Stranger Magics

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  The pounding on the door intensified, followed by the thud of a heavy shoulder. “Guys, do something,” said Joey, drawing his sword. “I can’t hold them all back if they break through.”

  Greg looked more conflicted by the moment, and I realized his resolve was about to break. “Grab the knot, both of you,” I ordered, and reached for the throbbing heart.

  At first, I felt nothing but the slight warmth of the visualization, but then my fingertips brushed against my brother’s, and a jolt passed between us. Before we could withdraw or reconsider, Toula thrust her hand into the center, and a charge like bluish lightning flew among us, growing as we drew power from the rapidly depleting spheres.

  Someone slammed into the door again, then a third time, and the voices set up a muffled chant of encouragement. “Come on, guys!” Joey yelled, taking up a defensive stance. “Break it!”

  The lightning had quickly become unbearable, fire that burned without leaving a trace, and I clung to the table against the pain. “Almost . . .” I whispered.

  Suddenly, I felt a sound deep in my body, a rumble far too low to be heard, and the web of lightning exploded like a bomb. The three of us were blasted across the room with the force, and the spheres, now well and truly empty, went flying. Joey ducked and cried out as one clipped his shoulder, but I barely noticed as I rose.

  A gate had opened above the table, a gently pulsing circle of darkness framed with a flicker of electricity. From the little I could see through it, I made out the contours of Mother’s throne room, but as the sun had yet to rise in Faerie, the throne room was likely to be deserted. Not for long, of course—an alarm would sound as soon as we crossed—but at least we wouldn’t be running into an ambush.

  Well, this is my reconstruction of my thoughts on later reflection. At that moment, I recognized only two things: the overwhelming sensation of magic flowing out of that gate like a torrent from a ruptured dam, and the rush of adrenaline that propelled me onto the table and through the hole in space.

  Robin followed an instant later and cried out as he barked his shin against a crystal pillar. I summoned my blue flame and almost wept with relief when it burst into life in my palm. I was immersed in pure magic, plunged into the ocean at the desert’s edge, and momentarily reveled in the potential I felt once again well up inside of me.

  I turned to see that Toula had followed us through, but she was staring into space and nearly hyperventilating. Joey stood beside her, tense and ready, but he quickly realized that something was wrong. “Hey, Toula, you okay?” he asked, and reached out his hand.

  I doused my fire and tackled him before he could make contact. “Don’t touch her!” I yelped, and glanced back at her in time to see the pale lightning begin to dance over her skin. “She’s overwhelmed, and she’s not in control yet.”

  He let me pull him back to his feet, but his eyes never left Toula’s startled gaze. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Don’t know,” I muttered, and threw a quick shield around him as I touched his head. When I released him and he blinked the fog away, I asked in Fae, “Understand?”

  “Understand wha . . . oh,” he replied in kind. “Hey, neat! Any chance you could you do that with Koine Greek, too?”

  “Focus,” I ordered, and waited while Robin joined our clump. “Keep an eye on the doors,” I told them, then stooped and stared into Toula’s eyes until I saw a flicker of awareness return. “Come back, Glinda,” I murmured. “We don’t have much time. Get it together—”

  Before I could finish my pep talk, her body burst into white flame, and all three of us jumped back in alarm. Safe in the middle of her corona, Toula folded her arms and glared at me. “I told you not to call me that, asshole. Don’t make me get medieval on your face, too.”

  I straightened my shirt and tried to project nonchalance at the fact that she had turned into a torch. “Want to dim your highs?”

  “What do you . . .” she began, then finally noticed her glow. “Huh. Cool,” she declared, and the light show ended as suddenly as it had begun. “Well, that’ll be useful should I ever get a s’mores craving . . .”

  I began to reply, but I hesitated at the sound of rapid footfalls, and the four of us bunched up. “Good alarm system,” Robin muttered. “What’s the plan?”

  “Just stay calm and nonthreatening,” I said, and squinted as the throne room’s sconces and chandeliers blazed to life. When I could see straight again, I spotted two of Mother’s guards by the door, both noticeably uncomfortable with our presence. “I’ve come to see Mother,” I announced, holding my empty hands out as I stepped away from the protection of our knot. My voice echoed around the room.

