by Emma Newman
He’d groaned and pulled the duvet higher. She’d pulled it down. Then she’d tickled him. When he didn’t laugh, she’d wormed her way into a cuddle and said, “Why do you have a sad, Will-yum?”
“Because I used to be someone important and now I’m not.”
“You are still imported. You are to me.”
“Important, darling, not imported.”
“That’s what I said. Is anything else making you sad?”
“I hurt some people. I feel bad about it.”
“Oh! Well, that’s easy to fix! You just need to say sorry to them!”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Yes it is. When I hurt someone I have to say sorry. Even when it’s a snail I stepped on. If you don’t, you’re a bad person.”
“Sophia…I love you, but can you just leave me alone?”
She’d pulled the duvet off him then. “No. We’re going to find the people you hurt so you can say sorry.”
By the time Vincent had returned, she’d almost worn him down with a combination of logic, emotional blackmail, and nagging. When his uncle agreed that it would be good for him to sort his life out, there was no point arguing.
Now he was sitting outside of the cottage he’d sent Amelia to. She’d be heavily pregnant with his child by now. He sighed so deeply that Sophia’s head rose up with his chest and she woke up. After a huge yawn, she looked out of the window. “Are we there?”
He nodded. “I think you should wait in the car. I won’t be long.” He didn’t want Amelia to know about her.
Settling her with a teddy bear and colouring books, Will left her with Carter and ran up the path. He was soaked by the time he reached the door. His knock was swiftly answered by a housemaid who let him in as soon as she heard his name.
“She’s in the living room, sir,” she said, and hurried away after bobbing a curtsy.
The cottage was pleasant enough, with country charm and homeliness. Just the sort of place Amelia would hate. That’s why he’d sent her there for her confinement, of course. The scent of rosewater made him feel nauseous as he was bombarded by memories of Amelia ensnaring his affections in the hallway at the Peonias’ soiree, of countless kisses, of their first night together. All lies. All exactly what he’d done to Cathy. Did she suffer the same at the scent or sight of Irises? He shuddered and, steeling himself, entered the living room.
Amelia was sitting in a rocking chair near the fire, her belly round, her face softened by pregnancy. She didn’t turn when he came in, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the fire. “So you finally decided to visit.”
“I wanted to see how you were.”
“Fat. There,” she waved a hand over the bump, “now you’ve seen it, you can go.”
“Do you know about the Nether?”
She nodded. “I know all about it. Half of the servants have left. The other half are too scared to go. They’ve told me everything. And I know about Cornelius.”
He sat down on one of the overstuffed armchairs, pulling off his scarf and gloves. The room was stuffy and the fire was banked far too high. “I came to talk to you about the future. And about what we did to each other.”
She looked at him then, and even now, even after everything, she looked beautiful. “I assume you’re going to leave me here until I’ve borne your child and then you’ll dispose of me, like all of the others who have wronged or inconvenienced you.”
He shrugged off his coat. “There was a time when I did plan to do just that. No more. I’ve come to realise some difficult truths. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, regardless of the reasons. At the time, I could justify all of it, even murdering your brother. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve harmed too many people. I don’t want to harm you more than I already have.”
“You’ll want the child, I take it?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And what would you propose for me?”
“Amelia…that feels like jumping ahead to the end of a very long conversation. We don’t trust each other. You hate me. I hate what you did to me. I don’t know whether we’ll be able to forgive each other, but I would like to try and make things right between us.”
“Now your wife has abandoned you, you come sniffing around me again.”
“It isn’t like that. Everything has changed. Literally everything, Amelia. Our patrons care nothing for us now, not when there are so many new people to torment. We’re on our own. If I throw you out after you’ve given birth, where will you go? How will you support yourself?”
She gave him the most disdainful glare. “I would not need your assistance. I can assure you of that.”
He balled up the scarf, squeezing it in his fists. What had he expected? Tears and gratitude? “Would you like to come back to London? Not to live with me, but to an apartment there. You may enjoy it more closer to civilisation.”
“And what would be the price? I can’t imagine this being a genuine act of kindness.”
“All I’d ask is that we dine together twice a week. That we try and find a way to forgive each other. Or at least, stop trying to hurt each other any more than we have already.”
After a long pause, she stood, revealing the bump even more. He resisted the urge to touch it in the hope of feeling his child. “You really have changed.”
He nodded. “We don’t have to play the game anymore. And when there’s nothing to win, it makes you consider what else there is to life.”
“I’d like to come back to London. I’ll never forgive you for Cornelius. He was the other half of me. But I think you and I should try to be civil. For the sake of the child.”
Standing, he gave a short bow and made his way to the door.
“It’s a boy, by the way,” she said as he headed out. He paused and turned to look at her, resting her hand on the bump. “I’m certain.”
“I know,” Will said, thinking of Iris’s faerie and the Charm it had placed upon him. That felt like a lifetime ago. “I’ll be in touch with arrangements for your relocation.”
As he shut the front door behind him, his mobile phone rang. Nathaniel was displayed on the screen.
“Will, are you in London?”
“No, but I will be tonight.”
