Fort took one look at him, yowled, and dived under the couch. And the rest of us, at least those of us who hadn’t known what was coming, were just as startled as the cat. I felt my jaw go loose; Jude and Christopher nearly dropped their cups. Millicent snickered, and the huge white fox that had just minutes ago been my housemate Jake shot the room at large a vulpine edition of the wry grin on his partner’s face. “I’ll assume y’all get the picture now,” Carson said cheerfully.
“He’s a fox,” I said, absolutely stupefied. Now I’d seen everything.
The fox—Jake—padded over and sat down before me on his haunches, his tail draped neatly about his feet. Black eyes that looked hauntingly familiar even in a white-furred fox’s face gave me an almost shy regard, and I automatically lifted up a hand to his ears before pausing, unsure whether it was kosher to scratch the head of an animal who also just happened to be one of my best friends. Jake answered that question by nudging my fingers with his furry nose. Years of Fortissimo’s training had taught me the meaning of that particular little nudge. So I scritched him between the ears, peered over at Carson, and tried to rally under the impact of a whole new volley of weirdness I’d have to absorb before I’d make it to a bed and to sleep.
“Questions?” Carson asked us all.
Millicent promptly gestured at the Seelie Queen. “Got one for Her Majesty here. Care to explain why the Seelie are involving themselves in the affairs of the myobu—and why I haven’t been informed about this?”
Amelialoren’s gaze unhurriedly traversed the room, stopping on each of our faces for a few moments and simply evaluating. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t meet her eyes for long. Jude flushed pink and dropped her gaze to her teacup; Christopher shifted nervously beside me and developed a rapt interest in my free hand, taking it in his own and fidgeting with each of my fingers, one at a time. Even Carson avoided looking her way, though he remained otherwise as relaxed and jovial as he’d always been in our home. Only Millicent seemed unmoved, out of Warder experience or just cantankerous age, and it was in reply to her that the Queen finally spoke again.
“We had not yet contacted you, Lady Warder, because as of yet the affairs in question have not crossed the borders of your city. In brief, as with the Seelie and Unseelie, so too is there strife amongst the myobu and nogitsune of Japan.” With a slim white hand, she indicated Jake. “Tanaka-san is the only representative of his kind residing in the Pacific Northwest, and was called upon by his kin to act as a liaison to my Court and request my presence as a neutral mediator at a gathering of kitsune this weekend in the San Juans.”
Jake affirmed this with a soft bark and a dip of his head, a surprisingly human gesture given his current shape, so I risked another, longer look towards the Queen. “Why there? And how do I come into this?” I asked uneasily.
She looked at me with millennia condensed into her eyes, and I had to struggle to keep from feeling small and very, very young. “The San Juan islands are the site of one of the permanent Gates into Faerie,” she said. “As such, they provided easy access to my Court for Tanaka-san and his kin and Mr. Saunders. Moreover”—and she smiled, a tiny bit—”they are of surpassing beauty even for mortal lands.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that. I might have tried to smile myself, but the Queen’s eyes darkened as she went on, “The warriors Melisanda and Tarrant interrupted our negotiations, Miss Thompson, and brought word of your peril. They spoke of the madness of Lord Malandor, and that he had conspired with an Unseelie renegade to sacrifice a changeling of his own blood to a Power he should never have disturbed.”
“That wasn’t even half an hour ago,” I protested. “Twenty minutes, tops!”
Carson said gently, “The flow of time between here and Faerie ain’t exactly stable, kiddo. Gating back and forth is tough, unless you know what you’re doing, like Her Ladyship here.”
I subsided, thinking oh for the second time that night, and Amelialoren picked up where Carson left off. “It was only then that we learned that the changeling Lord Malandor had tried to sacrifice was in fact known to Tanaka-san and Mr. Saunders: you, Miss Thompson.” Her attention never left me, and I had to duck my gaze as she then inquired, “It is apparent by the presence of you and your friends that Lord Malandor failed in his plan, but I should like to know where he is.”
