by Anthea Sharp
Marny made a face and leaned away, but at least she stayed on the couch. Ignoring their little interplay, Roy went to the wall and slid aside a panel. He returned carrying a tray with three gold-rimmed china mugs on it.
“Don’t you have staff?” Jennet asked.
She had finally figured out what made the Lassiter’s so eerie. It seemed empty of life. Even this plush room had an air of disused silence.
“Yeah,” Roy said, “but not, you know, in-your-face maids. Though I guess some people like that kind of overdone service.” There was a mocking twist to his words.
“At least I talk to more than just my house when I’m at home,” she said.
There was Marie, and George, and the chef, and a couple of maids named Tish and Trixie. Whom, she had to admit, she mixed up about half the time. Of course, they had only been hired a few months ago, whereas the house manager and chauffeur had been on staff for years.
“You Viewers are like aliens,” Marny said. “There’s an extreme unreality effect up here. Maybe it’s in the air or something.”
“Or the water.” Roy gave her a sly look. “How do you like your mocha?”
Marny rolled her eyes and took a big sip. Then she smiled - the first genuine smile Jennet had seen on her face since she’d gone off with Roy at lunch.
“That’s seriously delicious,” Marny said, “but don’t expect me to believe there’s any water in it.”
“Probably not.” Roy lifted his own mug and downed his drink in four long swallows. “Finish up, and we can get to some gaming.”
Jennet wrapped her hands around her mocha, letting it warm her fingers. The beverage was delicious, but she was wary of it all the same. She took a small sip, then set her mug aside.
“Mind if I bring this with me?” Marny asked. “It’s too good to waste.” She cast a scornful look at Jennet.
“I thought you didn’t sim,” Jennet said. She’d seen Marny play other games though, and the girl was good.
“I don’t.”
“Yet,” Roy grinned at Marny. “I have this amazing game you have to see. You’ll love it. I’ll show you everything you need to know.”
Obviously Roy wanted to get Marny into Feyland. Jennet let out quiet breath, glad that she’d trusted her instincts and forced herself to come along. The thought of the other girl in Feyland, at Roy’s mercy, made her shudder.
An odd expression crossed Marny’s face - half pleasure, half fear. It was like her essential nature was trying to fight Roy’s glamour. She was strong-willed, but that wouldn’t be enough to save her.
“Jennet, you want to play Feyland again, right?” Roy rose and smiled his toothy grin at her.
“It was interesting,” she said, “but can’t we play something else this time?”
His smile dimmed. “If you don’t want to go into Feyland, you can always go home.”
“Oh, I’ll come.” She swallowed. “I just thought, maybe a change…”
Marny let out an impatient huff. “Are you two done? Let’s go.”
Roy held out his arm to her, in a move that looked more calculated than courtly. “My lady,” he said, “the theater awaits.”
Marny let him escort her down the hall, carrying her mug in her free hand. Jennet trailed after them. Short of breaking the sim equipment, she couldn’t stop this proposed jaunt into Feyland - which meant she needed to think strategy.
Should she make a Knight? What kind of character would Marny create to go in-game? Would Roy try anything tricky, or was Jennet’s presence enough to keep him in line?
When they stepped into the theater, Marny halted. She glanced from side to side, her eyebrows raised.
“This is… big,” she said. “You Viewers sure like your expensive toys.”
“A lot of it is VirtuMax prototypes,” Roy said. “You know - nothing you’d actually be able to buy.”
“Right.” Marny sipped her mocha again. “Nothing but hand-me downs. So sad. Well, why don’t you show me your pathetic sim-systems.”
Jennet stifled a laugh. Either Roy’s glamour was starting to slip, or nothing could keep the real Marny down.
Roy frowned and strode over to the partitioned-off area. He waved his hand, and the frosted glass panels slid open. The three Full-D systems shone in the soft illumination. Beside her, Jennet heard Marny draw in a breath.
“The throne room, huh?” Marny said. Somehow she didn’t sound quite so sarcastic.
