Fae Touched

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  She kissed me again, then pointed. “They’re staring at the truck wondering where you are.”

  Arne and Magnus couldn’t see me in the cab because of Ellie’s enchantments. She stroked my arm. “Don’t take too long.”

  “I won’t.” I didn’t want to get out of the truck no matter how much I needed to talk to the elves. Honestly, I just wanted to go back to the cottage and stow my toiletries in my brand-new bathroom drawer.

  Perhaps fatigue was finally hitting, except I didn’t fatigue. Not physically. My semi-dead body liked its baseline homeostasis and it took a lot of effort to move my needle. Hence all the whiskey when I was with Benta. And my viability as a battery to power Dracula’s vampire swarm spells.

  Mentally, though, Samhain and its run-up had me wishing for wine, a good book, and an evening of Ellie cuddles.

  “Salvation,” I said, “time to talk to our King.”

  My axe wanted to know if the helpful-yet-untrustworthy fae magic was going to stay in the truck.

  “Yes, Sal.” How could an axe be so annoying?

  Well then, they should go talk to the elves, and I was the annoying one, not her.

  “Are you two arguing?” Ellie pulled out her camera and exposed a plate as I pulled Sal from her pocket. “I bet the magic flowing between you two has its own unique intricacy.”

  Sal wanted to know if there was another artifact in the truck. Another artifact was proof I was enthralled.

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go talk to the elves,” I said, and with my axe in hand, I stepped out of Bloodyhood to learn just how badly off post-Samhain Alfheim really was.

  Chapter 10

  Arne was pinching his brow as I walked up. Magnus, though, grinned like the party-loving Freyr elf that he was, and threw his arms wide. “Mr. Victorsson! Where were you hiding, young man?”

  Up close, parts of the design on Magnus’s jacket looked suspiciously like pointy elf ears, and others looked as if someone had pulled in hints of Yggdrasil.

  He smoothed his hands over his chest. “I got this beauty from an ocean spirit on the North Island.” Then he smoothed each arm. “It’s a new pattern, one the local magicals created to signify their dealings with us elves.” He nodded once. “Best New Zealand wool money can buy. I brought home several, Mr. Victorsson, if you’d like one.”

  Arne groaned.

  Magnus shot him a look. “You know damned well they come with a sizing spell.”

  “I take it your trip was a success?” I switched Sal to my other shoulder.

  Magnus laughed and slapped my upper arm. “Most definitely!” He leaned closer and winked. “Strengthened our ties to our Icelandic brothers and sisters, as well.”

  He must have literally charmed the pants off of Þórdís Ullrsdottir, the Icelandic elf who accompanied him to New Zealand in order to keep his more adoration-cult-starting behaviors under control.

  “We have other business, Magnus,” Arne said. He slapped the side of the barn as if to remind us that we were still standing out in the cold.

  Magnus pouted like a little kid. “But I brought Bjorn goats.” He pointed at the livestock transports as they passed by the tourist barns on their way toward the actual pastures father down the service road.

  I realized why the magic wafting off all those sheep transports had been so bright and bold, like Magnus’s sweater.

  “You brought the sheep from New Zealand?” I couldn’t disguise the incredulousness in my voice any more than I could keep it from showing on my face. “How many?”

  He shrugged. “A thousand? I lost count when they added the bees.”

  “Bees?” He brought home bees?

  Magnus sighed, very much the way Akeyla did when she thought I was being obtuse. “We’ll ship the insects in later. It’s winter here.”

  “How the hell did you get a thousand sheep through customs?” I blurted out.

  “Enough!” Arne slapped the wall again. “No more talk of your sheep, Magnus Freyrsson! I told you we have problems. Fae showed up.”

  Magnus’s demeanor abruptly shifted. His innate sheets of magic brightened and thickened as if they’d solidify around his body like ice.

  How long had Arne been here before we drove up? I’d obviously stepped into the middle of an ongoing argument.

  Magnus went from joyously talking up his trade exploits to a laser-focused warrior. “Oh, we have all sorts of fae problems, don’t we, Arne Odinsson?”

