by James Fahy
“You told me, back at Briar Hill …” Robin said, putting his hands in his pockets. “About the night when the Peacekeepers came to your town. How they took you and your brother. How no one helped, no one raised a hand to stop them. They didn’t even look, they turned away.”
The hornless Fae nodded.
“You’ve got a home here, Jack,” Robin said firmly. “A family even … if you want it. We see you, okay?” he swallowed. “We won't turn away. No matter what happens.”
The rain pattered softly on the dark windowpanes of Irene’s study. The sleet had melted away, the first bite of winter softening as outside dawn approached, and a new day, quiet and uncertain, approached Erlking. And with a silent nod of his head, that was that.
Jackalope would remain at Erlking.
INTERESTED PARTIES
The following week was a busy one at the hall. A lot seemed to happen in a short space of time. They all rested, they all healed.
Hawthorn announced, to Robin's disappointment, two days after their return, that he was leaving. He was headed back into the Netherworlde, he told them. He was part of the Fae resistance there, after all. And he had to seek out their leader, Peaseblossom, and relay to him what had happened, with the Shard, with the Hive.
“He will be most interested to hear about you, young Master Robin,” he told the boy, as they all stood saying their farewells on Erlking’s steps, bright morning sunshine baking the stones. “You are quite the Fae.”
Robin had been fairly unsuccessful in hiding his disappointment at Hawthorn leaving. Who would teach him the Tower of Earth, if he wasn’t here? But the old Fae narrowed his long eyes, clearly amused. “I think you have mastered that Tower all on your own,” he told him. “Earth is about will and determination, and you have proved that you have plenty of both.”
He promised he would return when he could, and Robin instructed him to be careful out there, to stay off the grid.
Hawthorn took with him the Mask of Gaia when he left. Irene had decided that now the Shard of Earth was in Erlking’s possession, the mask, with all its dangerous power, may be better suited to others elsewhere. She had told Robin that the Princess Ashe and her people had returned victorious to Rowandeepling. The swarm had been decimated and driven from the forest. The dryads were rebuilding their empire. She was planning to marry, apparently. Preparing to rule alongside a love she had once thought long lost.
“Love is never really lost though,” his aunt had told him, with a small wry smile. “It is a fire which can always be rekindled. The mask may serve the dryads well, as once it did before. Offer the princess guidance to rule and guard the Elderhart. She will not be duped by the likes of Splinterstem again.”
Robin learned that although the Hive had been destroyed and Eris’ forces driven from the great forest like a cancer purged, no one seemed to know what had happened to Peryl or Strigoi. Robin didn’t doubt for a moment that Eris’ fury would have been something to behold. He still couldn’t get the image of those golden eyes out of his head.
If Peryl’s failure followed the same pattern as Strife’s, she would be back at the bottom of the pile by now, and her treacherous green-haired brother back in his rightful station, having schemed his way back into the Empress' good favour.
He wondered where she was. If Peryl was still abroad in the Netherworlde, or if she was in the pits of Dis, disgraced and imprisoned like tragic Mr Moros. He also wondered why he seemed to care so much.
*
It was announced, shortly after Hawthorn’s departure, that as well as the new addition of Jackalope to the erstwhile rebels of Erlking, an extended offer of hospitality had been laid out to Mr Ffoulkes. On the strictest conditions by Irene that he behave, and that he make penance for his attempted theft by agreeing to help to lighten the load of teaching with Calypso. He was to assist in the tutoring of the Scion.
Ffoulkes, who by this point had regained all of his former pomp and new clothes brighter and more bedazzling than ever, accepted this offer with thanks, smoothing his perfectly waxed moustache and beard. Hestia had managed to find some wax for him, and he was almost like his old, rather irritating self again, save for the fact that he had elected not to procure a new wig. His bald head, he had told them all, despite absolutely no one asking, was a dashing sign of virility in itself.
