by Dani Harper
Any other member of the Hunt would have taken the child away by now. So, too, every wielder of magic who had ever instructed Trahern would have elected to spirit the boy from this place immediately. Even Lurien himself had declared that the safety of the Nine Realms must be placed above all. It would have been much simpler to remove Fox. A spell would have rendered Lissy cooperative and trusting. A strong enough spell could even cause her to forget her son completely.
Instead, he’d made a vow to her with his own life as surety, and sealed it with blood.
Sighing, he regarded the dark-blue design on his palm, the twin of the one on Lissy’s shapely hand, and wondered at it. Although important treaties and accords had once been sealed with the adduned gwaed—the blood pledge—as a matter of course, it had fallen out of use among the Tylwyth Teg long before Trahern was born. Even his mother had never utilized such a permanent pact. But then, Eirianwen much preferred to keep both her allies and her enemies guessing. Not only would she not tolerate the slightest risk to herself, but to give so much power to another was completely unthinkable in the Royal Court.
And yet the gift had sprung freely, even easily, from somewhere deep within him. He had wanted to do it. For Lissy. By all the stars, his words alone had not been enough to convince her of his suitability as a teacher. Or of the pressing need for Fox to receive instruction at all. Even after she witnessed Trahern destroying a cyhyraeth, she didn’t seem very reassured of his ability to help her with her son. She admonished her friend Ranyon when he protested my involvement. And she spoke of working together. Yet Lissy’s own thoughts revealed how overwhelmed she felt at the prospect of raising a child with such powers. And how hesitant she was to turn to Trahern for aid. No matter how much he wanted her to.
Bright sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees as he walked the winding paths, ending up at the pond in the park’s aviary. Only the wire enclosure prevented the ducks from gathering at Trahern’s feet. Using simple magic to fill his palms again and again, he tossed grains to the hopeful birds. Curiously, it seemed to help him think.
I do not regret my pledge. Though it was immutable by any known power, he would do it again. But surely it was strange that he feared hurting two humans more than he feared for the security of both mortal and faery realms! It made little sense considering the immense danger, yet Trahern had to admit that the relationship between Lissy and Fox was a source of wonder to him. The thought of interfering with it was more than merely distasteful. It was nearly unbearable.
His own family would laugh at such foolish sentiments.
Braith would not. The impression came to him as gently as a flower petal on the breeze. His brother would heartily approve of respecting the bond between this mother and her child. Of keeping them together in their own world. Braith hadn’t snatched Fox away or tried to take him to a safer place. Instead, he had abandoned the Hunt and left Trahern’s side to devote himself to the boy on the mortal plane.
Very well, then. The bones are cast, and the pledge is made. I must instruct the child here, and Braith and I will both guard him to the utmost of our ability. But more is needed.
The Wild Hunt was needed.
From a pocket inside the breast of his dark leathers, Trahern produced a tiny silver horn. It lay curled in his palm like a toy—until he breathed on it. It trembled at first, vibrating with energy, then grew rapidly until he was forced to grasp it with both hands. Sunlight gleamed on the heavy silver. Fae horses and hounds chased a myriad of creatures around and around the great double coil, and antlered figures danced about the broad bell. He hefted the ancient instrument and pressed it to his lips.
The steady tone was long and low, a cadence formed not of notes but of starry nights and full moons, rustling tree limbs, and lowering clouds, thunder rolling and staccato lightning strikes. And beneath it all, the beat of horses’ hooves thrumming the air like wings and the full-throated baying of hounds.
The air shimmered, and Wren appeared astride his monstrous black bucca. The tall goat rolled its red eyes, stamped and blew, and shook its formidable horns as its rider merely grinned. “What quarry, Trahern?” He nodded at the park’s aviary. “Surely these fat birds are not giving you difficulty?”
They clasped wrists as Trahern explained what he wanted. A pair of riders in the city by day and a patrol of four by night, until the mission Lurien had charged him with was fulfilled. Trahern did not, however, reveal what that mission was. The fewer who knew about young Fox, the better, even the trustworthy Wren. And to his credit, the Hunter did not ask.
