No Promises, page 20
She was made of stronger stuff than she looked like. Just like Ernest had been. I closed a mental door on the memory and snapped at Skye, more harshly than necessary, “Why didn’t you tell me you had learned something?”
She shrugged. “You didn’t ask. You were too busy staring at my cuts and scrapes and telling me to run away. At least *someone* around here knows how to ask the right questions.” Skye looked up at Vicantha and patted the bed next to her.
Vicantha looked at the bed, and at Skye. She raised an eyebrow and stayed where she was.
Skye gave up, and folded her hands in her lap. “First of all,” she said, her voice full of pride, “these guys are a big deal. I tried to figure out who’s funding them, but hit nothing but a ton of brick walls I couldn’t get around. And that takes some doing. I’m talking government security. CIA-caliber stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual CIA was involved. When it comes to their funding, all I was able to figure out was that they’ve got multiple sources, all heavy hitters. Government, corporate, you name it. All of them very invested in keeping the specifics of what Arkanica is doing a secret.”
But if that had been all she had to say, she wouldn’t have had a little smile playing on her lips. I asked the question she wanted to hear. “So what *did* you find?”
“Well,” said Skye, dragging the word out as that little smile grew bigger, “I may have figured out what exactly it is they’re trying to develop.” Her smile slipped; her brow furrowed. “Maybe.”
My fingers tapped against my leg. I glanced toward the door, making sure it was locked. “Not that you haven’t earned the right to show off, but the more time we spend playing games, the more time they have to find us. Say what you have to say. What are they involved in?”
“Weapons research,” said Vicantha impatiently, before Skye could speak. “What else could it be? Since the beginning of time, humans have been on one quest after another for a bigger and better weapon. Now they’ve decided to use my people to create one for them.”
Now that she said it, it seemed as obvious as she thought it was. But Skye shook her head. “That’s the weird part. I expected weapons, too. But no. Arkanica is a clean energy company. I read some of the information they have out there for potential investors. Which, I should add, is almost as well-protected as everything else. You don’t get the chance to invest in Arkanica until they’re sure you’ll say yes. But if they give you the chance, they’ll tell you that with Arkanica’s help, the entire planet can reach total independence from fossil fuels in the next five years.” She looked from me to Vicantha. “Which, just in case you don’t know that much about the human world, is impossible.”
I blinked. “You’re telling me they’re at the center of a massive government and corporate conspiracy to… protect the environment?”
Skye flung her hands out toward me. “You see?” she exclaimed. “I told you it didn’t add up.”
“Let’s not forget how they’re doing it,” Vicantha said sourly. “What do they want with the fae? And what is this ‘faelight’?”
“That part, I couldn’t tell you,” Skye admitted with a sigh. “I couldn’t find anything about magic or the fae or anything like that in what I saw. Not surprising, considering the intended audience. I doubt many corporate investors would be willing to throw their money behind anything that used the word ‘magic.’ I have no idea whether anyone funding them knows what they’re really doing.”
“Could the clean-energy thing be a front?” I asked. “We may not want to rule out the possibility of weapons research just yet. You have to admit, it would make a lot more sense.”
“I mean, sure,” said Skye. “That’s the first thing I thought of. But what I keep coming up against is this—if they’re going to set up such an elaborate cover, why go to so much trouble to hide the cover itself? It’s already practically impossible to find out anything about what they’re doing. Why would they need a whole extra layer of secrecy?”
“To protect against people like you?” I suggested.
Skye gave a half-shrug. “Yeah, that’s fair. But this information is what we have to work with right now, so we should at least consider the possibility that it might be real. However unlikely it seems.” She turned to Vicantha. “What kind of environmental knowledge do the fae have that Arkanica might be using? You guys are basically nature spirits, right? So this is right in your wheelhouse. This faelight stuff—is it a fuel source your people use?”
