by ERIN BEDFORD
“And what rules are those?”
“Rules are rules.” She waved me off, her answer not helpful in the least. When I stood there glaring daggers into her, she made a frustrated noise. “You humans are so impatient, always with the questions. It’s more fun finding the answers than the actual knowing, but if you are going to be that way, I’ll tell you.”
“That would be a nice change.” Sarcasm dripped from my mouth.
Seer floated onto a low toad stool, her skirts spreading out around her as she sat down. “The only way in or out of a world is with a key.”
“I figured as much since that’s what I’m trying to find. How–”
“Do you get a key?” She finished, giving her pipe a vicious tap. “You have to apply for one. There is a form and everything. If you get approved you are provided with a key that will allow you in and out of the Underground for a certain amount of time, when time is up, the key returns to the vault.”
“That sounds all very…” I paused, scrunching my brows, “…civilized.”
“Of course, it is. We aren’t heathens. We have rules and processes that must be abided by just like anyone else. But you.” She pointed the pipe at me. “.You broke those rules by coming here. You shouldn’t have been able to see the entrance let alone get into the Underground without a key. Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so. But how did I get in in the first place? I’m not a half-breed like Chess. I don’t have any Fae blood in me. I’m just…just me.” I paused for a second, remembering the irritation that had shown up from touching the iron door. It was faded now, but it was still a bit pink. I spoke low to myself. “I am, aren’t I?”
“That remains to be seen. But if you gather all the evidence, it would point to the fact that you might not be entirely as you seem.” Seer stood from her post, leaning in close as she searched for something in my eyes. “Could be that one of your ancestors had a Fae lover.”
“If they did I never heard of it.” The thought of any of my family being with a Fae was ludicrous. They were all as prim and proper as my mother. Dad was the only one of the bunch that I could even marginally relate to, with our joined obsession with books, but even he held the same high opinion as the rest of them. Though, grandma had always been the black sheep of the bunch. Perhaps she had one? It was something to add to my growing list to research when I got home.
“So, I’m a half-breed like Chess?” I quirked a brow at her.
“Hardly.” She snorted, her necklaces jingling with the movement. “More like a 16th, if not a 24th. Possibly even only the smallest iota of Fae blood in you.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure you get people like me in here all the time. How else would Al–, I mean, she get in here?” The entire no-name-saying bull was getting tiresome. Couldn’t they just be like normal people?
“That’s the question isn’t it?” She crossed one leg over the other, her wings fluttering behind her, causing her to hover off the toadstool. “That was years and years ago. Back then anyone could come and go as they pleased. No key required. We don’t get many of your kind anymore. None in fact. You would be the first one in over a century.”
“But how can that be?” I tugged on the blonde part of my hair, wrapping it around my finger. “Surely, there was someone else? Someone else had to have seen the rabbit hole. A child maybe?
“No. Just you.” She said in a sing-song voice.
“Why all the hassle? If humans were allowed before why not now?” It seemed all a bit stupid to me.
“It all comes round to someone poking their nose in where they didn’t belong and now.” She swept her arms about her. “Here we are. Everything was much simpler back then, none of this mind-your-tongue nonsense.” She waved her pipe in the air to iterate her point.
“What happened?”
The blue Fae gave a petulant sigh. “You could say we were put on house arrest for the action of one.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.” I frowned, catching sight of my feathered companion. Mr. Blue Eyes seemed forlorn at my words. Could owls even feel human emotion? It was a Fae owl, so for all I knew he could probably talk and just wanted to make fun of me for talking to myself.
“Of course it’s not, but that’s just the way it is.” As if she had accepted their fate long ago.
“So, what did they do that was so bad that they had to punish everyone else?” Was this what Chess and Alice had been arguing about? She said she didn’t know what would happen. She was just trying to help. It was all very suspicious and conveniently aligned with the sudden ban on humans. “It wouldn’t have to do with a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, would it?”
“My, you are quick.” Seer beamed with pride, giving the owl a peculiar wink. “I can see why you are so taken with her.”
My owl blinked its blue eyes at her in response.
“But as many ways of the Fae, it is far more complicated than all that.” She tapped the pipe against her lip in thought. “I suppose it would be easier to show you.”
Mr. Blue Eyes hooted in erratic aggravation. I eyed him while asking, “Show me what?”
“Well, I’m not telling you all this for free. Think of this as my payment for helping you out.” Her lips curled up in a mischievous grin.
I didn’t like where this was headed. I wanted to know what the big mystery was, but not bad enough to make a deal with another Fae. I was still left wondering when the prince was going to show his pretty head demanding retribution for sobering me up back at the Seelie Court. Though, I’d think he would owe me one after he got me arrested and almost thrown in one of those mirrors. Fair was fair after all.
“And how do you benefit from showing me? Doesn’t that just make me double in your debt?”
“Not at all.” She placed her feet on the ground, my eyes hypnotized by the swaying of her hips as she approached me. She slid a set of hands around my waist, another set caressing my arms as she slid the end of the pipe along the line of my lips. “You see, to show you, you’ll have to dream and–”
I knew where this was going. “You’ll get to feed off my dreams. Right.” Everything was about food for them. Well food and sex, but when wasn’t it?
