by Tasha Black
He handed her the bags and she spread out his new things on the bed.
“These are nice,” she told him as she demonstrated how to pop off the tags and peel the size stickers off.
“Your human garments are very practical,” he allowed.
“Definitely,” she agreed. “And they’re easy to clean.”
“When does the maid come?” he asked.
“We take care of ourselves in this realm,” she told him, trying not to smile.
“You launder your own garments?” he asked in horror.
“Yes, but we have machines that wash and dry the clothing,” she said. “I’m not down in the creek beating my laundry against the stones or anything.”
“You humans and your ingenious machines,” he said with a smile.
“Well, it’s all born of laziness, but it’s nice,” she agreed.
They began hanging his clothing in the closet.
His few items looked a little lonely in there.
The thought of it hit her hard.
He was alone here. He knew no one but his brother, and they obviously had a very complicated relationship.
“What are you thinking about, Tabitha Barnes?” he asked softly.
The deep, resonant sound of her name in his mouth made her insides flutter.
“It’s just been a long day,” she said quietly.
“You didn’t answer my earlier question,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and patting the spot next to him.
“What earlier question?” she asked, deliberately not sitting.
Nothing good was going to come of that.
“Your magic, Tabitha,” he said. “How did you know what was wrong with that music box?”
His dark eyes were serious, compassionate even.
And the secret had been bubbling in her for so long…
She sighed and sat down after all, folding her hands in her lap.
“I’ve always been good at restoring old things,” she said. “But recently my abilities have been… improving.”
He stretched out on the bed, leaning his head back on his hands. Waiting for her to tell him more.
“I know it may seem impressive,” she continued. “But really I think there’s a logical explanation. I’ve spent so much time learning restoration. I’m sure I’m just remembering old case studies in the back of my mind, you know?”
“I do not know,” he said.
Truthfully, neither did she. The first time she and Sara had visited Helen Thayer, the older woman told them about some mystical event that had opened a nearby portal, releasing long lost magic back into their corner of the world. The thought had stuck in the back of her head since then, where she worried over it like a loose tooth, no matter how much she tried to ignore it.
Was it why her natural gifts had grown stronger?
Was it really magic - inside her?
She tried to puzzle it out, but it was too hard to concentrate with Tristan’s big warm body so close to hers.
He was so beautiful leaning back like that, showing off his bulging biceps, his expression indolent as a lion’s, except for those dancing dark eyes.
“Well, how did you know you had magic?” she countered, trying to keep her mind on the subject at hand.
“I’m fae royalty,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Magic is like breathing to my kind.”
He studied her for a moment.
“Do you have any fae in you?” he asked.
She chuckled.
“What?”
“Is that like some kind of joke?” she asked. “Where I tell you no, and then you ask if I’d like some?”
He only looked more puzzled.
“Never mind,” she said.
“I was just thinking that some mortals have a trace of fae blood somewhere in their lineage,” he explained. “And it can often make them more receptive to magic. Perhaps this is the case with you.”
“Not that I know of,” she admitted.
He didn’t look convinced. Maybe he was right. How would she even know something like that? It wasn’t like it ever came up at family dinners.
“What about you?” she asked, looking for a way to steer the conversation away from herself and back to him. “Can you just do magic anytime you want? Because I sure can’t.”
He gave her a slow smile and extended his left hand out from behind his head in a closed fist.
She watched as his fingers slowly opened.
A warm amber glow radiated between his fingers.
The light formed into a tiny barn owl as his hand opened.
“Oh,” Tabitha breathed.
Before her eyes, the glowing owl took wing and sailed toward her, swerving at the last minute to soar toward the canopy of the bed and back down into Tristan’s hand where it melted into a ball of light once more.
He closed his hand slowly and opened it again and the light was gone.
“That was incredible,” she said.
He shrugged. “A parlor trick.”
“Where did it go?” she asked.
“Back inside me,” he said. “Unless I send it otherwise, all my magic comes back.”
“Your magic makes people happy,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Among other things.”
“You don’t seem happy,” she observed.
“I’m the conduit, not the recipient,” he said.
That wasn’t what she had hoped to learn, but he clearly didn’t want to say more. In fact, he didn’t seem to want to talk about himself at all.
He was observing her with a curious expression.
“When we met today,” he said. “Did you feel something?”
Okay. He was going there.
Tabitha gulped.
The thing was, Tabitha had never really wanted to talk feelings with a guy - any guy.
She’d dated a string of potential boyfriends, but she was never really serious about any of them.
In the beginning, she’d told herself that it was because she lived in a small town where everyone knew her family had money. It would be too hard to tell if that was the reason someone wanted to get serious. So if she never had a long-term boyfriend, she felt like she was on steady footing.
But over time, she discovered that no matter their reasons for staying single, most of her friends were pairing off.
