Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  Then she remembered the creatures crawling out of the ground and the winged man. The eruption of bright agony in her leg and the fountain of her own blood.

  Her eyes snapped open. Her hands rushed to her stomach as she evaluated herself. No pain. She felt the same as before, the edge of nausea still there. The worry took her by surprise, as did the relief.

  “Jessa.” A chair scraped and a familiar face with a halo of dark curls leaned over her. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  “Relle?” she blinked up at her. “What’s going on?”

  In the soft light of the bedside lamp, Relle’s silver eyes shone as bright as two moons against her mahogany skin.

  “You’re in my house,” Relle told her. “Come, sit up. You’ll feel better if you drink something.”

  “How did I get here?”

  Jessa leaned back against the headboard and accepted the glass of water, but didn’t drink. Oddly enough, she wasn’t thirsty. She took in her surroundings. A guest room, she judged, given the lack of clutter and personal things. The décor was as plain as any hotel room, which felt unexpected. With the insular nature of Relle and her grandmother, she’d anticipated something a little more eccentric. Why did they have a guest room when they never hosted any guests?

  “I found you in our fields,” Relle said. “You were unconscious.”

  “For how long?”

  “Only a couple of hours, I think. It’s still nighttime. Do you remember what happened?”

  “I was stabbed.” Yet, she suddenly realized, she didn’t feel any pain.

  Shoving the glass onto the bedside table, Jessa threw back the blankets to see her leg. Someone had changed her out of her bunny costume into a pair of blue cotton capris and a black t-shirt. Even before she yanked up the pant leg, she felt no bandages against her thigh.

  “This can’t be possible,” she breathed, staring down at her fully healed skin. Only a faint line indicated where the knife blade had been.

  Relle took hold of her shoulders, forcing her gaze up. Her silver eyes were startling in their intensity. “I know you’re confused, but you have to ignore that for now. I need you to tell me what came out of the ground by the trees.”

  How did she know about that? How did she know anything could crawl out of the ground?

  “There was a man first. With wings.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “Besides the pixie. Something else followed him.”

  “Pixie?”

  “Please, Jessa. It’s important.”

  “There—There were three of them. I don’t know what they were. They had glowing eyes and green skin. They weren’t human.”

  “Green skin,” Relle pressed. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. They attacked the other…man.” She couldn’t get herself to say pixie. He’d said his name once. What had it been? Smith…No, Simith. The memory of his suffering made her shiver. She’d been about to run for help, but his terrible cries turned her back. “He called them trolls.”

  Relle pulled in a breath and released her shoulders. “That explains the trees’ agitation.” She sat gingerly on the bed, murmuring to herself. “But why hasn’t the wood restrained them then?”

  The summer taste in her mouth soured with remembered fear. “Tell me what’s going on. Trolls and pixies? This is Michigan, not Wonderland.”

  Relle glanced toward the door with some apprehension, but when Jessa looked, she saw no one.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” she asked. “Believe me, you might find it easier to live without knowing the truth. I didn’t have a choice, but you do.”

  “A choice,” Jessa choked out a laugh. “What I’ve seen is going to star in all my nightmares.”

  “I can make you forget,” Relle told her without any trace of humor. “I can take the memory away. Granny wants me to regardless, but I won’t do that unless you ask for it.”

  Jessa shrank back from her despite her words. The rumors that circulated Skylark about this family rolled through her thoughts; the strangeness that surrounded the Neverstems, the fact that something odd always occurred when they were near. It was no coincidence that the tree those creatures crawled out from stood on their property.

  Jessa swallowed. “What are you?”

  “Please, don’t be afraid.” A hint of sadness touched her gaze before she turned it to the hands in her lap. “No matter what I tell you, I’m still me. I won’t hurt you.”

  “How can I believe that?”

