* * *
She finally sat—and then lay down—on the grassy slope by the retaining pond, a green-slicked pool that was home to a dozen or so ducks and a handful of cranky water-sprites. They stayed on their side, and Jan was careful to keep at least a dozen yards away from the edge of the pond. Water-based supernaturals were just as likely to lie, cheat, and otherwise mess with humans as their land-based cousins, but their games were often more lethal. Jan remembered their near-deadly encounter with the troll-bridge in the preter’s world and shuddered.
The irony that she was waiting for a water-sprite was not lost on her. Martin was a kelpie, and kelpies lured humans into riding them, then drowned them. It was, as Martin said, “a thing.”
Jan couldn’t help it—she laughed. Her best friend was not only not human but a borderline sociopath serial killer. Somewhere, her life had gotten seriously off track.
“I don’t even know who’s in the play-offs,” she said to the squirrel that had paused, midscurry, to stare at her. “We spent all that money on the tech, and I didn’t even get a TV.” Or a new laptop, for that matter. Fairy gold was a myth, and AJ held his checkbook tighter than her worst client.
Not that she had any clients right now. Or a job. Or anything in the way of a future if they didn’t figure a solution out, or find some weapon, or do something.
The squirrel’s beady black eyes held her gaze and then it scurried off without giving her any advice.
“And at this point, I’m just sad enough that I’d take it.”
“Take what?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Martin dropped to the ground next to her, heedless of the dirt he’d get on his jeans, and groaned as if he’d been hauling bricks all morning rather than lecturing. There was a splash from the pond as someone raised their head to see who had arrived, then disappeared again.
With nothing new to update him on, they lay there in silence for a few minutes, just breathing. If she were going to “get some” as Glory suggested, Martin made the most sense. He had certainly flirted enough to suggest he’d be open to it if she asked. But every time she thought about asking, something stopped her. Jan didn’t love him, not in that way, and some days she wasn’t even sure that she liked him—Martin was amoral in the real sense of the word, and how could you call someone like that a friend?—but they’d been through enough together, seen each other clearly, and that had created a bond that was somehow more than love or friendship.
Some days, Jan thought that bond was all that got her through each new bit of insanity. She wasn’t willing to risk it just for sex.
And besides, a small, smart voice in her head reminded her Martin was a hopeless flirt, yes, but one who tended to drown his partners. He’d warned her often enough.
Without anything new to talk about from the briefing and not wanting to talk about Tyler, Jan said the first thing that came into her head. “All your lectures, the lessons...does AJ really think they’re needed? I mean, that anyone is going to have to go back there?” The thought sent a cold tremor down her spine. The preters’ home was beautiful in a terrifying way. Massive trees and sunless skies, dragon-sized snakes, and endlessly rolling plains that had led them to the vaguely familiar mountain that housed the preternatural court. No human, no mortal supernatural should ever have to see it, not in real time and not in their dreams.
“No.” Martin plucked a strand of grass and let it flutter out of his fingers, falling to the ground, as he studied the pond where the ripples were slowly fading. “Not unless we have some crazy-brave leman who wants to rescue her lover.”
“Or some crazy-dumb kelpie who thinks he can just march into the preter court and demand answers.”
He looked away from the pond long enough to give her a wry, self-mocking little grin.
“No, AJ doesn’t want to send anyone back there,” he said. “But he doesn’t want what we learned to be forgotten, either. You know that. They’ve been quiet for so long, trapped by the old restrictions, the difficulties in luring people into their grasp, that all we had were folk songs and legends. We need actual information to protect ourselves. Ourselves and humans. Firsthand reporting should last us another couple of generations before it’s out-of-date again,” Jan couldn’t argue with that. Humans only knew preternaturals and supernaturals as fairy tales, children’s stories, not real. They hadn’t been prepared, weren’t prepared for the truth. The weight of knowing kept her from sleeping, filling her dreams with worst-case scenarios and crushing guilt.
He rolled onto his side and studied her. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It’s just... This morning I woke up, and it was the same as it had been every morning since we got back. That first rush of energy, when everything seemed like it was finally making sense, that we knew what to do, do you remember? It’s gone. I can hear the clock ticking in my head, and we’re getting nowhere.”
Martin started to say something, a faint noise of protest, and let it trail off, unable to muster an argument, because she was right.
“No matter what we do to warn people, there are still going to be idiots who say sure, let’s run off with a stranger, give over our free will—” and she hated the bitterness, the anger that was in her voice but she didn’t have to pretend here “—there will always be enough idiots that they’ll be able to keep opening portals. And we don’t know how they’re doing it or how to close them. I don’t think we can figure it out.”
“Your team...”
“Good people. Smart people.” And never mind that most of them weren’t people at all, not in the human sense, but she’d gotten past that weeks ago. “But this is so far beyond us, it’s like...” Her hands waved in the air, signifying her frustration. “We’ve got theories, but that’s all. And AJ’s plan to find the runaway queen, use her to force them to leave us alone...it was a good idea, but they’ve gotten nowhere, too. AJ said the most recent tip didn’t pan out. We’re out of time, Martin.”
