“I’m not saying he’s up to anything, I’m just putting the idea on the table,” said Hel. “Since we don’t have much to go on—”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“It’s only a consideration,” she soothed, motioning Joey down. “We have to consider all possibilities, and right now—”
“Why, because he’s fae?”
She sighed and closed her eyes, a technique I’d seen her employ when trying to keep her temper in check around me. “Did I ever say that?”
“You’re thinking—”
No, she’s not. Georgie kept chewing as Hel and Joey turned to face her. And you’re not thinking normally, she added, thrusting half a sausage patty at Joey. It’s all weird and jittery in there.
“You need sleep,” Hel coaxed, cupping his stubbled cheeks in her palms. “Let me help you, babe.”
He pointed at me and shook his head. “Someone has to—”
“I’m more than capable of looking after my brother,” she interrupted, then pulled at his wrist until he surrendered and let her lead him to his bed. “Just for a few hours,” she said as he stretched out and settled in, then placed her hand over his eyes, muttered under her breath, and sent a stream of magic like purple light to envelop his head.
When the show stopped, Joey was unconscious and breathing easily, and Hel cracked her neck as she turned from the bed and stepped over his sword. “Okay, here’s how this is going to work,” she told me, glancing at her watch. “It’s seven-fifteen at my place. Store opens at eight. I’m going to get the powder and come straight back. Don’t leave Georgie unattended, all right?”
I’m fine.
“You can’t walk,” Hel countered. “No one leaves her alone. Got it?”
I gave her a thumbs-up, and Hel surprised me with a tight hug. “I’m so sorry,” she muttered. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, but you’ve got to bear with us. Do what the grand magus says.”
She pulled away, but I stopped her as she opened a gate back to Nashville. “Hel…do Mom and Dad know I’m—”
“I haven’t seen them,” she replied, then stepped through without answering my question.
When the gate closed behind her, I slumped in my chair and watched Georgie doggedly chomp through her platter. She focused on the food for a few minutes, then looked up and found me staring into space in her general direction. Your mind doesn’t feel right, either.
“I know.”
Sleep. I won’t do anything stupid.
I considered the dwindling stacks of sausage and shook my head. “You’re going to need more of that before long.”
I need more than just this, she replied as she ate. I could eat about, oh, six to ten sheep right now. And this is like, “Here, you want a sheep? Have an ear.” She scowled as she chewed, miserable in her hunger.
“Are you all right, girl?”
Of course I’m not all right. I’m famished, the fire’s back—it’s not as easy to control as you might think, she added, glancing at a scorched spot on the carpet, and in case you’re now blind as well as exhausted, I’m stuck in this ridiculous form.
“Ridiculous?”
Ridiculous. Back limbs are too long, teeth are flat, and I seem to be missing my wings.
The force of her glower was muted somewhat by the fact that it was coming from a preteen girl in a pink T-shirt, but her red eyes gave Georgie’s expression a touch of its usual understated menace. “It’s just for a little while—”
You say that, but you’re not the one in a body you can barely control. And everything’s so particular with you people, she griped. I mean, what’s the point of this? She tugged at the neck of her shirt, leaving greasy fingerprint stains around the collar. It’s not cold in this room, so why bother with clothing?
I floundered for an answer, then settled on, “It’s just the way things are done. Humans cover certain, uh…things…up.”
But I’m not human, she protested. And there’s no part of me that you haven’t seen before.
“It’s…you know, it’s…like…” I paused, felt a flush creeping up my neck, but managed, “Girls your age can’t just walk around naked. Boys can’t, either,” I hurried to add before she found a new hook. “It’s, uh…I mean, it’s different with babies, but—”
Why?
The flush reached my face in record time. “There are bits that you’re not supposed to show other people, Georgie.”
She frowned, puzzling this out, and I felt her probing my thoughts for the explanation I didn’t want to give her. Reproductive parts? she asked incredulously. What’s the problem? I’m not interested—I’m not going to give anyone the wrong idea. Also, yuck, she thought with a grimace. Look, Aiden, I don’t mean any offense, but you’re not at all interesting as mates. Too small, for one thing…
Maybe it was the stress or the lack of sleep, but I couldn’t help being a little miffed. “We’re not that bad.”
