Glimmers of Thorns

by Emma Savant

  Behind him, just outside the bay window, a bluebird fluttered from one bush to another.

  I sighed. I was stuck here. I may as well play along. Better this than try to talk Isabelle into thinking Queen Amani wasn’t the worst ruler ever.

  “What am I missing out on?” I said. “Tell me all about it. I literally have all day.”

  “Do you know why Queen Amani is as powerful as she is?” he said.

  Every time he said her name, something uncomfortable prickled down my arms. I rubbed one of my biceps, trying to calm the tingles. The soft inside of my hoodie pressed fuzzy on my skin.

  I knew our queen was powerful. The legends said her magic made the rain fall and the grass grow. But why?

  My mind drifted back to the day I’d first met her in the Waterfall Palace. I’d been practically vibrating with nerves, and so had she. She’d explained her power to me, at least a little bit. We need people to believe in us, she’d said. So much of my magic comes from them.

  “People believe in her,” I said slowly. I kept a close eye on Haidar, watching for a sign that I was too far off track or, worse, that I’d said too much. “She’s powerful because every Glim in our world sends her a little of their magic just by believing in her, and she doesn’t want to let them down.”

  “Now, how could you know that?” he said. He folded his arms, mirroring my posture, and leaned back into the stiff couch.

  “I think you already know the answer to that,” I said.

  He didn’t contradict me.

  “She’s interested in you,” he said. “Amani is. Kelda too, but especially Amani.”

  “Kelda,” I said.

  “The Oracle,” he said.

  “I know that,” I said. “I didn’t think you knew that.”

  “Says the girl who doesn’t even know why she matters in all this,” he said.

  He was enjoying gloating. I stayed silent. I could wait him out.

  He crossed his legs, propping one ankle up on his other knee, and clasped his hands behind his head. “You had a great-great-something-grandmother, I don’t know how many greats, who was around when Portland was a new city,” he said.

  I kept waiting.

  “Her name was Fianna McDermott,” he said. “She was an Irish immigrant and a descendant of the Fair Folk.”

  Haidar watched me closely, but my Ireland connection wasn’t news. Most of the faeries in this region were descended from Celtic ancestors.

  “Fianna had a strong will,” he said. “She knew what she wanted and didn’t let things get in her way.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “This was my dad’s side of the family.”

  He tilted his head and examined me.

  “No,” he said, sounding almost confused. “Your mother’s. You don’t give your mother much credit, do you?”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t a question I could answer.

  My mom was a powerful faerie. Her divination gifts were nothing to sneeze at, and I suspected she was the only person who could have kept a handle on her enchanted ring. The ring, an elegant piece with quartz carved into the shape of a rose, was an heirloom loaded with more charms than I could keep track of. Normally, too many enchantments on one object made the Glim using it go a little crazy. I’d seen that firsthand when Elle had joined our world. But Mom had been wielding that thing as long as I’d been alive like it was nothing.

  She’d also been hiding behind my dad for as long as I’d been alive. At some point, she’d traded in her apparently awesome powers for a life as Dad’s arm candy. Until these last few years, when they’d started fighting all the time, she’d let him walk all over her.

  She still did, sometimes. Sure, she’d started taking divination jobs lately, and she’d dyed her hair and started speaking up more. Even with all that, it was still clear that everything she did was in opposition to him, or in defiance of him. None of it felt like it was really about her. And anyone who could build her entire life around Reginald Feye probably didn’t deserve much credit.

  But I didn’t want to go into any of that with Haidar.

  “Mom doesn’t talk about her family much,” I said instead. “But Dad’s always blathering on about the Feye family name. I assumed anything special would come through him.”

  “That’s because he’s full of himself,” Haidar said. “He knows your bloodlines on both sides are old and important, but he doesn’t understand the power in that.”

  “And you do.”

  He seemed to expand even more, stretching his elbows off to the sides like he planned to fill the whole couch.

