by Rigel, LK
“But why bother?” Cissa repeated. “With our tethers we don’t need a portal.”
“Max dared her.” Goldy shrugged his shoulders. “Have you ever known Morning Glory to resist a dare?”
“He couldn’t tell you the real reason while you were still wearing them,” Dandelion said. “It was too dangerous.”
Max said, “Idris uses the tethers to spy on fairies. He has a special glimmer glass that can follow the jewels.” He practically spat the word special. “Safe passage between fae and the human realm was his excuse to make sure every fairy wore a tether.”
“No!” Cissa said.
Glory and Goldy instinctively touched their throats.
“That’s why he wasn’t surprised,” Cissa said. “He knew I’d found the cup, and he was ready with the drugged dandelion wine.”
“When the jewel touches your heart pulse, the glass can find you.”
“Say no more.” Goldy shuddered. “I’ll never wear mine again.”
“You have to, or he’ll want to know why,” Dandelion said. “In fact, why are you all here? If Idris realizes you’re all gone at the same time, he’s bound to ask questions.”
“We have reasons and schemes of our own,” Goldy said.
“Reasons and schemes.” Morning Glory repeated the phrase with a grin.
“We’re here to convince you to fight for the moonstick crown.”
“They’re right. You have to take back the cup, Dandelion,” Cissa said. “Idris has ordered everyone else not to try.”
Glory said, “He says if you recover it you’ll recover your honor.”
“How thoughtful of him.” Dandelion turned away from the others. He ached to go solitary. He didn’t care about the Dumnos fae. Why couldn’t his friends let it go?
“He thinks you’ll give up,” Goldy said.
“He thinks you already have,” Cissa whispered in Dandelion’s ear. The defiance in her voice shamed him.
“I keep thinking about that nice-looking lord.” A dreamy look came over Morning Glory. “I’m sure I could find out from him how to get the cup.”
“Good luck getting into Faeview,” Goldy said. “Every window and door is framed in cold steel.”
“What about the chimneys?” Glory said.
“Cold iron traps.”
“Lord Tintagos will never give up the cup,” Dandelion said. “I laid a curse on it that will fall over his house if anything happens to it.”
“No!” “You didn’t!” Everybody groaned.
“I was angry,” Dandelion said. The image of Tintagos holding the precious fairy cup never left him. Cursing it seemed like a good idea at the time. “He’ll never let it go.”
“Then we’ll have to take it.” Max said.
“Tintagos is down at the lake right now,” Goldy said. “While we were waiting outside, Glory and I saw him with some other humans.”
“Let’s go listen,” Glory said. “He might brag about the cup.”
“She’s right, Dandelion,” Cissa said. “Lord Tintagos might betray some way for us to get it back.”
“Not us.” Dandelion said. “I’ll find Tintagos. You should go back now. All of you. Morning Glory, show us your portal.”
The portal was at the lilac stand near the hut. It felt good to get out and away from the hot fire. Though December, the sky was clear and it was warm outside. This edge of the Faeview estate was on the other side of a hill that blocked the Dumnos mist.
At the portal, Cissa turned to Max. “Come with us, won’t you? This will be so much faster than a gob tunnel.”
“The tunnels don’t send my stomach into my throat like portals do,” Max said. “I’ll forego the pleasure.”
“Oh. Um...” Glory stopped spinning and touched down on the ground. “There’s something you all should know. I put a three wishes charm on the portal.”
“Ack!” Goldy blanched. “You might have said.”
“I slipped it on after you went through.”
“I hate that charm.” Cissa shook her head. “It always goes bad.”
“I couldn’t help myself. I was excited. It’s my first portal.”
“Wasn’t that enough?” Goldy said.
“Humans visit Igdrasil,” Glory said. “They think the tree grants wishes. It will be funny to see what they wish for.”
“Ack! Ack! Ack!” Goldy said. “Now wishes are running through my brain. I wish—”
“No!” Everyone cried at once.
“You’d better take it off before someone uses one,” Dandelion said. “Cissa’s right.”
“Quick,” Cissa said. “If you take it off before its first use, it won’t take effect.”