“And why Winter fae, specifically?” I mused. “I don’t know anything about any fae fuel sources, but most of my dealings have been with Summer.” I joined Skye in looking at Vicantha.
Vicantha stepped back, crossing her arms. “Whatever you may think, this is not our area of expertise. Humans are the ones obsessed with using technology to destroy the environment. That’s never been a problem we’ve had, so we’ve never had the need to develop a solution. As for fuel sources, it seems to me that everything humans refer to as fuel is nothing more than a poor substitute for magic.”
“Magic is obviously part of the equation somehow,” I said. “The question is how. When you say you use magic as fuel, how exactly do you do it?”
Vicantha’s look of contempt was almost a physical chill passing over my skin. It made me want to crank the thermostat up another few degrees. “You can’t expect me to explain the proper use of magic to someone who can’t control his own power. If you were capable of understanding how it was done, you wouldn’t have to wear that thing.” She wrinkled her nose at my watch as if I were wearing a dead rat around my wrist.
“I’m not talking about internal skill. I’m talking about…” I thought. “Do you have magical lamps in your world, that don’t need fire to burn?”
“Of course.”
“How do you fuel them?”
Now the contempt on Vicantha’s face was enough to send Hawthorne into its own private ice age. “With magic.”
“But how? Do you create something you put into the lamps to make them work? Some kind of energy, or magical substance?”
Skye leaned in, waiting for Vicantha’s answer. But Vicantha shook her head. “If we wish to light a lamp, we create light, and enclose it in a suitable container.”
Skye snapped her fingers. “Light. Faelight. Could they use that light for anything else? Burn it to make an engine run, maybe?”
That only prompted Vicantha to turn her contemptuous look on Skye. “Light has a single purpose: to illuminate. If we wished for movement, we would create movement. We have no need for some intermediary substance. Our minds and hearts are all that we require to shape reality to our will.”
“Then maybe they’re giving Arkanica raw magical power,” I suggested.
But Vicantha was already shaking her head. “The person I spoke with said the captive fae were making this faelight for Arkanica. Magic is not something we make. It is something we *are*. It is the sacred fire that birthed us. We do not create magic; the magic creates us.” Vicantha’s normally-sharp voice had gone soft and reverent. Her whole face changed, growing less guarded and more open. She looked almost prayerful.
Then she shook her head, and snapped herself out of it. The moment passed. The ice returned to her eyes.
“Then this is something new,” I said. “Either that, or Arkanica is forcing prisoners to work magic on their behalf. Although that seems inefficient, and doesn’t fit what the man from the Drunken Scarecrow told you.” I nodded in Vicantha’s direction.
Skye frowned. “Either way, if there are fae working for Arkanica, why wouldn’t they just use their own magic, instead of going to the trouble of taking prisoners? It has to be something the fae wouldn’t want to do, even the ones who are willing to work with Arkanica. Something that hurts them, or offends them on principle.”
“Either that,” I said, “or only Winter fae can do it, and no one from the Winter Court was interested in joining voluntarily.”
Vicantha shook her head. “That makes no sense. Whatever they’re doing, there’s no reason Winter elements would be better suited for it than the ones associated with Summer.”
“Well, winter equals cold, right?” said Skye. “They’re trying to fight global warming. It fits.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Vicantha, her voice growing impatient again. “We may thrive in the temperatures associated with our respective Courts, but that has nothing to do with our magic.”
Sky looked at me like Vicantha had proved some kind of point for her. I didn’t understand why, until she said, “See? We’re not going to make sense of this on our own. This is exactly why we need to do more digging.”
“Agreed,” I said. Skye’s face lit up, until I added, “But you won’t be a part of it.”
“I agree,” said Vicantha, shifting so she was standing beside me. “You’re too much of a liability for Kieran. We’ll find an expendable human instead.”
Skye frowned in confusion. “Expendable?”
