by K. C. Lannon
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Info
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Final Words
Authors' Note
Acknowledgments
The Changeling’s Fortune
By
M.C. Aquila and K.C. Lannon
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
The Changeling’s Fortune copyright © 2018 by M.C. Aquila and K.C. Lannon. All rights reserved.
The Changeling’s Fortune is the first installment in a six-book YA Urban Fantasy series, Winter’s Blight.
When Deirdre's destructive faery magic is unlocked, she must learn the truth of her parentage if she ever hopes to control it.
Seventeen-year-old orphan Deirdre moves to Neo-London, a city created after an attack by Unseelie faeries, and becomes caught in the tension between the city faeries and the human military.
Deirdre develops uncontrollable magical abilities after having her fortune told—making her the target of Alan Callaghan, an extreme anti-faery general.
His sons, Iain and James, cross paths with Deirdre and are pushed towards the opposite sides of the conflict between humans and Fae. Iain is a rookie soldier in the Iron Guard trying to atone for past mistakes and keep his family together. James is a fourteen-year-old aspiring scholar fascinated by faeries and eager to leave his life in the city behind.
As Alan conspires to control the city, Deirdre and James plot to leave, seeking answers about her magic and James’s disappeared mother. However, when Deirdre is framed for a treasonous crime, their quest for answers becomes a desperate quest for freedom.
Chapter One
Kallista Callaghan had heard the rumors: there was a faery in the Neo-London Hospital. In all her years of working as a nurse, she had never had a faery patient before. She was determined to see if there was any stock in the whispers that circulated the building. If what she heard was true, then Kallista had to act quickly.
Where are you, Marko? You’re late…
She tapped her foot impatiently and gazed out the wall of windows at the cityscape while she waited. A spring shower dotted the windows with rain, distorting the view of the city that had once been known as Portsmouth, built up into a grand city that mirrored its namesake in small ways. The lights of Neo-London winked in the darkness, and the city was quiet. The maternity ward was also absent the usual cries of pain, cries of joy, cries of relief. Tonight only one infant was delivered. Tonight there was only stunned silence.
Hearing footsteps, Kallista looked up to see Marko, a fellow nurse, walk down the hallway to meet her, still in his hospital scrubs despite his shift having ended.
“I was about to go in without you,” Kallista informed him.
He placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “Maybe you shouldn’t go in at all. Maybe you should go home to your husband and son, Kalli. Don’t get mixed up in this.”
“So what they’re saying is true.” Kallista rubbed her hands furiously on the front of her scrubs as sweat bloomed on her palms.
Marko nodded. “Supposedly, the mother threw half the staff against the wall when she went into labor—without even touching them. It was magic.”
“What business does a faery have at a maternity ward? They have their own healers, their own ways of doing things.”
“The father is human,” Marko answered. “You might’ve heard of both parents, actually. Aino and Oliver Windsor. They were just on the radio the other night, pushing for faery protection laws.”
Kallista’s eyes widened, and she nodded in understanding. This was not the first time she had heard of such a thing, a faery and a human marrying, but it was rare. She knew of the Windsor couple and of their outspoken criticism of the military system, only because her husband had been fighting against their proposals for years. Oliver’s relation to the king, his cousin, protected the couple’s objections.
“Do you really want to get involved?” Marko asked. “Chances are, we’ll have to smuggle the infant out of the city to get medical attention.”
“I told you before,” Kallista said. “I want to help.”
For several years, Marko had also been practicing medicine outside the hospital, offering his services to those who could not afford it. While he rarely brought up faeries around her, Kallista knew that his help often extended to them—even though human medicine could not help much in some cases. Still, Kallista wanted to be a part of that.
Marko smiled at her faintly. “You have a family. People who need you. People who would hate to see you in prison.”
She took his hand. “You have family too.”
“Not one that depends on me.” Marko gently pried her hand away; she pretended not to notice.
A few of Marko’s relatives still lived in Neo-London after the government policies forced most of the Roma and Travellers away. His mother and father and a few cousins remained.
He looked her in the eye. “Kallista, are you sure?”
“I will see the baby. Then I will decide if I will help or not.” But she already knew her answer.
As Kallista inched her way into the room, she was first struck by how beautiful Aino was. She had seen faeries in the city before, but none quite as stunning. The only feeling Kallista could compare it to was when her family had taken a day-trip to a lake outside the city and a white roe deer had shot out of the forest right in front of them. The animal had stood stock-still and staring before bounding off with grace and power.
At the time, Kallista’s mother had said it was good luck to have such an encounter. Encountering a faery, however, usually meant the opposite.