  “Fianna McDermott was the only person in Glimmering history to turn down the job of faerie queen,” he said.

  Time seemed to suspend for a moment. I felt my heartbeat stop, and the silence of the room seemed to flood in and fill all the empty spaces between my fingers and ribs.

  Lucas’ muffled voice floated in from across the hall.

  Then I landed softly back in reality. The seconds began ticking by again, uniform and relentless.

  “What do you know about me?” I said.

  I pressed my knees together and clasped my hands around them. Haidar looked at me like he could see everything in my head. Silently, I threw up a wall like Amani had taught me, a silver one with vines glimmering at its edges. The corner of his mouth tightened, though I couldn’t read what it meant.

  “I’ve known Queen Amani for years,” he said. “Kelda, too. She and I aren’t on good terms. I offended a favorite sprite of hers a few years ago and she took it personally.”

  “What did you do?”

  “None of your business,” he said.

  I folded my arms.

  “Amani and I always got on well, though,” he said. “We went to the same Glimmering homeschool co-op as teenagers and hit it off. We stopped spending much time together after she was named Queen Phoebe’s heir, but we’ve stayed friends.”

  I couldn’t imagine Amani and Haidar hanging out. Amani was friendly and casual. Haidar seemed to get a kick out of being as rude and intimidating as possible. The only thing they had in common was the hugeness of their houses.

  “A couple of years ago, she started telling me about visions she’d been getting,” Haidar said. “She kept seeing this girl in her divinations.”

  “Me.”

  “Come on, now, you’re going to spoil the ending,” Haidar said.

  I cut my eyes at him. “You’ll survive,” I said.

  “She insisted this girl was going to save our world.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

  “Amani was excited when she met you,” he said. “She said it was pure luck, that you seemed to fall out of the sky. And then she asked you to be her heir, and you said no.”

  Haidar started laughing, a low chuckle in the back of his throat. His stormy face relaxed for a moment.

  “Who does that?” he said.

  I didn’t see how any of this was funny. He waited for me to join in on his amusement. The best I could manage was a tepid smile. Finally, he shook his head.

  “She respected your decision,” he said. He rubbed his chin, stroking the five o’ clock shadow that seemed to perpetually grace his face. “She wasn’t thrilled, but she admired that you had the guts to say no. She thought that was her message: that she had to have the courage to say no to the people in her life who were asking too much of her.”

  He gave me a significant look, staring at me like this was my one chance to prove I wasn’t a complete moron.

  “People like Kelda,” I said.

  He leaned back, satisfied.

  “But you kept showing up in her pool, and Amani saying no to Kelda wasn’t making the difference she’d hoped. The Oracle wanted change, and she wanted it right that second. Amani was on board, to an extent. She understands that altering the structure of our world is something that would need to happen slowly, but she agreed with Kelda’s goal of an integrated Glim-Hum society. But then Kelda started taking it too far, a
nd Amani realized she wasn’t after an integrated society. She was after one where Glims ran the show. Well, Amani’s too much of a Humdrum-lover for that.”

  Imogen used to call me a Humdrum-lover all the time. It was nice to have company, even if Amani and I weren’t really connected anymore.

  “So she asked you again, and you kept saying no, and all this messy business with the Oracle just kept getting worse.”

  “Did she know it was Kelda?” I said. “For sure, I mean?”

  “Of course she did,” Haidar said.

  The tiny bubble of confidence that had been sitting inside me for months popped. Amani had hinted that she’d known who was causing problems with the Humdrums, but she’d always acted like she wasn’t sure, like it could have been anybody. Haidar saw the look on my face, and his expression softened.

  “Don’t take it personally,” he said. “She was trying to keep you safe.”

  “That worked,” I said under my breath.

  “Give her a break,” he said. “You wanted to be kept out of this, so she tried to keep you out of it. And for all you know, that’s killing the Glimmering world. You were supposed to save the world, after all.”