“All will be as you require.” Wren touched his coiled whip to his forehead, even as he reined his bad-tempered mount in a tight circle. “Nodin will join me now. It will be a novelty to hunt in mortal sunlight. Perhaps I will need a pair of dark spectacles as the humans wear.” He laughed. “Hyleath will choose her own Hunters for the moon hours. I daresay she will enjoy the assignment. Until anon, Trahern. Hela da!”
“Hela da,” he replied. Good hunting. Wren spurred his bucca, and they bolted across the park, leaping unseen over an older couple who grabbed their hats to save them from the sudden gust of wind. Goat and rider vanished from sight among the streets beyond.
Trahern threw a final handful of grain to the eager ducks and whispered a spell that sprouted new grass in the barren dirt of their enclosure. Lurien had said to use what resources you will. And what better resource to deal with the fae creatures that might creep into the city? His fellow Hunters were experienced and efficient, and none would escape them.
All that remained was for him to fulfill his mission.
If I am to honor my vow, then I must make no further mistakes with Lissy. For that, he needed information. Long-ago trade negotiations had taught him the value of subterfuge, and he didn’t hesitate to use it now. A wordless spell took him to the roof of Handcastings. Concealed by a powerful glamour he’d learned from a draigddynion mage, a spell that even an ellyll like Ranyon would be unlikely to detect, Trahern sat upon the concrete parapet to listen to the woman and her friends.
EIGHTEEN
The coffee cup tumbled from Lissy’s hand. She barely heard the noise of it shattering on the tiles over the tumult of her thoughts. “You can’t be serious, Ranyon. Lurien? The Lurien showed up at a human hospital?”
“Aye, his very self. The Lord of the Wild Hunt came strolling down the hallway in his great leather boots as if he did it every day, and not a single mortal noticed him. He passed that place where they line up all the babes in a row like pastries in a shop window, and he never gave it a glance. Instead, he came straight into the nursery for the very wee ones like Fox. I was there, minding yer own business and making up some more charms for our brand-new boy, when—”
“What kind of mojo did you put on Fox?”
“Well, my very best, a’course!” he retorted. “Protection, first and foremost, his being so new and all. And then a few to make him hale and hearty.”
“Healthy and strong,” said Brooke. “Fox was premature. If Ranyon hadn’t done it, I would have done it myself, Liss.”
Safety, health, and strength. Basic and positive. He loves Fox, and he would never harm him. But it was all too clear that magic had been part of her child’s life since day one, while she had totally failed to suspect a thing. Lissy forced herself to take a deep breath, then two. “Thank you for doing that for Fox, Ranyon. But what the hell was the Lord of the Hunt doing there?”
“Why, he brought our boy a gift for his naming—though we didn’t know what his name would be yet—and wished him tynged da.”
“I know da means good,” said Brooke. “I learned that from Aidan. But I’m not sure about the rest. Good what?”
The little ellyll furrowed his already wrinkled brow. “Well, it’s sorta like fate, dontcha know. Ya might even say future. Or destiny!”
Brooke turned to Lissy. “Not exactly happy birthday, but I guess somebody important like Lurien would be formal about the whole thing.”
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br /> And that’s the problem, thought Lissy. “Somebody like Lurien doesn’t bring presents to human kids. I don’t know much about him, but I do know the leader of the Wild Hunt isn’t goddamn Santa Claus! So I want to know why he did it. And what it was.”
Ranyon sighed and rested his chin in his twiggy hands as he stared at the half-eaten pickle on his plate. “Well, there’s just no hidin’ anyone with a maes ynni like that, dontcha know. I tried my very best.”
Lissy frowned in confusion.
“He’s talking about Fox’s aura,” explained Brooke. “When he was born, his energy field was so vivid, it practically lit up the place. I was sure every doctor and nurse in the hospital would see it or feel it, whether they believed in the existence of auras or not. Heck, I figured little Fox would be visible from the space station, if anyone was looking. But luckily, no one seemed to notice.”
“No one human,” added the ellyll.
