by L. K. Rigel
Even Aubrey was going to rot, with an uncharacteristic disregard for his appearance. Cissa hadn’t seen the fairy in a shiny new outfit since… well, since his muse Idris had been imprisoned, now that she thought about it. And according to her minions’ reports, he was always lying about in some goblin byway, drinking jasmine stout.
And speaking of goblins, Max! Her friend was more grumbly than ever. His sister Boadicea had been freed of the magic mirror that had been her prison only to spread resentment and discontent throughout the Blue Vale—Cissa’s minions had told her that much—bemoaning the gobs’ ugly state and reminding them of their lost beauty.
The goblin bitch wouldn’t shut up about the curse being Max’s fault—and worse, that he’d turned down the chance to end it, because he wouldn’t offend Brother Sun and Sister Moon. Max had principles. Something Boadicea didn’t understand.
Poor sweet Max. Cissa ran her fingers over the cloisonné decoration on her carved rosewood puzzle box. He’d made it for her ages and ages ago, just after her parents had been ambushed and murdered by wyrders.
”Oh, Dandelion!” She cried out to her absent brother. “How could you have left us? And to marry a wyrding woman!”
Cissa had tried—truly—to get past her hatred of the wyrd who’d killed her mother and father, the fairy queen and her consort who, like all fae, were supposed to be immortal. Yet the wyrd had found a way to slay them, with enchanted quarrels delivered by crossbows.
Of course Beverly had had nothing to do with that, having been born in an entirely different millennium. Cissa had tried to like her for Dandelion’s sake. She had failed at that, just as she was failing at being queen. I’m not like my mother at all. I’ll never be magnanimous.
She was so miserable.
She opened the box. When Max gave it to her all those years ago, he’d promised one day she would feel happiness again, that as the compartments filled with treasures, her heart would fill with eagerness for simply being alive in the world.
You’re a fairy princess, he had said. It’s in your nature to find delight in all that is pretty and sparkly and lovely.
She’d thought she heard like you, tagged on in barely a whisper at the end, but she had most likely imagined it. Over the years, the gob had given her little presents from time to time to put in the box. Breaking all fae tradition, he’d never asked for anything in return.
“Until this,” she said aloud.
She took the dewdrop bracelet from the top compartment. When she put it on, her heart felt lighter. A smile tugged at the side of her mouth, and the irritations of the day fell away somewhat. It was made of diamonds cut to look like the morning dew in sunlight. Not pretty at all. Oh, no. The bracelet was beyond beautiful. She wanted to wear it all the time.
But she didn’t dare. This was the one gift from Max that had come with an obligation.
“And what do I get in return?” He’d said when she put it on. Their exchange played over again in her head:
“But you never…”
“Yeah, I never. This time I do.”
“What… what do you want?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
He hadn’t said a word about it since. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he’d forgotten. After all, he’d been in a terrible mood when he said it. Maybe he didn’t mean it. Even so, except for here alone in her bower, she didn’t wear the bracelet. She wouldn’t risk him seeing it and remembering that she owed him.
It was the fairy way. Give a present, get a present. Accept a favor, owe a favor. Cissa had lived over two thousand years owing no one, and she wasn’t going to start now.
Not even with Max.
She put away the diamonds and slid open another part of the box, the drawer at the bottom of the compartment. Without a sound, she held its secret up to the light, the one thing in the puzzle box Max hadn’t given her. Her favorite possession, more dear to her even than the dewdrop bracelet.
An emerald necklace.
It wasn’t her best pretty. Max had made her countless lovelier things. But this was her most treasured object. It contained more than the green fire of emeralds and sparked within her more than a bubbling tickle of delight.
She ran her tongue over her lips, lightly bit the upper lip, then the lower. Slowly. She clenched the muscles between her legs and grew warm there—and everywhere.
The memory of her first real kiss had never faded. It was so long ago… she was only a little more than two hundred years old. Her eyes had begun to change, and her curiosity was at the crazy, dangerous stage when a fairy enters young adulthood.
