Foul is Fair

by Cook, Jeffrey

  “So we'll all be waiting comfortably together at the castle,” Cassia asked, sneering. “With this nice comfortable escort and maybe a comfortable cell—or a comfortable pyre?”

  “I don't think there'd be any point to that. I can send some pixies with you temporarily—”

  “They already have one, thank you, Majesty.” Ashling's voice was cold as the Count finally flew out of the trees. “Come on,” she said, and all the Queen's pixies and all the Queen's men made no move as Ashling led the girls, the chariot, and Justin out of the clearing.

  “I told you it wasn't a rock,” Ashling said.

  “You also told me you evolved from baby's laughter and that he's called the Count because he has a widow's peak!” Megan replied. “Anyway, I...” There was too much. Just too much. So she seized on one thing she thought she could address. “I kind of have a feeling who might have helped with all this by arranging the Unseelie involved in the ambush.”

  “The Gray Lady?”

  “Ah. Yeah. So…is that why you were mad at her when we met her?” Megan had wondered, but there'd always been too many other questions.

  “Sort of. I didn't know anything, but she's been on his case for years. A few nagging whispers about his travels and all. And—”

  “She's into will o' wisps.”

  “Yeah. I'm going to give her such a piece of my mind after I've taken you home.”

  Megan paused for a moment. “You're talking to Justin, right?”

  “No,” Ashling said. “Easier to just bring him to Seattle, too. He'll deal.”

  Justin, walking along with an ornate empty sheath at his side, wisely made no objection.

  “Oh, then we've got a problem,” Megan said after a pause. “I don't know that I want to go home anytime soon.”

  Chapter 28: Over Lunch

  The trip back to An Teach Deiridh, after Ashling stared at Megan for a moment, then changed course, was made in uncomfortable silence, with no one sure how best to address the situation—or willing to risk other pixies, sprites, or will o' wisps listening in. This might well have been the only thing that held Lani back as she looked intently at Megan throughout the walk. Despite the obvious discomfort amongst the group, they stuck together.

  Cassia did not unhitch the cats from the chariot. Instead, she drove it directly into the front atrium. A brownie scurried up to them. “We prefer no vehicles inside,” she—definitely she; Megan could tell—said with a big nervous smile at the satyress.

  Cassia glared, and the brownie started to retreat under her gaze, but Megan stepped in between them before Cassia said a word. "Can you please see that food is delivered to my father's room?”

  "To your... father's room? Yes, yes, of course, Highness," the little faerie agreed, almost stumbling over her feet trying to get some distance. She did not try again to stop Cassia from just driving in, and neither did Megan. The wheels occasionally made a clacking sound against the smooth stone floor, but not enough to drown out the Click-Click-Click sound the cats' claws made.

  "To your father's room? Why are we going there?" Lani asked as they all headed right into the Unseelie wing. The wheels on the floors soon went more Rumble-Rumble-Rumble as the stone texture shifted. There were still crowds in the halls, but everyone got out of Cassia's way.

  “Well, for one thing, we're going to eat. Here's hoping with dessert, too.” Megan sniffed the air. “Like that apple cobbler somebody's baking. That'd hit the spot.”

  "We don't need anything from any of the Queen's ass-kissers," Cassia snarled. "I should start gathering the mob."

  "Then don't eat," Megan said, "But stay with us a while before you do anything. You heard her, and Ashling. She has allies all over. Do you really trust all the people in your mob?"

  Cassia, shaking her head and muttering, directed the cats forward, past Riocard's chambers. Maxwell strode on, snarling. Jude, however, attempted to turn towards Megan.

  Cassia halted the now-skidding chariot before it fell over. She looked at Jude, who now sat beside Megan in his aviator helmet. The helmet was the color of rich coffee with cream that smelled like aged leather and…strawberries? Megan could only guess that maybe Jude had gotten into something requiring Cassia (or more likely, Cassia's girlfriend) to give the poor kitty a bath with whatever shampoo was handy.

  “Seriously?" Cassia said, staring at him.

  The leopard growled something in response.

