by K. M. Shea
“Yeah—especially the use of guns and sending actual people off on me instead of monsters,” I said. “Maybe we’ll be able to tell something once we figure out how they busted into the Summer Realm?”
“Ah.” Solis grimaced. “I’m afraid Birch and I might have already pinpointed that, unfortunately.”
“What do you mean ‘unfortunately’?”
Solis gestured at the hillside path we’d ridden on. “My gate dropped me out fairly close to the home where Birch and Flora had Amaranth hidden by some very powerful spells. Given that I was running late and had the portal open, and neglected to go through it for several minutes while I was in my castle, it seems very likely the brutes used my portal to enter.”
I unclipped my helmet, freeing my sweaty hair. “But how would they have gotten into the Day Realm?”
Solis’s eyes darkened. “We’ve had a few unfortunate cases of…undesirables skulking around the Day Realm.”
I felt for my gun in my holster. “Undesirables?”
“Some monsters, and whoever summoned them,” Solis said.
“Why didn’t you say anything sooner? Can we do anything to help?” I asked.
“Help is unnecessary at the moment—they haven’t attacked any of my people.” Solis sighed, and the faint wrinkles around his eyes seemed to sharpen.
“It feels like we’re just patching leaks.” I rubbed my forehead. “We can’t get ahead of whoever this is.”
Before anyone could respond to me, the wind picked up, and shadows passed over the courtyard.
I held my arms in front of my face—trying to shield myself—as I peered up at the sky.
Birch’s giant hawks were coming in to land.
Chapter Sixteen
Leila
The summer hawks cruised over the palace and were now flapping their wings to slow themselves down.
They touched down in the middle of the courtyard, flapping their wings one last time—throwing dust in the air that stung my eyes—before they folded their immense wings against their bodies.
I held my breath, in awe of them.
They were so different from Fell’s griffins.
The griffins had an exotic beauty to them, the hawks were fiercely gorgeous.
Of course they were awe inspiring because of their size—they both were taller than me when they stood on their talon tipped feet. But they also looked beautiful.
Their underbellies were a creamy white color with a few orange-ish feathers, but a lot of their wing feathers and the feathers on their backs were a dark brown color that had an almost glazed blue hue to them. Unlike most hawks, these guys had light hazel eyes that held more intelligence than I’d ever seen in a bird before.
The hawks inspected the courtyard, clearly observing every person and item.
They ignored the night mares, who ignored them in return. And although Kevin and Steve sniffed in their directions, they stayed lying down in the shallow stream they’d taken over after drinking their fill.
The hawks continued their inspection, stopping when they reached my huddle with Skye, Indigo, Solis, and Rigel.
The closest hawk released a screech—a long-held and almost jagged sound that made my ears ring.
It—and the second hawk—took a few very short steps.
Indigo squeaked—she was closest to them.
I’d better intervene. I don’t know what they want, but I suspect I’m the only one here with animal magic.
Most fae found plants, animals, and nature in general easier to deal with, but I had natural animal magic that made it a lot easier for me to soothe and train animals.
I felt this magic surge up in my skin as I stepped out of our circle and approached them, holding my hands up.
“Hello, you beautiful…boys,” I guessed. “We are not your enemy. Perhaps someone could tell Birch that?” I asked a little louder.
Over the hawks’ sweeping tailfeathers, I saw a banshee slip out of the courtyard, hopefully to tell Birch.
My stomach flopped in my gut when both of the hawks crowded around me, moving their heads in small, jerky motions as they scrutinized me.
I stayed calm—that was the trick with horses, dogs, and cats, to stay calm.
I’ve never tested it out on giant birds of prey, but let’s hope the same philosophy works.
“Is something wrong?” I asked the hawks as they peered down at me.
They looked at each other and one of them screeched again, almost blasting me onto my rear with the power of it, even though it wasn’t directed at me.
Abruptly, one of the hawks leaned over and ran its ginormous, sword-sharp beak through my sweaty hair.
Um…what?
I stayed still, but relaxed a little—I didn’t think they were going to kill me if they were grooming me. I didn’t know a lot about hawks, but I was pretty sure they didn’t preen one another unless it was a parent with a chick.
Yes, I’ll take being a chick any day over being a threat!
The second hawk stooped over slightly so it could also run its beak through my helplessly tangled hair.
Their closeness made me aware how near their beaks were to my face, and spine, and ears, and…everything. But the hawks’ touch was gentle.
Briefly, I felt the sides of their beaks press against my scalp, and images and sensations slammed through my mind.
The hot summer sun beating down on cool winds that smelled earthy and fresh. Moist soil squelched under my toes as crops flowered and grew. In the distance thunder rolled, and the sky stretched on as endlessly as the green fields.
Magic as hot as the sun and as refreshing as a summer rain poured through my body, sinking into my bones.
I staggered at the suddenness of it, leaning against one of the hawks, who patiently bore my extra weight until I got my feet underneath me.
“That was…wow.”
I’d felt it before, but different—once when Verdant’s stag nuzzled me, and again when the autumn griffins had given me their greeting.