Tabitha figured it was just the passage of time, and the ticking clock of biology. She waited for her turn to begin obsessively scheming about the trade-off between freedom and a family.
But it never came.
And that was just fine with her.
But now even Sara had a man.
Of course, Tabitha had also never felt her heart skip a beat - until this morning. She’d never felt anything even close to that.
Even now, fixed in his dark gaze, she was almost breathless.
She paused, not ready to admit her feelings.
But she also couldn’t look away from him.
Her phone rang, breaking the spell.
“What is that?” Tristan asked.
“It’s… a communication device,” she explained, swiping to pick up the call.
It was Sara, which was odd, because Sara never called, she always texted.
“What’s up?” Tabitha asked, turning away from Tristan, as if not looking at him would change what they had just been talking about.
“It’s one of the creatures,” Sara said, panting as if she were running while she talked. “The banshee.”
Sara and Dorian had been watching the shards of glass that let them see through the eyes of the escaped creatures. Sara must have recognized something from the one that showed the banshee’s viewpoint.
“Where is it?” Tabitha asked, already heading for the stairs. She’d read enough folklore about banshees to know they were serious trouble.
“It’s at the Barrel Grocery,” Sara said, sounding horrified.
“We’re on our way,” Tabitha assured her.
She could hea
r Tristan’s footsteps behind her on the stairs, and was more than a little surprised at how comforting she found the sound.
8
Tristan
Tristan followed the human girl down the dark staircase, wondering if he wouldn’t just follow her straight into the depths of hell if she asked him nicely.
The King of Light was accustomed to feeling bored. But when this woman was near, he was annoyingly alert, senses amped up, heart thundering.
This morning he had hoped that the flash of awareness he’d experienced looking in her eyes was just him coming back to himself after such a long slumber. Maybe the time spent frozen meant parts of him would awaken in fits and starts.
In his realm, his lust was satisfied regularly by a host of consorts. He seldom had an occasion for longing.
Surely his attraction to the girl was merely a response to a long period of dormant appetites.
“Come on,” she demanded.
He certainly wasn’t used to being ordered around by underlings.
Somehow, he couldn’t find it in his heart to resent her though.
It was good to be on his toes for once.
They headed for her car.
“Where is the monster?” he asked her.
“We have a tiny grocery store here in town,” Tabitha explained. “It’s there now. Hopefully, we can all get there in time to corner it.”
Tristan nodded.
“Have you seen this thing before?” she asked. “Do you know what we’re up against? I’ve only seen it in my books.”
“My brother showed mercy to many monsters, but the banshee is particularly vicious,” Tristan told her. “It is in constant mourning, a harbinger of death. It can drive you mad with its cries.”
“Sounds like fun,” Tabitha said. “How do we capture it?”
“No idea,” Tristan said. “But whatever you do, don’t listen to its song.”
“Will Dorian know to tell Sara that?” Tabitha asked, amazing him by instinctively thinking of her friend first.
She has the bearing of a queen, attuned to her subjects.
The thought had come unbidden. He tamped it down in horror.
“He’ll know,” he managed to choke out.
“You okay?” she asked, glancing over at him.
He nodded, unable to speak.
She was beautiful, even in the dim flash of the street lamps, though he could not identify a single feature that was unusually perfect. Her hair was tidy and dark, but not overly shiny or long. Her features were balanced but unremarkable in their beauty. Her clothing was more elegant than that of her friend, but still impetuously casual, like that of all humans in this realm.
He wished he could isolate the part of her that most intrigued him, so that he could drink his fill of it and let her go.
“Here we are,” she said, pulling her horseless carriage into a small parking lot.
They got out and walked together to meet Sara and Dorian, who were already waiting just outside the glass door of the darkened shop.
“Is she still in there?” Tabitha asked.
Tristan didn’t have to ask, his acute sense of hearing told him that the wailing of the banshee was present somewhere in the structure.
“She’s in there,” he told her. “Before we go in, do you have anything to wrap your ears with?”
“Good thinking, brother,” Dorian said at once.
Tristan glared at him.
His idiot brother and his mercy for these junk fae was the only reason Tristan himself had been ejected from the realm and frozen these many centuries.
Of course, when Dorian had been captured, Tristan had done nothing to save him while he was accused and convicted in one fell swoop.
But Tristan refused to feel any guilt over that.
Sara was already digging through the storage area in the rear of her car.
“I’ve got a couple of scarves,” she said, popping up with a handful of bright fabric.
“It won’t help me or Tristan,” Dorian said, shaking his head. “But give one to Tabitha.”
“Oh this is nice,” Tabitha said, taking a violet colored one. “Why is this crammed in your trunk?”
“To dress up a casual outfit if I get a call to show a house when I’m out,” Sara replied, tying a scarlet scarf around her head, covering her ears.