Every morning her explorations took her farther and farther from her mother’s court. She tested the very boundaries of Dumnos. One day she found a secret vale far, far beyond the faewood or any place she and Dandelion had ever known. It might have been in the realm of Edmos—or even the Tuatha Dé Danaan, though she hadn’t crossed any great waters to get there.
One morning like any other, she left the Dumnos court proper and flew lazily here and there, telling herself she had no destination in mind at all. At last she reached the far edge of the realm and flew beyond and on and on, to the cottage she’d discovered the first time she explored the foreign vale.
Whoever lived in the little house had the prettiest jewels she’d seen in her life. The cottage overflowed with loose diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires—everything sparkly you could imagine. And bright-cut gold and silver too! In the workshop, the bounty was in different stages of being made into bracelets, necklaces, tiaras, rings—so many things to make Cissa’s heart swoon.
So many pretties. Whoever lived there wouldn’t miss one or two. On her first few visits, she’d taken some loose cut jewels, then a gold and ruby ring, then a sapphire bracelet. After a while, she couldn’t help herself. As much as she loved the jewels, she loved the excitement of taking them even more.
She was a natural-born thief. So much fun!
She would wait on the roof until he was gone—she knew the jewel maker was a man because one time she heard him singing.
His voice was so lovely she was tempted to peek, to see what he looked like. But she was afraid that if she saw him he would see her. That wouldn’t do! So she contented herself with the sound of him, and she told herself that such a happy singer wouldn’t begrudge one fairy taking a few jewels here and there, especially when she enjoyed them so much.
That morning, that momentous morning, she’d waited on the roof for a long time. There was a lot of noise inside. She’d wondered if she’d missed the arrival of brownies come to clean house, but finally the noises stopped, the front door slammed shut, and the jewel maker left his cottage, singing the same tune as before:
Bathed in the mystic moonlight
On the night of a goblin ball
Look to the moon at midnight
When true love will free us all.
When his song had faded away, she had flown down from the roof and into the cottage through a window.
To her dismay, the house had been cleaned thoroughly. Everything was put away, even his tools and all the loose jewels and bits of silver and gold. Except…
She could feel it. Something was out, something in another room. She’d never gone past the workroom before, but whatever it was called to her. She flew to the hall and into the room at the end.
His bower. The bed was big and dark and heavy. She ran her fingers over the pretty enamel cloisonné flowers that decorated the polished cherry wood headboard and footboard.
And then she saw them. Emeralds peeking out from under a swatch of shimmering cloth on the dresser. The cloth tugged her interest, but when she picked it up she saw the entirety of the emerald necklace and bracelet below. She set the cloth aside, put on the necklace, and looked at herself in the mirror.
Ooh! It was so pretty—and it made her eyes turn green! She knew it! She knew she was grown up now. She’d told Dandelion so, and this proved it. Green eyes! She couldn’t wait to get back to th
e faewood and show Dandelion her eyes.
She picked up the bracelet and held it in the sunlight coming through the window. Then something moved in the mirror and a voice behind her cried, “I’ve got you now, you little thief!”
A large, strong hand grabbed her wrist and swung her around, then another hand wrapped something around her. A binding cloth!
“Ooh!” A thrill shot through her. She’d been caught by the jewel maker, she was sure of it. So handsome. So noble-looking… and so angry with her!
No one was ever angry with her. It was exciting.
But it wasn’t just anger she felt coming off of him. She saw something else in his eyes. A hunger. Desire. And—sun and moon—desire had burst alive inside her too. And then his lips were close, so close—and found hers.
A thousand tingling prickles danced from his lips to hers. Shocks of desire flooded her senses in waves. He pushed his tongue between her lips, and she allowed it. In fact, her tongue encouraged his. She ran her hands over his broad, muscled chest, and he pushed her against the wall, pressed his chest against hers, his longing evident—and growing.
