by Rene Sears
"I'm pretty sure she'd have told me." I took a breath. She hadn't meant anything by it. "I'll ask her once she's sure her daughter's okay. But I thought I'd better find some other casters who could help me if the dog comes back. Do you think your aunt will be able to?"
"Oh yes, " Iliesa said at once. "Don't worry about that."
"And if she can't, she knows people who can," Igraine added.
I should worry about whether those people were Association, or if they were enemies of my father, or if despite their confidence, no one would be able to help at all. But when they said it, a weight fell off my shoulders.
I flung the stick across the creek, and this time it cleared the water, and landed sticking straight up in the mud.
*
After the creek, Iliesa and Igraine showed me the garden, the wards around the house, and the bat house on the corner of the property. "We should come back around sunset," Igraine said. "If you throw grapes, the bats will catch them sometimes."
When we came back around to the front of the house, Morgan's truck was parked in front. She herself was typing on a laptop on a rolltop desk in the living room. She looked up and smiled when we came in. "Just a second. Let me finish up this email."
The twins pulled off their wet socks and shoes and laid them next to the hall tree, so I followed suit. The Band-Aid over the blister on my big toe peeled off along with my sock, so I went back to the guest room to get another one.
When I came back out, Morgan was alone in the living room. She stood as I walked in and offered me a plastic shopping bag.
"What's this?" I said.
"I couldn't help but notice your shoes are coming apart. I hope you don't mind, but I thought you could use a new pair."
I opened the box and pulled a pair of sneakers out of the tissue. They were the same brand and size as the ones drying on the hall tree. There was also a pack of socks in the bag. "Thank you," I blurted out, suddenly dangerously thin-skinned and fragile. This was such a mom-like thing for her to do. "I've got some money—"
"Oh, no." She waved her hands in the air, warding off the suggestion. "This is a gift." Which was good, because I didn't have all that much left.
"I—thank you."
"It's my pleasure." She smiled at me. "Do you mind if we use your room to work in? It's where we usually have lessons since the circle's already on the floor."
"That's fine." I didn't have much stuff to clear away, and it was her house, after all.
Fifteen minutes later, Morgan, Igraine, Iliesa, and I were seated at the cardinal points on the circle. Morgan had rolled the rug to the side and pushed the bed against the wall to make room. The circle was simple, but that gave it flexibility. My father had preferred to draw more complicated circles specific to each spell as he needed them, but he had admitted that a basic one was useful in more situations. Once Morgan activated the circle, it drew and amplified energy. I hadn't gone through the house and looked—it seemed rude—but I had noticed there were various things around the house that she used to store magic in—repositories for power, like the frog at my neck was now. A metal pitcher in the kitchen, a glass vase in the living room. All items she could pull energy from if she didn't have time to set up the circle.
But now we did have time. You could spellcast on the fly, but for more complex workings, a circle gave you more options. Morgan tweaked the flow of energy to the circle, sending a fresh surge of silver to the currents whirling around us, and I saw another benefit to this circle; it could contain spells in case her pupils' casting got out of hand. I approved, particularly since I was an unknown quantity to her.
I was determined to show her that in my case it was unnecessary. My father's lessons had given me a bit of a competitive streak where magic was concerned. Growing up, I'd only had my own previous performances to compete against. Now there were three other casters to compare myself to.
Morgan had us run through the basics at first: calling fire, a few easy wards. The temptation was to show off, but I restrained myself, not wanting to look like an ass. Morgan's power was strong and assured, practiced and workmanlike; the twins were a different story. Their magic looked bright in my spellsight, a sign, my father had told me, of strong magical ability, but they ran through the motions hesitantly. I bit my tongue, watching, so that I wouldn't correct them. Maybe their parents were like my aunt, not magically gifted, and Morgan was only just now teaching them how to use their powers?
