by WB McKay
By the time we reached the parking lot, I'd expected Owen to cheer the heck up. He had not. "What is your problem?" I gave in and asked him.
"Huh?"
"If your face was a mask sold in a store, it would be labeled 'woebegone'."
"I like your word choice, but I doubt it very much. They'd probably stick with something simple, like 'dread' or 'misery'."
I narrowed my eyes at him and took a guess. "You're scared about me meeting your parents. You don't have to tell them we're dating."
"You're right, I am scared. My parents are… the way they are. There is nothing I can do about that, sadly. I hope you weren't planning on them not knowing we're dating, because I've already told them."
"You did?"
"As I had no intentions of ever putting you through the torture of their company, I had no reason not to tell them. I couldn't have foreseen this cycle of events, but I should have."
"Why should you have?"
He was quiet for a while after that. I stared out the window, watching us climb the city streets into the most affluent neighborhood in Volarus. Instead of hiring a gardener, residents paid for the most expensive magic they could afford to turn their trees into dancing works of art. I wasn't sure what I'd do with that kind of money, but lawn art was low on the list.
Perhaps I should have been taking Owen's broodiness more seriously, but he'd always been closemouthed about his parents. His sister, Ava, never mentioned them, either. The siblings hadn't been speaking when I'd met them--I didn't know why--and to my knowledge had still not discussed whatever had happened between them. I'd gotten used to the fact that their family had difficult issues. It wasn't that I didn't feel bad for Owen and his miserable face--I did--but I also figured that acting as normal as possible was the best thing I could do for him.
That was true, anyway, until we turned onto the long driveway and it occurred to me that I should probably be polite to Owen's parents. Polite was not one of my strong suits. Maybe that was Owen's problem.
"I'll be nice," I assured him. "We'll get along fine." I believed it when I said it, but a moment later that belief turned to dread. If what Owen said was true, his mother was considered to be the head of the fae council. That was unsettling. And they'd asked for me to be assigned on this case, which meant they knew who I was. The head of the fae council knowing my name was more disturbing than anything. I wasn't good in these situations.
"What?" he asked. "No. Don't do that."
"You don't want me to be nice to your parents?"
"You could. I mean." He made a series of unintelligible noises. "This is what happens with them, I swear. Everyone ends up trying to figure out how to be. You haven't even gotten in the house and it's already happening to you. We should leave." He put the car in reverse.
"Owen. You are acting ridiculous."
His eyes were wide with terror.
"How about you wait in the car and I'll take care of this, okay?"
He grabbed both my arms. "No."
"You are getting even more ridiculous. Do you know that?"
He rested his forehead on the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths. I reached over and rubbed circles on his back, figuring it was the smartest thing he'd done so far today. Signing up to work a dangerous case with me because the parents he had problems with ordered him to? Not so smart. Jumping off buildings? Cool, but not so smart. Hanging out at harpy bars and involving ourselves in what we thought was a gang war? Inadvisable. Taking a breather when he was freaking out? Wisdom right there.
"It's too early," he finally said. "They'll scare you away. Believe me. They love this."
"If you think your parents can scare me then I have to wonder how well you know me at all."
He sighed heavily. "You'll understand soon enough."
"You met my mom and everything was okay."
"Belinda is a treasure."
I smiled. "She is," I agreed. "You also sort of met my birth mother when she was a giant crow swallowing people whole. And we're still fine."
"If you'd met my parents, you'd know how mild that sounds."
"Well I guess we've settled things then. Nothing I say means anything until I meet them. Let's get to it."
He groaned. I hopped out of the car, ignoring him.
The house was the biggest of the big houses we'd seen on this road, with four turrets, by my count. The better for a dragon to land on, I guessed. "Are your parents dragons?" I asked him. His sister wasn't, she was unique as far as I knew. His uncle Ewan had been.
When I turned around to look at him, he nodded. He was approaching the house like it hurt him to pick up his feet. I kept my eyes forward, determined not to let him freak me out. We'd go in, I'd make my report, and we'd get the heck out. Easy peasy.
