by D. R. Perry
“If there is any courtier present who objects, speak now.” The queen gazed over the crowd.
Down in the front row, I watched Ed cover Hope’s mouth with one hand. She spluttered around it, and for a moment, I thought the boy would step forward himself. I wouldn’t have blamed him, considering the havoc Richard had wreaked on the Redford family, but Fred stopped his kid brother. He lifted one foot to cross the line from spectator to spectacle. I tried to get to it before him but didn’t make it in time.
“Your Majesty, I have a grievance against this man.” Fred stood, as solid and unwavering as a mountain.
The Redcap’s armor gleamed in the sun, edges made sharp and cruel by its light. A harsh-enough complaint might utterly ruin Richard Hopewell, up to and including his immediate death. The Extramagus was guilty of so many things just in the past year, violations so heinous that the queen could do nothing but strike him down if she had proof or a credible witness.
“Then name it, Sir Redford.” Hopewell inclined his head in Fred’s general direction. His eye twitched.
But a thin and knobbly gray hand wrapped itself in Fred’s blood-red tabard before he could speak again. Fred glanced down at the imp, his eyes widening as it mouthed the words, “Remember what you owe me.” The retributive fire fueling my peer’s hunger for justice snuffed itself like a birthday candle as his honor slew his need for vengeance. Fred addressed the queen, ignoring Richard’s interjection.
“He owes my brother an apology, Your Majesty.” Fred’s alternate grievance deflated the tension halfway. The move was merciful but not entirely benign.
The queen said nothing, just turned to her intended, tilting her head. Richard Hopewell’s cheeks took on a reddened splotchiness, as though he rankled at the thought of having to apologize to a mere child. Not everyone present understood that if the Extramagus didn’t make things right with the Redfords and mean it, he’d be blocked from tithing in this court altogether.
“I extend my most sincere apology to young Master Redford.” Richard Hopewell’s voice carried across the crowd, but our perception wasn’t important. Neither was Ed’s. The only being whose judgment mattered stood eternally in the middle of the courtyard. "I never intended to complicate his life."
The Tree swayed even though no trace of a breeze blew. One branch dipped down until it hung over Richard’s head. One set of twigs grown into a u-shape quivered like a tuning fork, as though measuring sounds and tones for the weight of a falsehood. This was the measure of faerie law to the letter, not spirit. The pronged branch withdrew, and the Tree assumed its prior arrangement against the stone and sky.
Gazing up at it, the queen scanned myriad branches—for what, I couldn’t tell. She nodded, turning back to the matter and the man at hand. A smile, light as a feather, curled the ends of her lips as roses touched her cheeks. Instead of ethereal, she’d gone earthy. I found her too solidly beautiful, almost as if this queen standing before her court and subjects was a leaden facsimile instead of the real thing. And when she spoke, her voice carried more weight than I was used to hearing in it.
“Rise, Prince Richard.”
And he did, in more ways than one. I settled my right cheek into one hand, rubbing my aching temple. Sir Fred stepped back, bending his ear to his brother, Ed. The kid and my daughter explained something to him, both talking with their hands. After that, the group approached me.
I should have known saving the Faerie kingdom couldn’t be as simple as one Redcap’s defiance. All the same, I did as he asked and brought his kid brother back to the mortal realm right after the illness-inducing ceremony.
If I couldn’t be a real hero, at least I'd help one or two. While spying on them for the mortal authorities, of course. If there were a Heaven, I would have asked for its help.
Gemma
When Al went with the Agents, I tagged along behind the Headmistress. At first, I thought she either didn’t know or care I followed, but when she got to her office and held the door, she dispelled that illusion.
“Have a seat, Miss Tolland.” She gestured at the leather-upholstered chair in front of the desk.
“Thanks.” I sat in it, on the edge.
My anticipation of more lessons or being asked to leave within minutes was misplaced. Henrietta Thurston bent at the waist and murmured something at a drawer on her side of the desk. I heard a click and then the sound of metal on wood as she opened and then closed it. The manila folder she’d withdrawn rattled as she opened it.
