Even humans know that making a deal with any faerie is a one-way ticket to trouble.
There were no exceptions to that rule. All faeries, from the highest Sidhe to the lowest hobgoblin, were hardwired for trickery and deceit, despite not being able to tell a lie. As a half-faerie changeling, I had more cause to know that than most, and yet here I was, bargaining with a Little Person for free passage back into the mortal realm. To say my life had gone off the rails lately would be an understatement.
The bearded man paused before saying, “For my favour this time, I’d like you to bring me two shoelaces.”
I blinked. “Shoelaces? Seriously?”
“Yes.” Like all the Little People I’d met, he was of average height with reddish skin and a long beard. Whether they were identical siblings or products of some kind of cloning spell, I’d learned not to ask. I couldn’t tell a single one of them apart, anyway, and they all seemed to know which favours I owed the other ones.
“All right… shoelaces it is.”
I used the rift to travel to the mortal realm so often these days, the Little People had stacked up a list of no fewer than fourteen favours I owed. I’d been afraid he’d ask for something impossible. Shoelaces, though, I could manage without having to return to my thieving ways. Admittedly, I’d almost relish the challenge after weeks cooped up in the palace I’d inherited from my deceased mother, along with the title of Lady Whitefall of the Unseelie Court.
I might be the only half-blood heir in Faerie, but I still wasn’t gifted with the Sidhe’s ability to walk between realms. Neither was Viola, my friend and servant of the Whitefall family. We shared the same magic, thanks to my mother thinking it was amusing to demonstrate her power on a soldier from the Summer Court, replacing Viola’s magic with part of her own. Viola had been trying to leave the Hornbeam family’s army anyway, but a lifetime of servitude to my family hadn’t been on the plan, though, and nor had being separated from her girlfriend, Rose. The Sidhe might not be able to lie, but that didn’t stop them being deceitful monsters who played the same cruel games with half-bloods as they did with humans.
“Will you be using the rift, too?” the Little Person asked Viola.
“No, I just came to say goodbye to Raine.”
We both knew better than to walk in the woods alone, even now the threat from the other families in the borderlands seemed to have subsided a little. I didn’t mind the company. Viola was my closest friend these days, and since my arrival in Faerie, she’d surprised me with her warm and welcoming nature, even if she did insist on naming all the spiders which lived in the palace dungeons.
We left the Little Person’s house and headed down the path into the woods. Like all of this section of Faerie, it didn’t appear to belong to either Court—the neutral temperature, dense undergrowth and thick mist swarming the path signalled neither Summer nor Winter. Here was the territory’s edge, right at the back of the borderlands at the edge of Faerie. Through the trees, the path back to the mortal realm beckoned. Smoke swirled between thick ancient oaks, sending chills down my arms. In a realm where nothing and nobody died—in theory—the trees were older than even the Sidhe, and seemed to whisper secrets to one another as their branches rustled. I took in a breath, and approached the smoke at a jog.
As I did so, someone took hold of my arm.
In that instant, white light swallowed both of us up, immediately depositing us on cold, damp grass. I yanked my hand away from my unexpected fellow passenger, and found myself staring into the laughing eyes of Cedar Hornbeam, right-hand-thief of the Hornbeam family.
“Oh, it’s you,” I said, as though he hadn’t scared the crap out of me. “Maybe warn me before you want to hitch a lift?”
“I thought I’d surprise you.” He straightened up in his usual graceful manner that made us half-faeries the envy of humans.
“Any reason you followed me here?” I brushed grass from my “human” clothes, jeans and a thick coat, mostly for show. I generally didn’t get cold—one of the perks of being half Winter Sidhe. If anything, I felt more energised when the air was cool and biting, and snowflakes swirled in the air. Where I’d grown up in the mortal realm, winter was characterised by grey skies and rain, but I still got a boost now I had magic.
Cedar dusted off his pristine coat. “I have an errand to run in the mortal realm.”
“Thievery?”
“Surprisingly not.”
I opened my mouth to ask what, then thought better of it. Cedar was likely bound by a vow not to tell me his plans. I didn’t think Lord Hornbeam had decided he wanted to steal my power as his wife had, but I assumed the polite distance Cedar had kept between the two of us over the last few weeks had to do with not wanting to piss off the new leader of the Hornbeam family. That, and the fact that I’d accidentally killed the last one.
Typically, the rift had dumped us on a hillside just outside the city. We walked downhill until the ground levelled off, bisected by fences and low walls dividing fields outside the town. Cedar didn’t speak for a few minutes. He looked tired, half-moon circles under his eyes and the light of his usually evenly tanned skin dulled to pale grey. He had pointed ears, jet-black hair that swept to shoulder-length, and hazel eyes that hid his status as a Summer half-Sidhe. The one flaw in his appearance was the jagged scar on his right cheekbone, which served as a human touch to his otherwise entirely fae appearance.
Cedar finally caught my gaze. “What have you been doing lately?”