Kallista’s gaze drifted to the incubator at the end of the hospital bed and the infant that was lying unnaturally still inside. The baby’s legs had stopped developing just above where the knees should have been. Even from the doorway, Kallista could hear the babe’s labored, slow breathing, its lungs filling with phlegm, and she knew the baby would not last the night.
Oliver looked almost as tired as his wife but leaped to his feet from where he sat diligently by his wife’s bedside. “Thank God,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for someone to—”
“No one is coming to help you,” Kallista said. There was a tremor in her voice, a tremor in her body; she clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking.
“I don’t understand,” Oliver said, his eyes darting toward his infant daughter. “Is there nothing the doctors can do for her?”
“Even if they could”—Marko entered the room behind Kallista—“it is not likely they would do a thing to save your little girl. This is not the first time they have let a child die. They believe she’s a changeling baby—a faery child swapped for a healthy baby.”
Shaking his head, Oliver protested, “She’s not a changeling; she’s half faery! Faeries wouldn’t even notice her…”
“Even if you’re right, the doctors will not help.”
Aino’s features were calm, set. When she spoke, her voice was musical in natur
e, demanding to be listened to. “My daughter needs a faery healer. You will take her to the Summer Court.” Her sharp, blue-eyed gaze fixed on Kallista.
The Summer Court? But that realm has been hidden for decades…
Marko began to gather the sleeping infant into his arms with great care. He wrapped her in a hospital blanket.
Oliver walked over and planted a lingering kiss on his daughter’s forehead. The infant took a shuddering breath.
“I will do my best,” Kallista said.
“Consider it done.” Marko nodded firmly.
Aino extended one pale arm toward the child and stroked her head of soft, dark hair, her hand beginning to shake.
She’ll turn blond eventually, Kallista thought absently, if she lives long enough. Both Oliver and Aino had golden hair.
“Goodbye, Alvey.” Aino pulled back her hand, clasping it tightly.
Marko grabbed Kallista’s arm and began steering her toward the door. As they exited the room, Oliver and Aino huddled together, grasping each other in quiet desperation, Aino’s eyes closed, her chin trembling. Kallista supposed that some rumors about the faeries held no weight: faeries could feel love and loss just like humans after all.
Kallista pulled her jacket tighter around her shivering, petite body and adjusted her red floral headscarf over her long, dark, wavy hair, pushing back the twin braids that framed her face. They spotted Marko’s car parked a block away. Once they were able to drive, their chances of being discovered by the Iron Wardens—the militarized police that dealt with faery and human relations in the city—lessened somewhat. Still, the enforced curfew was growing closer, and they were running out of time.
“How are we going to sneak her past the city limits?” Kallista asked. She knew that the military often searched vehicles for contraband, unregistered goods, and forbidden items used for performing magic.
“My contact has assured me that the infant won’t be seen or heard by anyone.”
Kallista huffed. “And how exactly is your contact assured of that? Is this assuredness out of arrogance or… something else?” She shuddered at her own implication that the babe would be protected from discovery by magic.
“Didn’t think it was any of my business to ask.” Marko shrugged.
Kallista glared at him.
“What did she mean by the Summer Court?” she asked after a moment of terse silence. “Hasn’t it been barred off from our world since the Cataclysm?”
Kallista had heard many tales of the Summer Court growing up—mostly of the beautiful Seelie queen, Titania, and Oberon, her powerful king. They and their only son, known by humans as the Summer Prince, ruled over their kingdom to the north. These childhood stories were always flowery and poetic, portraying the faeries as romping through the forests and singing and picking wildflowers when they weren’t creating mostly harmless mischief for humans.
However, Kallista knew now that there was a darker side to the tales. Although the Summer Court was comprised of mostly neutral beings, they were no friends to humanity, providing no help in the aftermath of the bombing of London a little over twenty years ago. Instead, they barred their realm off with magic. The Summer Court had held only one objective for centuries: to win the war against the Winter Court, run by the Unseelie faeries, their even less friendly neighbors.
Marko did not answer her question about the Court, pointing silently to the street ahead where two members of the Iron Wardens were passing by. Kallista froze. The Wardens made rounds to ensure that no one in Neo-London, human or faery, broke curfew or any of the many rules they enforced. Kallista had been supportive of the idea when her husband had proposed it, but now it was more of a hindrance than a way to discourage magic use and the celebration of pagan or faery holidays.
After the Iron Wardens were out of sight, they began walking again. “We will go to the city limits, meet my contact, and make our trade.”
“Trade?” The word tasted sour in her mouth. That word didn’t belong with an infant.
“Well, more of an exchange.”
“Those words mean the same thing, Marko.”
Marko scratched at the back of his head, avoiding looking Kallista in the face. “Oddly enough, my contact came to me earlier this week, looking to hide a faery child within the city. He mentioned a curse—”
“We are not in the business of human trafficking!” Her stomach was like ice, though her chest felt aflame. “I will not send a human child to become a slave, one of their thralls.”