  "Okay, okay. So we couldn't trust most of them before all of this," Cassia agreed out loud, "You're still being a traitor."

  The cat didn't move.

  "Okay, fine. You have a plan. Let's go. But no lunch. Her Anal-Retentiveness would probably have us poisoned."

  "If she wanted us dead, she'd have killed us. No one would have known," Lani said.

  "She might want us dead,” Megan said as she mimicked Ashling's previous words to open the door, then got them all safely in. Even the Count decided to perch above the inner doorframe this time. “But she definitely wants something else more. I figured that much out."

  "Wait, what?" Lani said as the door closed.

  “My Dad was able to talk to me, back near the city,” Megan said as she casually lifted a hand to offer Ashling a path from the perch to her shoulder. It was accepted. “She imprisoned him. She didn't kill him. She expects him back someday, even if she hopes it's way after she's totally secured her super-rule and all. When he does, she knows after all he went through to protect me, having actually directly hurt me would mean she wouldn't be able to manipulate him into some kind of settlement. So we're a peace offering.”

  “Okay, agreed,” said Lani. “She's not going to try anything to hurt us. What's this about not going back? This place is still dangerous."

  "Of course it is. But I get it. I have a lot to learn...but I sort of want to. My dad will be back someday. I can order a staff around. The guy who tried to kill me with a baseball bat owes me a favor. And I know magic. This place makes sense. Home doesn't."

  Lani gave her a quizzical glance. "Say all of that again, and see if it still makes sense to you. Including the part about people trying to kill you with baseball bats. Especially that part."

  "Okay, so that still sucked," Megan said. "But look what I have to go back to. Either take just enough pills to struggle through every schoolday, or take them all and be a zombie. Besides, isn't Earth kind of about to start sucking a lot more? How bad is that going to get, anyway?"

  “Well, it's hard to say, especially now that she's using the sword like some kind of… 'clean coal.' It'll help, sure. Stoking the fires up will keep the worst of the path-problems from hurting Faerie and Earth both any time too soon. But just because we won't have abominable snowmen in the Bermuda Triangle by Christmas doesn't mean we're okay. The thing is, both courts need to rule. Our side brings the light and the structure to keep everything from being lost like some kind of hurricane.”

  Megan nodded. “And what does our side bring?” The words came easy, so very easy.

  “Y—the Unseelie bring the unrestrained passion. 'Hot blood on cold winter nights' and stuff like that. I have no idea what they do to clear paths and burn fires and drive off the worst of the cold. They don't exactly publish a manual. But I know some of it's creepy.”

  “The balefires are at least stoked, though.”

  “Yeah, but that's the kicker. Even supposing the sword really will provide an unlimited stable fuel source—and she didn't present a lot of data—there's the other problem for Earth. Evenly-stoked fire is for sitting around to tell old stories, and that's good. But it only gets you old stories. The first thing that's going to happen on Earth is that there will be no new horror. No new creepy books published. No new slasher films—well, maybe sequels for a while, but that's it.”

  “Not exactly a nightmare scenario. More like a lack-of-nightmare scenario,” Megan said, but something in her felt funny all the same. “There's more to it than that, isn't there?”

  “Yeah, that's just the first sign.
The cold will keep creeping in, a dry, sterile cold. The paralysis'll get everywhere in the creative industries. Writers and filmmakers of every genre. Musicians—well, not every musician whose spark dies out can get an admin job. Possibly more Christmas shopping, but fewer Christmas pageants. It won't stop with what we think of as the arts, either. There's lots of passions to chill, sparks that can go out. Without the Dance, fewer gardeners will prep their gardens for the next phase. This hunting season will see hunters shrug, save time, and buy a few packs of sausage at the grocery store. All kinds of human reflections of autumn and winter change will happen less, which means spring will actually bring less renewal and rebirth. If it goes on long enough, it'll start to reflect in the seasons themselves.”

  "Okay, that is bad. But what can we do?"

  "I'll talk to my parents. There's other faeries out there. Just because she has some Unseelie allies doesn't mean all the Seelie will agree with her. We need to go back, though."