“The usual,” I said. “Exploring the palace, reading my mother’s old books—the ones not written in ancient faerie languages, that is.”
“No more clues?”
He meant about why my mother had died. “Nope,” I said to Cedar. “Obviously. All traces of her death vanished a long time ago.” There was no harm telling him what he and the other families already knew. Lady Whitefall’s death had heralded my return to Faerie, to be tested by the talisman containing her power. I’d won it, over my other half-siblings, and the magic had become mine. Two of said half-siblings were dead, one after failing the talisman’s test, the other because he’d chosen suicide by touching iron over murdering me on Lady Hornbeam’s orders.
Perhaps it was guilt over his death which drove me to search every one of the ancient books in the palace library for clues on our mother’s strange death. Not only had she not been carrying her immensely powerful talisman at the time, she’d died with witnesses, none of whom could explain what had happened. Add in the fact that Sidhe could permanently die now, without being reborn as they’d been before, and it was a mystery I couldn’t resist. It wasn’t like the palace came with any other forms of entertainment.
Of course, I also had a second mission—to find out how to undo a faerie vow—but Cedar didn’t know about that one.
“Perhaps the answers are in the palace rather than at the site of her death,” Cedar offered.
“Maybe I haven’t found them yet. Leaving a neon sign flashing with the word “clue” isn’t her thing. It took a year for Viola to unravel the information leading to the heirs.” Meaning me.
His brow furrowed in thought. “Maybe try questioning others who knew her.”
“That’s part of the problem. If she had friends, they aren’t showing up now. Viola doesn’t know.” I shrugged. “Not much else to do. I’m here for my dad, and then I’ll get back to it after the holidays.”
“Holidays,” Cedar repeated, like it was a foreign word to him. Faeries—at least the ones I’d interacted with—didn’t subscribe to particular holiday traditions, and their calendar was different to the one I’d grown used to in the mortal realm.
“I take it you don’t get time off?”
“What would I do with it?” He sounded so perplexed, I laughed.
“I don’t know, whatever you do in Faerie. Dad and I used to watch TV, when it was working. If you like going out, there are night clubs or…” What did Faerie have that was equivalent? “I don’t know. Parties.”
He smiled. “In Faerie, revelry is a very serious game.”
“Think I got that part.” Considering someone had tried to assassinate me at the first ceremony I’d attended in Faerie, I wasn’t keen to attend another faerie celebration. Though if my timing was right, it was close to the winter solstice this week.
Cedar seemed to relax a little as we walked, closing the distance between us, his gaze skimming my human-style coat as though searching for something. “You don’t carry the talisman?”
“Hidden.” I’d grown used to holding the sceptre within sight, but I wouldn’t be able to carry it so openly in the mortal realm. A talisman was a sign of power, a challenge, and proof that I no longer belonged amongst the regular half-bloods. Even Denzel, my former best friend, who hadn’t spoken to me since I’d implied that hanging around with thieves and vagabonds like him was likely to end up with someone dead, considering I was now royalty. When all the half-bloods had been invited to claim their heritage in Faerie as part of a bargain Ivy Lane had made with the Sidhe, I’d never expected to be allowed in at all, let alone as the leader of a powerful family. My old life and this one went together about as well as Summer faeries and a blizzard.
As we neared the town, the sounds of, well, revelry, drifted over the frost-coated rooftops—if I had to guess, I’d come back on the day of the solstice itself. Here in the middle of England, the only place covered in actual genuine snow was half-blood territory, thanks to the concentration of Winter magic due to reach its peak. I shivered as it traced through my body, rejuvenating the empty numbness that had filled me far too often since I’d used the talisman against Lady Hornbeam. Cedar, as a Summer half-Sidhe, wouldn’t feel a thing. Summer and Winter were supposed polar opposites, but in this realm, they lived on the same territory, in an area sustained by their magic which mimicked the seasons outside.
Sure enough, half-blood territory was wrapped in a full-on blizzard. Winter faeries ran shrieking through the snow, drinking in the magic pouring out of the very air. The ponds had frozen, to the annoyance of Summer nymphs and selkies who usually swam there.
Cedar jerked his head in that direction. “Why not join them?”
“Maybe later. I need to check on Dad first.”
I slowed down my pace anyway, letting Winter’s magic wash over me. Cedar glanced sideways at me but didn’t speak. I wondered if he picked up on my magic the way I sensed his, whenever there wasn’t any other magic interfering. Even now, with the air humming with Winter magic, the slightest trace of his Summer magic brushed my skin. Mine, I could hardly sense at all.
“Is it normal for magic to take a while to recover from using a powerful spell?” I hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but I didn’t have anyone else to ask, and it’d been bugging me for weeks.
“Yours?”
I shrugged. “It’s okay when I’m around Winter territory.”
“The spell you used was strong, even by Faerie’s standards, and you aren’t used to handling that level of power.”
