by WB McKay
Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed a couple of leather straps. "Here," I said, offering Ava a pair of daggers in sheaths that could be strapped around the leg. "These might come in handy."
"I appreciate it, but I have my own," she said.
I raised a brow at her while I tucked my supplies in a small leather messenger bag and slung it over my shoulder. I had to rebuckle it a couple of times to get it situated around my new wings.
Ava raised her chin, looking defiant. "I've been learning how to fight since our adventure to retrieve the Fleece. I had a feeling I was going to need it. I didn't like having to hide from the kraken while the rest of you fought."
"You did plenty, having your friends do their creepy chill thing," I argued. "It moved the kraken into killing position."
"Well, it never hurts to be able to do more."
That came right down to the heart of the problem I was having with accepting the Fleece. I wanted to be able to do more, but I didn't trust it. I didn't reply directly to her last statement, afraid of what I might say. Instead, I said something else that was true. "I'm sure you'll make a great fighter. You're about the most graceful person I've ever seen."
She smiled and did an elegant spin on one foot. "I try," she said. Her nose twitched like a bunny. Her expression settled back to grave almost immediately. "Let's go save my little brother."
CHAPTER FIVE
When we returned to the living room, Phoebe was standing by the door wearing the only piece of clothing I'd ever seen on her. Well, it wasn't exactly clothing. It was a wide leather strap that went from one shoulder to the opposite hip. There were several small pouches on it, giving it the feel of a utility belt.
I considered asking about it, but Phoebe looked so eager and I didn't want to get into an argument. Whatever it was, it would be helpful or it wouldn't. Having a twenty minute conversation about it wouldn't change anything.
The three of us rode through the streets of Volarus in Ava's mint green Subaru. It was strange seeing Phoebe so far away from home. I kept glancing over my shoulder to make sure that she was all right. She looked a little tense, but that was to be expected when heading into Faerie to fight unknown assailants.
Ava tore through the streets at a speed that had me gripping the handle above the door. I didn't often explore Volarus, but the farther we went, the more I recognized the upscale neighborhood we were driving through. I'd been there before. It wasn't long before we turned a corner and Last Stop came into view. Last Stop, so named because it was the last stop before Faerie, was home to the entrance that Owen and I had used on my first trip to Faerie.
Ava parked in the long term parking lot and we piled out of the car. That's when I noticed the strap around Phoebe's body also held a long wooden staff.
My curiosity got the best of me. "Since when do you have a staff?"
"Since I became a high priestess," she replied. "It's a symbol of my status."
I had about a dozen questions in response to that, like what it even meant that she was a high priestess, but we had entered the convenience store and the most important thing in the world to me in that moment was getting one step closer to Owen and his kidnappers.
The convenience store was similar to about every other one I'd ever been in. The three cramped aisles were stuffed with sugary and salty snacks that didn't have an ounce of real nutrition between them. Occupying two and a half of the four walkways were floor-to-ceiling drink coolers containing every caffeinated and alcoholic beverage known to man, and a few only known to fae. Behind the counter was a somewhat familiar face.
The ogre nodded in a friendly customer service sort of way as I approached. "How are the kids?" I asked, echoing the one thing I remembered Owen saying.
The look on the ogre's face turned from friendly to fierce in an instant. "I don't know you. What do you know about my kids?"
I took a cautious step back and raised my hands. "Nothing. I heard my boyfriend, Owen, ask about them the last time we were through here."
A look of recognition replaced his fierce protectiveness. "Ah, yeah. I heard a lot about you after that trip. I didn't recognize you in this outfit." He gestured to my new in-between crow and human form.
"It's new," I said, trying for casual. I'd briefly considered shifting back to my human form when we'd gotten in Ava's car, just for convenience's sake, but had decided against it. With my blood pounding in my ears and the background noise of my thoughts--they took him, that bastard took him, they took him--the new form felt stronger. I was big, but could still fly or use my swords. Hell, I could sword fight while flying. That was an idea.