  “Divinations don’t always show the truth,” I said. “There’s never just one path.”

  “You sure showed up in a lot of them, though,” he said. “And you’re still showing up, and Amani doesn’t know what to do about it. You’re Fianna’s descendent. You can sustain belief in yourself in a way that most faeries can’t. Why do you think you’ve been able to resist your dad’s pressure all these years?”

  I frowned, and he waved a dismissive hand.

  “Daniel told me all about your dad and how you and he don’t always get along,” he said. “I happen to know from Queen Amani that your father used influencing spells on you at one point, trying to get you to attend the same university he did. And you didn’t even notice. You just kept your head down and kept plugging along in the hopes of going to some tedious Humdrum university. Why? That’s a lot of pressure. Why were you so stubborn?”

  I made a mental note to never speak to my father again.

  “I want to study plants, and I don’t want to be in the Glimmering world,” I said. “I’m not good at being a faerie. Why bother? There’s a rich world out there, even if none of you can see it.”

  He slammed his palm down onto the stiff brocade seat beside him. “Right there,” he said. He pointed at me. “That’s it, right there. You’re stubborn, Olivia. You believe in yourself, not in what people tell you or what you’re ‘supposed’ to think.”

  “So?” I said. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “A choice like Fianna’s leaves a powerful magical residue,” Haidar said. His eyes practically burned with black fire. I couldn’t help staring at him, even as I wanted to run away and leave this conversation behind. “That choice has been with your family for generations, and it found a home in you.”

  So none of my choices were my own? Everything I was and wanted to be was just the leftovers from some decision a great-great-grandma I’d never heard of had made over a hundred years ago?

  I could never escape. Everything I ever did or thought all came back to my stupid heritage. I was a Glimmer. I was a faerie. I was a Feye.

  I was incredibly, unbearably stuck.

  “I still don’t get the point of all this,” I snapped.

  I stood up and stalked to the door, but I couldn’t make myself open it. This conversation was stupid and everything I didn’t want to hear, but I couldn’t leave it unfinished.

  “What does any of it have to do with me?” I said. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Haidar leaned forward. He put his elbows on his knees and seemed to be trying to pin me down with his stare.

  “You’re fated to be an exceptionally strong faerie,” he said. “The kind of faerie who can turn tides.”

  A barking laugh jumped out of my throat before I realized it was there.

  “Why do you think Amani and the Oracle noticed you?” he said. “Where do you think their power comes from? Belief, Olivia. They’re powerful because everyone in our world believes they are. But you? You don’t need that. You don’t need other people’s approval. You just march in and do what you want, and if they don’t like it, too bad. You haven’t even noticed. Do you know how rare that is?”

  I stalked to stand behind the couch I’d been sitting on. I leaned over it, bracing my hands across its stiff back.

  “I don’t need other people, so the queen and the Oracle are both after me?” I said. “I’m just some power source?”

  “You’ve got something other faeries don’t,” he said.

  He stood up and crossed the room. Only the sofa shielded me from the potency that radiated from him.

  “You have a gift, Olivia.” He leaned in toward me until I could smell his woodsy deodorant. “Your gift is that you just don’t give a damn.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Isabelle knelt on the damp lawn in front of Haidar’s mansion. In front of her sat a rose bush. Like everything else on Haidar’s property, the plant was blooming out of season. Enormous red roses hung heavy from their stems, nodding their heads as Isabelle listened and relayed the news.

  “She’s using spells and curses and sprites and whatever else she can to get people to leave the city. She’s trying to force the Hums out entirely. It’s not working as fast as she’d like, but it is working. People are leaving; some of them don’t even know why.”

  She scowled in concentration and leaned in until one of her ears was nearly touching a blossom. A light rain had been fading in and out all day; now, a single drop landed on her cheek and rolled down it like a tear.

