The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Frances Long

  The Leczi got to her feet, her child opening its mouth and singing in counterpoint now. She turned, her hair flowing out behind her in golden green strands, unaffected by the flames and the heat. They advanced slowly, the music of their magic tying the struggling dragon to the earth, preventing its escape. She wanted revenge for the death of her mate, for the risk to her child. She wanted…

  “Blood,” Jack whispered. The word ran from his body into Jenny’s. She could feel it vibrate through her head. “I’ve given her blood. What more does she—”

  The Leczi reached out her hand and pressed her fingers into the throat of the flailing dragon. She smiled her enigmatic smile and her song reached its highest pitch. The dragon convulsed, limbs, tail, and wings lashing out but failing to strike her.

  Then it fell still and the world turned silent.

  Breathing hard, Jack released Jenny and rolled off her. She gasped for breath, relieved to have him gone but cold now where the weight of his body had covered hers. She sat up, her heart frantic. Without the warm solidity of him, she felt oddly exposed.

  Jack stared at her, as if struggling through the same tangle of feelings.

  The sounds of the forest returned to her and Jenny looked up. The Leczi had turned back to face them. Even through the trees her eyes picked them out.

  “Come forth,” she said, and her voice seemed to ripple the air around them.

  Jack got to his feet, wary as a cat. He spread his arms wide on either side, corralling Jenny amid the trees. He didn’t look back.

  “Stay behind me,” he hissed. “And this time do as I say.”

  She didn’t appreciate his tone, but she followed him, edging forward out of the trees.

  The Leczi hummed to herself now, cradling her baby, rocking it back and forth. She swayed like a blade of grass, slender, elegant, nothing like a threat at all. Certainly not something that could destroy a fire-breathing dragon with just her voice.

  “What’s a—what’s a Leczi, Jack?” Jenny whispered.

  “Now you ask the right question,” he replied. “Nature spirits, but powerful, especially when crossed. As you saw. If she speaks to you, if she opens her mouth, cover your ears and be careful. Be very careful, understand? Try.”

  Jenny couldn’t help it—she almost smiled. Ducking out of the shelter of the trees, she followed him into the clearing and stopped next to him. When they were still, the Leczi looked up. Her eyes were green, even more vibrant than Jack’s green eye. They positively glowed.

  The Leczi opened her mouth. Jack flinched, but Jenny didn’t move. She knew Jack wanted her to run, or at least cover her ears, but when she looked into the Leczi’s face, she couldn’t. It would have been an insult.

  Jack let out a long, low hiss, but Jenny ignored him. Let him scold her later. And he would. But she didn’t care.

  “You took my child.” There was no doubt the Leczi was talking to her. Jenny couldn’t look away. The music in the Leczi’s voice compelled attention, as did her child’s. Their magic, Jenny supposed. The same way the Leczi had repelled the flames, to defeat and kill the dragon.

  “I couldn’t leave it alone.”

  “Him,” said the Leczi’s mother, lifting a hand to stroke her son’s hair. “When I found his father, my mate, I thought—” She broke off and held the baby closer still, stroking the long silken fur. “My thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The Leczi took a step toward her, her free arm outstretched. Jack stepped between them. Every muscle in his back and neck tensed, his hands stretched out on either side, fingers splayed. The Leczi tilted her head to one side, examining him.

  “I have no quarrel with you, Jack o’ the Forest. Nor with her. But I do have a question. Why would the queen send her dragon out where it could hear my call?”

  Jack glanced at the Leczi, his eyes wary. “Why does she do anything?” he finally asked, raising one shoulder in a shrug. Jenny peered at him. If he hadn’t known the dragon was nearby, it was clear he had at least suspected something. The exchange baffled her.

  The Leczi looked past him now, straight at Jenny. Jack remained between them, looking from one to the other. “Step aside, Jack,” the Leczi said.

  Jack didn’t move. Whatever the Leczi saw in his face seemed to amuse her. She smiled, but sorrow tinged the corners of her lips.

  “You’ll not hurt her,” Jack said finally.