  Relle shot a look toward the door again. Still no one. “I can explain, but you have to make an oath first. You can’t ever tell anyone what I will say, neither voluntarily nor under duress. No one, not even,” her voice tightened, “not even Katie. Don’t make this promise lightly, Jessa. Oaths are binding with my kind.”

  “Your kind. What does that mean?”

  Relle quietly returned her stare.

  Did she really want to know? Relle claimed she could make her forget. Would that be easier? Her heart sped in her chest and she put a hand over it, startled and amazed at the rapid thud. After months of stately thumping, untouched by joy or sorrow or anything else beyond a neutral thump, the thing had sprung to life tonight. Terror wasn’t ideal, but she’d begun to wonder if what happened eighteen months ago had shattered it so completely, it’d become an automated mechanism instead of a living one. Forget? No, she didn’t want that.

  “I promise,” she said. “I won’t tell your secret.”

  Relle nodded once, and spoke, her voice taking on an unnerving musical cant. “A warning: This oath you must keep, or the days thereafter shall you weep. A punishment so cruel and deep, you’ll seek the grave to find your sleep.”

  Jessa leaned away from her. “That warning really ought to come before making the promise.”

  Relle gave no reply. She brought her hands to her face, smoothing them up and over her head. A ripple spread in their wake. Jessa let out a gasp, scrambling off the other side of the bed.

  Relle’s dark skin hadn’t changed, nor the playful black curls, but her features, though similar, had become utterly inhuman. Her silver eyes were wider and set farther apart, the cheekbones knife-sharp, the brow higher and the chin more pointed. Her limbs—arms, legs, even fingers—were abnormally long, reaching half a length farther than seemed possible, or natural. She was still beautiful, but eerily so. Jessa recognized what she was. Her mother had read so many folktales to her as a child, she’d have to be blind not to.

  “You’re a fairy,” she whispered.

  “No. I’m Fae.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Fairies are long-lived, but still mortal. Their magic isn’t nearly as strong, and like all other races save mine, they require a conduit to wield it.”

  A conduit. That made it sound as if magic were some kind of electricity requiring a grounding object through which to conduct it. She remembered the winged stranger—or…pixie—telling her to ready her own just before he pulled the knife from her leg.

  “Magic,” she repeated, feeling her jaw dangle.

  Relle nodded solemnly.

  “Magic is real?”

  “It is, but don’t worry. This world has no magic of its own. Any you’ve seen was brought in by inhabitants of another realm. That’s why Granny and I live by the doorway—to ensure nothing comes through.”

  “Except something has.”

  “We’re still not sure how. Trees can be a capricious lot. They may have allowed them to enter even if they found the doorway by accident. We’ll learn more once the pixie recovers enough to answer Granny’s questions.”

  “He’s here?” This time it was Jessa who darted a glance toward the door. She recalled the horrified expression on his face after the knife struck her, the way he could barely stumble across the short distance to reach her. “Is he okay?”

  “For now.”

  Relle passed a palm from her brow to her chin, and her face settled back into the familiar lines Jessa knew.

 
; Glamour. That was the term used in fairytales for enchantments of disguise. Jessa never cared for fantastical stories, but her sisters had loved them. All those sticker boards they used to have…

  She shook the memory off before it settled in. They had bigger problems at hand.

  “Those things, the trolls,” she said. “They’re still out there. What if someone else wanders by your property like I did? Katie’s party must still be going.”

  “When we found you, we closed off the woods. The trolls can’t get out and no one else can get in.”

  “How? There’s no fence and…” Jessa trailed off at the other’s pointed look. Magic, right.

  “Everyone at the party will be safe,” Relle said. She pursed her lips, gaze dropping to her lap again. “Was Katie very angry I couldn’t come? I wanted to go. It’s just better if I keep my distance from regular people, even if I feel more a part of this world than the Fae’s.”

  Jessa’s brows went up. “Were you born here?”

  She nodded. “I’ve never been to the other one. Granny says it’s not safe for us. My father was human, so I suppose that means I do belong in a way, but having magic changes things.”

