The Fairy's Tale

by F. D. Lee

  Now she was finally at the camp, it wasn’t what she’d been expecting.

  From the way Sindy had described her sister’s endeavours, Bea had built up a mental picture of something military: organised and hard, with little white tents in rows, and flags, and mud. What she was in fact seeing was a sprawling, haphazard mess.

  Everywhere she looked men and women were milling around, all engaged in some kind of task that was no doubt necessary but seemed to her to be being enacted more for appearances’ sake than anything else. Someone was even whittling, for goodness’ sake.

  The general mood was quiet. In the distance a guitar was being played; badly, but the thought was there. Nothing very much was happening, and the world seemed for once to have agreed to get to bed early and to leave all the drama and intrigue for tomorrow, when it could be considered with a fresh head.

  Bea hung around the edges of the treeline, unsure if she could just ask one of the background characters to introduce her to the ugly sister. She wasn’t supposed to meet her, but then she shouldn’t have met the King either, nor hide the involvement of the hooded man, nor introduce herself so early on to her heroine. She felt rather like the robber who would happily murder the restaurateur, but baulk at not tipping the waitress.

  She was still dithering ten minutes later when the hooded Probably-Yes-But-Possibly-Not-Anti appeared out of one of the nearby tents. Bea watched furiously as he sauntered over to a large wooden trunk and, reaching in, pulled out two large, earthenware jugs.

  He ambled back towards the tent he had exited, stopping on the way to speak to one of the male background characters. They seemed to be sharing a joke. The man reached out a hand and touched the It-Really-Would-Be-Impossible-Luck-If-He-Was-An-Anti’s arm with an awkward friendliness, and then quickly dropped his hand to his side, where his fingers continued to fidget.

  Bea watched as the hooded Not-Quite-Ruled-Out-Yet-Anti said something to make the man smile. The conversation drew to a close and the There’s-Still-No-Conclusive-Evidence-One-Way-Or-The-Other-Anti clapped him on the back and went back into the tent. Bea noticed that the background character stared after him until the calico door fell.

  She looked at the tent he had entered. Of course, the ugly sister could be anywhere in the hundreds of tents. Anywhere. The place was swarming with people, any number of whom could be of interest to him…

  The chance of Bea’s character being inside that tent was…

  …mortal gods...

  …Absolutely guaranteed, wasn’t it?

  Bea thought a very rude word and, careful not to draw attention to herself, crept to the back of the tent, which was blessedly hidden in the treeline. Kneeling down, she gently lifted up the edge of the tent and pushed her bag through, with the Book inside it, before wriggling in after it.

  A fire was burning in the centre of the tent and she could make out the shape of the It-Would-Almost-Make-It-Worthwhile-If-He-Was-An-Anti laying on his side by the flames. He had removed his hood and gloves, perhaps against the heat, perhaps to allow him to better converse with the skinny young woman with a very prominent nose sitting next to him, who perfectly matched Sindy’s description of her stepsister.

  There was a lot going on between him and the ugly sister, but the thing that stood out – stood out more than the way they leaned into each other, stood out more than the spectacle of his beauty without the hood – was that he was blue. And not blue in the sense of ‘he was so cold his skin took on a bluish tinge’. For one thing it was a pleasantly warm, early autumn evening.

  No, he was actually blue.

  His skin was the pale summer blue of cornflowers, and his hair was a mess of dark blue, tightly curled locks. His wide-set eyes were a deep peacock, with no whites and no irises. They were blue from lid to lash and lined thickly with kohl. Even his fingernails were blue.

  Bea, like all of the fae, lived in a world of ginormous trolls; yellow, spiky-scaled witchlein and bony, black-toothed gnomes, but even she couldn’t escape the nagging sense that this woman should have commented on it. At least asked him if he wanted a blanket or something.

