by AC Washer
“Yes.” The word came out a sigh.
“Good girl,” she said.
I let my lids close, too relieved to keep them open any longer.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Mickey searching my face.
“So,” he said, his eyes drilling into mine, “you resuscitated your brother even though you sustained two fractured ribs.”
“One fractured, one bruised,” I corrected. Although the doctor had first thought the bruised rib was actually a halfway-healed fracture…about three weeks old. But that was impossible.
Mickey shook his head. “And your brother continued to improve after that.”
“Wait a second here, you’re fishing,” I said, accusation staining my voice. “You’re turning your questions into statements so that you don’t have to use your second question and give me my turn.”
Mickey shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “Sorry, habit.” Mickey leaned back into the driver seat, considering. “What has your brother’s recovery looked like?”
“Really? Why do you want to ask that?”
Mickey opened his mouth to reply, but I beat him to it. “Never mind! Ignore that—it wasn’t a question, just an expression.”
“In question form—”
“That I take back!”
His mouth twitched into a smile. “Fine. But as for your answer to my question…”
“Um, yeah. Well, it’s like I told you. At first, I thought he was dead—or at least close to it. But Caleb had a heartbeat when the ambulance came. Deena gave me updates about him while we were in the hospital. He was in the ICU at first, but after a few days, they moved him to a normal room. He never came out of a coma, though.” I paused. "He was making progress, though, and they were hoping he’d come out of a coma in a few days, but once I left…” I swallowed. I still felt like I’d abandoned him.
“Once you left, he stopped improving,” Caleb finished for me.
I nodded. Caleb had just stalled. “But he’s not getting worse,” I added. “Deena says he’s still stable.”
“So, he stopped healing when you left.” Mickey spoke slowly, as if he was hoping he got it right—that I wouldn’t add anything that would make his statement any less true.
“Yep.”
Mickey smiled at me for the first time all day, his expression lightening to where he seemed even younger than he already was.
“Why does that make you so happy?” I asked. Because it honestly made me feel like crap. I should be with Caleb right now. And if I was, maybe he’d be doing better—somehow.
“If that’s the question you want to ask—”
“No, wait!” Mickey grinned at me as I glared back at him. “Just so you know, I do want to know, but there’s other stuff I need to know first.”
Mickey just kept smiling. I ignored him as I sifted through the past twenty-four hours, selecting only the most important questions.
“You’re fae,” I said. “And everyone around here is fae. And there’s magic. And I’m part of this somehow even though I’m not fae.” Questions kept whirling around my mind along with snippets of conversation.
“What, in detail, is the investiture and my part in it?”
Mickey exhaled. “That’s a two-part question.”
I was back at wanting to wring Mickey’s scrawny neck. The fact that I had to shake out every last bit of information was getting old fast.
“Fine. What is the investiture?”
“It’s where the fae crown the next queen, bestowing on her all the hereditary powers to which she is entitled.” He paused before adding, “And then some.”
I opened my mouth, but he cut me off with a raised hand.
“My turn. Before everything happened with your—your father” —he tripped over the word as if it was hard to get out— “did you find that your bruising healed at a faster pace than it is now?”
Weird questions, but easy enough. “Yeah. Normally, they’d be gone by now.” I shrugged. “Next question: what are fae? I mean, I get that you guys have magic, but other than that, I’ve got nothing.”
Mickey gave me a look that called into question my intelligence. “What are fae.” His voice deadpanned.
“Hey, it’s not like my dad read me fairytales or anything. You gotta cut me some slack.”
Mickey shook his head. “The fae consist of numerous magical races. Here,” he said, waving toward the car window, “we mostly have elves, pixies, druids, some gnomes, and a few water horses. Elves are able to access more magic than all of the other races, which makes them the natural rulers of the fae.”
“Wait, elves like the ones on the cookie box or in Lord of the Rings?”
Mickey rolled his eyes and opened his mouth.
“No, don’t answer,” I said, holding my hands out in front of him.
He smirked. “It was my turn anyway. Do you normally have more energy than you do now? And by that I mean do you usually take naps, sleep in until the afternoon if permitted, get tired throughout the day—that kind of thing?”
“You sound like a doctor,” I said, a smile pulling at my lips. Mickey smiled right back at me, waiting. I thought for a bit before saying, “Yeah, now that you mention it. But that seems normal, though. I mean, I’m still healing and all.”
“Of course,” he said. But I got the sense he didn’t agree.
“Now about the investiture—”
Mickey shook his head, cutting me off. “No more questions for now.”
“But it’s my turn!”
“No, if you’d kept score, you’d realize you owe me one more. I’ll collect it later.”
“Why you little…” I bit back whatever I was going to say. Instead, I looked at him—past him—to his pointy-eared shadow, and everything clicked into place.
“You’re an elf.” I said it with far more certainty than I’d ever felt about anything else in my life.
The only hint that I was right was the surprised lift of his eyebrows. I bounced up and down in my seat. “And Stuart. He’s kind of short and stubby—not as skinny as the kind with wings.”
Mickey froze. “What—what did you say?”
