Bone Walker

by Angela Korra'ti

  All of which was true, and none of which did a damn thing for the lump rising in my throat. “But now she’s got a hold on me.” I opened my mouth and closed it again, trying to figure out how to put into words that the Queen of Air and Darkness was in my dreams… and that part of me now wanted her there. “She… eventually she’s going to get to call me in. Millie, I don’t want to go!”

  That pulled the old Warder up out of her seat again, and she came around the table to pull me into a motherly embrace. I threw my arms around her and cried. “Oh, sweetheart, I know,” she murmured. “God help me, I wish I could give you a way to back out of this safely. But you’ve already won what you need to find that yourself.” When I started, lifting my head to blink wetly at her, she gave me a wan little grin. “Time. You have the rest of Christopher’s natural life for the two of you to solve this.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” I begged. I didn’t want to think of how, when Luciriel finally claimed me, it’d mean that I’d outlived not only Christopher, but also everyone else I now knew and loved. But the idea that Millicent might not last another five or ten years—never mind several more decades—frightened me almost as badly. “You’re Millicent Merriweather. You’re damn well indestructible.”

  “If only. I’m ornery, but not that ornery.” Her expression gentled, and she placed her gnarled hands on each of my shoulders, studying me solemnly. “Honey, I’ll be square with you. I’ll do everything in my power to prepare you for surviving the Queen’s Court when the time comes, and you and I both know Christopher would give his right arm to keep you safe. But we’re human. We’re Warders. Much as I hate to admit it, Elessir was right when he said we’re out of our league teaching you properly.”

  Elessir.

  I blinked again, realizing all at once that I hadn’t laid eyes on him in the last four days, not since he and Christopher had seen me safely to my bed. Before I even realized the question was about to pop out, I heard myself asking, “He… he hasn’t left town, has he?”

  Millicent’s eyebrows went up. “He ain’t shown hide or hair of himself to me or Christopher, anywhere we usually walk. But for what it’s worth, girlie, he ain’t crossed the city’s Wards either.”

  So he was still in Seattle. Somewhere. “He’s… actually taught me a few things,” I began. Never mind that Christopher wasn’t going to like this. I wanted to dropkick the entire concept off the top of Mount Rainier the instant it took shape in my head. But yet again, what choice did I have?

  What Seelie mage was going to want to teach me if they knew I’d bargained with Luciriel? Would anyone less than Amelialoren herself be willing to take me on—and oh God, what was the Seelie Queen going to do when she got wind of my bargain? I hadn’t told Melisanda much besides asking her to tell House Kirlath I wasn’t fit to lead them. I hadn’t dared to tell anybody but Millie and Christopher what it had really taken to get me home again. Had I doomed myself against any further goodwill from the Seelie Court?

  But what Unseelie mage could I trust not to deliver me right into Luciriel’s hands?

  And so, even more reluctantly, I finished, “Maybe I’d better ask him if he’d be willing to teach me more.”

  Millie’s mouth skewed, a clear signal she didn’t care for this notion any more than I did—but to my surprise, she didn’t shoot it down. “Sidhe mages we can trust are thin on the ground around here, so I say go for it. Tell that bard if he’ll do it, I’ll give him free run of Seattle for as long as it takes.”

  * * *

  After that, I could probably have gotten either of the Warders to help me track Elessir down. But the sheer fact that the Unseelie hadn’t shown himself in our company suggested that, even if he hadn’t left the city, that he wasn’t exactly eager to come find us. And something told me I might have a better chance of finding him if I went looking alone. I didn’t ask Millicent or even Christopher for a link into the network of Warder energies they used to monitor the city—but I did call Christopher after I left Millie’s house and tell him what I planned. It was only fair and proper.

  As it happened, I didn’t even have to try to recreate what we’d done before to scan Seattle environs and find anyone of fey blood within the Wards. Some small niggling instinct pushed me onto a bus heading downtown, and within an hour I was heading into Kobe Terrace Park. Green growing places drew me. Maybe, I thought, they’d draw the bard too.