  “No. Never for a moment. You have my word. It’s just a gift, and a gift she deserves. Don’t deny her that, Jack. Guardian or not, you cannot refuse to let her take my gift freely offered.”

  He breathed in, his shoulders contracting as he released the air in a long sigh. “Very well.” He turned his back on the Leczi, glaring at Jenny as he faced her. “Come,” he said, “take what’s yours, Jenny Wren.” He stalked behind her, but she had no doubt he was within reach.

  Jenny took a step toward the Leczi, keeping her gaze lowered. When she glanced up, though, the Leczi’s smile gave her nothing to fear. She took Jenny’s hand and pulled her close. Warmth tingled in her palm and the Leczi leaned in to kiss her cheek.

  “My gift is a spell that will work once only, little Wren. And it will choose the time. Kiss it, and bury it, and what you wish will be yours eventually.”

  She drew back and Jenny found a small, polished green stone in her hand. The color swirled across the surface, like the Leczi’s eyes.

  A stone. Jenny stared at it, then back at the Leczi. How was that a spell?

  “Keep it safe,” the Leczi warned. “Use it well. And keep it secret. Thus is my debt to you paid.”

  Jenny flushed, embarrassed by the gift, and her reaction to it. “I—I don’t need—”

  “A debt is a debt. It’s our way, and always has been. Ask Jack. He knows all about debts. Especially debts of honor. Isn’t that right?”

  She cast an arch look at Jack, and when Jenny turned to look at him—still scowling, standing sullenly amid the trees like a lost boy—the Leczi laughed, her voice joining the breeze in the trees. And then she and her child were gone.

  chapter eleven

  Jenny was sure her legs were going to crumple beneath her. Blisters worried at her toes and heels. Each step burned. She didn’t know where they were going. Maybe back to the Edge. Maybe just round and round in circles until he decided what to do with her. She didn’t know what to say to Jack, wary of his answer. He pulled the cloak further around his body and stared off into the distance. Ever since Jenny had returned it to him, he’d had it wrapped around himself like a coat of armor.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenny asked, not looking at him. He’d been ignoring her, his mood darkening as the sun sank lower in the sky.

  Jack just grunted.

  Charming.

  “I couldn’t just leave the baby there to die, Jack.”

  “No, you had to blunder in without thinking instead. What were you doing out in the forest at night anyway? Why did you leave Puck?”

  “You know why! I have to find my brother. And you and Puck aren’t about to help.”

  Jack picked his way off the path and through the brush. Jenny fell in step beside him.

  “You wander in the Realm at your own peril,” he said, his eyes bright under the dark hair across his forehead. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Jack—”

  “I have to leave soon.”

  Of course he did. Couldn’t stick around and face an argument. “Why?”

  “I can’t stay with you at night,” he told her, as if to do so would be somehow improper.

  “Right. Of course, that explains everything. Where will you be?”

  He hesitated, met her eyes for a second, and she sensed him biting back a short-tempered answer. “Elsewhere. Busy.” He turned to Puck, who’d been watching them, his grin growing wider. “This is fine for the night. Go find her some food.”

  Puck didn’t move, though. He plonked himself down at the edge of the tree, pretending not to watch them.

  T
he little hollow, not far from the stream, was peaceful and off the beaten track. She sat in the long grass, watching him. Waiting.

  “I have no choice,” Jack said at last, stretching his arms behind him, and then folding them behind his back. “It’s a duty.”

  “What sort of duty?”

  He looked at her, eyes metallic. “I don’t pry into your thoughts, Jenny Wren. Why can’t you leave me mine?”

  “Because you never answer a question. You don’t want me to go after Tom, so tell me why.”

  Jack sighed. But Jenny kept watching him. She ran her palms over the tips of the grass. Patience had always defeated her brother. Even when he had been in a bad mood, she always knew all she had to do was wait. Maybe it would work on Jack.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked at last. “It’s dangerous, difficult. That’s just ignoring the fact that you were probably lured over the Edge in the first place. Someone wanted to bring you here and they used your memories of Tom to do it. He’s been gone for seven years, Jenny. That’s a powerful long time, especially here.”