“I didn’t know that,” Max said. “I wonder if that’s true with other charms.”
“It is,” Goldy said. “Trust me.”
Glory waved her hand at the portal opening. “Three wishes off.” She frowned and closed her eyes and tried it again. “It won’t come off,” she said.
“Hmph,” Max said. “Someone has made a wish.”
They stared at the portal opening. The wisher could be on the other side at this moment. Not likely fae.
“What if the wyrding woman is there?” Glory’s eyes grew wide.
“I haven’t seen her in years. But then I haven’t been to Igdrasil in years,” Max said. “I suppose I could risk a stomach ache.”
Dandelion had no doubt Max would do all he could to protect Cissa from what danger lay on the portal’s other end.
“I’ll go first.” Goldy positioned himself beside the bare lilac. “I hope there’s no scary wyrders there performing rituals beneath their sacred tree.”
“Goldy!”
“That wasn’t a wish!” With a horrified look on his face, Goldenrod vanished.
“It’s been a while since I used one of these infernal things,” Max said. “As I remember, I’m supposed to think about where I want to go.”
“Imagine standing beside Igdrasil,” Cissa said. “And when you want to come back to Mudcastle, do the same with the lilacs. It’s easy.”
“I shouldn’t have put it at Igdrasil,” Glory said as Max disappeared with a grunt.
“No, it was a good choice, Glory.” Cissa gave her a reassuring smile. “The other fae won’t find it there, and the tree and lilac are good anchors, easy to remember.”
After Glory left, Cissa grabbed Dandelion’s arm. “Promise me you’ll try to get the cup.”
“I’ll find Lord Tintagos and see what I can learn,” Dandelion said. “And be careful, Cissa. Don’t provoke Idris.”
She smiled incorrigibly and blew him a kiss.
“If that was supposed to reassure me, it didn’t.”
“I can handle Idris, Dandelion. You worry too much.” Cissa grinned and disappeared through the portal.
An Unfamiliar Fairy
THE HUMANS WERE ON THE Mudcastle side of Faeview’s small lake, picnicking on the expansive lawn. It was a pretty setting, though too sunny for Dandelion’s taste. Lilacs grew in random plantings, stands of knobby canes this time of year. Massive hydrangeas and rhododendrons were also without bloom, but their dense foliage made good cover.
Dandelion pulled in his wings and settled behind a hydrangea. He was close enough to hear Lord Tintagos chatting up his guests, trying especially to charm the lady with peacock feathers in her pale gold hair. The peacock feathers made her interesting. More interesting than Tintagos deserved.
“This is manufactured wilderness,” Lord Tintagos said. “My great grandmama had the stream dammed to create the lake, and she had the maze put it in to impress the Duchess of Devonos.”
“The Georgiana?” said the dark-haired lady.
The other male sighed and refilled his glass. Dandelion felt an immediate revulsion. It wasn’t the affected nonchalance or the infuriating smirk on the man’s face. Dandelion couldn’t explain his visceral disgust. He’d never seen the man before that he was aware of.
“She visited one summer,” Tinta
gos said. “My poor great grandmama! After all that expense, the duchess spent the whole month crawling over the ruins of Tintagos Castle with her children looking for the Dumnos ghosts.”
“That’s very sad,” the peacock lady said with a flirtatious smile. She was obviously aware of Lord Tintagos’s feelings for her, but Dandelion detected no reciprocal eagerness. But then human alliances were often no different than those of the fae.
Never love matches, fae marriages were made for strategic reasons. If Cissa weren’t his sister, he’d approve a match between her and Max. Especially now. Idris had offended too many gobs. One by one, they were withdrawing from the faewood, extracting themselves from the fabric of the Dumnos fae community.
Idris didn’t understand. You can’t make a goblin do what a goblin won’t do.
The biggest problem in a match between Max and Cissa was that the gob was clearly in love. Disaster. Everyone Dandelion ever knew who fell in love ended up miserable or dead. Look at Aubrey. Or Queen Sifae.
“Wyrders do magic,” the peacock feather lady said. “Fairies are magic.”
