Faerie Blood

by Angela Korra'ti

  Luciriel stepped back towards the doorway she’d opened in the air, gesturing again to make Elessir’s limp form glide after her. As she pulled him along through the shining gate and both of the Unseelie vanished into the wintry light, her voice floated back towards us, darkly wry, challenging.

  “But don’t let that, or my bard’s unmannerly conspiring against you, stop you from considering my Court. We do have much to offer a promising young mage. Fill out the form on our web page if you’re interested. One of my minions will see the email.”

  Then she and Elessir were gone.

  * * *

  The mortal side of the Sand Point Head skirmish didn’t take long to vacate the field either, though we did it by motorized means rather than magical. We piled into Jude’s truck, and Jude drove out of there as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. As we went, Millicent muttered dire imprecations against Seelie and Unseelie and anything in general that interrupted an injured old woman trying to get a good night’s sleep. Jude muttered an annoyed complaint of her own, and it took me a moment to realize that what she said was, “Don’t care if she’s the Queen, that ice bitch better not hurt him.”

  Millicent blinked at Jude from the front seat. I gaped at her from the back. “You did catch the part where he’s Unseelie, right?” I said.

  “And the part where that boy was aiding and abetting the Seelie trying to feed Kendis to a demon?” the old Warder added. “Much as I didn’t like turning him over to his Queen—rubbed me the wrong way, that girlie did—he did break the Pact, coming after mortals in my city.”

  Still distressed over how things had played out, I asked, “Are you sure there wasn’t anything you could have done, Millie?”

  She gave me the same piercing look she’d given Jude. “I’d have seen him off to the hospital if I could have, girlie,” she said. “But the Pact does say the Queens get to call dibs on anybody in the Courts who causes a problem and administer their own punishments. If they don’t, we get to Ward our cities against all the members of the offender’s Court, so it’s in their interests to hold up their end of it.”

  Oh. I could accept that, I supposed, though I still didn’t like the sound of it much. Neither did Jude. “I get that,” she hedged, shrinking a little in the driver’s seat even as she guided the truck through the same back way out of the park that she’d taken to get in. Flashing us a weak, embarrassed little smile, she added, “But he’s really hot.”

  I bopped my friend on the head for that, but without any real ire. For one thing, I didn’t want Luciriel hurting Elessir either. It wasn’t rational. Hell’s bells, he had been in on the whole game plan to feed Christopher and me to Azganaroth, and the demon’s refusal to play along didn’t excuse him. Nor could I protest his Queen’s intention to punish him for his actions, not when the Sidhe had a treaty going on with the Warders that said she got to do just that. Not when Elessir’s own voice shouted across my memory, proof he’d conspired against his own ruler, one of the few clear recollections I retained from my uncle’s last enforced thrall.

  You swore you would help me take Luciriel down!

  And yet, to be baldly, brutally honest, Luciriel scared me. I had no doubt she scared Elessir, too, and he’d showed aplomb even in the face of injury and imminent consumption by a pissed-off demon. I couldn’t shake the feeling that if anything justifying that fear were to happen to him, it would be my fault. Because I hadn’t said anything.

  But what could I have said?

  Christopher didn’t say a word. I wanted nothing more than to hide in his arms for a while, but seat belts tend to get in the way of two people hugging each other in a moving truck. So I let him hold my hand instead, and he gave me a long, exhausted, knowing look when I stole a glance at him.

  The fear gnawed at me all the way back to my place. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to see a mangled tree thrust through what was left of my roof. Somebody surely was bound to notice it, even in the wee dark hours of a Sunday morning. My neighbors should have heard the sound of the impact, and if the tree had taken out any power lines en route to my roof, I’d have to call somebody to come and deal with it. Whoever that was; damned if I knew who handled this sort of thing. I doubted Seattle had a Department of Removal of Magically Hurled Trees.

  But Seattle had Warders. And at least one troll, even if I’d left it back on the Burke-Gilman trail with my Swiss Army knife sticking out of it. And fairies. And one very tired, troubled, mixed-blood changeling.