It contained a yellowed paper with deckled edges bundled together to a photograph by a neon green paperclip. Five teens smiled upside-down out at a world at least forty years older than the one I lived in. One of them was Henrietta herself. I recognized two more as Henry Baxter and Richard Hopewell. But the other two, a dusky-skinned girl with black hair and a pallid bespectacled fellow embracing her, I’d never seen.
“You wonder who they are, of course.” The Headmistress tapped the couple with one fingertip. “That’s Dahlia and Neil, the couple who shouldn’t have gotten together but did, anyway.”
“Did it work out?” I gripped the arms of my chair to keep from slapping my hands over my mouth. It felt like a stupid question, even though I figured it made sense to ask.
"Yes, while they lived. But Dahlia died right before the Reveal in a battle against the last Extramagus.” Henrietta bowed her head, out of respect or regret, I couldn’t tell. "Or what we thought was the last one, anyway."
“Did Neil ever move on from that?” I gazed down at the kid with the James Spader haircut, wondering where he was now.
“No, not truly. We tried all kinds of divination, hoping to find out that a new love was in his cards, though.”
“Really? Coincidence usually helps things along. That seems odd.” I chewed on my lower lip. I was odd, too, according to my benchmark.
“It’s not so strange as you might think. Right after the Reveal, we had to keep our abilities secret. We couldn’t rely on chance the way extrahumans do now. And Neil was a master of the rarest school of magic.”
“What’s that?” I looked up from the photo, then away from Henrietta's eyes and the tears in them.
“Null. It's basically anti-magic.”
“Wow.” I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat, sensing an unhappy ending to go with this tale.
“Yeah. He was the only reason a handful of kids stood any chance of going up against an Extramagus.” She unclipped the photo, turning it around so I could see it better.
“Well, and you had another one with you all along.” I pointed at Richard’s smirking face.
"But we didn't know that’s what he was. Memory wipes convinced us that his fire magic was incredibly strong, rivaling a dragon’s." She closed the folder, obscuring her and Richard so only Dahlia and Neil remained visible. "Because of Neil’s headaches, you see.”
“Headaches?” I bent down, looking more closely at the boy with the glasses. He had an all-too-familiar line between his eyes.
“Yes. One of two things Null magi have in common.”
“What’s the other one?” I already knew the answer to that question, plain as the spectacles on Neil's face.
“Nearsightedness.” The headmistress cocked her head to one side, as though listening for something. Her nostrils flared.
“Great Goblin King’s Garters!” I stood up. Those two things were intimately familiar, for good reason.
“Heh.” She gave me a half-smile and opened the folder again. “The old Watkins adage rings true. You know more than you think you know.” Henrietta addressed the door this time. “You can come in.”
The door swung out on silent hinges. I turned to see Henry Baxter, who looked almost the same as he had in the photo on the desk, just paler. He held something hidden in one hand. Beside him stood a girl who I couldn’t place. Had I seen her before?
“Good,” said Henrietta. “You brought Maddie.”
I looked back at the headmistress and blinked. What had she ju
st said? I scratched my head and then spied the photo again. The girl in the photo, Dahlia. She reminded me of someone. But who?
“Um, something funny's going on around here.” I narrowed my eyes, then turned and almost jumped out of my seat. “Who’s this girl? She wasn’t here a second ago.”
“Oops.” She shrugged and smiled, then touched her necklace and murmured something at it. “Sorry about that. No more reruns now. I’m Maddie, Umbral magus.”
“Oh, okay.” I nodded. I'd learned about Umbral magic during the first hour of intensives with the headmistress.
“What have you got for me, Henry?” Headmistress Thurston tilted her head to peer at whatever the vampire gripped.
“It’s the best I can do.” He clenched his fingers over the object and sighed. “I’ve been through the entire box of memory trinkets, and this one’s the closest I can get to an answer that fits your theory.”
