by Emma Bull
She was wearing a shirt over a tank top; she shrugged and took the shirt off. “Won’t people stare when they see a couple of weirdos with their seams showing?”
The phouka only raised an eyebrow at her.
“You’re right. So what.” Eddi buttoned the shirt over her breast as if it were armor, and drove the rest of the way to the Conservatory.
She’d been there once many years before, with college friends on a picnic. She remembered only a splendid glass building without details. The decaying grandeur of the thing that rose before her now left her staring, wondering how she could have forgotten it.
The center was an immense double-curved dome of glass, the Moorish fantasy of some early twentieth-century Minnesotan, topped with a glass cupola and a stubby spire like a playing piece from a game of Clue. Glass wings stretched out from it on either side, one with an arched roof, one with an angular one. The entryway was itself a little greenhouse, with a pointed roof and glass between the white-painted pillars. The wide, shallow steps up to it were studded with tubs of petunias, purple and red and white. The scent of them was thick in the hot air.
Inside, the Conservatory was as hot and damp as the outdoors, and the air could not be called perfumed. The smell was of moist earth and peat, fertilizers, wet bark, and plants that weren’t grown for their fragrance. But it was a rich, intoxicating smell. Eddi was disoriented by an impression of living things, so many of them, full of small motions. She realized after a moment that the phouka had taken her elbow and was looking at her closely.
“I think it’s the heat,” she mumbled.
“No. It’s not. This is a place of power, my heart, leashed and tended and concentrated to a fearful degree. Magic breathes under every leaf here, and mutters to itself.” He stared at the base of an enormous palm tree beside them, as if it were much farther away. “I should be able to tell you the character of this magic, whether it serves the Dark Court or the Light. And I cannot. This is a wild power. She is rash to do her business here.”
Eddi was glad of his distraction. It gave her time to catch her breath, to feel her heart slow down. Whatever had overwhelmed her had retreated to background noise. “Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.”
There were only a few people in the Conservatory; a gardener passed them once, and two women with babies in strollers wandered the paths, absorbed in conversation. After studying them suspiciously for a moment, Eddi decided that they were what they seemed.
The central domed room of the Conservatory was given over entirely to palms. In the middle, on a raised, paved area, was a wishing fountain with a bronze sculpture of a woman dancing on the crest of a wave. Dolphins poked startled-looking faces out of the curl beneath her foot. The woman’s beauty, her unselfconscious grace, reminded Eddi of the creatures of the Seelie Court.
Would the Dark Queen hold her meeting here? For such a large room, it had little open space, only widened spots on the flagstone path for benches. It seemed like the wrong sort of room for her.
They peered at the walls and ceiling, looking for anything they could put to use in rescuing Willy. There was infuriatingly little. “I don’t suppose the Unseelie Court melt if you squirt them with a garden hose,” Eddi said sourly.
“No, more’s the pity. Garden hose does seem in plentiful supply.”
“Maybe we can trip them with it. Let’s see the next room.”
The next was the north wing, with its angular roof. It was oriental and exquisite. There were citrus trees and bamboo, holly and oleander and magnolias, pine trees and one extraordinary California redwood. At the heart of the room, like a close-kept secret, there was a pool where water dripped musically from a source somewhere in the roof. The end of the wing was a Japanese rock garden fronted with stone benches.
“Maybe here?” she said.
The phouka looked thoughtful. “Perhaps. There are things here that are hers—vervain and pomegranate and myrtle. But . . .”
“Right. But. It’s too . . . secretive, or something.”
He eyed her for a long moment. “She can be secretive.”
“I bet she can. But she wouldn’t stage this like a KGB spy exchange. She’d want to make a production of it. Wouldn’t she?”
“Hmm,” he said, and they went on to the next wing.
It was the fern room, and even more unsuitable than the rest. It was a long, narrow corridor. The ferns grew thick and high, and curtained the view from anywhere in the room. If, indeed, Willy’s release was to be a production, there was no place to put the audience.