  “What about Justin?

  Lani looked to him in turn. “Do you want to wait for a path to clear to England?”

  "No, I'll go to Seattle. I don't know anyone else. And more importantly, just because she won't kill you doesn't mean no one will try. The Unseelie are just as likely to come after you, hoping to rile up their King later. I would help protect you, if I might be allowed? Better than starving in streets where I only recognize the ruins.”

  As he spoke, Megan listened, but casually walked back to the door. She was just reaching it when there was a knock. She opened the door to the brownie, who was balancing two trays of food and a pitcher of lemonade. "Thank you." she said, taking the pitcher, letting the brownie trail her in with the trays. "Brownies, timing. Let's not starve," she said, by way of explanation. “Especially with a long walk this afternoon.”

  "So, are you coming back to Earth?" Lani asked.

  "I hope we all are, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to need help. I have to get my dad out before Halloween. You can check with your parents and anyone else. I'll go back for now...but it's only for now. We're going to come back and save my dad and fix this," she paused, looking a little less determined and more sheepish. "I just don't know how yet."

  Chapter 29: Heading Home

  “I can't believe she set my dad up for an ambush with peer pressure.” Megan sat on Cassia's couch, exhausted from the return to what she had difficulty calling normality.

  “That wasn't peer pressure,” Cassia said, stopping her pacing around her apartment for a moment. “That was flirting. Like I said, Riocard has a type.”

  Megan had to admit that, in a very distant way, her mother and the Queen could be said to look a little bit alike.

  “Obviously, the Seelie Queen and the Unseelie King are never, ever going to be an actual item,” Cassia continued. “Which just makes the flirting worse.”

  “The flirting isn't what matters,” Lani insisted. “Her terrible, terrible plan is what matters.”

  “Now, Lani, it's totally understandable to be upset that things went so…unexpectedly,” Kerr piped up soothingly, having been called over as soon as they were back. “But it's the Queen. She knows a lot more than we do. I really don't think she would go with an actually terrible plan.”

  “Pretty sure pissing me off this much was a terrible plan,” Cassia said. "I'm still waiting for the part where there's a plan to go back, get the sword, and find somewhere else to stick it."

  Kerr flushed. Lani answered. "She's not going to let us get the sword back, even if we could. There's the whole fire thing." Justin looked like he was about to respond, but quieted when she continued. "And knights and pixies. She'll have it under guard."

  "I don't have a plan yet anyway," Megan said. "I will, or, more likely, Lani and Justin will come up with something with all of you. There's a lot more of you here to discuss it. I need to go home soon. I still have a couple of tests coming up. You're sure my mother didn't suspect anything?" she asked Kerr.

  "No, no, nothing, Highness. All of your homework was turned in on time. Everything went smoothly. The math test is next Thursday. Your mother is working a little late tonight."

  “So, can we keep at the homework help thing?” Megan was hopeful.

  Kerr shuffled from tiny foot to tiny foot. “Well, um, technically, Highness...”

  Lani sighed. “Megan, please don't abuse a carefully worded two-century-old diplomatic agreement between supernatural communities to get a B+ in chemistry.”

  "I had to try," Megan said. "Besides, technically, my job in Faerie isn't done yet, right?"

  "Come up with a plan, and then we can talk about using faerie magic to cheat on your next math test. Meanwhile, you're going back on your pills, right? But not all of them."

  "The multi-colored pills, spread out a bit when Mom's not looking, and Vitamin C supplements," Megan agreed. "Things started making more sense without them in Faerie, but I don't know when we're going back.”

  "I'll be there to make sure she gets her Vitamin C," Ashling piped in helpfully.

  Megan started to sigh, then stopped and looked at Ashling intently. “How long have you been there?” she asked. “Right on the edge of the corner of my eye?”

  “Hey, I've been flattered by how long you've had a thing for butterflies.”

  “Heh. Yeah. Well, you're welcome. Or thank you, or something.” She looked to Lani and Justin. “Well, anyway, we'll go back when we know what to do.”

