“Someone got the book and cast that spell?”
“A mortal student of the occult named Rudolph . . . something, I forget. We haven’t had time to gather much information on him. The new moon was two days ago. Mellifera left our realm without explanation, and then directed her subjects to loot our precious works of art and volumes of lore. Obviously, having a princess of the Folk in thrall to a mortal isn’t ideal. I have . . . certain skills, and was tasked with solving this problem. Destroying the book will destroy the enchantment, but since you can’t summon the poems, I’ll have to use other means.”
“I can help,” Emily said. “I have certain skills too.”
“Hmm.” Sela looked Emily up and down. “There could be advantages to having a mortal along. This enchanter may have protections against the Folk that you could more easily circumvent. Very well.” She rose and strode down the hall. Emily went after her, but Sela walked fast, and soon the familiar hallway was gone, the plaster walls becoming dark wood, the hardwood floor turning to stone. The corridor took many sharp right-angle turns, and though Emily moved along quickly, she kept losing sight of Sela, finally calling, “Wait!”
“Hurry!” came the call back. Emily gritted her teeth and ran. When she rounded the last corner she almost slammed into Sela, who stood on a tiny wooden platform in what looked like a cave, with train tracks running out of one tunnel and into another. “Just in time,” Sela said, as a vehicle slid smoothly from the tunnel and stopped before them.
Emily had seen Mellifera’s private train before, a sort of jeweled steampunk Fabergé egg on wheels, but this was something different: Sela’s train looked like an old-fashioned horse-drawn carriage with a closed coach, made of black wood with silver trim. The door swung open, and a folding set of steps spilled downward. Sela climbed inside, and after a moment’s hesitation, Emily followed.
The door closed after her, and the interior was totally dark, revealing that the sparkles in Sela’s hair did cast their own light. Emily groped her way to a sumptuously padded bench and sat down across from the fairy woman just as the car lurched forward. “Why is it so dark in here?”
“We’re going to a place in the mortal world, but it’s faster to take shortcuts through my realm. On the way, we will pass through tunnels where there are things that covet light. Our lands border . . . less pleasant countries. There are safer routes, but I want to get to Mellifera as quickly as possible.”
“You said you and Mellifera are friends?”
“We’re . . . sisters, or close enough. We spent our formative years together, anyway, but when we were done forming, we turned out rather differently. I choose to live outside the court of the Folk and dwell largely outside our lands. Occasionally I am called upon to render services in exchange for the freedoms I enjoy. This is one such occasion. The court can’t tolerate a mortal holding one of us in thrall.”
Emily’s grasp of fairy culture outside the boundaries of the library was tenuous at best. There were books about the subject, but they were wildly contradictory, and the Folk she spoke to about the subject were maddeningly oblique. “The court. Like, royalty? Is Mellifera some kind of queen?”
“Mmm. Perhaps a princess. We have a queen, but she sleeps, most of the time, and lets her daughters oversee things, with the work divided among them according to their inclinations and capabilities. Mellifera says it’s more like a board of directors than a proper court. Dull, really. Mellifera is sort of . . . minister of cultural affairs, you could say? She has ultimate authority over the libraries, museums, concert halls, and other such things. The Folk value the arts greatly—Mellifera’s position is one of great power and prestige.”
“Which she’s abusing, or being forced to abuse. Can’t she be replaced, before this enchanter steals everything?”
Sela chuckled. “It’s not that easy. Mellifera was given her powers by the queen, and only the queen can revoke them. We have no reason to expect our mother to awaken before the solstice at the earliest. In the meantime, within her sphere, Mellifera’s power is absolute.”
“Your system of government has some flaws.”
Sela nodded. “I always thought so.”
“Are you a princess too?”
“I would be, had I not given all that up. You can’t lose your responsibilities without also losing your privileges, but I care about my freedom more than anything the court can offer me.”