  Ellie was right. He was terrifying.

  Arne’s magic also brightened, and for a split second, I was sure he was about to whip a bolt of lightning at Magnus’s head. “Are you going to clean up all the sheep dung?”

  “I’m the one with the barns and stables, now aren’t I?”

  “What are you two doing?” I was caught between the All-Father and Uncle Freyr while they argued about the elven equivalent of snowblower sparkplugs and the coming season more than any of the real horrors pressing against Alfheim.

  And like a lot of such arguments, it wasn’t about any snowblower. Or sheep. Or stables and barns. It was about whose driveway needed clearing most, and first, and the family, and who was in charge.

  Magnus called up a ball of magic. It floated just above his hand, so thick it probably threw a shadow strong enough for a mundane to notice. It looked like a milky glass orb to me, one full of something so powerful the ball needed to hide it, even from my ability to see magic.

  Every single elder elf in Alfheim had the power and magic to run the enclave. Bjorn especially and Magnus particularly. Benta too, and the handful of other old elves; all had elevated magic and knowledge that could all bring the world to its knees.

  I knew this intellectually. They were the elves who had built the realm around The Great Hall. They protected the town. But only three times had I seen them armored-up and in battle. Never had I seen them fight amongst themselves.

  The throwdown in Las Vegas didn’t count. Even there, they restrained their power. But something let loose here.

  “Like Alfheim needs protection, King?” Magnus drawled.

  The loose something, the unlacing of the constraints the elves use in order to operate among mundanes, revealed a truth none of them had ever before allowed me to see.

  I’d long wondered if, when an elf was out of glamour, they were actually making their full nature visible. If out-of-glamour meant elf-in-Midgard and not elf-as-true-elf, and if this was the real reason some of them had a difficult time with glamouring. If powering what was essentially two glamours took more fine-grained control than many of them could manage.

  If they were all, on some level, walking around inside their own personal concealment enchantments.

  Magnus’s words, his drawl, hit Arne like Thor’s hammer. Something cracked.

  I suspected Arne hadn’t slept in the last thirty-six hours. He hadn’t rested after the run and he’d just come from the hospital after his wife—his Queen and his mate—suffered injuries so severe she was not going to be released for at least a few days. We had unknown fae lurking around. And his town and enclave were threatened not only by St. Martin’s “genie,” but also by some other threat he had not yet shared with me.

  The All-Father appeared. Only for a blink of the eye, but long enough to cause me to squint and for Sal to let out a small yip.

  The elf standing next to the door leading into his Second’s domain was still Arne Odinsson. Still the khaki-wearing semi-retired husband of Alfheim’s mayor. Still the big but balding glamour he wore when out and about. He was also King Odinsson, the elf with the notched ear and the lynx for a pet. He was all versions of the man who called me “son.”

  But he was also Magic. He was the personification of the sacrifice that had driven his god to hang from Yggdrasil in search of wisdom. He gave and he protected and he stood between the worst of the world and his children.

  And then, like the flash from the folding magic, it was gone.

  “Magnus…” he said.

  The other
elf stood perfectly still and spoke quietly but with great force. “You promised, Odinsson. You told us when we left our enclaves that this new land would bring us a new way. That we had nothing to fear.”

  Arne walked toward Magnus. “I still hold that promise, my brother.” He glanced at me as he moved by and gave my shoulder a quick squeeze.

  Ellie stared through the windshield as if the moment’s display had frightened her so much she wanted to hide.

  Arne gripped Magnus’s shoulders. “You don’t know what happened during the run.” He glanced back at me. “What was revealed to Dagrun.”

  He meant Ellie’s photos. The ones that showed conclusively that St. Martin’s magic was wolf magic.

  Magnus did not move. “I drove into Alfheim at the height of the moon last night. I smelled all the magicks on the blizzard winds,” he said. “You said the concealment enchantments would do their job.”

  Magnus knew about Ellie’s concealments? I opened my mouth but once again, nothing came out.

