Copper Ravens

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “Many do. Remember, I myself am quite well-versed in looking upon you in that way.” I laughed again, but he silenced me with a quick kiss. “If that man comes looking for you again, I will glamour you.”

  That was fine with me. “Can you make me taller? And blonde?”

  “Perhaps I’ll make you appear as a copper frog,” he countered.

  “Ribbit.” I hopped, but it was more like a bunny than a frog. Micah nipped my ear, and we resumed walking.

  “It is not as if you have never felt jealousy,” Micah said.

  “When was this?” I asked. The only women I ever saw him with were Mom and Sadie. Well, and the Bright Lady, but that was different.

  “When you first saw the shapeshifters in the village,” he replied. “And when Oriana touched my mark.”

  At least the shapeshifters had kept their distance. “Anyone touches your mark again, I’m breaking their fingers, queen or not.”

  Micah wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Me either. Remembering my failed attempt at buying supplies for my newly-chosen hobby the other day, I pulled Micah toward the jeweler’s stall.

  “The jewelry booth is right around this bend,” I explained, when Micah asked where we were off to. I grabbed his hands and walked backward, telling him all about my favorite merchant. “She’s so nice, and she has the best, shiniest stones, and—”

  Micah stopped abruptly and pulled me against his chest. His mouth was a slash across his face, his eyes hard. I peeked over my shoulder and saw charred cardboard walls and a wooden counter that had been smashed to bits. I could see a few bits of metal glinting in the debris; this must have happened recently, being that the scavengers hadn’t yet picked over the remains.

  “Is that—”

  “Yes.” I said quickly. I didn’t want him to say it out loud; somehow, saying it would make it too real. Far more real than the evidence scattered before me.

  “Let’s find your brother,” Micah murmured. I nodded, numb, and we made my way across the market to the newsstand. We found Max engaged in a lively debate with an older lady about tomato sauce, of all things. As if Max had ever cooked anything in his life.

  “I think rosemary’s too harsh for a fresh sauce,” Max was saying. “It’s like chewing on a pine branch. Hey, sis.” Max’s brow furrowed at my rattled state, but I shook my head. “Me and Vincenza here are talking lasagna.”

  After we’d performed the requisite introductions, I learned that Vincenza sold ribbons, both new and gently used, and that her stall was not too far from the jeweler’s. When I asked her how the fire had happened, I’d hoped she would say that it had been a freak accident with a soldering iron. Much to my dismay, Vincenza shook her head.

  “She would have been lucky if that’s all it had been. Rana was never one to think before she did anything.”

  Rana. Huh. So that was her name. “So, the fire was her fault?” I ventured.

  “Oh, it was her fault, all right,” Vincenza said. “She was caught fraternizing with enemies of the state.” She leaned closer and whispered, “Elementals, you know.”

  My stomach dropped to the ground like a safe let go from the top floor of a skyscraper. Luckily, Vincenza assumed that our mingled looks of horror were due to Rana’s questionable choice in friends. “Oh, a drone even recorded it,” she continued. “Here, I’ll show you what they did with her.”

  Like lambs to the slaughter, the three of us followed Vincenza. I, naïvely, assumed that the Peacekeepers had posted a writ detailing Rana’s crimes, or that she herself was suspended in a cage for the lawful folks to throw rotten cabbages at. When we reached the center of the market, I cried out in shock, clutching at Micah’s shirt for support.

  Rana’s head was impaled on a pike set atop a raised platform, her gummy eyes staring out over the stalls, both as a warning and a promise of the price of defiance. Beneath her head was a video screen, playing my interaction with Rana on an endless loop, followed by head shots of me, Max, Sadie, and even Mom.

  Recognition sparked in Vincenza’s eyes, and she slowly looked from the video screen to Max, then to me. Her face bloodless, she backed away in terror. “Elementals!” she shrieked, pointing at us. “Peacekeepers! Help me!”

  Micah struck her hard enough to knock her out, then he clapped his hands on either side of my face. My world wavered, but I didn’t realize what he’d done until he did the same to Max—he’d glamoured us, which was probably the only way we were getting out of the Promenade alive.