I clapped my hands in glee. “I’m right, aren’t I?” My grin grew so wide I was certain my smile would never be the same—much like the collar of a stretched-out t-shirt.
“That means Maeve and Bridgette—oh, and our math teacher—they’re all elves. And the girls in front of me in English are—well, those small, skinny-winged things.”
“Pixies,” Mickey said faintly.
“That’s what they’re called?”
Mickey nodded, a dazed expression on his face.
“And my art teacher—whatever she is, it creeps me out big time.”
“How—how do you know all this?” he asked as I fished around in my purse, grabbing the bottle of pain meds. If the shadows weren’t hallucinations, there wasn’t any reason not to take them.
I popped one into my mouth a bit over-enthusiastically. “And I thought I was going crazy.”
“When did you—how—”
I grinned at Mickey, too giddy to care about keeping score on questions. “As soon as I came here, I started seeing something that looked like shadows on the people here. Kind of like the whole ‘bring-to-back’ option on photoshop, know what I mean?”
At Mickey’s blank look, I added, “It was kind of like a human form superimposed on top of some shadowy other form. I thought it was the pain meds at first.” I paused. “But they’re real. I’m wasn’t seeing things!”
“You could see shadows of our forms? This whole time you could see past this,” —he gestured up and down his torso— “to our true selves?”
“Oh yes, sir elf. I see you.” If I didn’t think my smile could stretch any wider, I was wrong.
Mickey’s eyes widened to where I half-expected his eyeballs to pop out.
“Well,” he said, “it looks like you can see past the glamours.”
“If that’s what you call them, then yep. Does
that make me, like, a zero zone for magic?”
“A what?”
“You know, magic doesn’t work on me—like that cream—and I can see through glamours. Am I immune to magic?”
He shook his head. When he looked up, he was smiling.
“That’s an interesting idea, but I need to do some research before I can say for sure what’s going on. Earliest I can get started is tomorrow. Until then, how about we keep this information between you and me?”
My smile shrunk in on itself as my suspicions reemerged.
“Why?”
“Because if what everything you’re saying is true, some people aren’t going to like it.”
“Why? Okay, I can see why people wouldn’t want me to be immune to magic, but it’s not as if it really changes anything.”
He shook his head. “Trust me.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to.
He sighed. “Fine. Just promise me you won’t say anything to anyone about everything you’ve told me here, and after I get more information—after you give me some time to figure things out—I will be your personal walking encyclopedia for all things fae and magic.”
“And no killing me?” I asked, remembering Bridgette’s comments. “And you’ll explain the whole ‘why I’m not going to survive the new queen’s investiture coronation’ thing? Does she have a thing against humans?”
Mickey smiled. “I’m not too worried about that anymore.”
“Because you’re okay with me dying or because you don’t think I’m gonna die?”
He grinned, his eyes lighting with approval. “The latter.”
“But why did you think I might die in the first place? What does the investiture have to do with me? Oh, wait, if I’m immune to magic, then her magic can’t work on me, right?”
Mickey rubbed his neck. “Why do you seem to think the queen wants to kill you?”
“Well, why else would I die during an investiture? Maybe you guys do foster care so you can sacrifice teenage human girls to the new queen, or something. Wait…you don’t actually do that, right?”
“No! No,” Mickey said, exasperated. “Just…just hold off on the questions, okay? Wait until I figure a few things out and I can explain everything without having to shoot down ridiculous questions about human sacrifices and homicidal queens.”
“Ridiculous? Well, I’d have considered fae and magic pretty ‘ridiculous’ until yesterday.” I folded my arms across my chest and glared. “I believe I’m raising some pretty valid concerns.”
“They wouldn’t be concerns if you’d wait long enough for me to get the answers I need so that I can explain everything at once without having you jump to human sacrifices.”
“Define long enough.”
“I don’t know. Give me until tomorrow, okay? And then I promise I’ll answer all of your questions.”
“No limits?”
Mickey shook his head.
“And I’m safe for now? No plots to kill me that you aren’t telling me about?”
“None that I’m aware of,” Mickey said with a twist of his mouth that was half grimace, half smile.
I eyed him. “Okay, you have a deal. I won’t tell anybody about what we’ve talked about since Seelies, and you spill your guts as soon as you get all the information you need in order to know what’s going on.”
He grasped my hand with his, an amused expression flitting across his face.
“The correct expression is ‘I swear.’”
“Fine, I swear.” Something important—something real—seemed to form out of those two words. It was an anchor of sorts, binding me to a commitment that, while I meant it, now seemed permanent in a way I hadn’t intended.
He smiled, all humor absent.
“As do I swear.”
A lid came crashing down, shutting off any escape from our promise.
Mickey turned to start the car, satisfied with the end of our conversation.
All I thought as we continued our drive home was that Mickey had somehow gotten the better end of the deal and, for even more reasons I had yet to understand, I was in way over my head.
Chapter 13
The next morning, I felt lighter than I had in weeks. It was weird—carrying all of that guilt, all of that awfulness inside of me, and then vomiting it all up. It actually felt really, really…good.