"Now," Morgan said, after we finished a round of wards. "I have something unusual for you today." She reached into a bag just outside the circle and pulled out a silk-wrapped bundle. She unwrapped it slowly, the silk falling away to reveal a pendant on a silver chain, a stylized owl with detailed feathers and huge glittering black eyes.
"Pretty," Igraine said, "but what does it do?" The owl glowed to my spellsight, ringed with silver. I didn't recognize the casting.
"I'm not sure." Morgan smiled. "You're going to help me figure it out. My associate in Canada sent it to me. It comes from a collection of nineteen-twenties and thirties jewelry found in a basement in Victoria. She and her colleagues were unable to identify it, so they sent it to me." She said it without pride or pretension.
"Your associate in Canada...?"
Morgan shrugged. "I consult with a professor who's also a caster at the University of British Columbia. We've known each other for years."
"And when she's stuck she gets you to figure it out?" I didn't want to sound disbelieving, but this little house with the vegetable garden in the middle of nowhere hardly seemed a likely site for magical scholarship.
"And when I get stuck, I check in with her." Her smile broadened. "Now you get to help me figure it out for her." She waved toward the silver gleaming on silk. "Any thoughts?"
Igraine and Iliesa looked at each other while I racked my brain. My education had focused more on casting than on charms, though my mother had made me several, and I had made a few basic ones myself, like the cords around my wrist, but...
"The spell's still active," I said slowly. "If it dates back to the twenties, it didn't fade when the caster died."
Igraine glanced at the frog at my throat, then away.
"No." Morgan's eyes gleamed. "A lot more goes into crafting a magical artifact that will last for decades—centuries even!—than a charm. The ritual is complex and can involve multiple casters. But the rewards are a casting that endures and that is much harder for any other caster to affect. So we know..." She looked at Iliesa.
"Whatever it does was worth someone investing hours of their time and a lot of magical energy?"
"And it was something unusual," Igraine added, "or your professor friend would have been able to identify it pretty quickly."
Morgan nodded. "What else? It's not a ward. It's not an offensive spell. I've checked out a couple of things. You won't trigger it by examining it, so go ahead and take a closer look and tell me what else you notice." She sat back on her heels and looked at us.
I glanced over at the girls and then sank further into my spellsight, extending a tendril of energy toward the pendant, examining it as Morgan had suggested, but keeping the power on the surface of it. It was a complex casting, much more convoluted than I'd ever seen tied to an object, although some of my father's spells had rivaled it for sheer complication. The trigger point was in the glittering stone of the eyes, where a simple push of energy would make it do...whatever it did. I avoided sending energy to it. I didn't have the faintest idea what it could possibly be for, and yet parts of it seemed naggingly familiar. I'd seen a similar layout, though much, much simpler as part of the casting on...my mother's frog?
"It's a communication spell, at least part of it is," I said, at the same time Iliesa said, "It's related to Faerie, somehow." We both stopped and looked at each other. I didn't have the faintest idea how she'd figured that out, but I wanted to know. I looked at the owl more closely. My father hadn't approved of the fae at all—not that there had been any near where we lived, but he'd made his op
inion plain enough. My mother had occasionally spoken of them more positively, but she'd always said that you had to be very careful around them, too.
Morgan nodded. "Good! Professor Leung got that far too, but was unable to determine what exactly it calls and didn't want to experiment without knowing whether it might be dangerous. So...what do you think?"
I shrugged, but both girls leaned closer, eyes narrowed. I couldn’t see that they were using any power to examine it, but they were doing something; the silver threads wrapped around the owl glowed a little brighter. I was impressed, and a little confused. They had handled magical energy clumsily earlier, but now they were doing something so deftly I couldn’t even tell what it was.
"Friendly," Igraine said, leaning back. "Or at least...not malicious." Iliesa bit her lip, but she nodded agreement after a moment.
Morgan smiled with what looked like satisfaction.
"How could you tell?" I asked.
The twins looked at each other.
"Igraine and Iliesa have an unusual sensitivity to fae energies," Morgan said. "I trust their assessment."
