Witch-Blood

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  “No,” said Joey, “but I think we’re long past that.” He patted Astrid’s shoulder and slipped to the door, then pressed his ear to the crack. “Footsteps in the far hall,” he muttered as I joined him. “On stone. Give them a second to get by us.”

  We waited in silence for a minute that stretched into a month, and then Joey slowly depressed the brass door handle and eased into the hallway. I followed him with my heart hammering in my throat, straining for any sign that the guards had decided to vary their rounds for the fun of it, but the wing remained dark and quiet, and we reached the door without being discovered. Joey softly exhaled as he worked at the handle, and with a little snick that seemed to echo all around us, we were in.

  Joey closed the door to cover our tracks, but I had eyes only for the four-poster bed in the center of the room. A tall taper had been lit on a stone pillar at each corner of the bed, clearly revealing the identity of the immobile man laid out on top of the blankets. I hurried to his side and looked him over, checking for damage, but Coileán seemed uninjured—at least from what little I could see of him that wasn’t covered by his T-shirt and sweatpants. He really had been taken unawares, I thought—unprepared, barefoot, and still wearing his makeshift pajamas.

  “Coileán,” I whispered, bending to his ear, “it’s me. Joey’s here, too. If you can hear me, we’re going to get you out of here, okay?”

  He remained still, but I noticed his eyes darting back and forth as if he were dreaming. He frowned in his sleep, and a little wrinkle had formed between his dark brows. Whatever was going through his mind couldn’t have been pleasant. I tried patting his face to wake him, but he remained insensate, locked in the stillness of sleep.

  Joining me, Joey watched my useless efforts for a moment, then muttered, “If you think we can wake him, there’s one other thing we could try.” I arched my eyebrow in query, and he reached under his shirt for his silver crucifix. “Pain might rouse him.”

  I didn’t like it, but I stepped back while Joey lifted his necklace off over his head and wrapped the chain around his fist. “Sorry, boss,” he whispered, then slowly lowered the tip of the cross toward Coileán’s exposed hand.

  As I watched, Coileán’s eyes picked up speed, his wrinkle deepened, and his breathing, which had been slow and regular, sped up into shallow gasps. “Stop,” I said, catching Joey’s wrist. “He knows what’s going on, he just can’t do anything about it. See?”

  Joey pulled his hand back, and Coileán’s face relaxed a degree. “Shit,” he whispered, and slipped his necklace back on. “Okay, we’re going to have to do this the hard way. I can probably get him in a fireman’s hoist, but to be safe, let’s each take a side. Help me swing his legs around.”

  I began to do as he asked, but before I could take two steps, the world went black and formless, and I was falling.

  I tensed, expecting a hard landing, but whatever I hit was soft and formed itself to my body—honestly, it felt kind of like room-temperature Jell-O. With the initial shock past, I managed to get my knees under me and stood, and found that the soft ground had suddenly firmed. Then again, there was no ground to speak of, nothing but darkness in all directions, and I was on the verge of panic when I heard a familiar voice behind me say, “We haven’t much time, Aiden.”

  I spun around, and there she was: the glowing stranger from my dream, now wearing a long blue gown with lacy sleeves, her luminescence the only light around. She stepped close to me, then caught my chin between her finger and thumb and tilted my face down toward hers. “Poor child,” she said softly, reaching up to pat my cheek. “I know you’ve struggled of late, but I had to see if you were strong enough.”

  I stuttered in spite of myself. “You…wait, you’re…”

  “I answer to many names,” she said with a grin, “but yes, you’re correct. You’ve come to rescue Coileán?” I nodded frantically, and she clasped her hands as her face grew serious. “You’ll never get him out of this room alive. You haven’t moved, by the way,” she added, seeing my expression. “I mean, you’re on the floor now, but this place…well, it’s outside of normal time and space, really. We need to talk.”

