Behind all the clutter, magical and otherwise, sat a hunchbacked crone. She was straight out of a fairy tale, complete with gray, stringy hair, skin crisscrossed with wrinkles as deep as chasms, and a shapeless robe in varied shades of used bathwater. She sat behind a wooden table, upon which lay a stack of pelts.
“Help you?” she croaked, glancing up from the pelts she was sorting. A few were still bloody, and one of them wiggled.
“I’m looking for something,” I said, my voice mostly holding steady. Now that I was really there, really doing this, I almost completely lost my nerve. “Something to keep me from having a baby.”
The crone cackled, the sound filling the tiny space of the shop and rattling my bones. “So, you like him well enough, but not too much?” I opened my mouth, whether to protest or explain how much I really did like him I didn’t know, but she waved it away. “I’ve some extract of Queen’s Lace in the back,” she said, creakily unfolding herself from her chair. “I’ll be but a moment.”
“What is Queen’s Lace?” Sadie demanded, once the crone was out of sight.
“It keeps you from getting pregnant,” I whispered. Sadie drew back, shaking her head.
“Micah won’t like this,” she warned.
“What makes you think I haven’t told him?”
“If you had, you’d be here with him instead of me.” Good point. Thankfully, before Sadie pointed out the rest of the holes in my argument, the crone reappeared bearing a blue glass bottle.
She set the bottle on the counter, and for a moment I just stared at it. I was surprised at how small it was, based on how drastically the contents could—would—alter my relationship with Micah.
I touched the cork stopper, and then the glass itself, unable to suppress a shiver. It was nothing to be scared of, nothing to be intimidated by. I mean, it was only an herbal extract, just like the vanilla I would add to cookies, or the peppermint oil that kept away pantry moths. Still, if I took this innocent little bottle back to the manor, my life would take a decidedly different turn.
I swallowed and made my choice. “How much?” I asked.
“For Lady Silverstrand?” the crone sneered. Obviously, if I used the extract I’d never be Lady Silverstrand. All I would ever be was a freeloader in Micah’s home. “Take it, with my compliments.”
Despite her words, I was still fumbling with my purse. “I’d rather pay—”
“And I would rather a friend in my lord’s home,” she finished.
“I’ll be your friend,” I said, firmly placing a few coins on the pile of stinking pelts, “but I’d rather not owe anyone.”
The crone cackled again, this time with her head thrown back and spittle flying. “How quickly you’ve learned our ways!” She swept the coins into a fold of her robe. “But do me this, dearie—don’t tell my lord where you obtained this.”
“And you, dearie, won’t tell anyone that I purchased it.” She nodded, and with that Sadie and I exited the shop. My hands were shaking, and I was coated in a cold, clammy sweat; though he wasn’t even here, I felt like I’d just lied to Micah.
7
Just as I’d promised, once my business at the apothecary was done, Sadie and I immediately left the village and returned to the manor. She didn’t even give us time to walk through the nicer side of the village, not even to visit the bakery. And here I’d thought that cookies make every day better.
Still, Sadie was in a surprisingly adventurous mood after surviving our sojourn to the village, not to mention our encounter with the crone, and she agreed to return to the manor by way of the metal pathway, instead walking on the much safer, and much longer, road. She must have realized that I only suggested traveling by metal because I was trying to distract her (I am a firm believer in the Shiny Object Theory), but whatever. I would take what I could get.
We landed, if that’s what you want to call it, in the gardens that stretched behind the manor. No matter how many times I had set foot in the gardens, the lush beauty never failed to take my breath away; every flower and shrub always seemed to be in full leaf and covered in flowers, and, more often than not, also laden with ripe, juicy fruit. Surrounding the gardens were acres and acres of orchards, the trees carefully maintained in orderly rows like so many wooden soldiers. Beyond the orchards was a deep, dark forest.
As beautiful as I’d initially found the manor’s grounds to be, once I’d ventured into the forest, aptly named the Great Wood, that bordered the far edge of Micah’s land, I was truly amazed, and more than a bit terrified. At first glance, this Otherworldly forest was similar to the woods I’d played in as a child, complete with oak groves, gurgling streams, and the occasional furry critter scuttling by. However, the deeper one went into the Great Wood, the denser it became, and it wasn’t only packed with trees.
