A Little Night Muse

by Jessa Slade

  When Josh heard her moving in the bedroom, he took one of the spears. “C’mon, boy. Let’s go see what we got last night.”

  They headed out into the yard under a gray sky, threatening more snow, and found the spot where the imp had burned. Only a sodden gray ash pile remained, but Josh knew it was the spot because Wolly put his nose down, sneezed, and then pissed right on it.

  If he had been the sort of man to disbelieve his own eyes, he might have been inclined to forget the night. But that would require forgetting Adelyn, which wasn’t going to happen.

  With the tip of the spear, he prodded the remnants of the imp corpse.

  To his surprise, a curl of smoke drifted up from the touch of the iron. Wolly sneezed again.

  The spear ticked against a hard object. Josh poked a little deeper and, nestled in the ashes, something glinted.

  He used the spear to flick it out. Wolly jumped back, then approached cautiously to sniff the find.

  Josh bent down to look too. A shining stone the size of his thumbnail lay in the dirt. Hesitantly, he reached for it. He smoothed the muck away with his fingertip.

  An emerald. To the bare eye, flawless in cut and clarity. He had never handled a gemstone like it, but he’d bet every cow in his pasture it was no imitation crystal. When he held the jewel to the wan winter light, it gleamed, a perfect match to Adelyn’s eyes.

  “Keep it,” Adelyn said from behind him. “As a reward.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. When he had first seen her in her fluttering veils and gold slippers, really he should have guessed she was a fairy princess. Now she stood just steps away, his worn heather flannel knotted at her midriff and his winter-gray sweatpants rolled over his extra boots. Though she was draped in his castoffs and his hands had learned the curves of her body, she seemed more untouchable—and more desirable—than ever. “You should take a spear with you when you leave the house. The wooden handle won’t burn your hands.”

  “Being near iron strips our glamour and leaves us exposed. It hurts, even when it’s not touching. Besides, I have you.”

  He pushed to his feet. “True. I’m yours to command.”

  Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know what you meant.” He tossed her the emerald and she caught it. “It’s yours, isn’t it?”

  She looked down at the glint of green in her hand. “Every phae has a knack. I cry stones.”

  Somehow, her disregard for the valuable jewel was the final rock hurled at the fragile glass of his old reality. He could almost hear the shattering. This was worse than when he’d taken off his eye patch years ago and realized the scarring on his cornea would forever blur his vision. “Not just stones. Gemstones.”

  She shrugged. “Not a remarkable talent among phae who could spin your straw into gold. Before I was exiled, I cried in front of the phaedrealii, and the imp swallowed it.”

  Had she cried because she hadn’t wanted to leave? “I guess it came after you.” He stared up at the sky, at the mountains that ringed them, anywhere but her. “The clouds will make it dark early, and I have chores.” He fished in his pocket and pulled out the old bone whistle he’d found earlier. “Just blow. I’ll come running.” He almost added like a dog, but didn’t want to insult Wolly.

  He thought he managed to keep his voice mostly matter-of-fact, but she winced. “Josh—”

  “Go on back to the house. And take Wolly with you. He’s still a little sore.”

  Adelyn gave him a distressed look, a look Wolly echoed. Josh gave them a shooing gesture and the dog reluctantly headed for the house, Adelyn trailing. They both glanced back at him, as if they didn’t believe a man wanted his alone time.

  He would just have to get used to it again.

  He moved through his chores, grateful for the work that kept his attention. Once he had fed and watered every living thing that actually wanted and needed him, he fired up the cell booster, dialed his phone, and held his breath. Sometimes cloud cover played hell with a signal, but sometimes the bounce was just right.

  Vaile picked up on the first ring. “Hey there, Josh. Never thought I’d get a call from you.”

  “I never would have thought a fairy needed a phone.”

  Silence. Then Vaile laughed, a fake laugh, as if he knew he should try to dissemble but also knew it was hopeless. “Really, Josh, not everybody from Hollywood is gay.”

  Josh ground his teeth. “I’m not that kind of hick.”