Lord Tintagos leaned back on his elbows, apparently enthralled. The lady explained aspects of fae and wyrd with surprising accuracy.
Wyrders do magic; fairies are magic. Not bad. Dandelion liked that. Wyrders came close to magical power. They could channel and direct it, but they never embodied the forces they controlled. Pretenders. Murderers. He was glad the high gods let them be driven into hiding.
“The fae didn’t end the wyrding folk,” the human woman said. “The monks did.”
Well…on that point she wasn’t entirely correct.
First, the wyrd was never ended. Severely diminished, yes, but wyrding folk continued on in hiding. Look at Elyse!
Second, the monks didn’t act alone, not in Dumnos. In driving out the wyrd, they had had assistance from the vengeance-thirsty fae.
Dandelion and Cissa had been kept from the fight—Idris said they were too important to risk—but when it was over, they both sang songs of good riddance to all wyrders. Fae and wyrd should have been natural allies against the monks, but the wyrd made it impossible.
“One fairy left something behind,” Lord Tintagos said. Dandelion’s attention snapped back to the picnic. “I have it still.”
Glory was right. The human couldn’t resist bragging. He offered to show his friends the cup. Yes, Tintagos. Do tell us all where it is.
“I have it locked in a glass case with a steel frame made of non-Dumnos iron and salt lining the border.”
Sod it. There was no way to retrieve the cup as long as it remained inside the mansion.
“I was right!” said a voice behind him. “I knew he’d tell.”
“Morning Glory.” Dandelion whirled around. “What are you doing here? Idris—”
She made a silly face and fluttered her wings. “I’m not defying Idris. You know I can’t.”
That much was true. As a Dumnos fae Morning Glory was bound by Brother Sun and Sister Moon to obey Idris’s orders.
“I'm not here about the cup.” She peered through the hydrangea, searching until her gaze landed on Tintagos. The green of her eyes intensified as if he were a sparkly object.
Good for her. Glory was usually inseparable from Cissa. She should have some fun of her own. “I think your pet is interested in Lydia Pengrith,” he said. “The one with feathers in her hair.”
“It seems he is.” Glory was full of desire for Lord Tintagos—not delight, Dandelion was relieved to see. It wasn’t love. She wanted merely to play. Her nose crinkled at Miss Pengrith. “I don’t think she likes him well enough,” Glory said. “I’ll have to help him there.”
“I’m sure he would appreciate it, Glory.” She wasn’t wearing her tether. If she discovered something about the cup in the bargain, how was Idris to know?
They both noticed some movement in the rhododendrons along the walking path. “What’s that?” Glory said.
It moved again. “Not what,” Dandelion said. “Who.” A fairy he didn’t recognize.
“Her clothes are strange,” Glory said. “And exceeding ugly. Not human. She couldn’t be a gob, could she?”
Doubtful. Goblins were ugly, but their clothing was always sublime, well tailored, and made of the finest fabrics and skins. “She’s not of the Dumnos fae,” Dandelion said. “She’s….”
She’d seen him. She was staring right at him, into him. A jolt charged through his heart, and he had to catch his breath. What magic had she hit him with?
She averted her gaze, but he sensed she was quite aware of him here across the clearing, more so than the human party they’d both been watching. Her clothes were hideous, but her eyes were…lovely.
“She’s not a goblin,” he said with more hope than certainty.
“She could be a spy,” Glory said. “Maybe Idris sent her to watch you since you don’t wear your tether.”
Bile rose in Dandelion’s throat. “Stay here.” Banishment he accepted, even welcomed, but this was outrageous. “I’ll give her something to take back to Idris.”
He raced over to the rhododendrons. She was gone from her hiding place but made a racket trying to escape. He zipped through the trees and caught her easily. Almost too easily. Her slowness would seem on purpose if her fear didn’t feel so genuine. And she wasn’t just slow, she was weak. She strained against his grip with all the power and fury of an angry kitten.
“What are you doing here? Are you spying on me? Did Idris send you?” Great gods, she smelled awful.
