Soul of Fire tp-2

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Seeing two women leaning against the bar, exchanging quips with the man behind it, he smoothed down the leather of his jacket and moved through the crowd. Three at once would at least be a challenge, if he must remain here. Boredom was not to be tolerated.

  * * *

  Cam had taken his queen at her word. The moment the humans had taken their attention away from the two houses they had cleansed, he had directed three each of his pack to take up residence. The computer in the basement of the court kept them connected, although for the most part there was nothing to be communicated. They would establish the houses, set up protective warding, and await instructions. His instructions, not hers.

  He checked the email every day, nonetheless. They played a dangerous game, one that could collapse any moment, and his encounter with the human female outside earlier had left him with a vague sense of unease, as though someone had spilled something somewhere and left it there. He might resent the way brownie senses were attuned to whatever house they chose to serve, but he would not ignore those warning signs out of spite. The outer courts needed to remain safe, both for Herself’s sake and their own plans.

  The preter’s decision to claim humans for her court had been unexpected and disturbing. Humans shoved in, took the glory, the greater share of power, every time. And so he had planted the seed in the human’s mind, set her to thinking of escape. Nalith needed to depend on them, not humans.

  Despite her strength, despite their care, something hovered, crept around the borders. He could not see it, but he felt it. If Nalith did not as well, if she were distracted by her new toys... No. He would not doubt her. He would be ready, and when she had a plan, she would inform him of it.

  In the meantime, he would clear the court of these interlopers without any blame for their misfortune falling back on him, and their own plans would go forward. Not to be masters of the world, no, but the whisper in the ear of the mistress of the world. That was always where power lay.

  Chapter 12

  Nalith stared at her, those blue eyes hypnotic as a snake’s. “You cannot draw.”

  “No.” Jan had no trouble admitting it. She had a reasonable number of skills and strengths, but she’d never been artsy in that regard. Her casualness about that fact seemed to confuse the preter, however.

  It was two days after Martin’s acceptance into the court. Jan had been summoned to the main room; now the queen was standing in front of her easel, one of the brownies off to her left, not quite hovering, and Jan sat on the footstool she had been directed to when she’d come downstairs, and tried to stay very still.

  Jan had determined that none of the court were morning people. She would occasionally see some sprites drifting across the yard in the dawn when she woke up, but they never seemed to come into the house proper, and the gnomes were still banished to their corner campsite. Jan tried not to look in that direction if she could help it. Simply knowing they were there had made it difficult to sleep the past two nights. And Tyler still turned away from her when he came to bed, his body language as stiff and unwelcoming as it had been when he’d first come back, so there was no comfort there, to take or to give.

  Ty knew the preters were back. She didn’t know if he’d somehow felt portals opening or he’d been keeping track of time better than she had, but he knew. And he knew how they’d have done it: using enthralled humans to hold the connection. Knew that he would have been one of them if Jan hadn’t come for him instead. So she had taken to waking with the dawn, leaving him to battle his own demons. It might not have been the right decision, but it was the only one they could manage and still do their job.

  Each morning there was the ever-ready pot of coffee and fresh muffins, and a curt, we-have-to-work-together-but-I-don’t-like-you-either nod to whatever brownie was working there, before Jan headed into the main room. No matter how early she woke up, the queen was always there first, dressed and alert, already at her easel.

  Today the conversation had taken an immediate left turn, with her question about drawing. “You do not seem to care, this lack in yourself.”

  Jan thought about her answer before giving it. She didn’t want to set the preter off, but she saw no reason to lie, either.

  “Art is a gift. Pretty much everything we do is a gift. Some make music, some draw, some sing, some dance, some act...and some people’s gifts aren’t creative. Not that way, anyway. I have a friend, he’s an amazing cook. Give him turnips and a bag of flour, and he’ll make something amazing. He can’t sing a note, though. Believe me, he really can’t sing.” Jan lost herself in the telling, almost forgetting for a moment who she spoke to, that this was not a friend, not even a casual acquaintance you could exchange memories with, without constantly weighing what you were giving away, what you were gaining.

  “You have an eye for color, for shape,” the preter said, still stuck on her original thought, like a terrier with a rat. “But you cannot perform it.”

  “Nope.” She could design the hell out of someone else’s work, though. Jan shrugged, then looked at the preter, unable to help herself. “And it bothers you that it doesn’t bother me? Why?”

  They hadn’t been getting anywhere on figuring out Nalith’s weak spot, pussyfooting around and hoping to eavesdrop or trip over a clue. It had been two days since Martin had won his place in the court, four or maybe five since they had left the Farm; the days and nights had blurred together until visiting the witch, sleeping in the truck seemed like memories from last year or stories someone else had told her. And there was no point in waiting on rescue. Martin had left her phone with the truck, the idiot, so she couldn’t even check to see if the messages she’d told him to send had gone through. It didn’t matter. The deadline had passed. AJ had bigger things to worry about than rescuing them.

  At this point, Jan figured she had very little to lose by trying a direct approach.