The carriage lurched to a stop. “We’re here.” The door swung open, and they emerged onto a rocky beach under a gray sky amid eddies of fog. Emily turned to look back at the coach, but it was gone. Nothing behind them but waves crashing against great rugged outcroppings of stone.
“Where’s here?” Emily shivered. She was wearing black trousers and a white blouse and flats. She wasn’t dressed for a cold beach.
“Some coast or another. It’s nearly twilight. Good. That’s when my powers are strongest.”
Emily looked at her phone, which agreed that it wasn’t yet lunchtime, suggesting they were in some time zone other than the one she’d started in. She had no phone service here, naturally, and no way to tell where they were.
Sela pointed toward a nearby sea cliff, and the fog parted as if moved aside by her gesture—perhaps it had been. Emily could just see the upper floor of a building perched up there, a foreboding thing of gray stone and few windows. “Mellifera went into that building, and has not come out. Our scryers can’t see what’s happening inside—there are powerful enchantments in place, and lots of iron, which all confound us.”
“Is the enchanter in there? Is that where he’s taking the books?”
“Perhaps.” Sela glanced at her. “Isn’t your lover one of those living books that walk around like people?”
“They are people. Yes, Llyfyr and I are together.”
“Are you worried she was taken by the enchanter?”
Emily shook her head. “She was in my house this morning, not at the library.”
“Yes, but I got into your house easily enough, and one of Mellifera’s servants could have too. The enchanter’s interest seems to be in the most potent magical books, naturally, and that would include the living books—”
Emily thought of the volume of poems sprawled open on the floor, and a cold spike of fear pierced her. She’d assumed Llyfyr was okay because she hadn’t been at the library when it was besieged, and with everything that was happening, she hadn’t had time to fret over other possibilities until now. “Let me call her.” Emily put her hand to the charm at her throat and murmured the incantation to call Llyfyr.
Nothing happened. “That . . . The living books have personal agency; unlike the nonsentient books, they can refuse a summons, but Llyfyr always comes when I call!”
“Perhaps she can’t. There could be spells of binding in there, cages of iron. . . .” Sela shrugged. “If she’s inside, we’ll save her. I don’t suppose you can fight?”
“I don’t have to do much violence in my line of work.”
“I’ll focus on the fighting, then. You look for Mellifera’s book. I’m not sure what to expect. If Mellifera is there, her guards are too, but they would bristle at taking orders directly from a mortal, so Rudolph may have other resources. He certainly knows about the weaknesses of the Folk, and is likely to have measures in place to confound us. Come.” They walked across the gritty sand in silences contemplative and anxious until they reached the base of the cliff. Sela gestured again, and fog swirled away, this time revealing what looked like a mine cart made of black wood and silver, resting against the bottom of the cliff. “Here we are. It’s a sort of elevator. I don’t mind climbing a cliff freehand with a dagger in my teeth, but I thought you’d prefer something less taxing.” One side of the cart swung open, and they stepped in. The quarters were close, and Emily was pressed against Sela, who smelled, not unpleasantly, of leather and brine.
The cart jerked and began to ascend, though there were no signs of cables. There could be some kind of hydraulic piston undern
eath . . . but Emily knew it was driven by fairy magic.
They reached the top of the cliff, with just a narrow ledge of stone between them and the wall of the house. The other side of the cart swung open, and Sela stepped out, walking casually along that narrow strip of solid ground, knocking her knuckles against the wall in a few places. She hissed. “Iron in the walls, along with binding spells, so I can’t open a door. Not surprising, but frustrating.”
“Ah. Those countermeasures you mentioned.” Not all the stories were true, but the bits about iron being anathema to fairies were.
“Yes. But there’s got to be a proper door somewhere.” Sela walked along the ledge toward the corner of the house, apparently unconcerned by the hundred-foot drop on her right. Emily eased along the wall much more slowly and carefully. She didn’t have a particular fear of heights, but she could see herself developing one, given the circumstances. Once she made her way around the corner of the house, away from the cliff’s edge, she felt better. The land around them was flat and barren—it looked almost scoured—and the house was no less forbidding from a different angle. They walked around to the front and found a thick wooden door, banded with dark iron.