  “How do you know all that?” she asked quickly.

  Jack tilted his head at her, raising his eyebrows. “It’s common knowledge here. He’s the piper. He belongs to the queen, body and soul. He won’t go back. And you waited seven years. Why start this insane quest now?”

  The question caught Jenny off guard. Her fingers tightened around a fistful of grass. “It’s—it’s the first chance I ever got. I looked everywhere. Tried everything. But it never worked, not until now.” It wasn’t quite true. She tried to hide the blush that heated her cheeks, but Jack didn’t appear to notice. He made a dismissive noise deep in his throat.

  “There are chances every day,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “The portals are everywhere. I know. I have to keep people away from them all the time.” He gave her a pointed look.

  “You are so arrogant!” she burst out, ripping a fistful of grass from the ground and hurling it at him. It didn’t have quite the desired impact. He looked at her, unfazed, and pulled a blade from where it dangled in front of his face. She grabbed another fistful, struggling to keep her voice even. “Maybe there are ways through on this side,” she bit out, “but it’s different where I come from.” She pushed away the voice that told her she’d been too afraid to try, too terrified of forests and trees after what she had seen that night. She sat straighter, tightening her death-grip on the grass. “I owe it to Tom to try. I owe it to our family. You don’t know what it was like, after he was gone. They think he’s dead, but for so long, they thought—we all thought—” The worst. Oh God, the worst nightmares imagination and the media could conjure up. “But he isn’t dead. And I’m not crazy. He’s here.”

  Jack leaned against a tree and crossed his arms. “Perhaps. But maybe he should be dead. Maybe you should leave it like that for the sake of us all.”

  “Are you a monster? He’s my brother! I love him!” she shouted. This time her fingers curled around a stone and she hurled it at him, her anger breaking her hold on reason. She didn’t see Jack’s arm move, but he snatched the rock from the air in front of his face.

  Jenny recoiled as if she’d been struck herself.

  “You loved him seven years ago,” said Jack in a voice terrible in its calmness. “Now you love a ghost, a memory. You’ll see. You don’t even know your brother anymore. Seven years, Jenny, seven years in the court of the queen…” He tossed the stone aside.

  “He’s my brother, Jack. He was my best friend. We looked out for each other and I lost him. It was my fault. I went home and he didn’t. And everything changed.” Jenny struggled to keep her voice steady. “I want him back. I love my brother. Can’t you understand that?”

  Puck looked up from preening at his fur.

  “Don’t listen to him,” he said with a laugh, clapping his hands together. “Jack can’t tell you about love, fraternal or otherwise. He doesn’t have a heart.”

  Jack pushed off from the tree he’d been leaning on. “Shut up, hobgoblin. You know nothing and understand less.”

  “What do you mean?” Jenny asked, ignoring Jack’s darkening face. “Puck?”

  “Just what I say,” he chuckled. “Jack has no heart. Otherwise he couldn’t perform his duty, do his job day after day, night after night. But he longs for a heart, don’t you, lad? A heart of your own?”

  “You’re nothing but a miserable little—” Jack began, but Puck tutted him to silence.

  “Of course I am. And you long for the heart you can never have. They won’t let you have one.”

  “My heart is safe,” Jack said, sliding down to sit at the base of the tree, like a puppet with cut strings. “There’s nothing more to be said on that, Puck. As well you know.”

  Jenny watched him, his head bent, worrying a blade of grass in his fingers. She hesitated a moment, then got to her feet and approached.

  The sun was low in the sky. The trees cast long shadows around him.

  Jack suddenly surged to stand. He towered over her, a dark silhouette with burning eyes like gas flames. “I should go.” His voice sounded odd. Something from her nightmares. Something momentarily forgotten and yet, because he was Jack, terribly familiar.

  She took a step back, her foot pivoting in the dirt. When he didn’t move, Jenny advanced on him quickly, before she could lose her nerve. Fingers fumbling, she managed to undo the clasp of her necklace. The little golden heart dangled between them. She stood before Jack and offered it to him. The setting sun made the gold gleam red, and she thought of the dragon’s glittering scales.