Some small part of me that should have died long ago wanted to explain Vicantha’s words away with an excuse, and preserve Skye’s innocence. But I had already decided preserving her blinders wasn’t the way to keep her safe. “She means one whose death won’t cause problems for her,” I said. “I told you what the lives of humans are worth to the Winter fae. If you’re surprised, you weren’t listening. So tell me, do you still want to put yourself at risk to save them?”
Skye let out a huff. “You know, you keep talking about how humans are bad and will kill you, and the fae are bad and will kill you. So let me ask you something.”
“If you’re going to ask me what I’m doing here, trying to rescue the same prisoners I told you not to care about,” I said, “the answer is easy. Vicantha threatened my life. Then Arkanica threatened yours. If you were trying to catch me in a moment of hypocrisy, try again.”
Skye shook her head. “That’s not what I was going to ask. What I want to know is, why do you care about *me*?”
“I already answered that. I fought alongside your grandfather.”
“Aha!” Skye raised her index finger triumphantly. “Which means there’s at least one human out there you cared about. Cared about enough to put yourself at risk for my sake, almost a hundred years later.” She stared at me like it was my fault she couldn’t figure me out. “So why the doom and gloom? Clearly you don’t actually think humans are as bad as you say, and my guess is, the same is true for the fae. You two certainly seem to get along okay.” She pointed from me to Vicantha. “So why not just give it up already, and admit that your view of humanity—and the fae—doesn’t cover everyone?”
These questions again. At least the other night, I had been prepared. Today, I was still exhausted from trying to corral my magic, and my mind wasn’t working as fast as I would have liked. And I had thought this was a strategy session, not an inquiry into my past. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said in a low voice. “You’ve had seventeen years to see the truth of your species. I’ve had—”
“Seven hundred, I know,” Skye said, with a roll of her eyes. “You know what? I think maybe you just like the angst. Are you really a fae, or some kind of cliched vampire? You know, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you eat.” She leaned in toward me, squinting her eyes. “Open your mouth. Show me your teeth.”
I set my jaw instead. “You don’t want this explanation,” I said. “I promise you.”
Skye stared into my eyes, a challenge. “I don’t think you *have* an explanation. I think all you have is a few bad memories and a talent for moping. And hey, I’m not discounting what you’ve been through. What Arkanica did to me was bad enough, and they weren’t even trying to kill me. Seven hundred years of being hunted? I can’t imagine.” Her own jaw tensed to match my own. “But that’s no excuse to be a hypocrite. Especially when that means leaving innocent people—suffering people—to die.”
I was going to have to give her the full story. There was no other way. Well, if I had to do this, better to rip off the bandage and get it over with. “Vicantha,” I said, “leave the room.”
Vicantha gave me a dubious look. “If you hurt the human, we will have wasted a considerable amount of time and energy on retrieving her.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Although we did at least get a small amount of information from her. That’s something.”
“I’m not going to hurt her!” I wondered how long it would take before I was no longer caught off guard by the way her mind worked. I hoped we would part ways long before then. “But I don’t think she’ll want anyone else in the room when I tell this story.”
“It’s okay,” said Skye. “She can stay.”
I ignored her. “Leave,” I repeated. “Give us half an hour.”
Vicantha gave each of us a long look, then nodded. “I’ll take the opportunity to patrol the nearby streets. I’ll sleep better tonight if I can be reasonably certain Arkanica hasn’t found us yet.”
She slipped out the door. Before she closed it behind her, she shot one last doubtful look at me. If I had to guess, she still wasn’t completely sure I didn’t intend to hurt Skye.
To be fair, she wasn’t entirely wrong. The damage wouldn’t be physical, but often the inner scars cut the deepest, and took the longest to heal. I was proof of that.
Chapter 18
I forced myself to sit down on the bed next to Skye. I didn’t intend to have this conversation while looming over her, lecturing her like an overbearing parent. As soon as I sat, my body reminded me forcefully how close I was to a human—a human who had seen the truth of me, no less. All my muscles locked up at once. Restless energy flooded through my veins. The sounds in the room took on a perfect clarity—the ticking of the clock, Skye’s rhythmic breathing, my own foot tap-tap-tapping the floor in a frantic rhythm.