“Come on in,” Roy said. “We’ll get you geared up.”
“Actually…” She took a step back. “Just looking is fine by me. I’m more of a screenie, myself. You know - playing without being enclosed in all that equipment.”
She gave a little shudder, and suspicion bloomed through Jennet. Was Marny claustrophobic? That would explain her distaste for simming.
Roy set his hand on Marny’s arm. “It’s perfectly safe. You’ll have fun, I promise. Nothing to worry about.”
There was a crooning, hypnotic edge to his voice. Even Jennet took a step toward the Full-D systems, and she wasn’t the focus of Roy’s charm. She shook herself and made her voice sharp.
“Hey, Marny doesn’t feel like simming. Don’t make her.”
“It’s ok,” the other girl said. “I guess I do want to.”
Jennet put her hand on Marny’s shoulder. “Really. You don’t have to sim. There are lots of other games here.”
Without a word, Marny shrugged off her touch and moved toward the sim-systems. Roy gave her a triumphant smile.
“Sit here,” he said, patting the Full-D on the right. “I’ll help you gear up.”
Marny nodded, and Jennet wanted to scream.
“Marny.” She leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “Remember what happened to Tam? Going into Feyland isn’t a good idea. Let’s go play a screen game.”
“I want to play Feyland,” Marny said, though the words had almost no inflection.
“I know you do,” Roy said.
He helped Marny settle into the sim chair and pull on the gloves. Jennet caught a glimpse of her face - pale and set - before he lowered the helmet onto her head.
“Stop it,” Jennet said. “She doesn’t want to do this.”
“You’re getting annoying, Jen.” He looked at her, and something in his eyes flared. “If you don’t want to game with us, go do something else. Like you said, there are plenty of other options.”
“Fine. I’ll play.”
There was no winning this one. She snatched up the gloves for the Full-D system in the middle. She couldn’t let Marny go into Feyland alone with Roy.
“What do I do now?” Marny asked, a slight tremble in her voice.
“Choose the F icon, then make a character,” Roy said. “You’d be a good healer-type. Just stand in the back and let me handle the fights, then fix me up afterward.”
Marny made a noise in the back of her throat. It didn’t sound like agreement. Maybe a healing priest wasn’t going to be showing up in the faerie ring, after all. Maybe Marny could still fight the glamour, in her own way.
At least, Jennet hoped so.
CHAPTER NINETEEN - THE BRIGHT COURT
The Bug came running up to Tam, where he stood waiting in the school yard after last bell. His brother’s eyes were bright under the shapeless knit hat he insisted on wearing every day. At least the thing was colorful - a garish mismatch of rainbow stripes.
“Tam! What’re we doing?”
“Give me your backpack. I’m taking you to the park.”
“Prime! Can we get ice cream?”
“Yeah.” Good thing he’d brought some money. He smiled and slung his brother’s pack up on one shoulder. “Though why you’d want ice cream on a day like today…”
“’Cause if we have something cold, then it will snow,” the Bug said, with the perfect logic of an eight-year-old.
The Bug tilted his face up to the sky, giving the dirty, low-hanging clouds careful consideration. His hat started slipping, and he clutched it to the
back of his head.
“Maybe,” Tam said. “But if it snows, our quest will be harder.”
“Quest?” His brother gave him a wary look. “Do we have to go camp out in the Exe again?”
“No.” Hopefully, never again. “We’re on a special mission to find a magical plant.”
“A magic plant? Will Puck help us?”
Tam’s breath hissed out between his teeth. “Uh, you haven’t mentioned Puck to anyone else, have you?”
The last thing they needed was his brother in psych eval for believing in faeries. Even if they were real. He’d given up trying to talk the Bug into thinking his glimpse of Puck had just been a dream.
“Course not,” the Bug said. “Who’d believe me?”
The kid was pretty insightful. Or cynical. For a fleeting moment, Tam wished his brother didn’t have to grow up this way.