  “But we’ve got someone waiting, all we have to do is carry him—”

  “Straight through the wards around the door,” she interrupted, “which will kill all three of you. And Oberon, too, though I could be mistaken about that. It would weaken him, surely, but you’d have no guarantee of taking him with you. I assume you’d rather live to see the dawn, yes?”

  I frowned down at her. “Astrid didn’t say anything about that.”

  “Because she doesn’t know. She’s still very much a child.” Faerie folded her thin arms and watched me try to work around this new wrinkle. “You cannot take him out that way,” she said as I began to pace. “Or out the window. He’ll have to break the enchantments himself—the one holding him, and the one on the room. For him to do that, someone will need to distract Oberon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Her smile returned, but with an edge. “A bind like the one Oberon has made isn’t a static thing. Oh, the boy’s adept at binds, I grant him that, but he’s unaccustomed to binding someone who fights back.” Seeing my confusion, she explained, “Coileán is nearly Oberon’s equal. Not quite his match, but close. When I transferred to him the gift I gave your mother, I amplified it to make up for his relative youth. Do you follow?” I nodded, and she said, “An enchantment like a bind is always tied to its maker. For a bind like…well, for example, the one Coileán placed on Moyna, the maker seldom feels it—the object of the bind is too weak to fight it off. But Coileán is struggling with everything he has, and Oberon must fight to keep the bind intact. It requires a certain degree of concentration.”

  I thought of Ilunna, who had been unable to distract the old king with her charms. “So if he were forced to take his mind off Coileán…”

  She nodded. “I have a proposal for you, Aiden. Will you hear it?”

  “Anything.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I think she was pleased at that. “Some time ago, I made a compact with Oberon, Mab, and your mother,” said Faerie. “I gave them power beyond their imagining with the understanding that they would abide by several conditions, one of them being that they would no longer seek to kill each other. Mab broke our covenant, and Titania met her fate, but Oberon, for all else that he has done, has kept the letter of our bargain. Not its spirit, evidently,” she muttered, “but the letter. I will not break my word to him and withdraw my gift. But given his behavior, I would be willing to empower someone else to challenge him.”

  She looked up at me in silence, waiting, and I took a step backward. “Who, me?”

  “If you’re willing, child.”

  “But…but I can’t,” I said in a rush, “I’m a witch-blood, I can’t do anything with magic, it…I mean, I see it, but I can’t do anything…”

  She let me babble for a moment, then held up one hand to stop the flow. “Your mother’s and father’s gifts war within you,” she said gently. “What I can do—and what I am willing to do—is upset the balance. I can suppress your father’s influence.”

  I stared at her, replaying what she had said. “You mean…”

  “From a functional perspective, you would be no different from the rest of the half fae,” she finished. “With everything that entails. And until such time as Coileán is able to resume his duties, you would carry power equal to his. I can do this for you, child. But before you decide,” she cautioned, “know that the process cannot be undone. If you make your choice”—she spread her hands—“you’ve made your choice. Is that clear?”

  Somehow, I managed to nod.

  “Very good. Are you willing, then?”

  A million thoughts ran through my mind, but in the midst of the hurricane, I heard myself whisper, “Yes.”

  Faerie smiled. “This will hurt. Best if you close your eyes.”

  Hurt doesn’t begin to describe what happened next
. The blackness beneath me gave way, and I tumbled into the abyss. A split-second later, something broke my fall, but it felt like I’d been caught in a net made of barbed high-voltage wires, and then like every cell of my body decided to explode at once. I would have screamed, but I’d forgotten where my mouth was supposed to be. This wasn’t pain, this wasn’t agony—this was something red and sharp and nameless, and at that moment, I wanted nothing more than the mercy of death.

  And then, as quickly as it had begun, the torment ended, and I felt hands on my shoulders.

  “Aiden!” Joey whispered as he shook me. “Aid, come on, wake—”

  He released me suddenly, and I opened my eyes to see the room around me suffused with white light. Squinting at the unexpected brightness, I eased myself into a sitting position and spotted Joey crouched halfway across the room, goggling at me. “Joey—”

  “You’re glowing,” he said, wide-eyed and tense. “Why the hell are you glowing?”