I made my foot go still. “What I told you before was true,” I said. “I fought alongside your grandfather. You remind me of him, you know. At first glance, he looked weak. Fragile. More than one person—his own family among them—said he didn’t belong in the army at all.”
“And that’s what makes me remind you of him? Gee, thanks.”
“But there were two things about Ernest that proved them all wrong. The first was that nothing could ever get him down. He could see someone die beside him, so close his own face was splattered with blood, and an hour later he’d be telling me an old joke from his childhood, trying to pull me out of whatever dark pit I had fallen in.”
That brought a faint smile to Skye’s face. “I remember his jokes. Not a single one of them was any good. Even as a kid, I knew they were terrible. But they always made me smile anyway. It was something about the way he told them. Like all he wanted in the world was to bring a little joy into someone’s life.”
Against my will, I echoed her smile. “Yes, exactly. And the other thing about Ernest was, he would never turn away from what he knew was right. He wasn’t a fighter, and he knew it. But he saw a need, and he was helpless to resist.” My voice softened, remembering. “The two of us were alike in that way. Although I was growing disillusioned even then. He helped to change that, for a while. We fought together—good versus evil. He reminded me of a time when life had been that simple. Through his eyes, I saw that it could be that simple again. It helped that the war felt like exactly the kind of conflict that had appealed to me all my life—a hopeless cause, the forces of righteousness against the forces of darkness. Those noble crusades I mentioned? There’s a reason I know how the story always ends. I’ve been throwing myself at them headlong since I was your age.”
“In the time of castles and dragons,” said Skye dreamily.
The words didn’t set me on edge as much as I expected they would. Maybe because I could imagine Ernest saying them, if we had ever had this much honesty between us. “Not quite,” I answered. “I was in Ireland back then, and our little one-room hut was a far cry from a castle. But we did have dragons to fight, although not like you’re imagining. The enemy was the English, in those days.” My voice grew tight with memory. “They were the first ones to kill me.”
Skye frowned. “Kill you? I mean, you said they tried. But… you’re still here.”
“At a certain point, the distinction ceases to matter. I can come close to death. Close enough that I can feel my body simply… stop. But the magic inside me always brings me back. It would take—” I stopped myself before I could tell her my theory—that it would take a massive amount of iron to kill me, far more than for one of the fae. I wasn’t about to put that bit of information into the hands of any human. “It would take a monumental effort for someone to kill me permanently. And when a human sees someone die, even someone who has demonstrated uncanny powers, they usually don’t consider the possibility that death may be temporary.”
Sympathy flashed in Skye’s eyes. Sympathy, or maybe more pity. I hurried on. “But I’m not here to tell you the story of my life. This story is about what happened in the war. Your grandfather and I were close friends, closer than I had been to anyone in a long time. Sometimes, I saw the potential for something between us besides friendship. I saw him thinking it too. But neither of us acted on those thoughts. He was afraid, I think. Afraid of crossing a line he couldn’t come back from. And I was, as always, distracted by my cause.”
“This sounds like the lead-in to a tragic story where he dies in your arms,” said Skye. “But Grandpa didn’t die in the war. He lived to almost a hundred.” She stared down at her lap. Remembering his death, maybe, and the time leading up to it. She had been ten. Old enough to remember watching the only real parent she had ever known slowly fading in front of her, and not being able to do a thing to change the inevitable outcome.
“No, he didn’t die,” I said, trying to bring her out of her thoughts. Not that what I had to say would be any better for her. “I saved his life. On a scouting mission, we came across German soldiers marching on a small village. I don’t know what they thought they would find there—food, maybe, although it didn’t look like those people had any to spare. Or maybe they were hunting deserters, or escaped prisoners. It didn’t matter—the end result would have been the same regardless.”