What does it mean?
I peered up at the hawks and wondered how I could ask them, but they were apparently finished with me.
They hopped away from me, and all the summer servants—with loads of experience—threw themselves to the ground and covered their eyes.
The hawks took flight—bending low and then thrusting into the air and beating their wings, all of which happened so fast I blinked and almost missed it.
They raised a wind with their wings—and flung more fine silt into the air as the breeze gusted across the courtyard—and veered away from the palace, flying out over the green fields.
I watched long enough to see them meet up with the third hawk that circled over the forest.
“What was that?” Rigel asked.
I ruefully ran a hand through my still snarled and sweaty hair. “I don’t know. They dropped some magic on me, though.”
“A spell?”
“No. It’s too light for anything specific like that.” I considered their dark silhouettes against the blue sky—the last patch of night had faded before we’d even made it back to the courtyard. “It felt similar to the way the night mares marked me with their magical essence. Do you know why they would do that?”
Rigel was silent for a few moments. “No,” he said. “And I’ve never heard of animals from other Courts doing anything like this.”
“Do you think that’s a good thing or bad thing?”
Rigel studied me, his black eyes lightening slightly. “I can’t imagine it would be anything but good.”
“That’s what I was hoping for—obviously,” I said. “But I know so little about fae-isms you never knew, they might be death marks or something.”
Rigel stared unblinkingly at me.
“Okay, I didn’t think that,” I confessed. “But it did occur to me it might be the magical equivalent of backwashing on me.”
“You are a strange, bizarre queen,” Rigel finally said.
I grinned and e
lbowed him. “And I’m all yours, Faebae!”
We both froze at my old nickname for him that I had trotted out whenever I particularly wanted to freak people out.
For a moment I wondered. Maybe there was hope. Maybe I could reach him—
Rigel looked past me, and his eyes darkened.
When I turned around I saw Fell and Verdant emerging from the hallways of the palace to greet Solis.
What would be upsetting about that?
I was going to ask Rigel, but he was already moving away from me, moving to the pergolas where he checked on our mounts.
I sighed and swung my helmet, which still dangled from my fingers.
Maybe someday—if Rigel ever lets me.
“Everyone should probably drink a healing potion once we’re done here.” I swept a pile of glass into the stall shovel Linus was holding. “Because there is a good chance this place is diseased.”
Linus walked the shovel of glass over to one of the trash cans and dumped it in. “Human diseases can’t survive in the fae realm.”
“Yeah?” I peered around the dilapidated ballroom—at least I thought that’s what we were in—with suspicion. “It seems to me like there are plenty of fae diseases that could survive a place like this.”
For the first time since I’d set eyes on it, the place was lit up—everyone working on the cleanup efforts had each cast the magic for several of the little light orbs so we could see what we were doing in the persistent darkness of the Night Realm.
I could finally see the details of the ballroom that had previously been muted by the shadows. For instance, I’d previously assumed the floor was tiled—joke’s on me! The busted tiles on the ground had actually fallen from the ceiling! The flooring in the center of the ballroom was as smooth and endless as a still lake, but its surface was scuffed and covered in dirt and grime.
And with the lights floating around, I could see the ceiling, where a few skeletons of chandeliers remained, and—more importantly—I could finally see the tops of the immense, nearly floor to ceiling windows which was how I found out each window was topped with star ironwork, and any windows that enveloped a door had crescent moons over them.
This place must have been beautiful once upon a time.
That sounded gag-worthy wistful to me. I made a few extra strong sweeps across the floor to make up for it.
Linus lined himself up for another shovelful of glass shards. “Any news on the assailants in the Summer Realm?” he asked.
“Not much. Birch confirmed they weren’t from the Summer Court, and all the other monarchs—including the smaller Seelie and Unseelie Courts—say they don’t belong to their Courts, either.”
“And they’re not from the Night Court,” Linus said.
“Right,” I confirmed. “Which means they aren’t from the Midwest—which implies a slew of possibilities—or someone is playing fancy word tricks and is lying.”
“Which do you believe?” Linus asked.
I leaned on my broom. “I don’t know. I’d like to think they really are from a different region. But then they were either hired for this specific job or…”
“Someone from outside the Midwest is targeting you,” Lord Linus said. “Sounds like that organization the Paragon mentioned may really be behind it all.”
“Yeah, probably.” I was extra glad for my thick, rubber soled boots when I shuffled to the side and heard glass crunch under my feet. “The Paragon was going to look into the magic. He thought he might have a possible lead.”
“He knows who’s using it?” Linus asked.
I swept more glass into a pile. “No. But he thought he knew someone who could tell what kind it is. He was going to try talking to them—but he didn’t seem hopeful that they’d give him an answer.”
“Who would see answering a question from the Paragon as optional?” Linus asked.
“Pretty curious, huh?”
“Pretty frightening,” Linus corrected.
“I’m too far gone to be frightened by this point,” I said. “Living in a constant state of adrenaline has numbed my feelings. I am so zen, I could teach a yoga class.”