I was still climbing the never-ending staircase that led to their front door when he took my hand and gently pulled us to a stop. "Promise me you won't try to be nice."
"Fine," I said without even really thinking about it. Despite everything, it wasn't a hard promise for me to make. Honestly, I probably would have made some difficult promises to him in that moment if it would have shaken that look off his face. "You know I just promised not to make an effort with the woman considered to be the head of the fae council? Not smart."
"Not at all," he agreed. "But I like it, if that counts for anything."
"It'll have to do."
An actual human butler, in an actual suit, answered the door.
Humans, especially humans who weren't witches, weren't something I was used to seeing in the city. I didn't smell any witch magic on him, though that didn't mean anything. I was desperate to ask Owen why. Why hire a human butler? Why wasn't he speaking? Why did he look so grim?
By the time the butler left us in the foyer, looking concerned to leave us lest we touch something we shouldn't, I had a new question. "Do your parents have a slave?"
"No. They have hired help."
That was a relief. Once my brain had turned it over, it had been the most logical conclusion for why they had a human butler. Freeing slaves wasn't in my repertoire, but the one thing I'd learned from all those history books--whether on Faerie, Volarus, or Earth--was that good people did something when they came across atrocities, and bad people said it wasn't any of their business.
"Why do you have human hired help?"
"He was exposed," said Owen. "Once they know about Faerie, Mom gives them two choices: have their memory wiped, or live in Volarus where they won't be able to expose us to other humans. He chose the city and applied for this job."
"Those are some shitty choices."
"I agree, but I'm not sure what the alternative should be. Most won't hire the humans who live in Volarus, but the Kinney household," he took on a mocking tone, "is run almost entirely by a human staff."
"Good work, son. You're giving her the tour!" The man was a few inches shorter than Owen, and stockier. He looked like he enjoyed tossing boulders around in his spare time. Like most fae, he appeared to be in his mid-twenties, the same age as his son, but he was dressed like an older human man, with a wool cap, wool coat, and a smoking pipe in his hand. A dragon with a smoking pipe. I edged my mind away from making a joke about that one. "You must be Sophie Morrigan." He shook my hand with both of his callused ones. "We've heard so much about you."
"Yes, so much," said the woman entering the room. Her neat curls were pulled away from her face. She wore a pink dress with a floral apron.
"Oh, fae. They're doing the thing where they--"
"Shush now," said the woman. "You talk to her all the time, Owen. This is our first opportunity." He opened his mouth to speak again, but stopped when he catch a look from his father. Both his parents were turned so I couldn't read their faces, but whatever Owen saw there made him close his mouth and look at me with regret heavy in his eyes.
I straightened my back and watched both his parents carefully. Whatever they were doing, I wasn't going to let Owen down. Let them take their best shot.
>
Despite their warm, homey clothing, my senses screamed predators. Their muscles were relaxed, their magic wasn't flaring, but their eyes tracked me. His father's eyes were an orange-yellow, but his mom's were the same peridot Ava possessed. Where on Ava it made her look eerie and mysterious, and Owen's dark green eyes always glinted with flirtatious mischief, both of his parent's could cut stone with their gaze. The eyes of predators in any color.
The woman took my elbow with both her hands. She didn't let go when I sidestepped. In fact, she stopped and looked from my elbow to my face; it felt like acknowledgment that she knew I was uncomfortable and simply wanted me to feel that way. "Are you hungry?" She didn't pause for me to respond. "Cook is preparing her specialty. I imagine you don't get many home-cooked meals working a job like yours. Such a shame. A healthy diet is key to birthing healthy children, you know." Well, look at that. She shook all the words right out of me. "I assume, of course, that you recovered the scepter, or you wouldn't be here, right, darling?" Darling?