  We’d deal with it, I told myself. We’d get back to the house, find out if the neighborhood had been disturbed, and find out if we needed to call emergency services. I’d find Fortissimo, since the thought of my cat huddling damply somewhere outside on a night when the Sidhe and a demon had been abroad made me feel almost as ill as the prospect of checking out what that damned tree had done to my house and everything in it. What was I going to tell Carson and Jake?

  Then I thought, Oh God. The instruments. And I blinked away a sudden rush of tears.

  “Lass?” Christopher whispered over to me.

  “My violin,” I whispered back. “Your bouzouki. They’re going to be wrecked, aren’t they?”

  At those words he looked as ill as I felt, but there wasn’t any time to do anything for it. The streets were empty, and it didn’t take long to reach my house. Even as Christopher and I exchanged heartsick glances, Jude was turning the truck onto my block.

  And even as she turned, I realized that calling city emergency services wasn’t going to happen. Visible even from the corner, a pale, vibrant green glow of magic inundated my half of the house and had both of the Warders and me spilling out of the truck before Jude could do more than stop right in the middle of the street. Amazingly, impossibly, there wasn’t a trace of a police car or an emergency vehicle anywhere in sight. None of my neighbors were out and about.

  But my housemates were.

  Carson and Jake waited for me in the front yard, their figures sharply delineated against the light that immersed the house. Fortissimo nestled in Carson’s burly arms, which made me cry out with relief. He lit up at the sight of me—the man, that is, not the cat—and so did his partner. But the sight of Jake clad in nothing but a basic black kimono halted me in my tracks. He beamed at me with the same familiar warmth, but he looked different. Something about his eyes, which gleamed like polished onyx—

  Wait a minute.

  “You and your friends had best come on inside, kiddo,” Carson told me gruffly, gently. “We’ve got a lot to tell you.”

  “We’ve brought someone who wishes to speak with you,” Jake added, gesturing back towards the porch.

  Someone else stood waiting there, a female of unremarkable height and equally unremarkable clothes: a sleeveless white blouse and scalloped, layered velvet skirt dyed in a pattern of summer leaves that would have looked at home on countless college girls in the University District. But not a one of them would have had hair the color of aged bronze caught up in a big braid in the back and two tiny ones, each bound with fine, thread-thin golden wire, before either of the requisite pointed ears. Or green tourmaline eyes that looked as though they’d been the source for the color of spring itself, or power I sensed even from several feet away, power that felt like…

  Luciriel’s.

  “Guys, what’s going on?” They were here and they were safe, and that alone was enough to bring tears to my eyes. But my mind tilted, unable to take in what I saw before me. Wasn’t I supposed to be the one giving them the ‘more things in heaven and earth’ speech and cluing them in about all the things never dreamt of in my philosophy, much less Horatio’s? “When did you get back?” My eyes, wide and shocked, lingered on Jake. “You said you were taking care of family business.”

  “We were, Ken-chan,” Jake said. He’d never called me that before, and the somber, gentle tone in which he said it was that of an older sibling addressing a beloved little sister. “I just didn’t have time to tell you what that business was. Yo
u should come on in now, so I can explain and introduce you to our guest.”

  And with that, he gestured to the others and beckoned them into the house along with me.

  “All of you, please, come in—and meet Amelialoren, Queen of the Seelie Court.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Carson and Jake assured us that it was safe to enter the house, and the Sidhe they’d called Amelialoren backed them up.

  “Consider it reparation, Miss Thompson,” the Seelie Queen suggested as I drew cautiously nearer to the porch. I wanted to trust my two friends, yet I was too bone-weary in body and too battered in mind from Sidhe treacheries to want to get within six feet of her. With eyes that seemed keen enough to pick up my entire life history in a single glance, she couldn’t have missed my reluctance. But all she said was, “As it was three of my own that violated your home, I have set a troop of brownies to restore it and all that is damaged within.”

