by J. S. Malcom
Despite the fact that half the time I can barely take Cade seriously, I feel my pulse start to escalate. He’s having a hard time getting to the point, for one thing. He also started by telling me not to freak out. In my experience, whenever someone tells you not to freak out, it’s time to do just that.
“Cade, what are you trying to tell me?”
Cade drains the last of his beer, glances at Melanie, and digs in his pocket. He comes up with a pair of jeweled earrings and a swiveling glass eye. He sets the glass eye on the bar and shoves the earrings back into his pocket. “Maybe it would be better if I showed you. Come on. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
CHAPTER 2
I wait until we get outside to say anything. Mostly because I wanted to be sure Melanie wasn’t about to sic her enforcer pixie on us again. She was watching Cade carefully and, as soon as he set that glass eye down, the thing started swiveling on top of the bar as if it was looking around the room. Payment was sufficient, apparently, since we left without incident. So, the price of two pints of Oberon Amber in Silvermist is equal to, or less than, the value of a magical glass eye. My knowledge base keeps expanding every day.
The other reason I didn’t say anything was because I wasn’t sure if I might start yelling. I don’t exactly speak softly now. “Seriously? You’re going to go all mysterious on me after that?”
Cade glances over as we start walking, giving me that nerdy smile. He really is kind of cute with his curly hair and the points of his ears shining pale in the moonlight. Not like I want to jump his bones cute. More like friend cute, or little brother cute. That is, if I had a little brother who so happened to be a half-human, half-fae thief of magical objects with an obvious penchant for amber ale and a death wish.
“I’m not going for dramatic effect,” he says. “And besides, Kezia doesn’t live far from here.”
“Who’s Kezia?”
“Kezia Grinsly,” Cade says. “Don’t worry. You’ll like her.”
As if that’s not deliberately slathering on more mystery. I’m thinking about punching him in the face when a streak of light shoots across the sky, followed by another.
I point up to the stars. “That’s one heck of a meteor shower. Have you even noticed?”
Cade glances up, and then nods. “Yeah, I’ve noticed, but I keep hoping it will stop. That’s no meteor shower. The same deal is going on in Faerie, only way more intense. It started five days ago.”
Five days ago. That’s right after I escaped. “What’s the deal?”
“I’m guessing it has to be some sort of magical side-effect. The magic’s gone totally unstable in Faerie and it’s screwing with everything. They’ve been getting fireballs, earthquakes, freak lightning storms. All kinds of craziness. Now, it’s starting to happen here.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of what he just said. I get the part about the misuse of magic messing with Faerie’s environment. I’ve experienced it first-hand with the snow that isn’t snow, along with the somehow frozen glittering magical fallout. Sure, it’s seriously weird, but no weirder than demons who can exploit your deepest fears or entities that can eject your spirit from your body. It’s not always a matter of what’s supposed to be, as much as a matter of what’s supposed to be where. It wouldn’t surprise me if in some realms there are lakes that talk and birds performing microsurgery with their beaks. Weird is all relative to your perspective. But I’m not sure how magical instability in one realm can cause the same in another.
Maybe it’s my lack of response, or that Cade just reads me once again. I’d almost forgotten, but he’s good at guessing what’s on my mind. “Another quick interdimensional physics lecture, brought to you by me,” he says. “Although, this one is largely speculative.”
I try not to sigh. “And the last one about energy vortexes was grounded in empirical fact?”
Cade laughs. “Undoubtedly, somewhere. As I was saying.”
He glances over at me and I have to laugh too. I might as well enjoy myself while I still can. “As you were saying, professor.”
“It’s simple, really. All the realms are interconnected, so anything affecting one affects all. Maybe in small ways, in some places, while in others the impact is felt more dramatically. What we know for sure is that the magical wellspring is being run dry in Faerie, so seriously bad stuff is happening there, both socially and environmentally. It’s all about balance, so it’s no wonder the place is a total mess. Imagine that same magic as a source feeding all the connected realms. For different reasons, maybe, but still playing a significant role of some nature.” He points to the sky as another star appears to fall. “Mess with it bad enough and, voila. At least some aspects of that imbalance start to manifest elsewhere. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.”
And it does, in a very weird way. It’s not something I would have thought of before. It’s not something I could have thought of before, but to say my perspective has changed recently would be the understatement of the century.
“Still with me?” Cade says.
“Absolutely. What’s that about?”
I point down the road to where several fires glow and a crowd, mostly cast in silhouette, can be seen milling about. As we get closer, voices rise into the night. The loudest is that of a woman, her shadowy form raised above the crowd, suggesting that she must be standing on something. It's the first time I've heard true anger in Silvermist.
“We just can't turn a blind eye to this any longer!” she cries out. “We've ignored the oppression of our Unseelie brothers and sisters for far too long. And now we're paying the price!”
As if to deliberately emphasize her point, fiery lights shoot through the night sky above us, first one and then two more.
“Hey, it's not our fight or our problem!” a man calls back. “And I don't live in Faerie!”
A woman calls out from somewhere else in the crowd. “He's right! We come here to be left alone, because we don't belong in either world. Not the human realm, and definitely not the fae!”