Maeve hadn’t been home last night, but she sat at the table this morning, eating something that looked like mashed up rice in milk while skimming a stack of papers in front of her.
“Morning, Maeve,” I said, grabbing a bowl and the box of cocoa puffs that Mickey had procured for me.
Maeve frowned as the puffs pinged into the bowl.
“Good morning, Kella.”
I chomped down on my crisp, chocolaty goodness.
Maeve scanned me with her eyes. “You seem to be taking everything well.” The first thing Mickey had done when we’d gotten home yesterday was call Maeve about what had happened. She’d been in a council meeting at the time, and it’d turned out to be a long one. This was the first chance we had to talk after I found out about the fae.
“Well, yeah, why wouldn’t I?” I said. “This means I’m—” I opened my mouth to continue but nothing came out. Not a word. I sighed and said instead, “This means I’m not going crazy.”
“Of course you aren’t. Why would you have ever thought that?”
I tried to open my mouth to explain the shadows, but my jaw stayed firmly in place. I shrugged and gave Mickey the evil eye as he walked into the kitchen instead. Seemed like he didn’t tell Maeve everything, and now couldn’t do anything about that.
Stupid fae promise.
Mickey pulled a chair up to the table.
“Hey, Maeve,” he said, smiling. “How’d it go last night?”
Maeve sighed, pushing aside the papers. “Well enough, I suppose—given the message I delivered to the council.”
“Wait, your council isn’t a regular town council, is it?” I said.
Mickey shook his head. “Since we don’t have a queen at the moment, they rule the fae in her place.” Mickey turned back to Maeve. “How’d they take the news?”
Maeve shrugged. “As well as expected. We were, as you know, hoping to keep her ignorant for her own sake. We’ve been worried how someone with her mental instabilities might react to this sudden shift in world view.”
“Um, I’m still here, and I’m not unstable. Mickey, you know I’m not,” I said, waving my spoon in his face.
Mickey swatted it aside. “Yeah, Maeve, Kella thinks she’s stable.” I wanted to smack him with my spoon. Why did Mickey want Maeve to still think I was crazy? I glared at a spoonful of cereal before I chomped down on it. At least it was only for a few days more—stupid fae promise.
“And what about Kella being Magicless?” Mickey asked Maeve. “What’d they say about that?”
Maeve’s lips thinned. “Only that once word gets out, we will need to redouble our efforts to protect her.”
“Protect me? Why?” I asked between bites of cocoa puffs. “Do some fae have it out for non-magical humans?”
Maeve’s eyebrows shot sky high. “Mickey, I see you failed to explain a few key details.”
Mickey looked a little sheepish. “Well, I figured she’d had a lot of revelations already. I was hoping to spread the rest out a little more.”
My stomach clenched. “What revelations?” My voice came out calm, and I gave myself a mental pat on the back.
“Mickey.” Maeve’s tone was censuring. “Now that she knows, there are repercussions she needs to prepare for.”
Maeve leaned closer and took my left hand in hers, like she was trying to comfort me. But it had the opposite effect. My stomach churned. She’d used the word repercussions. And repercussions always meant bad stuff was about to happen.
“Kella,” Maeve said, looking me in the eyes. “You aren’t human. You are one hundred percent fae.”
I stared at her, waiting
for an uncharacteristic punchline that would show she was joking. It didn’t come.
“But my dad…”
“He wasn’t your dad.” Mickey’s voice was rough, final.
“Not my…” My world started to spin. “But how? I’ve got a birth certificate, a social. I look just like him."
Maeve shook her head. “Forgeries and glamour. You are what we call a changeling—a child we tricked a human family into raising. We fae can create glamours that would make a fae child appear human.”
“But that means…” I let the sentence die off, not able to bring myself to finish it. If I was a changeling, then I wasn’t Caleb’s sister.
But as quickly as I had the thought, I shoved it down. I was his sister. We’d grown up together, we loved each other—I was all Caleb had left.
But maybe that was my fault.
If I hadn’t been around, could things have been different for Caleb? I was the one Dad had hated. If the fae hadn’t tricked him into raising me, maybe Dad would have been a different kind of dad. A better dad.
Mickey and Maeve watched me as I processed this information.
“Yes,” Maeve said, completely misinterpreting whatever expression I had on my face. “This isn’t your true form.”
I wanted to laugh. Did she really think that was my first thought? But I latched onto her comment anyway. I didn’t want to think about how Caleb’s life might have been better without me.
I looked down at my body, at my hands. “If I don’t look like this, then what do I look like—a giant green ogre with wings?” I seriously didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t like the shadows showed up in reflections. My thoughts bubbled over with images of stick-like druids and razor-fanged pixies.
Maeve’s lips compressed. “You are an elf like us, Kella.”
I sagged in relief as images of Legolas replaced visions of a freak-show on steroids. Elf. That I could live with. And then I realized that, aside from their basic outline, I had no clue what elves looked like in real life. I mean, I could still be green.
“When will I start looking like an elf?” I asked.
“You will be able to dispose of your glamour after the coronation,” Maeve replied.