“Ha. This, I can deal with.” Sela pressed her hands against the wood, between the iron bands, and after a moment, small mushrooms popped out of the wood, first a few, then dozens, then hundreds. The door sagged, the wood rotting, and Sela kicked with her high black boots, sending up puffs of powder and rot. Soon the “door” was nothing but three black bars crossing an empty doorway. “Be a dear and shove those aside?”
Emily pulled on the iron bars, which were still attached to hinges, and they swung outward. Sela peered inside, into a wood-paneled foyer with an intricate tiled floor. “I sense guardians.” She grunted. “From the Mist Realm. Rudolph has made a political alliance with enemies of our queen, it seems.”
“What’s the Mist Realm?”
“A place of monsters. Though they’d say the same about the fey realm.”
“Can you fight them?”
“Ha. Not with this sword, or my magic. I know Mellifera probably gave you the impression the Folk seem all-powerful, but most of our powers are limited to nature magic, glamours, and minor reality-warping—making milk go sour, bending space-time, things like that. Fighting denizens of the Mist Realm is beyond my abilities.” She growled. “We were hoping to keep this operation quiet, but I may need to find reinforcements. I hate to give Rudolph time to consolidate his position further.”
“Wait. You need fighters? Even if they’ve taken Llyfyr, they might not have captured all the living books, especially the really cunning ones, who like to hide. . . .” Emily touched her charm and murmured an incantation.
A battered volume bound in black leather dropped into her outstretched hands. She opened the book, murmured to the pages, and in an eyeblink the book was gone, replaced by a crouching woman dressed in a cloak of moss, with green hair and eyes like gray river stones. Her hands were clawed, and each claw was a different color and texture: amber, ivory, obsidian, silver, emerald, wood, and others Emily couldn’t identify.
“Who’s this?” Sela said.
“She’s never bothered giving herself a name other than her title: A Manual of Unconventional Warfare.”
“Sometimes Emily calls me Connie.” The book’s voice was low and rough. “Do you know why the Folk are trying to pillage the library, Em? They made off with half the archive before the living books got organized. We formed a defensive line, and we’re keeping the looters out of the deep stacks, but it’s only a matter of time before the soldiers break through.” The living books were a strange crowd, perhaps fifty volumes that could take on forms ranging from the humanoid to the monstrous, depending on their contents and inclinations. They would be a formidable force to overpower, but Emily quailed at the thought of them being damaged in fighting. The living books were the closest thing she had to family—she thought of them almost as her family, even if they were all centuries older than she was.
“Mellifera is being mind-controlled by a mortal,” Emily said. “We think the enchanter is inside, but there are . . . things in the way.”
“Sentinels from the Mist Realm,” Sela said. “Can you fight such creatures? I can’t—they can choke and poison me but are too incorporeal for me to strike.”
Connie chuckled, then held up her claws. All of them sparked and glittered and glowed and rippled with diverse magics. “I have a key for every lock and a knife for every throat, and I’ve never yet grown weary of battle.” She rushed into the foyer, smashed through a door, and disappeared from sight. Sela and Emily followed at a safe distance as a great howling emerged from within, like winds whipping through narrow mountain passes, but also a little like screams. The stars in Sela’s hair seemed to glow brighter, providing sufficient light to illuminate their passage as they went deeper into the dark house. The place was huge, and the rooms were filled with paintings in ornate frames, antique furniture, statues, vases, and all manner of museum-quality relics, presumably looted by Rudolph from fey lands. There were magic items too: a mirror that reflected a sky with two suns; a harp that played itself softly as they walked by; a statue that wept what looked like real tears.
