The Faerie King

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”

  “Character flaw.” She sipped her drink and flashed a blue-tinged smile.

  I sighed, wished for patience, and picked up my rapidly congealing nachos. “Somewhere private?”

  She pulled a key ring from her pocket and cocked her head toward the gymnasium, and I followed her through the building, across a basketball court, and into a tiny, green-carpeted office full of filing cabinets and steel-framed chairs. “Just try not to brush up against anything,” said Vivian, seeing my shoulders tighten, and closed the door. “Hal won’t be back by here until after the game. So go on, spill it.”

  I leaned against the door and ate a chip. “The merrow are spooked. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “I heard there’d been a mass exodus,” she replied, perching on the edge of the coach’s dented desk. “None spotted in a week.”

  “They’re in the realm.”

  “Want to tell me why?”

  I licked a bit of cheese off my knuckle. “Something about a merrow-eating monster. I was offered no further specifics.”

  She folded her arms, obviously exasperated. “Are you following up on this?”

  “No.” I ate another chip, making her wait. “That’s Oberon’s turf. I’m not going anywhere near there without an invitation.”

  “You know he’s not going to do anything about it.”

  “If you’re so concerned, you could try asking him yourself.”

  Vivian pushed her glasses down her nose and glared at me. “This is all some sort of joke to you? Giant sea monster, total merrow evacuation, and…and you sit there eating Doritos?”

  “Doritos would be an improvement.” I put the nachos on a bookshelf and spread my hands. “Look, you understand how the courts work, yes? We stay out of each other’s way. I can’t just tell Oberon that I’ll be poking around his backyard for a while, looking for Nessie.”

  “Why not? If he’s not going to—”

  “Because he’d lose face if he didn’t stop me.” I stared down at her until she let her next protest die unspoken. “I was a vigilante for a long time,” I said slowly. “He let me get away with it because coming after me would have made Titania lose face. They had their own sort of truce worked out, and I wasn’t worth upsetting the arrangement over. But I’m not a random nuisance now—I’ve got a court behind me. If I act, he has to acknowledge it. And if he acknowledges it, it won’t be with a thank-you fruit basket. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Good,” I said, resuming work on my nachos. “And if you ever presume to demand answers from me again, little girl, I’ll repay you with interest for that concussion.”

  Her mouth tightened, but her eyes remained defiant. “I’m not afraid of you,” she muttered.

  “Then you’re either a liar or a moron, and I don’t think Rick would associate with you if you were a complete imbecile.” I poked at the disappointingly hardened cheese and settled for a pepper slice. “But since this game is going to be painful to watch, was there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

  Vivian hesitated, then said, “Yeah. One more thing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve been seeing a kid hanging around near the school. Hal says he’s not a Rigby student, as far as he knows. Sets off my spider sense.”

  “Again with the spiders.”

  She stared at the water-stained ceiling. “I’m sensitive to magical fields, yeah? It’s verbal shorthand.”

  “Go on,” I said, gesturing with a broken chip.

  “Well, my alarm goes off around him. Haven’t gotten close enough to say why, but he makes me uncomfortable. Could be glamour, could be a bind, could be something else entirely. He’s not Fringe, but I don’t know what he is.”

  “Got a name for me?”

  “Nope,” she said, shaking her head until her pigtails bounced. “Dark hair, about your height, kind of skinny. Looks a little emo. Maybe a junior or senior. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him,” I told her, then glanced at the steel door handle. “Are you going to get that, or are you going to make me glove up?”

  She slid off the desk and brushed past me. “Limitless power,” she muttered, “and you’re foiled by a damn door.”

  “I’m not foiled,” I protested, following her back across the empty gym. “It’s merely a situation requiring certain precautions. The alternative is expending an obscene amount of magic to make iron cooperate.”

  “It’s a doorknob.”

  “If you want to see what limitless power looks like,” I said, “then keep trying to piss me off.”