  “The Oracle has sent a few sprites to get the same things going in Vancouver, but she’s still got most of her attention on Portland. She wants to turn it into a Glimmering stronghold. It will eventually serve as the base for a war designed to take over the Pacific northwest, and from there she’ll spread out.”

  It was what we had assumed, but hearing our fears confirmed chilled me.

  “The Glims are starting to wake up to the truth,” she said. “She’s not being as discreet as she was and her sprites are openly roaming the streets in their corporeal forms. The activists who were ‘petitioning’ her are calling it a victory. Proof that she listens to her people or some crap like that. Everyone else is getting nervous. This being the work of some small disgruntled groups is one thing, but they’re realizing it’s coming from the Oracle, and that scares them.”

  “Which only makes her stronger,” Haidar said. He turned toward Lucas, as though what he said next was for his benefit, but I knew better. The words were for me. “Belief is a powerful energy. The leaders of our world feed on it to survive. Someone like the Oracle requires a lot of belief to stay powerful, and fear is just another way of believing.”

  “The more people get nervous about her, the stronger she’ll be,” Lucas said.

  His jaw was clenched. Whatever was going on inside his head, he seemed to have decided to deal with it. His body was strung tight with anxiety, but his eyes and mind were sharp and ready to take in everything.

  “She’s going to need a lot of fear to get what she wants,” I said.

  “She’ll need to get the belief of a powerful faerie on her side,” Haidar said.

  He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to.

  “That, or she’ll kill any Glims strong enough to dismiss her,” he said. “Anyone who keeps or strengthens an allegiance to Queen Amani will be especially dangerous to her.”

  Isabelle rolled her eyes but didn’t contradict him.

  I’d be on Kelda’s chopping block, and doubly so. I wasn’t going to support her, and I wasn’t going to let my fear of her leak out. I bit my tongue and tried to create a shield inside my own body, something that would keep all my emotions locked deep inside.

  Before I got very far, though, a horrible thought struck me.

 
; “My dad,” I said. “He works with Amani. He’s one of her biggest fans. He’s going to support her. Loudly, knowing him.”

  “Mom, too,” Daniel said. He kept his voice dry and neutral, but I felt the tiny surge of worry that spun through him. His face seemed even paler than usual, though it may have only been the gray afternoon light.

  My parents were usually on my last nerve, Dad especially. But I still wanted to keep them alive.

  Isabelle leaned back on her heels. Whatever news the rose had caught, she’d listened to it all.

  “She’s going to destroy this city,” she said. “And there’s nothing new from Queen Amani, and nothing useful from the Council. Apparently they’re having a ‘strategy meeting.’ Fat lot of good that’ll do.”

  “We have to get people to stop believing in her and being scared of her,” I said. “She can’t do this.”

  “Look around,” Isabelle said. “She already is doing this.”

  She looked at Haidar. Something passed between them. She frowned and looked back at the rose, like maybe it held the answers.

  There had to be a way to stop this. The Hum world was too valuable to lose. So much of what made the city great came from the Hums and their culture. Besides that, they didn’t deserve to be frightened and bullied out like this. No one deserved that.

  My phone buzzed. My heart pounded. Everything threatened bad news. Daniel watched me as I read it.

  Dad: It appears the Oracle has been swayed by these rabble-rousers more than we had hoped. Your mother tells me you’re somewhere safe, so do not leave. Queen Amani has asked that we continue to shelter. The Council is working on a plan.

  Dad never texted me. Things must be serious.

  Olivia: Okay. Good luck.

  He might be a jerk, but at least Dad was on the right side of all this. That counted for something.

  But it wouldn’t save him.

  Queen Amani wanted us to stay sheltered. It made sense, and of course it was only right to obey the Faerie Queen.

  It wasn’t smart, though. Staying in Haidar’s mansion might protect us, but it wouldn’t protect the Humdrums, and what good was our temporary safety? Kelda would take over in the end, and I didn’t plan on spending the rest of my life in hiding.