“Did you hear that?” Lydia Pengrith’s voice carried through the vegetation. “Someone’s there in the trees.”
Sod it. The spy couldn’t very well answer with his hand clapped over her mouth. He had to get her away from the humans. He dragged her further into the brush as she struggled against his grip.
“Ack! You kicked me!” His shin burned with pain. Enough of this.
He extended his wings and held her close. He could feel her heart pounding like a frightened bird’s. What horrific picture had Idris drawn to make her so terrified? He stroked her dark brown hair.
“I have you,” he said, more gently than he’d intended.
He threw fairy dust in the air and wrapped his wings around his captive. The dust settled, rendering them inaudible and invisible to the humans. He flew back to Mudcastle with the girl trembling in his arms. He was furious with Idris, but he couldn’t stay mad at the spy. She wasn’t even very good a spy. Maybe Idris had blackmailed her into doing this.
“You can go back to Idris right now.” He put her down in the center of the hut. She must be stunned. She didn’t even try to fly away. “Tell him I’m no threat. I’ve turned solitary.”
She seemed distracted, half listening. Her attention had fallen on the moonstick inlay design on the new rocker. “Beautiful,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
No, you’re beautiful.
The words popped into Dandelion’s mind like a surprise, but they were true. Her blue eyes were large enough to get lost in. Her soft-looking lips reminded him he hadn’t kissed anyone in…years? Desire stirred in him, an urgent wanting. How odd.
But not unwelcome.
She seemed fascinated by the hut’s decorations and comforts—the rocker, the flower boxes. Even the door and windows.
Turnabout fair play, Dandelion couldn’t stop looking at her.
Up close, her clothes were worse than ugly. They were appalling. A length of black cloth wrapped around her lower torso barely covered the top of her thighs. The white shapeless boots—of some horrific shiny material he didn’t want to contemplate—looked painfully uncomfortable. A plain navy blue tunic ended in a straight line below her hips. Not a ribbon anywhere. No piece of lace. No jewel. Nothing pretty. No self-respecting goblin or leprechaun had made any of it.
How could anyone live like that?
He looked for some sign of joy about her. Nothing. Her eyebrows were all scrunched up. He touched her face and agai
n searched her eyes. She had a headache. No wonder. Who wouldn’t, wearing that stuff?
He blew her pain away, and her eyebrows relaxed. She uttered a little moan of relief and looked at him gratefully.
Unexpected. And satisfying. He should fix her clothes too. He squatted to get a better look at the fabric covering her legs.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Has Cissa seen this?” He pulled the stuff away from her knee and let it snap back against her skin. “This isn’t glimmermist.” Her scent was repulsive—and yet he was attracted to her. She was from no fae court he recognized.
She twisted away from him. “I don’t know any Cissa.”
He rose to his full height, and she took a step backward, her pupils dilated and her lips parted, a sexual response. Again, unexpected. Again, not unwelcome. The burl oak bed was behind her, and he pictured them in it together—without those horrific clothes between them. He could just pick her up and fly her over there.
He touched her throat. “Where is your tether?” Her pulse fluttered beneath his finger, and the urgency within him intensified.
“What’s a tether?” She hesitantly touched his forearm as if to make sure he was real. A surge of excitement raced through him. Who was she?
He tilted her chin and pushed her hair back, exposing her ears. Round. No hint of green in the eyes. He sensed magic about her, but that could be fairy dust residue. This fae was either very young, or…
“You’re human.”
“Stop the presses!” No missing the sarcasm. She looked around the hut again and asked, almost hopefully, “Am I dreaming?”
“Yes.” How convenient. The fairy dust had muddled her. “You’re dreaming.”
He made her float up from the ground until her face was near his. Human women liked that. He kissed her softly, tested her reaction. No resistance and a little sigh of pleasure. In fact, she kissed him back.
“Tell me your name.”
“Beverly.”
“Beverly.” He repeated her name like a prayer and kissed her neck and throat. “Let’s make you more comfortable, Beverly.”
“Mm…nice dream.”
The boots were first to go. She wiggled her toes and stretched. He smiled, again thinking of a kitten.