  Vivian smirked as we got to the exit door, then swung the bar down and gestured toward the field with a sweeping bow. “Crisis averted yet again. After you, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, smartass, but ‘Lord Coileán’ will suffice,” I said, then headed back to the bleachers to the sound of the visitors’ cheers.

  To the deep regret of all but the most die-hard Rigby fans, the rain held off throughout the game, letting the contest run to its foreseen lopsided conclusion. Aiden, at least, was in good spirits as the team limped off the field—fresh air was still a novelty for him—and he cleaned up the trash as Meggy coaxed Olive to make her sullen approach. “I’m going to be late!” Olive yelled up the stands when she was still five rows below us. “What do you need?”

  Meggy continued to beckon, and Olive, heaving a sigh, made the climb. “What?” she whined. “I’m going to miss my carpool!”

  To her credit, Meggy smiled and ignored the performance. “Olive, honey,” she said, prodding my brother until he put the wrappers down and straightened his sweater, “this is Aiden. I wanted to introduce you two.”

  “My nephew,” I quickly volunteered as Aiden stuck out his hand. “He’s staying with me for a while. Since he’ll be around, your mother and I thought you should meet.”

  Olive remained unmoved by this information and ignored Aiden’s hand until he dropped it. “What, you’re transferring?” she asked him.

  Aiden picked up the trash again and shrugged. “No, uh…I graduated early, so I’m actually out of high school—”

  “And it would be great if he could make some friends around here,” Meggy interrupted, “so why don’t you take him along to the after-party tonight?”

  Olive looked at Meggy as if her mother had suggested a pleasant evening of ritually slaughtering kittens. “Mom!” she wailed. “Why do you hate me?”

  “Come on, honey, it’d be a nice thing to do…”

  But Olive was already fuming. “If I show up with some…some…”

  “Nerd?” Aiden offered.

  She glared at him. “Some loser, then I’m going to be ruined. And the seniors are going to be there! Everyone’s going to laugh at me, and I won’t have any friends, and why don’t you go ahead and kill me now, huh?”

  Meggy crossed her arms. “Fifty bucks.”

  “You’re so mean.”

  “Seventy.”

  Olive paused, and I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes.

  “One hundred, and that’s my firm offer,” said Meggy, reaching into her purse. “I’m not asking you to babysit Aiden. Take him to the party, maybe make a few introductions, be a team player. Okay?” She pulled five twenties from her wallet and held them out to Olive. “Come on, you know it’s not easy being new. What’s it going to hurt to be nice, hmm?”

  “I bathed before I came,” said Aiden. “You’ll never know I’m there.”

  She took the bribe, but her eyes narrowed as she looked at Meggy and me. “You want him gone so you can screw around. I know what you’re up to.”

  Aiden slipped past Meggy and headed for the stairs. “And that would be a ‘duh.’ Shall we?”

  “God, you’re annoying,” she muttered at no one in particular, then stomped off after him.

  Olive might have been young and temperamental, but she wasn’t stupid.

  Me
ggy and I made the most of the empty apartment, and I woke beside her shortly after dawn, squinting in momentary confusion at the pink light in the bedroom. She mumbled when I sat up, then buried her head beneath the blankets. “Breakfast?” I asked, poking her shoulder through the comforter.

  “Hashbrowns.”

  “Do you have any here?”

  “Freezer,” she said, pulling the blankets more tightly around her against the chill, and I rose and produced a bathrobe. After giving the dresser mirror a quick check to be sure the glamour was still in place, I padded down the hallway and peeked through the cracked door into Olive’s bedroom. The lump beneath the pink quilt seemed the right size and shape, and so I headed on toward the kitchen, expecting I’d find Aiden crashed on the couch.

  As it so happened, I was mistaken, and breakfast was quickly abandoned.

  Throwing propriety aside, I barged into Olive’s bedroom and shook her shoulder until she rolled over and favored me with a bleary, yet baleful, glare. “Where’s Aiden?” I asked.

  “Dunno,” she grunted, flipping back onto her stomach.

  “Olive, wake up. Where’s my br—nephew?”

