“You sent him into the Gray Lands after us.”
“He wouldn’t have done it of his own choosing,” she replied, swinging her legs against the stone wall. “By the way, if you were wondering, your siblings have been in custody since their return. The cells Titania designed have held up remarkably well.”
I nodded and stepped away from her to strip off my shirt, then cringed as I caught another whiff of myself. “I suppose you’ll give me hell if I throw them into an oubliette, hmm?”
“No.”
I turned around, surprised, and she arched an eyebrow. “I have little pity for traitors,” she said, “and they conspired to jeopardize the realm. Do with them what you will—you’ll hear no complaint from me.”
Deciding it would be rude to bathe while the soul of the realm was waiting in my bedroom, I simply willed myself clean and clothed. “If you’re not partial to traitors,” I muttered, sending my castoff clothing back into the ether, “you must have been overjoyed when I came back.”
“Overjoyed?” she echoed. “No, not exactly, but I understood. Titania and I didn’t always agree. I…” She hesitated, considering her words. “I knew what she did with your daughter, so no, I don’t consider you a traitor for coming after her. And you did kill Mab,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “which, as far as I’m concerned, counts in your favor.”
“But you’re not going to forgive Toula, are you?”
“Why do you insist so?” she replied, sounding annoyed. “You know what her mother did, the girl is pure Arcanum—”
“And she’s risked her ass to help me twice. She’s not the enemy.”
Faerie’s lips pursed in thought. “I’ll consider that.”
“Thank you. And Aiden?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t seen him on my return. “Is he—”
“He woke four days ago,” she said, motioning for calm. “Sore and weakened but whole. His sister remains within the realm,” she continued, and I detected a note of accusation in her tone.
“Helen also put her neck out on my accord,” I replied. “If she wants to watch Aiden convalesce, I’m not going to expel her.”
At that, she smirked and slid off the window. “I believe Helen is satisfied as to her brother’s medical progress. Something intrigues her in the barn.”
I could only imagine what Faerie had witnessed, but something told me Helen wasn’t collecting dragonscale for Slim. “Is that so?”
“They are trying to pretend there’s no attraction between them. It’s all rather amusing, really. Children,” she sighed, and began to fade.
“Wait!” Faerie solidified and cocked her head, and I said, “You don’t have a problem with Joey, correct? You’re not going to nag me if he should, say, start coming and going between here and the Arcanum’s hideout?”
“Of course not,” she replied with a little smile. “I welcome my own.”
“What does that—” I began, but she vanished before I could finish, leaving me with unanswered questions and a ravenous appetite. I sighed, seeing Meggy’s face once more behind my eyes, then waved my door back into existence and stepped out to face my court.
At Toula’s insistence, they had buried Meggy without me. Rather than keep the mangled corpse around and hope her spellcraft was up to halting decomposition, she selected an out-of-the way spot among my oaks, created a coffin, and asked Paul to say a few words. Meggy may have been a severely lapsed Catholic, but Paul didn’t mind reading the proper prayers. While picking him up, Toula had also retrieved Mrs. Cooper, Stuart, and Slim from the Stowe compound, leaving poor Hal to face alone the prospect of surviving a holiday with his girlfriend’s family.
I spent the afternoon in solitude at Meggy’s grave, which Toula had marked with a white rosebush. Despite a few false starts, however, I couldn’t find the right words for her. Apologies, declarations of love—she’d heard all of that before. I couldn’t promise her that I’d bring Moyna home safely, not when Meggy’s last action had been to save her from me. And so, as the shadows lengthened, I crouched beside the disturbed earth and whispered, “Rest well. I’m sorry I failed you, Meg. Maybe it wasn’t what you needed,” I said, resting my hand on the soil, “but for good or ill, I loved you.”
With that, I rose and made my way home, knowing that it was futile to ask her forgiveness.