  “It isn’t much,” she whispered, “but…take it.”

  The marsh lights in Jack’s eyes dimmed. His anger, his darkness, seemed to die in him, like the calmness of the forest after a storm. He looked down at her, his eyes turning bright with confusion. “That’s gold. It’s a pure metal. I can’t, Jenny.”

  Jenny frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Gold has a magic all its own.” Puck laughed. “All things do. But gold is strongest of all. Noble, precious, magical gold. Even the earth itself can’t corrode it.”

  Jack growled, baring his teeth at Puck, who grinned even more violently, as if that too was a taunt. For a moment she thought Jack would launch himself at the hobgoblin and stepped closer to part them.

  Jenny swiftly took Jack’s hand and pressed the necklace into his palm, closing his fingers over it. His skin was warm and smooth. She let go.

  “If you help me find the one who gave it to me, it’s the smallest payment.”

  “I asked no payment.” Something flashed in Jack’s face that Jenny couldn’t identify. She looked at him, searching his eyes. “I have to go,” he said again.

  He stood there in the lengthening shadows, unmoving. Impossibly tall, unnaturally large. The light played tricks and gave the angles and planes of his face an appearance like polished wood. His right eye was greener than ever, a forest green of new leaves and fresh shoots. The blue of his left eye was the noon sky on a cloudless day.

  “You will help me, won’t you?” she asked. He uncurled his hand and stared at the heart. “You can’t try to send me back again. Not after…”

  Jack shuddered, the sense of menace leeching out of him, and looked at her once more. Changeable as the wind, her guardian. Like leaves in that wind, never resting. Jack nodded and fastened the chain around his neck. He tucked the locket carefully under his shirt.

  “Very well, if that’s your will. I’ll take you to him, though I still think you won’t care for what you discover. I’ll make sure you get safely to the queen’s palace and see your brother.”

  It rushed over her in a wave—relief, victory—but he looked so miserable she couldn’t let the full extent of her elation show. She was sure he saw it anyway. “Thank you,” Jenny whispered. It sounded like a prayer.

  “I have to go.”

  “But…” She glanced back at the trees. Was it out there? Watching them? The thing in the
forest. She sensed it, coming closer all the time. Following her. It seemed to remember her as clearly as she remembered it. “The creature…”

  Jack followed her gaze, his eyes hard as precious stones. Then he turned away. “It won’t bother you,” he said. “I’ll keep it away. I’ll be back here when you awaken.”

  The sun sank lower in the sky, only a slice of it visible above the tree line. Still Jack watched from the safety of the thickest foliage. Jenny sat, her hair twisted in a hasty knot, eating the last of the berries she had gathered. They stained her lips and her fingers. Every so often, she took out the stone the Leczi had given her, turning it over in her palm.

  Her heart was too great for this place—he knew that now with certainty—and as such too open to being beguiled. The way she had rescued the Leczi child, and stood before the Leczi herself…The queen would grind her to dust. Oberon would use her no better.

  She should go back to the Edge. But she wouldn’t. He’d have to hand her over to one or the other.

  And he’d promised to take her to Tom. To the palace. To the queen.

  The thought was like swallowing iron.

  Titania offered freedom if he obeyed her, if he handed Jenny over like a shiny bauble. He’d brought Titania lost things before…But that was because Oberon normally wanted nothing to do with the mortal world. This time it would be different.

  Jack closed his hand over the gold pendant, felt it slide on the chain around his neck. Her heart, her mark on him in changeless gold. Had she bound him now as well? Or had he bound himself the moment he’d said I’ll keep a watch, I swear it.

  And bound himself further when he’d promised to take her to Tom.

  He groaned, a deep creaking moan. Why had he said that? And she’d looked so happy. Like he’d just promised her the world instead of her doom.

  The light had faded to almost nothing now. Still Jack lingered. Jenny settled down for the night, laughing at some of Puck’s jests. The hobgoblin was positively courteous with her this evening, and Jack frowned.