There were carnivorous plants large enough to capture and digest a horse, as evidenced by the piles of bleached bones heaped before their stalks. There were also raptors nesting in the canopy that were strong enough, and hungry enough, to pluck that horse right out of a leafy maw and gobble it down themselves. Flowers clad in jeweled hues might spit a fine, paralyzing nectar on a passerby, thus rendering you immobile for hours, or maybe even days or weeks. The first time Micah had taken me into the Great Wood, a length of strangleweed had reared up and tried to grab me. If not for Micah’s quick reflexes, I might have ended up as some animal’s, or plant’s, afternoon snack.
The Great Wood wasn’t only populated with death traps. It also sheltered the loveliest flowers I had ever seen, some so delicate they reminded me of blown glass, as well as a multitude of critters, both magical and otherwise. Micah had warned me to stay away from the northern quadrant, being that it was populated by a herd of trolls that got a bit grumpy around strangers, and that the eastern side was home to a tribe of elves. When I had asked if he was related to the elves, Micah gave me such a look of revulsion you would have thought I’d asked if he was descended from dung beetles. Apparently wood elves are somewhat beneath Lord Silverstrand.
Micah also told me about a woman who lived at the heart of the Great Wood; her hair was a fall of flowers, her clothing made up of vines and thorns. She and one of Micah’s ancestors had quarreled long ago, back when the orchards were first planted. Somehow a truce had been brokered between the forest queen and the Silverstrand house, but she occasionally got testy and threatened to swallow the whole of the manor with her vines.
“Shouldn’t we find a way to get rid of her?” I’d squeaked; this bit of information had been casually revealed shortly after the strangleweed incident. Micah had laughed at my terrified face and assured me that she was only strong within the Great Wood, and that his will was stronger yet. After all, he had that giant vein of silver from which he drew strength, and surely silver was stronger than any leaf or bit of vine. I’d murmured in agreement, since I’d never doubted Micah for one moment. Still, as Sadie and I leisurely made our way past the flower beds with the Great Wood visible in the distance, I was glad that Micah was able to keep the Wood’s influence at bay.
We took a roundabout path to the manor, one that was both far from the Great Wood and close to the Bright Lady’s pool. I always made time to speak with her, since without her help, the Iron Queen would have likely killed me, along with Micah and the rest of my family. The Bright Lady had never acted as if I owed her anything—in fact, she’d all but given me leave to call upon her—but my gratitude to her remained enormous.
Unfortunately, a visit with my watery friend would have to wait. As soon as Sadie and I entered the formal knot garden, we found Micah, despairing over a heap of unmoving silverkin.
“What happened?” I asked, sinking to my knees beside him. I touched a little silver arm; it was cold and lifeless, just a piece of ordinary metal. “Are they sick?”
“Your mother,” he bit off. “She’s destroyed them. All of them.”
“All of them?” I squeaked. “Even Shep?”
Micah nodded, looking more distra
ught than I’d ever seen him. The silverkin weren’t truly alive, being that they didn’t breathe, or have beating hearts, or need to keep their bellies full. What they were was the embodiment of that vein of silver that lies beneath the Whispering Dell. Nevertheless, they had served Micah’s family since long before he was born, and Micah treated them as members of his family. Since his mother’s death, they were all the family he had left.
And my mother had just reduced them to a heap of scrap metal.
“Sadie, find Mom,” I said, over my shoulder.
“But—”
“Find her!” Sadie ran toward the house, and I rested my hands on Micah’s shoulders. Gently, I rubbed his mark through his leather shirt, calming him as best I could. “Do you know what happened?”
“She unmade them,” he replied.
“Unmade?” I repeated. I glanced at the pile; they still looked pretty made to me.
“I turned them back into normal metal, which is what they should have been all along,” Mom explained, coming up behind us, with Sadie cowering behind her. “As they were, they were little more than meddling nuisances.”
“Mom, you can’t do that!” I said, standing to face her.
