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

by Melinda Kucsera

  Ages past? The Jaded Grove had stood for millennia. Nothing lived that long.

  Realization washed over him in a cold wave. He stared at the creature before him, goosebumps racing along his arms and legs.

  Now she laughed. “How surprised you seem. Have you not the wit to see through glamour?”

  “It’s not possible. The Fae are dead.”

  “Most are. Some escaped before the curse reached them.”

  “That magic covered the entire world.”

  “Of one realm, but as you see, there are others. Kindred realms, we called them. This is one I’d visited often.” She gave a slight shrug. “Of course, at the time I hadn’t realized it would cost my immortality, but a century more of life is better than none at all.”

  Simith tried to calm himself. He shuddered to think what atrocities she’d committed here among peoples without magic, unaware of her kind’s merciless nature.

  “I did not come here looking for you.” He held her dark gaze as steadily as he could. “No one knows you exist.”

  “Here’s what I think, little pixie. I think your industrious fairy commanders found the doorway. Somehow, they discovered that not all Fae were destroyed in their uprising. They dispatched you to locate my whereabouts so they can send reinforcements to kill or capture me.” She moved alongside him and set the edge of his blade to his throat. “I cannot have that. There are those who depend on me here. Thus, you will never return, and I will have a chat with my trees to make certain no one ever finds that doorway again.”

  He tilted his head back as she pressed the sword into him. “The Helms did not send me.”

  “Then what were you doing in the Jaded Grove before the trolls found you?”

  “It was the trolls I went to meet. In secret.” He sucked in a breath as the blade’s edge bit into him. “To make peace.”

  “Without the backing of your commanders,” she said dryly. “I don’t believe you. You are of the vanguard. They wouldn’t have placed you there unless they trusted your loyalty completely.”

  “They have my true name. That’s why they trust my loyalty.”

  She paused. “You gave it to them?”

  “Yes.”

  He shot a sidelong look at her, afraid to move lest he cut open his own throat. Incredulity filled her black gaze. “You can’t have been that stupid.”

  “It’s required to join the ranks; the price we pay for the resources to protect our families from the attacks.”

  She barked a laugh. “They have grown clever. You’re saying, despite this, the trolls agreed to meet with you and discuss peace?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head, certainty replacing the surprise. “For trolls, oathbreaking is a matter of damnation. If they’d truly agreed to that meeting, they wouldn’t have ambushed you. What a sorry liar you are.”

  But he wasn’t lying. The trolls had broken their oath because they saw him as evil, a monster who would slay enemies on their knees as easily as those on their feet. They were right. After ten years of war, he’d done that and worse. He’d accepted no surrenders, heeded no pleas. Like the daylight that turned their flesh to stone, his wrath knew no mercy. Of course, they would sacrifice their honor to kill him.

  Simith squeezed his eyes shut. He saw no point in saying any of that. This was what he deserved, to die here, alone, without the rites of his homeland or family, without leaves in his hands or runes dyed onto the soles of his feet. It was the fate he had earned, no matter that his spirit ached to atone.

  You were wrong, Rim. For some, it is too late for peace.

  Behind him, a door slammed open.

  “Granny, stop!” someone exclaimed.

  The blade lowered from his throat. “I told you not to come in here.”

  “You can’t kill him. At least not yet.”

  “Why should I not? I’ve learned all I need.”

  He opened his eyes to Ionia scowling over his shoulder. A young female strode into his line of sight and passed a bit of parchment to her. “The trolls captured Katie and sent a ransom note. They want the pixie alive in exchange for her.”

  He’d heard that name before. So Katie was a person, after all. Was she Fae as well? Just how many still lived? He blinked. Had she said Granny?

  “The neighbor girl with the loud parties.” Ionia crumpled the parchment. “Let them have her.”

  The young female stiffened. “What?”

  “It would be a favor, really. She’s become a nuisance with her calls and unannounced visits.”

  “Granny, we can’t—”

  “Why is he tied up?” came a third, startled voice.