If this new magic the preters were using to open the portals was based on tech, or somehow influenced by it, they needed to understand how in order to stop it. And this morning’s meeting had once again established that they didn’t and couldn’t. Maybe it was a thing only preters could see, could understand. At this point, Jan wasn’t ruling anything out.
The portals were the means, but they weren’t the cause. Preters had always stolen humans, had always meddled, but they’d never hated before, not like this. Jan remembered her contest of wills back Under the Hill, in the other realm, and shivered a little. The preter queen had used knowledge of the portals to flee into this world and disappear, leaving her court and consort behind. That had been what had triggered this new behavior, their anger at this realm—their anger at humans.
The portals were the means, but the queen was the missing piece, the trigger and the solution.
“We need to find her,” Jan said. “And we need to find her now.”
Martin rolled over onto his back, looking up at the sky, but his hand reached out and gathered hers, fingers folding together. “So we will,” he said, his confidence unshakeable. “You just have to come up with a clever plan.”
Despite herself, despite or maybe because of the tension stretching her almost too tight to breathe, Jan laughed. And that was why she loved him, because he said things like that and meant them. “Right. I’ll get right on that, then.”
Chapter 2
The Lady Nalith, once queen of the Court Under the Hill and now in chosen exile, was satisfied—finally—with the workman’s efforts. She ran her fingers over the tangle of cords, then along the gleaming rim of the screen, careful not to touch the screen itself; she had no desire to interfere with the display, and even the faintest ghost of her fingertips could do that, she had been told.
“Remarkable,” she said, her voice almost a satisfied purr. �
�Not even in my old court was there magic of this quality.”
“It’s a plasma display, millions of these tiny cells between the glass,” the human began to say before being cut off by a sharp gesture with her other hand. She did not care what means the creature used. Her concern was not with the conveyance, but what it conveyed.
She stepped away from the screen and seated herself on the love seat, reclining back as though it were a throne, if one far more comfortable than any she had occupied before. On the newly installed screen in front of her, the figures moved and spoke, breaking into music and dance in seemingly random and yet perfect moments.
Opera, one of her new courtiers had told her. This was called opera. She did not understand the things the figures said, the clothes they wore, or the story that was being told, even after all these months of watching, but it did not matter. She could sit and watch and be enthralled by the display on the screen.
It amazed her, still, that in a world where so many were unaware of magic, unable to touch it, they could still create such things, almost carelessly, without notion of what they did. To pull wonder from nothing, beauty from despair, agony from mere thought...
Her consort would have scoffed to call this magic. Her former consort, she amended, eyes narrowing. Unworthy of her. He—all of them, those she’d left behind—had been blind, trapped. Only she could see. This new world, the wonders it provided. All hers now. And she would not share.
She rested her hand, fingers splayed across her chest, feeling the odd flare within. She had been cold for so long, she had almost not recognized the change when it came, had not understood what it was. Had not realized how much she longed for it, she who had longed for nothing before.
Her hold on this world was slight for now, still, but it would grow. Slowly, carefully, her presence a beacon for those who would fill her court, serve her whims. And the fire within her would grow, until it warmed her entirely.
“This is connected to the internetting?” she asked, tilting her head to follow the wires that disappeared into a hole drilled in the wall and from there she knew not where.
“It is.” The human opened his mouth to say something else and then reconsidered, properly gauging her mood. He was enthralled but no fool.
Two human-creatures had come to install this internetting the first day she’d taken possession of the house. She had thought this one amusing and useful, and cast a glamour that he would return. Once he did, she had tightened her hold, binding him to her. He was old but strong, and his eyes were a pale, pale blue that made his skin seem ever paler. His graying hair and lined face should have repelled her, but this, too, in this world, instead fascinated her. Age and weakness...humans accepted them so casually, fought them so fiercely. It fascinated her as much as their creativity did.
In the old days Under the Hill, creative humans had been prized slaves, gems jealously hoarded. They were so fragile, their brilliance so brief, wasted on such short-lived, shortsighted creatures. Still, they were useful, then and now.
“You may sit,” she told the human, noticing that he was still standing by the screen, awaiting her next comment. He nodded, arranging himself on the low cushions by her feet, still tense from her reprimand. Nalith sighed. Fragile and far too sensitive. She let one hand rest on his shoulder to tell him that she was pleased with his work and there was no need to be afraid.
When she was displeased, there would be no question in the matter.
The display on the screen continued, the characters moving about the stage. Their garb was elaborate, even by her standards, their motions large, their voices exquisite. Nalith did not know the story they told but felt herself caught up in their passion to tell it, something inside her twisting and shifting as the action twisted and shifted.
The sensation of being at the whim and control of another disturbed her, even as she craved it, and a frown touched her perfect features. Why was such ability to create given to humans, this power over her moods? How dare they think to move her, to manipulate her in such a way, against her will?