"Hey, aren't you the one who stole Gimpy?"
"Would Owen really be friends with someone who stole something called Gimpy?" My deflection of the question was weak. Gimpy was the mascot at The Grinding Bones, a local ogre bar. And yeah, I totally stole it. Moving on... "Have you seen Owen in here today?"
The ogre shook his shaggy head. "No, it's been real quiet."
I glanced at Ava and she nodded, confirming this was where her ghost friends had seen Owen enter Faerie. "That's strange, because I have sources that tell me he went through here a few hours ago."
The ogre shrugged. "They're wrong. I've only had about ten customers and he wasn't one of them. He talks a lot; I would remember."
I stole a look at his name tag and gave him a friendly smile. "I appreciate the information, Ivan." I grabbed six bottles of water from the cooler in front of the counter and put them on the table. "We'll take these for our trip to Faerie."
Our drinks paid for, we walked over to the cooler that appeared to contain oversized bottles of malt liquor. Unlike last time, I didn't hesitate to open the door and step through.
The smells of Faerie were worse than I remembered, and I knew they were awful. I stood gasping like a fish out of water while Ava and Phoebe stepped through. Annoyingly, they didn't seem bothered. Then again, both of them had probably been to Faerie hundreds of times. Ava's family enjoyed vacationing there throughout Owen's childhood. Owen, who'd also been a frequent visitor of Faerie, hadn't been affected by the overwhelming presence of magic, either.
At least this time I didn't collapse to the ground.
Once my breathing was under control, I surveyed my surroundings, taking some time to acclimate to the strange sights. It was early morning in Faerie based on the faint glow rising in the sky. That was a blessing. I didn't relish the idea of traveling through the night in Faerie while still adjusting to breathing pure magic.
Something bit my ankle. "Ah!" I shouted, kicking away the tiny attacker. It clattered into the bushes.
Phoebe and Ava snickered behind their hands. "It's only a baby rock golem," said Phoebe. "They're harmless."
"They like to hang around portals because there is a lot of traffic and it churns up small rocks for them to eat," said Ava. "Unfortunately, they have poor eyesight."
I nodded, remembering the rock with eyes I saw on my first trip into Faerie. I also remembered it getting eaten by a much larger rock. "What about the adults? Are they harmless too?"
They shook their heads in unison. "No," replied Ava. "The adults get territorial and are regularly over eight feet tall. They usually avoid portal areas though, so we should be fine."
Luminescent yellow and pink bugs floated around us, creating a dazzling light show that I was certain was meant to keep us standing still long enough to be eaten. I drew Haiku from her sheath at my hip and flicked her at them. They flew away.
Ava stepped off to one side, her eyes going distant in the way they did when she was talking to her ghostly friends.
Phoebe held her staff loosely in her hands. We didn't know exactly where we were going yet, and the light was too dim to look for tracks, so I decided to indulge my curiosity. "So, about the staff?"
"Like I said, it's a symbol of my status as a high priestess of the Tangled Vine." She gazed into the forest.
I remembered seeing the high priestess title in the signature of P
hoebe's emails. We'd had a bit of a game going for a while where I asked her what the Tangled Vine was, and she snapped at me with vines and then changed the subject. Eventually, without another explanation, I'd written it off as a manifestation of her eccentricity. "What exactly is the Tangled Vine?"
"It's a dryad warrior group," she replied, showing no intention of explaining further.
"So is it like a motorcycle gang? Are you telling me you're part of a fae version of Hell's Angels?"
Phoebe's eyebrows rose and she gave a hearty laugh. "We've lived together for years. I can't believe you don't know this."
"You refused to tell me for the past couple months," I reminded her. "And it's only been recently that we stopped treating each other like hostile invaders," I replied. "The environment wasn't exactly conducive to sharing the details of our lives, even the major ones."