  Simith recognized it immediately. He shifted, craning his neck as far as possible to look behind him. He couldn’t get much more than a glimpse of dark hair and a figure of small stature in the doorway, but it was enough. He breathed out a sigh. She lived. Thank all the winds, he hadn’t killed her.

  “Relle?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Go back to the bedroom, Jessa. He’s tied up because he’s dangerous.”

  “But he saved my life.” Her quiet steps moved her into his view, dark eyes widening when she looked from him to the sword in Ionia’s hand. “Why are you—You weren’t going to hurt him, were you?”

  Simith stared up at her. It had been a long time since someone regarded him with anything close to concern. He couldn’t help but appreciate it.

  She didn’t look as she had in the woods. Color filled her cheeks. Gone were the rabbit ears and fur, affording him a better view of her. She had a kindly look, her face the shape and shade of an acorn. If not for her round ears and the absence of wings, he’d have thought she belonged to the southern moorlands.

  “Jessa,” he said, and she looked at him. “Your name is Jessa.”

  She turned to the other young female—Relle. “You’ve got to untie him. This is crazy.”

  “We can’t.”

  Her gazed hardened. “Because he’s dangerous, or because he’s a hostage?”

  Ionia rapped her knuckles against the metal arm of her chair, lips thinning as she addressed Relle. “You were meant to spell these memories from her. That task will prove more difficult each time she sees something she shouldn’t.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t do that unless she agreed, and she hasn’t.”

  “And I’m not going to either,” Jessa said, though her voice wasn’t entirely steady. “I don’t know what spelling is, but I doubt it’s healthy for my—for me.” Some thought he couldn’t read passed behind her eyes as she glanced down at herself.

  “I would never do anything to harm you, Jessa.” Hurt flashed over Relle’s face.

  Jessa knelt beside his chair. “His hands are turning blue. I’m untying him.”

  “You see now?” Ionia pointed. “She doesn’t understand, and you are too young to see the danger in her ignorance. Or your own, for that matter.”

  Despite her words, she must have decided he wasn’t the threat they’d claimed, for she made no move to stop Jessa as she worked on the knots that bound him. And truly, without his knives, his blade, or magic, any attack would be suicidal. When the ropes came free, he subdued a hiss as blood rushed back into his fingers.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, bringing to mind her other stricken apologies after removing the arrow from his shoulder.

  “It’s I who should apologize,” he said. “My pain is not your doing.”

  “No, that task falls to me,” Ionia observed, angling the sword like a bar across his chest. It seemed less a threat than a way to discourage him from moving from his seat. She turned her attention to Relle. “I know you value Katie, but setting aside that I refuse to be blackmailed by trolls, it’s too risky to give the pixie to them. He can’t be allowed to return to his world under any circumstances. He’ll tell the fairies about our existence. That’s why he’s here, after all.”

  Simith barely kept himself from arguing the point again. She would listen to nothing more fro
m him. If it came to it, he’d rather she had her attention elsewhere when he tried to escape, even a far-fetched, likely futile attempt.

  Relle shook her head. “Everyone knows Katie in this town, Granny. If she disappears, there’ll be consequences. More people will come snooping around here.”

  “This is exactly the reason I told you to stay away.” Her mouth twisted. “What do you suggest, child?”

  Relle paced a few steps. “What if we simply agree to the exchange, get Katie, and recapture him afterward?”

  “And how shall we agree to an exchange we have no intention of honoring? Neither of us can lie.”

  She smiled. “We just won’t say how long they can have him. Once Katie is safe, we can let the trees take care of the trolls.”

  “Along with the pixie.” Her grandmother’s eyes glinted. “That has potential.”

  Simith’s chin dipped. It seemed there was avoiding the torment awaiting him. Hopefully those trees would crush him before the trolls resumed what they’d started. Relle cut a worried look at Jessa who watched with a tight expression.

  “Couldn’t we just make him promise not to say anything?” Relle tried.