  "We'll be ready," Justin said.

  “Good. Um...where will you be ready?” The second-most obvious thing to Megan was that she wasn't going to leave Justin to fend for himself in Seattle. The most obvious thing was that she couldn't take him home.

  “I can give our hardworking boy a place here, for a three-day trial run at least,” Cassia said, looking him up and down.

  Justin twitched at the suggestion. Cassia saw it and smirked. Lani saw it and stepped up. “He'll stay with us. Mom will insist,” she said. And Mrs. Kahale might well insist once Lani told her she needed to insist about something. “We'll talk to the right people about getting him an ID and stuff.”

  "They can do that?" Megan asked.

  Kerr shuffled. Once again, Lani filled in the details. "Faeries can do a lot of things, depending on the faerie. I understand that it took them a while to adapt to needing to forge driver's licenses and passports and things when they used to be able to just show up. Some of them quit bothering. Some of them adapted."

  "Forging documents, and here I was feeling a little guilty about having a brownie doing my homework."

  "Yes, and some of them also hunt and eat people, or bludgeon travelers to make hat dyes. So, you know, not necessarily the best role models."

  "Hey, you're half-faerie too."

  "Yes, half the type of faerie who feel very, very guilty when we don't get the extra wing of the temple finished in one night."

  "Guilt is highly overrated," Cassia said.

  Megan grinned. "Work schedules and owls. You Hawaiian lawn gnome people are very strange."

  Lani rolled her eyes, doing her best not to smile through feigned indignation. "Fine, next time build your own bridge."

  "As soon as I figure out bridge-building magic, maybe I will."

  "That's pretty unlikely to be one of your tricks," Ashling said.

  "I thought you didn't know this magic?"

  "I don't, but I knew plenty of people who did, and heard about more of them. Annie the Fair, Tom O'Shaughnessy, "Magic" Roger Barr, Heather Riordan, Moon Unit Zappa..."

  "Wait, Moon Unit knows bardic magic?"

  "No, I just really like her name. Where was I going with that?"

  "You were telling me why I can't build bridges."

  "Oh, right. You see, all of the world's magic comes from a pact with the first dragons. They didn't look anything like dragons you hear about now, though. Back then, though of course they had the same intellectual rigor that made one dragon I know live under a Jesuit university, they—"

  "Does t
his have anything to do with bridges?" Now Megan was having to force herself not to smile.

  "Everything. Dragons grew wings because the bridges wouldn't hold them when they got too big."

  "Of course they did."

  "True story. But anyway, magic tends to come in themes. Your father has a lot of tricks, but he's really, really good at ice and cold and stuff. One of the best ever. Most of the bard types, whatever else they could do, could do a little healing, and then there's the inspiring the troops things. That's pretty universal. Or it was. Now, instead of music, they have R. Lee Ermey, but the point stands. Anyway, you're still going to have a specialty for bigger things. And some songs just won't work for you."

  "How will I know?"

  "Well, if you sing along to something, and nothing happens, then that song doesn't work for you."

  Megan was about to respond, but noticed Lani and Kerr giggling, causing her to pause before finally answering, "Okay, that's obvious. How will I know what I'm going to be good at?"

  "See what feels natural."

  "Really, that's it?"

  Ashling grinned wide. "You were expecting something different?"

  "Well, yes, actually. Magic seems like a pretty big deal. You would think there would be stuff to study and formulas and...well, math problems. I guess."

  "You can use magic, at least partly, because of your faerie side. If you had to focus too much, or do too much math, you couldn't do it."

  "Hey, I'm good at math," Lani and Kerr said in near-unison.

  Megan glanced at them, then back at Ashling. "All right. I'll bring the book, and you can help me. One more thing to be studying. Speaking of which, I should get home."

  Lani stepped up to give her a hug. "We'll think of something, Megan. I promise. We have a week. We're not going to give up."

  "I'm definitely not giving up," Megan assured her. "But first, I need to make sure I'm home on time. I'll have a lot harder time saving the world if I'm grounded."