"So what next?" I glanced at the girls. Iliesa chewed on her lip, and Igraine's face was impassive. "Do we try to trigger it and talk to whatever's on the other end?"
"Oh, no," Morgan said. "I'm going to run more tests on it before we do anything like that. Just because something isn't actively malicious doesn't mean it won't hurt us. I have other resources we can use to—" Her eyes widened. The silver threads around the owl swirled faster even though no one had sent any energy into it. "Step out of the circle." Morgan's voice was terse. "Now."
"We didn't do anything!" Igraine and Iliesa scrambled to their feet and I was only a step behind them, backing out of the circle. Morgan threw more energy into the circle, turning it into a ward to keep whatever was coming inside the circle with her.
"You didn't," Morgan said. "There might have been a secondary trigger—" but she cut off as the spell in the owl went into effect.
The thing that appeared in the circle next to Morgan was taller than should have been able to fit into the room, much less the circle. It was like a snake and a deer had somehow been crossed with a big cat, and it didn’t look possible against the scratched wooden floor with my battered backpack shoved up against the bed. It arched its long neck and picked up and put down each foot precisely, like it was testing the circle.
Igraine made a noise the moment the thing appeared and then her hand was gripping my forearm. Iliesa frowned at us, one hand out in a "wait" gesture that was completely unnecessary, at least for me. Even in the middle of it all, some part of me was aware a girl my age was casually touching me. It wasn't something I could remember ever having happened before.
"A questing beast," Igraine whispered.
"You are welcome here," Morgan said, her voice hollow inside the circle. "You will find no harm in this place, as long as you harm none."
The creature—the questing beast?—dipped its head and made a long, low sound, like a word, but one I'd never heard before. Its voice sounded like more than one animal, like a pack of barking dogs, but a brighter, happier sound than the bay of the yath hound that had found me in Atlanta. It still sent a shiver down my spine.
Morgan hesitated, glancing to her nieces. They looked at each other, then Iliesa took a deep breath.
"Need...help...requesting..." She turned to her sister and let out a breath. "...Promise?"
Morgan let out a shaky laugh. "I don't understand," she said, directly to the thing.
It opened its mouth and brayed again.
This was easier, a voice whispered, right in my eardrum, when those like you were thicker on the ground.
I jumped. Igraine's hand tightened on my arm and she looked at me quizzically. I looked around, as if anyone else could have slipped into the room, but it was still just us...and the thing in the circle with Morgan.
"Thing?" That’s not very polite, said the voice. It sounded amused. But perhaps you were not aware of your talent?
"What talent?" I said out loud. The questing beast—I was not about to call it a thing again, even only in my head—was still weaving its head, but it was looking directly at me.
So were Igraine and Iliesa. "What?" Iliesa said.
"I think it's talking to me?" The other alternative was that I was losing my mind, and I preferred not to believe that.
Morgan had not taken her eyes off the beast. "Please tell it we welcome it if it means no harm."
I understood her, that amused voice whispered. Tell her she has my oath I mean no harm. It would be difficult indeed for me to harm any of you, as the bulk of me remains underhill. This is only a seeming you speak with.
I repeated this aloud for the benefit of the others.
Morgan met its gaze. Its eyes were gold-green, and slitted like a snake's. "We apologize. We didn't intentionally bring you here."
It turned its head from side to side, examining the owl pendant from each eye. I have not seen this trinket in many years. Once it was a symbol of my bond with one of your kind.
"A human, or like me specifically?"
Both. Not many humans are able to listen as you can to those of us who do not speak with human tongues. Once, a talent such as yours would have been cultivated and treasured, by us if not your own kind. My friend who once wore this was one such as you.
"He once had a human friend who could talk to him the way he's talking to me," I reported. "That's whose pendant it was." It would have felt really awkward to pass along the part about the talent.
Morgan frowned at the pendant. "Do you want it back?" she said. "It seems impolite of us to keep something that can bring you here—or part of you, anyway—without permission."