Since I couldn’t make myself look at the Queen, I looked at Christopher’s hand holding mine instead. With Amelialoren sitting so close, his magic was barely an itch along my palm—but his grip was strong and warm and bolstered me enough to answer her. “Um. About that. That, uh, Power he tried to sacrifice Christopher, Elessir, and me to got pissed off and took him instead. She told me to tell my immortal kin, though, that the curse on them would be lifted.”
That last came out of me bleaker than I’d intended, and Amelialoren observed, “You do not sound pleased, Miss Thompson.”
The room went very quiet, still enough that I once again heard the subtle noises coming from the far side of the living room wall. Acutely conscious of six pairs of eyes on me, I thought about what to say. I was beyond exhausted, fed up with Sidhe using my brain as a playground, and still trying to figure out what it was going to mean to my life that half of me wasn’t human. Prudence warned against saying anything rash to a being that could doubtless reduce me to babbling incoherence as Malandor had done—but well, the hell with it. If Amelialoren was Queen of the Seelie she was in theory in charge of the good guys of Faerie, and as far as that frustrated, exhausted part of me was concerned, she could cope.
“I don’t like the idea of babies not being born any more than the next person,” I said, forcing myself to return my gaze to hers. My voice shook a little; I ignored it, along with the wetness prickling at the corners of my eyes. “But from where I sit, it looks pretty plain that if Malandor had left Mom and Dad alone to raise me in peace, there never would have been a curse that needed breaking.”
“That is true.” The Queen didn’t bat an eye; I didn’t seem to have surprised her. I wondered if anything could. “By his actions, Malandor deprived you of your parents. Of late he has robbed you of your will, torn your home asunder, and through his Unseelie ally taken away your means of mortal employment, all to make you more vulnerable to his ultimate intention to sacrifice your life. I have already set the brownies to restoring your home. What other compensation would you demand of the Seelie Court?”
For three or four seconds the only reaction I could manage was a blank stare; then, as the impact of the question sank in, I blinked and tried to gather my scattered, staggering thoughts. At first my only thought was surprise that I wasn’t angrier that Elessir had indeed nuked my job out from under me. The anger was there, don’t get me wrong. But it was dulled and muted, by having suspected Elessir of meddling with my coworkers anyway, by my weariness, and by the memory of the last look I’d seen on the Unseelie singer’s face.
Letting go of Christopher’s fingers and leaving off scratching Jake’s white fox head, I dropped my head forward into my hands. A nobler, more honorable person might have said that the crimes of one of her number were not the Queen of the Seelie’s fault; after all, if somebody burns down your house, you don’t expect the mayor of their hometown to rebuild it for you. But I was way too tired to be noble, and way too unsettled by what had happened to me over the last two days to turn down an offer to restore some normality to my life.
So I said, sighing and closing my eyes, “Fixing Christopher’s bouzouki and my house is a start. Can you fix what Elessir did to my coworkers and get me my job back, so I can still afford to live in said house?”
“I could attempt to restore a memory another Sidhe mage has stolen from a mortal’s mind, Miss Thompson,” Amelialoren said gravely. “But it would not be easy, even for me, and it would not be swift. Nor would it be without potential cost to the mind in question. Memories are fragile, and to disturb one can lead to the disturbance of all.”
“In other words, you might only make t
hings worse.” I kept my head in my hands, thinking of the dream I’d had about my parents—about the destruction of his most precious memory making Dad lose it. I hoped that I was not so vital a memory that my absence from their heads would drive any of my coworkers over that same edge. But what else would be disturbed if Amelialoren went into their thoughts, even with good intentions? What might be lost in the effort to put me back?
“I might indeed,” was the Queen’s only reply. At the sound of those three quiet words I thought of a clear, calm pool, containing nothing within itself but reflecting my face and thoughts and being back at me. Reflecting, like a mirror. I thought of my bathroom mirror, of the mirror in the ladies’ room at work, and of the countless mirrors I’d seen in that nightmare, each of them showing me some subtly different facet of myself. All of them adding up to me, like the names that had wheeled through my head to break me out of the thrall, each of them part of the person I was.
Just taking a moment to thank the good Lord for the woman you are, baby, Aunt Aggie said in the back of my mind, and that I think you’ll stay, even if your ears get all pointy like your mama’s.