“Good. You have been paying attention.” Her eyes flicked from my lips as if she were contemplating stealing a kiss.
My body was a rigid statue against hers. I was afraid the slightest movement would give her unwanted permission, and in turn, cause her to pounce. I wasn’t homophobic by any means, but she was pushing me so far out of my comfort zone even Sherlock wouldn’t be able to find me.
“Um–, so I go to sleep and that’s it?” I muttered the words as not to draw any more attention to my mouth.
“Well, no. Not it, per se. I have to direct your dreams after all or what is the point?” She took a step back, finally allowing me to breathe easier.
“Right.” I drew out the word. “What do I have to do? It doesn’t involve music does it?”
I didn’t think I could handle anymore musical adventures. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to listen to music ever again. At least not anything the general masses approved of. Death metal sounded good. There were no pipes in that, right?
“No.” She laughed at the panic in my face. “There’s no music involved. So, tell me, Lady…” She pulled something from inside a pouch at her waist.
Seer stuffed a pinch of some kind of dried herbs into the end of the pipe. With a flick of her wrist, a small spark ignited it, causing a lavender smoke to billow out of the end. My stomach clenched in fear at the smell, even as my muscles began to relax.
Her black eyes glittered as she smirked at me. “Do you smoke?”
AFTER A FIRM, “No, absolutely not.” I sat glaring at the pipe dangling between my thumb and pointer finger. I gave it a tentative sniff, which in turn caused me to sneeze. My face scrunched up at the pipe.
Smoking. I hated smoking. It stuck to clothing and took forever to get the smell out of one’s skin and
hair. I tried smoking once. My allergies were all kinds of fucked up for months. The heady affects were not worth the extra discomfort. Not to mention cancer. No thanks.
“It’s not going to bite.” She remarked, not even having the decency to pretend she wasn’t laughing at me.
I gave her my best death stare. The kind I gave to the teenage couple who thought they could hide in a corner and make out and no one would see them. Really? How dare they? The library was a sanctuary for the studious and those in need of a vacation from real life. Not for swapping spit. That’s what the back of their car was for.
“You have to understand my hesitance after what happened. Let alone the disgust factor. How do I know I will be safe?”
The thought of being vulnerable after the recent events would put me in therapy for years. It was quite sad. I couldn’t see myself being able to see another well-endowed male specimen without flashing back to Romp’s swinging in front of me.
How did one overcome a fear of large male genitalia? Would there be flashcards? Then after I was able to stomach those, we’d work our way up to dioramas, and then after many, many hours of dissecting every aspect of my aversion to large penises, there would be a parade of endowed men all for the purpose of healing my delicate sensibilities.
I found my ability to make light of my near-rape experience a good sign. Or I’m trying to overshadow my terror with humor and sarcasm.
“I’ll be right here.” She gave me what she thought was a comforting smile.
“Oh, that makes it all better.” Sarcasm it is.
“Look.” She sighed. “You won’t even be asleep. It will be more like daydreaming. Not as satisfying as a deep-sleep dream, but I will take what I can get, and you will be able to get out of it at any time. I’ll only be directing the dream. You will be in complete control. I’ll even stay all the way over there.” She fluttered her wings, lifting her off the ground and over to a neon green mushroom the size of a Hummer. She sprawled out across the top of it.
I gave her lounging form a suspicious glance. “How will you feed from there? Don’t you need physical contact or something?”
“Why would you think that?”
“That’s your thing isn’t it? The touchy feely, any chance to cop a feel?” I eyed the hand that had descended onto her stomach and was making a circular motion along her skin. My eyes jerked up to her face as one of those hands crept up to trace the edge of her breast beneath her necklaces.
Geez.
The butterfly Fae, or whatever it was she claimed to be, laughed at the heat that crept up my face, before dropping her hands innocently in her lap. “We aren’t all touchy feely as you put it. You’re the first of your kind to step foot in the Underground in a long time. Not all of us have the privilege of visiting your realm whenever we like. So you’ll have to excuse those of us who are unable to contain ourselves by your presence. Your scent is kind of…” Her eyes darkened as she breathed in the air. “…intoxicating.”
I shuddered at the thought. “So, you’re like a recovering alcoholic who just had their first drink after ten years of sobriety?”
“Think more like an opium addict.” Her eyes filled with hunger as if I were her next hit.
“But Trip and Mop didn’t act like I’m the very air they breathe. Don’t they feed on dreams too?” I gulped, not sure I wanted to know after all.
“They’re lower Fae.” She answered like it answered everything. “We are wasting daylight. Are you going to do this or what?”
“Just wait a couple of hours it will be daylight again.” I muttered, but then said to her, “What is up with the time thing anyway?”
“Are you trying to stall?” Seer’s black eyes narrowed. “The outcome won’t change, besides, I thought you wanted to know what all the fuss was about?”
I gave a disgruntled sigh and glared down at the somehow still smoking pipe. My eyes strayed to the watchful blue eyes of my feathered friend, wondering how he felt about all of this, but he just tilted his head as if to tell me to get on with it already. Frowning, I placed the tip of the pipe to my lips and grimaced at the taste of the burning herbs.