“Oh?” she countered, raising a brow. “It appears that I did.”
“Well, undo it!” Mom crossed her arms and lifted her chin, defiance written across her face. Good grief, the ageless Queen of the Seelie Court was acting like a two year old.
“Fine!” I spun around, turning my back to my lunatic mother. Micah hadn’t moved, his eyes still fixed on the lifeless silverkin. I crouched beside him, and asked, “Is there any way we save them?”
“We need to replace their sparks,” Micah murmured. “Now that she’s taken them, they cannot be reanimated, much as if you or I were to die, no one could install another soul in our bodies.” I shivered, imagining a horde of tiny metal zombies. “That is the problem we now face.”
“Oh, Micah,” I murmured, lacing my fingers with his. “Can you make more?”
“I can, but they won’t be the same.” Micah reached out and traced an immobile silver limb. “My mother created them, all of them…so long ago, she made them…their sparks were born from her. They are all a part of her. Now that their sparks are gone, they are as good as dead.”
Gods, I’d had no idea that the silverkin were created by Micah’s long-deceased, yet still very much beloved, mother. This situation needed to be fixed, and quickly. But how?
Sparks…Micah had said that Mom had taken their sparks. Yesterday, when Max and I were in the village, the pixie had taken the iron warrior’s spark, held it in her hand like it was a regular old tchotchke, then she’d flown away with it. Which meant that Mom probably still had the silverkins’ sparks, in her hand or in a pocket or—or somewhere. Which also meant that I should be able to get them back. Well, assuming that my mother decided to act like an adult.
I glared at my mother over my shoulder; I’d read somewhere that you always wanted to confront a wild animal head-on and look it directly in the eye. Probably so the animal knew what it was about to munch on. “You see what you’ve done?” I demanded. “You’ve destroyed a part of Micah’s family. What did they do to you, anyway?”
“They…they are annoying,” she said, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture.
“Annoying?” I was on my feet again, standing directly in front of Mom and yelling in her face. “Listen, this isn’t the Raven Compound. You can’t just dispose of servants because your bath’s too hot or your tea’s too cold. The silverkin are Micah’s; they’re all he has left of his mother, and you are a guest in his house, and…and you need to behave!”
Mom’s eyes widened; I bet she forgot that I knew exactly why we’d had a mansion and no maids, not even someone to fold the laundry. Oh, we used to have maids, back when Dad was around to protect them from Mom’s wrath. By the time Dad had been gone for a full year, Mom had hired and fired six maids and ten cooks; by the time Max got arrested, word had gotten out and no one even applied. What was the point of a job that would only last a few weeks, and one working for a crazy lady to boot?
I missed the cooks the most.
Mom just stood there, her face a mask of shock and anger, and for a moment, I thought I was going to end up permanently immobile, just like the ’kin. Then her gaze fell on Micah’s hunched shoulders and softened a bit. Not much, but a bit. “He feels their loss so deeply?”
“Yes. He does.” I held out my hand. “Please, give them back their sparks. I’ll tell them to leave you alone. Promise.”
My mother is a lot of things—haughty, indignant, and even a bit bloodthirsty at times—but she’s not cruel. Being that she’s not a metal Elemental, she couldn’t even be blamed for how she felt; she saw the silverkin as nothing more than bits of moving furniture, certainly not as the only companions a lonely orphan once had. Even so, something about Micah’s despair spoke to her, and she placed her hand on mine. In another moment, I held a double handful of glowing orbs, but they weren’t all that similar to what the pixie had held after she had stopped the iron warrior from attacking Max. The iron warrior’s spark had been a dull gray and had lain in the pixie’s palm like a dumb lump. The silverkin’s sparks were white, and they wiggled back and forth as I held them. I couldn’t say why their sparks were so much more active, save perhaps that their sparks were a reflection of their makers—one dull and uninteresting, the other happy and full of life. And, they tickled! One adventurous spark tried climbing up my arm, but I corralled it in the crook of my elbow. I couldn’t risk losing one, not now that I’d just gotten them back.