She had come to this world because she thought the skill would come to her here, away from that barren hill. But even here, in this fecund place, the final spark eluded her still, and that fact kindled her irritation once again.
“My lady?”
The hesitant, piping voice came from the doorway. The slight, rough-skinned figure kowtowed from where it lingered in the doorway, attempting to gain her attention but put off by her frown. She did not even bother to glare, trusting that someone else would remove it, and went back to contemplating the screen.
A faint noise confirmed her trust as another of the creatures came by, grabbing the brownie by the elbow and hauling him off down the hallway, their bare feet scuffing on the burgundy-and-blue rug. This time, her morning time, her observation of the gifts this world had to offer, was not to be interrupted. The court knew this.
Once distracted, however, her attention could not quite return to the performance, the beauty in front of her marred by her thoughts.
Perhaps she was surrounding herself with the wrong sorts. The thought occurred to her, glistening like a diamond. She called this a court, yes, but it was still a paltry shadow of what she once commanded; how could it expect to inspire? How could she burn brightly without the proper fuel?
Nalith considered that, the faint lines of her face easing. Yes. Of course. She had called the miserable little gnomes to her first, playing on their sense of dissatisfaction, the rumble of rebellion in their bellies, but while she used them, she did not trust them—they were too similar to the courtiers she had known, miserable, conniving creatures, too eager to consider their needs rather than her own.
And then the brownies had come. Wiser than gnomes, more civilized, understanding that their role was to serve and hers to reward. They had been the ones to find the first house, establishing the household, while she’d taken the pulse of this world, settled herself more comfortably and set out her lures, slowly drawing in others.
Once made aware of her presence, the creatures who lived here, the supernaturals, fell to her glamour, wooed by the magics inherent in her skin, her voice, her touch. She made them no promises. She was the promise: a way to break from the bonds that had held them down for so long, a chance to change the stagnant ordering of their world and become something more. She saw their ambitions and used them.
There were her human toys, yes, but supernaturals made up the bulk of her court. That had seemed proper, at first. She had thought it was the world itself, the too-bright sun and trees that did not speak. But now, now Nalith understood with a sharp clarity that humans were what made this world different from her own. Fierce and hot as the sun, as dumb as the trees, but powerful in their own way. Filled with a magic that Under the Hill had only been borrowing, for too long.
Just as they could be used to open portals, they could open this door for her, too. Be the soil in which her own ambitions could grow.
Nalith narrowed her eyes, staring at the display on the screen without truly seeing it. This world would give her what she wanted, or she would take it.
* * *
“Are you mad?” the second supernatural seethed, still pulling his companion away from where Herself rested. His fingers dug into the thin, muscled arm, not letting the other shake free.
“Cam, let me go. She needs to know—”
“She needs to know whatever she chooses to know. Learn your place, Alex, or you’ll lose it. And more besides.”
They were speaking in low voices, having learned already that whispers carried through the house and to Her ears. Brownies were used to moving silently through the world, doing what needed to be done, but they had no experience with the likes of Her before this.
Alex still thought it was important to share his news, but Cam was right: you learned how to deal with the queen, or you lost
everything. Alex stopped trying to go back and let the other brownie drag him through the kitchen, down the bare wooden stairs to the basement.
The court’s House wasn’t anything particularly grand—a nine-room, three-story Colonial set on the rise of the hill overlooking the center of town, which meant that they were within steps of the main street, such as it was. Brownies tended to like small towns, but this one was tiny even by their standards. Still, it had suited Herself’s demands: large enough space, few neighbors to intrude, access to cable television and the internet, and owners who could be easily driven away, so that Herself could take possession without fuss.
The building had been run-down when they’d found it. Now the walls were freshly painted, the kitchen updated, and hand-woven rugs laid in every room under exquisite furniture delivered by workers who’d entered cautiously and left with a glazed look in their eyes. The newest, most shiny tech kept Nalith well entertained with music, movies, and television, while the walls were lined with bookcases—some of which had been there when she’d arrived and the others added on. There was no pattern or rationale to the collections; whatever caught her attention or fancy was added, glanced at, and then either devoured or ignored.
The basement, however, had been left alone, and it was there that the two brownies fled, closing the door softly behind them. The cool stone walls and cement floor were bare and soothing, the lights dim enough to ease their eyes, and the furnishings comfortable and patched as brownies preferred.
The basement belonged to the lower court; it was known to their lady but never entered by her, the one place where they could relax, discuss, and decompress from the pressure of waiting upon their queen.
The gnomes were not allowed in the basement, by common decision.
Other than their nine-member troop and the gnomes, there were eleven supernaturals serving in this court at the moment, not including those she had sent out into the world to scout for and protect her interests. Three of those others were taking their ease in the basement already: a lupin whose eyes Cam didn’t trust and two six-legged yōkai who rarely spoke but were hard workers and fierce fighters. The yōkai were settled in the corner, their legs tucked under them, while the lupin was sprawled on the sofa, an open beer can in one hand.
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