Changeling Magic, page 2
part #2 of Thirteen Realms Series
“Yes.” He took my hand and urged me down the road a little further. There was a narrow alley a few doors down from The Drunken Irishman. I’d walked past it hundreds of times but had never had a reason to enter it. Now, the Hawk led me into it.
“Wow, you really know how to show a girl a good time.” The alley wasn’t particularly grimy or terrifying—it looked like a service way for delivery trucks. No monsters lurking or ominous shadows. Just not a place I’d choose to spend my Friday night. “Where are you taking me?”
“Nowhere.” He put some distance between us and the street we’d left, then stopped. “You’re taking me.”
“If I’d realised you were so keen on dominant women, I would have brought my whip and handcuffs.”
His tawny eyes gleamed with sudden amusement. “You have handcuffs?”
I let out an exasperated sigh. I would never understand this man and his sudden changes of mood. “What are we doing here, Kyrrim? I thought we were going to the Realms.” When he’d given me permission to use his name—an honour few enjoyed—he probably hadn’t envisaged being scolded with it.
“We are. Open the Way.”
“Here? But the park—”
“Is easier, I know. For people whose magic isn’t very strong. You are no longer one of those people.”
“Right.” I was so used to thinking of Hyde Park, with its optimal positioning on a Fold, as the place to attempt a crossing to the Realms, that I hadn’t considered that the king’s gift wouldn’t need a turbo assist. Fae didn’t give gifts often, but when they did, they weren’t stingy about it. My new power to open a Way through the Wilds would be the most powerful, bells and whistles, all-singing, all-dancing power there was. Anything less would shame the king himself. “But why are we in this alley?”
“You’d rather open a Way in plain sight in the middle of the street?”
“No, of course not.”
He didn’t have to look at me as if he thought I was stupid. I glanced around, the darkness no barrier to my night vision. Jumpers, those fae like Jaxen, the Lord of Autumn’s brother, lucky enough to be born with the power to teleport, could literally jump between the mortal world and the faerie one without having to slog through the Wilds first. Their power was rare and much prized. Some artefacts, like the Hawk’s sword, Ecfirrith, could create the same kind of gates, allowing instantaneous transition from one plane to the other. Everyone else, whether using their own power or a talisman such as the gate glyph Eldric had once given me, had to make use of the latent power of thresholds to create an opening into the Wilds.
In a place such as Hyde Park, which was on a Fold—a place where the two worlds were closer than usual to each other—almost anything could qualify as a “threshold”, as long as the person wishing to travel had enough power to open the Way. An archway formed by the branches of two trees leaning toward each other would do. Further from a Fold, an actual doorway, arch, or window was needed. So, I searched the alleyway for a door I could use.
I’d never done it before myself, but I’d seen others do it. They made it look easy, merely opening a door and stepping through into the Wilds, their feet set on a path that would lead them to the Realms. What I’d never understood, though, was why that ordinary door suddenly opened into the Wilds instead of wherever it was supposed to go in the mortal world. There must be some extra step that I wasn’t seeing.
I located a fire door halfway down the alley, but the Hawk shook his head. “Not iron.”
Iron and magic didn’t mix. I knew that, of course, but my nerves had got the better of me. Feeling like an amateur, I kept walking.
A big metal roller door that probably led to underground parking had the same problem. I headed deeper into the darkness, the Hawk’s firm tread at my back, searching for a plain old wooden door that I could use. I finally found one right at the end of the alley, tucked into a shabby old building that looked as though it could have been there since Europeans settled Australia. The door was undoubtedly locked, but that had never seemed to stop anyone before. Hesitantly, I laid my hand on the door handle and looked over my shoulder at the Hawk.
“Do I have to—?”
“Just open it. The magic will do the rest.”
I pushed down on the handle, feeling a heat in my fingers that hadn’t been there a moment before. Golden light flared around my hand as my fingers tingled, and the door opened easily. Mist billowed out, catching me by surprise, as I’d been half-expecting to see the interior of the building.