The man took my other elbow, and they ushered me through the large foyer, shoes loud on the black marble floors. With the dragons so close on either side of me, it was impossible to block out their magic. It was hard to swallow with the hot metal taste on the roof of my mouth. While Owen's magic paired the burnt metal smell with cinnamon, his mother's magic was a hint of oranges and his father's was canned cranberry sauce. Cinnamon made a lot more sense for a scary dragon than all that fruit, if you asked me.
"Don't ask her about work, Lana," chastised the man. "No work once we leave the front door, isn't that the rule?"
"I know, I know," said Lana. "David has to remind me often. I simply love my work. But as they so often say, the most important work is that of a homemaker, don't you think?"
She worded things with the careful lies of a fae, where she wasn't truly making a statement herself. They often say this thing that I want you to believe I believe. A lot of fae got into the habit. It didn't mean she was lying necessarily, but it didn't mean she was being truthful. Coming from someone so powerful, I read her words as dangerous. A trap. I wasn't sure why she wanted me to agree with such a statement, but since they'd made it so difficult for me to speak by talking so rapidly, I chose to stick with silence until I figured their game out.
The hallway continued with the black marble floors. There were no windows, but unlit lanterns hung on the walls. I remembered seeing a chandelier with unlit candles hanging above us in the open foyer. The hall was tight with the three of us side by side, but the two of them simply pushed closer to my sides.
"I see you've brought swords," said David. "Do you fancy yourself a dragon slayer?"
"Such a rude question, dear," said Lana. "But you do know that's not much of a weapon against the Kinneys, don't you, darling?" She looked back at Owen with no small amount of pride. "No, you know what those weapons are probably for, David? She may be trying to keep up with Owen. How sweet. You'll have to do better than that, darling. Surely you are aware he is the strongest dragon to be born in over a century. You mustn't feel bad about his being above you."
She leaned forward to get a look at my reaction. My face stayed relaxed, which meant keeping my mind relaxed. It was super hard, especially when she said the word "mustn't".
Telling her that I'd fought dragons before, with nothing but my swords and magic, wouldn't gain any of her respect. In fact, while I was pretty sure I was supposed to want her respect, I was also a hundred percent sure I didn't. Tolerance was the best I was going to pull out of this meeting--and tolerating the little they'd said so far felt like more than enough to me. None of that bought me a ticket out of the house though.
We entered a dining room with seating for twenty, set for the four of us. I didn't try to make excuses to get out of there without sitting through a meal. I knew it was pointless.
"Sit, sit," said David.
They gestured for me to step forward and choose a seat, blocking Owen's path so he couldn't help me out. Of the four set places, one sat alone, one was the head of the table, and two were placed side by side.
I don't know why I did it, but I marched forward, bopping my hand on the backs of the chairs as I passed, pulled out the head of the table, and sat right down. "Have a seat," I encouraged them.
Owen could always be counted on to be amused. He sat in the chair at my right, leaving his parents with the two on my left. If he weren't there, it would have been much too tempting to pull my fear aura on these two and see what they did next.
His parents lit the candles floating over the table and around the edge of the room by extending their arms and wiggling their fingers. Owen had always tossed fire in front of me with much more force than their tinkling flames.
I wondered if they didn't use electric lighting simply so they had the opportunity to show off their magic in front of their guests, remind them the Kinneys were powerful dragons. Did they offer another option for the humans working in the house?
The moment their butts touched down a human entered the room, four plates balanced on her arms. The food on my plate had me looking at Owen. Fraisa. I'd only had it one time before, in Faerie with Owen. It was extravagant to have food brought in from Faerie, but it shouldn't have surprised me that the head of the fae council would do such a thing.
"A delicacy," said Owen.
It took him a bit to get past his own annoyance enough to see I was amused. We'd been dirty and eating the fruit straight from the trees, and now it sat on our plates, neatly peeled and cut into bite-sized triangular pieces. It looked little like the knobby red fruit he'd plucked from the trees. I pulled the first piece to my nose, delighting in the citrus and berry scent and also checking for magic. I was eating at the head of the fae council's table. Damn straight I was suspicious. His parents noticed. Whatever they thought, avoiding their judgment wasn't worth the risk of winding up under their control.