Was that how her mother and father felt about each other? More than delight. So much more…
His lips crashed down on hers again, and she felt transformed. With a kiss, the child Cissa had gone. She was a woman. When he pulled away, her body complained for more.
“Who are you?” he said, and his words broke the spell.
She sucked in air, trying to collect herself.
“Give me your name,” he said.
She was frozen by emotion and couldn’t speak, but she really looked at him then. He was as tall as Dandelion and had longish, wavy dark brown hair, and smooth, tanned skin. His deep brown eyes bore into her soul and made her lightheaded. He had broad shoulders and wore an embroidered leather vest but no shirt, and she ran her hand over his solid, muscled arm. His lips were soft and firm, and she wanted to kiss them again, but… but she was so confused.
In that moment, she’d known one thing: If she stayed any longer, she would never be able to leave him. It would never do! Fairies don’t love! They don’t!
She had touched the necklace then, and it was like a tether, recalling her to her fairy nature and reminding her who she was. Before she lost her wits entirely, she had popped out.
She never did know how she’d gotten back to the faewood, but she’d gone directly to her bower and stripped off the emerald necklace and hidden it under her pillow where it stayed for many years until much later, when Max the goblin gave her the puzzle box.
She had never seen her prince charming again—for that is how she thought of him—but she’d never forgotten him, or his kiss. She had no idea which court he belonged to, though she was fairly certain it wasn’t Brienne’s. She’d often fantasized that he would come to visit her parents with a delegation from Edmos or the Tuatha Dé Danaan, but that hope had died with her parents. Idris had never had visitors, though he’d toyed with the idea of courting Brienne.
Cissa sighed and returned the necklace to the bottom drawer, sliding it shut just as Morning Glory popped into the bower.
“Hello! Hello!” Her friend spun in the air. “I’m back!” She stopped midair and held out her hands, inviting Cissa to join her in a spin. It was tradition with them, but these days it seemed silly.
“Come on.” Morning Glory tilted her head and beckoned with her hands. “Who needs a spin?” Her grin was infectious, and she was right.
Cissa flew up and joined her, and they spun and spun and spun, higher and higher, above the trees, up through the misty gray clouds, and even higher until they could see all of the British Isles and Ireland too.
Without thinking, Cissa automatically searched the oceans below. As usual, the one place she longed to see was nowhere in sight. Why did she even try?
Morning Glory tossed an extended shower of exploding fairy dust and they descended with it back to the earth.
As Cissa’s feet touched down in the bower and she retracted her wings, Morning Glory said, “I did it. I found Cade at Mudcastle and told him they had to host a gifting ceremony, and he said yes.”
“That simple, huh?”
“Beverly might have helped. A little. And don’t scrunch your nose at Beverly. She’s not bad for a wyrd, and she truly loves Dandelion.”
“And Lily?”
“I found her at a shop in the village with Lexi. She said fine.”
“All right then,” Cissa said. “When is the party, as the pixies called it, going to be?”
“May Day, at the Temple of Joy and Wonder,” Morning Glory said. “A picnic! Isn’t that nice?”
“Sure.” Another detail dealt with. “Now I just have to figure out what to give my grandniece.”
“Wouldn’t the other courts be jealous if they knew we had a new baby?” Morning Glory pulled a sparkly scarf from her hidey bag and looked at herself in Cissa’s mirror. “Alexandra Lowenwyn Beverly Glory Marion Elyse Bausiney—and a future peer of the realm at that!”
Ugh. All those kiss-up names, and they couldn’t find a place for Narcissus? Hey, wait a minute. “What did you say? About the other courts?”
“Sarumos and Edmos.” Morning Glory brightened, if that were possible. “You should invite them. Ha! More than their eyes would be green.”
“And the Tuatha Dé Danaan?”
“Why not?” The white-haired fairy sniffed and shrugged her shoulders. “We’ll show them who’s special.”