  One of the guards stepped forward, befuddled. “Lord Coileán? How did you—”

  “I’ll explain when I see her. We need to speak.”

  His mouth flapped for a few seconds, and then he motioned to his companion, who darted back into the corridors from which they had come. “My lady has been most distressed,” he cautioned when they had departed. “Whatever you did—”

  “I did nothing,” I interrupted. “Lady Moyna and . . . the other, where are they?”

  Before he could answer, space ripped over the dais, and Mother stepped into the room with Olive on her heels. “Coileán!” she shouted, her cry ringing around the cavernous chamber. “What is the meaning of this . . . this . . .”

  Her face had begun to turn pink with anger. Olive hung back toward the throne, glaring at me with her arms folded over her twinkling bodice.

  I held up my hands as if to block her outburst. “This isn’t my fault,” I said, trying to keep my voice low. “I’ve been working on the solution for the last ten days. We just managed to break the spell.”

  “What spell?” she snapped.

  I cut my eyes to my brother, choosing my words carefully. “Something of Mab’s design. She, uh . . . used Robin to trigger it. He’s been helping me. Look, I’ve come about Moyna and—”

  But Mother was already stomping off the dais and down the long blue runner toward us, her silver gown rippling with the speed of her progress. “Come here!” she demanded, pointing at Robin, and then she paused a few feet from us, waiting.

  He glanced back at me, questioning with his eyes, and I nodded. Though he strode toward Mother with his head high, I saw him swallow hard as he waited for her to speak.

  When she did so after a minute’s pause, her voice was calm and soft. “Did you do this, boy?” she murmured, reaching up to cup his cheek in her palm. “Did you cut us off?”

  He tolerated her touch with surprising stoicism. “I never intended to sever the realms, Mother,” he replied. “Mab deceived me. Father knows the truth.”

  She looked at his scarred face for a long moment, and then she sighed and shook her head. “Oh, my silly little puk’a,” she said, almost smiling.

  Before I could come to his aid, Robin was engulfed in fire.

  He shrieked and flailed, running blindly around the room in search of relief, but Mother’s flames refused to be quenched. “Do something,” Toula whispered behind me, but I stood frozen and helpless, knowing even as my brother’s skin melted that I could do nothing to save him.

  Robin fixed his eyes on me, pleading in the second before they burned, and I steeled my will. “I’m so sorry,” I muttered, and pulled Joey’s sword from its sheath as I ran toward my brother. One slice of the blade ended Robin’s screams of agony, and I forced myself not to vomit as his headless corpse crumpled to the floor and blackened.

  “You do so love to thwart me,” Mother said, and clucked her tongue. “Coileán, what am I to do with you?”

  I clenched my fist around the leather-wrapped hilt and stared at her, feeling the warning tingle in my arm at the proximity of so much steel. “Send my daughter and her mother home,” I heard myself say, “and you can do whatever you like.”

  Mother cocked her head, and a blonde lock spilled over one dark eye. “Your daughter?” she asked sweetly.

&
nbsp; I pointed the sword at Olive, who visibly struggled to control her revulsion over Robin’s end. “Olive. Send her home.”

  Sighing, Mother turned and smiled at the girl. “Moyna, dear, he wants to take you away from me. What should we do about that?”

  Her face hardened in an instant, and her eyes, momentarily uncertain, grew cold. “Kill him, Mother.”

  The old bitch looked back at me, all smiles. “It seems she doesn’t wish to go,” she said with an exaggerated shrug, then took a single step toward me.

  Before she could take a second, she screamed, and I distantly registered the distinctive thunk of Joey’s gun firing. I looked back to find him in a shooter’s stance, both hands locked around the nail gun, sighting down the short barrel. His finger squeezed the trigger again, and Mother shrieked as the nail drove through her thigh. “What are you doing?” I yelled at him. “Get out of here, go!”