  Dazed and unsure of what had just happened, I looked at my hand and realized the light was coming from me. “Realm made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” I mumbled, flipping my hand over to see that, yes, the light came out the other side as well.

  “What happened to—”

  “We can’t drag Coileán out of here,” I interrupted, wiggling my fingers experimentally. “She said it’d kill us all. Got to distract Oberon. She gave me the power.”

  Joey scrambled upright and gripped his sword. “Mother of God,” he whispered, “I’ve seen that light before.” He pulled his sword out and flipped the hilt toward me. “Can you take it?”

  Sure, I started to say, but as I reached for it, I felt a tingle race along my hand and arm, and I paused. Puzzled, I reached toward it with my other hand, but the tingle began there, too, and it strengthened to an unpleasant buzz as I got closer. “What—”

  “Draw yours,” he said, locking eyes with me.

  I unsheathed my blade with no difficulty—even if I was still glowing—and stared at the bronze. “I don’t under—” I began, but snapped my mouth closed as the realization hit.

  Iron and silver, dangerous to the fae, lethal if used correctly.

  Joey’s hilt was wrapped with leather, but there was good steel hiding beneath.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered, looking back at him in shock, “I’m a faerie.”

  “I can see that,” he muttered, putting his sword away. “And what do you mean, we can’t take Colin out of here?”

  “Door’s warded, we’ll all go boom,” I mumbled, only half-listening to him. This wasn’t right, I was the dud, this couldn’t be happening…

  Joey shook my shoulders, pulling me from my chaotic thoughts. “We’ve got to get out of here. Turn your highs off.”

  “Huh?”

  “Stop glowing.”

  “I don’t know how!” I protested.

  He considered this for a second, then stepped back and lowered his hands in placation. “It’s okay, Aiden, just focus. Breathe for me. Think about…you know, not glowing, yeah?”

  I took a deep breath, then another, pushing down the rising fear…and suddenly, the light died away. “I…I did it…”

  “Fireball,” he said calmly, holding out his palm. “Come on, you can do this, just think about it.”

  Remembering what it had looked like when Coileán pulled off that trick, I tried to imagine a similar flame in my hand—and an instant later, there were green flames dancing all around me. “Joey!” I yelped in panic.

  “Breathe,” he ordered, and as I fought the surge of terror, the fire, like the corona, vanished. I stood there by Coileán’s bed, trembling and blinded by the after-images, and Joey cocked his head toward the door. “Time to go. Let’s get back to the woods, and we’ll figure out our next step from there.”

  “But Coileán—”

  “Aiden, listen to me,” said Joey, stepping between the bed and me, “we can’t help him like this. We’ve got to get out of here before they catch us.”

  “But…but all I have to do is distract Oberon—”

  “You can’t even control yourself! Pitting you against Oberon right now would be…I don’t know, like giving a Cub Scout a rocket launcher and directing him toward a bear. No.” He pointed to the ground. “They’re coming. Punch a hole in the floor.”

  “What?”

  “Floor. Hole. Do it.”

  I started to protest that there was roughly no way in hell that I could punch a hole in anything, let alone a stone floor, but as I jabbed my finger toward the ground to drive the absurdity of Joey’s suggestion home, the flagstones flew up around us in an explosion of gravel.

  “Okay, maybe do it a little more quietly next time,” said Joey as surprised voices rose in the hallway. Grabbing my wrist, he pulled me after him into the pit.

  That turned out to be a rough landing, and I gasped after the floor knocked the wind from me. Joey had managed to release me and roll into the impact, and he was on his feet before I’d remembered why I was hurting. “Dungeon,” he said, looking around at the torches on the walls, then pointed down the vaulted hall to the left. “Out that way. Come on, move.” He pulled me off the floor and half-dragged me to the other end of the room, ignoring the shouts that echoed down from Coileán’s room. “Hole there, do it.”

