The Unseen, page 11
Brannon gritted his teeth. “That’s not—”
“Monster Devlin?” Slate asked.
The girl nodded.
Apparently, there was more than one way to get information. The child was lucky to have spit it up, too. As a member of the Devlin family, she probably knew something about the supposed charm, which added to her value. Upon returning to Saint Aldrich’s, Brannon would pry the information from beneath her little fingernails, then leave her to the mercy of the syndicate.
Surely, Father Beaus would be pleased with his offerings.
“On your way then, Monster.” He urged his captives toward the road. “We’ve a long walk ahead of us.”
TAWNY
Dappled sunlight danced across the grass, filtering through branches rustled by a floral breeze. Tawny did her best to avoid the rays, but the task was nearly impossible. The Spring Isles were nothing like the Shifting Wilds, where the sun was a fixed sliver on the horizon, ever obscured by a blanket of fog.
When she’d made her very first component run, she’d returned home red as a sugar beet. Luckily for her, Mother was able to whip up a salve that leeched the sting from her skin in a heartbeat. Still, it was best to avoid the issue altogether.
She picked at a sprig of yellow flowers and was startled when it picked back, chittering madly as it scurried off into the underbrush.
“Sorry!” she called after the Hazel-Witch.
She’d always had such trouble distinguishing them from witch hazel.
After rifling about a bit longer, Tawny found the blossoms she’d been looking for. She plucked a couple tonic’s worth of sprigs, tossing them into her basket, then settled cross legged in the shade to inventory her findings.
“Let’s see…spriteberries and thistles. Butterbreeze and witch hazel. Lavender, cherry blossom, burn-leaf, licorice root. That about does it.”
Except for the golden apples. Those were always such a bother to collect. Unlike the literally hundreds of varieties of apples that grew in the Spring Isles, the golden ones never fell from their tethers and, naturally, they grew only on the upper branches of the tallest trees. Thankfully, Tawny was an expert climber. Of all the treats the Seelie lands offered, the apples were Mother’s favorite.
The temporal difference between the Realms of Light and Shadow was difficult to track, so Tawny assumed she was running short on time. She hopped to her feet and started her search, hoping to have the kettle brewing by the time Mother returned from her journey. After only a few minutes, she spotted a glimmer of gold among the green.
The tree was probably thirty feet tall, but it was also the thick, gnarled type—brimming with natural footholds. Undaunted, Tawny hid her basket in a spriteberry bush, dusted her palms with chalk, and began her ascent.
The higher she climbed, the thinner the branches grew, and the more space stretched between them. Soon, she had to tilt to her tiptoes to keep a decent grip. Patches of sunlight brushed her skin, warm and gentle like the aura of a hearth fire. It always felt pleasant at first. Then came the burning and the blisters. She willed herself upward despite the risks, focusing instead on the brilliant landscape.
She traveled to the Spring Isles far more often than Talunasa or the Red Realm, but they never failed to awe her. Wildflowers and verdant glens blanketed the grassy hills that rolled like emerald waves to each horizon. Flocks of brilliant birds and cliques of glimmering sprites flitted between branches coated in chartreuse leaves or cherry blossoms. Sylph temples, simplistic and serene, stood sentry on cliffsides overlooking the Parting Seas. In the near distance, another island hovered above the waves, bridged to the waters below by dozens of slender, crystalline waterfalls.
Before Tawny knew it, she’d reached the canopy. When she grasped for the apple, it bounced off her fingertips, bobbing from its wooden tether. She gripped the overhead branch tightly, lifted one leg to lean forward, stretched as far as she could, and…Got it!
The branch beneath her bowed, cracked, and snapped.
Wind rushed through Tawny’s yellow curls. Branches snapped against her limbs. She closed her eyes, praying to the Shadows that the fall would be swift and the landing soft.
The impact knocked the breath from Tawny’s lungs and sent pain skittering from head to toe. She furled forward, cradling her aching head and blinking her eyes open. The tree was staring back at her, eyes keen beneath mossy, hooded lids. Thoroughly embarrassed, Tawny used nearby branches to hoist herself upright, belatedly realizing they were fingers.