  “This way,” Micah said; then, his hand clasped in mine, we took off for the nearest exit, dodging other market patrons, and narrowly escaping a pair of bewildered Peacekeepers. When we reached the aisle that led to the main exit, my heart jumped into my throat.

  Peacekeepers had formed a perimeter around the edge of the market and were slowly, methodically checking everyone’s paperwork.

  “I need room to cast a portal,” Micah said. “If I do it in the open, we may bring back something extra.”

  “Extra is bad? Bad like ‘so bad it’s good,’ or bad like raining terror?” I always make jokes when I’m nervous.

  “The second,” Micah replied.

  As my mind raced with images of Peacekeepers shooting up the Whispering Dell, Max grabbed a handful of my shirt and dragged me inside a tent. I caught Micah’s hand, and we found ourselves standing among about a million bolts of fabric. Not to mention people buying and selling fabric.

  “We’re Elementals,” Max shouted. “Peacekeepers are coming. If you don’t want to get shot at, get out now.” They all stared back at Max, unsure if he was an Elemental or an asylum escapee, so he raised his hand and made the metal table twist into a pretzel.

  “Out, now!” he bellowed.

  As the Mundanes scrambled to safety, Micah reached inside his shirt and drew forth a portal, nearly identical to the one Max had used during our last escape. I heard Peacekeepers force their way into the tent, but I didn’t turn to look. Micah cast the return portal, and the three of us leapt through. It wasn’t until we’d rolled to a stop in the Otherworld, hitting every small stone and branch on the way, that I realized that Micah had glamoured Max to look like a girl.

  “What?” Max demanded as I stifled a giggle. Then he looked down at his newly ample bosom, straining against his shirt.

  “You frickin’ bastard,” he grumbled. “You just couldn’t resist, could you?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Micah asked, brows arched and eyes wide. “I disguised you so you may live to fight another day.”

  “You gave me tits!” Max shrieked, his voice squeaking.

  “And?” Micah’s own glamour faded away, then he touched my forehead. The edges of my vision shimmered, and I knew I was myself again. “Is there a form you would have preferred?”

  Micah fixed Max in his level gaze, and if I hadn’t been laughing so hard I’d have warned him to stop before Max—Maxine—punched him. As it was, Max was winding up for the hit. I was about to tell them both to cool it—I mean, we’d just seen Rana’s head on a pike—when we were interrupted by yet another shriek.

  “It’s Mom!” I cried. The three of us ran toward the sound. We found Mom, hatchet once again in hand, catching her breath as she leaned against a tree trunk.

  “Boggart,” Mom panted when she saw us. “The one you let live,” she added, with a nod toward me.

  “Just the one?” Micah asked. Mom glared, but it was a logical question. Boggarts were annoying, but killing one was as simple as sneaking up and whacking it. Since they sleep for most of the day, you could exterminate a whole herd of the buggers in a single outing.

  “Whoever cursed it against Max was not pleased by our binding it,” Mom replied. “The wee beastie’s not so wee any longer.”

  “You attempted to bind a boggart?” Micah asked, but we didn’t have time to respond. As if it had heard its cue, the boggart, now the size of a midsized office building, c
rashed through the trees. Its crusty brown hide bore several slashes from Mom’s hatchet, but they hadn’t done much to slow it down. Its skin had to be a foot thick by now.

  “What about the poppet?” I asked.

  “It’s gone,” Mom replied.

  “Oh.” We were so screwed.

  The four of us dashed behind a hedge as the boggart crashed by, its huge, smelly feet narrowly avoiding squashing us into pancakes. At least its intelligence hadn’t seemed to increase with its size.

  “Have you tried magic?” Micah asked.

  “I’ve tried clouding its vision, making the ground beneath it soft, turning its feet to stone,” Mom listed, “but all for naught. It’s been rendered immune to my magic.”

  “Hmm.” With that innocent sound, Micah stepped out from the hedge and started waving his arms and shouting. Once he had the boggart’s attention, he grabbed my arm.

  “Lead it toward the Clear Pool, but not in a straight line. Circle the orchard twice, perhaps thrice,” he instructed. When I hesitated, he added, “Quickly, love!”