“Excellent. Keep tomorrow free. An opportunity has come up, one that could serve us very well indeed. I’ll call later with details.”
The call ended. Nathaniel had sounded excited, hopeful even. What foul scheme had he cooked up now?
He got into the car and Sophia beamed at him. “Do you feel better now, Will-yum?”
“I do, actually.”
She grinned as she put the cap back onto a felt-tip pen. “Good. And now are we going to see Cathy?”
He looked back at the cottage, seeing Amelia at the window. “No, darling. I already said sorry to Cathy, in Exilium. We won’t be seeing her again.” He settled Sophia and did up her seat belt before seeing to his own.
“Not even for tea?”
“No, darling, not even for tea. I don’t make Cathy happy. And I think she deserves to be happy, don’t you?”
Sophia nodded and cuddled his arm. “And you do too, Will-yum.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“Maybe one day,” he said, watching Amelia as the car pulled away.
35
Max accepted the cup of tea from his great-nephew, David, and sipped it as his elderly niece accepted hers with thanks. He cast his eyes over the flock wallpaper and ceramic ducks flying in formation over the fireplace. The semi-detached house at the end of a cul-de-sac was as average as they came.
“I still can’t get over it,” Joy said in a croaky Lancashire accent. “How can you be so young when you were Mum’s brother? You don’t look a day over fifty!”
“How old are you, Uncle Max?” David asked, returning with a biscuit tin.
“One hundred and six years old,” Max said. “But you must understand, I spent a lot of time in the Nether, where people didn’t age.”
“There was
a woman on the telly the other day who said she were born in 1781 and she looked like she were all of twenty! David, I said, that can’t be right. It’s all a big joke.”
“It’s true,” Max said. “Some were born before that. But they lived in the Nether too.”
“And all the stories about the ‘Fae,’ are they true?” David asked. “There was one about the newspaper editor who disappeared. The news this morning said his wife has been put in hospital, saying he was turned into a frog. I mean, we don’t know what to believe anymore!”
Max pulled out his notebook and wrote Newspaper editor—frog? before putting it back in his pocket. “I’ll look into that. It’s a possibility. I know of a case a few years ago where a man was turned into a frog and accidentally killed by his children.”
“Oh, give over!” Joy said with a crackly laugh.
David wasn’t laughing, though. He leaned forwards. “How common is this going to be?”
“Not very,” Max said. “Unless you have a specific connection to the Fae, as the people from the Nether did, or you’re remarkable in some way or in the public eye, the odds of you being targeted are incredibly low. Far worse odds than winning the lottery, I’m given to understand.”
David didn’t look reassured. “And that Mr Ferran. Can we trust him?”
Max nodded. “Mr Ferran is a personal friend of mine. He’s a genuinely good man and is working very hard to make things better.”
Sitting back and folding his arms, David said, “I bet you a tenner he runs for Parliament next year.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“The Mail was saying it’s all a stunt to drive up the price of iron. And then the editor who wrote it disappeared. Looks a bit fishy to me.”
“It isn’t a stunt, and that newspaper has printed nothing but lies since the worlds were rejoined. It’s as if they want people to be terrified. Mr Ferran could not have turned the editor into a frog; that would have been one of the Fae, and they will not go near him, let alone do his bidding.”
“Then why isn’t anyone saying anything about that?”
“They are,” Max said. “Numerous press releases have been sent out containing details of the websites that contain real advice. Have you not seen them?”
David shrugged. “It’s so hard to know who to believe these days.”
“No it isn’t,” Max said. “Mr Ferran’s organisation is trustworthy and gives sound advice. I suggest you go direct to their website and follow it, and tell everyone you know, too.”
“You look like Mum,” Joy said, squinting at him. “Same chin and mouth. She was prettier than you, though.”
Max noted David’s embarrassment. “I look like this because my soul was dislocated. As I explained in the letter.” Joy frowned but didn’t question his words. Max wasn’t convinced she fully understood. He looked at the clock. “The others are late.”
David pulled a mobile phone from his pocket, tapped on it, and got an instant reply. “They’re only five minutes away,” he said. “They got caught in traffic. It’s been murder since that stretch of the M5 was turned into a meadow. And that’s another thing—”
“Go get the photo albums, David,” Joy said. “Max will want to see the pictures. And bring the tin that’s with them.” Leaving his next complaint unfinished, David dutifully went off to find them.
Max was aware of the gargoyle’s increasing impatience. It was currently curled up in the boot of his car. They’d agreed that it would be best for him to meet all of the family at once, but most of them had been delayed.
“That bureau over there was my mother’s,” Joy said. “What was she like when you knew her?”
“She fussed about whether I’d washed behind my ears,” Max said, making Joy laugh. “She helped our mother a great deal. She sang a lot.”
“She never talked about you,” Joy said. “Whenever it came up, she’d get all teary and change the subject. Hurt too much, I suppose. Couldn’t you have sent her a note, just to let her know you were alive?”
“No. I wasn’t allowed. And then later, after the dislocation, I could only do my job.”