  In fact, the ugly sister’s lack of reaction was extremely annoying. Bea, in her effort to be recommended to the FME Academy, had dyed her green hair grey and made sure she only used dull colours when making her clothes, in order to better look the part. The Teller was very clear about how the fae presented themselves in his stories. But even if he wasn’t, it was just something that was understood.

  You worked at night, when the shadows masked you and you were little more than a dream. You hid in the forest or the mountains, away from the steam engines and the lamps of the cities, the things that would expose you, confirming you and stripping you of your mystery. You showed yourself rarely, and only to the ones who needed to see you. After the free-for-all that was the earlier Chapters, when babies were stolen, young men murdered and maidens locked away, the fae had had to learn to be very careful about their involvement in the lives of the characters, lest they turn still further away from their beliefs.

  And yet here was this hooded fraud, wandering around blue and bold as he liked, and the ugly sister wasn’t raising an eyebrow.

  Bea crawled further into the tent.

  There was no one else present, and, as luck would have it, the tent was also cluttered. Boxes, chairs, cushions and rugs littered the floor, offering Bea exactly the cover she needed. She settled down and began to listen.

  “You are correct, Ana. The King is playing a dangerous game with the lives of his people,” the Adviser said.

  “You don’t need to tell me. If Cerne Bralksteld decides we’re getting too big… It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Ana replied, not only thinking about it in detail, but discussing it at length as well.

  “And yet I sense you think on this often. You are a very thoughtful and dedicated young woman. You strive. All these things I can see are true.”

  Ana nodded her head. She didn’t see the point in refusing compliments when they were deserved. Although she hadn’t imagined it would be the mysterious foreign man the King had taken on as Royal Adviser who would be paying them to her.

  People said he had too much influence. They said he whispered in the King’s ear at night and filled his head with strange ideas. Nobody knew where he came from, except that it was obviously somewhere else. Somewhere different. He wore a hood, they said, because the sight of him would cast a spell on you, making you do things you didn’t want to do.

  That was the problem, Ana told herself as she watched Seven lean forward to pull one of the terracotta flasks of wine from the flames. You just couldn’t listen to rumour. Sometimes people were so stupid. Oh yes, let’s just cut down the forest, the main source of work for miles around, and give it all away to the Baron in Cerne Bralksteld, as if that’ll sate him. Oh yes, let’s just ignore all the ships that keep disappearing between Sinne and Ataji – although, sometimes it was the big O&P steamers that vanished, and that wasn’t so bad, considering the O&P’s business practices, but still.

  People were very good at ignoring the facts or creating their own. It drove Ana to distraction.

  Seven waved the flask at her.

  “You shouldn’t drink it that fast, it’s not altar-wine,” she said, pouring herself a generous measure. “Doesn’t it burn your mouth, drinking from the bottle?”

  “No. I am used to the heat,” he replied, his accent for a moment thickening. “And there will be no altars or altar-wine remaining if Cerne Bralksteld invades,” he said, refocusing the topic.

  “Exactly! But I don’t know what we can do. If the King can find a way to power the tractus engines without using the river, I can’t see how we can stop him. I can’t really see how we can stop him anyway,” she added. She probably shouldn’t be speaking so freely to an agent of the establishment, but there was something very trustworthy about the Adviser. She could – begrudgingly – understand why the King was apparently so taken with him.

  Seven leaned back,
resting on his forearms. Ana shuffled around the fire to sit next to him.

  “Honestly, I thought the King was an idiot. Or that he was just doing all this for show. But I guess I was wrong. What do you think?” She asked, placing her hand in the narrow gap between them.

  “It is a shame you will not debate with him directly,” Seven said, putting his own hand over Ana’s. “Of course, I understand the conflict it presents, but if you only would…”

  Ana pulled her hand away. “He’s invited me to his Ball. He thought he could bribe me. That’s hardly the behaviour of someone who’s prepared to listen to dissenting views. You’re a case in point, aren’t you? He’s only sent you here to cajole me.”