  “I care not what you do or think,” Nalith said, oblivious to everything that had gone through Jan’s mind. Her head was cocked, but she was staring at the canvas in front of her, not Jan. The piece she had been working on when Jan had arrived had long been abandoned, one of a series of pieces stored in the basement, away from her sight but still cared for in case she called for them later. Now it was a charcoal sketch. It was, Jan thought, supposed to be a tree, maybe the one outside in the front lawn, towering, with half the leaves fallen. But she knew that only as a guess: the preter was no better at drawing than Jan. Even Kerry had tried to tell Nalith that, only to receive a punishing slap and a banishment from her presence for his honesty. He had been sulking outside on the back deck ever since then.

  “Why are you here?” Jan asked, deciding to go for broke. “What do you want?”

  The preter’s entire body stiffened, but she did not look at Jan. “What?”

  “Why are you here?” Jan knew that Nalith had smelled preter on Tyler, or something, when they’d first arrived, but not how much she had been able to tell from that. Tyler had not spent any time in Nalith’s presence alone to spill any secrets. From what she could tell, he was avoiding getting within reach.

  “Tyler and I...we’ve met your kind before. He’s been enthralled.” Offer some truth to hide the rest of it? “We know that your kind has no particular love for our kind and certainly not for supernaturals.” Careful, Jan. Enough to be real, enough to distract her... “Your kind comes here and takes what they want, you amuse yourselves and then go back...so why are you here? Why do you stay?”

  Why, she thought but did not ask, is your old court so angry with you and so desperate to take you back—by force?

  “You are questioning me?” Nalith sounded as though a chair or rug had just challenged her, less offended than astonished at the improbability.

  “My lady, no. Merely trying to understand. You...have a goal. We cannot assist you if we do not have a clear picture of your goal.”

  Utter and absolute bullshit, honed by too many years of working with clients who expected her to read their m
inds and deliver whatever was in their minds without actually describing it. You weren’t supposed to call the clients idiots. Not to their faces, anyway.

  And especially not when this particular client would have no hesitation about knocking you into tomorrow.

  “Blunt speech, little human.”

  Jan braced for a blow, but Nalith merely considered her, those odd blue eyes narrowing as she thought. “You would know my mind, little human? You would think to understand me?”

  “I would try, my lady. To serve you better.” The words made Jan’s teeth hurt and bile churn in her chest, but she said them easily, without obvious emotion.

  The preter put her charcoal stick down and brushed one finger across the easel, smearing the work slightly. “My kind live, move, and breathe in magic. It surrounds us, shapes us. We are magic, inherent. You naturals, this realm, whatever you have here you gained from us, stole from us, piece by piece.”

  That was news to Jan—and she wasn’t sure that the witch Elizabeth would agree entirely, although she supposed it would depend on what you called magic. Maybe it was true for the supers, and shape-shifting and portals between realms were just physics and biology after all.

  “But for all that,” Nalith went on, “for all the glory and beauty of our court, there came a time when I looked out into our world, and...”

  Jan waited.

  “I did not understand it, the feeling that came to me. Not then, not for some time. I was bored.” She said the word as though it were a foreign, unfamiliar language and shook her head, the first time Jan had seen her make that gesture. “Nothing moved. Nothing changed.”

  “So...change things?”

  This time, the slap did come, but it barely rocked Jan; the preter had put little effort into the blow. “My world does not change.”

  Preters hate change, AJ had said. Jan’s mind whirled, trying to fit this new fact into what she had already known, figuring how—if—it changed the shape of the puzzle they had already pieced together. Preters hated change...or couldn’t change? Was there a difference, or did one rise from the other?

  And what did it mean that Nalith...what? What did the preter mean by bored? And how did this tie into her being here, to...to drawing or the way she gulped down PBS’s Great Performance, and every concert Wes could find on DVD or pay-per-view?

  “Humans, you change. Constantly. You create things to drive away your boredom.”

  Oh. Jan exhaled. Pieces clicked together a little better, but she still wasn’t seeing a complete picture. Her cheek burned from the slap, but she had to risk it. Keep her talking, pray nobody else came in to distract her, try to get more intel... “Create, my lady?”

  “Distractions, interruptions in the sameness of every day. We englamour, enhance, but underneath, it remains the same. Our food, our entertainment, our songs, our views. It began to drive me mad. I could no longer bear it, needed to find a different view, a different anything.”

  And that had meant fleeing her court. Jan tried to find a way to push, but she didn’t need to: Nalith kept talking.

  “The humans we brought to us, they had that...but it faded, always faded. As though the very air around us stifled their ability, prevented us. Always, we had to find new sources of entertainment, new performers. It was as it had always been, the way it always would be...until something changed. Not in us, not in you, but in the ways between. But I could not see where, could not understand how to make use of it. And then, a storm appeared in the sky, and the way opened, suddenly, unexpectedly. I saw the chance and took it.”

  Her expression tightened, as though remembering something unpleasant. “I thought... But each thing I put my hand to... I can see, but I cannot do.”

