Some things came easily. She could cloak herself from detection without too much trouble, but only if she held perfectly still. As soon as she moved, her shadow spell would break apart like so much fog. Gregory assured her she was a quick learner, but she couldn’t help feeling impatient with herself.
Tonight was the Wild Hunt, and she and Gregory would both take part. A small, prideful part of her spirit wanted to be able to match him stride for stride, spell for spell, which of course was impossible since she no longer had her Avatar magic to call on, but that prideful part couldn’t be reasoned with, it simply wanted.
Mostly to impress Gregory.
Her cell phone beeped again, almost a plaintive sound as if it was saying ‘stop wool gathering and get something useful done’. She sighed and picked up the phone from where she’d left it on Gregory’s knee.
She was just thumbing through the assorted phone calls and text messages she’d been ignoring when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A stranger dressed for the masquerade in a long red cloak emerged from the surrounding maze. Lillian tapped her phone off and then slowly straightened.
Alarm hummed through her veins at the way the stranger honed in on her with a predatory intensity. Sweat instantly broke out in a fine sheen across Lillian’s skin. The woman had hair so blonde it was almost white and her complexion was equally pale. Unmarked by blemish or age, she was strikingly beautiful. So much so, Lillian suspected she wasn’t human at all, but a Fae, one of the Clan she’d yet to meet.
More arrived every day. There were so many strangers coming and going from her life, she shouldn’t have been concerned by the arrival of one more. But she was.
“Hello,” Lillian called and gave an accompanying wave. The stranger acknowledged her with a bob of the head. “You must be new here. How may I help you?”
The stranger brushed at her hair in a half-conscious manner and she walked closer to Lillian.
“I am new to the land. Perchance you could be of service.”
Perchance? “Always glad to help.”
The woman continued forward and then reached out to stroke Gregory’s stony flank. A flood of instant dislike rolled down Lillian’s body. How dare the other woman take liberties with her gargoyle?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”
“I did not give it. But to alleviate your curiosity, I am of the sea, one of the merfolk. A siren. I see the gargoyle sleeps, is he unwell? This Realm can sap the strength from even the greatest of us.”
Lillian snapped her teeth together. Lying would only anger the Fae so she told the truth. “Gregory spends the nights weaving metal and magic together, it is exhausting work. But he is well otherwise, he merely rests.”
The merwoman nodded. “As I journeyed to this landlocked place, I encountered many whisperings among the Fae, the most frequent and interesting of how a gargoyle once again walked this Realm. My inquiries unearthed that this was not just any gargoyle, but the first and greatest of his race—the Sorceress’ Shadow. And the Shadow is never far from his Sorceress.”
Lillian knew the Fae had a number of titles for Gregory and herself, but she’d never heard him called the Sorceress’ Shadow, as if he was somehow of lesser value, not worthy of a unique title in his own right. Lillian took an instant dislike to the underlying meaning.
The siren smiled. It brightened her eyes, making her seem less daunting. “Can I assume you will be participating in tonight’s Wild Hunt?”
“That’s the plan,” Lillian said and then decided to hedge for a bit. “If we can avoid drawing notice from the human authorities.”
“You worry over the humans,” the siren said absently as she smoothed a wrinkle in her deep scarlet cloak. “Odd. I would have thought humans beyond your notice.”
The alarm bells in Lillian’s mind revved up another notch. “Other Fae may echo your opinion, but I can’t say mine aligns with theirs. The humans, while lacking in magic, more than make up for any weakness in numbers. And they have weapons that can kill Clan and Coven. It would be foolhardy to strike out at the humans unprovoked.”
“No, one should never underestimate one’s enemy.”
The siren touched the edge of Gregory’s stone wing, gliding her fingers up and over the ridges of stone as she made her slow and methodical way around the pedestal. The hair at the nape of Lillian’s neck raised to attention when the other woman was hidden from view by Gregory’s wings. She didn’t release the breath she’d been holding until the siren was again in her sights.