  Not from me.

  Sal burst out with how she thought I was enthralled by a so-called helpful fae magic that had also helped her in Vampland. We all needed to be careful.

  The two elves turned toward me. “What did you say, Salvation?” Arne said.

  The helpful fae magic was in my truck. She had an artifact. I kept telling Salvation that I was in a relationship with the magic but she was not convinced.

  “Is this true, Frank?” Arne asked.

  “I…” Nothing would come out.

  Sal had noticed my inability to speak the name of the tentatively helpful magic in the presence of elves. Which meant I had to be enthralled.

  Magnus stared at Arne again. “The enchantments are in place to protect us.” He said his words slowly and with more than a little threat in them.

  Ellie said she thought they knew about her.

  No no no, I thought. The elves had always been good about taking in strays. They took me in. But maybe a fae-born seer was too much fae. Or too much witch. And if they learned who her mother was…

  I stepped back from the two elves.

  They were talking about promises and dangers they’d never deemed worthy of sharing with me. Dangers they considered concealed. A danger behind concealment enchantments.

  Was this what Ed felt? Powerless in the face of forces over which he had no control? As sheriff, if anyone was supposed to have a handle on how to figure out and navigate forces, it was Ed. Until they came for his family.

  All this damned well better not come for Ellie.

  I had no idea at all if she was in harm’s way. No idea if Ed’s kids were truly in harm’s way, either. But the chance was there, and more real than the agitation and anxiety the chaos of this moment generated in my buzzing senses.

  Calm was not the way of magic. You could carve out calm moments, but soon enough nature would rail against you again in tooth and claw, blood and bone. The chance it had just come for Ellie was too much.

  I dropped Sal onto the cleared walk in front of the barn door. She clanked against the concrete, bounced twice, and landed on her side at Arne’s feet.

  Surprise ricocheted from her to Arne, and back, as if she’d figured out what she’d just done.

  “That fae magic helped you, Salvation,” I said.

  Friend… Sal pushed out as if she was running the numbers and picking pluses and minuses.

  Magnus blinked. His lips rounded, then he let out a loud burst of laughter. “Friend? Oh, you sweet axe, you.”

  Arne shot him a look that said pure Silence!

  Here I was in the middle of a magical storm centered around complicated magic the elves believed was not my business.

  My girlfriend was my business.

  I looked back at the truck and Ellie waiting in the passenger seat. All the seismic shifting that was happening here wasn’t just the argument between Arne and Magnus. It was also my priorities.

  The Elf King of Alfheim leaned closer to Magnus. “We will speak inside.”

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  Surprise danced across Arne’s face. It jumped to Magnus, who blinked.

  There was no leaving this behind, no matter how my priorities might change. But until then, I saw no real reason to put myself or Ellie in the path of the magic.

  But… rolled from Sal.

  I ignored her and turned toward the truck.

  The wind picked up and a resurgence of winter cold slapped me across the face. Or perhaps it was a different cold I felt. Either way, I’d had enough of it for the morning.

  Chapter 11

  Ellie stared through Bloodyhood’s windshield, wide-eyed and clutching her camera to her belly, as if she thought Arne and Magnus were going to nuke each other and spread a magical Armageddon across the entire of the state of Minnesota.

  “I got a picture of King Odinsson.” She looked at me, eyes still wide, and paler than she should be. “After Magnus… changed.” She looked back at me. “I’ve seen glamours shift like that before. In Tokyo with the kami. Fae, too. Spirits when I was in Australia. It’s like subtle body language. I think they can’t always keep their emotions from manifesting in their magic.” She inhaled. “Even elder elves like the King and his Second. I figured something might show on a photo. Something in the future that I can see. So I took a picture.”

  She couldn’t see Arne’s Odin aspect the way I did, but she clearly felt it. “He went All-Father,” I said.

  “Yeah.” She fiddled with the camera and carefully tucked it into the backpack. “Yeah, he did.” She looked up. “You left Sal with the elves?”

