“Was she one of the ones you worked with?”
It would explain so much about why my parents had been the way they were—how they had known the things they had known.
Again, there was that confused, not-quite-believing look. “No, Pet,” he said. “She was my nurse.”
“But—” I started, stopped, and the memory I had stolen from Athelas barely a week ago played again in my mind, unprompted.
“She said Father,” I said, with a bit of a buzz in my ears. “The nurse in Athelas’ memories called your dad father. My great grandma. Your nurse.”
“She was my sister,” he said coolly. “I thought you knew! I thought you were keeping it quiet because you didn’t want Athelas or JinYeong to know.”
“Why would I do that? How the heck was I supposed to know who she was to you?”
“You had the picture!”
“Yeah, because she was my great grandmother!”
“You really didn’t see what was on the USB, did you?”
“I’d be pretty flamin’ insulted if you weren’t suggesting that I was clever enough to out-bluff you,” I said. “Considering you think I’ve been fibbing to you this entire time. Why’d you keep calling her your nurse, anyway?”
“She was my nurse.”
“All right, all right, Mr. Precise! She was also your sister.”
“I wasn’t allowed to call her sister: I was only allowed to call her nurse. I don’t think I was even supposed to know who she was, but that sort of thing gets out. My mother was already pregnant when my father stole her away from the human world; she gave birth a few years before she became pregnant with me. My sister looked after me until we lost her somewhere between 1920 and 1930; she escaped to the human world. When my father found her and brought her back in the early thirties she looked…much older. Ath—someone told me that age catches up quickly with humans who spend too long Behind, once they get back to the human world.”
“She was the one he wouldn’t kill,” I said, looking away. Why hadn’t Athelas killed her? Had—hang on. Athelas. Athelas had killed Zero’s brother and refused to kill his nurse—my great grandmother—when Zero was ten?
I tumbled into protest. “Wait; no, no, no. You said—ages ago you said you were ten when your step-brother was killed. How were you ten in the 1930s? You were born somewhere near the turn of the century, you said—heck, I’m going mad. You can’t have been ten!”
“By fae accounting, I was,” he said coolly. “Until we’re of age, we account roughly one fae year to every human four—both physically and mentally.”
I stared at him for far too long, caught between laughter and bewilderment. “You lot age in dog years?”
Well, the opposite of dog years—but that would make humans the dogs, and I didn’t want to put that idea in his head when fae were already too inclined to think of humans as slightly more clever animals.
“By the time we’re of age, our development has sped up,” Zero said, very stiffly. “Our years then become closer to human years. I gave the best age you would understand to make you understand why I…why I acted and reacted as I did.”
“You didn’t want me to think of you as being immature, so you faked your age?”
“I did not fake my age; it was as near a comparison as I could make!”
“You faked your age ’cos you didn’t want me to think you’d acted like a kid when you were actually thirty-odd in human years,” I said firmly. “When do you age out, anyway?”
“It’s coming of age, and it happens after we pass beyond our first ten years. Any magic or special gift comes out at that time.”
“Pretty sure that’s just becoming a teenager, but whatever. So you age properly after that?”
“Our mental processes develop much more swiftly after that and we pass through puberty; our bodies still do not age like those of humans.”
“You lot really need to stop telling humans we’re inferior,” I remarked. “At least we don’t take forty-odd years to get past the age of ten developmentally.”
Zero, his lips thinning with annoyance, looked as though he was about to say something, but another thought struck me.
“Heck, you were only around twenty by fae count when you met JinYeong? That was in the fifties, right?”
If that was right, although he’d been roughly fifty in human years, developmentally, he’d only have been twenty or so: just a bit older than me. It made me wonder how old he’d been when he met JiAh—and made me understand how things had become so messy with her.
“So you were in your twenties when you were going around with that human you found, too.”
“I didn’t—I didn’t find a human and start going around with him! He was a human who came Behind to avenge his sister, and—”
“If you tell me he’s a relative of ours too, I’m gunna roll my eyes so hard they fall out.”
Zero took in a thin breath through his nose. “He was no relation to either of us.”
“I suppose that’s something. How did you end up being with him, anyway?”
“I met him when he stole away a human from my father. He came Behind to find his sister who was taken from the human world, but when he discovered that she was dead his mind turned to correcting the imbalance he saw in the worlds so that such a thing would never happen again. It was a futile task, but at that time I was ripe for such a task.”
“I bet you saved a lot of people anyway.”
I could have sworn there was moisture to his eyes when he laughed softly. “We saved…oh, many. But he also paid a high price for the lives he saved, and when it came to his life, I couldn’t save it. A human like that saved so many lives, but I couldn’t even save one human.”
This time there was no confusing it: I saw the salt drop as it fell, just before Zero passed his hand over his face to brush away any others. I hung my arm around his neck and tightened it a bit; just enough to be nearly a hug but not enough to suggest that I was trying to comfort him because he was crying. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t like that.