Lillian racked her brain for something to say, finally settling on, “Will I see you at the Wild Hunt tonight?”
“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t miss it for all the power in the world.” The siren ducked her head in Lillian’s direction, and bowed in what she could only liken to a deep courtly bow. She turned her attention back to Gregory and gave him an equally deep bow. “Until later, Lillian of the dryads and Gregory of the Livingstone. And if you have need of me before then, call me and I will offer what aid I can. Long ago I was called Tethys.” Then in an unhurried manner, she backtracked her way through the maze.
Tethys? Lillian might not be up on her ancient mythology, but she’d be willing to bet the name harkened back to ancient times. She made a mental note to google the name later. She followed Tethys’ progress with her newly heightened gargoyle senses. When she was certain the newcomer was gone, she turned back to Gregory and patted his stone knee. “I don’t care if the ward stone circle doesn’t consider her a threat, something about her sets my teeth on edge. I’m going to go find Gran and see if she knows anything about this Tethys. Rest well my love.”
Her plan lasted a whole ten seconds after she’d exited her maze, whereupon both the caterer and the florist descended upon her like the proverbial pack of hungry wolves. It was close to sunset by the time Lillian escaped the bustle of tonight’s masquerade and was able to finally seek out Gran.
Chapter Twenty
The forest was still, only the faintest of breezes stirred high up in the canopy. Nearby a cardinal sang his location to his mate. Faintly, she heard an answering call in the distance. Lillian wished she still had the ability to reach out and touch Gregory over any distance as easily as the bird called to its mate, but that power, like the other magic she’d commanded so briefly, was nothing more than a fading memory.
“Well, suck it up buttercup,” Lillian grunted under her breath. She’d just have to swallow her nagging worry a little longer. She looked down at her watch. For once, luck was with her—she’d made excellent time, and was almost to Gran’s rendezvous point, and where Gregory would later join them. From there the Hunt would gather in ones and twos to remain unnoticed, and then ride out once they had great enough numbers. There would be no great circle dance in the old sawmill this time, but the Wild Hunt would ride nonetheless.
Who said stress wasn’t good for anything? It certainly made her legs move faster.
A dash of white glinted through the trees just ahead. Lillian battled the urge to call out, but held back on the off chance a military patrol was out this far. From the reports of the other Fae, this sector hadn’t had any activity in two days. But it didn’t mean it would remain free of mortal soldiers.
Lillian winced at the term—now Gregory had her referring to others as mortal. Just when had that happened?
The blur of white came closer and resolved itself into the unicorn. He galloped to her and then slowed to trot a half circle around her before coming to a stop at her shoulder. With his usual tact and subtlety, he butted her in the stomach for a pat and nearly knocked her nose off with his horn. “Watch it!”
Eyes streaming in pain, Lillian rubbed at her nose with another muffled curse. With his head hanging low, his ears forward, and his lower lip quivering slightly, at least the unicorn had the grace to look somewhat sheepish.
“You’re forgiven. Is Gregory here yet?”
The unicorn shook his head in his version of a negative response. “No, but Gran arrived a sho
rt while ago. Come.” The unicorn trotted off and Lillian followed him to where her grandmother waited.
“Good, you’re here.” Gran’s normally boisterous voice was subdued, barely above a whisper.
Lillian glanced over at her grandmother in time to see her straighten from where she’d been sitting on a fallen log. She brushed at her clothing, switching her staff from one hand to the other.
Gran motioned Lillian ahead as they started down a game trail. The unicorn took up the rear of their silent procession. Even he seemed subdued, perhaps aware of the need for quiet and stealth.
****
After another fifteen minutes and unable to hold her peace any longer, Lillian glanced over at Gran, gesturing at her own lips and cupped her ear with one hand.
Gran’s one eyebrow crept upward in question. Her lips quirked a moment later. “Dear, I know you were never very good at charades, and I take it the miming is not a mini stroke, so if you were asking if it was safe to talk, I’d say yes.”
