courage,” he murmured to me, his tone softer than I expected, especially given the steely expression on his face.
He propelled me into the room, into the middle of all the noise. It was easier to focus on the things I recognized. Tables, I saw tables, and chairs. They seemed to ring the edge of a vast room, leaving the center for people to mingle and dance, both of which seemed to be happening.
As I continued to look around, sorting the jumble of images into some semblance of order, I became aware of activities of a more carnal nature taking place. No one else seemed to care, as though heavy petting in the middle of the floor was the norm at these types of events.
Maybe it was. I didn’t fucking know. I tried to pull away from Domhnall, to find somewhere to escape to instead of being led deep into the press of bodies, but his grip was too strong.
“Courage,” he said again, his voice filtering through the chaos down to my ear.
I did feel little underdressed. Lingerie looked like a perfectly reasonable choice in dress, but so did everything from elaborate ball gowns and shiny tuxes to clothes seemingly made up of strategically placed leaves and flowers. I was the only person wearing yoga pants and a hoodie.
A buzz of murmurs followed after me. I picked out familiar words – leprechaun, Jack, trials. Every whisper pulled my shoulders tighter. I wasn’t an extrovert to begin with, and this whole thing made me want to go home and be a blanket burrito on my couch.
I did get a reprieve. An excited buzzing that seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with me swept through the room, attention turned in a completely different direction. Beside me, Domhnall stiffened enough that I looked up at him. He’d somehow been a reassuring presence thus far, but now he was decidedly not.
Trickster. The word was carried around me on hushed whispers, echoing over and over again until it lost all meaning. Domhnall had called Cillian that – did that mean Cillian was around? Not that I could see over anyone’s head. Not everyone was as tall as the man beside me, but a good percentage were taller than me, and I couldn’t really see much beyond the little sphere that cleared around us as Domhnall guided me through.
The crowd parted on one side to reveal Cillian, a smile on his face. He wore the same jeans and shirt as I normally saw him in, only with a waistcoat thrown on overtop. It made me feel a little less out of place. Amused blue eyes came directly to me. “There you are, love.” As though we were running into each other in Jimmy’s. His eyes flicked to Domhnall. “I’ll take it from here.”
“The Queen will want to see Eva when she’s summoned,” Domhnall sneered. The arrogance was back full force, and it really set my teeth on edge.
“She will, won’t she? Good thing my ears work just as well as yours. Well…” Cillian leaned in like he was taking a closer look at Domhnall. “Maybe not quite as good.”
Titters spread out around us. Unlike the public foreplay, our interaction was drawing quite a bit of attention. Domhnall’s face filled with thunderclouds, and he looked about half a second away from drawing his sword.
“Eva,” came another familiar voice. I hadn’t seen even a hint of Tom since the night I’d met him, but I wasn’t surprised to see him here. Realization lit up his face, and his eyes shifted to Cillian. “You’re a son of a bastard, aren’t you?” He sounded more amused than upset.
“Some call me that.” Cillian gave him an unrepentant smile, unbothered by the accusation. “Why don’t you take Eva somewhere quiet while I settle…” He gestured to Domhnall. “This.”
Tom slipped an arm around my waist, drawing me through the crowd and away from where the two men glared daggers at each other. I had an urge to look back at them, but I didn't really want to, worried about what I would see.
“The Queen’s expecting me,” I told Tom a little nervously. Bodies parted around him easily, even more than they had for Domhnall.
“She is at that. But she’s not here yet, won’t be here for a while. She does like to make an entrance.” Fond consternation touched his voice.
The shimmering floor under our feet looked almost like quartz. Tom pulled me across it until we got to an empty table at the side of the room. He plucked a fine crystal goblet from somewhere and handed it to me. “Drink this. That’ll help set you to rights.”
A deep burgundy liquid swirled in the glass, almost beckoning me. I sniffed it, picking up mostly blackberry. “What is it?”
“Wine.” Tom pulled out a chair for me, and I sank into it. He sat just to my left, between me and the press of bodies in the room. I wasn’t sure if it was intentional, but I sure appreciated it.