“I should have been able to save his life,” he said, clearing his throat. He didn’t try to pull away from my arm, though. “He was just a human, and I’m—”
“Big, strong fae,” I said, nodding. “What happened?”
“We took on a job to save a couple of children; some unseelie canton Behind had taken them to soak up magic and drain them of their lives. We got in without a problem and found the children, but on the way out someone caught onto what was happening and locked down the entire canton. I got out with the children and he…he wasn’t quite as quick.”
I asked, “You couldn’t get him out?” even though I knew it couldn’t be that easy.
“I could have,” said Zero, his voice weary. “I would have had to leave the children, but I could have done it. The canton had already sent guards after us and they were in clear sight, but they would have left him to recapture the children. He made me save the children instead of him. I would have dropped them and taken him, and he knew it—he could have been saved if he’d been able to trust me to save the other humans instead of him.”
“What’d he do?”
“Ran away from the border like a madman to engage them before I could offer to treat with them.”
“He just…fought? Didn’t try to use Between?”
“No,” said Zero. “He couldn’t see or deal with Between in the way that you can.”
“Flamin’ heck,” I said softly. “He kept up with you and fought alongside you when he couldn’t even manipulate Between? How’d he get Behind in the first place?”
“He found someone who was willing to help him cross over for a price. Your—our human friends told me a little bit about that when I went to—”
He stopped, and I found that I knew exactly what it was he had been about to say.
“You asked ’em for information when you went there to ask Abigail for her help and to sign me over to them like a flamin’ package.”
&nb
sp; I didn’t say it harshly, because Zero was still crouched down on the tiles with his forearms propped on his thighs, and although I hadn’t seen another tear he looked tired. I suppose everything had to come to a head after Athelas’ betrayal, not to mention the pressure building on pressure as the world around us prepared for the heirling trials and a new king.
Zero faintly smiled, though he didn’t quite look at me. “He would never tell me himself; he said it was no use looking back on things he couldn’t return to. He said he was happy Behind, and I think he was.”
“Sounds like he died doing what he wanted to be doing,” I said. “And like he made his own choices.”
“I know,” said Zero. “But today—lately—it keeps occurring to me that if he’d been able to trust that I’d respect his wishes, he would still be alive.”
“I wanna say yes on principle,” I said, “but you don’t actually know that. Anything might have happened between him trusting you not to toss the kids to save him and you both working together to get out.”
“There would have been a chance, at least,” Zero said.
“Is this you trying to break yourself of old habits?” I asked, and found that I was a bit teary myself. “Because they say practise makes perfect, and if you’re gunna apologise to me—”
“I wasn’t going to apologise,” said Zero stiffly. “I am sorry about telling the humans that they could have you in exchange for help. I was trying to do everything I could think of to keep you safe—I knew this was coming and that I wouldn’t be around forever.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Old habits really do die hard.”
“I’m trying,” he said, and this time he looked at me properly. “I’m trying, so please be patient.”
“Okay,” I said, slightly shaken. Zero wasn’t good at apologies and he certainly wasn’t good at asking for help, and he had just done both. That was pretty important. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
“My sister was a kind person,” he said, almost at random. “You would have liked her. She made life easier for everyone—even the people who didn’t like her.”
“That how she ended up Behind again?”
“I suspect so,” he said. “If my father had threatened her family—and since you’re in existence, she must have had one—she would have come back without fighting if he offered to kill someone in her stead.”
“Yeah,” I said gloomily. That made sense of the story mum had told me about great grandma Anne—she just left one day and never returned. “Hang on,” I added, my eyes kindling. “This means you’re my uncle, right? We’re not just related, you’re my uncle; I’ve got living family!”
“It’s not—it isn’t much to celebrate!” he said, half perplexment and half amusement. “It just means that you’re allied by blood to one of the people who killed a matriarch of your family.”
“No, it means I’m allowed to love you!” I said jubilantly.
“Allowed to—allowed—” Zero stopped, and then said, “Since when has who you’re allowed to love or not stopped you loving them? As for the kamikaze hugs and the—”
“Yeah, but that was before I knew you were my uncle,” I explained, edging around the real explanation. There was too much there that I couldn’t say aloud. I was allowed to love him because now that I knew he didn’t love me as a woman but as a niece, there was a brightness and buoyancy in my heart that I hadn’t felt for some time. “Now I know you’re my uncle, I’m allowed to do all that. You’re half human, you should understand—it’s a human thing.”
I leant my full weight against him, linking my other arm around his neck for good measure and burying my face in his shoulder.
Zero, marginally less stiff around the shoulders than he would have been if I’d done something similar when we’d first met, sighed. “What are you doing?”
“Heck, you should know what a hug is by now! Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“I didn’t say you could hug me.”
“I’m allowed to give my uncle a hug; that’s what nieces do.”