  “What about the tree? Its branches got all over the livin’ room and into the kitchen before we got out,” said Christopher, pointing with one hand up to the fractured trunk of the oak protruding from my roof. His other hand stayed twined around mine; so did his magic, shining just on the edge of my perception. I clung to his hand and his magic both.

  Amelialoren replied, “The brownies can shape back the branches, but to remove the tree itself will require one and possibly two gruagachs, and I wished to obtain the permission of the Warders before bringing large fey into this city.” Her gaze flickered over Christopher before darting to Millicent as the older Warder limped up on my other side. “If the Lady Warder and Warder Second are amenable, I shall send out the summons.”

  “Up to the girlie. It’s her roof.” Millicent jerked her head at me as she spoke those last few words. Her expression was a sour one, turning her leathery features decidedly prune-like, but that was par for the course for Millicent; besides, Christopher’s expression wasn’t any more cordial, and I suspected mine wasn’t either. On the other hand, Millie’s shotgun was propped on her shoulder rather than held out ready to fire, and that was a good sign. I hoped.

  “Gruagachs are…?” I stage-whispered to the old woman.

  “Hairy giants. Not as scary as they look. She’s Seelie Court Queen, she can whip up a couple and smack ’em if they get ornery.”

  Millicent sounded grudging but unhesitant, as though unwilling to proffer this nugget of information only out of basic distrust of the female before us rather than any doubt of what she could do.

  But then Jake said, fixing me with the same steady, reliable gaze that I’d known for the last three years, “Her Majesty will do exactly as she promises, Kendis. If you don’t trust her—and given the circumstances, none of us blame you, certainly—you can trust Carson and me on this.”

  “We haven’t ever steered you wrong, have we, kiddo?” his partner asked me, handing me my cat as he did so. Fort draped his tail over my arm and his front paws over my shoulder, and set to purring contentedly.

  They hadn’t, I had to admit, but the cat convinced me to listen to what the Seelie Queen had to say. The last I’d seen my pet he’d been zooming off as fast as four paws could carry him away, but in my arms now, Fort was absolutely at ease. I’d always dismissed folk tales about animals being sensitive to both character and the supernatural, but now I was ready to give them a bit more credence. The Sidhe, as near as I could tell, were as supernatural as you could get.

  So I met Amelialoren’s ageless eyes. I thought about the ruin that had been made of my house, and about the sick look on Christopher’s face when I’d mentioned our instruments. And I said, “Go ahead, but get your brownies to fix Christopher’s bouzouki first.”

  In acquiescence and perhaps the faintest trace of approval, the Seelie Queen smiled. “I am pleased, daughter of Elanna, to see that you are not without concern for others, or appreciation for music and the things that make it. Especial care will be taken with the Warder Second’s instrument, as with yours.”

  Christopher started, and then his eyes went liquid despite his grim, tired expression. I squeezed his hand, but kept my attention upon Amelialoren. “Thanks, Your Majesty,” I replied, and I didn’t even have to make myself add the honorific. “So what’s this about a chat, then?”

  * * *

  Carson and Jake’s half of the house had not escaped damage from the oak tree and its branches, but their kitchen and living room were reasonably intact. We settled in their living room with cups of hot green tea and sake, in various stages of alertness, and I struggled to hold my exhausted thoughts together long enough to make it through whatever this conversation was about to bring.

  “Jake and I’d better start, I guess,” Carson began with rueful humor and a sidelong wink at me, “with our connection to the Seelie Court and Her Worshipfulness here.”

  I managed a weak but amused grin at the Han Solo joke, but it petered out as I glanced disconcertedly over at Jake. His eyes gleamed like those of the Sidhe—but he didn’t have the ears, or the hair, or that way of looking like his very own personal beam of moonlight constantly shone upon him.

  So what was he? Why hadn’t I noticed that other-ness about him when we’d taken Christopher to the hospital?