There had been no one in the court to make decisions on my behalf during my absence. Even if my people would have listened to Oberon, he had returned to Florida almost immediately after loosing Mab’s refugees on the mortal realm, explaining that my grief wasn’t his problem. But while matters began to pile up on my desk, Val, who had sense, experience, and confidence that I would show myself again someday, took the liberty of incarcerating my wayward siblings as a security measure. They had complained bitterly about the mistreatment, he informed me, as had certain of their friends—he presented me with a list for later perusal—but he maintained that as long as he was overseeing my security, he had the right to act until I told him otherwise. I thanked him profusely, apologized for my behavior concerning Meggy’s corpse, and gave him my instructions.
Late that evening, Syral, Huc, Ji, and Nanine were moved into a single, highly-warded cell. I told them what Mother had told me when I was in their position: the bonds on the room would allow them enough power to feed themselves and make themselves somewhat comfortable, but there was no escape. As they had been Mother’s favorites, they knew well that I spoke the truth, and they tried to reason with me in the moment before I locked them in and walked away.
When the door was sealed and I could no longer hear their pleas for mercy, I left them to their own devices, confident that they would soon understand the unique hell that is forced companionship.
To my relief, Aiden made a full recovery. To my surprise, however, he made it clear that he wasn’t leaving Faerie.
“I mean,” he muttered at his oatmeal as he backtracked, “unless you want me to go…I want to stay here, but if things are too, uh…tough right now…”
Before he could finish the thought, I rose, came around the table, and embraced him.
“I’m really sorry,” he mumbled into my shirt as I crushed his ribs. “I should have cut the power, I didn’t think—”
“You did only what I asked of you,” I interrupted, pulling back to look him in the eye. “The fault is mine. Anyway, I understand you were barely conscious at the end.”
Aiden shrugged under my hands. “That’s what they tell me. I remember waking up in bed, and Hel was poking me in the shoulder until I hit her.”
“Siblings,” I said with a straight face.
“Tell me about it,” he smirked. “One of them gives me the biggest migraine of my life, and the other’s getting cozy with my friend. What am I supposed to do with you guys, huh?”
“I think I gave you more than a migraine,” I said, returning to my breakfast. “And…Helen and Joey?”
“Yeah.” He grunted and picked up his spoon. “They’re basically dating.”
“Dating? There’s nowhere to date around here.”
“Well, she spends all day with him and sleeps out at the barn. What would you call that?”
“Hmm…dating, perhaps,” I replied, watching him eat with determination. “Still opposed, are we?”
He paused, laden spoon half-raised, and frowned at the table. “I guess I’m not opposed to it,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “but it’s…weird.”
“If it’s any consolation,” I said, playing with my eggs, “I doubt it lasts long.” Aiden’s brow furrowed, and I explained, “She’s going to be the grand magus, yes? How’s she supposed to date a guy who’s living with his platonic, draconic life partner in Faerie?”
“Hel can make her own gates,” Aiden pointed out.
“This isn’t about gates—this is about politics. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but wouldn’t it be rather scandalous if the Arcanum’s top wizard were caught sneaking around with the guy who lives in my backya
rd? Won’t last more than another month.”
Aiden mulled that over for a couple of bites, then put his spoon down again and cocked an eyebrow. “Want to bet on it? Five bucks says they make it to summer.”
“Oh, a high roller!”
“Says the jerk who pulls money out of thin air. You in?”
We shook on it across the table, and Aiden sighed. “You know what this means, right? Now I’ve got to root for my sister to hook up with Joey.”
“Or we could just not discuss this again until they call it off,” I replied.
“Yeah,” he said with a little grin, “that works, too.”
The backlog of work I’d amassed tethered me to the realm for the next few days. As I sat through the usual complaints, a litany of grievances between neighbors and associates, I fought the urge to throttle the petitioners for wasting my time with trivialities. These were, by any definition, adults who appeared before me, yet they whined about minor trespasses—encroachments into shared spaces, missing invitations to parties, verbal slights—that somehow amounted to grave injustices in want of retribution. I did the best I could to sort through the claims and counter-claims, but in truth, I felt like I was dealing with a pack of oversized five-year-olds fighting over the same toys and crying to the nearest authority when someone pulled their hair.