  “Nonsense. The fairies have his true name. They’ll compel him to foreswear himself. Go and ready a return missive—"

  “No,” Jessa said in a low voice. “No, you can’t give him to them.”

  Startled silence fell. All eyes turned to her, including his. She grimaced beneath their collective scrutiny.

  “It’s just so we can get Katie back,” Relle told her gently. “And we’ll,” she glanced sidelong at Ionia, “discuss about what happens afterward once she’s safe.”

  “They were doing something to him.” Jessa knotted her fingers together. “There was a strange knife and some kind of magic. The sounds he made when it touched him,” she shuddered and Simith nearly did the same. “They’ll do it again as soon as you hand him over. You can’t.”

  He stared at her. Was she…defending him? She didn’t even know him. The appreciation he felt before swelled in his chest.

  “A knife,” Ionia settled her flinty regard to him. “What kind of knife?”

  “They have a Sorrow Blade,” he said.

  “Do they.” She exhaled between her teeth and removed the barricade of his sword to set it across her lap again. “Well then. That changes things.”

  “What’s a Sorrow Blade?” Relle asked. “You’ve never spoken of them before.”

  “It’s something the Fae should never have forged. A living blade so ravenous for grief, its hunger nearly destroyed our civilization.” She laughed humorlessly. “Until the fairies, of course. I’d have thought those feckless usurpers would know better than to raid the forbidden armories. How do trolls have possession of one?”

  “They were used in the war,” Simith said. With the sword gone, he covertly assessed the room for exits. He spied a window. Closed, unfortunately. “Some were lost in battle and used against us. A pact was made to no longer wield them.”

  “Another broken oath? These are strange trolls pursuing you, pixie.” She tapped one foot against the floorboards. “I can annul the blade if it’s separated from the handler. That must be our priority.”

  Relle stepped forward. “But Katie—”

  “Her welfare will be secured with the trolls’ defeat,” her grandmother snapped. “We cannot have a Sorrow Blade loose in a realm as defenseless against magic as this one. Believe me, you don’t wish to see the reach of its power when unchecked.”

  “How long until dawn?” Simith asked.

  “Not for hours yet.”

  “Why does dawn matter?” Jessa said and Simith turned, surprised to find her still beside his chair.

  “Sunlight turns their flesh to stone.” He looked at Relle. “What of the trees? You had planned to let them smother the trolls after the exchange.”

  “The trees on this side are much younger than the ones you came by. They might hurt Katie in the process.”

  Quiet descended. Every possibility he considered fell short of success.

  Jessa cleared her throat. “I have an idea.”

  Chapter Six

  It was a terrible idea.

  By the time she and Simith approached her greenhouse at the back of her gardens, Jessa was certain her plan would get them all killed. What was she thinking, piping up in a conversation about creatures that had only existed in fairytales for her until now? It wasn’t as if she knew much about them regardless. Magical realism was as fantastical as her adult literature tastes extended.

  “This way,” she motioned him toward the side entrance and away from the glass double doors at the front. “Those squeak when they open, um…It’s Simith, right? Not Smith?”

  He nodded, surveying their surroundings in the same ceaseless manner since they’d left the Neverstem house. They’d given the trees a wide berth in case their enemy was watching. Relle had assured them the trolls couldn’t leave the forest until they opened the border to arrange the swap, but he’d remained on guard nonetheless. Jessa appreciated his vigilance but since he was unarmed, she questioned what he could do if an attack came. Ionia outright refused to return his sword and knives to him. Part of her was glad—she couldn’t help but feel wary after what had happened before—but a greater part feared the old woman had done it less out of distrust than for ease of recapture. Relle said they’d discuss his fate afterward. Jessa didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  “Your garden is vast,” Simith commented as she closed the greenhouse door behind him. “You and your kin must have great skill in the green world for it to flourish so.”