“Even if you’d found nothing, I still believe we’re part of a deliberate pattern here.” She leaned forward, hands against the desk.
“Deliberate?” I blinked. “You mean to tell me you’ve had the idea all along that all this chaos, well, isn’t chaotic at all?”
“It’s always been at the back of my head. It has felt familiar ever since last fall, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.” Henrietta held her hand out, palm up, toward Henry. “Let’s see this thing.”
The vampire opened his hand, revealing an old keychain. It had one of those rings that detached by pulling away from a round plastic base. The time-worn words Trash to Treasure crossed the circle at its equator, with a Providence address beneath it that didn't exist. The headmistress put her palm over it, then tapped her foot.
“Okay.” Henry bowed his head, looking wearier than I imagined a member of the blood-drinking set could get. He murmured something.
Headmistress Thurston’s eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open. The next moment, her lips pressed into a thin, pale line. A low growl grew in the silence, eventually filling the room. She held her free hand out, and a ball of foxfire, blue and shot through with crackles of static electricity, floated above it. Inside, a scene took shape.
“Nobody will find you, Uncle Edgar.” The Neil in this image looked older and more careworn, with dark purple circles under his eyes and a leaner face. Gray streaked his honey-blond hair.
“Are you sure?” The man who spoke had covered his bald head with a Greek fisherman's cap.
“The wards I put up should hold indefinitely. Even after I'm—”
“They got all kinds of new treatments with magipsychic meds now.” The man I could only assume was Edgar Watkins shook his head. “You’re not dying, kid.”
“This leukemia sucks rotten eggs, but I’ve had it longer than those new trials allow.” Neil cleared his throat. “And I’m not a kid anymore. My part in this is almost done. It’ll be up to Henrietta and her friends from the future or whatever Aunt Joyce saw.”
“Right.” Edgar turned his head to the side, rubbing one eye. “All you need to do now is—”
“Hide Joyce. I know. And then I can rest.” He cleared his throat again, then coughed twice and wiped his mouth. His hand came away with blood on it.
“Jeez, kid. Go to the hospital first.” Edgar shuffled his feet.
“You know I can’t.” Neil popped a Halls lozenge into his mouth. “But I promise I will right after. With great anti-power comes great responsibility and all that.”
“Wish I could visit you.” Edgar fussed with his hat, trying to hide the tears at the corners of his eyes.
“No matter what happens, don’t." Neil pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "That goes double for Henry, and triple for Aunt Joyce."
“I know." Edgar sighed. "Direct interaction will break the Nullification spell. I still don’t get why we can’t tell the other guy what he’s in for."
“She said there was a good reason he can't know what he is until the last minute.” Neil pulled a light jacket on.
“Yeah. That’s my Precognitive wife, always right." Edgar gave his nephew a thin smile. "See you around, kid."
“Thanks, Uncle Edgar.” Neil's back was to his uncle now, but everyone watching the memory saw the tears streaming down his face.
“For what?” Edgar reached one hand out but then let it drop to his side.
“Taking me in when I had nowhere else to go. You saved my life back then. It’s my privilege now to save yours.”
“I wouldn’t have had it any other way, kid.”
The scene faded, replaced by the blazing blue Foxfire. I dabbed my nose with the hankie I usually kept up my sleeve. The sniffling from off to my right told me that Maddie May also grieved a man she hadn’t known. Both the headmistress and Henry Baxter stood in the middle of the office, ugly-crying. From Neil’s last remaining high school besties, I should have expected nothing less.
Chapter Ten
Ed
“Sir Al, I’m not sure you brought me to the right place.” I peered up at the Sidhe knight. I saw his resemblance to Hope from this angle. The stubborn streak, too. “I need to meet Lane Meyer, not hang out in my warded room.”
“I didn’t want to take any chances by just dropping you at their studio.” He unfolded the glasses he always wore in the mortal realm and perched them on his nose like a weird, wiry bird.