  I barely thought about it, and the stonework exploded again. Yanking my arm, Joey pulled me through, straight into the ornamental moat, and up the far bank. Dripping, we sprinted for the gardens and the distant tree line. My lungs burned, my heart pounded like a jackhammer, and with the night, I could barely see five feet in front of me, but Joey seemed to intuit the smoothest path through the flowerbeds and around the orchards, and he caught me each time I stumbled. Finally, as my battered body cried for mercy, we crested a hillock and dodged a thicket of brambles, and my exhausted legs gave way. I went down hard in the dirt, and I didn’t care.

  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  We didn’t make camp that night. I woke shortly before dawn with a raging headache and sore calves to find Joey resting with his back against a nearby tree, guarding our bags. He’d covered me with whatever camouflage he could find, and I smelled of decaying leaves and wet dirt. Carefully, going slowly as my stiff muscles protested, I pushed myself off the ground and brushed the foliage from my hair. I couldn’t quite recall why we hadn’t made a fire—we always made a fire for protection—but then my glance landed on Joey’s scabbard, which peeked out from the side of his duster, and the night came rushing back.

  The dungeon ceilings were high. I should have had at least a few broken bones with my ungainly landing, I realized, but a little test wiggling suggested that everything was intact. Even the bruises I found when I peeled off my shirt were brown and fading, not the violent purples and greens of fresh injuries.

  “Colin heals quickly, even without adding enchantment to the mix,” said Joey in an exhausted bass, interrupting my self-inspection. “So does Val. Are you all in one piece?”

  “I…think so.” I rubbed the grit from my eyes, then shook the dirt off my shirt and pulled it back on. “Joey…what just…last night, I…”

  He sighed and climbed to his feet. “One minute, you were with me. The next, you were out cold on the floor. How’s the head?”

  “Sore.” I patted the back of my skull and winced. “Bruised, I think.”

  “You went down like a pile of bricks. Lucky you didn’t crack anything important open.” He brushed off the back of his coat and popped his spine. “And as soon as you woke, the fireworks started. Remember?”

  I nodded, wincing at the memory of the searing pain.

  He crossed his arms and gave me a weary stare. “Want to tell me what happened?”

  Leaning against a tree, I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. “Remember when I told you that I had a dream—”

  “Woman warned you to run, might be this Lady that Lailu was talking about, yeah.”

  “She was. Is. She’s the realm.” I opened my eyes
and found him still watching me. “And she said the only way to free Coileán is to distract Oberon long enough for Coileán to free himself. So she…well…gave me a boost.”

  “That’s not a boost, that’s a complete overhaul,” Joey retorted. “Dude, you were enchanting last night.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “How?”

  I sighed and resumed my head massage. “She said she could suppress the wizard bits of me. Make me like a half faerie instead of a mongrel. And I guess she added some extra on top of that.”

  “Uh…yeah, there’s no need to guess at that,” he muttered. “Last time I saw someone glowing like that, Titania had just bit the dust, and Colin was dealing with the surge.” He shook his head. “So what I’m hearing right now is that, more or less, you’re currently packing the firepower of a faerie king.”

  I groaned and massaged harder. “Yeah, I think so. She didn’t give me the full specs before she blasted me. And even if she had, I still don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Yeah, that’s a major problem. You’re a danger to us both until you get yourself straightened out.”

  I dropped my hands again and glared at him in exasperation. “Well, if we walk in the woods long enough, maybe we’ll run into someone who can give me a few lessons,” I snapped. “Unless Oberon figures out what’s going on and finds us first. I mean, I did just blow two holes in the fucking palace, but that’s not really noticeable, right?”

  “Aiden.”

  His voice was low and held a note of caution, and I realized I was glowing again. “Sorry,” I muttered as the light died away.

  “Try to stay calm, okay?”