  “And because you’re immortal.”

  She waved a hand. “No, here I’m as mortal as you are. Everything in this world ages, even the Fae can’t stop that.”

  “But you just said you have magic.”

  “It’s in our blood. That’s why we don’t need conduits, but it has limits—like aging—and it’s extremely draining here.”

  Jessa wondered what it cost her to maintain the glamour she wore. Sudden understanding hit her. “That’s why you hardly ever leave your farm.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “That’s why I—"

  A sharp rapping on the window pane interrupted them. With the blinds down, Jessa couldn’t see what had caused it. Relle stood.

  “Don’t,” Jessa urged, feeling sweat dampen her palms. “What if it’s the trolls?”

  “They can’t leave the woods, trust me.” She went to the window.

  Despite her assurances, Jessa looked for something that might serve as a weapon. Spying a pair of glass candlesticks on the dresser, she snatched one down.

  Relle zipped the blinds up. Unlatching the window, she pushed it aside and popped open the screen. A sparrow alighted on the window sill. It bobbed its gray head, ruffling brown-black wings in a manner that looked a lot like a show of deference.

  “Did that bird just bow to you?” she blurted.

  “The sparrows help us keep an eye on the trees. That’s how I knew you’d been attacked.” She held out a palm and it hopped onto her fingers.

  “Didn’t Katie relay my text?”

  Where was her phone? She felt the pockets of her borrowed capris, but it wasn’t there.

  Relle’s brow furrowed. “What text?”

  The sparrow deposited a little wad of rolled up paper into her hand, and twittered.

  “They clean up litter for you too?” She relaxed her death grip on the candlestick as Relle unrolled the bit of garbage.

  Her face went rigid.

  “What’s wrong?” Jessa joined her by the window. Markings she didn’t recognize adorned the little scrap of paper. Writing?

  A dawning sense of alarm bubbled in her stomach. “What does it say?”

  “It says they have her,” Relle whispered. “The trolls have her.”

  “Who?”

  Panic filled her silver eyes. “Katie.”

  Chapter Five

  Icy water tore Simith from his dreamless sleep. He came to with a sputtering gasp.

  “Good,” came a voice nearby. “You’re awake.”

  He tried to wipe his face, and couldn’t. Seated upright, his wrists and ankles were lashed to the limbs of a chair. Not by the trolls, he assumed. They’d had other plans for him. Simith blinked the moisture from his eyes, and sought out his captor.

  An elderly woman sat before him in a wheeled chair of metal, her features hard, her black gaze steely. Despite the long, grey-white braid slung over her shoulder, the clarity in her eyes made it hard to guess at her age. They unnerved him, those eyes, as if they could see more than he wished to share. In one hand she held the cup that must’ve delivered the water to his face. The other rested across her lap where his crystal blade lay. No sign of his knives.

  Simith forced his gaze away from the weapon. “Am I a prisoner?”

  She inclined a wintery brow. “Are your bonds not tight enough? Did we leave room for interpretation?”

  We. She was not alone here.

  “On my honor, I mean no harm. You needn’t restrain me.”

  “You bring trouble to my home. I’m of a mood to do as I please with you. As for your honor,” she shrugged, “I know enough of the swaying loyalty of pixies to find little value in that.”

  She was baiting him. To amuse herself, or as a test? That shrewd gaze she leveled on him suggested the latter. What game did she play? His bonds didn’t budge at all when he tested them. Fabric twisted at one arm and he glanced down in surprise to find it bandaged. The absence of pain entered his awareness. His wings, though stiff and sore, were no longer broken, and his leathers had been secured once more over his chest. That was a hopeful sign, wasn’t it?

  “You healed my wounds,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “I can hardly interrogate you if you’re mewling with injury. If there is to be pain,” she smiled, “I prefer to apply it myself.”

  Perhaps not so hopeful.