  “Too bad. This would be easier if you were.” Vaile sighed. “What’s this about?”

  “You have a broken water pipe that flooded your kitchen, and I have a musetta wearing my clothes.”

  After a long moment of silence, Vaile said, “I assume you turned off the water. As for the musetta...They are harder to turn away. Put her on the line.”

  Right. So they could talk over his simple human head. “She’s busy not being killed by imps. You’ll just have to talk to me.”

  In the background, Josh heard Vaile’s low rumble, probably to Imogene, who—now that he thought about it—was too damn beautiful to be a real woman. Movie star, his ass.

  Vaile returned to the line. “Mo says hi. She also says—and I quote—‘Don’t do it.’”

  “Tell her it’s too late. If you catch my drift.”

  Vaile grunted. “These phae females are beyond enchanting. And not always in a good way.”

  “Thanks for telling me all of this when I offered to watch your place.”

  “We didn’t know you’d actually see.”

  Josh touched the scar under his eye. “I should warn you, the implications of my incompetence are starting to piss me off. As soon as I get off the phone, my musetta and I are spending a quiet evening at home, smelting iron bullets. You owe me a frying pan, fairy.”

  “Call me fairy again and I’ll take that pan upside your head, cowboy.” Another pause and half-heard mumble. “Mo says iron won’t have the range of your normal rounds. You’ll have to get close.”

  “Good to know.”

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can. I’ll bring you a nice German titanium skillet.”

  “You’re in Germany? Shit.” Josh rubbed his chest where the imp’s scratches stung. “It’ll be days before you get here.”

  “Midnight. No later. When we fly, we trip the mushroom express.”

  Josh remembered the mushroom ring in the Hunters’ backyard. “Sounds like I have a lot to learn.”

  “Or a lot to forget.”

  Stubbornly, Josh didn’t respond.

  This time, Vaile’s sigh ended in a curse. “We had hoped to stay hidden until I finished fortifying the valley. We’ll just have to take them whenever they come. And by we, I don’t mean you, Josh.”

  “I’m already in it up to my eyeballs,” Josh argued. “Both eyes. So tell me what she’s running from.”

  At first he thought he wouldn’t get an answer, but then Vaile said, “A dream.”

  Josh waited a second, feeling deaf, dumb and blind. “I don’t get it.”

  “And you never will. You live in the sunlit world, where you wake from your dreams. For us, the dream is never-ending. And it has become a nightmare. Imogene and I, plus a few others, had to get away, but our Queen does not allow such freedom.”

  “I’ve heard about this Queen of yours. She won’t let you go?”

  “Not without a fight.”

  “Hell, I can give her that.”

  “You? A human?” Vaile gave a dismissive snort. “She’s not a Disney villainess, sure to be defeated in the last act.”

  “That’s fine with me. I always wanted the stories to be longer anyway.”

  When they disconnected, Josh started on the iron bullets.

  He might be just the simple sidekick in this story, but he read enough to know he had two choices in the end: Win the girl.

  Or die.

  Chapter 9

  Adelyn looked around at the disaster. Who could’ve guessed she’d need so many spoons? She gla
nced ruefully at the sink. A touch of glamour would be quicker than lemon bubbles. But when she left, the dirty dishes would reveal themselves.

  If only that was her biggest mess.

  Fortunately, she had watched Josh deal with such chaos, so she plunged into the work. The bubbles were almost like a glamour, silky under her fingertips and glistening with tiny rainbows. But when they popped, they left clean dishes behind. A simple magic, yet strangely satisfying. She had all the pots scrubbed and upended beside the sink to dry when Josh came through the doorway.

  He looked around with a wary gaze that popped her own bubble. “Did you make something?”

  “Lunch.” From across the room, she heard his stomach growl, and the tightness in her chest eased enough to let her laugh. “I thought you’d be hungry.”

  He shifted from one foot to the other, hat in his hands, as if he wasn’t at ease in his own house, and her amusement withered. He seemed so right in this place, but she had taken away his peace.