The person I was couldn’t risk somebody being hurt for her own benefit.
“Then don’t do it,” I said. “If it might hurt them, don’t do it. And don’t worry about anything else. I just want to be able to sort myself out for a while.”
Christopher touched my shoulder; Jake’s muzzle discreetly nudged my hair and then withdrew. But mostly I noticed Amelialoren saying solemnly, “Justly so, Miss Thompson.” Then her attention shifted. “As the Warders of Seattle have also been harmed by Lord Malandor’s breaking of the Pact between Sidhe and Warder, what reparation from the Seelie Court would the Lady Warder and Warder Second require?”
“As long as you’re asking,” Millicent said shrewdly, “and since I don’t get a fair crack at the bas—er, uh, at Lord Malandor for my broken ankle, I’ll settle for something fit to warm an old woman’s bones on a wet Seattle night. Say, a case of twelve-year-old Glenlivet.”
A low, soft sound like the soughing of the wind through living branches escaped the Seelie Queen: laughter. “The Pact,” she pointed out mildly, “does not require us to provide libations to the Warders.”
“Nope, but as long as your Court’s in the mood for diplomatic alliances, I get real diplomatic-like to anybody who gives me Scotch.”
“So noted, Lady Warder. I will see what I can do.” I looked up just as Amelialoren smiled, her eyes brightening; the sight of it wrung something within me, and for a few seconds all I could think about was Mother’s picture. Then her glimmering regard settled on Christopher. “And you, young Warder Second? Are you of similar diplomatic inclination?”
“If you can’t get Kendis her rightful job back,” Christopher muttered, looking bashful under the impact of that serene smile turned upon him, “then do somethin’ else to make sure she can get by, and I’ll be content.”
Amelialoren’s eyebrows went up. “Your person was violated,” she said, studying him searchingly, “and your life threatened, and you ask only for my Court to attend to Miss Thompson’s welfare? You are entitled to more, Warder Second.”
Christopher shrugged and then slanted me an earnest, determined look that wrested my attention off the Queen. “What kind of Warder would I be if I didn’t look out for the welfare of someone in my bonded city first?” he asked. Rhetorically and far more for me than for the Sidhe who questioned him, I thought, and a blush rose up in my cheeks.
“And you are certain, Miss Thompson, that you desire nothing more than the restoration of your home and the Warder Second’s instrument?”
“I’m good.” If Millicent could be succinct, so could I.
The Seelie monarch set aside her cup and stood with a grace that surpassed her simple garb. Her presence filled the room despite her comparative lack of height, and though Jake wore the animal form, she was the one far more potently other than human. She was a she-wolf, a lioness, with starlight in her eyes and seasons uncountable a cloak about her frame.
“Then if this company will excuse me,” she told us all, “I will return to the San Juans to conclude the summit, and then carry out the reparations that have been asked of me. Tanaka-san, I will convey to your kin that you will be remaining here. It has been a pleasure to meet with you and Mr. Saunders.”
Carson got to his feet and inclined his grizzled head respectfully; if he’d had on a hat, I thought, he’d have tipped it. “Thank you, Your Ladyship,” he answered, and Jake whuffed. It was a surprisingly regal sound, for a fox.
“Christopher MacSimidh, Warder Second of Seattle, your music will be restored to you. Look to your instrument with the rising of the sun.”
Standing and dipping his head along with Carson, Christopher murmured, “Thank you, ma’am, I’ll need nothin’ else.”
“Judith Lawrence—”
“What, who, me?” Jude sprang out of her seat as if electrically jolted, her eyes round with dismay.
Amelialoren smiled again, gently. “Do not think you weren’t noticed. You will be noticed again, when you least look for it.” But she gave my friend no time to puzzle out those cryptic words before turning to Millicent. “Millicent Merriweather, Lady Warder of Seattle, the Seelie Court extends its formal apology for the disturbance of your bonded city and those under your protection. I hope that I will find the appropriate diplomatic gesture to demonstrate my Court’s goodwill.”
“I’ll let you know,” Millie drawled. She did not get up.