Sela ignored it all and pointed to scuffs in the dust. “See, Connie fought here, and continued on. . . .” They went up a wide staircase to the second-floor landing, and Sela continued tracking the living book’s passage until they found Connie herself in a hallway, facing off against an eight-foot-tall figure that looked like a suit of armor made from white smoke.
“Mist wraith,” Sela hissed. “Warrior caste, looks like a war-band leader, so Connie must have cut down its subordinates. You have good taste in books, librarian.”
The wraith conjured a long-handled ax from smoke and swung, but Connie rolled underneath the blow and lashed out with her glowing claws, shredding the thing’s legs into misty ribbons. The wraith fell, making a strange howl like wind whistling through a crack in a wall, and Connie tore its helmet off and crouched over its rippling form, raking her claws through the smoke. When the living book stood and limped back toward Emily, there was nothing left of the wraith but a dissipating patch of ground fog.
“Are you all right?” Emily knew living books were hard to hurt permanently, short of total destruction, but Connie seemed wounded at least.
“Tore my flyleaf nearly in half,” she muttered. “Just let me rest.” She collapsed into book form again, and Emily picked her up and tucked the volume under her arm.
“She’ll be all right,” Emily said. “She just needs time to repair herself. Are we safe?”
Sela sniffed the air. “I don’t sense any denizens of the Mist Realm—Connie dispersed them all. I do sense Folk, though—”
The door at the end of the hall burst open, and two tall guards, twins to those at the library, burst out, pointing their spears at Sela’s and Emily’s throats. Sela dropped back two steps and brought up her cutlass, smacking aside the barbed end of the spear—was it made of iron? Emily didn’t dare twitch.
“What’s the commotion?” Mellifera appeared at the door, regal and cool as always, dressed in a gown that shimmered like a midnight ocean. “Lower your weapons! This is my beloved sister, and my dear mortal librarian. Come in, come in! See my new throne room.”
The guards exchanged an indecipherable look, then lowered their spears and moved aside. Mellifera disappeared into the chamber, still chattering, and Sela sheathed her sword. She glared at the guards. “You collaborate with the Mist Realm now?”
One guard lowered his eyes. “We are bound to serve Mellifera . . . whatever we may think of her orders.”
Sela sighed. “True enough. That’s one reason I’m not a princess anymore, Emily—I don’t like the idea of binding people to my will. Let everyone be free, I say. Come on.” She led the way, and Emily followed, gasping at the opulence beyond the door. The room was as big as a ballroom, perhaps enhanced with illusory or spatial magic, and i
t was full of magical and mundane light: shining chandeliers, standing lamps, countless candles, floating orbs of light. The walls were all mirrored, reflecting the luminosity, and the only furniture in the room shone: two thrones, side by side, both mostly gold, one rather more large and ornate than the other.
Mellifera sat on the smaller of the two chairs. “It’s so good to see you, Sela. I have so much to tell you! I’ve fallen in love. He’s a mortal, and I know you disapprove, but he has the most wonderful ideas. We’re going to kill Mother, you see, and then I will rule as queen, though my sweet Rudolph will be king—isn’t it time we had a king? We will ally the mortal and the fey and misty realms forever, tearing down all the walls that separate us—”
Sela said, “Mellifera, where’s the book of poems?”
“What do you mean, dear sister? If you need a book, you should ask Emily. I want her to be our personal palace librarian, you know. Once Rudolph has all the books moved here, I’m sure he’ll need someone to help organize them—”
“Murmured Under the Moon!” Sela said. “Where is it?”
Mellifera scowled, and the lights all around them dimmed. “Don’t speak of my past . . . infatuations, sister. I wouldn’t want to make Rudolph jealous.” She brightened, and the room did with her. “We should discuss plans for my wedding!”
Sela tried again. “You’ve been enchanted, Mellifera, by mortal magic—”
“Oh, nonsense. I enthrall. I am not enthralled myself. Now, I was thinking, we could hold the ceremony in the old winter palace. . . .”
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