Like me. Despite how weak and ill she had been, Lissy had sensed good energy—bright, delightful energy—from her new little son. She’d chalked it up to her own giddiness and wonder. But to actually see auras, the vitality that surrounded every living thing, required a gift that she simply didn’t have. It was silly, she knew, but she felt just a little left out. “You could see it.”
“I saw it, Ranyon saw it. And your mother certainly saw some of it, even though Olivia’s abilities aren’t as strong.”
“And Lurien saw it like a great beacon from a long ways away,” said the ellyll. “We’re lucky ’twas him and no one else.”
Lissy didn’t feel very lucky about it. Not yet. “He saw Fox,” she prompted. “Then what?”
“Well, a’course his Lordship could read my attempts to camelfloss our boy—”
“Camouflage,” supplied Brooke.
“Aye, that’s what I said. I’d been trying to disguise our boy, and along comes the Lord of the Wild Hunt and makes a spell of his very own. Weaves a veil o’ power and throws it over Fox like a blanket, he did. That was his gift, ya see, and a finer one couldn’t have been given.”
Lissy was half-amazed and half-frustrated—where did the fae get the right to interfere as they pleased? She recalled Trahern’s imperious words: I require no rights from you. I ride with the Hunt. “What did this, this blanket do, exactly?”
“Why, hide Fox, a’course!”
“Omigod, that’s why his aura changed!” said Brooke, putting her hands to her temples. “After being so brilliant, it was as if someone had used a dimmer switch and toned it down. I couldn’t figure it out, but you’re saying that Lurien hid it!”
“It’s just as that bossy son of Oak said, there’re things that dwell in the faery realms ’twould love ta feed on such energy or turn it to their own use! And some of them creep into this world from time to time, like that cursed cyhyraeth downstairs!”
Brooke shivered. “Aidan told me that one of the purposes of the Wild Hunt is to send back creatures that don’t belong in our world. He says there’s been a lot more of them in the past few years.”
“Aye, ’tis exactly what the Hunt was about the night Fox was born,” continued Ranyon. “Chasing a pair of great cranky bwganod that had settled into one of the little lakes hereabouts. They’d gobbled down most of the fishes and—”
“Let’s try to focus on Fox, shall we?” said Lissy. “You still haven’t told me the whole story about Lurien. He put some sort of protective blanket on my son?”
“A many-layered spell, and one that I’d never seen the likes of. He warned me, though, that it wouldn’t last but a dozen mortal years, maybe more, maybe less. Strong magic has chosen this child, he said, and it would leak through the spell eventually like water from a cracked cup.”
Lissy pulled her chair close and placed her hands gently on the ellyll’s shoulders, trying to ignore how odd and angular they felt beneath his habitual Jays shirt. “Okay, Ranyon,” she said, looking hard into his bright-blue eyes—the only ones she’d ever seen that authentically twinkled. “Tell me if I’ve got this straight and if I’ve left anything out. Fox has magic, a lot of it, something even bigger than what came to Brooke. Big enough to attract the attention of someone powerful like Lurien and . . . and somehow different from anything we know. At least from what I know. Plus, Fox’s magic isn’t coming to him when he’s older, like it does in my mother’s family. He already has it?”
“Aye, that’s the way of it. I don’t know what we’d have done if Lurien hadn’t happened along when he did. He kept the aura from being seen by other fae. Kept the magic out of our boy’s reach as well. Ya don’t be handin’ lightning to a babe, and that’s what Fox’s powers woulda been to him.” He sighed deeply, and his whole body seemed to droop. “My charms are the very best, dontcha know, but their strength isn’t what they once were. The more ellyllon there are, the more power each ellyll has. And there’s nary a one of us left.”
Brooke put an arm around Ranyon and said something kind and comforting. At least, Lissy assumed it was—after all, that was what her BFF was best at. In actuality, Lissy couldn’t hear anything above the tornado of thoughts that swirled inside her beleaguered brain. “You didn’t mention any of this when Fox was born. Not a word,” she managed at last. “I took my baby home from the hospital and never knew a damn thing.”