  “I serve the Thistle Court,” he told her, opting to volunteer information. Maybe she’d see it as a gesture of good faith. “I’m a knight in the legion’s vanguard and—”

  “You’re infantry, then. Not a Helm.”

  “Of course not. Only the fairies can hold the rank of commander.”

  “Really. Interesting.” She tapped his sword with a forefinger. “Yet, you carry a commander’s blade.”

  “I was given that honor, yes.”

  “Why?”

  As ever, the words came bitter to his tongue. He could almost smell the blood lingering on the air. “A reward for excellence in battle.”

  “And with whom do the fairies battle that you should have the opportunity to earn such acclaim?”

  He frowned. She seemed to know many details about his world, yet of the conflict raging between the fairies and the trolls, she knew nothing?

  “Who are you?” he asked, casting an eye around the square room, empty save for the two chairs.

  “You may call me Ionia.”

  He considered her. “Is that even part of your name?”

  Her mouth crooked up on one side.

  “Where am I?”

  “So many questions. You are perhaps unfamiliar with the way an interrogation works?”

  Familiar enough to recognize the look in her eyes. She might not be his enemy, but she certainly saw him as one. As soon as she had the information she sought, his life became worthless. He needed time to figure out an escape before that happened. The more answers he gave, the shorter that time became.

  His thoughts flashed back to the tree line and his skirmish with the trolls. Were they still out there? And the pooka. Where was she? She’d been hurt, he remembered with a start. By his blade. He’d tried to heal her, but the magic was fractious. Had she survived? His chest tightened for fear she hadn’t.

  He worked to keep his voice level. “There was a pooka—No, not a pooka. She was…” He didn’t even know what she was.

  “Human, is the word you’re looking for. Creatures born without magic.”

  He’d never heard of them. “She was injured. Did she—Is she here?”

  “Your concern would seem more genuine if you hadn’t been the cause of her injury. I don’t recommend more questions about her.”

  “Is she alive?” he demanded.

  “So perilously uncooperative. It’s rather irritating.”

  Simith didn’t like the smirk she gave her words. Perhaps
they had her in a room like this one, tied down and interrogated. He would not abide that. He reached for his magic, casting his mind toward his conduit to lend him power.

  None came.

  The old woman’s dark eyes watched him as he struggled to hide his confusion. “You are quite helpless here, pixie. You exhausted your magic during your skirmish on my lands, and in this world, there exists none to replenish your stores.”

  No magic, just like the human who couldn’t heal herself. How then did his captor have magic? He could sense it in the palpable aura of power that surrounded her.

  She nodded to his unspoken question. “Correct. I am not powerless. Perhaps a demonstration would help to clarify things.”

  A hint of pain started behind his eyes. It swelled, growing brighter and hotter until his back arched and his breath shortened.

  “Now, tell me,” she settled back in her chair. “Who do you fight in the fairies’ name? Answer honestly. I will know if you lie.”

  Pressure built in his skull. He clenched his jaw, resisting, but thought better of it. This fact was common knowledge.

  “Trolls,” he pressed out. “They war against the trolls.”

  “How long?”

  “Nearly a century.”

  “Since the fairies betrayed the Fae.”

  Betrayed. A bizarre description for the actions of those who freed the world from tyrannical rule.

  “Yes,” was all he answered.

  The pain vanished. Simith slumped back in his restraints. Her expression thoughtful, she gazed down at the sword again, aged fingers tapping away.

  “Why do you do this?” he rasped. “I pose no threat to you, clearly.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Do you require another warning about deception?”

  “I speak truly. I don’t know you.”

  “No, we have never met,” she agreed. “But let us not pretend that you didn’t come here looking for me.”

  “My arrival was accidental. Trolls ambushed me in the Jaded Grove, and the trees led me here.”

  “The trees.” She gave a grainy chuckle. Sweat glimmered across her brow. “I planted the trees of that grove many ages past. Do you think I’ll believe they not only spoke to a mere pixie, but led you to the doorway?”