“Thank you,” I murmured, flashing her a quick smile before I returned to Micah’s side. His face was hidden by his hands, and, since mine were full, I bumped his shoulder with my hip. “I have them,” I said.
He looked up, his silver eyes reflecting the sparks nestled in my palms. “So you do. Thank you,” he said, with a nod to Mom over his shoulder.
“Um, I don’t know how to return them.”
“Let me.” Micah stood and placed his hands upon mine. A heartbeat later, the sparks, now glowing with a coppery tinge, erupted from our hands and flitted across the heap of inanimate metal as the orbs searched for their owners. Once the orbs had settled into the nooks and crannies around the bodies, Micah and I stood breathless, gripping each other’s hands.
“Why is it taking so long?” I whispered.
“Patience, love,” Micah replied, patting my hand. “Give them time to remember who they are.”
If there’s anything I don’t have, it’s patience, and those long, silent moments nearly drove me crazy. Just as I was about to ask Micah if this spark application always took so frickin’ long, I heard a noise. A weird noise, one that you don’t hear every day, except maybe if you’re an Elemental.
Silver scraping against silver.
My breath caught in my throat, my fingers wound around Micah’s so tightly they ached, then went numb. Slowly, creakily, the silverkin shook their heads, then they stretched their limbs. Then a silver head poked free of the mass, and I recognized him at once.
“Shep!” I cried as the little guy pulled himself free from the rest. I snatched him up in a bear hug, which clearly embarrassed him. Luckily for him, metal doesn’t blush. “I’m so glad you’re back!”
“My Sara, look,” Micah said, tracing a pattern on Shep’s arm. It was faint, but there was an undeniable swirl of copper, where there had previously been nothing but pure silver. I looked at the rest of the ’kin, all of whom now had graceful copper sigils across their arms and legs. “They all have copper marks now.”
“How is that possible?” I murmured, tracing the elegant pattern on Shep’s arm.
“You restored them,” Micah murmured, pressing his lips against my temple. “Now, they are more than just silver.”
I smiled, though I didn’t think we’d start calling them the copperkin anytime soon. “You see, Mom?” I asked, carrying Shep over to her, and displa
ying his newly decorated arms. “There’s part of me in them now, too. You can’t hurt them without hurting me.”
Her mouth was twisted up in an unflattering way, but she relented. “Fine. If they bother me, I’ll just send for their mistress.”
I cuddled Shep at that, as much as one can cuddle a metal being. He swatted my arm with his tiny hand, but made no attempt to escape. “Good.”
8
It didn’t take all that much longer for the silverkin to sort themselves out and, wouldn’t you know it, they were immediately back to their energetic little selves. Instead of taking time to recover, they were off sweeping floors, straightening drapes, and making tea by the gallon. Despite their recent adventure in slumberland, they were apparently none the worse for wear. About the only thing the little guys were doing differently was giving my mother a wide, respectful berth. That was a very, very smart move on their part.
As for me, I couldn’t stop staring at them. Each and every ’kin, from Shep on down to the littlest sweeper, now bore flowing copper spirals across their arms and legs. The calm, rational portion of my brain understood that these new copper sigils had only appeared because of my exposure to their sparks, nothing more. Still, I took it as a sign that I finally belonged in the Otherworld.
“Of course you belong,” Micah said, when I shared why I was smiling. We had remained in the garden long after Mom and Sadie had gone inside, and we were contentedly watching the silverkin harvest fruit. After all the hubbub of this afternoon, there needed to be pie in my future. “My Sara, the Whispering Dell is your home as much as mine.”
“It’s not.” I hadn’t meant to sound so whiney. “You were born here. I’m from another world—literally, another world. It’s not like I fit in.”
Micah laughed, a warm, rumbling sound. “Does anyone ‘fit’ in the Otherworld?” he asked, while his arm made a sweeping gesture, encompassing both the manor and the lands beyond. “I have servants of metal rather than flesh and blood, and a nymph resides in my pool. Beyond the pool is a wood witch, who would strangle me as soon as greet me good morning. My village is populated with all manner of Elementals and beasts, and more than a few Mundanes. We are none of us alike.”
Copper Ravens Page 6