Phoebe looked thoughtful. "Fair enough. I still would have thought you'd research dryads, living with one and all."
"I did." I glared at Phoebe. Somehow, she always knew just how to get under my skin. "Maybe this Tangled Vine is only a figment of your imagination, and that's why I didn't find anything about it."
"That's right, insult me when I'm helping you."
"You're such a brat."
"You are!" Phoebe pointed at me. "You're the brat. Times infinity."
"Times infinity? What's that supposed to mean?"
"That you're the biggest brat," said Phoebe.
"There you are, making things up again."
Phoebe glared at me now. "Just because you're ignorant doesn't mean I'm making things up," said Phoebe. "And you can't say that about sacred dryad things or I'll have to make you pay and I'm trying to focus right now. We're on a mission."
I took a deep breath. I wanted to shout at her for implying I was the one who wasn't focused--I was always focused!--but she was right. It was too easy to start bickering with Phoebe, even when I'd grown to like her recently, and even when she was risking her life in Faerie for me. We'd lived together for too long. We were like this. "Tell me about the tangled vines, please."
Phoebe crossed her arms and gave me a slow once over, looking away before she started talking again. "The Tangled Vine is a sacred order of dryad warriors. We protect our fellow dryads and the forests. We do this by training in various forms of combat, especially using vines."
"And you're the high priestess?"
Phoebe nodded. "One of them."
It was interesting information to have, but it didn't tell me much. "So what does this mean you can do for us on this mission?"
"Besides kick your feathery ass?" She smirked. "I put out word to the Tangled Vine before we left. They will help us find Owen. We have a network of highly trained fae out there collecting information for us."
"I appreciate that. I'm not sure how much that's going to do since the ogre at Last Stop and all those fae who work for Owen at Smoke and Mirrors weren't able to see him. Somehow, he's traveling unseen. That's going to make finding him very difficult."
"We're in the forest. Even if they're glamoured or using some other magic," she broke the branch of a plant and pointed at it, "they'll slip up at some point. They can't go all the way through this whole forest without leaving a sign. When the sun is all the way up, and Ava's done checking in on her leads, we should consult the high priestess in these woods and see if anyone has reported anything to her."
I didn't like it. It wasn't maiming Supervillain, or rescuing Owen and putting him in a protective bubble, but it was a first step on the way to those objectives, so I didn't have to like it. I just had to do it. Ava's ghosts and Phoebe's Tangled Vine associates were all I had to go on. "Let's do it."
Ava was still discussing things with the ghosts she was meeting. She was standing off to the side, but I suspected we were distracting her, or possibly the ghosts. I pointed down a small side trail, and Phoebe stepped ahead of me. I didn't figure any of us would be venturing outside of each other's sight for the time we were in Faerie, so the space we could get would be all the more appreciated.
Though I wasn't planning for it, part of me still hoped her ghost friends would pick up a trail and we could put off the Tangled Vine associates for now--I needed a direction, any direction!--but it didn't sound like the ghost or ghosts she'd found were being very cooperative.
Light finally broke through the canopy, illuminating a forest that, on first blush, resembled the redwoods of northern California. Upon taking a second look, trees grew from rock and other unidentifiable materials as often as they did from earth. Plants moved in ways that had nothing to do with the wind, and the animals darting under them were so wild in color and shape that they were practically impossible to describe. The beauty was a distraction for the naive, designed to lull unwary travellers into a false sense of security in order to make them easier prey. I'd almost fallen victim to one such predator on my first visit.
"I've never asked you about maethes. I met one on my first trip to Faerie. Are they very common?"
Phoebe shuddered. "Don't ask any of the dryads I'm taking you to about that. Maethes are an abomination. We don't speak of them. They are a disgrace. If a dryad fails her tree and allows it to die, the only honorable thing is to die with it."