“Go on,” the Hawk said, so I stepped through, feeling the shiver of threshold magic across my skin, as if tiny insects were crawling on me.
Beyond the door, the mist cleared, and a path beckoned. A path that was clearly outdoors, shadowed by dark trees. It was just as dark there as it was here, but I could make out the sky above the trees. This was the Wilds, that dangerous zone between the two worlds.
“The Realms await,” the Hawk said behind me, a note of satisfaction in his voice.
There was no sign, now, of the door. Only the path stretched off into the dark before us.
I shook out my tingling fingers. So weird. “It just … happened. I didn’t feel as though I did anything.”
“Do you feel as though you must do something to make your lungs breathe, or your heart beat? Magic doesn’t come with an instruction manual. It is as much a part of you as your muscles. Did you have to teach your biceps how to contract before you could move your arm?”
I started walking. “It’s just strange. I’ve never been able to do magic before. I thought it would be more … momentous, somehow.”
His chuckle sounded in the dark behind me. “The king himself gifts you a part of his royal magic, and you complain it’s not momentous enough.”
“I’m not complaining! Just saying.”
“I forget, sometimes, how young you are.”
“Okay, Grandad. I know you’re, like, a million years old and all, but no need to rub it in.” At least the tension between us had eased, though I could still feel the pressure of his lips on mine. What was I supposed to think about that kiss? Apart from the fact that I wanted more just like it, of course. I touched my bruised lips and smiled into the darkness.
We walked in silence for a while. It might have been peaceful, except for the memories of our last visit to the Wilds. That was an experience I had no desire to repeat, and I watched the dark forest on both sides of the path, my ears straining for any unusual sound. With the Hawk at my back, I had no fear of being taken by surprise from that direction, but I still jumped like a scalded cat when a branch off to our right cracked with a sharp retort.
The Hawk’s hands closed on my shoulders. “Be easy. Your friend Edgar is not here to push us off the path this time. You are perfectly safe.” His breath tickled my ear, and a little shiver ran through me. “Unless, of course, you make any more cracks about grandfathers. In which case I may push you off the path myself.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “That would be an awful waste of the king’s generous gift. You could get into a lot of trouble.” He was standing very close, the heat of his body pressed against my back. “Grandfathers are the last thing on my mind right now,” I added.
I was getting such mixed signals from him that I didn’t know what to think. Right on cue, he stepped away, leaving me even more confused than before.
The rest of the journey passed without incident, though my feet ached long before we reached our destination. It had been a long day—and now we’d spent what felt like half the night walking the Greenways. We followed the twists and turns of the path until it ended in an archway where the trees on either side met overhead. When we stepped through the arch, I gasped at the familiar sight that met my eyes.
“Last time I came to Autumn, the path led me to Eldric’s halls.” I glanced uncertainly up at the Hawk, who stopped at my side.
“I think the Wilds like you now.” There was no hint of a smile, so he must have been serious. Given what I had learned of the Wilds from Yriell, it might even be possible. These remnants of the old Realm of Earth, now called the Wilds, were not exactly sentient, but there was some kind of awareness there. “But the magic the king gave you is strong. If your will matches it, the Greenways should deliver you wherever you wish to go.” He stared at the small cottage tucked into the sheltering embrace of a grove of pine trees in front of us, his face giving away nothing of what he was thinking.
I turned back to that familiar view myself, my stomach churning with a welter of emotions. The sun was just beginning to rise behind us, and the clearing was bathed in a soft, grey light. The cottage itself was made of undressed timbers cut long ago from trees just like the pines that crowded behind it. No smoke rose from its chimney, which wasn’t all that surprising, given the early hour.
A small stream chattered over smooth pebbles at the bottom of the hill behind us on its way to join the River Ivon, which was only a short walk away. Its noise formed a gentle counterpoint to the birds who were waking in the forest all around.