“Kallista—”
“You don’t know the stories I’ve heard about children being traded to faeries like they’re nothing. You cannot trust a faery, Marko. Ever.”
“You of all people should reserve judgment. Perhaps your husband’s prejudice has blinded you as well.”
Kallista was silent for a moment. She seethed as they neared the car, knowing he was right.
I won’t admit it though.
“My contact, Mr. Goodfellow, assures me that Alvey will be very well taken care of. Once she’s healed, she might be able to see her family again. Until then, we have the chance to do more good by helping out another family. They need a home for the faery child, and we have just the family lined up all ready.”
Kallista frowned. Assuming Oliver and Aino will be willing to take a child in right after losing their daughter.
Looking at Alvey again, Kallista stopped short of opening the car door. “I am stealing a gazhe baby away into the night, Marko.”
She was one of the last of her community in Neo-London. Most people in the city did not see her as a woman, a wife, a mother—they called her a Gypsy. While she was only delivering the child at the parents’ request, the irony of the situation was not lost on her. Why the gazhe, the non-Roma, had the ridiculous notion that the Roma wanted to take their children was beyond her.
“If anyone finds out I’ve done this…”
“It could be worse.” Marko glanced over his shoulder at her, offering her a wry smile. “You could have cursed the parents and their children’s children before you left.”
Kallista laughed, but it was tinged with pain. If she had any ability to curse anyone like the gazhe thought she did, she certainly wouldn’t have to worry about being caught.
“Besides,” Marko added. “Who would arrest the wife of the beloved Captain Alan Callaghan of the Iron Guard?”
Kallista was not certain if she had imagined the hint of disdain in Marko’s voice when he said her husband’s name.
“People see what they want to see.” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter who my husband is.”
“Then I will make sure you don’t get caught.”
“But if something does happen to me, I trust you’ll keep your promise, yes?”
“I’ll look after your family. I swear it.”
“Nayis túke.”
“You’re welcome.”
It had been years since Kallista had ventured beyond the city limits. They had made it past the military patrol with surprising—if not disconcerting—ease. No one had glanced in the back seat of Marko’s car, where Kallista lay on the floor, wedged behind the seats with the babe in her arms. They left the lights of Neo-London behind, driving until concrete and suburban neighborhoods gave way to gravel roads and open, endless sky.
The last time Kallista had been this far outside the city, she’d bid her family goodbye. Her father, mother, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles—they had all fled the city to avoid being arrested or forced out against their will after their businesses were shut down with no provocation. It had not been an easy or welcome goodbye when she’d chosen to stay and marry the father of her child.
“Why have we stopped?” Kallista questioned as she climbed out of the car. She rocked Alvey with great care in her arms, trying to soothe her faint, mewling cries.
“Mr. Goodfellow will meet us here,” Marko said.
Kallista scoffed. “Here? In this specific spot in the middle of nowhere?”
The only no
table landmark was a hawthorn tree with sprawling roots in the field. After the Cataclysm, a primal fear had taken hold, and all manner of things—even trees—associated with faeries had been destroyed. Now that laws were in place to protect the faeries and their land, incidents like felled hawthorn trees occurred less often.
While she felt initially frightened about meeting another faery in the same night, her anxiety turned to irritation as the minutes gave way to an hour without a sign of anyone.
Kallista stamped her foot against the ground. “Damn the faeries!” Kallista hissed, handing Alvey to Marko. She stomped again, feeling better each time she did it. “I knew it. I knew your contact would be late. As if I do not have a life, a family that needs me in order to function, waiting at home!” Kallista jabbed her finger at him. “You know why he’s late? I bet it isn’t even because he’s a faery. It’s because he’s a man. All of you are the same, even across the species—”
Someone cleared his throat. A rather high-pitched, musical ahem. It did not belong to Marko.
“Ah.” The voice interrupted. “My lady, you are correct in your observation. Though, I did not realize we were so, ah, pinched for time. We all mark its passage in a different manner from your folk.”
Kallista whirled around, her eyes straining wildly in the darkness for the source of the voice. She brought a hand to her mouth but held back a cry as she laid eyes on the man before her, who was just a bit shorter than her. Even in the dim light, she could make out the green tinge to the faery’s skin. Her face heated when she noticed how sparsely he was dressed, completely unmindful of the damp, cool air.
“Hello, Mr. Goodfellow,” Kallista sputtered.
“You may call me Puck.” The man waved his hand dismissively. He looked them both over, beginning to smile in a way that was thin but not cold. “A nomad lord and lady, under the stars… running in the dark. But this is nothing new.” His smile widened as his gaze fell on the bundle in Marko’s arms. “You have the child then?”