“Thanks.” Lillian rolled her eyes heavenward and prayed for patience.
“The unicorn said Gregory didn’t overtake you along the way. I’m surprised.” Gran glanced around at the thickening shadows as twilight descended upon the forest.
The darkness didn’t concern Lillian. She had excellent night vision. “Last I talked to Gregory, he said he’d join me later, and he’d make sure we didn’t have any spies on our back trail. That was last night. He was already stone by the time I got to the glade this morning.”
Gregory’s absence was logical, perfectly acceptable, and expected.
And Lillian’s stomach was still a knot of tension.
The past week had her on edge and meeting with the newcomer only made everything seem just a touch more sinister.
“Gran, I was sitting with Gregory this afternoon when a Fae I’d never met before came up to us.” She paused, noting Gran’s narrowed eyes, the beginnings of concern. “She called herself one of the merfolk—a siren.”
“A siren?” Gran asked, her face remaining impassive but Lillian still heard what she left unsaid, a very clear ‘why didn’t you say something sooner.’
Instead of answering Gran’s silent question, she said what popped into her head.
“My gut told me not to trust her—but it also tells me not to trust half of our Fae allies. Besides, she was able to walk right past all the defenses without triggering one single spell.” Lillian remembered something else that had bothered her at the time. “She even touched Gregory completely without fear. Surely if she was evil and meant harm, Gregory would have sensed it and reacted.”
Gran laughed, the sound harsh, lacking all humor. “Our definition of evil and harm are probably very different, and I know how Gregory thinks. If this Fae was evil, yes, he would kill her without a second thought. However, a Fae might do much harm by how you might reckon it, but if it was to maintain the balance, as Gregory would say, then he might see it as a necessary, if distasteful, deed.”
Lillian’s discomfort grew. What Gran said made sense. One only had to look to a certain black pony with yellow eyes to know Gregory was more forgiving of some of the Fae than he was about the matter of humans and their wanton destruction of nature.
His judgment was triggered by two things. On one front, whatever was a threat to her was destroyed with extreme prejudice. And all other things which threatened the great balance between good and evil were also neutralized in whatever manner he deemed fit.
It left a lot of neutral between the extremes of good and evil.
Gran’s eyebrow arched higher, almost into her hairline. “Now give me details about this Fae. Her power, what did it feel like?”
“Powerful,” Lillian said and then tried to remember more of the meeting. “Powerful. Old. Dangerous.”
“Well that narrows it down a bit. Not in a good way, mind you. What else can you remember?”
Lillian sighed with frustration, at herself, not her grandmother. Why hadn’t she thought to tell someone sooner? Why by everything good, couldn’t she remember so much as the color of the Fae’s hair? “I can’t picture her…but she did give me her name.” Lillian paused to drudge it up.
“Yes?”
Gran’s prompting didn’t help. Lillian squeezed her eyes shut until it came to her. “Tethys.”
Gran’s quizzical smile vanished, replaced by thin lipped tension. “You’re certain of the name?”
“Yes.” There was no way she had conjured it out of the air.
“Warn Gregory. Warn him now. Tell him a powerful siren is a threat to all we’ve worked for.” Gran swung her staff up into a defensive position and gazed around at the surrounding trees as if she expected an attack at any moment.
Gran’s fear fueled Lillian’s own. In a stroke of pure gut instinct, she reached toward Gregory’s sleeping mind and then remembered. “Dammit,” she said, wanting to utter a stronger word but somehow held it back. “I can’t reach Gregory, not over this distance. To be honest, I haven’t been able to since I emerged from my hamadryad. I’m as good as useless.”
Gran frowned at Lillian, her expression saying they would have a long talk about Lillian’s lack of self-worth later. “If you can’t warn Gregory over a distance, we’ll just have to get closer. Besides, I want to see for myself why Tethys has come. She was never overly fond of land, disdains humans for their narrow minded hate and greed, and dislikes Fae for their complacency. However, she had her own sense of honor, or so my ancestors reported in their books of wisdom.”