“Sorry for climbing you without asking.” She dusted off her tattered dress and fumbled into a curtsy. “Then again, you should expect that sort of treatment if you go around acting like trees all the time.”
The tree warped in a way that made it look supremely puzzled. It tilted, letting out a wooden groan.
“Hmm…I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that dialect. I don’t suppose you speak the common tongue. Perhaps a smattering of Umbral?”
It shook, raining leaves on Tawny.
“I’ll take that as a no.” She plucked a sprig from her curls. “What I’d give for an interpreter.”
“It wrecks my entertainment, but I suppose that you did ask.
My friend is quite soft-spoken, so I’ll speak on his behalf.”
Startled, Tawny glanced around for the source of the voice until something tapped the toe of her boot. An apple-green figure—not quite five inches tall—stood before her feet. Its thorny skin reminded her of rose stems, and its wings looked like serrated leaves.
“You’re a piskie!” Tawny squealed, kneeling for a better look. Though court-less, their kind rarely visited the Shadow Realms, where darker, more bitey types roamed.
The creature bowed.
“You recognize my splendor, and for that I am well pleased.
Now tell me, little human, just what is it that you seek?”
Tawny grinned. The rot-fae that fluttered around her cottage were roughly the same size and shape as piskies, but they couldn’t speak, and their insectile bodies and decaying wings were not particularly cute.
“I was going to get an apple,” Tawny said, shrugging. “This turn of events is far more interesting. I’ve never conversed with anything so adorable!”
The piskie’s ink-drop eyes narrowed.
“Adorable? You call me that and think you can survive?
Just who are you? Some nosy child? What makes you qualified?”
It was more a rant than a question, but Tawny answered anyway. “I’m a visitor from the Shifting Wilds,” she explained. “And I don’t think I’m a child, though I have misplaced my fair share of days. Years, maybe.”
The piskie tapped its little chin, then turned to face the tree. It chittered in another tongue—a series of squeaks and trills that somehow managed to rhyme—and it did not sound particularly happy.
“Did I somehow offend you?” Tawny asked. “Or do you just not like the Shadow Realms?”
The piskie grinned over its spindly shoulder.
A moment later, Tawny landed in a nearby bush, a bevy of apples pelting her. Always one to look on the bright side, she scooped up the fruit, happy to spot a few gold ones in the bunch. Once she’d filled her basket and sidled out of firing range, she waved at the tree-creature and shouted her thanks.
Mother was going to love this story.
The Spring Isles spun around Tawny like a whirlwind, brilliant blue and green smears melting into streaks of crimson and charcoal. They churned for some time before snapping into place, jolting her into misty autumnal woods. She fell to her hands and knees, dropping her basket and nearly spilling its contents. There, she waited for the tastes of bile and chalky potion to flee her tongue.
As exhilarating as the destinations could be, Tawny detested the travel part of traveling.
She’d landed in a toadstool ring; the same she’d left from hours before. At least, it had been hours to her, though a week might well have passed in the Wilds. Toadstool rings were among the few fixed points in the ever-changing landscape of her homeland. Once, Tawny had attempted to travel by potion alone, believing her cottage would remain where she left it. It had traveled several miles in her absence, and she’d gotten tangled in a giant spiderweb that had appeared in its place. Ever since, she’d been diligent about departing from rings.
Stomach settled, she scooped up her basked and headed toward home. The Wilds shifted around her as she walked, soil churning, roots writhing, trails rerouting in all directions. It was hardly a wonder visitors—fae and mortal alike—got lost in the woods so often. Tawny didn’t have that problem. She’d lived there long enough to read the tilt of the soil, the scent of the wind, and the pattern of the dull stars that twinkled in the lilac sky above.
The forest had a percussive cadence to it. As she pressed through the ever-present fog, amber leaves rustled beneath the roots of wandering trees. Acorns fell, and rot-fae chittered. Brooks babbled, and brittle twigs cracked beneath her feet. She had just caught a whiff of the ginger wind that would lead her home when she heard a loud snap that didn’t quite fit the rhythm. She ducked into the mists, dropping her basket and scrounging for a branch. Her fingers wrapped around one with a decent heft to it, and she waited.