“Ready?” Dorian asked. “Did you tell her not to listen?”
“Of course,” Tristan said, striding up to the door and passing his hand in front of the knob.
This was a modern human lock with two areas of closure. Each of them popped open quickly for him, one after the other.
As soon as he opened the door, the sound of the banshee increased.
“Come in,” he hissed. “And pull the door shut so no one else hears it.”
He moved in without waiting for a response, but he could sense the others following him.
A glance around the darkened space told him that Tabitha had named the place accurately as a shop, though he wasn’t sure he would call it small.
The center was lined with full bins of fresh fruit and produce of incredible size. There were blueberries as big as marbles, and apples the size of a changeling’s head.
Along one wall, stacks of preserved provisions in tin cans were lined up like soldiers. Along the opposite wall, a false light illuminated a low bin of packages of raw fowl of some sort.
He spotted the banshee, crouched in the back corner near the meats. Electric light shone up from below her pale, angular face, casting shadows that made her bony features look even more emaciated. A midnight black robe hung from her gaunt frame, perfectly matching her inky black hair.
When she saw him, she lifted her chin and howled.
It was a high, throaty wail that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.
He turned back to Tabitha, instinctively moving to protect her.
Though his powers were strong, the sound was still agony to Tristan, he could only imagine what it was doing to the mortal girl.
Her chin was set at a defiant angle, but he could see the pain in her eyes.
He called to the light, pulling it around them like a cloak.
“Calm yourself, hag,” Dorian said, his voice dark as night.
The banshee merely groaned at him and gnashed her too-white teeth.
Dorian’s mortal queen approached the display of meats.
Tristan was taken aback at her expression. Sara was as fearless as her friend.
“To this world, your sorrow brought you,
Sadness called you, agony wrought you," Sara sang.
Tristan was further stunned.
The girl really was a bard. Dorian had said as much, but it made no sense. There was no fae in her that Tristan could sense. Her words were simple.
Yet her voice stirred his blood.
The banshee tilted her head to the side, observing the girl.
“But relief here found you none,
Harshest moon and hottest sun,
Hearts so cold and minds so lame,
You long for home to whence you— “
The banshee threw her head back again and unleashed a cry so sorrowful it penetrated Tristan’s light, so loud it echoed among the cans on the opposite wall.
Sara’s song broke off instantly and she half collapsed into Dorian’s arms.
“No,” Tabitha cried, smashing her way out of Tristan’s light to go to her friend.
The banshee must have sensed the girl’s ruthlessness.
She shot through the air to the other side of the store, crashing into a tower of something called creamed corn. The cans hit the floor like blasts from a shot gun and rolled in every direction.
The banshee sang out another horrid cry, stretching it in to a murderous dirge. The song reverberated in Tristan’s organs as he called the light to himself once more.
The banshee seemed to be drawing fresh energy from this new realm.
But Tristan’s own light was not as strong as before.
The terrible thought that they might actually be defeated began to occur to him.
Then Sara’s voice rose from the din.
She sang a song without words, her voice low and clear.
The pain from the banshee’s song receded.
“What’s happening?” Tabitha murmured.
She had floated back to his side, as if her instinct was to accept his protection.
“She’s singing a counter-song to the banshee’s,” Tristan said in wonder. True bards studied for lifetimes to master such magic. How had she come upon it so naturally?
He glanced at his brother, who held a shard of glass.
Dorian was calling midnight, his eyes closed, darkness swirling around him in an angry cloud.
He turned his eyes back to Sara.
If his brother’s queen could calm the banshee long enough to complete the counter-song, it was possible the two of them could get the hag back into her shard of mirror.
He closed his eyes and tried to add his light to Sara’s song.
Another huge crash roused him from his task.
The banshee was sailing over the bins of produce, launching melons and berries in every direction, wailing and tearing at her hair.
“No,” Dorian murmured, launching himself to his feet.
But it was too late, the banshee had sailed out the front door of the shop, leaving nothing but the jangling of the little bells above the door to show she had ever been there.
Tristan sprinted outside, using his heightened hearing to try to locate her.
But the old hag was clever. She had silenced her song long enough to make her escape.
He strode back into the shop to find Dorian cradling Sara in his arms.
“You were amazing, my queen,” Dorian murmured to her. “But her powers are strong here. There must be great sadness in this realm, even with my brother in it.”
Tristan scowled. There was no reason to call out his powers in all this. He had seen his effect on the little town, he was strong enough to counterbalance Dorian’s darkness.
If there were some deeper sadness here, it had nothing to do with Tristan.
Sara held the shard of glass. She peered into it as Tabitha studied it over her shoulder.
“Nothing,” Tabitha said, looking to Tristan. “Only darkness. She’s hiding.”