No flowers bobbed their perfumed heads in the garden beds in front of the cottage, which were wild and overgrown with weeds. A feeling of dread stirred inside me at the sight of those gardens, which had always been a source of pride to my mother.
With quick steps, I led the way up the path. Weeds grew in the cracks between the paving stones.
“Should we knock?” the Hawk asked as we gained the small porch. “We don’t want to alarm her.”
But my hand was already on the door. It opened to my touch, revealing a small but cosy room, full of bright cushions on every chair, and a magnificent rug that glowed in all the colours of Autumn in front of the stone fireplace. But the house was cold and silent.
Panic rose into my throat as I hurried down the hall to the bedrooms. I threw open her bedroom door so hard it bounced off the wall and would have smacked me in the face if the Hawk hadn’t reached around me and caught it. But there was no body in the bed. I breathed out shakily.
“What’s wrong?” the Hawk asked.
“I thought she must be dead.”
He stepped away from me and checked the other bedroom, and then the small bathroom. “There’s no one here.”
“She would never have let the gardens get into such a state if she were here. But where would she have gone?” I opened the door of her wardrobe and found the inside all but bare. Only her apron and two dresses hung there.
Back in the main room, the fireplace had been swept clean, and no new logs had been laid. I gazed around the room, finding more signs of a planned departure, and my heart rate began to slow. She hadn’t died, and she hadn’t been attacked and dragged away—though who would do such a thing, I couldn’t imagine. She’d meant to leave.
I hurried outside and walked all around the property, seeing signs of abandonment everywhere in the untended gardens. I even went around to the back of the house, where my childhood nemesis stood—a pine with gnarled branches and grasping, twiggy fingers. It had given me such nightmares I had always avoided this area of the garden. Even now, it gave me shivers to look at it, and I moved on quickly. Everything back here looked just as overgrown as out the front, and the henhouse was empty, its door standing open.
“Do you have other family?” the Hawk asked.
“No. It was just the two of us.” That fact had made her rejection of me all the harder to bear. All my life, it had been the two of us, alone but not lonely. Not needing anyone’s company except each other’s. I had never felt unloved—quite the opposite, in fact. I knew that many fae rejected their adult changelings, but I had never expected it to happen to me. “She was a bit of a hermit, in some ways. Didn’t like mixing with other people much. Being so far out in the woods here suited her. I can’t imagine her just … leaving. Where else would she go?”
I also wasn’t sure why I cared, since she’d made it quite clear she never wanted to see me again. But I did. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible must have happened to drive her from her beloved home.
“Then we will find her,” the Hawk said with conviction.
I gave him a rather shaky smile, glad that he was here despite whatever was going on between us. “Let’s hope it’s a little easier than finding the king.”
3
It would have been a long trek to the Hall of Giseult, the ancestral home of the Lords of Autumn, but the Hawk had Ecfirrith back. He unsheathed it right there in my mother’s overgrown yard and drew three slashes in the air in the shape of a rough doorway. The slashes left an afterglow, like the trail of a sparkler through the air, and soon the glow spread, forming a gateway. He took my hand in a firm grip, still holding the sword in his other hand, and led the way through.
There was an instant’s disorientation and the feeling of something with tiny, tickly feet crawling on my skin, and we were stepping onto the soft grass in front of the Hall. The guards straightened, their hands going to their own swords at the sight of a man wielding a naked blade stepping out of thin air.
“Sir Hawk,” one said, in cautious greeting. “The hearth vow, if you please.”
That was unusual. The hearth vow protected the inhabitants of a home; a visitor who had taken it was bound by his own magic not to do them harm. I’d never heard the guards here ask for it—but then, I’d never arrived here in the company of a sword-wielding man, either. It had been far more common in the days before the fall of Illusion, apparently, since an Illusionist enemy could impersonate a friend to perfection, and there was no way to tell if people really were who they appeared to be.