“You’re not my niece; you’re my great-great—”
“Well, then you’re the one who should be hugging me, you old fossil! I’m allowed to love you now; you’re my only uncle!”
“There’s no need to abandon decorum in the house just because you’ve found out that we’re related!”
“There was never any decorum in this house,” I told him, clinging stubbornly around his neck. “And it’s my house now, anyway; you’re just here because you’re family, so you should flamin’ behave yourself.”
I saw his mouth open to repudiate the assertion—watched the resigned expression that flashed across his face in profile a moment later. Zero had forgotten that the agreement he’d signed with me not so long ago no longer held for him any more than it did for Athelas—though for very different reasons.
“Yeah,” I said. “You forgot that you’re just a guest here now, didn’t you? You better not go throwing any more vampires through the walls.”
“Vampires,” said Zero, as if snatching at straws. “That reminds me! We’re going to have a discussion about vampires and dating, and the fact that you’re far too young to be—
“Nope,” I said hastily, releasing him. Much to my relief, I could hear a scuffling outside the door that probably meant someone was out there, waiting uncomfortably for the right moment to knock on the door. “We’re definitely not gunna talk about that.”
“Pet—”
Then came the knock. It was a reluctant, tentative sort of knock, and when Zero said impatiently, “What?” someone cleared their throat.
“Dunno whether you want to know or not,” said a lycanthrope voice apologetically, “but that vampire’s glaring at everyone through the window again and we’d prefer if Pet came out to make him stop, please.”
I escaped from the laundry room before Zero could call me back. There was a time and a place for discussing dating, but I didn’t think the laundry room at midnight before an expedition into Behind was that time. More than that, I didn’t want to be in the position of defending my right to date JinYeong when I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do it.
Chapter Nine
I woke up with a smile on my face the next day and the warmth of the knowledge that I had an uncle. Real family. Alive family. Family that was a bit too inclined to protect me against my wishes, but that was always there despite that.
The pleasant warmth of that remembrance lasted until it was apparent that JinYeong wasn’t’ going to appear at the window before we had to leave on our excursion to look for Sarah’s parents. I’d already had a quick call from Tuatu that I had been hoping would tell us he and North had found the Palmers safe and sound outside the house, but had been to tell me that there was no sign of them instead. Neither North nor Tuatu had been able to get in the house yet, either.
Sarah didn’t get any paler, but she did look sick. I suppose that’s what happens when you fight your way out of Behind to get back to your parents, fight off fae who want to use you as a pawn in their efforts to secure the crown and are using your parents as collateral, and then find that neither you nor your parents have escaped them after all.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll find ’em. We might not have lycanthrope noses this time, but I’m all right at getting through hedges and figuring out what’s happening with Between. I can fight all right, too.”
“I know,” said Sarah, and surprised me by smiling. “There are lots of stories about you, did you know? When I first got here, the other heirlings who were trying to invade the house were already talking about The Pet.”
“Heck, that’s all I need,” I said gloomily. “People out there who know who I am.”
“At least they only know your job function,” she said, and shivered. “It’s worse when they know your name, even if you’re a human. They can’t exactly make you do things, but they make it really hard not to do things if you’re tired or aren’t paying attention.”
“It’s a new built house,” she said. “Not much Between there—actually, that’s something my parents tried really hard to stop getting in. They spent a lot of time trying to keep out anything that wasn’t human. We even have a proper human saferoom that’s made out of iron instead of steel.”
“Heck,” I said soberly. She wasn’t wrong about the fact that the house was set up as a booby-trapped nightmare for fae. I’d been to Sarah’s house briefly one night while I was trying to make sure Upper Management didn’t get their hands on her, and I’d seen the lines of iron shavings that would have made life extremely hard for any fae that tried to breach the property, at least. That had been the night that Zero showed up as an enemy and JinYeong had fought almost to the death for me to get away.
That remembrance pinched a raw little nerve somewhere near my heart and made me glance over at the window, but there was no sign of JinYeong. I made myself look away from the window and asked Sarah, “Is it possible for your parents to have been hidden away by the house anyway?”
“I really don’t think so,” she said. “You don’t understand, Pet—you and your house are outliers. I was talking with Morgana, and her house isn’t anything like as lively as yours; it doesn’t heal itself on command, either. We don’t know anyone who has such a connection to their house.”
“I know another person,” I said. That brought with it the reminder that Athelas was the one who had knit that connection between myself and the house—and between Ralph and his house. “It’s not a very happy story. We’re closely connected to our houses because of what happened to our parents when we were kids.”
“The houses aren’t special,” Zero said briefly, stopping in the living room with us for a moment. I couldn’t help beaming at him, and the reluctant smile that answered warmed me. “The location and amount of access to Between is the important thing; some people draw more to them than others, and some areas draw more to them than others. Are you ready?”
Between Family: The City Between: Book Nine Page 16