  The park, like much of the rest of the city, was sorely changed after the assault of wind and weather that Melorite had committed. On the way onto the grounds I walked past several trees missing branches, and in a few places, vegetation that should have been there was missing entirely. The great stone lantern had withstood the storms, but more fragile structures hadn’t been so lucky. I saw a picnic table that had been split by a lightning strike, and multiple spots on the trails through the park where stone and brick had been damaged in turn by uprooted trees. Some effort had already been made to clean the place up, mind you. There were new trash bins all along the trails and places with beds of flowers so new that I could still smell the freshness of recently turned soil.

  Not that there was anyone else in the park besides me to see the changes. December was right around the corner, and with dusk coming on and the inevitable—and thankfully normal—Seattle rain on the wind, no one else seemed hardy enough to brave its paths at this hour. That was fine by me. Because I noticed one other thing as I headed towards the spot where we’d met Makiko and her sons: the liquid flowing voice of an acoustic guitar. I’d heard my share of guitars in my time, but never one that sounded to me like the speech of the Sidhe.

  Or rather, one Sidhe in particular.

  He’s here.

  Nervous anticipation rose up in me, tinged with fear. After all, the last time I’d heard this Unseelie play, he’d been working to enthrall an entire bar. No such power was at work now. Without it, as if freed to step out from underneath its shadow, Elessir a’Natharion gave himself over entirely to his music.

  His guitar’s voice wasn’t loud, especially against the murmur of traffic from the freeway. Yet even from a distance I heard the way his fingers called runs out of notes out of the strings, how individual plucked notes stood out like stars against the punctuation of rhythm and chords. I didn’t recognize the tune. But as I drew near to the low wall of stone where he’d perched to play, the slow transition from a dour minor to a sweeter yet still plaintive major mode drew dampness into my eyes. Here before me was the living echo of what I’d sensed in his lost wife’s memories: that, no matter what else you might say about him, Elessir could play.

  In that moment, listening to his guitar lament to the trees, I couldn’t tell whether I was relieved or disappointed that he had not chosen to sing. His voice rose up to greet me nonetheless, resigned, as his hands stilled his strings and the instrument’s last few notes resounded down into silence.

  “I’d have thought you wouldn’t have been too eager to set foot in this place again so soon, Miss Thompson.”

  The trail that had led me here had brought me up behind him, and he hadn’t turned to see me coming. Moreover, I’d been practicing the new way of shielding he’d taught me, so at least in theory he shouldn’t have sensed any power leaking off of me. But even if he’d lost his ability to manipulate magic, nothing had happened to his physical perceptions. And even if I’d wanted to, there was no way I was going to sneak up on a full-blooded Sidhe with senses far, far more acute than my own.

  So I didn’t try. Instead I came around the bend of the wall and into his immediate line of sight, offering a crooked little smile as I approached. “I wasn’t thinking about that when I hopped the bus down here,” I admitted, “but I guess there’s something therapeutic in coming to face this spot and get any lingering hang-ups out of the way.” I paused, and then added a bit more shyly, “And in playing music in the open air, for that matter.”

  Elessir considered that, letting out a soft noise too brief to make it to full laughter. “I probably
shouldn’t keep the guitar out here in the damp, not when I’m not currently capable of enchanting it against the weather properly… but yes. There is.”

  I sat down on the wall beside him. “I haven’t seen you with that guitar before.”

  “It’s new,” he agreed. “Mortal-made, but as I lost the last one… well.”

  “Have I told you yet that I really like your playing?” That made him start and turn to look at me fully for the first time, direct enough that I felt myself flush underneath his regard. “I mean, when it’s yours, and when you’re not just pretending to be Elvis or whatever.” By ‘whatever’ I meant ‘using music to thrall people’, but I saw no reason to say that out loud.

  His eyebrows went up. “Surely you didn’t track me all the way here just to tell me that?”