Snap! It came from her left this time, followed by a crunch-crunch-crunch from behind. Tawny readied herself, following the noises with her makeshift staff. Crash! A hoof shot out from the foliage, aimed right at her face. She used the branch to deflect it, spinning to the side. She leapt, anticipating a second hoof, aimed at her ankles, then landed in a crouch. A pair of horns burst through the fog. She dodged them, sweeping her assailant’s legs and sending them toppling into a pile of leaves.
The leaves shook with laughter, and a familiar face poked out from them. “I almost got you!”
“Thank the Shadows you didn’t!” Tawny sighed with relief. “For the last time, Daulle. My kind doesn’t bounce back as easily as yours.”
Daulle shook his entire body, spraying leaves in all directions, but a few stranglers clung to his furry haunches. Tawny laughed, plucking a twig out from behind one of his stubby horns, then set to work retrieving the components that had spilled in the scuffle, when her basket tipped.
“Didya’ bring me a present?” Her friend’s hooves clopped loudly as he trotted to her side. Before she could answer, he snatched up a handful of berries and shoved them into his mouth.
“These are spell components!” Tawny swatted him half-heartedly. “Not souvenirs!”
Even so, she plucked a pair of apples—the red and green type with little metaphysical value—from the basket and tossed them his way. He caught the fruit with near-human hands and began to juggle as he and Tawny marched toward the cottage. Throughout the hike, Tawny told him about the living tree and its tiny friend.
“Can I go with next time?” Daulle asked, though Unseelie were miserable in direct sunlight. He tossed one apple high and bit into the other without pausing. “I alwaysh wondered wha’ Pishkiee tashtes like.”
“Eww!” Tawny’s nose wrinkled. “If you don’t start swallowing your food before speaking, Mother will never have you over for dinner again!”
“Meh,” Daulle shoved the rest of the apple into his mouth, core and all. “She’sh kinda’ a bisssch anyway.”
Tawny punched his shoulder, prompting a flippant apology. “Mother is good to me,” she said. “I’ve seen how others treat their wards.”
Only one other mortal lived within several miles of Tawny’s cottage. He was about her age—sixteen, give or take—and he belonged to a coven of marsh hags. They treated him as most Unseelie treated their mortals, using him to run their Light Realm errands and tormenting him in the off-hours. In the four years since his arrival in the Wilds, Tawny had never seen him without fresh bruises.
“How is Flint, anyway?” she asked.
Daulle shrugged, kicking a pebble from the path with a careless hoof. It rolled southwest despite the eastern tilt of the earth. “We’re almost at your place,” he said.
“Are you avoiding the question?”
Daulle sighed, running his fingers through his course hair, the color of rust. “Why do you care about that guy anyway? He’s always been an ass to you. If I hadn’t stepped in last week, he’d have probably choked you to death.”
To Tawny, it had only been a little over a day. The skin around her neck still stung. She rubbed it absently.
“Mother says people act the way they’re treated. He hasn’t known much kindness. Who will he learn it from, if not us?”
“Mother says mehmehmemeh…” Daulle mocked.
Tawny tried to punch him again, but he dodged the swing. “You’ve no room to talk. Didn’t you just try to beat me to a pulp?”
“That’s different! I need to practice for my—”
“For your eventual battle with Mailair, the Prince-often Princess-Sometimes Both-and-On at Least One Occasion-Neither of the Shifting Wilds. I know, I know.”
Daulle stopped, donning a serious scowl. “They killed my Father, Tawny. That was my right, and they stole it.” Quick as it had come, the scowl vanished. “So, want to practice again tomorrow?”
Tawny shook her head. Emotions never stuck to Daulle. He had been that way ever since they were both little girls. “You know if you kill me, that’s it, right?” she reminded him. “I don’t just get a million chances like you fae.”