I didn’t say you were bad—we’re simply incompatible. How would that even work? she mused, staring into space as she grabbed another patty. That’s not… She paused, seemingly disturbed, then slowly cut her eyes back to me. You—not you you, but humans, faeries, whatever—you’re not interested in us, are you?
I chose my words carefully. “Very, very few, and I don’t think they really consider the physics.”
Good. And for the rest, ew. She resumed eating, apparently still hungry even if a little disgusted. I mean, I knew Joey wasn’t, but he’s never told me much about human mating.
It was entirely too early to be having a frank conversation about sex with a dragon in the guise of a fifth grader—actually, there would never be a right time for that conversation—but Georgie was either unfazed by or unaware of my discomfort with the topic. Or, I reasoned as she licked her fingers clean, she knew darn well that I wanted to crawl into a hole and was enjoying herself at my expense.
Since Joey’s sleeping, could you answer something for me?
“Uh…maybe,” I muttered as my cheeks burned.
It’s kind of personal, and I don’t want to upset him…
Her thoughts took on the odd cast reserved exclusively for matters concerning Joey. Georgie liked almost everyone, and she’d learned to give as well as she got—she’d dubbed Toula “Spiky” after one too many teasing jabs—but her relationship with Joey was of a different character altogether. It was no secret that she loved him, but that love didn’t fall into the neat categories of human affection. She’d do almost anything he asked of her, and she’d defend him as needed, but he was also something of a parental figure to her—though, I was relieved to see, not a potential love interest.
“This is between us,” I told her, dreading the question.
Georgie seemed relieved at the promise of secrecy. Well, she thought as she grabbed the last three pieces of sausage, I was wondering why Helen hasn’t had a clutch yet.
“A…clutch?”
Yes. She nodded and popped a whole patty into her mouth. They’ve been mating, but I haven’t heard about a clutch. Is she hiding it somewhere? Or is something…wrong? She paused mid-mastication and peered at me. You look confused. Am I not being clear?
“No…no, that’s, uh…that’s very clear. Too clear.” I rubbed my temples as if I could get that image out of my head. “There are…ways…to avoid getting pregnant,” I mumbled, wishing Toula would appear and save me. “And, um…I don’t think Helen, uh…”
She doesn’t want a clutch?
“Probably not.”
Does Joey know?
“He’s…” I found the carpet fascinating. “He’s…I think he’s on board with it.”
Oh. Georgie finished her breakfast, but her brows knit as she considered this new twist. So…if they don’t want a clutch, then why are they mating?
A knock at the door saved me from death by embarrassment. “All right, who needs bacon?” Toula called as she let herself into the room. “Oh—hey, Aiden, how long have you been up?” she asked, then
stopped in her tracks and gave me a second look. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Never better,” I muttered, rising from my chair before Georgie could corner me again. “Hel made Joey sleep, and she’ll be back a little after seven. I…I’m just going to get a shower now,” I said, and slinked out of the room.
When the grand magus’s assistant arrived to fetch us, I was clean, if still in my pajamas, Joey was dead to the world, and Georgie was slurping down a grayish-pink slurry like there was no tomorrow. The poor guy looked around the room, took it all in, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I was asked to bring you downstairs for breakfast with the grand magus,” he began, “but if you’re not ready—”
“Those two aren’t going anywhere,” said Hel as she popped out of the bathroom, blender in hand. “I’m keeping Joey under until he can think straight, and the girl’s staying with us.”
The assistant glanced from the blender and its bobbing chunks of hamburger to the bottle in Georgie’s hands, looked at Hel like she might have lost it, and turned to me. “Mr. Carver, if you’d like to dress—”
I spread my hands and shrugged. “Didn’t exactly have time to pack.”
“I’ll handle this,” Toula cut in, and a clean pair of khakis and a sweater appeared on the table between us. “Go make yourself presentable,” she ordered, shooing me toward the bathroom, and Hel stepped out to give me a moment’s privacy. Shortly thereafter, I heard Toula tell the runner, “It’s been a long night, and I’m not putting on real pants if there’s not an emergency. Greg’s seen worse.”