  “It would help clear up a thing or two,” I affirmed. From beyond the wall that separated the boys’ living room from mine I heard soft rustling sounds, like small animals moving through underbrush—or vines and branches sliding back towards the tree they’d come from. Soft thumps coincided with recurring prickles of magic along my nerves. Fortissimo curled at my feet, eyeing that same wall with suspicion, the occasional little growl sounding in the back of his throat. No one else seemed to give it any mind, though, so I focused on my tea and the matters at hand. “So this family business of Jake’s was… what?”

  Amelialoren sat straight and regal upon a leather ottoman, holding her sake in the same manner Jake held his, with the practiced ease of a Japanese native. “Tanaka-san and Mr. Saunders,” she said, “were at my invitation attending my Court in Faerie.”

  Baffled, I looked back and forth between my housemates. “And you guys get to talk to the Queen of the Seelie why…?”

  Millicent was comfortably ensconced in Carson’s suede recliner, her feet propped up on the footrest with an extra pillow beneath them. She’d unabashedly chugged back her sake and now twirled her empty cup around between her gnarled fingers, saying archly, “The boy’s myobu.” She bobbed her head at Jake, who nodded back in modest acknowledgement. “Though speaking as the head Warder around here, son, I’d have appreciated a bit more warning before you went off dealing with your business. This girlie could’ve used you around these last few days.” And she jabbed a finger at me.

  “Wait,” I cried, “don’t tell me you know—” But I cut myself off before the thought even got started. That Millie would not only know what kind of fey Jake was but also know him personally was obvious, and not even particularly surprising; if they knew the Queen of the Seelie Court, why not Seattle’s Warder? So I said instead, my brow furrowed, “You guys let me rent this place with you because of Millie, didn’t you?”

  It wasn’t entirely a question, and as soon as I’d asked it, I knew from Millie, Carson, and Jake’s expressions that I was right. “I did promise Aggie I’d watch out for you,” said the Warder woman, “and I could trust a myobu to live in the same house with you and look after you when I couldn’t.”

  “It was the condition she gave to me for permitting me into the city,” Jake said solemnly, “and it was a duty I willingly assumed.”

  “Um, what’s a myobu?” This came from Jude. Now that she was sitting down, my friend drooped as though exhaustion was finally catching up with her, and only the teacup she held seemed to give her something to focus upon to keep awake. She cradled it between her palms without drinking, as if to let her hands soak up the heat from the cup’s clay sides.

  Christopher sat beside me on the couch, drinking sake with tentative care. Up till now he’d
seemed as informed as Millicent on things from the world of the weird, but he gave me a baffled little shrug when I glanced at him. “Out of my ken,” he admitted.

  “A myobu,” said Carson, “is one type of what the Japanese call kitsune. But Jake had best just show you what he is; that’ll work better than any of us trying to explain.”

  “If you will all pardon me for just a moment.” Jake lithely rose from one of the extra chairs he and his partner had brought in from the dining room, padding away on bare, silent feet down the hallway. The boys’ half of the house was a mirror image of mine; he might as well have been heading to my own bathroom or bedroom, except in the opposite direction.

  It took a few minutes before he returned, minutes in which Jude, Christopher and I swapped puzzled looks. None of the others seemed inclined to clue us in. Carson waited placidly, his face as uninformative as the older Warder’s impish, secretive little grin. As for Amelialoren, most of her attention seemed taken up with me. She watched me with an unwavering regard that I found myself unable to meet for more than a few seconds at a time, and only half my hesitation was born out of unwillingness to lose myself in a Sidhe’s eyes for a third time tonight. The rest came from the contradiction of vast time and timelessness intermingled in her gaze; meeting it was like looking eye to eye with something almost as primal and ancient as Azganaroth. Like, oh, say, nature.

  When Jake rejoined us he’d shucked his kimono, but that wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was that he came back into the living room on four feet instead of two, sporting a princely plume of a tail, a sharp slender muzzle, and ears now significantly pointier than the Queen’s or mine. His fur was a dazzling, flawless white, and he was the biggest fox I’d ever seen.