“I feel like I’m trying to find a site for a concert,” Eddi grumbled as they came back to the palm house, the hub of the wheel.
“For what it’s worth,” said the phouka, “I favor the north wing.”
Then they turned right through a set of double glass doors and stopped.
“May I change my vote?” the phouka asked.
They stood on a terrace at a wrought-iron railing, looking out over a formal sunken garden. A keyhole-shaped pond ran most of its length, the water almost hidden by water lilies. Boxwood and laurel, pruned in stately shapes, marched along the glass walls. At the far end six Italian cypress rose tall and thin, like great dark sentinels. They stood guard over an arched alcove. It was too far away for Eddi to see what was in it.
Steps led down from their terrace on both sides. Beside each flight a bay tree grew, the shiny dark leaves massed in a spreading mushroom-cap shape. The flagstone path traced the shape of the pond, from one flight of steps to the alcove and back to the steps on the other side. Lamps hung from the ceiling down the center of the room, made of leaded panes of glass in the shape of many-pointed stars.
The plantings blurred before Eddi’s eyes, turning into streaks and pools of color. Then they came into abnormally sharp focus: gloxinias and begonias, mounded geraniums and chrysanthemums, coleus and baby’s breath, tall nodding roses in red, white, yellow, pink, and clear orange. The lily pads in the pond stirred at the edge of her vision; then she saw the red-fire streaks of the goldfish sheltering under them. For a moment, the whole glass room seemed to be dancing. But she blinked, and everything around her was formal and still again.
The phouka frowned at her, but stayed silent.
“This is it,” Eddi said. “If it isn’t, my last name’s Van Halen. Come on, let’s get serious.”
They walked slowly down the stairs and along the path. They found things, though they weren’t sure how to make use of them. There was a watering system, a network of tubes like capillaries that fed each potted plant. There was a reflecting ball on a pedestal at the end of the pool. There was another paved terrace before the alcove, and a fountain in it.
The phouka dropped down on one of the benches on that terrace. “Little to work with, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got some ideas. What are those things under her feet?”
The phouka looked at the fountain, where another bronze girl was dancing. “Frogs, I think.”
“Yuck.”
“What are your ideas?”
Eddi shook her head. “The snapdragons have ears. Tell you later.”
She woke early the next morning. She unwrapped herself from the warm cocoon of the phouka’s arms, and he was awake at once, though she’d been gentle. He came out of sleep quickly and alert. She wondered if he always did, and felt a moment’s terror that she might never know.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Gonna see if Meg’s here,” Eddi whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
“I doubt if I can. But if you prefer it, I can lie here and be still.”
“Probably a good idea.” Eddi grinned at him and kissed his nose. “She thinks you’re full of nonsense.”
“She’s lamentably ignorant of my better qualities.”
“You mean she hasn’t seen you with your clothes off?” Eddi thought he blushed.
She wrapped her kimono around her and went quietly into the living room. At first, she
thought Meg had already gone, or hadn’t come yet. Then she saw a herd of dustballs roll out from under the couch in what, had they been alive, would have been panic. She waited until they’d clambered up the side of the wastebasket and thrown themselves in. Then she said cautiously, “Meg?”
The nose came out first around the back of the couch, followed by the scowling brown face. “Tha hair wants combin’.”
“I’ll get to it, I promise. Meg—”
She disappeared behind the couch again. “I’m worrrkin’,” she said gruffly.
Eddi sat down in the armchair and propped her chin on her hand. She’d think this was just Faerie perversity—but Carla was like this sometimes, when something needed discussing, and Carla was afraid to do it. “Okay,” Eddi said. “You work. I’ll talk. You’ve heard about Willy, I suppose?”
The rustling behind the couch went on, but Eddie didn’t think she was being ignored.
“Well, the Lady has decided that she can’t give up Como Park for him. I can understand that. Willy would probably even understand it. You can’t throw away the good of the whole Court for one guy.”
Behind the couch, there was a thump.
“After studying the situation, I’ve decided that this is a job for a third-party contractor. So I’m going to rescue Willy.”