The fruit was clean of magic and burst to life on my tongue, an explosion of sweet juices tasting like a strawberry had made love to an orange.
"I should have packed some of these in my pockets when I had the chance," I told Owen.
"You didn't have pockets the whole time," he reminded me.
We were both aware of our audience, but too pleased to pretend they weren't there.
"Story of my life." My crow form wasn't great for lugging even the smallest items along. If I wasn't a FAB employee, and they hadn't been convinced to pay for the enchantment that allowed me to bring my swords and their sheaths through my shifts, life would have been dicey. Or less dicey, as the case may be. "Next time, I'll be borrowing yours."
"Sounds like a plan." He looked much too satisfied. That must be why his mother started in with loud, high-pitched laughter. Owen went from pleased to cringing faster than I could track the changes on his face.
"Oh, you two," she said. "Are you seeing this?" she asked her husband.
"I am."
They were both watching us with a predator's eyes, and it went against my instincts not to stare them down and put them in their places with a mouthful of snark. Head of the fae council. Owen's parents. Head of the council. Parents. The repeated thoughts were my only restraints, and they were wearing thin.
"Do you enjoy your work for the Magical Object Division?" asked David, Owen's father. Before I had the chance to answer, he continued. "An awfully small department in FAB, isn't it? And I understand you don't typically work cases likely to bring you to Volarus. Your work has you traveling around Earth. You're based in California, correct? What an odd choice."
"You must want to stay close to your sisters," Lana said. "Understandable, I suppose, but also an odd choice." David nodded in agreement. "Many in your position would have wanted to separate themselves from the legend of The Morrigan and stand on their own feet, which would mean putting some distance between yourself and the banshee offspring. But you stay nearby, and you never deny your name, which would make one think you enjoy the reputation The Morrigan offers you. But the
n The Morrigan appears, and you fight her. Perhaps she didn't care for you as much as you'd hoped? Don't feel bad about it, dear. The Morrigan cares for herself alone."
I snorted. His parents' eyes widened, taking this reaction from me in, but I couldn't be bothered to care. They didn't need to tell me about how little The Morrigan cared.
"Speaking of Sophie's job, someone stole your scepter," said Owen. "That was bold of them. So, who is it that wants to expose the fae?"
"Oh, who knows?" Lana dismissed the question.
"You, undoubtedly," answered Owen.
They stared at each other, lost in some mother-son battle, but I really wanted answers so I interrupted their silent stares to ask the more important question: "Why do they want us exposed?"
"That's simple enough," said David.
"Extremely simple." Lana nodded in agreement and looked at me, waiting for me to pull the answer out of the air, I guess. When she could see I wasn't going to, she said, "Because they want to rule."
I had think about that. Rule? "Oh." I looked to Owen. "They want to rule the humans?"
Reluctantly, like it filled him with personal shame, he nodded.
"It's a long standing argument," said Lana. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and shook her head.
"They think that exposing fae to the humans will convince everyone else that the only thing to do next would be to go ahead and take control of the human world?" I guessed.
"Yes," answered Owen.
"I'll never understand the appeal." Lana leaned back in her chair, and I got the impression she'd dropped her overly happy mask for the moment. "Like we're not responsible for enough already, they want to take on the job of managing the humans head-on. Honestly, what is the point?"
"Some will always want to rule," offered David.
"Yes, yes, but the humans?" asked Lana. "Really."
Owen lowered his face into one of his hands and peeked up at me with one eye. The pressure was on: he needed me to make his mother's attitude funny. He needed me to let him know it was all okay. The best I had in me was a little smile and a shake of my head. It was one of those moments where I felt immediately inadequate, the awkward duck that couldn't see the straight line everyone else was walking in, but he smiled weakly back at me, took a deep breath, and brought his face up out of his hand. My smile was more genuine after that, and so was his. We were in this together.