  He gazed back at the doorway longingly. Somehow she knew, if she held out her hand, he would flinch, much as Wolly had at first. Now she and the dog were good friends. Which had made her think of cooking for Josh.

  She moved the clay pot from the oven to the counter and lifted the lid.

  Josh stepped forward with a sniff. “Since when do fairy princesses make cornbread?”

  “Bread and wine appear in many fairy tales. The making is a kind of magic, really.”

  He had been reaching for one of the muffins, but hesitated.

  “Not actual magic,” she assured him. “Just yeast and sugar and plenty of butter. Some beans on the side, also not the magic kind.”

  She pushed the little feast—a real feast, not the phae kind that left the guests hungrier when they left—toward him.

  He pulled up a stool to the counter and glanced toward her, though he didn’t quite make eye contact. “You’re not eating?”

  “I nibbled earlier. We phae really don’t need much.” Plus, she was queasy with worry. About the imp. About Raze. About what was happening between her and Josh.

  Once she’d never thought about humans, and now one ranked with the Queen’s Ruiner on the heretofore short list of things that made her hyperventilate.

  Josh focused on the food for a few bites, then said, “I talked to Vaile earlier.”

  Good thing she hadn’t eaten anything or she might have wretched. How had she even briefly forgotten that Josh’s neighbor was on her list too? “What did he say?”

  “He and Imogene are coming back. Something about traveling by mushroom.” He shook his head as he recounted the conversation. “Vaile had some suggestions for warding off the bastards.”

  “Good.” Short as it was, Adelyn could scarcely force the word out.

  Wards would isolate the valley. How would she get word to Raze? Would the Ruiner honor their agreement if he couldn’t retrieve the runaway phae?

  What if she couldn’t return to court?

  She startled when Josh put his hand over hers. “It will be all right, I promise.”

  He couldn’t make that promise. In fact, just voicing it was the sort of thing that invited the forces that would crush them both. The Queen’s forces.

  “I shouldn’t have come here.” This time, the words came out against her will.

  Josh scowled. “Don’t say that.”

  Is that what the other phae had felt when they had fled the court? Had she been the only one unwilling to leave?

  “I’m putting you in danger,” she whispered. She had thought she was deceiving only a rogue Hunter. But now...”I won’t let you be hurt.”

  “Too late.” He lifted their joined hands to his chest.

  Did he mean the imp-inflicted wounds? Or did he mean his heart?

  No! She didn’t want to know. To know would only make leaving harder. She wanted the unknowing—the illusions, the dreams, the lies—as she’d never wanted anything before.

  She closed her eyes, feeling the steady thud of his heart beneath her palm. “Oh, Josh...”

  “I never had the chance to be a fairytale hero before.”

  “You already are, to me.” She pulled away from him gently.

  “We have a lot to do before sunset,” he said. “Will you help me?”

  Vaile had given instructions for charms woven from yarn, ashes of the burned imp, and slivers of iron that would ignite like a flare if a phae passed too closely. After she accidentally set off one of the wards, Adelyn sat on the front steps of the porch and watched as Josh placed the charms around the yard. She wrapped her arms around her belly, feeling the gray sky and the gray iron closing around her.

  “There’s a gap,” she called. “Put that one by the edge of the house closer to the barn.”

  Josh adjusted the distance between the charms and then returned to her side. “Too bad these don’t make a cow-proof fence.”

  She contemplated the odd way that the phae—so powerful in many respects—were different in the sunlit world. How much of the Queen’s powerful rule was merely the phae’s reluctance to leave what they knew for the strangeness of the realm beyond? “Maybe if your herd had phae blood. Half-blood offspring of minotaurs would avoid iron.”

  Josh laughed. “Good idea. You can introduce my cows to one after this is over.”

  They gazed awkwardly into the yard as they both realized that after was impossible to see. Josh ran his hand over one of the ferns curling up out of the snow beside the steps. The papery frond hissed through his fingers like a warning.

  With a rumble of curiosity, he stretched one of the golden fronds between his hands, and she realized it wasn’t a piece of the fern at all.