A kind offer. The beast's mental tone shifted to mild surprise. And one that I appreciate. The long neck dipped again as it turned to survey each of us in turn. But...no. Let the golden one keep it. It was her energy that called me here. There may be a time when she wishes to call on me again.
I relayed this. Iliesa blinked, surprised, while Morgan's face turned speculative. "But I didn't do anything," Iliesa whispered. Then she shook herself, turned to face the beast, and slowly spoke a few words in a language I didn't know.
The beast bent its forelegs, graceful where it ought to have looked awkward, and spoke a few words back, slowly, in that strange multiple voice. Tell her she didn't need to do anything. The heart of Faerie has touched her and her sister. Bent time for them. The oldest parts of Faerie will wake for her whether she wills it or not.
Morgan frowned at this, and the girls looked at each other, I turned the words over in my mind. The oldest parts of Faerie? How could Faerie have touched them? Bent time? What did that even mean? Igraine's hand slipped from my arm as she moved closer to her sister.
Perhaps we will meet again, the questing beast said, then vanished.
Morgan let out a long sigh, and then dismissed the circle. Silvery energy dissipated in a rush. She picked up the owl pendant and handed it to Iliesa. Iliesa took it, and the sisters looked at each other. Igraine looked away first, and Iliesa fastened the chain around her neck. The black stone eyes glinted as she tucked it beneath her collar.
Morgan turned to me. "It's not a small thing to be able to communicate with the fae, Javier. If you want to learn more about it, I know some people you can talk to."
I plucked at the cords around my wrists, my own small efforts at charms. I wondered what my father would have thought; would his distaste of all things fae transferred to me?
"I don't know," I said to Morgan. "Can I think about it?"
"Of course." Her gaze turned to her nieces, and lingered on the antique chain at Iliesa's throat. Morgan's hand went to her chest, as if in sympathy. "There's plenty to think about."
*
The next two days passed quickly. Maybe because of the dramatic end to the session with the questing beast, Morgan didn't ask us to help her with her work again, but we practiced magic in the circle dai
ly, and I continued to be both surprised by how rudimentary the twins' basic casting, and impressed by their subtlety in ways I couldn't explain. There were no more revelations about bending time, or old magic from the heart of Faerie, and I felt more comfortable with the twins and with Morgan. Not a part of their little unorthodox family, but welcomed into it nonetheless.
Morgan didn't press, but she made it clear that if I had any questions about what the questing beast had said to me, or the yath hound that had followed me in Atlanta, she had resources she would be happy to connect me to. I was more and more certain that those resources were fae, and so I smiled and thanked her and didn't accept. Maybe it was stupid—my father was dead, and I would have to make my own way in the world—but I couldn't help thinking of how he would have disapproved.
"You can stay with us as long as you want, so don't worry I'm trying to send you away," Morgan said, cracking eggs over a big black bowl. It was the morning of the third day and she was making breakfast, having sent me out to the vegetable garden to cut herbs. Her garden reminded me of my mother's.
"Okay," I said slowly. Despite what she'd just said, this sounded like she was going to send me away.
"I'd like to talk to your aunt, if you don't mind." She dropped a pinch of salt and shredded thyme into the eggs, then picked up the pepper grinder. "No matter how involved with her daughter she is right now, I know she'll feel better knowing you're taken care of."
My aunt thought I was in her apartment in Atlanta. I'd said nothing to let her know otherwise. Morgan opened her mouth to say something, but the twins came in before she could speak.
"Good morning," Iliesa said cheerfully. Her sister made a sound that was not quite a grunt but could be taken for a greeting.
"Morning," Morgan said. "Could you get the juice?"
Iliesa poured while Igraine and I set the table, and by the time we were done, the food was ready. Morgan served, and for a while we ate, the silence broken by nothing more than the scrape of silverware on plate and the occasional request to pass the salt.
"I'd like you to help me check some of the wards around the feygate," Morgan said, pushing her plate away and wrapping both hands around her coffee cup.