“The grand magus—”
“Knows me,” she interrupted, then pounded on the bathroom door. “Get a move on, bub, I’m hungry. You want socks?”
I opened the door and pushed my damp hair from my eyes—without Mom around to nag, haircuts had been on the back burner for months. “Thanks, but I’m fine. Canteen?” I asked the assistant.
“No,” he replied, standing back as Toula swept into the hallway, bunny slippers and all. “He’s dining in his office today. Hurry, now, don’t keep him waiting.”
She turned and gave him a withering look. “I will personally reheat his oatmeal if it comes to that, but I’m not taking orders from a third-rate bureaucrat this early in the goddamned morning. Got it, sunshine?”
“Ma’am,” he mumbled, and speed-walked toward the elevator.
I didn’t want breakfast—my stomach was knotting more tightly with every hour that passed without word from Val—nor did I care to step through the grand magus’s office door again. The last time I had been in there had been to return to Faerie, right after my father told me, in the most colorful of terms, exactly how dead I was to him. They’d changed the locks in the two days I’d been away, giving Coileán’s palace a test run, and so I got to stand at the door to my parents’ apartment and listen as Dad shouted at me through the wall and Mom quietly cried. He’d called me a blood traitor and a useless sack of shit; he’d sworn and lamented that I hadn’t been left topside for the wolves. By the time he progressed to comments about my newly discovered bastardy, I gave up and walked away, followed by his muffled harangue until I hit the stairwell and put another door between us.
At the time, I didn’t understand the source of Dad’s anger. True, I’d walked out of the silo for Faerie, of all places—which, in the average wizard’s mind, was worse than abandoning the States for Moscow at the height of the Cold War—but that fact alone didn’t explain his vitriol. After all, I’d come from somewhere, and the aural testing had proved my maternity. No wizard was a fan of the fae, granted, but my father had apparently had a fling with Titania herself. The grand magus had offered me no details about my conception, saying only that it was Dad’s story to tell, but as I left the silo for the last time, I raged inside at my father’s audacity—he’d cheated on Mom, and yet I was the bastard?
Once Hel started visiting the palace, I nurtured some small hope of hearing from our parents again, but no message ever arrived. My sister had nothing to tell me—she was a sophomore with a full course load and a new boyfriend, and she seldom went home—but Christmas passed and summer came, and still there was nothing but silence from the silo. Eventually, I mentioned this in passing to Coileán, who, after some consideration, took me aside and told me the full truth. My father’s sister, Ella, had been kidnapped and taken as a changeling—a faerie’s plaything—and Dad, a young wizard of no particular ability, ran into Faerie to find her. By the time he arrived, she was dead. Rather than kill him for the insult of showing up in her throne room uninvited, Titania decided to have a little fun with him. Dad’s saving grace may well have been that he was handsome in his prime. Titania overpowered him and used him until she was satisfied, then threw him out with his sister’s body as a parting gift—and nine months later, Val left me in the cold outside the silo, saved from my mother only to be foisted onto my unwilling father.
I’d seen the paintings and sculptures of herself that Titania had commissioned through the centuries—by then, all tucked away in the palace library—and so I knew what she’d looked like. More importantly, I saw it in the mirror every morning. Dark-haired and green-eyed, Coileán favored his father, but our mother was a brown-eyed blonde, and I was her spitting image.
I don’t know why Dad decided to raise me. Coileán said that Mom had a strong hand in the decision—they’d wanted another kid, and I needed a place to go—but I can’t imagine living for all those years with a reminder of the worst day of your life. I’m sure the grand magus wouldn’t have faulted him if Dad had wanted nothing to do with me from the start. But he had raised me, and there we were with sixteen years of water under the bridge, and not a peep from him.
Dad had always favored Hel, but I’d chalked that up to her being the firstborn, his little girl, and a magical prodigy, the pride and joy of the family. And then there was me, the dud, the brown dwarf orbiting my sister’s bright star. Sure, my report cards were always glowing—and aside from permanent honor roll status, I got paid for tech support in middle school—but nothing I did warranted more than a nod from Dad, no matter how hard I tried to please him. Growing up, I’d thought it was just because of my ineptitude with all things magical, but now his apathy made sense, as did his anger.