  “The fuse box is this way.” Grabbing the flashlight from the shelf beside the door, she side-stepped him to head toward the back. Her arm brushed the side of his wings hanging down his back. Shockingly soft. “We’ll be able to turn on all the lights at once from there.”

  “And these mimic the sun.” He gazed upward at the LED tubes affixed to the ceiling. “How do you capture daylight without magic?”

  “Science.” She pushed a clay planter out of their path with her foot, annoyed that she hadn’t taken the time to clean up the place since replanting in the spring. “It’s the ultra-violet rays that make sunlight different from regular light.”

  “Your people study such things?”

  “Some do. I’m just a liberal arts major.” Reaching the back corner, she popped open the fuse box, checking to make sure none had been tripped or appeared damaged. The plan was to set Simith out as bait. When the trolls came in, Jessa would flip on all the grow lights and turn them to stone. Hopefully.

  In theory, it was a sound strategy, but it also assumed the laws of nature functioned the same here as they did in the other world. Who could say if their sunlight didn’t have some additional hocus pocus that petrified their bodies? If this didn’t work, they’d kill Simith and Katie. Anxious sweat beaded between her shoulder blades. Simith didn’t deserve the fate they’d deal him, and Katie…Jessa prayed she wasn’t going through anything like what they’d done to him. She couldn’t lose her. Jessa wasn’t the type to have best friends, even before the accident. What would become of her if the worst happened? No family. No friends. She’d disappear entirely.

  Concentrate on what you can control.

  The fuse box. That was her job. If this whole thing failed it wouldn’t be because of a busted wire.

  As she finished her inspection a few minutes later, the noisy drag of table legs over tile made her turn. Simith pulled one closer to her.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “You haven’t ample cover back here,” he said, nudging it into place. “Trolls can see in the dark. Your position must be concealed. What are these bags?” He pointed and she cast her flashlight at a lump of shadows.

  “Pea gravel. Landscape stones.”

  Her eyebrows went up as he hefted two fifty-pound bags like they were filled with feathers and stacked them on the table. She peered around the tower to see him f
rowning at them.

  “Still too exposed,” he muttered. “Do you have more?”

  She extended a hand toward a few buckets full of potting soil standing in the corner. He hauled them over.

  “You’re not how I’d imagine a pixie,” she found herself saying.

  He slid a curious glance her way before lifting both buckets onto the table. “I thought my kind didn’t exist here.”

  “It doesn’t, but we do have stories. Fairytales.”

  “Fairytales.” That seemed to amuse him. “How are we imagined in them?”

  “As fluttery things. Lots of bright color and glitter.”

  “And I have insufficient sparkle?”

  “Not insufficient per se. Your wings are pretty.”

  “Are they?” The corners of his eyes crinkled.

  Her face heated. “I don’t often contemplate mythical creatures, but I wouldn’t have thought pixies would be so…”

  He shifted the weight-laden table behind a few crates. “Yes?”

  She waggled her fingers, adjectives abandoning her utterly. “Substantial.” There, that was a neutral word.

  He came around the open side of the table and thumped one corner. “This will have to do, but be careful you aren’t spotted between any gaps.”

  “I will.”

  “Come, it’s time to tie me up.”

  Jessa pointed the flashlight ahead and led the way.

  “It’s sprites you’re thinking of,” Simith said.

  “Sorry?”

  “The willowy creatures with colorful, glitter-dust wings are sprites, not pixies. As you say, we are more,” he paused, “substantial.”

  The emphasis he gave that made her squirm. So much for neutral words.

  She slowed as they neared the center. “Is this far enough?”

  “A bit closer to the doors. I don’t wish them to balk at the entry.” He hesitated. “You are certain none of your kin could venture this direction? If so, you must warn them to—”

  “The house is empty.” Jessa realized how sharply she’d snapped when he didn’t reply. It took her aback. She hadn’t bristled at anyone like that since the funerals. No one asked about the house. They knew it was empty. Silence lived there; the loving home it had once been gone forever. She brushed a hand across her abdomen. Children needed love in their home…