Considering I hadn’t had magic at all until the talisman had chosen me, I’d figured that much out myself. Especially after being virtually comatose for a week following the incident. I’d heard of magical burnout, but not on this scale. Then again, I didn’t know anyone else who’d got halfway through one of the most powerful spells in Faerie, a spell that shouldn’t even exist. Much less a half-blood who shouldn’t have been able to use the spell to begin with.
The scene revisited me in my nightmares every time I closed my eyes. The moment when Lady Hornbeam had reached into my soul and yanked out my magic. When I’d realised I couldn’t fight and let her take the power, swamping her own enough to stop her spell and land us both in front of the Hornbeams’ iron prison. And when I’d used what was left of my strength to push her into the path of the tornado our colliding magic had unleashed.
I’d killed a Sidhe. The beings which, up until very recently, I’d thought were immortal. Lady Hornbeam had deserved her fate. She’d kidnapped and tortured humans for hundreds of years, punished her half-blood children by forcing them to carry iron, and tried to kill me for being the only half-blood who’d dared to take the talisman of a Sidhe. Didn’t change the fact that the Summer Court would want my blood if they knew.
Cedar and I lapsed into silence as we entered a residential area. The city had taken a severe hit in the faerie invasion of the mortal realm twenty-two years ago, and the remaining suburbs had formed a town divided between supernaturals and regular humans. Not that you’d know it looking at the streets bright with decorations. A fair number of human habitations we passed were draped in flashing lights, which seemed to fascinate Cedar. He stared at a particularly bright display, in which the human family had covered the entire front of their house in a motif of Santa’s North Pole, complete with reindeer.
“What are those supposed to be?” He indicated the diminutive people carrying stacks of glowing gifts.
“I think they’re Santa’s elves.”
“Elves?” he asked. “They don’t look like elves.”
“Not the faerie sort.”
“Hmm.” He carried on walking, burying his hands in his pockets. “What’s this Christmas for, exactly?”
“Human religious thing. Some humans. And not really religious. I don’t even know.” I hadn’t quite figured out what the faeries’ religion was, only that their ancient gods had died out a long time ago. Everyone worshipped the Sidhe, and the Sidhe pretty much worshipped themselves. Maybe you didn’t need to have faith in a higher power if you possessed the ability to rearrange the whole universe whenever you felt like it.
I’d never understood mortal traditions, but anything that made Dad happy made me happy. Usually I stole something nice for us. This year, I could take him genuine icicles that never melted or lights that shone forever—but that wasn’t wise. I sometimes forgot the effect faerie magic had on mortals, especially ones who’d fallen victim to it before. Every day the guilt that I hadn’t told him about my mother’s death grew deeper. Her leaving him in the mortal realm had broken his heart and fractured his mind. Sometimes living between these two worlds felt like walking on thin ice.
“I’ll see you later, Raine,” Cedar said as we reached my road.
“Sure.” I waved him off, skipping down the road to home. Home. Our rickety old house had a more welcoming air than the icy palace on a good day. A small red-brick building divided into flats, it lay slightly apart from its neighbours, the other floors unoccupied at the moment. The downstairs floor lights were off. That wasn’t a good sign. Dad didn’t leave the house much—I’d ordered all our groceries to be delivered, and the mercenaries guarding the house were supposed to stop him from wandering off. Over the last few weeks, I’d searched the palace for anything I could safely sell in this realm without it turning into leaves, and sold a few artefacts on the black market to fund twenty-four hour bodyguards. Better than depending on Robin, my ex, for charity. We hadn’t seen one another since he’d apologised for nearly killing me while under Lady Hornbeam’s compulsion, which was probably for the best.
I nodded to the latest mercenary guard—a skinny human of around eighteen, wielding a sword twice the length of his arm.
“Has he left the house?” I asked, and the poor kid jumped a foot in the air.
“Ah. No… Lady Whitefall?”
“Call me Raine.” I went by my human name in this realm, but apparently word had started to spread amongst the human mercenaries, of all people. “Word of advice: get a smaller weapon. They won’t see it coming.”
He nodded and stepped aside in a sweeping bow as I approached the house. All right, then. I didn’t look that much like a Sidhe, who inspired humans to throw themselves at their feet, did I? Living in the faerie realm had changed me, certainly. Wielding her magic, even more so. But here would always be my home. I unlocked the front door, hoping I wouldn’t find Dad in one of his moods. It was impossible to find the right way to announce I’d be coming home when our clocks and Faerie’s were wildly out of sync.
Dad sat in his usual armchair, and didn’t look up when I came in.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, smiling brightly. “Thought I’d come home early and—”
He looked at me with wide, haunted eyes. “Tell me they’re wrong.”
I stilled, my heart sinking. He did this sometimes—asked questions that made no sense, referring to the years in my mother’s palace he couldn’t recall. She’d wiped both our minds when she’d left us back in the mortal realm, three years after she’d kidnapped my father as a human prisoner, but the memories found their own ways of coming back.
“Dad, we’re here. At home. Nobody’s going to hurt us.”
He shook his head. “They’re lying to me,” he said. “They’re telling me she’s dead.”