I rolled the delicate stem between my finger and thumb, making the dark liquid shimmer in the glass. “Don’t I have to worry about it? Don’t eat and drink in the fairy realm, or you’ll be stuck there forever?”
“You’re a fairy, Eva. Doesn’t apply to you.” His arm rested across the back of my chair, his fingers brushing against my shoulder. He gave me a brief smile. “Drink. I promise you’ll feel better.”
I hesitated. If there was ever a situation that called for getting good and shit-faced, it was this one. At the same time, I probably wanted to be clear-headed for whatever trials the Queen was going to give me. I took a dubious sip. It was like pure liquid blackberry slid over my tongue in a cool, bubbly wave. As it tickled its way down my throat and into my stomach, a sense of calm spread through me.
Everything around me was still chaotic and crazy. My entire existence was up in the air, but I was okay with it. I could actually breathe and think for a second. “What is this?”
“Takes the edge off.” Tom’s fingers curled around my shoulder and gave me a gentle squeeze. “The Queen doesn’t want a big fight in the middle of her hall, does she?”
I supposed not, though I didn’t know her well enough to be certain. “So, I’m a fairy. Cillian’s a fairy. Domhnall’s a fairy. You’re…”
“A fairy.” Tom turned his attention to me, giving me a gentle smile. “Redcap.” He must have noticed the lack of recognition, because he elaborated. “We’re warriors.”
“And you’re not just any redcap, are you?” Cillian asked as he slipped into the seat opposite mine. “The brave lieutenant.”
Tom’s shoulders shifted, but he didn’t argue.
I took another sip of my drink. I didn’t want too much, but it was definitely helping assuage my mental turmoil. “Where’s Domhnall? He seemed pretty insistent he had to deliver me to the Queen personally.”
“He’s about.” Cillian gave a languid wave of his hand that seemed to encompass the whole room. “He will. But we have some time, and I convinced him that you’d rather spend it with us.”
“I do know you.” I took another drink and set the goblet down, away from me. Already I was starting to feel that loose-limbed warmth of the first sign of tipsiness. “How long have you known about me?”
“Some time. Not when we first met, but not long thereafter. After I owed you a favor.” Cillian winked at me as he picked up the goblet and took a drink.
“You owe me…” I trailed off and peered at him. “You owe me a favor?” This was the first I’d heard of it.
“Not anymore. I did. Best head of my life. Your mouth is like-”
“Nope.” I cut him off, heat sweeping up into my cheeks.
“Nope, we’re not doing that.”
Cillian smiled. “Took forever to discharge, too. You’d think your people would be more willing to take a recommendation.”
“Aren’t you my people?” I gave him a pointed look.
He inclined his head to me. “I guess I am at that.”
“So if you don’t owe me a favor anymore, what are you doing here? I get the impression this isn’t your usual thing.” I leaned back against Tom’s arm, finding his presence reassuring.
“Turns out I actually like you. I’d be very upset if you didn’t get through the trials.” Cillian took another drink before setting the goblet on the table.
“Huh. Why doesn’t Domhnall like you? He was mostly fine when you weren’t around.” I was being nosy, but there was nothing else going on, and I was pretty desperate for any kind of information.
“He doesn’t like me because the Queen barely tolerates me. I’m too strong for her to keep under her heel, so she’s convinced I’m going to set up my own Court and challenge her.” He sounded amused by the whole thing.
“Are you?”
“Oh, I never rule anything out, love.” The smile he gave me was somewhat predatory.
I had to look away from the intensity in his eyes. “And now…” I looked over at Tom. “You owe me a favor?” I felt a little strange asking, but I wanted to know where everything stood.
“A boon,” Cillian elaborated when Tom didn’t answer right away.
“After that performance…” Tom cupped my chin and leaned in to give me a gentle kiss, just the barest brush of his lips over mine. “I’d say so.” Maybe it was a stretch, but if he wasn’t going to argue, I wasn’t either. “It’s been a while.” Tom’s expression got faraway and a little sad, and I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“Keep that in mind, love.” Cillian’s tone matched the serious look in his eyes. “You’re hardly equipped for the Queen’s trials, but maybe you’ll be able to get yourself through it.”