  “I understand your misgivings,” Seven said gently. “And yet, I am sure if anyone could convince him, you are the one. You are right to raise these concerns. And, my lady, I am not given to fawning. I will speak my mind, and in this I am certain. You and the King should meet.”

  He met her eyes, his own heavy lidded from the fire-wine. They were such a strange blue, she’d never seen eyes that shade before… Ana pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t sure why, but whenever she tried to concentrate on his face her head began to ache. The wine was probably stronger than she realised.

  “You’re not what I expected at all,” she said.

  Seven shifted under her gaze.

  “Am I not?”

  “No. You’ve got empathy.”

  “I do not follow.”

  The corner of Ana’s mouth lifted. “It means that for someone so disgustingly good-looking you’re actually quite thoughtful. You seem able to see things from both points of view.”

  “Of course,” Seven said. “Empathy.”

  “And I suppose if I were to meet with the King, he’d have to at least listen…”

  “Certainly. If you do go to the Ball, I am confident you will make him see reason. You can utilise your empathy.”

  Ana cracked her knuckles. “Yes, you’re right. This is my burden. I need to see it through, even if that means stepping into the lion’s den.”

  “Exactly so,” Seven answered, taking another gulp of wine.

  He hadn’t set out to drink so much of the strange, bittersweet fire-wine. However, Ana had proven herself to be quite charming, with her passion and her hostility, and he was against all expectation rather enjoying himself. She thought him to have ‘empathy’, a view that was unexpectedly welcome.

  It would certainly explain some of his recent actions. He had refused to believe he could be slipping so fast or so far from himself, and now there was a reason for it. Empathy. And it made sense, did it not? Selflessness was the purview of the righteous, and he was, above all else, righteous.

  Seven took another sip of wine and allowed his thoughts to lead him away from Ana’s angry censure of the King. He was unsurprised to find himself instead thinking of Maria Sophia. She was always there, waiting for him to let down his guard. She hung in the air, danced on the water, crawled through the earth, always, inevitably, heart-breakingly, reaching out to him. She was his soul, torn from him, and he was nothing but a phantom, empty and waiting for her to-

  “Look at that fire go,” Ana cut into his reverie. “There must be a lot of sap in that branch.”

  Seven looked up. The fire was spitting, white hot embers jumping into the air and falling, half-dead, to the floor. He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Huh. It’s calming down. I wonder what that was all about. Anyway, that’s what happened. He just disappeared.”

  Seven cursed his inattention, and, ignoring the nausea it caused, dipped into his magic in an effort to find the right thing to say.

  “This is the way of men, I fear,” he said, rolling over to rest on his elbows so that he could look up at Ana.

  “Oh yes,” Ana scoffed. “Let’s just absolve all responsibility, shall we? What would you know about anything, anyway?”

  “I know what it is to be abandoned.”

  Ana lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “What happened?” she asked, leaning across him to get the other jug of wine, allowing her arm to brush against him as she did so.

  Seven considered how to answer. It wasn’t in his nature to refuse people when they asked him for something, and the instinct to see Ana’s desire for knowledge fulfilled was strong.

  “There was a woman. She was stolen from me,” he said eventually.

  “You mean she was taken by the slavers?” Ana asked, laying a comforting hand on his thigh.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  He turned to look at the fire, watching the flames as they danced across the blackened wood.

  “So what happened? Where is she now?”

  Seven looked round to see Ana staring at him, concerned. He moved closer to her, so his face was inches from her own. He reached up and stroked her cheek. “I am currently more concerned with your plight.”

  Ana leaned into the touch, her eyes meeting his. Seven shifted position, bringing himself closer to her.

  He couldn’t fathom what it was about Ana that had gained her such a fearsome reputation. Certainly, she was vocal and not afraid of disagreement, but neither was he. Her nose was big and she had a boy’s figure, all height and straight lines. Was that all it took? Or was it her self-assurance? She wasn’t shy in expressing her wants, but that didn’t make her an intrinsically wicked person.