The smoke burned as it went down my larynx and into my lungs, causing me to break into a coughing fit. As my vision became glazed over, and my body relaxed into a trance-like state, an awful thought came to mind. What if she lied?
16
Questions & Answers
THE SMOKE SPREAD out in front of me, taking up all the edges of my sight. It was as if I were inside an IMAX theatre. If the smoke was the screen, then my eyes were the projectors.
The mushroom forest was gone. Seer was gone, even though I could still hear the tinkling of her necklaces bumping against each other and the sound of her wings twitching on her back. There was one thing.
The mirror.
I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. Its presence pressed down on my mind, begging me to let them out, but my mind was on the screen of smoke before me. Figures had begun to form. Their outlines became clearer as I focused on the smoke.
“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” Seer’s voice cut through the hazy fog in my head as the White Queen became clear on the screen.
She was as I remembered except less hard, less cold, but with a determination that would scare the primly pressed pants off my mother. “We can’t let this go on any longer. The humans are starting to suspect.”
“What do you suppose we do?” A black-haired woman formed in the smoke with dark blue eyes and sharp cheek bones. “You’ve rejected my suggestion. Quite spitefully I might add.”
“And with good reason, Mab!” The White Queen glowered at the woman. Is this the UnSeelie Queen?
“Cousin, you know the rules! No names. Not even in private.” She searched the room as if looking for an eavesdropper.
“That’s ridiculous, Cousin.” Indulging in the other queen’s request, however silly she thought it.
“You won’t find it so ridiculous when one of yours is called into the shadows one night never to be seen again. I might have power over air and dark, but even my power has its limits.”
“You are admitting to not being all powerful?” The White Queen scoffed, but when Mab was silent she stiffened. “Truly? You’re afraid of the dark?”
“Not the dark, the shadows. Don’t change the subject. If you would let us kill them rather than cast them out into the abyss, we could fix this whole mess.” She slashed a hand through the air, the black-netted lace of her sleeve whipping around her arm.
“We can’t just start killing our own kind.” The White Queen gave Mab a stern look as if chastising a child. “With the rarity of children amongst us Fae, there are hardly any of us left.”
“And whose fault is that?” She hissed at her. “Who’s the one who didn’t want her precious Seelie to cross breed with humans anymore?”
“They were diluting our magic. It had to be stopped before the Fae became nothing more than humans themselves. Excuse me for trying to save our race.”
Mab gave an unqueen-like snort. “You didn’t save us. You just delayed the inevitable, and now those precious Fae that you couldn’t kill, no matter how dark and demented, are going to destroy both our worlds on their way to an all-you-can-eat buffet where human is all that is on the menu.”
“Not if we stop them first.” The White Queen smiled mischievously.
“Cousin, what are you thinking?” Mab eyed her with a curious frown.
The White Queen’s smile widened, and in that moment, she was the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on. The surface of her skin sparkled with the intensity of that smile. Her eyes alighted with a victorious joy as she said, “Have you met my daughter?”
Before I could hear Mab’s response, smoke covered the scene.
“Wait! I wasn’t done with that,” I called out to Seer.
“I didn’t do it.” Seer’s voice made me jump when it came out next to me. It was filled with concern and a hint of curiosity. “You have
to come out of it on your own. Try clearing your mind.”
“I am trying.”
I really did try to do what she said. I attempted to clear my mind, to picture the mushroom forest, Seer with her multi-hued wings, and the mirror that chilled me to the bones. It didn’t matter what I did, the figures kept forming before my eyes.
Instead of being a spectator, in the next vision I was the star of the show. Their thoughts were my thoughts. Their feelings became mine. Until whoever I was had been lost.
“Did you hear? The UnSeelie Prince arrived today.” A familiar blonde walked arm and arm with me along a path in the garden. Instead of feeling irritation at seeing the female twin, I felt a comforting companionship with her. It was weird to think of the vindictive blonde in such a way. In my mind, my mouth moved on its own to answer my – friend?
“I had heard such news.” A sinking feeling overwhelmed me at the thought of the Prince of the UnSeelie Court.
Gab chuckled beside me. “Don’t sound so excited about it. Someone will start to think you cared about your betrothed.”
“Hardly.” I snorted, playing with the ends of my pale blonde hair. “Everyone knows that this is a marriage of convenience. Nothing more.”
“Sure it is, but have you seen him yet? Don’t you want to know what he looks like?” Smiling at me, Gab trailed a hand along the metal fence lining the garden path.
I quirked a brow at my friend’s mischievous grin. “Why would I want to do that? I’m to marry him whether or not I approve of his appearance. “
“Well, I would want to know whose bed I’ll be warming for the rest of eternity.” Gab stopped in her tracks, pulling me with her. “And as you are my best friend and confidant, I did a little reconnaissance on your behalf.”
“Of course you did.” I rolled my eyes. The younger Fae always needed to know what was going on with everyone in the palace. It was for her own pleasure and hardly a selfless act in the name of friendship.