  “Well, no. It’s true, though. You play like…” I had to pause, trying to find the proper words. He played like water flowing, like bone-deep longing for something so distant as to be almost unnamable, yet given shape and form in the resonance of strings—enough of a form that I could guess at what I heard in the melodies he’d woven. Homesickness. That’s what he plays like. But that, too, was something I couldn’t exactly say out loud. Instead I finished, “Like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”

  Elessir did laugh a bit at that, with that same resignation with which he’d greeted me. “No, I don’t suppose you have.” He looked down at his hands upon the instrument, a black-bodied classical, with nylon strings that would have been spaced a bit too widely for my own reach. In his grasp, though, the guitar looked oddly graceful… or perhaps that was just because of the sounds I’d just heard it produce. “The Court thinks me an anomaly for my love of mortal music, you know. They’re right. But it thrives and changes in a way I’ve never heard ours do in the last five hundred years. It’s changed me. Now I play neither like a human nor one of my own kind. It’s lonely sometimes, Miss Thompson.”

  After hearing that I wanted to reach over and hug him, though damned if I knew whether he’d appreciate it. Still, I had to make some kind of contact, and so I touched his shoulder. “Look, about why I came to find you. I don’t know what your plans are, but you don’t have to be lonely, at least for a little bit. Millicent says you’re welcome in Seattle if you want to stick around. I’d like it if you did.” His gaze came back to me, without comment, and the rest of my words came out in a flustered burst. “I need your help. Millie and Christopher can’t teach me magic, not like you can. And honestly, I’d… I’d like to hear you play some more too.”

  “And Mr. MacSimidh? What does he say of this?” The Unseelie’s voice remained cool, but his eyes… yes. Speculation glinted in their depths, and maybe even a bit of hope.

  “He still wants to set you on fire,” I admitted ruefully. “But he trusts me. And after how you helped me, I think he’s willing to trust you a little, too. By the way… thank you for that.”

  I squeezed his shoulder and would have let my hand fall away then—but Elessir caught and held it. “His lifespan dictates the terms of your bargain with the Queen. You will commit to him?”

  “That’s the idea.” My throat went dry under his regard, though I managed to speak somehow anyway. “I’m going to marry him when the time is right.”

  Was that regret flashing across his face? It was gone so quickly that I wasn’t sure, not until he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it. The gesture was courtly, entirely contrary to his Southern affectations—and yet it made sense to me now that, like his music, he was defined by the blending of elements that otherwise would never have become one.

  “You’ll outlive him,” he murmured as he let my fingers go. “I can wait.”

  Warmth flooded my hand as the contact broke. Answering warmth surged up in my cheeks. Oh God. There were more implications there than I could begin to count, many of which I was certain I didn’t like, many more of which I did. That right there was the danger of Elessir a’Natharion, and someone wiser than me probably would have shied away from placing herself in its path.

  But I had his measure now. It wasn’t wise. And many might even have argued that it wasn’t kind, keeping someone around to whom I was attracted, when I planned to marry another. Still, Christopher trusted me, and just as vitally, I trusted myself. Whether because I was Seelie or because I was simply Kendis, these were trusts I would not break. Nor, it seemed, would Elessir expect me to. Which made me smile as I asked him, “So how about it? Will you teach me magic while you’re waiting?”

  He shot me his best crooked grin and drawled, “Well, Ah dunno, darlin’, Ah might have to put you through your paces first, jes’ to see what you can do. Make me a light with those l’il ol’ fingers.”

  With that, I knew he’d stay.

  I grinned brightly back at him, lifted my hand, and let it glow.

  Acknowledgements

  Bone Walker will be my fourth released novel. And after doing a few of these, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this: no matter how good a writer you are, yes, you do need an editor. The ease with which you can self-publish your work these days does not excuse you from the necessity of having eyes that are not your own inspect your work for problems.

  With that in mind, first and foremost, I’d like to thank editor JoSelle Vanderhooft for her line editing work on this story—even if her edit pass felt light compared to the wringer Carina Press put me through! But I choose to take this as JoSelle’s show of confidence in my prose. And I’d like to also specifically thank her for working with me to reach resolutions when we didn’t happen to see eye to eye. That’s important, folks, in publishing and in life.