  Seven also knew what Ana didn’t tell him, a gift of his nature that allowed him to sense what people needed, wanted, desired. Ana wanted a better world, and Seven, drunk and full of new found morality, wanted to give it to her.

  She smiled, sweeping her dull brown hair from her face in anticipation of what they both knew was going to happen next. Seven reached out and pulled her down onto the itchy rugs and his hard body.

  Bea didn’t know where to look as the There’s-Not-Much-Hope-Of-Denying-It-Now-Anti pulled Ana into what was one of the most passionate kisses she had ever seen – though she was forced to acknowledge that most of the kisses she had witnessed involved the grey area in which the hero is kissing what he at that point genuinely believes to be the dead body of his True Love. They were not, thankfully, kisses designed to lead anything further. This kiss, however, did not simply have designs on the near future – it had schematics and planning approval.

  Bea backed hastily under the canvas and into the cold night air. She stood in the encampment, warmed against the chill by the furious blush that was covering her entire body. There were perhaps something in the region of a hundred thoughts jumping through her mind with all the speed of race horses on derby day, but the general gist was:

  What in the five hells does he think he’s doing?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “So what’s the story?” Melly asked, tapping her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray.

  After some disagreement, they had finally settled on meeting in a pub in the middle ring of Ænathlin. Bea hadn’t wanted to sit in her flat, but she had refused to go to any of the cheap dives by the wall, and Joan’s house was ruled out as a meeting spot because it was too full of squabbling sisters to think in, and Melly… Bea wasn’t actually sure where Melly lived. In all their years of friendship, the witch had never invited her or Joan to her house.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” Bea said. “He’s definitely involving himself in the Plot, but I don’t understand why. He’s done me a favour though, getting the ugly sister to the Ball.”

  “But he’s a you-know-what?” Joan whispered over the foamy top of her beer.

  “I think so,” Bea answered.

  Melly tutted. “I told you that days ago. What now?”

  Bea flicked her fingers against her wine glass. It was so cheap it thunked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t ask Mistasinon any more questions about Anties.”

  The friends fell silent, all lost in their own interpretation of gloom. Joan drew pictures in the head of her beer. Bea fiddled with the stem of her glass. Melly smoked and
tried not to cough.

  “It’s like that mouse,” Melly wheezed after a particularly angry inhalation.

  Joan pricked up her ears. “What mouse?”

  “It’s nothing,” Bea said quickly. “It was a long time ago. I’d only just arrived in the city.”

  “She traded some silk – silk! – for this little clockwork mouse,” Melly said, ignoring the huffs and rolled eyes of the fairy in question. “Silly little thing, it just went ’round in circles. But you were fascinated, weren't you?”

  Bea gave a semi-shrug that might indicate that yes, she had found the little toy mouse somewhat intriguing.

  “Fascinated,” Melly confirmed. “Anyway, she got it home and what did she do? Opened it up and pulled all the bits out. Just as you please, little bronze spiky wheels and the mortal gods know what else all over that table of hers.”

  “What did she do next?” Joan asked.

  “I am here you know,” Bea muttered.

  “Now here’s the rub: she tried to put it back together,” Melly finished triumphantly. She was a little disappointed when Joan failed to react in the way she had anticipated. The little tooth fairy tilted her head to one side, trying to visualise the scene the witch had described. She tilted her head back the other way. After a moment she took a sustaining mouthful of beer.

  Eventually Joan said, “I don’t understand what’s so bad about that.”

  “Because it was wilful. No good comes of acting in such ways.” Melly turned to Bea. “And now look at the mess you’re in. Thinking you could work it out. The Teller, whocaresaboutus, has it all organised, that’s why it works. And you broke that mouse,” she added.

  Bea folded her arms. “Yes, well, that’s all well and good, but it doesn’t work, does it? The Mirrors are breaking.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Melly hissed.