The reaction to that was silence. Finally Meg came out from behind the couch, wearing an expression eloquent of not-very-patient suffering. “Wha’s that tae do wi’ me?”
Eddi sighed. “I’d like you to help.”
“Nay,” Meg declared, lifting her chin. “I’ll nae help.”
Eddi had to bite her lip for a moment to keep her mouth closed. Then she said, “Why?”
“The young laird’s nae charge o’ mine. He’s walked his road. If he canna thole what’s at its end, worse luck tae him.”
Eddi studied the little brown woman before her, standing so stiff and proud. The phouka had told her that the brownies were solitary, disinclined to bow to the wishes of the Sidhe. But she thought there was something uneasy about Meg’s independence.
So she looked long at her, and said at last, “I wonder where you’d be now, if I’d thought like that at Minnehaha Falls?”
Meg’s face screwed up with fury and anguish. “It’s na’ fair! Tha’s got nae call tae fling what I owe in my face!”
“What do you owe, Meg?” she asked, knowing quite well.
“My life,” Meg spat. “Tha may ask what tha will o’ me, and I canna refuse aught.”
Eddi laced her fingers together across her knees and stared at Meg until the brownie stared back. “I saved your life. The way I see it, your life is beyond price, right?”
Meg nodded shortly.
“Good. There are two ways to look at that. In one of them, you owe me a debt that you can’t ever repay, and I pretty much own you.” Eddi paused for dramatic effect, though she felt like a wretch for doing it. “But I told the phouka once that I didn’t own you, and I still believe that. Lives are beyond price, and to treat them as if they have some kind of barter value is obscene.” Meg looked puzzled, and Eddi continued, “I saved your life because it was the right thing to do.”
She unfolded her hands and stood up.
“Lass!”
Eddi felt something sweep over her skin, a rush of hot or cold. It must have come from the sudden jump of her heart. She turned back to Meg.
“Lass . . . The Dark Lady, she’s the de’il himself. She’ll hurt tha dreadful if she can.”
“Are you afraid?”
“A’ course I am! Tha should be, too.”
“Well,” Eddi said, leaning on the back of the chair, “I am. But I have to do this anyway. And I hope you’ll help me—but not because you think you owe it to me. Do it because you want to do me a favor, or Willy a favor, or because it’s right. Or don’t do it. I can’t blame you if you don’t. All our necks will be on the line, and there won’t be anybody to save ‘em if it goes wrong.”
“The Lady and her folk?” Meg asked.
“They don’t know anything about it. And they won’t, till it’s over. We’re going to play by mortal rules, and I don’t think the Sidhe would like it if they knew.”
Meg screwed her mouth up, and rubbed her nose vigorously. “If I said aye—what would I do?”
Eddi sat back down in the armchair and leaned forward. “How are you at gardening?”
The sensible thing to do, on the afternoon of the battle for Como Park, would have been to take a nap. She couldn’t, of course. Instead she and the phouka made love. They gave each other comfort and strength and pleasure, and took the same things back. And each pretended to be certain that it would happen again.
When Eddi left the bedroom to start a pot of coffee, she found her armor lying on the kitchen table. Black motorcycle leathers: zippered jacket, pants, knee-high boots. On top of the pile was a black Bell full-coverage helmet. On the side of it, she saw the design of the pin the phouka had given her, the five-petaled flower in the square, inlaid in gold and silver.
“Phouka?” she called, a little unsteady.
He was at the bedroom door almost instantly. “Ah,” he said when he saw what she was looking at.
“Where did all this come from?”
“I think whence your breakfast comes, love.”
“This is Meg’s work?” Her eyes burned, and she squeezed them shut firmly. “Maybe she doesn’t want to have to mend my jacket again.”
The phouka came and put his arms around her. “If you want to cry, you may, you know.”
She turned and put her head on his shoulder. “No. If I do, I won’t stop. I’m wound up too tight.” She looked up at him and smiled a little. “This is worse than Minnehaha Falls. This time I know how much trouble I’m in.”