Cissa’s pulse quickened as the kernel of an idea sprouted in her mind. Her prince charming must definitely belong to another court! It would explain why he’d never come to the faewood.
“You’re right.” She would send out invitations to the other fairy courts—laced with a spell to draw him to her. “Why not?” She could use the emerald necklace to call its maker to the gifting. Brilliant!
She only wanted to see him once again. Just once. What could it hurt?
« Chapter 5 »
Cammy
Tintagos Village
Cammy pulled her robe together with one hand and clutched the torch she’d brought from upstairs in the other, illuminating the displays. No need to turn on the shop lights and raise the night patrolman’s curiosity. As she picked her way through Into the Mystic, she noticed the front door shade hadn’t been pulled down.
Oh, Bella. Her sister was ever absentminded about some things. The shop wasn’t closed up properly at all. She set the bolt, flipped the door sign over to show the side that read Closed But Please Come By Tomorrow, and pulled down the shade.
Not that the lock was necessary. It seemed Tintagos was amazingly, mysteriously, mystically free from crime. There was a small police force whose two main functions, apparently, were to give the village the sense of service and protection and to provide employment to a few of its citizens.
She picked up two magic mirrors from their display, and as she headed back to the stairwell the clock on the wall behind the register chimed the quarter hour. Fifteen minutes to go. She should probably have gotten the mirrors from storage—in the supply room there was one box left of those the countess’s mother had “fixed”—but she didn’t want to risk missing the first chime of midnight.
“I’ve got them!” she called up to her sister.
They lived in the flat above the shop, which had come with the leasehold. Two bedrooms, an unexpectedly spacious old-fashioned bath with a claw-foot tub, a small lounge, a larger dining nook, and a kitchen. Free of the constant presence of their demanding and critical father, the cozy rooms felt as large as life to Cammy, as spacious and comfortable as the mansion at Faeview. Add to this the lush garden behind the shop, and sometimes she felt she’d come home to paradise.
Not that Cammy had been to Faeview yet, but she and Bella had been invited to Lady Lexi’s gifting on May Day. Gifting. It sounded like something out of Perrault. Yet another indication that her awakened memories of Tintagos were not ridiculous, as Bella would have it, but in fact true.
Cammy and her sister had left the Handover empty-handed and had gone home to their soul-leaching father. Vacation over. Mischief managed. And there was an end on it.
And it had ended, until they’d returned to Tintagos for Lilith and Cade’s wedding. The reception had been held at the remodeled Glimmer Cottage, and something had happened to her there.
She was sitting alone, watching the dancing and drinking champagne in the garden near an ancient yew tree when a crow jabbered at her. For some reason, she looked up to answer the bird and noticed the cottage roof in her line of sight. Standing at the roof’s edge was the most striking man she’d ever seen.
He had wild straw-blond hair and was dressed like a highwayman out of a Georgette Heyer novel. His shirt was open, and his smile was devastating. He was too far away to tell, and yet she could tell that he had violet eyes. His stare hit her like a laser beam, drove through her, and warmed her in ways it had no business doing.
Lost in his violet gaze for moments that seemed like an eternity, she had awakened. She remembered everything.
The wyrding woman.
Igdrasil riven by lightning.
The god Aeolios arriving to claim the soul trapped within the mystical tree as his bride.
That Lilith and Cade had sacrificed themselves, risked their very lives to free the ghostly lovers who’d haunted Tintagos Castle for a millennium.
It was all wonderful! And it was all true.
Bella did not wake up. She was still mesmerized with an implanted mundane memory—or whatever they’d used to drive the actual events of the Handover from her mind. No matter how often or in what detail Cammy recounted what had really happened during their vacation in Tintagos, Bella would not, could not, accept it.
Well. Perhaps this spell with the mirrors would show her. At any rate, on May Day, at little Lady Lexi’s gifting, they would see what they would see.
Bella met her in the dining nook, coming in from the kitchen with a chilled bottle of white wine and two glasses in one hand and plate of her homemade gougères.