  There was a layer of irritation, of annoyance, in the preter’s voice, a frustration that both despaired and refused to give up. Despite herself, despite knowing how dangerous preters were, Jan felt a moment’s real twinge of pity.

  “I have never failed.”

  Jan bit her lip, willing the laughter to stay silent in her throat. Do what was needed, do what would get them information. Do not tell the selfish elf to get the fuck over herself.

  “But you do not understand,” Nalith said, dismissively. “You see colors wisely, yes, but you cannot create, cannot perform even as your leman does. I waste my breath even speaking to you.”

  Brief moment of pity over, Jan tasted blood as she bit down harder, reminding herself again that she needed to manage this egomaniac, not alienate her. She had come through a gate on impulse, had started all this out of a selfish whim....

  “My lady, what do you most desire?”

  * * *

  The preter’s words burned under Jan’s skin all day, until she was able to round up her companions in as unobtrusive a manner as she could manage and get them outside, where fewer ears might overhear. “She has no idea what she’s doing here.”

  “What do you mean, no idea?”

  “I mean, she’s here on a whim, winging it, improvising, not a fucking clue.”

  Martin snorted, running his fingers through his hair as if he was contemplating tearing it out by the roots. “Jan, preters don’t do things on a whim.”

  “Yeah, because all your great gathered wisdom tells you this. Oh, no, wait, you’re just as clueless as us humans when it comes to figuring them out, right?”

  Martin glared at her but had no comeback. She was right. She knew that she was right. Everything the supers knew was generations out of date, gathered as much from legends as history. AJ had been a cub the last time preters were overtly visiting this world, and he’d admitted that he was winging a lot of it, although he’d used better-sounding terms.

  “What did she say to you?” Tyler was sitting on the railing, balanced like a cat, seemingly without effort. She had the urge to poke him just to see if he would fall. Had he been that poised before he’d been taken? She couldn’t remember.

  “I told you already,” she said to Martin. “She felt a twitch or an itch or something and followed it here. That she was bored and wants us to somehow make her boo-boo all better. Only, she doesn’t know what hurts, and we’re supposed to magically gift her with a bandage.”

  Jan heard her voice rise and tried to modulate it, keeping the sarcastic tone but at a lesser volume, even as Martin made shushing gestures with his hand. Jan made a face at him, to say “Yes, I know, shut up,” even as her gaze went through the window to check the scene inside.

  Nalith was in the side parlor, meeting with the brownies Jan thought of as her majordomos, the same one who had talked to her on the porch and one other. They were going over a map spread out on the table, the two supers making a case for something, and Nalith listening, neither agreeing nor arguing.

  They had been there all evening. Jan and the others had eaten dinner around sunset, filling their plates at the stove and taking them into the dining room. They ate with the other humans and a few of the supers who would join them; most of the others ate later, and Jan was careful not to poke her nose into the kitchen to see if they were given the same food or something else.

  Nalith ate alone. Once or twice she had commanded that Tyler sing to her while she ate, but more often she preferred solitude, sitting at the main dining room in lonely splendor. Tonight, though, the two brownies had gone in to join her—not eating, just carrying the maps and waiting until she gestured to them to clear her plates and unroll the sheets of paper. They looked like blueprints and maps, but Jan hadn’t been able to see clearly enough to tell of what.

  “She wouldn’t deign to notice what we do,” Jan said even as she knew that that was a lie. Nalith noticed everything, even if she didn’t seem to care. Nalith wasn’t the only one they had to worry about. Ears were everywhere, and none of them friendly.

  “She’s been drawn here,” Tyler said, finally contributing to the conversation. “I know that much. Something called her, and she can’t go back. She’ll die inside if she goes back.”

  Jan paused, then
nodded thoughtfully. That fit with what Nalith hadn’t said, as much as with what she had. Not that she had taken the route between realms, but that she had been impelled to do so.

  “So what?” Martin said. “So what if she has no clue and wants something bright and shiny she didn’t have there? Why do we care?”

  He, clearly, didn’t.

  Martin kept his voice low, speaking directly to Jan. “Have you forgotten what she is? What’s at risk?”

  “No,” Jan said, stung. “I haven’t. It’s only that...” That what? What was digging at her, the splinter in her shoe, the buzz in her ear, that made what had seemed so clear and easy before, now so crowded and complicated? The flash of pity she’d had earlier was back, only it didn’t feel like pity anymore. But what, then?

  “Huh. ‘Bring us your huddled masses yearning to be free....’”

  “What?” Martin and Tyler both looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Maybe she had.

  “She’s looking for something here. Something she couldn’t find at home. Drawn, Tyler had said, and she could see that, clear as if there was a thread pulling in the preter’s chest, leading her, half-unwilling and helpless before it. If Ty’s right and she’d die if she went back... She’s cruel, and selfish, and pretty much horrible in all those ways, but do we really have the right to send her back somewhere she ran from, or use her as a potential hostage, knowing they’ll only take her back?”

  “Are you shitting me? Seriously, Janny, have you lost your mind? Did she englamour you?” Martin had backed away from her as if she’d suddenly started emitting toxic fumes, and him without a gas mask.