More voices call out their support for this position, while others counter with cries of, “We have to help them!” and “It's our realm too!” Honestly, I can see both points of view. On one hand, why should these accidental children of Faerie give a damn what takes place within that realm? On the other hand, even if the struggle between the Seelie and Unseelie doesn't concern them, the magical imbalance is beginning to destabilize Silvermist. Add to that, what that one person called out is true. In a way, Faerie is their realm too, which is something I haven't really thought about before. After all, the only thing stopping them from going there is the threat of danger. Then again, for some reason I can go there too. Where does that put me in all of this?
The woman standing before the crowd holds out her hands, asking for quiet. “Please, listen to me! At least think about what I have to say. Like you, I didn't ask to grow up confused about what I was. I always felt different, and I didn't understand why. My own mother knew the truth, but she was too ashamed to tell me!”
In response, someone yells, “Exactly, and she shouldn't have had to feel that way. The shame is on the fae!” Someone else calls out, “To hell with the fae, and I mean all of them! When did the Unseelie ever stick up for us?”
Suddenly, another voice takes over, that of an old woman who has what sounds like a Russian accent. As she speaks, I crane to see her. I know her voice.
“We all know lore of this realm, yes? It come to us like magic itself, in our dreams and thoughts, like friend whisper in our ears. This voice part of Silvermist. It be spirit maybe, yes?”
The crowd grows still, all heads turning toward the old woman's voice as if they too have heard her speak before.
“The lore say time will come when choice must be made. That we see signs when that time come. Place suddenly start to change, no longer be the same. You know this, yes?”
To my surprise, people nod and murmur their agreement. I keep trying to see the woman
who's speaking, but I'm too short to see past the people blocking my view.
“Lore says one of those signs be that stranger come here. And this stranger have power within her to help. You heard this, yes?”
Again, people nod, a few saying, “Yes,” to let the woman know she's not wrong. Suddenly, those standing in front of me shift and I can finally see past them. At the front of the crowd, the old woman stands beside a fire burning in a barrel. So much has happened since, that I completely forgot about the old woman who forced a psychic reading upon me at the Saturday Market. But I realize now that's who’s been speaking. I remember now; Cade said her name was Eva.
As if she knows I'm there, and knew all along, Eva stares at me for a silent moment. Then she says, “This stranger not know what she is, or why she come here. But soon she find out.”
Cade starts walking and I follow after him, tearing my eyes away from Eva and the scene around us, as Eva’s words from before echo within my mind.
Fae witch! You see, Cassie. Fae witch!
Cade must have missed that moment of eye contact between me and Eva, because he just says, “Feels different here, doesn't it?”
And he's right, it does. I've only visited Silvermist once before, but on this same street last time people walked as couples holding hands, or as groups talking and laughing. Now, the fear and confusion is evident as people stand in crowds arguing and debating. It seems clear that the two realms are very much in flux, and I have to wonder when these changes will make themselves known in the realm I call my own.
CHAPTER 3
It isn't long before we walk along a mostly empty cobblestone street. As in the rest of Silvermist, gas jet streetlamps light our way, but the large stone houses around us, with ivy clinging to their fronts, feel older and more Gothic than the other structures I've seen here.
“This part of town was settled a while ago, to say the least,” Cade says. “Although, it's far from being the oldest part of Silvermist. As you can imagine, people have been finding their way here for a long time. Basically since the fae started mixing with humans.”
Given that the fae have been part of human legend for a very long time, it's hard to imagine what the oldest parts of town might hold. Castles of roughly hewn stone? Thatch huts? Tents made of fur?
Cade looks around at the houses, as if he too isn't quite sure where we are. He stops and says, “I think it's that one over there. I forget. It's been like a million years.”
It's only when he says it that it occurs to me. “This Kezia person, is she expecting us?”
“Not exactly,” Cade says. “But the last time I saw her she said to drop in any time I felt like it.”
“But you just said it's been a million years.”
Cade changes his mind and starts walking again. “I can be a little hyperbolic sometimes. More like, I don't know, ten?”
“Hang on. You haven't seen Kezia in ten years and we're just going to knock on her front door?” I look around at the gloomy stone houses and add, “At night?”
“It's not that late. What is it, seven maybe? Seven-thirty?”
I pull my phone from my pocket to check, but it shows just a string of zeros where the time should be. Of course, since the nearest cell tower is basically on another planet.
Cade laughs. “I believe we covered that last time. Cell phones—”
“Don't work here,” I say. “I know.”
“Do you?” Cade asks merrily.
Asshole.
“Wait, I think it's that one.”
Cade stops again and squints through the glowing mist that, come to think of it, seems thicker in this part of town. I wonder if that has anything to do with it being older.
“Yeah, that's it definitely,” Cade says. “Can you read the numbers?”
I peer through the darkness at the front of the house. “Wait, you just said that's definitely it. Why am I looking for numbers?”
“There I go being hyperbolic again. I mean I'm pretty sure that's it.”
“Gotcha. You're definitely pretty sure.”