  Fortunately, she was too groggy to have caught my slip. “Dunno.”

  “Well, where did you last see him?”

  “Party.”

  “Olive,” I said, trying for Meggy’s no-nonsense tone, but my daughter remained unfazed. As I contemplated the ramifications of ripping her blankets off, Meggy shuffled into the room and peered at the tableau.

  “No hashbrowns?” she asked through a yawn.

  “Aiden’s missing. Olive left him somewhere.”

  “Shit,” she hissed, suddenly awake. “Olive, get up!”

  The girl groaned something at us—I assumed she was trying to make us leave her alone, though the pillow made every third word incomprehensible—but Meggy shook her until she raised her head. “Where did you leave Aiden?” she asked, bending to within inches of Olive’s face.

  Olive squinted against the light. “Told you, party,” she protested, then flopped back into position.

  “And where was the party?” Meggy demanded.

  “Leo’s,” was the muffled response.

  Meggy straightened and gave me a look that spoke of long suffering, then pointed down at the bed. “Can you do something about that?” she murmured.

  I nodded, then closed my eyes and concentrated, seeking the pertinent information in the jumble of Olive’s semi-conscious mind. A few seconds later, I caught flashes of the night before, then retreated before I could tempt fate and the bind. “The blue colonial on Piedmont,” I whispered, heading for the door. “Big place with the crape myrtles up the drive. I know the way, let’s go.”

  I slipped back into the master bedroom and was pulling on the previous day’s clothes by the time Meggy located her sweatpants. “How do you know—”

  “Wait until the Christmas lights come out, and you’ll know it, too.” I found my shoes and pushed my hair into a vague facsimile of order. “The reindeer on the roof are life-sized.”

  Her head popped out the top of a T-shirt. “One of those families, huh?”

  “Pretty sure their power bill doubles in December. Here,” I added, tossing Meggy her anorak. “Better let me drive.”

  She mulled this over briefly, then nodded. “Yeah, coffee wore off. Don’t wreck my car.”

  Ten minutes and several longing looks at coffee vendors later, we parked at the end of a crooked snake of cars stretching well past the party house on either side. A light scattering of red plastic cups in the wet grass hinted that we’d found our destination, and I looked around for signs of life as I took in the scene. The windows appeared to be intact, but a few pieces of clothing had somehow landed in the shrubbery—as had an empty keg, I noticed as I walked toward the front door, wincing at the broken bush beneath it. Whoever Leo was, he was going to have some explaining to do when his parents returned.

  The doorbell proved ineffective, and so I hammered on the door for two minutes before it opened to reveal a puffy-eyed young man who’d probably been feeling excellent a few hours before. “We’ll keep it down,” he mumbled, starting to close the door again, but I shoved my foot in the gap and pushed it open.

  “Looking for Aiden. Seen him lately?”

  The boy stared into space, trying to process those complex, unfamiliar words, and then nodded as his brain caught up with his body. “Upstairs. Hey, he’s not in trouble, is he?” he asked as I brushed past him into the foyer.

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” said my guide, trailing two steps behind me as we climbed. “You’re not going to call my mom, are you?” he asked in a rush, finally realizing the implications of admitting an adult into a house full of hung-over teenagers.

  “Is anyone dead?”

  He had to think for a minute. “No…”

  “Then it’s not my business. Where is he?”

  The boy—I supposed I was in the presence of Leo—stopped in the middle of the upstairs landing, which revealed a hallway with five closed doors. “Octobong!” he shouted, his morning rasp echoing off the high staircase. “Hey, Octobong! Your dad’s here!”

  “‘Octobong’?” I muttered, but before Leo could explain, the door to my left opened, and Aiden stumbled out into the hall, his hair a mess of blond fuzz and his sweater tied around his chest like a pageant sash. “Have fun?” I asked.

  He grinned and stretched. “Hey. Uh-huh.”

  “Some reason why you stayed out all night?”