“Why ever would I tell ya then? With grief o’er yer beloved Matt still weighing on yer shoulders plus a new babe to care for?” Ranyon asked, wringing his twiggy hands together until Lissy was sure he’d never be able to untangle his fingers.
“So you kept it to yourself,” said Lissy. “And while I can see why you didn’t say anything at first, it’s been nine whole years now. Nine!”
Ranyon blinked in confusion, and she suddenly realized that nine years must seem more like nine minutes to a long-lived creature like an ellyll. “Well, ya see,” he said, “I figured by the time Lurien’s spell wore off, our boy would be a mite older. And it would seem to everyone that he’d naturally come into the family magic. Then I could tell ya the rest gradual-like. But now the magic’s starting to leak through.”
Brooke glared sharply at the ellyll, who had the grace to look abashed. “Exactly how long has it been ‘leaking’?” she demanded, making air quotes around the word.
“I guess it’d be about six o’ yer mortal months now,” he said.
“Dear goddess.” Lissy’s friend looked at her with stricken eyes. “That’s about how long you’ve been noticing new things happening with Fox—the dreams, the precognition, the heightened senses. And here I’ve been brushing them off as pretty much normal—at least normal for a child from a gifted family—and telling you not to worry. I had no idea, none at all, what we were really dealing with, and I am so, so sorry!”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Brooke. I didn’t want to notice those things, and you made me feel a lot less scared about them. It’s not your fault there was more to the story.”
“Nay, ’tis my fault,” said Ranyon, removing his hat and clutching it with both hands to his chest. “And I’m as sorry as a one-legged cricket. I didn’t see how ya would feel about it, how it would look. I shoulda told ya the whole of it from the beginning.”
“Yes, you should have.” But when it comes right down to it, I wasn’t ready. It had taken a major shake-up—like a giant faery grim and his good-looking brother crashing into her life—to force her to see what had been right in front of her all along.
“Mind ya, I haven’t been resting on my bunions,” he continued. “I worked a fresh protective ward every night and sent it winging away on the breeze to yer house. And I’ve always made my very best charms to watch over our Fox.”
Lissy frowned. Ranyon had brought many gifts to her house over the years. A wind chime . . . and then there were those garden gnomes and . . . the little figures on Fox’s desk! The ellyll had created them the same way he made almost everything else—with bits and pieces of household things and natural materials bound together with copper wire. Strange fi
gures. Crazy animals with feet of marbles and metal washers and tails of feathers and springs. Whimsical men with chestnut heads and arms and legs of bent spoons and twigs! Come to think of it, Ranyon had brought one along almost every time he visited (ever since her son was old enough not to put the creations in his mouth). And Fox loved them all and named every one, even though there were practically enough for an army now. Bean. Rufus. Tinny. Donut. Toothy-Cat. Croco-Bite. Larry . . . “The toys were for protection!”
“Every one o’ them,” Ranyon said solemnly.
I’m such an idiot. Lissy’s energy drained away like water from a bathtub. She’d been so self-righteous, felt so justified in demanding to know what the little ellyll knew and when he knew it—and now that she did, what difference did it really make? Everything that happened these past few days would still have happened. And I wouldn’t have been able to foresee it or prevent it. Meanwhile, he’s been working overtime from day one to keep us safe.
“Okay, I can’t deny that I’ve had a lot on my plate since Fox came along,” she said aloud. “Looking at it from your point of view, I would have hesitated to hand me a brand-new problem, too. And I’m grateful for all the protections. But could you just promise not to keep secrets from me again?”
The little ellyll was hesitant. “Are ya still gonna let me visit with Fox?” he asked, his lower lip trembling.
“Good grief, Ranyon, you didn’t rob a bank! But you just can’t hold back information anymore. If you know something, you have to tell me so we can work together. Promise me?”
The little ellyll stood up on the stack of phone books and planted a hand somewhere near where a liver might be. It could be over his heart for all Lissy knew—after all, he wasn’t human. “I swear to it,” he said solemnly. “And a sure sight easier it’ll be than keeping secrets!”
“To no more secrets.” Brooke lifted her cup.