No wonder I got abducted. I put my life in the hands of a guy who steals from highly powerful magical beings, exaggerates all the time, and sucks back a pint of ale at every opportunity. Wait, aren't I putting my trust in him again? Why, yes I am, come to think of it.
My head snaps back to the house again, as a beam of light suddenly plays across the front of it. Then I realize that the light source is Cade's hand, and he's not holding a flashlight.
“Thirty-five-eleven,” he says. “Yeah, I remember now.”
The light winks out again as quickly as it appeared. Given how effortless that display of magic was, I have to wonder why I haven't seen more like it in this half-blood realm. At first I assumed it was the access to magic in Silvermist that brought people here, but clearly it's more about being with their own kind. Even at the gathering we just passed, magic didn't appear to be a central issue. Those present seemed most concerned about where they belonged.
Cade opens an iron gate and we follow a stone walk to the front door.
“Seriously, ten years?” I say.
“That's like yesterday in Silvermist.” Cade knocks on the door. We wait, and when no one answers he uses the knocker this time.
From inside the house, I hear what sounds like a symphony blasting out the intro to Ride of the Valkyries. A coincidence? Apparently not, since it cuts off, but then repeats when Cade tries the knocker again. Nifty.
“Kezia always was creative with her use of magic,” Cade says. “I kind of forgot that about her.”
“Since yesterday?”
Cade ignores the comment.
A moment later, the front door opens and an old woman appears in the light spilling out of the house. She looks to be about seventy, small and thin, with pointy ears and gray hair pulled back into a bun. In her floral print dress, with reading glasses dangling from a faux-jeweled lanyard, she's simply adorable. She looks like an elf librarian.
She squints at Cade, then at me, and then back to Cade again. Her face lights up. “Cade, is that really you?”
“Hi Mrs. Grinsly,” Cade says, immediately sounding like a ten-year-old. “I hope it's not too late.”
She smiles warmly. “Not at all. Please come in.”
We go inside and it’s difficult to keep my jaw from dropping. The interior is stunning, the front hall alone featuring arched doorways leading toward other rooms, a high ceiling, crown molding with ornate plaster corbels, gleaming hardwood floors and gorgeous rugs. There’s also a marble fireplace, something I’ve never seen in a front hall before, within which flames dance behind a screen shaped like a peacock. The walls are painted a pale shade of grayish blue. Damn, Kezia sure has nice taste. I hope she never sees my apartment.
Kezia smiles at me and then beams again at Cade. She sighs and says, “How long has it been? At least ten years, am I right?”
Cade’s face starts to turn red and he refuses to look at me. “It feels like yesterday,” he says.
Kezia looks him up and down, and then slips on her reading glasses to study his face. “Well, you’ve grown a lot. The last time I saw you, you couldn’t have been more than fifteen.”
“I think I was sixteen. Pretty sure, anyway.”
Did we really just barge in unannounced on an old lady Cade hasn’t seen since he was a kid? It’s seems pretty bonked to me, but maybe it’s okay in Silvermist. At least, Kezia doesn’t seem worried about it.
She turns to me and says, “And who’s this?”
Cade turns my way as well. “This is Cassie. Cassie, this is Mrs. Grinsly.”
“Kezia, please,” she says, shaking my hand. She turns to Cade and says, “And you too, young man. Since when did you start acting so formal? Now, let’s go into the living room and find out what brings you here. I just made some tea. Would you like some?”
“We’d love some,” Cade says. “Thank you.”
We follow Kezia deeper into her house, which is amazing in
every way. The living room features burgundy wallpaper with gold star shaped patterns, lush antique sofas and chairs, and a light blue ceiling where a beautiful brass light fixture descends from an ornate ceiling medallion. Kezia settles us on the sofa, goes off to get the tea, and returns a few minutes later bearing a tray.
“Can I help you?” I say, although I notice that Kezia doesn’t seem to be having any issues handling things.
“I’m fine, dear. Thank you.” She sets two china cups before us on the marble-topped coffee table—yet another exquisite piece of furniture—and takes the seat across from us.
Cade lifts his cup and blows at the steam. “Kezia has lived here since, when, the nineteen hundreds?”
Kezia nods, resting her cup and saucer on her thigh. “February of 1882, to be exact. At the time, this was considered to be the modern neighborhood. Can you imagine?”
“Your house is beautiful,” I say.
Kezia’s eyes gleam. “Thank you, dear. To be honest, I don’t deserve much credit. Things don’t age the same way in Silvermist.”
That much seems evident, given that she’s been living here for over 130 years. Cade mentioned that half-bloods can live a long time, but damn.
Kezia gestures to the walls. “For example, this is the original wallpaper. Strangely, it’s only just lately that I’ve noticed it beginning to fade. I have my suspicions why that might be, but this isn’t the time.” She keeps her eyes on mine for a moment longer, and then says, “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve only visited Silvermist twice now.”
“Twice. I see.” Kezia nods as she seems to consider something. “When was the first time?”
I hesitate, again wondering at the possible connection. It has to be a coincidence. “About two weeks ago.”
Kezia nods. “I see.”
Right, not long before things started going crazy here. But I can’t imagine what that would have to do with me.