This was similar enough to what Owen had explained about them. They were created when a dryad's host tree died, but the dryad refused to let go. They were bonded by spirit, so the creature left behind was twisted into an evil mockery of a dryad that lived on decaying flesh. But, she hadn't answered my question, so I prompted her again. "Does it happen often that dryads turn into maethes? Should we be worried about running into another one?"
Phoebe shook her head, a silent tear trailing down her ruddy cheek. "No, it does not happen often. Most trees cared for by a dryad will flourish for over a thousand years. If our tree is lost, we usually lose the will to live and simply stop taking nourishment. We pass in a matter of days."
That explained why dryads so rarely traveled far from their trees. It also raised a question that was becoming difficult to ignore. "Why are you coming with me, Phoebe? You never leave home."
"I'm not a recluse," she paused to glare at me, "I have friends."
"Obviously," I said. "You're a high priestess in a secret dryad biker gang."
"You can't say it like that to other people," she said.
"I know what the word secret means. Geez."
Phoebe took a deep breath in through her nose and blew it out through her mouth.
I wiggled my eyebrows. "Why so dramatic, Phoebe? Don't you love it when people irritate you?"
"You are impossible."
"Impossibly brilliant? Impossibly fun to be around? Impossibly perfect? Oh, Phoebe. You know how I get when people start complimenting me like that."
"I do not."
"You don't? We've lived together a long time. Does that seem right to you?"
"Don't you think you should be nice to me right now?"
"I do," I agreed. "Really, Phoebe. Why are you here? You know this means a lot to me, but everything you just said about your tree… shouldn't you be protecting it?"
"A good dryad builds her defenses so her tree is safe even when she is called away."
I nodded. "That sounds like something from a Tangled Vine handbook to me. Still, you usually stay home as an added defense."
"Of course I do." She crossed her arms and squinted her eyes into the sunlight, like she was really focusing on something out there. "Don't you worry about me, Sophie." I couldn't read her posture; she seemed a bit sad and a bit mad. It sounded like that was all she was going to say on the subject and I'd begun to step away when she moved her hands to her hips and turned on me. "You could have chosen me on your pirate mission, you know."
"What?" I asked, surprised.
"You had to build a team of people you trusted and who could fight, and offer up skills, and you didn't choose me."
"I didn't think you'd want to leave home."
"I'm not a recluse!
" she repeated. "You don't even know that many people, Sophie! If either of us was to be given the recluse title, it would be you. So on the short list of people you knew and trusted, I didn't make the cut." She turned to the side and squinted toward the sunlight again, arms crossed and expression hard. "You could have invited me." My mouth worked up and down, but no sound came out. Phoebe was usually so relentlessly cheerful that it often irritated me. We'd always pestered each other. It was our thing. I didn't think I'd ever actually hurt her before.
"I promise I will invite you to risk your life for me in the future," I told her.
She rolled her eyes. "You are such a brat."
"Back at you." I bumped my shoulder against hers. "Let's check on Ava. It's light enough now that we should really head out."
Phoebe sighed and followed after me. We'd lived together long enough that on the rare occasion she was silent, I was comfortable with it. Normally. Tension made me aware of her eyes on my back. I rolled my shoulders.
"So," I cleared my throat, "does this mean we're officially friends now?" It felt weird to ask that after all the years I'd known her. Or maybe it was always weird to ask that.
"Of course not."
"Oh." I cleared my throat again. "I guess I read the situation wrong." My laugh sounded strangled even to my ears. "Somewhere in all that being pissed at me, I thought you were saying you came to Faerie because you're my friend. Is this about Owen then? Or are you taking us to see this high priestess because you have business with her? That doesn't bother me unless it's going to get in the way of saving Owen."
I stopped on the little trail and turned to look at her when she didn't reply, but Phoebe kept walking and went right past me.
"You talk too much," said Phoebe. "You moved into a home built on my tree and you invaded my space and you've never left, no matter what I've done to you."
"Yeah, I know. What a bitch I am."