  But Joey shot yet again, and Mother fell to the floor of her throne room, howling with the blinding pain of the steel embedded in her flesh. He whirled and fired off a rapid volley as the few guards on the scene rushed toward him, but every bolt they threw at him bounced harmlessly away, as if blocked by an invisible bubble.

  I knew that wasn’t my doing.

  Toula’s face still betrayed her shock, but her lips moved soundlessly, powering the thick, complex shield that was keeping our marksman alive. She cut her eyes to me for a split second, and I reached out and felt the spell she had woven.

  Take it, she mouthed.

  I felt her slip away as I fed the spell—much easier to do in a place so saturated with magic—and then, even as I focused on keeping Joey safe, I felt her pry the sword from my hand.

  I didn’t see my mother die. I felt it.

  Afterward, I pieced together what must have happened. Mother, too distracted by the blinding pain of the nails that Joey continued to shoot into her, failed to fight back. Instead, she cowered on the floor, trying to protect herself from the onslaught as the iron projectiles ripped through her shield and trusting her guards to come to her rescue.

  She didn’t see Toula approach. Given the speed of what happened next, I don’t think she suffered long.

  Toula bellowed a wordless war cry. Olive screamed.

  And then a supernova went off behind my eyes.

  Fortunately for Joey’s continued existence, Toula had enough presence of mind to notice the effects of killing my mother. Even as I collapsed, she slipped back into control of the shield, and Joey continued to harry the guards, who were now torn between destroying him and going to Titania’s side. Toula told me later that she extended the shield over me as well, but I wasn’t aware of it. I don’t doubt her version of events, but I was cognizant of only two thoughts at that moment: Mother is dead, followed quickly by Shit, I can’t handle this.

  Faerie knew that Mother had died, and the realm itself—an alien consciousness, the likes of which I had never before known—now turned its attention to me.

  The queen is dead. Long live the king.

  Oberon was right, I realized, as I fought the impulse to simply explode with the power I felt coursing through me. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Mother had wielded, what the land itself had given her.

  And now it was going to rip me apart.

  I don’t know how long I knelt on the marble, holding my head and rocking. I don’t know when Toula shot a blast of energy at Olive, throwing her against the throne and knocking her out before she could make a nuisance of herself. All I know is that by the time I could again hear what was going on around me, the realm was wordlessly warning me that something was wrong. I gathered what strength I could spare, looked over my shoulder, and found that a second gate had opened since I’d been indisposed.

  I had never before seen Mab, but as the woman smiling at the chaos could have been Toula’s sister, I assumed that the third of the Three had finally made herself known. Her black hair fell in a long curtain around her bare shoulders, while her eyes, so blue they were almost violet, surveyed the scene and crinkled.

  “This is interesting,” she said.

  The guards and Joey declared an unspoken cease-fire as they turned to the newcomer and readied themselves for a fresh attack. Toula balled her free hand into a fist, which flamed to life as she took her stance. I tried to get up, but I was too overwhelmed to remember how my legs worked. All the while, the realm kept repeating its warning—danger unwelcome danger foreign danger.

  Mab slowly clapped as the guards regrouped around Joey. “Well done,” she said, beaming proudly. “Oh, well done, my darling! You were marvelous!”

  Toula’s fiery fist didn’t dim. “Mab?” she asked uncertainly.

  Her mother nodded and clasped her hands together. “My dear, you have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment,” she said, sweeping across the floor in a trailing purple gown. She paused long enough to kick me onto my side, and then, ignoring the flame and the sword, she grasped Toula’s stiff shoulders and smiled anew. “You are so beautiful,” she whispered, staring into Toula’s eyes. “So perfect. I would have come for you long ago, but the Arcanum . . .” Her voice drifted off. “Well, that’s all a bad dream now. You’re home, precious. We’re home.”

  Danger, the realm insisted more vehemently, and I felt my strength begin to seep back.

  I glanced up in time to see Toula’s fire die. “You . . . you wanted me?”

  “More than anything,” Mab insisted, all tenderness. “Your father was a brute, but you, child . . .” She ran her hand through Toula’s messy spikes and shook her head. “I would never have left you, but they bound you so terribly, and I knew they would have killed you had I tried to reclaim you. Oh, my dearest, can you ever forgive me?”