A flash of muddy orange caught his eye - the drab color Crestview had chosen for its public transportation. Probably the paint had been on sale.
“There’s the downtown bus,” he said. “Race you!”
The Bug took off, laughing, and they made it to the stop right on time. During the long ride down to the park, Tam listened to his brother prattle on about school with half his attention. The other half picked at the tangles in his life - Jennet, faerie ointment, Lassiter, Marny’s infatuation. The possibility that Mom wasn’t fixed, after all.
The one good thing was that he was feeling better, at least physically. The lingering effects of being in a coma seemed pretty much gone. Had going back in-game helped with that? It made sense, in a weird, backwards kind of way.
“Can I pull it, Tam?” his brother asked.
Tam looked up, to see the silhouette of bare branches outside. They were at the park.
“Sure,” he said, and the Bug knelt up on the seat and yanked the wire, signaling their stop.
As soon as they were out on the mostly-brown grass, his little brother started dancing around. Damn, the kid had too much energy.
“What does it look like, the magic plant?” the Bug asked. “Is it bright purple? Will it shock me when I touch it? Where is it?”
“Over this way - but its magic is a secret. You have to look closely in order to see it.”
“Oh.” The Bug frowned. “I thought it would be, like, magical. Floating in the air or all lit up.”
Time for a bribe. “We’ll look for a little while, then get an ice cream, ok?”
His brother brightened right up, and didn’t even complain when they got to the scrubby clover patch and started searching.
“Is this it?” the Bug asked after a minute. He held up a limp clover in one grubby hand.
Tam leaned closer, his heart rushing with quick hope. Could it be that easy? The anticipation died as he inspected his brother’s find.
“No - that one has three leaves.”
“It does not! There’s four, right there.”
“Peter. Tearing one of the leaves in half does not make it a four-leaf clover. Keep looking.”
“This is boring.” His brother folded his arms and plopped himself down, right in the middle of the patch.
“Hey, you’re squishing them. Get off.”
“I want my treat.”
“We’re going to try one more place, ok? And then you can have ice cream - as soon as we find one.”
The Bug gave him a transparently calculating look. “If I find one, can I get two ice creams?”
“Maybe - but it has to be a real four-leaf clover. No faking.”
“Ok! Let’s go now.” His brother stood up and took off across the flat, brown grass.
“Hey,” Tam called, “go over by the fountain.”
The Bug veered in that direction, and Tam broke into a jog to keep up. Hopefully the kid would tire out enough to settle down and be helpful.
When they got to the fountain, his brother made a disappointed noise. “They turned the water off. Why’d they do that?”
“Probably because it’s getting too cold. Fountains don’t like the winter.”
Tam squinted up at the sky. The clouds were thicker, and there was a definite bite in the air. The sun was a pale disc somewhere behind all that smudge. He pulled the Bug’s hat down over his ears, then led his brother to the leafless trees.
Last summer he’d come here, when Mom was around to look after the Bug. He’d lie in the shade and work out game strategies, or read on his battered tablet - chewing clover stems for the bite and sweetness. The patch was smaller, and shriveled, but this was the last, best option.
Without prompting, his brother squatted and began running his fingers over the cold plants. Tam hunkered down beside him. He was going to be dreaming of small green leaves all night, he just knew it. In silence, the two of them worked over about half of the patch. Tam bottled his mounting anxiety. There was a four-leaf clover here, somewhere. There had to be.
“Look!” the Bug cried, pointing to a spot in front of him.
“Did you find one?” Tam’s breath caught, and he crawled over.
“No, it’s snowing! Really it is - the ice cream plan worked!”
Tam followed his brother’s finger, to see a white speck on top of a clover. A clover that… no way. Holding his breath, he leaned over and counted the leaves. One, two, three. Four. Yes!
Keeping his eyes fixed on it, he carefully snapped the stem - then held the clover up and counted again, just to make sure.
“Hey, you ruined my snowflake,” the Bug said.
Tam laughed. Trust his little brother to see the first tiny snowflake, but totally miss that it landed on the four-leaf clover they’d been searching for.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I saw it. Double ice cream will be yours.”