  He frowned. “Another snake skin? This wasn’t here before the imp came. I wonder—”

  She reached out and took the cast-off skin from his fingers. “Enough mysteries. We still have an hour before sunset. Come inside with me.”

  For a heartbeat, she thought he would turn away. But he stripped off his glove and put his hand in hers. The warmth of his palm engulfed her cold fingers. “Let’s go.”

  He had clustered all the iron weapons at the front door to minimize her discomfort, but still the closeness of the metal grated on her until she retreated to the bedroom. He checked his rifle and the stock of iron bullets one last time before joining her.

  She waited for him, naked in the middle of the bed.

  “Adelyn...” He swayed. “We don’t have much time.”

  “So hurry. If this is all we have, don’t waste a second.”

  Just as well the closures on his shirt were sturdy pearl snaps. Buttons would have flown at the speed of his disrobing.

  Then he was beside her in the bed, his big hands everywhere, like the agony of iron, but the opposite, a pleasure so encompassing she thought she might die.

  They came together in a passionate rush that left little room for magic of any sort, and yet she felt the glow of a strange force all around them. Not a phae trick, but something they had made together, just the two of them.

  She did not want to give it a name. Names had power.

  In the aftermath—too brief—they clung together, limbs and fingers, even the locks of their hair, entwined.

  “Adelyn,” Josh started.

  She kissed him, tasting their desire and desperation, unabated. “No words. I can’t.”

  He kissed her back, so hard she thought he might break her promise to herself.

  But she realized now, as she hadn’t before, that the phaedrealii still had a claim on her. Josh had shown her the promise of a new start, but by betraying the runaways to Raze, she had stolen that from others who might be seeking a new way, much as her old life had been stolen from her.

  Josh started to rise but she clung to him. “Please, just a little longer.” She had refused to beg to Raze the Ruiner for her life, but she would beg Josh for these last moments.

  He relented, and she pulled him in to kiss him again.

  A deep kiss, a musetta�
�s kiss. She kissed him down to his soul where he kept the passions that drove him. She tasted herself on his tongue, then, past that, she found the wide-open sky and deep mountain valley that echoed his big heart. She kissed him until her own heart ached, breaking at the simple, unbounded beauty.

  Too much. She couldn’t hold it all, couldn’t hold him...Her musetta tricks honed in the phaedrealii failed her, and her only hope was to crack herself apart and take what he had to give. In the skylight above, the first stars were gathering in the darkening sky, but tears blurred her vision as if the sunlit world was fading away.

  She inhaled, filling herself with the scent of sex and snow and Josh. She held the breath...

  And Josh slumped across her.

  For a moment, she held him, feeling his heart thud steadily against her breast. Then she rolled him over. His eyes were closed, lashes a pair of short crescent fans that trembled with her breath when she kissed him one last time.

  He sighed, but did not wake.

  A musetta could rouse to action, but her withdrawal caused exhaustion in equal measure when she took her power away from a man.

  Not for long, perhaps, not with a man like Josh who would not let himself be stopped by a mere lack of inspiration. But he would rest for awhile, and that was all the time she needed.

  She rose from the bed and dressed in her phae veils which, left to their own devices, had shed most of their filth. She combed her fingers through her hair as the silky folds settled around her.

  Josh’s lashes fluttered and she caught the faint gleam of his eyes. He would think he was dreaming this. And that’s all it had been, all it could be: a dream. Without her presence to remind him, she would fade into the darkness of his mind.

  She did not look back as she left the bedroom, but when she passed the dining room table, she dropped her tears into his dish of stones. The pearls, diamonds and rubies made a hollow sound, as hollow as her heart, but at least she would leave a part of herself behind in this place that was more precious to her than any dream.

  Chapter 10

  A ringing phone broke Josh from his restless sleep. Was it time to feed the cows? It was always time to feed the cows. Rising in the dark mornings of winter was tough, especially when he’d been having such good dreams. Dreams of a woman. And such a woman...