Then the Queen turned at last to me. “Kendis Thompson…”
I stood, my heart in my throat, wondering what Queen Amelialoren of the Seelie Court saw when she looked my way. It didn’t seem to bug her that I was half-human; there was none of Malandor’s disdain in the impassive gaze she trained upon me, no contempt, no hatred. And she said to me, “Do not fear. You will not live in want because of the actions of one of my Court; you, too will have back your music, as well as the time you need to listen to the counsel of your blood and heart and decide what you wish to be.”
With that, Amelialoren took another step forward into the very center of the room, and a doorway like Malandor’s and Luciriel’s materialized around her. Hers was as green as her eyes, the verdant green of trees grown up far away from any civilization’s touch. As the light enveloped her she added one last thing, and I started, for I was certain I heard more soft laughter brimming just beneath her words.
“The brownies will work because I have bid them, but they will take it well if you leave them food and drink before the coming of dawn. And keep your pet sheltered. There is nothing brownies love more than to make mischief with cats.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
After Amelialoren departed, Jake changed back to his usual form. He and Carson offered crash space to the rest of us as the hour was unholy indeed, and we were all bone-tired. Everyone but me opted out, however. Jude claimed a desperate need to sleep in her own apartment, in her own bed. Millicent announced that her job was done here and she had Wards to walk when the sun came up, but with a stern glance to Christopher she added, “And you’re coming along, son. You have lessons to start on. You”—this was to me, punctuated by a ferocious scowl that didn’t quite hide the sympathy in her eyes—“sleep in and take a few days. Heard what you asked the Queen. But you’re not getting off forever, girlie. You want to throw your power in with the boy’s, you can do it where I can damned well supervise the both of you. No magic out of you till I do!”
You’d think that after facing down my homicidal uncle, a humongous demon, and not one but both of the Queens of the Courts of the Sidhe, a little thing like morning magic lessons with a cranky little old lady in a fedora would be a piece of cake, right? Yeah, I can tell you see where I’m going with this. I’d seen her shoot Malandor with her shotgun, and I wasn’t looking forward to seeing what she was like before her morning coffee, even with a few days to rest up first.
“Sleep well, lass. I�
�ll be back later today to help you check over the house,” Christopher promised as he pulled me to him in a long, strong hug. I could have nodded off right there with my head on his shoulder. I settled for hugging him back with all my remaining strength, and pretending not to notice Carson and Jake’s amused expressions as I watched him leave with Jude and Millicent. Carson brought me a blanket and a pillow and opened up their hideaway bed for me, and as I collapsed upon it I wrapped the blanket around my body and the feel of Christopher’s arms around my thoughts.
The Seelie Queen had promised gruagachs to remove the tree from the hole in my roof. I didn’t see them come, but I heard them shuffling and snuffling outside the house in the pre-dawn darkness, and I heard the groaning of wood as they pulled the tree free. Those sounds wove themselves into my mind as I tumbled into exhausted slumber, the wolf’s head necklace once more about my neck and the pendant cradled in my palm. Fortissimo curled up beside me through what was left of the night, growling low in his throat at everything he sensed moving beyond the living room walls, while I dreamed of large, hairy giants taking apart a puzzle doll Kendis with pointed ears to see what was inside of her.
When I awoke well into Sunday afternoon the tree was gone. So was the hole in my roof. In the yard next door, a pair of young, supple trunks stretched six feet skyward from a jagged shelf of living wood where the oak had once stood. Throughout the week they gained height and breadth, sending out branch after branch and uncurling leaf after leaf, until they were almost indistinguishable from the tree they had replaced. None of my neighbors noticed, and I was not surprised.
But I was floored by the number the brownies did on my half of the house. When I ventured in warily, I found nothing as I’d left it—because I found it all better than I’d left it. Every surface of every object in every room gleamed; not a speck of dust, grime, or dirt remained anywhere. All traces of damage to the living room ceiling had vanished from inside as well as out, and the ceiling and walls of that room and all the rest blazed with vibrant color as though freshly painted, without a single whiff of actual paint. All the hues were familiar, the colors around which I’d lived for years now, but they were also uncannily new.
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