But they were my five-year-olds, and if I didn’t arbitrate, they were liable to fight each other to the death over name-calling. One aggrieved faerie is dangerous; two are a war waiting to begin. And so I dispensed justice, or at least a facsimile thereof, and slowly cleared the mess I’d acquired through my absence.
My siblings’ supporters, who had been so vocal following our return, were noticeably absent from court. I kept Val’s list close at hand and consulted it to make certain that I wasn’t overlooking anyone, but word had spread of my dealings with my kin, and the rest of the realm suddenly decided to either disavow them or lay low. I asked my guards to keep an ear to the ground and inform me if something began to stir, but I couldn’t say I was sorry to not have a pack of protesters crowding the throne room.
As the days dragged on, Val brought me periodic updates on the matters I actually cared about. Toula had returned to the Arcanum silo before I woke and explained to Greg what had transpired. He had posted a watch for signs of Moyna, but as yet, the nets had come up empty. Greg offered me the use of another compass—and there are other methods, his handwritten note informed me, if you want to find her—but I declined. I felt strongly that she was hiding in the mortal realm, and she couldn’t stay in the shadows forever. More importantly, I didn’t know what I would do if I found her, and I didn’t trust myself not to kill her on sight.
Still, I would have asked Toula for more information on what tricks Greg had up his sleeve, had she been willing to speak with me. She was mourning in private, Val told me, and had made it clear that she wished no one’s company but her own. Having no desire to wound Toula any more than I already had—and hearing the insistence in her brother’s tone that I respect her wishes—I kept my distance and waited for her to drop in.
Helen had returned to school after her extended Thanksgiving break, but as the realm kept notifying me, she continued to make brief forays back across the border. Aiden had taken to babysitting Georgie whenever Joey mysteriously went missing—absences that, to no one’s surprise, tended to coincide with Helen’s goings and comings.
In early December, Vivi called from Alaska to check in. She had alerted the Fringe after Toula’s visit, but they, like the Arcanum, could provide no clue to my daughter’s whereabouts. “And this isn’t a favor,” she insisted while describing the spotters involved. “We’ve decided that this is self-preservation. No offense, but nobody wants her wandering around unsupervised over here, you got me?” Despite the lack of news of Moyna, I was pleased to hear that Hal had survived the visit, and Rufus had brought them back to Virginia in time for Rigby’s last game of the season—which, as predicted, ended in another L. I enquired as to how the coach’s unplanned absence had been explained, and Vivi snorted. “Half the buildings in town have FEMA tarps on the roofs, people have fled because they’re worried about chemical fallout—hell, they had to hold the game in Richmond because the other team wouldn’t come in,” she replied. “Since he turned up alive, no one really cares where Hal was last week.” Slim’s, she noted, was doing good business with the returning refugee crowd, as the tiki bar on the beach was among the town’s casualties.
But that still left the matter of my old shop to consider, and so, after several weeks’ absence, I pulled myself away from work to see what remained of my life in Rigby.
We are, every one of us, the narrators and heroes of our own lives. As I stood at the base of my old building’s outside staircase, however, shivering in the cold, damp wind rolling in from the Atlantic, I knew with complete conviction that I was not a hero—I was a monster. There is no redemption for monsters, no happy endings; no one roots for the monster to kill the hero and lay waste to the world. Monsters exist to be feared, to be fought, to be vanquished.
I had been the monster lurking on the edges of Meggy’s life, and I had beaten her in the end without ever truly understanding that I was destroying her.