  Secondly, even though she’ll probably modestly discount this the instant she reads it, backer and fellow devoted Le Vent du Nord fan Susan Moseley gets my warmest thanks for going above and beyond the call in doing a line edit pass of her own. She went old-school on me, printing out the entire Bone Walker manuscript and taking an actual red pen to it. Then she mailed the whole thing to me, all the way from Ontario.

  Between JoSelle and Susan, quite a few rough spots in my manuscript were duly noted and addressed. I don’t often make actual typos. My spelling and grammar are generally pretty solid. But I do often leave out words, echo the same phrases if I change my mind mid-sentence as to where I want to deploy them, or replace a word I thought I typed with an entirely different (yet still correctly spelled) word. All of these are things I missed when I originally wrote the story, because my brain filled in what I thought I was typing, and I didn’t see what my fingers actually produced.

  JoSelle and Susan were not the only people to join the cause of polishing the book, though! Many thanks to proofreaders Talya Goodman, Ellen Eades, Cynthia Price, Anne Grey, and Jennifer Barricklow, and likewise to Emma Speagell for sanity-checking the layout of the MOBI on her Kindle.

  Credit goes to backers Ellen Eades and Eli Huntington and Facebook friend ChiChi Dango for the Facebook comment thread that led to the choosing of given names for the Asakura family of nogitsune. Their family name, Asakura, is in honor of Joe the Condor from Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Relatedly, Dara assisted me with what few Japanese words I used in their dialogue and sanity-checked the proper levels of politeness in Jake’s first encounter with Makiko Asakura.

  Once again, I’d like to thank artist Kiri Moth for her beautiful cover art. She did a stellar job of giving me an Elessir that struck the proper balance between “Elvis impersonator” and “not actually human.” Likewise, I love how she gave me a color palette for this cover that’s entirely unlike the one for Faerie Blood. This cover’s much darker, and that’s very much in keeping with the darker tone of this second installment of the story arc.

  Thanks to Angela Campbell, Jody Wallace, and Fraser Sherman for their blurb quotes. Thanks as well to all my fellow authors on various writer groups I’m in for their support, particularly on Twitter and when I put up promotional posts on Here Be Magic or on my own site. These groups are the Carina Press list, the Here Be M
agic group, the still-occasionally alive Drollerie Press group, and the Northwest Independent Writers Association.

  Dara is thanking all of the musicians who’ve worked on the Bone Walker soundtrack in the liner notes for that album. I’m also going to do that here! Many thanks to the aforementioned Ellen Eades on the dulcimer, Sunnie Larsen on fiddle #1, Sarah Kellington of Pinniped on fiddle #2, Leannan Sidhe on vocals, and Klopfenpop for the awesome nerdcore remix of “The Burke-Gilman Troll.” (Seriously, you guys, you should get the soundtrack for that remix alone!)

  And before I give the biggest musical thanks, let me tell you a little story.

  In 1997, at the Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas, I happened to walk into a room party wherein Joe Bethancourt and Heather Alexander were hanging out and jamming—Heather Alexander, comma, one of my top favorite musicians in the realm of filk music. Whose voice was the direct inspiration for the musical side of my Star Wars MUSH character (and future novel heroine) Shenner. Despite a sudden fit of nervousness, I somehow managed to blurt out a request to hang around and listen to them play.

  When she realized I had a flute with me, Heather looked me square in the eye and said kindly, “Play something!”

  Those were, at the time, among the scariest words that had ever been uttered to me in my life.

  Now Heather Alexander has gone to Faerie, and I amuse myself imagining her going toe-to-toe with Luciriel and the Unseelie Court. In her place, we are blessed to have Alexander James Adams. Alec has graced our soundtrack album with fiddle #3, drums, and his delicious vocals. I’ve written multiple novels, and I still do not have the words for how beyond delighted I am to hear Alec making amazing harmony with my wife.