Surely, I thought, he felt something at least vaguely paternal toward me. I’d never given him trouble—surely he understood that I hadn’t gone to Faerie to spite him. I’d been a virtual prisoner of my bedroom when I left home, and there was a chance—a small chance, Coileán cautioned, but a chance nonetheless—that something in the other realm would rub off on me. Maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to manage a wand someday. I hadn’t turned my back on the Arcanum—I was trying to save my sanity and find whatever talent might be buried within me.
But as he made clear when he told me through the front door that he wished I’d died at birth, Dad saw things differently.
As I followed the assistant and Toula down the carpeted hallway toward the grand magus’s office that morning, I wondered whether my parents knew that I was back, and if so, whether they cared.
The assistant paused outside the heavy wooden door, then gave a perfunctory triple knock and cracked it open. “Sir? I brought, uh…two of them.”
“Show them in,” I heard the grand magus say. Toula touched my shoulder, a brief tap of reassurance, and led the way as the assistant held the door open.
The office was as I’d remembered it: the windowless, more functional twin of my brother’s. Coileán had appropriated the basic elements of the grand magus’s décor, but had worked them into a stone-walled room with plush Oriental rugs and a vaulted ceiling covered in a twinkling mosaic of the night sky. He opted for natural light when available, candelabra when not, and a lone brass standing lamp for evening reading—and in the last few months, he’d thrown in a fireplace for kicks. The grand magus’s pair of green leather couches I recognized as among Coileán’s thefts, as well as the full bar. Unsurprisingly, my brother had opted not to copy Magus
Harrison’s bridal portrait, which hung beside her husband’s desk.
The grand magus had taken a seat on the couch facing the door, but he wasn’t alone. I saw two people sitting on the couch opposite him, steadfastly not turning to look as we entered, and my palms begin to sweat. A brown-haired man and a blonde woman—I knew my parents, even from behind.
“Sir,” the assistant began, “Ms. Carver has incapacitated the young man, and she insisted that the girl remain with them…”
While he tried to explain himself, Toula leaned toward my ear and whispered in Fae, “I’m right here. Breathe.”
I nodded, watching the grand magus dismiss our escort, and wished my mouth hadn’t suddenly gone dry. Chiding myself to be calm wasn’t working—I could tell myself all day long that Coileán wouldn’t have been afraid of my parents, but the fact remained that they were my parents, and they still hadn’t looked at me.
Once the assistant had seen himself out, the grand magus stood and gestured to the bagels and fruit spread across the long coffee table. “Hungry? Thirsty? And here, have a seat,” he said, stepping to the side and freeing a pair of cushions for us.
Toula took the spot beside him and popped a grape in her mouth, and I slid onto the end of the couch without a word. Dad stared at a spot above the grand magus’s head, but I caught Mom’s eyes flick toward me for a second—an acknowledgement of my existence, however brief.
A steaming cappuccino appeared in Toula’s hands, and she raised the cup toward the other couch in a snide salute. “Rachel, Howard, so nice to see you again. We really should get together more often, you know.” Dad looked at her blackly, and she smirked. “Oh good, you’re awake. Hope you don’t mind, but I can’t abide crappy coffee. Here, Aiden,” she said as another cup appeared in her free hand. “I picked up this technique in Rome last summer.”
I took it from her and drank, if for no other reason than to give my hands something to do besides clench in my lap, and was pleasantly surprised. Then again, Toula and Val had made several trips around Italy by then, and her repertoire of coffee-based beverages had grown. Her palate was also more sensitive than Coileán’s, making her reproductions nearly indistinguishable from their models. She wasn’t shy about sharing her favorites, either, and when she thought I’d been alone in my room too long, she’d woo me out with pizza from her favorite hole in the wall or a curry she’d discovered in D.C. Toula gave Coileán hell, but she’d practically adopted me, for which my stomach was more than grateful.
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