The Hawk was unfazed. “I vow to bring no harm to those who call this hearth their home.”
He sheathed his sword, and both guards followed suit, visibly relaxing. “Welcome to my master’s halls,” said the first one. “You do us great honour with your presence.”
I bet these jokers would have been singing a different tune a few weeks ago. People might have paid lip service to his title, but no Knight of the Realms got sent on a hunt for a stolen garment, however expensive, if he was truly valued. His insistence on keeping up the search for the lost king had earned him a lot of scorn among the nobility, who had all believed the king was dead.
“Is Lord Eldric at home?” the Hawk asked. “My lady and I seek an audience with him.”
His lady? I gave him the side-eye, and so did the two guards, though for different reasons. They knew who I was, and I was no Lady. Whenever possible, my mother had opted for solitude, but there had been occasions when all the local fae were expected to present themselves at the Hall, mainly for religious festivals. I’d been running around here since I wore pigtails. I wasn’t even fae, just a discarded changeling brat, which was why they hadn’t bothered to extract a hearth vow from me.
And I was going to get whiplash from all the sudden changes in the Hawk’s mood. First, he’d been angry enough to rage-kiss me, and now he was claiming me as his own?
The guard who had first spoken held aside the silken drapes behind him. They might look flimsy, but they were as good as any castle gate. No one could pass without the blessing of the watch. “Please enter. I will send someone to notify Lord Eldric of your arrival.”
The great grassy length of the Hall opened up before us. On either side, massive red-trunked trees marched down its length, forming the bones of the Hall, their branches interlacing above in a canopy. Archways between the tree trunks were mainly closed by silken hangings in rich autumnal tones, though some stood open, allowing glimpses of other spaces where the business of daily life was conducted. Spiral staircases curled around the mighty trees, leading to other levels where private chambers hid among the branches and more silken hangings.
Daylight lanced through gaps in the canopy overhead, supplemented by the soft glow of lamps suspended by magic above the Hall. The whole Hall pulsed with magic; even I could feel it. I had always loved coming here as a child and wished that my mother hadn’t been so quick to hurry me away home again. The trees had been coaxed into fantastic shapes, the spiralling stairs grown directly from their trunks. Swooping lengths of brightly coloured silk had, to my childhood self, given the impression of a magical space assembled for a special party, and I had always been relieved to find it still there the next time I visited, as if afraid someone would pack it all up and move on when the party was over.
A long table stood on the dais at the far end of the space. Only one man sat there, his back turned to us. Clearly it wasn’t Eldric, since Eldric’s hair was the russet colour of autumn leaves, and this man’s was as black as Raven’s. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Raven again, but the man turned at our approach, dooming me to disappointment. It was Jaxen, Eldric’s dissolute younger brother.
“Sir Hawk. Come, sit down. Help me drink Eldric’s excellent wine.” He indicated a chair with a lazy wave of his hand. “And little Allegra, everyone’s favourite changeling. Well, everyone except Eldric, of course.”
I blinked. “What have I done to upset Lord Eldric?”
He barely remembered I was alive unless he wanted something from the mortal world. I couldn’t imagine how I might have upset him.
“We had a visit from a new widow last week. Sexiest damn widow I ever saw.” He smiled, as if reminiscing. “Naturally, I did my best to comfort her. You don’t know her, but I believe you’ve met her husband.” His smirk implied I should know what he was talking about. He refilled his glass and cocked an eyebrow enquiringly at us both, offering the bottle in his hand.
“No, thanks,” I said, seating myself in the chair the Hawk had pulled out for me. His Court manners were exquisite. He sat next to me and refused the offer of wine with a curt shake of his head.
“She was most insistent that Eldric owed her the blood price for her husband’s death on your behalf. You can imagine how happy Eldric is at the prospect. You run around killing people and get rewarded for it, while he gets landed with the bill.”
“Who is this widow?”