  Aiden blinked slowly, studying my expression, then saw I wasn’t furious. “Olive left. I didn’t have Meggy’s number, so I thought, what the heck, plenty of floor here.” He and Leo exchanged a sloppy high-five, and I steered him toward the staircase.

  When the front door had closed behind us, I muttered, “Sorry, kid. I’ll give you a phone next time.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, yawning. “Guys’re awesome. Said I can come back next week.”

  “If you like.” I waited until he climbed into the back seat, then asked, “What the hell is an octobong?”

  Aiden smiled in the rearview mirror. “A plastic mixing bowl, some tubing, and a ton of duct tape.”

  Meggy turned around in her seat. “Simultaneous funneling?”

  “Bingo.” He yawned again and scratched his stomach. “It was a hit.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If you’re going to be a nerd, you might as well do something socially useful with it.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “One of the juniors, Micah, his parents are going out of town next weekend, and they’ve got a beachfront place. Should be good. Thought I’d whip up a robotic cooler before then. Put some sand tires on it, basic steering. Think I’ve got most of the important parts already—hey, anyone have a spare cooler?”

  “Not a problem,” I replied, giving in to Meggy’s pointed glances at the McDonald’s up the road. “So you actually know something about robotics, do you?”

  “I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands.” He opened his eyes again as we turned into the drive-through lane. “Ooh, hashbrowns.”

  Apparently, Olive considered her happiness and Aiden’s a zero-sum game. She moped about in her room while we began eating, ventured out only once the cloud of scented grease grew too intoxicating, and sullenly chewed in silence while Aiden described the night’s revels. Meggy asked if she’d had fun, to which Olive muttered that she would have had a great time, had someone not been trying to steal her friends. Aiden’s announcement that she was invited to the following Friday’s scheduled bout of underage intoxication was greeted with a snort, a reprimand that she didn’t hang around with losers, and a flounced exit to her room, complete with slammed door.

  “And that’s our cue,” I said, cleaning up the leavings. “Meggy, just say the word.”

  But she shook her head and set her mouth into a grim line. “We’ll get through this,” she said. “It may kill us both, but we’re going to get through this.”
>
  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  Anyone who spent time around my mother quickly realized she was an unapologetic magpie. Anything—or anyone—that caught her eye was fair game, and much of her collection (the inanimate bits, at least) ended up in a grand storage room her staff had dubbed “the library.” True, she had stolen her fair share of books, including a few the Arcanum would gladly have bought from me with first-born children, but her hoard was so much more than literary. As I began sorting through the mess, I found paintings, sculptures, jewels, maps, bits of colored glass, several centuries’ worth of fancy dress—female and male—and even some pieces of armor and battered swords, which she had left scattered around like booby traps for unwary rummagers.

  With the realm momentarily calm, Joey splitting his time between feeding Georgie and learning new types of pain, and Aiden holed up with a soldering iron, I had a chance to make progress on the library in peace. After hanging a canvas that looked suspiciously like a Van Gogh, I turned my efforts toward cleaning and cataloguing the massive book and manuscript collection. It couldn’t be avoided. By then, I’d dabbled in books, either production or retail, for the better part of seven hundred years, and some habits die hard. Besides, there’s something inherently soothing about a well-organized library.

  And Mother’s ran the gamut, from treatises on parchment (one partly in my hand, to my surprise) to a box of mass-market romance novels, all sporting a certain blond Italian on their covers. I was digging through a pile of paperbacks, pulling a few to offer Meggy for the discount rack, when a slim black box near the bottom caught my eye. Lifting the lid, I found a roll of vellum inside—the good stuff, white and hairless—and brought it to a cleared table for closer inspection.

  It wasn’t a monastic manuscript, as I’d first assumed. The hand was neat, but I puzzled over the script for a moment before I realized I was staring at written Fae, a rarity in a place run largely on institutional memory. The vellum struck me as odd, too, until I pinpointed what was bothering me about it: vellum, even the finest, often bears pores or veining on one side, marks of the animal from which it came. This vellum had no traces of follicles, but rather showed a strange pattern of lines…