Daulle shrugged. He’d never really grasped the differences between Augusky and mortals, despite Tawny’s obvious lack of hooves and horns. Once, he’d even asked if she planned on becoming a boy at any point. She’d been considering it before Mother explained the obstacles.
“We don’t know for sure your death will be permanent,” Daulle mused, an opine ear flicking. “That’s just what Mother says.”
At last, the woods opened around the cottage. Tawny was surprised by how much it had grown since she left; she might not have recognized it were it not for the waterwheel she’d helped Mother fix countless times, and the ginger wind that wafted ceaselessly around it. Once a quaint, rustic shelter, it had morphed into seven stories of jutting, asymmetrical rooms, each crafted in clashing hues and textures. Mother’s Shadow Goblins were efficient workers, but they were not the most aesthetically-minded.
They were about to climb the front staircase when Daulle froze, ears twitching and hackles raised. Tawny heard it a second later—a chorus of tortured shrieks and moans, weaving through the woods. Branches rattled, tossing amber leaves to the ground, and every chittering creature in the canopy fell silent.
The Wailing Wind.
“Well, see you tomorrow maybe!” Daulle leapt forward, shifting into a true goat mid-bound, and sprang off into the mists.
Tawny scrambled up the staircase, heart pounding. The Wind was yet a ways off, but the yellow eyes blinking out from between the steps didn’t help matters. By the time she climbed all seven flights, her calves ached bitterly. Soon, she’d need to graft a toadstool ring at the top just to make the journey bearable.
The door was slightly ajar, and yellow light flickered through the crack.
Damn it to daylight! So much for making it home before Mother.
A savory scent greeted Tawny upon entering the cottage, and Mother’s cat, Solstice, rubbed against her leg, insubstantial as mist. She scratched him behind the spectral ear as best she could, and he purred contentedly.
The only sounds coming from the kitchen were that of a bubbling cauldron and a scraping spoon. No hushed conversations. No stomping feet or clopping hooves.
Thank the Shadows.
Mother had been receiving lots of visitors of late, and their talk of treaties and treason made the cottage feel less homey. Tawny was grateful that, at least for the evening, it would only be the two of them.
“Just in time for dinner,” Mother said as Tawny stepped into the kitchen. She dropped her stirring spoon, and it ringed the cauldron rim, threatening to fall in.
Tawny set her basket down to curtsy, as she’d been taught, then dropped all pretense of civility and ran forward. Though Mother was always cold, her embrace was warm and pleasant. Tawny had never understood why others, like Daulle, were so intimidated by her. A wealth of kindness lurked beneath her stern disposition, and there was a peculiar beauty to her pallid hair and skin, her gaunt frame and flowing gowns.
“I’ve brought you presents!” Tawny said, nodding to her basket.
Mother thanked her, promising to sort through the spoils later that evening. “I’ve brought you something as well.”
She raked a sharp nail through the air, slicing a gash in the Aether. Darkness wisped from the tear like smoke, twisting in tendrils. Reaching her hand in, Mother retrieved three gowns, each a different hue and size.
“I couldn’t be sure what your measurements would be when I returned,” Mother mused, holding the garments up to Tawny in rapid succession. “Oh, good. The green one will fit. The color is a near match for your eyes, and the contrast with your hair is stunning.”
Tawny had never cared much about fashion, but she returned the gesture with a grateful smile and excused herself to hang the gown in her chamber. By the time she returned, supper was on the table, barley soup. Tawny grinned. As much as she loved the Shifting Wilds, its cuisine contained too many slugs and slimes for her tastes. Thankfully, Mother had acquired a few mortal recipes on her travels.
The Wailing Wind circled the cottage as Tawny supped and Mother went through the motions, but the conversation was a sufficient distraction. When Tawny shared the story of the tree and its piskie, Mother found it as amusing as she’d hoped.
“That explains the bruises.” She pretended to sip from an empty spoon. “Here, I thought I needed to have a word with those friends of yours.
Tawny assured her that would not be necessary. The last time Mother had a “word” with Flint, he’d coughed up spiders for a week.
“Enough about me.” Tawny slurped up the last bit of her soup. “How was your trip?”