The Bug spread his arms out and whirled around, full of snowy ice cream joy. Bits of white flecked his colorful hat. Still smiling, Tam pulled a crumpled plastic bag out of his pocket and carefully tucked the clover inside.
Quest complete.
The dizzying, golden light of Feyland enfolded Jennet. As soon as it cleared, she glanced around. Red-speckled mushrooms - check. She drew in a breath of relief. Around her towered the dark pines she remembered from reaching the second level of the game, last time she played with Roy.
His character appeared beside her, and she blinked, shocked once again at how good-looking he was in-game.
“Hey, foxy lady,” he said, then laughed. “Get it? Your character is - ”
“Yeah. I get it.” She had half a mind to put an arrow through him. “Marny, can you hear us?”
“Of course I can.” Her voice came clearly through the helmet speakers, even though she wasn’t in-game yet.
“Need me to explain the interface again?” Roy asked. “What you want to do is select Healer from the list of various classes, and then - ”
“I got it.” Marny sounded annoyed.
Maybe playing Feyland with Roy was a good idea, after all. Would his hold over Marny be less strong inside Feyland? Jennet would have to watch and see.
“So, we’re not in the starting area again?” she asked. “I thought that with a brand-new character, we’d need to go in from the beginning.”
“I’ve played Feyland long enough to know some shortcuts.” Roy winked at her. “Don’t worry - there’s nothing in here I can’t handle.”
There might not be any monsters the size of his ego, that was for sure. But she bet the game had some nasty surprises waiting for them.
“What’s the hold-up, Marns?” he called. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah - just a second.”
Roy hopped out of the faerie ring, then drew his two-handed sword and went through some moves - sidestepping imaginary opponents and cutting wide swaths through the air. Probably trying to look good for Marny, as soon as her character materialized. Jennet rolled her eyes. It wasn’t like their avatars needed to warm up before battle.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to look over her own gear.
She wa
s checking her arrows when Marny’s avatar appeared in the ring. She was clad all in black, with a headband cinching back her dark hair. She had a set of long, slim blades, one on each hip, and there was a dagger sheathed in her boot. A wicked-looking morning star mace hung from her belt, and she probably had hidden knives strapped to her arms. She looked big - and deadly.
Jennet smiled. Oh yeah - so much for Roy’s ‘you should be a healer’ suggestions.
“What are you?” Marny asked, looking her over. “One of those fox things?”
“Kitsune,” Jennet said. Maybe she’d try turning into a fox for real, this time, depending on what the game threw at them.
“Whoa.” Roy sheathed his sword, then gave Marny a disbelieving look. “Why didn’t you roll a healer? You are a noob, aren’t you? Assassin classes are one of the hardest - ”
“Shut it, Roy,” Marny said. Then she vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY - THE BRIGHT COURT
“Hey!” Roy jumped back into the mushroom-bounded ring. “Come on, Marny, show yourself. This isn’t the time to be messing around. Marns?”
Jennet took a couple steps away, giving the other girl room. Maybe it was her fox-senses, but she had a vague impression of where Marny was, despite her invisibility. Oh, this was seriously good. Roy was about to be taken down a peg - and she didn’t know anyone who deserved it more.
“Looking for me?” Marny asked, suddenly visible again.
She had ghosted around behind Roy, and had one of her blades across his throat.
“Alright, alright. Careful with that!” Roy sounded a little panicked, and she couldn’t blame him.
Marny didn’t know that in-game injuries carried over to the real world. A slice from her dagger could have serious consequences.
“Never underestimate a rogue,” Marny said. She stepped back and sheathed her blade.
Roy swallowed. “Ok, point taken. Just - watch your step in here. This is a complicated game.”
Ha. Marny was a rogue in every sense. It was clear she made her own rules. Who knew what she’d do to disrupt the world of Feyland? Or what it would do to her, in return? Jennet was glad to be along, whatever happened.