  Then the monster was barreling down upon us, and I needed no more prompting. I took off toward the pool, running first to the left, then the right, in a wild loop around the orchards. The thing was so stupid that I had to stop occasionally and wait for it to catch up, and once I had to throw clods of dirt in its direction to remind it to chase me. Whatever Micah had planned had better not involve any higher thought processes on the part of our quarry.

  Finally, I reached the shore of the Clear Pool. I saw Max and Mom standing on the opposite side, and, not knowing what else to do, I ran straight into the water toward them. As soon as I cleared the shore Micah appeared, waving his arms as a huge lump of silver grew out of the sandy bank. The boggart, possessing either too much velocity or stupidity to stop, tripped and splashed into the pool.

  “They cannot swim,” Micah explained as he helped me from the water. I nodded, still staring after the slowly sinking behemoth. It was still bellowing, or rather gurgling, as it settled on the bottom of the Pool. Boggarts, too dumb to die.

  “And how will this beast be removed?” squeaked a voice behind me. I peeked over my shoulder, and saw the Bright Lady standing there, bare as ever, arms crossed and foot tapping. “I’m to host a company of Satyrs this evening. I cannot have my waters so befouled!”

  “I’ll have the carcass removed directly,” Micah soothed. “Many thanks for your assistance.”

  That placated her a bit. She produced a comb and started arranging my mother’s hair, much to Mom’s annoyance. “An admirable job cursing, Maeve,” the Bright Lady murmured. “However, next time, maybe consult with me first?”

  “Perhaps,” Mom grumbled, swatting the Bright Lady’s hand. “Who’s the lass?”

  Confused, I followed Mom’s gaze. Even Max looked over his shoulder, before realizing that Micah still hadn’t unglamoured him. Max’s ears turned red, in rage or embarrassment I couldn’t tell, but before he could start screaming, Micah touched his forehead. Just like that, my scrawny brother was returned to us.

  “Pity,” Bright Lady purred. “He was a lovely female.”

  Max’s jaw dropped, and he watched as the Bright Lady turned and sashayed back to the edge of her watery home. Micah, Mom, and I headed back toward the manor, leaving the two of them to have some alone time at the Clear Pool.

  Hours later, I found Max sitting alone on the manor’s front stairs. I plopped down beside him, the silence between us heavy for a time. I suspected that we both had the same worries, but I was so hoping I was wrong. Then Max spoke, and I learned that I wasn’t.

  “They have us on vid chips,” he muttered.

  “Why didn’t Jerome say anything?” I wondered. “He must have seen the display.”

  “Oh, he knew,” Max said. “Ever hear about lambs going to the slaughter? That’s what we were.” He dropped his head to his hands, grumbling, “We can’t even get a lousy newspaper without being hauled off.”

  “I know. I never…” I cleared my throat, willing my voice to hold steady. “I shouldn’t have gone with you.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “I got Rana killed.”

  “Not your fault!” Max grabbed my shoulder, turning me to face him. “The Peacekeepers are a brutal, insane bunch of thugs. They alone are responsible for their actions, no one else.”

  “Uncle Mike’s actions.” I still found it hard to reconcile the image of Juliana’s creepy uncle with the mad-scientist-cum-renegade-politician of Mike Armstrong. But it was the truth, and it was far more true than any of the lies the Peacekeepers had shoved down our throats. All that remained was determining what we were going to do about it.

  “Micah once said we should overthrow the Mundane government,” I ventured.

  “Yeah?” Max perked up at that. “He mean it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Max grunted. “Let me think on it for a while, get a plan together. We’ll show those bastards.”

  I smiled tightly, dropping my eyes. I had everything here in the Otherworld, from a man who loved me, to the silk that made up my bed and my clothes, to every food or drink I could ever desire. But none of it mattered if I couldn’t go home again.

  16

  Who knew that there were holidays in the Otherworld?

  Well, I sure hadn’t known about any holidays, mainly because I had grown up in a place where one day was as banal as all the others. This was largely due to the fact that, once we Elementals had lost the Magic Wars, the new government had banned Every. Single. Holiday. Even the bank holidays! Although we did have one mandatory day off, each and every month—Tax Day. What did we do, you ask? Well, we hauled on down to our local government kiosk and paid our taxes.