“I’ve been there before.” Shrugging, I leaned against the wall.
“So have I.” Al nodded once. “And Goblins can tell if you’ve returned to old haunts with a simple spell.”
“The king has no problem with me; just saying. Anyway, he can get in here easy on account of my dad.”
“It’s not the king I’m worried about.”
“I’d like to know who’s threatening me if it’s all the same to you.”
“All I’m allowed to tell you is that it’s a Seelie Goblin.”
“Oh.” I scratched my head. “Wait. Aha, I figured it out! The Harcourts’ old butler. Kim said Blaine thought he let the Pharaoh’s rats into the mansion.”
“I’d say you ought to be out solving the city’s little mysteries if I weren’t concerned for your safety.” A muscle in his jaw twitched.
I wondered whether he worried more about Hope’s safety because she was my friend, but I figured it didn’t matter. Someone watching my back for a selfish reason was better than no one at all.
“Thanks for caring.” I tugged his sleeve, so he’d look me in the eye and see I wasn’t being flip. I’d already solved a mystery; a dangerous one, too, but Al didn’t need to know about that. Just like his daughter, he needed a friend. “Seriously. I feel neglected by the adult solids in my life lately.”
“Are you sure you’re only six?” One corner of his mouth turned up.
"Seven. Almost." I mirrored his half-smile. "Anyway, I'm supposed to meet with Lane.”
“All right.” Albert Dunstable pulled his phone from his jacket and tapped. “There, I pressed Send.”
“It’s so weird, being over there at the queen’s castle where it’s broad daylight but still night here.” I stared out the window at the moon.
“You get used to it.” Al tilted his head so his ear pointed at the window. “You’ll want to get that.”
“Okay.” I didn’t bother wondering how he knew Lane was already here. Sidhe have excellent hearing.
Heading downstairs to invite a vampire in, I literally ran into and through Rob. He laughed and sailed behind me as I kept moving. Mediums, that is, Psychics who’d either almost or actually died for a minute, worked with a ghostly partner. Rob’s my ghost. Has been for as long as I can remember.
“How’s my best solid buddy today?” He tipped his tricorn hat.
“Okay.” I shrugged one shoulder.
“That's what you always say.”
“Yeah.”
"The Under’s rubbing off on you, kid." Rob shook his head. "It’s safe to ask me stuff, you know?”
“Yeah, but there’s no time.” I’d rea
ched the bottom of the stairs and glimpsed Lane’s green hair even through the semi-sheer curtain over the door. Mama had put them up over the summer. My thoughts turned toward my mother before I could stop them. Of course, Rob sensed that.
"She’s fine, kid.” He sighed. "I checked and everything."
“I don’t care,” I lied. “Gotta let Lane in now.”
“Listen, let me follow you.” Rob stood in the door, his face and toes sticking out from the wood, along with his portly belly. Yup, my ghost had a dad-bod. “Just while you’re here. Let me out of the wards when you go, please?”
“Sure.” I nodded, then looked Rob in the eye and thought hard at him about how I wanted him to keep an eye on Al instead of me. We’d done the Possession thing so many times, Rob could hear my thoughts as long as he was within arm’s length.
“I’ll watch what I want but I get what you mean, kid.” Rob moved aside as I reached for the doorknob. It was a hexagon that reminded me again of the stupid soul-spindle and the trouble it had caused for Mama and Professor Watkins, all because she’d teamed up with a ghost on Richard Hopewell’s side by accident.
“Hey, Rob?” I looked up into his doughy face.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for picking me back in the day.”
“Oh. Um, you’re welcome.” He sailed out the door, then through me and up the stairs.
Rob always held something back. He’d never told me how or why he’d partnered with a tiny tot, only that it was a long story, and he’d get around to it someday. All the someday stuff sucked. It wasn’t doing people my parents’ age any good, and it looked like the college kids were falling into the same trap. I’d have to give them a few reminders right when they needed it. I started by opening the door.