I didn’t want to go back into that building. It might have been my building first, but it had been Meggy’s in the end, and so much of her lingered in there to accuse me. Still, I knew I had to do something with the pieces left behind, and so I plodded up the stairs toward Meggy’s last apartment, weaving a careful path around her dead ferns. I could only imagine what I’d find in there. Rotting trash and long-soured milk came to mind, but as I had yet to investigate how much damage the mantis creatures had done to the structure, I tried to prepare for stagnant puddles and nesting vermin as well.
The kitchen door was unlocked, as Toula and I had left it, but to my surprise, the first thing I smelled when I opened it was lemon furniture polish.
Perplexed and on alert, I shut the door behind me and took in the spotless kitchen—the chrome spigot polished to a shine, the counters clear of dishes and dust, the trash bin empty and tucked into its corner. I slid into the dining nook and found more of the same, professional-quality tidiness overlaid with the odors of citrus and ammonia. Even the rug bore the telltale stripes of a vacuum cleaner.
Before I investigated further, I picked up on the sound of running water coming from the master bathroom and held my position. “Hello?” I called, keeping one hand behind the kitchen wall and willing a fireball into being in case my janitorial-minded burglars came armed.
A second later, the water shut off, and a familiar voice called back down the hallway, “Mr. Leffee, dear? Is that you?”
I exhaled and extinguished my ammunition. “Mrs. Cooper? What are you doing here?”
She bustled out of the bathroom, her hair covered with a pink polka-dot scarf and her arms protected to the elbow with yellow gloves. “I do hope I’m not intruding,” she said, adjusting her stretch pants, “but it didn’t seem right to leave this place a mess.”
Without warning, my eyes began to prick. “You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to. Thought it was the right thing to do. She was always kind to me,” she said, tucking a stray lock of hair back under her scarf. “And…you know, there wasn’t really a public funeral. I’d have brought a casserole or something, but…well.” She paused, momentarily uncertain, then looked back at me. “You’re a mess, dear.”
I nodded.
“Sit down,” she ordered, pointing to the table as she marched down the hallway. “I’ll put the tea on.”
“Oh, you don’t—”
“Sit, Colin. You look like hell.”
She was right, and so I pulled out a chair and watched her peel off her cleaning gloves and dig through Meggy’s pantry for supplies. A few minutes later, she had come up with a half-empty box of Lipton and an assortment of sweetener packets stolen from local restaurants, and she set a chipped mug in front of each of us
as she took a seat. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she said, stirring pilfered sugar into her drink. “How’re you holding up?”
I shook my head and wrapped my hands around my mug. “You know how it happened?”
“Toula filled us in when she picked us up.”
“And I’m sorry about that, too,” I mumbled.
“About what? Alaska? The Stowes were lovely, really. Couldn’t have been nicer once Vivian and Mr. Matherson explained everything.” She blew the steam off her cup and sipped. “And little Vivian’s brother, Rufus—did you meet him? Such a sweetheart. Poor dear tried to show Stuart a thing or two, but I don’t think it stuck. Rufus is a professor, you know,” she added, smiling distantly. “American history. He’s written books and everything. Such a nice fellow.”
I stared at her, momentarily drawn from my funk by the odd expression on her face. “Mrs. Cooper,” I said slowly, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were sweet on him.”
She scoffed and waved the notion aside, but her cheeks flushed. “Nonsense, and even if it weren’t, he’s on the wrong side of the country.” Her color flared and began to fade as she turned her attention to her tea. “There’s only ever been one man for me,” she continued, gazing into the mug. “Mr. Cooper was one in a million, and I don’t plan on trying to replace him.”
I smirked back at her over my drink. “Nothing wrong with admiring the scenery, though.”
“Discreetly,” she muttered. “But enough about that—I want to be sure you’re okay. You hadn’t been back, and I…well, I worry,” she said, patting my hand. “Because while I know full well that you can take care of yourself, that’s an awful lot to have on your mind.”
Her eyes were as soft as ever behind her glasses, but they fixed on mine with an unusual intensity. “I’m not going to kill myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I replied, and her face relaxed a degree. “Too much work waiting for me.”
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