“That, sometimes, is a kind of protection.” He stroked her face, and she kissed his palms.
“What’s with the little flower?” she asked, in a blatant change of subject.
The phouka nodded at the helmet with its insignia. “Every noble house has its colors and its device.”
“Since when have I become a noble house?”
“Since first you came among us.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, but it was full of that langorous power she’d heard there only rarely. “That we were all slow to recognize it makes it no less true.”
He kissed her, as if in ritual, on the lips, and walked into the bedroom. She stared after him for a moment. Then she gathered up her armor and went to put it on.
The weather had broken, finally; there was a wind blowing. It was full of the chill of impending rain, and Eddi was glad of the leathers. The moon rode high, barely more than a quarter, and clouds boiled across it. She could see better than could be accounted for by that dim light, or the street lamps, or the Triumph’s headlight. But she was getting used to that. When all this was over would she keep the Faerie magic she’d acquired? If she lived long enough to see it end?
They met on Como Avenue, at the edge of the park. Carla’s wagon was pulled up to the curb, and Hedge was leaning against the fender, in a tight T-shirt and torn jeans, his hair in his eyes. Eddi drew up next to him and took the helmet off. His eyes widened when he realized who it was, and she grinned. “You’re the very picture of juvenile delinquency,” she told him.
“And you look like an ad for a movie,” Carla said, leaning out the driver’s side window.
“A good movie,” the phouka said.
“Got a call just before we left my place,” Carla told Eddi. “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, under the circumstances.”
“What?”
“We’re gonna play First Avenue for the Fourth of July.”
Eddi gaped. “We are?”
“Yep. Three-band bill, the third band canceled out. We’re replacing ‘em.”
“Ye gods. In the mainroom?”
“With all the flashing lights. Now we really have to get our guitar player back.”
Eddi raked a hand throu
gh her hair. She understood what Carla meant about laughing or crying. “You’ve got all the stuff?”
“Down to the last patch cord. Now relax. We’re gonna knock ‘em dead.”
“Carla, are you enjoying this?”
“ ‘Course she is,” Dan sighed from the other side of the car. “Girl thinks she’s in the middle of Mission: Impossible.”
“Well, you’re not, dammit,” Eddi said fiercely. “This is real, and if anything screws up, you’ll be dead.”
Carla glanced down for a moment; when she looked up at Eddi again her expression was very different. “I know. But I may as well play this for all it’s worth—just in case.”
Neither of them wanted to talk about in-case-of-what, so Eddi put her helmet back on. “You know the drill. Follow in fifteen minutes, set up, and wait till you see us.” She wished she could think of something cleverer to say than “Break a leg,” but she couldn’t. Instead she revved the bike and headed into the park.
The Conservatory was dark. Eddi parked in the curving drive in front, pulled off her helmet, and tucked it under her arm. She and the phouka walked warily up the steps. The outer doors stood open.
They stood in the palm house feeling naked beneath the pale glass arch of the roof. The shadows were deep under the leaves, and full of rustlings. Eddi hoped it was just a ventilator blowing.
There was a glow to her left, very soft. She turned and saw the frame of the double doors into the sunken garden faintly luminous, and felt a rush of relief. If they had been wrong, if the Dark Queen had chosen the north wing after all. . . She tugged the phouka’s shirt sleeve. He nodded and followed her.
The sunken garden was dim, the colors extinguished by the faint moonlight. What light there was bounced off the water of the pond between the lily pads, like puddles on a wet road. Eddi stepped to the edge of the terrace and clutched the iron railing.
Light leaped up—both electric and eldritch. The star-shaped hanging lamps glittered. The flagstones of the path shone softly at all their edges. The struts in the arched roof were streaks of pale light. It was more than enough to show the Queen of Air and Darkness, in a gray jumpsuit and a long gray coat, on the far terrace before the alcove. Her guards were ranked among the trimmed boxwood. Then a wet, dark-green creature shambled out from under the bay tree toward them. The phouka stepped quickly between it and Eddi.