The news of his appointment as tutor-in-residence was greeted by the nymph with a world-weary sigh, which she made no attempt whatsoever to conceal, her book drooping listlessly from her hands as she rolled her eyes into the back of her head.
Well, Robin thought. This is going to be interesting.
*
Karya recovered slowly but steadily. The other companions spent much time in her room keeping her company as the days passed. More snow began to fall outside, the last of the autumn leaves drifting down from the nearly-naked trees of Erlking. Hestia occasionally shoed them out, flapping her hands and insisting the girl needed peace and quiet, not to be constantly bothered and harassed by three loud boys and a faun. None of them mentioned her unnatural healing. None of them really knew how to bring it up in conversation.
It was late in the evening on a Sunday, when the subject, amongst others, was finally breached.
They’d had supper in the hall downstairs, Ffoulkes insisting afterwards on entertaining them all on the large harpsichord which stood in the corner of the room. He had actually been surprisingly good at it, though of course, he had been the first to exclaim and applaud his tremendous skills.
Afterwards, Irene had taken Robin briefly to one side and spoken with him in private, and now, while she, Mr Drover, Calypso and Ffoulkes retired to the drawing room for rather dull adult conversation, Robin and the other Erlkingers had come up to Karya’s room.
It was dark outside, night closing in, and the girl sat propped up in her bed on roughly a million cushions, the twined flowers twisted through her headboard at her back. She was eating her dinner from a tray, ‘like a bloody invalid’ as she put it, confined most sternly to bed-rest until she was fully healed.
The room was cosy and comfortable. A fire crackled in the hearth, where Henry sat on the floor, determinedly trying to teach Jackalope how to play cards, the frowning Fae scowling down suspiciously at his carefully concealed cards, as though suspecting Henry of trying to cheat at every turn, which, of course, he was.
Their enmity, Robin noticed, had mellowed into extreme competitiveness. And besides, Henry was sulking tonight because Jack had received a much larger portion of pudding than he had. The miserable old housekeeper insisted that the Fae needed feeding up, although Henry cried favouritism and injustice at this.
Elsewhere in the room, Woad sat in a deep windowsill, curled up in a ball, Inky the kraken cradled peacefully in his arms. Both the blue boy and the small, tentacled thing were asleep, softly snoring after too much dinner. Woad sounded like a quiet but peaceful chainsaw. The kraken, Robin reasoned, could well have been purring.
He himself sat at the foot of Karya’s bed. He was twirling Phorbas on its tip on the footboard, lost in thought. Karya was looking at him oddly.
“What?” he said, a little self-consciously, catching her staring.
She shook her head, “Nothing … just … I can’t get used to your eyes. You look so … odd.”
Robin's eyes had not changed back. Even now, days after their safe return. One was blue as the sky, the other as green as jade. He was still getting used to it himself.
“Wow, thanks,” he said, half joking.
“Not bad odd,” she said hurriedly. “Just … different. You’re more … I don’t know … Puck than you were.”
Robin considered this a moment. He shrugged. “We’ve come to an arrangement, he and I,” he joked. “Anyway, don’t you think it makes me look a bit like David Bowie?”
“Who?” Karya asked blankly.
“Just the greatest human who ever lived,” Robin grinned. “Well, according to my gran, that is.”
Karya looked over
to Henry, confused. “I thought you told me the greatest human who ever lived was Bobby Charlton?” she enquired.
“He is,” Henry muttered immediately, not looking up from his cards.
“You’re all so confusing,” she said to Robin, eating a spoonful of jelly from the bowl resting on the tray before her. “As is this curious human dessert. I cannot bring myself to trust a foodstuff that shivers as you eat it. Are you certain it’s not self-aware?”
Robin nodded, grinning. “No more than our friendly neighbourhood faun over there.”
Karya chuckled, wincing a little. She was still not fully healed.
They sat in amiable, comfortable since for a time while she ate, and Robin polished Phorbas. Listening to Woad snore and Henry and Jackalope quietly swearing at one another over the slapping of playing cards on the hearth rug. It was a comfortable evening.