Linus ferried another shovelful of glass to the trash. “At least you have the energy to give sass. It’s when you’re quiet that we know we’re in trouble.” He winked. “But, of course, I would not have my bold and brave daughter any other way! Evil doers beware of her fierce…fierceness!”
“Hah!” I wrinkled my nose at Linus, then tried to scrub at a persistent dirt spot that had somehow gotten mashed into the flooring.
My relationship with Linus had gotten…better.
I still didn’t agree with what he’d done, but I could understand why he’d done it. And, yeah, now I finally got why Mom didn’t hate his guts like I always thought she should.
Plus, now that he wasn’t making vague statements about gambling and debts or trying to act like an idiot in front of me, I found him a good 75% less stupid and about 81% more devious than I’d previously given him credit for.
There was a crash, and I looked up in time to see Azure rescuing Eventide from a fallen candelabra. When the pair had started cleaning they had decided to brush cobwebs off the lower walls, and now they were sweeping up the fallen webs and sediment. And apparently avoiding violent-minded light fixtures.
“Are you okay?” I called to my butler and chauffeur/mechanic.
“We’re fine,” Azure assured me as Eventide brushed cobwebs from his curly hair.
I gave them a thumbs up, then did a quick room inspection. “We’re almost finished with sweeping up the glass, finally.”
“It only took us two, maybe three hours?” Linus said.
“Yeah, this room is annoyingly large.”
Linus brandished his shovel at me. “But now we’ll get to sweep glass out on the patio—what a change of scenery! We can watch the gardeners cry as they attempt to revive the dead gardens.”
“Dusk and Dawn were going to help them,” I said. “They’re dryads. If anyone can bring those dead bushes back, it’s going to be those two.”
“Queen Leila?”
I spun around just in time to see Skye—carrying a giant, cracked porcelain vase—enter the ballroom.
Lord Dion—Rigel’s friend who was very persistently trying to romance Skye and had been failing terribly for months—was right behind her. “Skye, I insist you let me carry that for you,” he said.
Skye ignored the red-haired fae lord. “The abandoned conservatory has been cleared out. It is advised no one enters it for the remainder of the cleanup day. A pixie set off a potion that will permeate the air and hopefully make the glass walls easier to clean. They are currently coated in grime no amount of elbow grease will undo.”
“Great. Did we ever get a dwarf to come in and look at the structural integrity of the place?” I asked.
Skye shifted the vase in her grasp. “Yes. He reported that although the palace ‘looks like a deathtrap’ it seems magic is holding it together quite well, and there are no safety problems. He said he could quote us for repairs, but thinks we should wait and give the palace another year or two to self-heal.”
I wearily looked outside at the endless night—although the sky was gorgeous I was sick of the moon/star/night theme between the mansion décor and coming to the Night Realm all the time. It was starting to lose some of its charm.
“You know,” I said, “I’d like this place a lot more if we installed an espresso machine or something.”
“There’s no electricity,” Skye reminded me.
“Ahh yes. Never mind. This place is the worst.”
Lord Dion pulled back, scandalized. “You can’t mean that, Queen Leila.”
“She totally does,” Linus said.
“I do,” I agreed.
Linus set his shovel and peered around the ballroom. “Now that I think about it, after sweeping an endless amount of shattered window glass, I’m not very fond of it myself.”
“Preach it,” I said.
“We’re not trying to be funny,” I said.
Linus nodded approvingly. “But some hatred is so strong it can be inherited.”
I clasped my hands around the pole of my broom. “That gives me hope that one day I’ll spawn a child who hates the Original Creep—I mean King—as much as I do!”
Lord Dion choked.
Skye, however, didn’t even bat an eye—or get out her mint tin like my blasphemy would have inspired her to just a few months ago.
“Skye, you let them talk like this?” Lord Dion asked.
“If you can’t handle them then you have no business trying to insert yourself in my business.” Skye bowed to me, then strode from the room, still toting the cracked vase, with Lord Dion trailing behind her.
“I was cheering for him,” I said. “But I’m no longer convinced he could survive her life.”
“Too weak as he stands. He needs to toughen up,” Linus said. “But there is another couple I have greater hopes for.”
“Oh?” I started sweeping glass again, until Linus jutted his chin across the room.
Chase was carrying two of the very full trash bins out of the mansion without breaking a sweat—werewolf strength at its finest—and Chrysanthe scurried behind him, toting a box of trash bags. Muffin was trotting behind her, batting at the trash bag that hung out of the box whenever the fae lady stopped.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They’d work. He’s too oblivious to let her push him around, and she’s so smitten she’s awkward instead of covering up her typical fae blank expressions. But I don’t know how she’s going to get him to look at her.”
“You think he’d never consider her?”
“I think he’s too much of a workaholic to consider anyone!”
“Ahh. True. Maybe if she joined as a guard?”
I paused. “You know…that’s actually probably a good point. I bet that would help.”
“You should tell her,” Linus said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Why? You aren’t betting on their relationship for show, are you?”