Joy pushed her cup of tea to one side and reached across the table, taking hold of Max’s hand. Her hands had prominent veins, easy to see through her papery skin, but they still had strength in them. “I am so glad I got to meet you. And you take no notice of David. He’s a grumpy bugger and he doesn’t trust people easily.”
The sound of a car drawing up outside brought David back down the stairs with an armful of photo albums and a tin balanced precariously on the top. He left them on the sofa and went to answer the door.
“I love my family,” Joy said. “But they’re a noisy bunch and the twins can be an ’andful.”
There was a flurry of introductions, Max meeting no less than four generations of his family in one go. They’d arrived in a minibus that was now parked next to his estate car and while the adults exchanged travel horror stories, the four-year-old twins took one look at Max and ran upstairs screaming.
“It happens a lot,” Max said, as the parents apologised. “I have some things in the car; I’ll be right back.”
He went outside and opened the boot. The gargoyle sat up, looking excited. “Can I come in now?”
Max hefted out the two heavy bags on either side of it. “Yes, just let me go in first, so I can prepare them. Shut the boot when you come in.” He staggered back into the hallway and dropped the bags inside, making a loud clanking sound. The hum of conversation coming from the living room stopped.
David peeped his head round the door. “Can I give you a hand with anything?”
Max declined and carried just one of the bags inside. “Can I talk to all of you about something important? Then we can do…family things.” He had no idea what those were, but he knew they would all have something in mind, even if it was just looking at photos. “I explained in my letter that I’m an Arbiter and how that’s a sort of policeman.”
They all nodded, starting to settle on the sofa and chairs brought through from the dining room.
“You’ve been seeing reports on the news and in the papers about magic and the Fae and it’s all very confusing. I want to brief you all on what’s true, what’s hearsay, and how you can protect yourselves and your children. I’d like you to pass on this information to everyone you know.” He opened the bag. “You’ve probably heard about advice to nail iron horseshoes on doors. I have two bags of them, made of pure iron by Mr Ferran himself. Nail these to your front and back doors or any other doors into your house. It doesn’t matter which way up. It will stop the Fae from interfering with your household by indicating that you are under the protection of Lord Iron. These shoes in particular are very potent. Don’t tell anyone else about how special these are, otherwise they could be stolen and we cannot keep up with demand. There’s another bag of them in the hallway.”
“So is that where the old tradition comes from?” his great-great-niece asked. “About protecting from evil? Was the evil the Fae?”
“It’s a dilution of the real reason,” Max replied. “It was always to protect the home from evil spirits. More often than not, those evil spirits were the Fae. But there was a lot of misinformation and misattribution of events at the time. We’re only just starting to appreciate how much humanity’s view of magic has been distorted. The fact that they’re horseshoes isn’t important in itself, it’s just that the Fae will recognise the shape from a distance.”
He went on to describe Charms, how to recognise the Fae, how to protect themselves outside of the home, and all of the other facts that he, Cathy, and Sam had agreed upon. The family listened quietly, asking occasional questions, some even making notes on their phones.
As Max finished, there was a fake cough from the hallway. “Is that one of the twins?” Joy asked.
“No, that’s someone I want to introduce to you,” Max said. “I explained in my letter that as an Arbiter, my soul was put somewhere else, to make me more effective
in the policing of Fae magic. Due to an accident, mine ended up in a gargoyle.” At the sight of all their blank faces, Max realised the best way was to show them. “Come in and meet everyone,” he called.
The gargoyle padded in and everyone yelled and leaned back, apart from Joy, who started to laugh and clap. “Oh, look at that!” Her rasping laugh, at stark odds with everyone else’s reactions, made the gargoyle laugh too.
“Hi, everyone,” it said, making Joy laugh all the louder.
“And you talk!”
“Of course I do,” it said. “We’re two halves of the same person. I do all the feeling for him, all the emotions, you know.”
“Mummy…” One of the twins was at the doorway, drawn down by all the noise.
“Hey there,” said the gargoyle. “Could you scratch just behind my ear? My claws are too big to do it properly.” The boy looked uncertainly towards the adults for an indication of what to do.
When none of them gave any guidance, Joy got up and went over to the gargoyle to scratch his head. “Don’t be such a great Bertie,” she said. “Come on, Jason, show yer brother there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
The child approached cautiously and the gargoyle lowered its head further so he could reach it. The boy scratched. “It feels like stone.”
“That’s what I’m made of. Stone with a soul inside.”
The other twin came over and after the gargoyle’s head was sufficiently scratched, one of them said, “Do you like swings?”
“I don’t know.”
“Great Nanna has a swing in her garden. Come and see.”
The gargoyle was led out and soon all three of them were in the garden running around, the gargoyle chasing the twins, who were screaming in delight. Max gave a satisfied nod as Joy came over and kissed him on the cheek.
“I know it’s all a bit strange,” she said to the adults, who were still in varying states of shock. “But Max and that there gargoyle are family. And in this family, we accept that we’re all different and a bit strange and that’s okay as long as we’re kind to each other. Now, someone go and put the kettle on. There’s a cake in the tin, freshly made, and bring over the biscuit tin, too. I want Max to see the photos.”