  I started the truck. “Yes.” I’d explain about Sal later. Ellie needed to know what Magnus said. “You were right. They know about you.” I put Bloodyhood into drive and rolled toward the road. “Or at least about your concealment enchantments.”

  “Yeah.” She ran her fingers over her camera without saying what we both knew was true: At least one Royal Fae Court had taken notice of Alfheim, and it was likely our fault. My fault, for being elf-adjacent and breaking through her concealment enchantments.

  This was worse than Brother and the vampires. Worse than that sniveling little Renfield of a worm St. Martin coming around to hurt Axlam and the town. This was as chaotic and terrifying as the night I woke on my father’s lab table: I had no clue what was happening, or why forces had descended to cause so much pain, or what to do to make it to stop.

  My father had not wanted me. He’d abandoned me to the storms, and I’d panicked.

  Not this time. I was no longer alone. Like Sal said, I had family to consider and a girlfriend the elves clearly did not see as a bonus to Alfheim.

  “I…” I inhaled. How to tell her about my fears without sounding overbearing? “I don’t think the elves are happy.”

  Ellie frowned.

  “Magnus is itching for a fight.” Was I? No. I’d had enough violence to last me my two-and-a-half mundane lifetimes. “Arne seemed more…” I wasn’t quite sure. Resigned, perhaps. Tired, for sure.

  “Weary of the battle to come,” Ellie said.

  A battle that made Ellie a target.

  I’m not some kid who’s fallen in love for the first time, I thought. I needed to stay calm but threat was wedging between my lungs and my ribcage. Keeping my muscles from tensing was taking considerable effort. And those damned lights were dancing around in the cabin now.

  Because it wasn’t a sense of threat I felt. Or even a panic I could name and thus control like the demon it was. No, this was a holistic threat as if the buzzing and squirming of my internal organs was itself a thing. A presence. A real, deeper-than-my-body, all the way to my soul connection.

  As if I felt all threats to Ellie in my bones because…

  The lights in my peripheral vision weren’t just my overwhelmed brain. They were magic.

  I didn’t look at her. I made sure she couldn’t see my lack-of-poker-face.

  The threat triggered something that was probably in the
process of triggering anyway. Because I was all-in. Because…

  Because the elves’ animosity to her concealment enchantments was a threat to my mate.

  Why was this happening? I wasn’t a werewolf. We hadn’t been together twenty-four hours yet. We were in the phase of newness where my corpse-cold mornings were still a novelty and Ellie hadn’t yet formed an informed opinion about just how much she could tolerate. What she’d accept. From me. From the elves and the town and her own family. From the cottage. From the entire magical world. And here I was dusting her with mate magic because I feel way too easily.

  And now elven—and fae—disapproval threatened my mate.

  My mate. I drove toward Alfheim with eyes on the icy road but the magic sparking around my hands was obvious.

  “You okay?” Ellie asked.

  I felt both the hell-yes okay and hell-no intolerable swirling in an ever-tightening whirlwind in my gut.

  She dug in the pack again. “I’m going to take a picture of you.” She pulled out her camera. “To make sure nothing happened while you were with the elves.”

  “No,” I said. Don’t frighten Ellie, I thought.

  She stopped with her hand over the zipper. “Why?”

  I needed an excuse. “How many plates did you bring?”

  She sat back. “I have two more in my portfolio and six more at home.” She stared at my hands. “The cottage will make more tonight.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” Fill out that excuse. “Maybe I drained its reserves with the sunroom.”

  Her lips pulled into a tight line. “I can make more myself. I have a box of blanks in the library and the chemicals I need in the darkroom.”

  Excuses, excuses. “How long does it take you to make and polish a plate?”

  She sighed and looked away. “Fine,” she said.

  She’d figure it out sooner or later. Hopefully after a nice calm meal and a nice calm evening discussing deep life-melding issues like whose mugs go in which cabinet.

  I’m too old for this, I thought. Too old to be this frazzled and too old to be this overwhelmed. I’d been in relationships before. None of this was new to me.