  I know. Hogmanay, it was not.

  Since I was still pretty young when the wars ended, I hardly remembered those special days devoted to large meals and recreational activities; the government was constantly reminding us that a good work ethic would do more for our health and happiness than any sort of observances, religious or otherwise, and that a hard day’s labor was better than any day spent lolling about. So we worked and worked and worked until minor events like Happy Hour at The Room seemed like Christmas morning.

  Therefore, Micah could hardly understand my elation when he informed me that he and I would be hosting the Whispering Dell’s Beltane celebration, right here at the manor. What’s more, we were going to play the parts of the May King and Queen.

  “A real holiday?” I’d asked for the hundredth—maybe thousandth—time. “With cakes, and presents, and things?”

  “There will be cakes, yes,” Micah answered, again. So far, my incessant questions hadn’t worn the bemused smile off his lips. “And those attending will bring offerings. As for these other things you desire…”

  Instead of continuing, Micah grabbed me about the waist and pulled me against him. We were hiding out in the kitchens, seated on the bench beside the vast oven where the silverkin baked their breads and pies. If I could have spent every day surrounded by the aroma of baking desserts and wrapped in Micah’s arms, it would have been my version of heaven.

  “Micah.” I swatted his shoulder, not that I wanted him to stop. Not that he had any intention of stopping, anyway. “By things I didn’t mean this.”

  “Oh?” he murmured, while his lips caressed my neck. “I wonder if you truly understand the meaning of Beltane.”

  After a bit more, um, education, we managed to get the manor outfitted for a Beltane celebration. Long tables had been erected in the field that stretched between the Clear Pool and the Great Wood, and a massive pile of wood, which would be the first of many bonfires, was neatly stacked in the center. Garlands of flowers decorated the tables and surrounding trees, along with swags of ribbon and streamers. Platters of oatcakes and jugs of sweet May wine filled every available flat surface. Besides all the decorations and a truly enormous amount of food, there would be dancing and games and, perhaps most importantly, Micah a
nd me dressed up as the May King and Queen.

  I’d had a hard time explaining to Micah why dressing up in a costume was way more fun than wearing dresses on a regular basis. It wasn’t his fault; since he was a boy, he saw a dress as a dress, no matter what day it was worn. Except for the time he’d worn a skirt, but he still didn’t want to talk about that.

  In the end, he just shook his head and pulled on his own costume. It consisted of buff-colored trousers topped by a white linen tunic, which was heavily edged with embroidered silver flowers. Over the tunic was a forest-green vest decorated with leaves just a shade or two lighter, cinched with a brown belt.

  My costume wasn’t as heavily decorated as Micah’s, but it was still beautiful. It was a sleeveless white dress made up of many gauzy layers that floated and shimmered whenever I moved. The back was low, so low that a good portion of my mark was exposed, a first for me. Since I’d wanted to incorporate my metal in some way, now that I knew that that was what Metal Elementals did, swirling copper bands decorated my upper arms and ankles. Based on Micah’s expression, my first attempt had been a success.

  The celebration began around noon, but Micah and I waited to make our grand entrance until shortly after the food had been laid out. As we stepped onto the field, a hush rolled across the gathering, as the people of the Whispering Dell took in the sight of us, the May King and Queen.

  Wow. That’s a lot of people. I looked down and distracted myself by wiggling my toes in the cool grass. I grabbed Micah’s hand and murmured how glad I was that we had both chosen to go barefoot.

  “Micah. Sara.”

  I looked up and saw my mother standing before us, bearing a silver tray with two flower crowns upon it, along with two wineglasses. “For the May King and his Queen,” she intoned, her voice rolling across the field. As Micah and I solemnly crowned each other, a dull roar replaced the respectful hush, with those around us claiming that the Seelie Queen offering the May King and Queen their wine was most auspicious, indeed.

  Well, we knew she’d be recognized eventually. I glanced at Micah, but he only shrugged and reached for a wineglass; if he had any qualms about the fact that the Seelie Queen was now known to be bunking in his guestroom, he was content to let them be until tomorrow. Then the crowd parted, and I realized that my queenly mother was far from the most interesting thing in the field that day.