“What did your aunt find out in London?” she asked him eventually, out of the blue. “About the book? I know she found out something. Henry said she dragged you off to one side for a chat after dinner.”
Robin gave Henry a sly look.
“Yes, she did,” he said. “She didn’t find out much to be honest. The trail of the cubiculum is cold, whatever it is. We might have gained an Earth Shard, but we’re not much closer to knowing which book was so important to Oberon and Titania. Or why.” He leaned in a little. “But…she said she did find out something that was interesting.”
Karya’s golden eyes narrowed with interest.
“Apparently, she’s not the only person who’s been enquiring after this lost volume,” Robin told her. “There’s another interested party. They’ve been all over London, contacting libraries everywhere. All very innocent and polite, very vague, but Irene thinks it’s very odd. They kept popping up everywhere she was looking herself.”
Karya frowned. “Who are they?”
Robin shook his head. “No idea, and neither does she. She only knows that they’re a private firm in London. Old school establishment. They have interests in all sorts of things. Medical research, property, law firms. Private transport. You name it, they’re into it. They own a series of those old gentlemen’s clubs too, in the city. You know, all brandy and cigars, proper cabal. They’re called Sire Holdings.”
“Never heard of them,” Karya admitted. “Sounds a bit pompous.”
Robin agreed. “Aunt Irene tried to contact them, see if she could get an appointment to see their director, maybe find out what their interest is in all this. But she kept getting the brush off. She showed me one of the letters she got in reply while she was down there. It was all business-speak. Consultations by private appointment and invitation only, that sort of thing. Even the letterhead was pompous. Old school logo like a coat of arms. She’s going to try and see what else she can find out about them. Dig up some dirt.”
“We will need to step up our game you know, Scion,” Karya warned. “We made a fool of Eris back at the Hive, even if we did only escape by the skin of our teeth. She won’t like that. And the fact that Lady Irene came in person, an open display of conflict, destroying her forces like she did. It changes everything.”
Robin looked at her, questioningly.
“We’re not just a nuisance anymore,” the girl explained. “Not just a quiet underground resistance faction, skulking around in our safe house. What we did, what Irene had to do. That was an open declaration of aggression. Erlking is at war now. Open war.”
Robin knew this was true. He nodded. “Good,” he said gravely. “Bring it on. I can’t wait to see Strigoi again. He has to pay for what he did, to the Sidhe-Nobilitas.” He sighed. “All we wanted was peace. But things are getting darker out there, aren’t they?”
“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” Karya said darkly.
Her gravitas and serious face were only slightly ruined by the spoonful of raspberry jelly quivering on her spoon held before her.
“Karya …” Robin said hesitantly. “I have to know … You should have died. You didn’t.”
“I know,” she replied blankly.
“What …” he hesitated, peering at here carefully. “What are you?”
Henry and Jackalope had stopped playing cards. They were both looking up across the room silently, watching the girl as Robin studied her.
Karya met his eyes, slowly lowering her spoon.
“The truth?” she said, looking rather lost. “The truth is, Robin Fellows, Scion of the Arcania … I honestly don’t know. I don’t … remember.”
She looked out of the window, at the dark, cool night. “But I think … it’s important to know,” she said, her voice both worried and thoughtful. She glanced back to Robin, her eyes meeting his.
“But in order to find out,” she said slowly. “We’re going to have to go home. To Eris. To where I came from. Robin … we have to go to Dis.”
Robin looked back at her solemnly. She looked both frightened and determined. He reached out and took her hand, lacing her fingers with his and squeezing reassuringly.
He thought of all they had been through together, these people in this quiet room, since first they met. All they had survived.
“Well then,” he said, smiling slightly as his eyes twinkled puckishly. “That sounds like quite an adventure, doesn’t it? Eris had better watch out. We’re coming for her.”
And he meant every word.
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You might also be interested in Hell’s Teeth, Book One of the Phoebe Harkness series:
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