Forgotten until then, the unicorn drew their attention with a great rolling snort she had come to associate with equine fear of the highest order.
Gran turned her gaze upon him. “Will you help me, old friend?”
The unicorn made another of those sounds of fear but bobbed his head in ascent. “I will aid you as I can, but I will not draw the siren’s attention, not even for the sake of our friendship.”
“I ask no more than you are willing to give.”
When Gran and the unicorn started back toward civilization, Lillian cleared her throat, for she still had questions. “Tethys is a siren. In mythology, they are known for singing sailors to their deaths. But what of a real siren? Just what can she do?”
“She can sing enchantments.”
Enchantments, those didn’t sound too terrible, but judging by Gran’s white knuckled grip on her staff and the tight lines around her mouth, ‘enchantments’ could be far worse than the word conveyed.
Perhaps seeing Lillian’s doubt, the unicorn took up where Gran left off. “Her voice can strip away one’s will, enslave one so completely the victim is unaware they are even trapped. If it is her wish, the slave is all too happy to die for her, or kill for her.”
Lillian’s breath hissed between her lips, more a strangled wheeze than a gasp of disbelief.
Disbelief was far from her mind. It sounded all too terrible to be true.
“Who is in danger? How many can she enslave at once? And is Gregory immune?”
“Everyone is in danger. At least anyone within hearing distance. As for your gargoyle, I don’t know, but Gregory is male and not at full strength.”
Cold sweat broke out on her body. “We have to do something.”
“We will.” Gran’s barked answer came out sounding drill sergeant hard.
Duly chastised, she admitted she was being a panicky little flake. Her time with Gregory should have taught her to better handle stress and threats.
Together they would assess this new threat, and then they would formulate a plan. And if Gregory was compromised, she’d just figure out a way to disentangle him from the siren’s clutches. She owed him for all the times he’d saved her.
Everything will be okay.
And water runs uphill.
Biting back her own sarcasm, Lillian cleared the lump in her throat and asked, “How can I help?”
“Piercing your own eardrums is the best place to start.” Gran’s tone came across with a dea
dly serious edge. “I’ll create spells for the three of us. If the situation is as bad as I fear, the spell will trigger at the first note of Tethys’s song. Then we run like hell and worry about everything else later.” Gran paused, her expression thoughtful. “Don’t take on your gargoyle form. You heal too quickly. To be safe you may need to outdistance the reach of her song before you shift.”
As far as plans went, Lillian decided it sounded as well thought out as one of her own.
“To coin a human term,” the unicorn injected, “we’re so screwed.”
Gran sighed. “Perhaps the siren has merely come to join with the rest of us to battle the Riven.”
Oh, Gran, you lie worse than I do.
Chapter Twenty-One
The last of the light had fled some time ago, and Lillian navigated the forest pathways as best she could. It was slow going without flashlights or even the glow of Gran’s staff. Her grandmother didn’t want to risk exposing themselves to military patrols or any of the Fae who might now be under Tethys’s control.
But they were not in total darkness. The unicorn gave off a very slight glow. The pale light allowed Lillian to see the shapes of low-hanging branches and the occasional gnarled root along the path without summoning her gargoyle senses.
When she had first raised an eyebrow in question, Vivian had claimed no one else would be able to spot the glow. Unicorn magic allowed them to hide themselves from almost anything. Even a hunter like Gregory would have trouble finding the unicorn by sight alone.
Lillian was thankful for the pale glow. However, she would have much preferred her gargoyle form and the ability to see in the dark.
By Gran’s intermittent mumbled curses, she concluded her grandmother’s night vision wasn’t up to the task even with the unicorn’s illumination.
The return journey to the spa felt twice as long; so much so, Lillian began to wonder if they were lost.
Casting a speculative glance at the trail ahead and the surrounding forest, she spotted a familiar bear-clawed tree, and then around a bend, another familiar moss and fern covered boulder, cracked down the middle one winter by the expansion and contraction of ice.
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