  Toula’s jaw began to tremble, and then Mab wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close while she cried. “It’s all over,” Mab soothed. “You did wonderfully, little one. Slaying Titania—my dear, I didn’t know you had it in you!” She pulled back and cupped Toula’s face in her hands. “Thank you for returning my throne to me. I’ll bring the rest of the court home in a short while, and then you will sit at my side, my most favored daughter.”

  As Mab continued to gush over Toula, Joey backed away, his gun still drawn, and fell behind the equally perplexed guards’ shield.

  Help me, I thought at the unfamiliar voice in my head. I can’t fight her alone, I’m too young, I’m weak—

  The realm didn’t sigh—not precisely—but I could almost feel its impatience as it wordlessly revealed what I had overlooked.

  Oberon had left Faerie, but he hadn’t abdicated. The realm knew him and would welcome him back. But Mab had been cast out, vanquished. She didn’t have the strength to stand up to the others on her own, not without the realm behind her.

  Mab was ancient, yes, and incredibly strong due to her years alone. In a fair fight, I couldn’t have touched her. But the reason I was a useless wreck on the floor was that Faerie had transferred to me the extra power she had given Mother and Oberon, and then some, making me close to Oberon’s equal despite my relative youth.

  Breathe, the realm suggested. You are acclimating.

  Not quickly enough, I thought, looking up at Toula. Flush with power and churning with adrenaline, she faintly glowed as magic flowed freely through her for the first time. She was a titan, I realized, a natural giant, far stronger than her few years should have made her.

  And her mother was holding her, murmuring words of comfort and love. No enchantment I could have crafted would have been more powerful than the effect Mab was having on her daughter, the despised, outcast orphan who’d suddenly been freed from captivity and united with a mother who wanted her. Robin was gone, and when Toula joined forces with Mab, what chance would I have?

  As if sensing my thoughts, Toula finally glanced down at me and frowned. “I think Colin needs help.”

  Mab’s voice hardened. “That’s the enemy, child. Strike him down now, while he can’t fight you, and we will rule toge
ther.”

  “But . . . wait, no, that’s not right,” she replied. “Olive would rule if something happened to Colin, wouldn’t she? The courts go through bloodlines, isn’t that the deal?”

  Mab shrugged. “Then kill her, too. Kill all of Titania’s spawn, be done with them. This is your destiny, dear, the power that’s waiting for you—”

  Toula pulled away from her grasp. “I’m not killing Colin.”

  Her mother frowned down at me as I lay helpless on the marble. “Why not? What is he to you?”

  “I don’t know, my friend? Maybe?” Briefly, she mulled the question over, then looked back at Mab and shook her head. “Whatever he is, I’m not killing him.”

  Again, Mab gripped her shoulders. “My dearest,” she said, her voice almost seductive in its honeyed gentleness, “he is nothing but an impediment. Don’t you know he would keep you from me if he could? Lock me in the Gray Lands for another thousand years, away from my home and”—she leaned closer to Toula’s face—“my family? Don’t you want us to be a family?”

  “I . . . I mean . . .” Toula stuttered, “yes, but—”

  “Go on, do this one little task for me,” she cajoled, giving Toula another smile.

  Her daughter stared at her for a long moment. “If you want him dead so badly, why don’t you do it yourself?”

  She is afraid, the realm whispered to me. Almost, Coileán . . .

  “I know what’s best for us, dear,” said Mab. “Listen to your mother.”

  Toula’s voice was low when she spoke. “My mother? My mother who abandoned me, who couldn’t even bother to find me once I left the silo, who never gave me the slightest indication that she was even alive?” Her face worked as she stared at Mab. “Do you even know my name?”

  Mab paused, momentarily flummoxed, then said, “Child of my body, I love you—”

  Toula pulled away again and walked to my side, sword in hand. She nudged me until I was on my back, staring up at her. I saw her mouth tighten, and she sighed as she looked back at Mab. “The fae can’t love,” she murmured, dropping Joey’s sword. “Everyone knows that. And I did get an Arcanum education.”